Taranto's jargon on detainees

One of the most effective ways to smear dissent is to associate it with "helping the enemy," as in this passage from a WSJ op-ed by James Taranto today:

Some politicians have also undertaken efforts on behalf of enemy fighters. Senate Democrats, joined by Republican Arlen Specter, have introduced legislation that would restore habeas rights to Guantanamo detainees, although this is unlikely to become law as long as George W. Bush is president.

The Democrats and Specter is not trying to restore habeas rights "on behalf of enemy fighters." They're doing so on behalf of the Constitution (at least as they see it). Taranto may disagree, but it doesn't mean they're trying to help the detainees as such.

It's also worth noting the up-is-down jargon Taranto uses to claim that the current system of handling enemy combatants "protects our freedom":

In the long run, [handling detainees in the federal courts or courts-martialsystems] could also imperil the civil liberties of Americans. Leniency toward detainees is on the table today only because al Qaeda has so far failed to strike America since 9/11. If it succeeded again, public pressure for harsher measures would be hard for politicians to resist. And if enemy combatants had been transferred to the criminal justice system, those measures would be much more likely to diminish the rights of citizens who have nothing to do with terrorism.

By keeping terrorists out of America, Guantanamo protects Americans' physical safety. By keeping them out of our justice system, it also protects our freedom.

This is demagoguery in its purest form -- go along with my proposal to limit constitutional protections, or the mob will come and demand even more. It's not unlike the Glenn Reynolds post from 2004 in which he warns of approvingly quotes an attack on the patriotism of reporters and then warns of the elimination of freedom of the press if things don't change:

JOHN O'SULLIVAN looks at last week's media goofs like the fake Iraq rape photos and general tendencies in reporting and observes:

Neither the media's vaunted "skepticism" nor simple fact-checking on the Internet were employed by the papers. The fakes were, in the old Fleet Street joke, "too good to check." As Mark Steyn argued Sunday, the journalists wanted to believe they were real. Indeed, it is worse than that -- since the fraud was discovered and the Mirror editor fired, he has become a heroic figure in British circles hostile to Blair and the war.

Admittedly, reporters and editors make mistakes. But when all the mistakes are on the side of opposing the liberation of Iraq, and none of the mistakes favor the United States or Britain or Bush or Blair, it tells you something.

Namely, which side they're on.

Try as one might, it's getting hard to avoid that sort of inference. Not that they actively favor the terrorists, of course. They just view beating their domestic political enemies as more important.

...Freedom of the press, as it exists today (and didn't exist, really, until the 1960s) is unlikely to survive if a majority -- or even a large and angry minority -- of Americans comes to conclude that the press is untrustworthy and unpatriotic. How far are we from that point?

(For more, see our Spinsanity articles and my blog posts on Taranto.)

Comments

[Seth]

One can only imagine what Mr. Taranto would have thought of John Adams' defense of the British soldiers at the Boston massacre.

[Rob]

Seth, do you seriously think John Adams would have taken offense at being described as acting on behalf of the British soldiers? Of course not. He was acting on their behalf, and he didn't pretend he wasn't.

[Rob]

P.S. Five things John Adams never said:

1. I'm not acting on behalf of the British soldiers, I'm acting on behalf of Magna Carta.

2. Gadzooks, I've been smeared!

3. Waaaaah, why are they questioning my patriotism?

4. We should set a timetable for the end of the War for Independence--and tell the King what it is. If the King hasn't surrendered by then, we should disband our forces and admit the war is lost.

5. I did not have ſexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinſky.

[Chris]

"Senate Democrats, joined by Republican Arlen Specter, have introduced legislation that would restore habeas rights to AMERICANS..."

Fixed that for ya.