Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

You can tell a lot about a person by their either/or’s. “Mr. President,” U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd said in his floor speech before the congress voted to accept a Military Tribunals bill, “the Administration and Republican leadership would have the American people believe that the War on Terrorism requires a choice -- a choice that they seem to showcase every election cycle -- according to them, the United States government can either protect America or uphold the basic tenets upon which our country was founded -- but not both. I fully reject that reasoning.” He is not alone in rejecting this reasoning. Many Republicans, and some Democrats who voted for the bill, would find fault with the either/or Dodd attributes to the Republican Administration and its leadership alone. Most often “enemy combatants” are not US citizens, though they may be. The question at issue is: Should non-US citizens be afforded the protections of the US Constitution, when they have pledged themselves to destroy both t...