Tuesday, November 11, 2008

J/K!

"There is absolutely no truth to reports that a decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled."

-Denis McDonough
Senior foreign policy adviser, Obama transition team
(see i.e. Chicago Tribune)

So at this point I see two possibilities:

1. It was a trial balloon. It didn't receive too much criticism in the first day, but one or more reporters did ask question on it this morning. But that's hardly any pressure at all -- and certainly not the kind of pressure that would force them to change policy. So if this was a trial balloon, the walk-back statement from McDonough would have been all part of the plan. It keeps the national security court balloon in the air, but removes the urgency to it all. Tricky.

2. The AP story had been based on someone vaguely connected to the Obama campaign, but not officially authorized to speak for them. I can't imagine that this source would have come up with the 'national security court' thing if the Obama folks weren't actually talking about it seriously.

I'm thinking scenario one. But even if it is scenario two, then it has now become a trial balloon in effect any way, even if an unplanned one. So no matter what, we need to shoot it down.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home