Annie
Diamond Member
- Nov 22, 2003
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13615446
even Schumer can't go along with the intro:
even Schumer can't go along with the intro:
Transcript for July 2
Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Bill Bennett, John Harwood, Dana Priest, William Safire
Updated: 12:59 a.m. CT July 2, 2006
MS. ANDREA MITCHELL: Our issues this Sunday: Partisan battles on Capitol Hill, Iraq, immigration, flag-burning, and a Supreme Court ruling against the presidents claim of wartime powers, all setting the stage for the November midterm elections. With us: the assistant Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky; and the chairman of the Democratic senatorial campaign committee, Chuck Schumer of New York. McConnell and Schumer square off.
Then, the president leads an attack on the media.
(Videotape):
PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: There can be no excuse for anyone entrusted with vital intelligence to leak it, and no excuse for any newspaper to print it.
(End videotape)
MS. MITCHELL: Leaks, freedom of the press and national security. Insights and analysis from Bill Bennett, radio host and author of America: The Last Best Hope, John Harwood of The Wall Street Journal and CNBC, Dana Priest of The Washington Post, and William Safire of The New York Times.
And in our MEET THE PRESS MINUTE, 35 years ago this week the Supreme Court issued an injunction allowing The New York Times to continue publication of the classified Pentagon Papers. The man who leaked the Papers to The New York Times, Daniel Ellsberg, was a guest on MEET THE PRESS May 20, 1973.
(Videotape, May 20, 1973):
DR. DANIEL ELLSBERG: Ive not met a lawyer in this country who could say clearly that the acts that I admitted doingcopying the Pentagon Papers, of which I had authorized possession, and giving those copies to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ultimately to the pressviolated any law.
(End videotape)
MS. MITCHELL: But first, Senators McConnell and Senator Schumer. Welcome, both.
In a major rebuke this week to the White House, the Supreme Court ruled that the White House has to abide by the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice when handling detainees, and ruled that the military tribunals cannot be the course. Senator McConnell, in addition to this, The New York Times editors wrote in reaction, The Supreme Courts decision striking down the military tribunals set up to try the detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay is far more than a narrow ruling on the issue of military courts. It is an important and welcome reaffirmation that even in times of war, the law is what the Constitution, the statute books and the Geneva Conventions say it is - not what the president wants it to be. Senator, in a broader sense, isnt this a real rebuke and a repudiation of the broad authorities that the presidents been claiming since 9/11?
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): Well, first and most importantly, the decision did not require the president to release the prisoners at Guantanamo, nor did it require the president to close Guantanamo.
MS. MITCHELL: Correct.
SEN. McCONNELL: It said that in order to try these individuals byan appropriate thing to do would be for the president to get the Congress to create military commissions, or there were two other options, both of which I think are clearly unacceptable. So what I think Congress will be doing is creating military commissions.
And second, a very disturbing aspect of the decision was that the Court held Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applicable to American servicemen. And this means that American servicemen potentially could be accused of war crimes. I think Congress is going to want to deal with that as well when it enacts these military commissions, and I think we need to do it soon. And so well be dealing with that in the coming weeks.
MS. MITCHELL: Youdo you have time? You wontyoure going off nowyoure off now on July...
SEN. McCONNELL: Theres nothing more important than the war on terror, and I think we will have to act on this very soon, either in July or in September, certainly in the next couple of months.
MS. MITCHELL: Senator Schumer, will this be a bipartisan effort? And can you agree on the fix?
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I think it will. Look, lets face it, Andrea, the world is a different place, and in this war on terrorism you dont have set battlefields, you dont have the enemy wearing uniforms. So to change things, that is a good idea. The problem is, this White House has felt it could just change things unilaterally against the Constitution, against the systems of checks and balances. Had they come to Congress a few years on thisa few years ago on this issue, my guess is they would have gotten most of what they wanted. But whats happened here, because there is such a view that the presidents power is infinite and unchecked by anybodyfirst time ever a president has had those kinds of viewsthey keep running into brick wallsin this case, a Supreme Court that has generally been sympathetic to executive power. And so were going to have to not only look at this issue, were going to have to go back to the other issues as well, because this ruling undercuts some of the other things the president has done. But on giving the president what he needs, and giving our country what we need to fight the war on terror, theres going to be agreement.
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