The Preznit is Always Right... and don't you forget it, hippy!

Leahy gets the response we always knew was coming from Sparky Gonzalez' untouchables. From the redoubtable RawStory

An exchange between Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Justice Department legal council chief Steven Bradbury regarding prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay ended with Bradbury announcing "the President is always right," RAW STORY has learned.

Leahy had asked Bradbury about what the Department of Justice had advised the President, and how certain decisions regarding Guantanamo Bay had been made. A transcript of the rest of the exchange follows:

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MR. BRADBURY: Well, Senator, I think -- as I said in my testimony, obviously the court's decision does not call into question our ability to hold detainees --

LEAHY: Not my question. The president said very specifically -- and he said it to our European allies -- he was waiting for the Supreme Court decision and that would tell him whether he was supposed to close Guantanamo or not. After, he said it upheld his position on Guantanamo. In effect, it actually said neither. Where did he get that impression?

BRADBURY: Well --

LEAHY: The president's not a lawyer. You are. The Justice Department advised him. Did you give him such a cockamamie idea or what?

BRADBURY: Well, I try not to give anybody cockamamie ideas, and I --

LEAHY: Well, where'd he get the idea?

BRADBURY: Obviously -- the Hamdan decision, Senator, does implicitly recognize that we're in a war, that the president's war powers were triggered by the attacks on the country, and that law of war paradigm applies. That's what the whole -- the whole case was about --

LEAHY: I don't think the president was talking about the nuances of the law of war paradigm. He was saying that this was going to tell him whether he could keep Guantanamo open or not. Afterward, he said it said he could.

BRADBURY: Well, it's --

LEAHY: Was the president right or was he wrong?

BRADBURY: It's under the Law of War that we --

LEAHY: Was the president right or wrong?

BRADBURY: -- the president is always right, Senator.

You heard it here first, boys and girls. The Preznit is always right!

So I guess in one sense this answers the question about the executive's response to Hamdan. The West Wing is simply going to ignore it or pretend it says something that it plainly doesn't. Too bad that Supreme Court decisions don't come with Preznintchill Singing Statements, that way the Preznit can say what part of the decisions, if any, apply to him.

If Paddy Leahy we're a little younger, he would have come up over the dais and gnawed on that young man's skull. Alas, I remember when Leahy or Dan Moynihan could make a witness burst into flame just by staring at them during their opening statements...

No one who reads this blog even semi-regularly can honestly express any surprise at this response from the Ministry of Law. They are simply getting more and more brazen and public about their contempt for the rule of law with each passing day.

Just go ahead and add this one to today glitch list.

mojo sends