Obama hits McCain on GITMO, drilling
Posted: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:58 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Security
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
ON PLANE EN ROUTE FROM DETROIT TO WASHINGTON -- During a brief press conference aboard his plane, Obama hit McCain on his stance on habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo Bay detainees and on off-shore drilling.
VIDEO: Sen. John McCain criticizes the Supreme Court's ruling that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have a constitutional right to appeal their detention in civilian federal courts, calling it "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."
He said GOP criticism of his position on allowing GITMO detainees a day in court was just a disingenuous way of using fear tactics to try to win an election. "The question is whether or not, as the Supreme Court said, people who are being held have a chance to at least suggest, that hey you’ve got the wrong guy, or I shouldn’t be here. It’s not a question about whether or not they’re free,” he said “The simple point that I was making, which I will continue to make throughout this campaign is that we can abide by due process and abide by basic concepts of rule of law and still crack down on terrorists."
Obama added, "None of the folks that were speaking for McCain today have given us one bit of information that would suggest that as a consequence of the court’s ruling, terrorists will be able to attack America more effectively. They haven’t indicated one realistic scenario in which we would be less safe as a consequence of us simply allowing these individuals to be heard one time to find out whether they should be held or not, and so this is the same kind of fear mongering that got us into Iraq, that has caused us to be hugely distracted from the war we do have to fight against terrorism and it’s exactly that failed foreign policy that I want to reverse.”
He said those criticizing him were ignoring the degree to which GITMO had damaged America’s reputation around the world. He said allowing due process of the detainees would send a message to the world that the United States was prepared to abide by the rule of law and could help the county be more effective in the pursuit of terrorists. He argued Republicans were trying to reuse an old playbook.
"What they are trying to do is what they’ve done every election cycle which is to use terrorism as a club to make the American people afraid -- to win elections -- that’s what they’re trying to do,” he said. "They are not serious about this. Because if they wanted to have a serious conversation about it then they would know, for example, that the issue of habeas corpus is not designed to free prisoners. What it's designed to do is make sure that prisoners who are being held have at least one shot to say, ‘I’m being held wrongly.'"
On off-shore drilling
The Illinois senator suggested McCain’s support for lifting the ban on off-shore oil drilling showed he was a flip-flopper who had resorted to taking the “politically expedient” position.
"This is yet another reversal by John McCain in terms of his earlier positions, and I think We could set up an interesting debate between John McCain 2000 and John McCain 2008,” Obama said. “The biggest problem with John McCain's position is that it seems like a classic Washington political solution, which is to go out there and make a statement without any clear evidence that this would result in strengthening the US economy or providing relief to consumers.”
He went on to cite estimates that off-shore drilling would not significantly affect world oil prices, and that the benefits from such drilling would not materialize for at least five years. Obama talked instead about reducing oil consumption through the development of hybrid cars and other technologies, before taking another dig at McCain.
“I think this is an example of where John McCain has taken the politically expedient way out. He had it right the first time just, as he had it right with the Bush tax cuts the first time. And you know, I think he continues to find himself pushed further and further to the right in ways that in my mind don’t show a lot of leadership."
While noting it was a rare occurrence, Obama said he agreed with George Bush that oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve should not be released to try to bring down oil crisis, arguing the reserve should be used only in the case of a severe crisis.
