The Left has often pointed to Sen. John McCain as an exemplar of correct and moralistic thinking on the war on terror, especially when he was criticizing the Bush administration on enhanced interrogation methods. But oddly, they’ve chosen to ignore his position on Obama’s ill-conceived policies. Don’t expect to see this exchange touted in the left-wing blogosphere:

WALLACE: What do you think of the president’s plan — apparent plan to send up to 100 detainees from Guantanamo to a prison in rural Illinois?

MCCAIN: I think it’s a serious mistake, and I think that the way to dispose of the — of this issue is by having an overall policy.

Right now they’re going to — they’re going to try terrorists in New York City, thereby giving Khalid Sheik Mohammed what he wanted when he was captured. He said, “I want a trial in the United States and a lawyer.” I think they’re making a serious mistake.

WALLACE: What’s wrong with Thompson, Illinois?

MCCAIN: Well, first of all, I think that it’s anywhere in the United States. It’s not the fact that it’s Thompson, Illinois. It’s any …

WALLACE: No, but what’s wrong …

MCCAIN: … any place.

WALLACE: … with sending them there?

MCCAIN: I think that they should be either sentenced to have the kind of military commissions that we have outlined in law and may make — have to make additional changes to, and — because they are enemy combatants, and I don’t think they should be kept in prison in the United States.

Well, in point of fact, McCain has long argued for military commissions and never sided with the ACLU types who want full constitutional rights and civilian trials for terrorists, but this was largely ignored by the netroots looking only for comments that might support their views on the matter. In this regard, McCain is in perfect accord with former prosecutor Andy McCarthy (who vigorously disagreed with McCain on enhanced interrogation). As McCarthy pointed out recently, the arguments in favor of the detainee transfer are based on misunderstandings and misrepresentations as to the consequences of the move. He points to Sen. Dick Durbin’s unsupported contention that detainees moved to Illinois couldn’t be set free:

Nevertheless, Durbin is being disingenuous — doubly disingenuous, in fact. First, the principal fear is no longer that the Obama administration will try to free the terrorists and relocate them here. It is that the federal courts will order the release of the detainees. And second, the senator’s brave assurance that if “a detainee is found not guilty, he will not be released inside the United States” is a smokescreen. As he well knows, most of the Gitmo terrorists are not going to be found guilty or found not guilty — they’re not going to be tried at all. . .

So we have custody of extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried and who will not be taken off our hands by any trustworthy country. Their detention is now being scrutinized by judges who are skeptical of the traditional military practice of indefinite detention without trial. Some of us have implored Congress to enact rules of procedure for terrorist-detention hearings that would stop judges from favoring the terrorists over the military. But Democrats like Senator Durbin have turned a deaf ear, preferring to watch the judges make up the rules as they go along.

It’s a measure of how extreme and ill-advised the Obami’s war-on-terror policies are that those who previously tangled over the Bush administration’s approach are now in full agreement. It might be illuminating to have Attorney General Eric Holder come before the Senate Armed Services Committee or the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to be grilled by McCain on the administration’s policies. Now that would be worth watching.

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