THE ONLY GOOD REPUBLICAN IS A... OH, AND THEN THERE'S JOE LIEBERMAN

From time to time, my old boss Seymour calls, usually to ask me about some obscure political event from when he was a child-- and before I was born-- late in FDR's administration. When he called today I figured he wanted to yell about the story I told about the gay bomb. But he doesn't have a computer so that was a needless fear. Instead he wanted to demand that I get Al Gore to run for president. (I think he sometimes mixes up Al with his father, the first Senator Al Gore.) Somehow he got into raving again that there were once decent Republicans and this time he went even further than Jacob Javits (R-NY) and brought up Wayne Morse (R-OR), an early-- and lonely-- anti-Vietnam War voice, who eventually was so revolted by the reactionary bent in his party that he registered as a Democrat.

But like most Americans, you may sometimes ask yourself if there are any contemporary Republicans who are even remotely decent. I don't think there are any at this moment. Today John Amato spotlights Colin Powell, someone who is often pointed to as "OK for a Republican," at Crooks & Liars. Powell told Tim Russert that the U.S. should close down Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus.

Powell: Guantanamo has become a major, a major problem for America’s perception as it’s seen, the way the world perceives America. And if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo, not tomorrow, this afternoon. I’d close it. And I’d not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system. The concern was well, then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them…

Isn’t that what our system’s all about? And by the way, America, unfortunately, has too million people in jail, all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus. And so we can handle bad people in our system. And so I would get rid of Guantanamo and I’d get rid of the military commissions system, and use established procedures in federal law or in the manual for courts martial. I would do that because I think it’s more equitable and it’s more understandable in constitutional terms. But I’d also do it because every morning I pick up a paper and some authoritarian figure, some person somewhere, is using Guantanamo to hide their own misdeeds.

And so essentially we have shaken the belief that the world had in America’s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission. We don’t need it, and it’s causing us far more damage than any good we get for it. But remember what I started this discussion saying, don’t let any of them go. Put them in a different system, a system that is experienced, that knows how to handle people like this…

Another John, Arovosis, also watched Powell and Meet The Press today. He came up with another perspective. Namely, that Powell is so unsure of the direction his party has drifted that he is unwilling to state that he will even endorse a Republican for president next year!

So we have a still somewhat respected independent Republican refusing to commit to endorsing a Republican, calling for Bush to close down Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus and on the same day we have a make believe independent, the disgraceful mess known as Joe Lieberman, calling for Bush to attack Iran. The far right, of course, has brushed aside Powell's comments as irrelevant and have embraced Holy Joe's warmongering insanity. NeoCon war criminal Michael Ledeen, for example, someone who most rational people view as a bloodthirsty imbecile, is calling on Bush to replace Condi Rice with Lieberman. I guess it fits the trajectory.