White House 'Muzzled' DOJ's Attempts to Advocate on Guantanamo Trials and Obama Got What He Deserved: Bipartisan Opposition

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

Among the many names we have for lawyers -- solicitors, counselors, blood-sucking ambulance chasers -- there is one to which I would like to call the attention of the constitutional law professor we call president: advocate.

The word "advocate" has a long history in the practice of law, and the term is still used as a primary way to identify lawyers in at least a dozen countries. Indeed, etymological sources indicate that "advocate" may have originated as a legal term, dating back as far as the fourteenth century.

Now, I'm sure President Obama has access to a plethora of a very nice dictionaries. But in light of the squabbling rift between the White House and the Justice Department revealed today, it may be helpful to remember the advocacy role of the government's agency of attorneys.

National Public Radio (NPR) revealed a bombshell of institutional irritation this morning by quoting several unnamed sources at the Justice Department expressing frustration at being "muzzled by the White House, then clobbered by Congress" on the issue of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

"It is hard to overstate the frustration many of those people tell me they're feeling at the White House right now," Ari Shapiro, NPR's Washington justice correspondent, told Morning Edition host Linda Wertheimer.

One example cited by officials was when a bill was introduced last year that would prevent Guantanamo detainees from coming to the U.S., DOJ wanted to go to the Hill and calmly explain to Congress why they should oppose it. But instead of allowing these lawyers to do their jobs, the White House prevented them from advocating for the president's position because it might distract from other priorities like healthcare.

Yeah, God forbid Congress be distracted from healthcare. That would have been a total train wreck.

Putting my sarcasm crutch aside, I realize the White House couldn't have seen then that healthcare would be in the trash heap at this point. But they should have at least been able to see that Congress was already distracting itself from healthcare with this silly Gitmo bill that pandered to scared, uninformed constituents and NIMBY-ism. The DOJ was just trying to stop the bleeding, and the White House should have let them.

Instead of admitting they were dead wrong on the Gitmo messaging game, the White House is arrogantly slapping back at Justice, saying the reason the trial for self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to be moved away from Manhattan is because the DOJ lost the local support.

Bullocks. I think it's clear from the flip-flopping of New York politicians on this issue that they didn't get enough of a reason from the federal government to risk the ire of inconvenienced New Yorkers and allow the trial to be scheduled in the city. Had Justice been able to make the case sooner and more forcefully, none of this would have happened in such a way.

According to the silenced advocates at Justice, this is part of a larger pattern. You may recognize it as "standard operating procedure" for the White House. Or, as one of Shapiro's sources described it:

"This administration has a particular way of handling things where problems build, the White House ignores it, things get out of control, then Obama gives a big speech and everyone chills out for a little while."

On the one hand, this story makes me optimistic. Maybe Attorney General Eric Holder is not the wimp I've been suspecting him to be over the past year, and perhaps the White House will learn from its mistake and allow him to do his job.

Indeed, the administration's meeting on closing Guantanamo planned for next week on the Hill bodes well for a change in strategy. Also, the letter Holder sent out to congressional Republicans this week explaining the logic behind charging the alleged Christmas Day bomber under civilian law was further evidence of cooler heads prevailing.

But is it too late? NPR points out that "this finger-pointing and backbiting helps Republicans in Congress." Progressives in Congress feel they've been sold out on Guantanamo by the White House. Meanwhile, Blue Dogs are siding with Republicans to produce the only bipartisanship we've really seen in the last year: opposition to commonsense initiatives from the administration.

Possibly the most frustrating part of this entire soap opera between Justice and the White House is the fact that civilian trials are so easy to advocate for.

First and foremost, this is simply the way we do justice in this country ("without a single exception," as Holder emphasized in the aforementioned congressional letter). That easy factoid exposes each lawmaker supporting the legislation that would deny Guantanamo detainees civilian trials as a total and complete hypocrite, as this is exactly the way Bush's Justice Department tried terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks.

Additionally, how does one defend a secretive military tribunal in this age of suspicion over government control? I dare any teabagger out there to try to argue that the big, scary government should be allowed to hold trials behind closed doors.

OK, the healthcare debate should be on C-SPAN, but military judges should also be able to put people to death who aren't even allowed access to the evidence against them? In what kind of world is that logical? The truth is that Americans, now more than ever, want transparency and sunlight in their government.

So here's my question for President Obama: If little ol' me can cobble together the brain cells and words necessary to make that argument, don't you think people for whom it is their job to make such arguments, who have access to centuries of precedent and Socratic methodology, should be trusted to advocate for you?

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS