Obama AG pick defended Guantánamo policy

[Freddie Stubbs]

By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama's choice to become the next attorney general, Eric Holder, once defended the Bush administration's arguments for holding detainees at Guantánamo Bay, a position that runs counter to his more recent comments - and to a signature policy of the incoming administration.

Holder, a confidant to Obama on legal issues, recently has been a leading voice in the chorus calling to close Guantánamo Bay, which he has described as an international embarrassment. Likewise, Obama has called it a "sad chapter in American history," pledged to close the island prison and criticized the Bush administration for arguing that terrorism suspects aren't covered by standards set by the Geneva Conventions.

But in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Holder defended the Bush administration's policies at Guantánamo.

Asked whether terrorism suspects could be held forever, Holder responded: "It seems to me you can think of these people as combatants and we are in the middle of a war," Holder said in a CNN interview in January 2002. "And it seems to me that you could probably say, looking at precedent, that you are going to detain these people until war is over, if that is ultimately what we wanted to do."

more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/795543.html

[Webster Green]

1. He wants to make possession of pot a felony..

Meet the new boss.....etc., etc...:crazy:

[greguganus]

3. BACK IN LINE, SOLDIER!! n/t

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. As AG that would be outside his power. Only Congress could do that

[polichick]

14. Really?? That's disgusting.

[ellacott]

2. If he still held that opinion then it would be problem

Months after 9/11 many people supported Bush's policies.

[Pirate Smile]

4. .

Eric H. Holder Jr., Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton administration, asserted in a speech to the American Constitution Society (ACS) that the United States must reverse “the disastrous course” set by the Bush administration in the struggle against terrorism by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, declaring without qualification that the U.S. does not torture people, ending the practice of transferring individuals involuntarily to countries that engage in torture and ceasing warrantless domestic surveillance.

“Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the ‘War on Terror' have diminished our standing in the world community and made us less, rather than more, safe,” Holder told a packed room at the ACS 2008 Convention on Friday evening. “For the sake of our safety and security, and because it is the right thing to do, the next president must move immediately to reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights.”

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/obamas-ag.html#more

[Unsane]

5. FWIW there is a colorable legal argument that Guantánamo detainees don't fall under the Geneva Conv.

Because they don't meet the Geneva definition of 'POW' etc. etc.

I don't agree with that conclusion, but there is at least a rational argument that those protections shouldn't apply (and at least three SCOTUS justices agree). Needless to say, I'm happy Holder changed his tune.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Holder is flat out ignorant on many issues

and his ego is his only guidepost. Seeing him up there, I get the shivers. He is the opposite of everything Obama ran on. He defened Chiquita Banana Co for hireing terrrorists, he did the Rich pardon, and on marijuana policy he is reactionary and atavistic, misinformed and downright Nixonian.
My Congress person will be hearing from hundreds of people around here that Holder is not change but rather regression.
Some say he is a good pusher of paper and reflects the will of whomever pays his check, maybe that is what Obama has in mind. Holder is just a backward conservative ninny in my book, a man in love with himself and his own opinions, thinks his opinions carry the weight of law.
I have opposed this man for years. I still do.

[still_one]

7. I agree, however I will reserve judgement until I see how this unfolds. I have no doubt

that within a year we will no just how much change an Obama administration means

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court, and the courts in general were my main reason for voting for Obama

[Bluenorthwest]

9. I'm with you on that

And I like not being dragged over the coals for having a pre-Obama opinion on Holder. Now, I have personally chosen people to work on my behalf specifically for being unlike me, people who I'd never let make big decisions for me, but whom I like having there to enforce and or expedite my decisions. I understand that such things are possible, as I have done them myself. So I'm not hanging Obama out to dry at all, just hoping that he will really be the one setting policy. If Holder gets his way, it is nothing but backward motion on many levels. But I do not assume Holder will get his way. Nor do I assume he will not. Waiting for the results. But also making sure my reps know I am not happy with Holder, as many here will be doing. For specific policy reasons, not because of his Clinton ties or any of that. For his policy and his past.

[still_one]

12. Very well put /nt

[kiranon]

15. Well said. Agree. n/t

[ITsec]

8. Yea, and if the supposed "war" lasts a hundred years, then what?

How can we call them "combatants", if they haven't even been formally charged and or convicted as such?

[Mass]

10. can AP point to the full interview, rather than a couple of sentences carefully selected out of

context?

Also, note that date of the interview: early 2002. Before the torture memo. Before all sorts of things that were going to happen.

Also consider that, among the announcements yesterday, Holden was the only one Karl Rove considered controversial this morning on NBC.

All that tells me that the RW is trying to dirty Holden and it is not because he is too authoritarian.

[FrenchieCat]

13. Interesting dat. Seems like AP understand the audience they have selected for this article....

The Left.

They are fermenting dissent amongs the Left, since the media is hearing the grumbling that some of us are doing.

I don't believe anything that they say these days, including this "gotcha" article. It is clear from how it reads that they have more to say about this snippet of what he said, than actually sharing the full context of what he actuall said.

They are setting us up, again.

Gawd, I'll be so happy when the AP is discredited and revealed for what it is; News Spin!

[Solomon]

16. Eric Holder is the most qualified man in America, besides

Barack Obama, to be attorney general.

[high density]

17. OK, so Holder changed his mind over seven years.

He's not the only one in the country to do that. Also, it was hard to know in 2002 that Bush's wars would be an indefinite ones.

I don't think there is any reason to doubt Holder's positions now. If there is a problem then Obama will replace him.

[Arkansas Granny]

18. Many people have changed their opinion of the "war on terror" and

Bush's policies over the years. You are talking about a period when Bush was enjoying approval ratings in the 80 - 90% range. Many people feel differently about Bush and his strategies now that they did 7 years ago.