Update: Eventually, after the application of pressure and time, Dennis Kucinich cosponsored the legislation. Good on you, Rep. Kucinich.
Last weekend Dennis Kucinich took the time to appear on the NPR game show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me as a contestant. Must have been kicky fun.
But Dennis Kucinich hasn’t taken the time to use his position of power as a member of Congress to help overturn the Military Commissions Act. To his credit, Kucinich spoke out in protest last year as the Military Commissions Act was passed into law by both houses of Congress. It was an awful piece of legislation, revoking the right of habeas corpus for people detained by the U.S., permitting the Bush administration to designate any person as an “unlawful enemy combatant,” prohibiting U.S. detainees from invoking the Geneva Conventions when challenging their detention, forbidding detainees from using the services of civilian lawyer, permitting the use of evidence gained through torture, permitting the use of hearsay, keeping panels from ever hearing by what methods statements from detainees were obtained, and on and on and sadly on.
So why hasn’t Dennis Kucinich cosponsored H.R. 1415, a bill to reverse these provisions of the Military Commissions Act? I mean, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me must have taken at least an hour to record. Cosponsoring a bill would have taken two minutes on the floor at a maximum. Even if Kucinich had wanted to issue an associated press release to use in his presidential campaign, that would have taken an aide perhaps twenty minutes to write and Kucinich five minutes tops to review and sign. Kucinich took the time out for a game show. Kucinich couldn’t manage a couple of minutes for civil liberty.
Kucinich hasn’t even bothered to cosponsor the much weaker bills addressing the Military Commissions Act: H.R. 1416, H.R. 1189, or H.R. 267. I don’t get it. I really, sincerely, don’t get it. This kind of legislation should be a slam dunk for Kucinich. But he isn’t even lifting a finger. J. Clifford has gone so far as to give Kucinich’s office a call, and a staffer assured him that Kucinich would be made familiar with the legislation. So ignorance isn’t the explanation here. What gives?
