Michael Sims on Sarah Sunshine & The Ozark Mountain Gang

f you want to find an important line of continuity between the current Bush-Cheney administration and a potential McCain-Palin one, it was in the speech that Sarah Palin gave to the Republican Convention on Wednesday.

She said, "Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he (Obama) is worried that someone won't read them their rights"

"Read them their rights" is a metaphor. If she would not "read them their rights" then it means suspected terrorists are to be treated differently. How differently? This is undefined. Does it include torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial, sending them to third-world countries for "special treatment"? Does it include spying on American citizens? We simply don't know.

Ms. Palin, in one off-the-cuff phrase, wants to eliminate all of the protections and rights that that the American judicial system has developed over 232 years and replace them with--nothing. Only the whim a bureaucrat that happens to be in charge of the interrogation. The rights and freedoms that, until recently, had made the USA the beacon of freedom and tolerance in the world, are simply wiped away.

As we now are aware, this is just what has been happening under Bush and Cheney. Clearly, it would continue under McCain and Palin. Is this the kind of "change" we want?

Michael Sims September, 2008