THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Withdrawal Symptoms: New York Times columnist Gail Collins offers solace to those who haven't yet adjusted to the end of their favorite reality show, “The 2008 Election”:
[T]here’s still Minnesota! The U.S. Senate race there is up in the air. You may want to consider becoming totally obsessed with it, jumping out of bed every morning and racing to the computer to check for the latest vote count.
Or perhaps not. Still, it’s something to hang on to.
There are actually three Senate races that are undecided, and if the Democrats won them all, they’d hit the magic filibuster-proof number of 60. Alaska, determined to continue in its role as the vortex of all things politically strange, still hasn’t counted tens of thousands of ballots. Georgia has a Senate runoff Dec. 2, and the Democrats have dispatched tons of canvassers to help their candidate, Jim Martin. Martin is a long shot, but we should all be grateful that they’ve found something to do with the Obama campaign workers, who would otherwise have been set loose to wander the country, muttering about change and attempting to register household pets to vote.
Editorial Note: Indeed, the MN Senate race looks promising for political junkies. The Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul) reports that “The U.S. Senate recount will ensure a hectic holiday season for lawyers, scores of whom are expected to be deployed across Minnesota by the Coleman and Franken campaigns in the weeks ahead to monitor the counting and to prepare for a possible post-recount challenge.” Oh, and about those Obama campaign workers: The last The Stiletto heard some of them were practically rioting in the streets in Indianapolis, IN, because they had not gotten paid. Or maybe they just thought they had not gotten paid, because Obama proactively redistributed their incomes but forgot to tell them.
† Why We Need Gitmo (second item): One of the first acts of the Obama administration is expected to be the shuttering of the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, but Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough said that there is yet no plan regarding “where and how” to try the 250 detainees,” reports The Washington Post:
[T]he advisers, as well as outside national security and legal experts, said the new administration will face a thicket of legal, diplomatic, political and logistical challenges to closing the prison and prosecuting the most serious offenders in the United States - an effort that could take many months or longer. Among the thorniest issues will be how to build effective cases without using evidence obtained by torture, an issue that attorneys for the detainees will almost certainly seek to exploit.
Moreover, the new administration will face hard decisions regarding not just the current Guantánamo Bay detainees but also how it will handle future captures of terrorism suspects. It is unclear whether President-elect Barack Obama would consider holding some suspects without charge on national security grounds. His transition team denied reports this week that it was contemplating some form of preventive detention backed by a new civilian national security court. The idea has been a staple of legal debates over the future of Guantánamo Bay for the past year, but Obama advisers believe it would meet fierce congressional resistance. …
Some Obama advisers believe the damage to U.S. interests and image because of the Bush administration's policies is too great to countenance any form of preventive detention. They acknowledge that they do not know how the issue of torture would play out in federal court, even if prosecutors ignore evidence produced by coerced confessions.
“There is always a risk of acquittal, and there is a risk some people who are released will return to the battlefield,” said one Obama adviser. “There is no risk-free option.”
Depends what risks you are willing to bear. If you believe that name-calling is more risky to the U.S. than sticks and stones (and dirty bombs) then closing Gitmo is your only option. But if you’re unwilling to risk a single American life at home or on the battlefield, then sticking with Gitmo and the military tribunals is your only option.
† The House That Ruth Didn’t Build (last item): The New York Times reports that the six monuments and 22 plaques comprising Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park are now being moved to the ersatz Yankee Stadium across the street. On Wednesday Babe Ruth’s 4,700- pound monument was shrink-wrapped and transported to its new home.
Ruth’s monument was dedicated on April 19, 1949. The inscription reads: “A Great Ball Player/ A Great Man/A Great American.”
† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Pre-Pregnancy Health For Men): Some four months after giving birth to daughter, Susan, Thomas Beatie (AKA “the pregnant man”) tells Barbara Walters in an exclusive interview that (s)he is pregnant with a second child. The baby is due in June.
† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Another Cockamamie Lib Idea Fails The Real World Test): An 11-year-old boy from Miami-Dade County, FL, has now become the 31st child abandoned by his parents or guardians at a NE hospital since the state’s badly written “safe haven” law took effect in July, reports The Associated Press. A special session of the state legislature has been called to amend the law, which has turned the state into a dumping ground for unwanted or unruly kids nationwide.
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