It was Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s version of a wardrobe malfunction. He flubbed the 35-word oath and learned why his predecessor Chief Justice William Rehnquist always read the oath for accuracy. Now, there is a debate as to whether the oath is constitutionally valid and the possibility that Obama should take the oath again out of an abundance of caution. Today I did this segment on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. I will also be discussing this tonight on MSNBC Countdown.
The words of the oath are placed in quotations in the Constitution and are therefore to be taken with precision. Roberts was anything but precise. He moved the adverb, which Obama appears to have caught to his credit.
This is the problem of trying to to without notes.
The oath is supposed to read: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Instead, Roberts said the words: “that I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully,” putting “faithfully” at the end of the phrase, and substituting the word “to” for “of.”
The easiest solution is to simply retake the oath, which was done by Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur. For an article discussing the issue, click here.
For the clip, click here.
[repost] Chief Roberts just flunked Con Law 101. He said “I will execute the Office of President to the United States.” He seemed like an empty robe up there on his own without his clerks and assistants.
Someone tell him to go back to the Court and write out the final clause of Article I, section 1, 500 times on a blackboard.
Then go over to GW Law and enroll in Professor Turley’s Con Law class.
From the article:
“Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, was hosting an inauguration party at his home in McLean, Va., Tuesday and did a mock swearing-in of 35 children. When Roberts erred, one child shouted: “That’s not right!”
******************
It’s comforting to learn that the kids at your party knew the Constitution better than our Chief Justice, but as I said before, they likely read the document before yesterday. I am guessing the kid was Madie, she’s got a feel for podium propriety!
And Chief Justice Roberts was so well medicated at his Congressional hearing! (He looked liked he’d taken a bolus of downers!) Given the climate, I’d retake the oath.
I think President Obama (President-retroactive Obama?) should retake the oath to allay any suggested improprieties and so that we have a replacement image of the swearing-in to counter the original.
Personally, I want to know if “Chief Justice of the Supreme Court” Roberts is capable of properly administering the oath, because he will most likely have that difficult task to perform in 4 years.
Is impeachment off the table?
Roberts is actually “Chief Justice of the United States.” Maybe he will get the oath correct the next time. There will only be 100 million viewers watching for a mistep. Do not be nervous, Chief.
Re-swearing would only be for the comfort of the guys sitting in their pajamas in their mothers basements spinning conspiracy theories — oops, Mom, i will take out the trash right now, i promise!!!
Roberts also got something else wrong, which I haven’t seen widely mentioned. Before maladministering the oath of office, he asked BO “Are you ready Senator?”
BO had already resigned his senate seat. He should have asked “Are you ready Mr. President-Elect?”, or maybe more simply “Are you ready?”
I gotta tell ya, it warms my law student heart to see the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court screw it up.
I might have agreed with the “taking it again is for the conspiracy theorists” analysis if I just hadn’t lived through the Bush years. You’re not paranoid if you can identify the persons out to get you, not just me but the collective “us” – the citizens, and their motives for attacking our system from the inside. Make no mistake about it, the Neocons are enemies within. They attacked our Constitution, the very foundation of our government, like ravenous dogs. Inflicting damage to our country a terrorist groups WISHES, no DREAMS, they were capable of achieving. If you discount them, then you haven’t been paying attention. All of them are evil, but not all of them are incompetent. Take the oath again. An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure. It takes minutes to administer. A small price to avoid even the most pedantic Neocon assaults. And I ask you, when have you ever seen Neocons resort to the pedantic? I rest my case.
Well, pardon the heck out of me.
{Quote: “The office is often informally but mistakenly referred to as “Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.” However, 28 U.S.C. § 1 specifies the official title as “Chief Justice of the United States.” End Quote}
However, and informally, if all of the other 8 judges are Associate Justices of the Supreme Court and Mr. Roberts is THE Chief Justice of that Court, then by gosh and by golly Mr. Chief Justice is the “Chief Justice of the Supreme Court”. Now, if I were carefully administering the Presidential Oath of Office, I would concede to the title of “Chief Justice of the United States.”
I wonder if the 8 senile “supreme” justices know they are “…of the Supreme Court” and not “…of the United States” and if Mr. Chief Justice knows that his is “…of the United States” and not “…of the Supreme Court”?
foo:
“I gotta tell ya, it warms my law student heart to see the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court screw it up.”
******************
If you really want to get hot, read some of his opinions, the maladministration of the oath of office is just an h’orderve.
Ah yes; so when a few words are rearranged for the oath of office, without changing the meaning, everyone is up in arms.
But when Congress grills an Attorney General as to far more important issues regarding the constitution, i.e. HOW TO READ THE DOCUMENT BY VIRTUE OF THE WAY IT WAS DESIGNED
to wit:
Gonzales: The fact that the constitution…again, there is no express GRANT of Habeus in the Constitution….there’s a prohibition against taking it away.
Specter: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in the case of invasion or rebellion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus?
Gonzales: I meant by that comment that the the Constitution doesn’t say that every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby GRANTED or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.
So when two branches of the Federal Government exhibit a complete ignorance of the fact that THE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT GRANT ANY RIGHTS WHATSOEVER and that it constricts power, i.e. that it is designed on the theory that rights confer power and not vice versa, NOBODY says a god damned thing.
But when the Chief Justice rearranges the ordering of a predicate within a sentence without changing its meaning, everyone’s buzzing about it at the water cooler.
Pathetic.
I’ve yet to see confirming evidence of the claim from many casual commenters (e.g. to Washington Monthly threads) that Obama (like predecessors? For how long?) signed a written document before the spoken oath. If so, it’s a valid Inauguration regardless. Did he? But Wikipedia does not mention the written version, and Google was not conclusive. Along with some scholars being concerned, that bothers me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States
BTW “take” doesn’t have to mean spoken …
Furthermore, the addition of the Oath taker’s name is not in the original language, and that would invalidate the purity of the Oath as well! (As perhaps “so help me God”, but that could be interpreted as a separate extra saying, not an adulteration.)
Bobfrog,
I think most people who supported Obama for president couldn’t care less about the order of the words. But there are lots of people around who would like to question Obama’s authority, and they will attempt to throw doubt for anyone who would pick up the talking point. A talking point doesn’t have to be well founded or even real at all for the far right lunatic fringe to make a big deal out of something. As I mentioned before, look at what they did with Obama’s birth certificate. If doing the oath over again will shut these people up, then let’s do it.
Speaking for myself, it seems like questions surrounding the authority of the president are pretty important. That most certainly doesn’t mean I don’t want to see Gonzales put through the ringer. I only wish it was as easy to get the truth out of him as it is to re-do the oath of office.
In a world where people are formally organized to dispute President Obama’s birth certificate, it might be better to be safe than sorry in this case.
Talk of the Nation Re: Obama Oath and other talk.
npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=4&islist=true&id=5&d=01-21-2009
Thanks for the heads-up Professor Turley!
The Talk of the Nation segment involving this thread’s topic starts at about 13 minutes and ends at about 21 minutes.
Still blaming Roberts here I see.
Jill 1, January 21, 2009 at 10:46 am
‘And Chief Justice Roberts was so well medicated at his Congressional hearing! (He looked liked he’d taken a bolus of downers!) Given the climate, I’d retake the oath.’
———
Just what is supposed to be meant by this remark…???
The Chief Justice is a summer neighbor of ours and I can assure you, Jill, you know NOTHING of his personal OR medical history.
Just for peace of mind, our newly elected President should probably take the oath again-before another step of any significance is taken.
After pondering Chief Justice Roberts’ portrait, and in particular, that broad grin, I must ask myself, does he know something we don’t?
The Washington Post is reporting that twice is the charm as President Obama rounded up that silver-tongued orator, CJ Roberts, for “Swearing In –The Sequel” at the White House.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/01/21/obama_takes_his_oath_of_office.html?wprss=44
Mespo,
I just saw that story that Obama retook the Oath. Now we really have a Democratic President.
Patty C, because of his position we little people have learned a lot about Justice Roberts’ medical issues, like his seizures for which he surely takes some medication. He had one “at his vacation home on Hupper Island” Maine (presumably, where he is sometimes your neighbor? Man, that Internet sure is something ….) In any case, he flubbed the words first, attn. blaster.
BTW it’s all moot now anyway! Our Constitutional “crisis” has been resolved: Obama retook the Oath of office today readministered by John Roberts. Heh, they said an abundance of precaution (considering the wingnuts among the rabble and in halls of power …)
But again, where did some folks hear about the mysterious “written version” they suspected or claimed Obama signed in pen? It looks doubtful now, no one mentioned it. I’d like to think there’s a signed Oath so we’d have the image to celebrate. I wanted to make a tee shirt from it.
PS: If McCain had been elected, would someone press a claim that being born in the Canal Zone wasn’t really natural born? (BTW what does “natural born” really mean anyway, it doesn’t say WFW “born inside the borders of the USA.”)
DID YA NOTICE TONIGHT RACHAEL MADDOW WHINED ABOUT THE 15 YEAR OLD BEING HELD AT GITMO………SHE NEVER TOLD HER SMALL AUDIENCE THIS 15 YEAR OLD KILLED AN AMERICAN SOLDIER WITH A GRENADE DID SHE???
YOU PEOPLE JUST DESPISE OUR SOLDIERS AND IT SHOWS ON KEITH OLBERMANN AND RACHAEL MADDOW AND THEIR GUESTS AND WHAT THEY SAY AT MSNBC BEFORE THE SHOW!
Hey Turley did ya see the “NSA Security Person” Olbermann had on tonight? He thinks the FBI & the NSA are spying on him. He also pointed out he had volunteered for the Obama campaign and had presented a letter that “he assumed made it to the desk of President Obama” pointing out spying issues at the NSA!
Olbermann looked like a total FOOL for having this guy on! Send thanks for Olberamnn for us; we just lost another 100,000 viwers and now salaries may get cut.
Here’s what one of our soldiers has to say about this boy:
s request to suspend it for 120 days.
“Suffice to say, Jawad’s chief prosecutor at Guantanamo — the Bronze-Star-recipient Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who since 9/11 has served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Africa — became so repelled by the treatment to which Jawad was subjected, by the fact that virutally all of the evidence against him was severely coerced, and by the fact that there is “no credible evidence” to justify his detention, that he first demanded that Jawad be released, then, when Bush officials refused, unsuccessfully demanded to be relieved of his duty to prosecute, and then finally resigned. He has now become one of the key witnesses in Jawad’s habeas proceeding, and you can (and should) read Lt. Col. Vandeveld’s Sworn Declaration in Support of Jawad’s Habeas Petition here. In Paragraph 2, he writes:
To underscore how dubious and unreliable is the evidence against Jawad, how far away he is from a “hard-core terrorist,” and how outrageous is his ongoing detention, Lt. Col. Vandeveld very poignantly wrote:
Had I returned to Afghanistan or Iraq, and had I encountered Mohammed Jawad in either of those hostile lands, where two of my friends have been killed in action and one of my very best friends in the world had been terribly wounded, I have no doubt at all — none — that Mr. Jawad would pose no threat whatsoever to me, his former prosecutor and now-repentant persecuter. Six years is long enough for a boy of sixteen to serve in virtual solitary confinement, in a distant land, for reasons he may never fully understand.
Worst of all, Lt. Col. Vandeveld explains that he began to realize the grave injustice of prosecuting Jawad as he discovered long-concealed evidence proving just how brutal and continuous the abuse of Jawad has been, and how virtually all of the evidence against him was suspect at best and almost certainly was unreliably coerced.
In Afghanistan, Jawad was severely beaten, drugged, and threatened with death for both himself and his family if he refused to confess to the grenade incident. That occurred just weeks after the incident where two Afghan detainees, including a completely innocent 22-year-old Afghan cab driver, were beaten to death — murdered — while detained and interrogated by U.S. troops in Bagram. The confession Jawad “signed” (with his fingerprint, since he can’t write his name) became the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s case against him, and yet, it was written in a language Jawad did not speak or read, and was given to him after several days of beatings, druggings and threats — all while he was likely 15 or 16 years old.
In December, 2003, when he was (at most) 18 years old, Jawad — according to Guantanamo prison logs — attempted to kill himself. In 2004, he was subjected to the so-called “frequent flier” program, where, in a two-week period alone, he was moved to a new cell 112 times — an average of every 3 hours, in order to ensure he was sleep deprived and disoriented. Over the six years at Guantanamo, Jawad was repeatedly subjected to extreme cold, bright lights, and various stress positions. He was often kept in solitary confinement or in “linguistic confinement,” isolated from anyone who spoke his only language (Pashto). As recently as May of 2008, while Jawad was at Guantanamo, he was beaten so badly by guards that, weeks later, he still had extreme bruises on his arms, knees, shoulders, forehead and ribs.” (from Glenn Greenwald’s column of today)
* * * * *
Neil B
I and my SO, a vascular surgeon, are both Harvard-trained physicians, living and, now, also practicing in the great State of Maine-my birthplace and ancestral home.
John Roberts’ Congressional hearings took place in 2005.
His ‘recent’ seizure episode at St. George, for which he has since been prescribed anti-seizure medication, took place in 2007.
As usual, Jill does not know what she is talking about and apparently neither do you!
MSNBC troll,
Just one correction about your claim that Rachel Maddow failed to mention that Jawad killed a soldier with a grenade. Unfortunately, the chief military prosecutor at Gitmo seems to think that there was little or no evidence of the crime that this youngster was tortured over. So MSNBC,the next time you are trolling about, try the using the facts. I know that would mean that you would have to actually read something other than a Fox news transcript.
Perhaps this small snafu will allow these two men to become friends; or at least enhance their professional respect for each other since Obama did not vote for Robert’s confirmation and I would be surprised if Robert’s voted for Obama.
Regardless, such minor messiness allows us all to learn just a bit more about our constitution and prompts additional and productive civics discussions.
Regarding the Roberts flub:
If my team hits a home run and the batter runs the bases; if there is even a shred of doubt about whether or not he touched home plate you send that batter back out on the field and TOUCH HOME PLATE.
That’s how little I trust the outgoing whack-jobs. Don’t give them any possible edge to question this new President’s validity of power.
In keeping with the sports analogy, better ’safe’ than sorry …
But But PattyC “summahs” near the Chief Justice.
P.S. One can not determine Jawad’s guilt or innocence until the young man is given a fair and proper trial (can you say, “due process”?)
I have a question, if a sitting president is re-elected, would it be legal for the president to skip taking the oath again?
It would seem to me that the first oath would still be in force, so the second inaugural is nothing more than meaningless ceremony.
I know this wouldn’t apply to members of Congress or the Senate, since every two years a new Congress is conveined, so re-taking the oath would be necessary.
Unca:
Art. II, Sec. 1 of the Constitution provides that the President serves a four year term. It also specifies that “[b]efore he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
That would seem to imply that prior to taking office for his second term he must take the Oath again. I believe that is how a court would construe the language.
Unca –
No problem with the question, it’s a valid one, but the ceremony is, to many, anything but meaningless …
Mojo,
You are right that it is better safe than sorry. Especially when Fox News was already all over the neocon spin that Obama may not be President, before the the Oath part two.
Jill & rafflaw:
Nice try. Isn’t it amazing how everybody in Prison was framed. See below, but I know, I know, this means you have to BELIEVE YOUR FELLOW citizens over a son of an Al Queda member:
Prosecutors called FBI agent Robert Fuller to help counter a defense effort to exclude statements by Khadr, a Toronto native who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan and is now 22.
The defense says incriminating statements by Khadr, the son of an Al Qaeda operative who was killed by Pakistani forces in 2003, were obtained through coercion and torture, but Fuller and other prosecution witnesses say the defendant willingly spoke to interrogators without pressure.
Fuller testified that he never saw Khadr subjected to sleep deprivation or shackled in “stress positions,” and that the defendant never complained to him about being kept in isolation or threatened.
“We treated him no differently than we would anybody back in the states,” Fuller said. “We treated him with respect just like we would anyone else.”
Do you both have a white flag outside your house? You should so when America gets attacked again by these same people, they will know you were a “friendly”…..
rachael maddow needs to be ashamed of herself for not telling the truth about this so called 15 year old. He was the Son of an Al Queda terrorist!
rafflaw –
Yeah, I knew if there was any discrepancy they would be all over it. It’s funny (and a little sad) but I distrust these neocons so much that it was the first thing I thought when the oath was flubbed.
“They may try to exploit that …” I thought to myself.
How about old Limbaugh hoping that ‘the new president fails’? Just what I would have expected from him. He’s going to have to go back on the oxycontin to deal with all this. I guess he can call Sarah Palin’s in-laws if he gets the itch …
Jill, the Khadr family:
“We are an Al Qaeda family.” So spoke one of the Khadrs, a Muslim Canadian household whose near single-minded devotion to Osama bin Laden contains important lessons for the West.
In 1985, in the course of working in Afghanistan, Khadr met bin Laden and became his close associate. Sometimes Khadr was described as the highest ranking of Al Qaeda’s 75 Canadian operatives.
In 1996, he and his wife set up an Islamic charity they named “Health and Education Project International.” When the Taliban took control in Afghanistan a few months later, the parents and their six children decamped there. As he worked closely with bin Laden, Khadr became known for his militant Islamic vitriol, leading one Frenchman in Afghanistan to observe about him,” I never met such hostility, someone so against the West.”
Like other Al Qaeda leaders, Khadr disappeared from view soon after 9/11. He spent two years on the lam, reappearing only in October 2003,when Pakistani forces unexpectedly found that the DNA of one unrecognizable corpse from a bloody shootout matched Khadr’s.
The terrorism-related activities of other Khadr family members — wife, one of two daughters, three of four sons — complement their patriarch’s record.
Wife Maha Elsamnah took her then 14-year-old son Omar from Canada to Pakistan in 2001 and enrolled him for Al Qaeda training.
Daughter Zaynab, 23, was engaged to one terrorist and married, with Osama bin Laden himself present at the nuptials, a Qaeda member in 1999. Zaynab endorses the 9/11 atrocities and hopes her infant daughter will die fighting Americans.
Son Abdullah, 22, is a Qaeda fugitive constantly on the move to elude capture. Canadian intelligence states he ran a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan during the Taliban period, something Abdullah denies.
Son Omar, 17, stands accused of hurling a grenade in July 2002, killing an American medic in Afghanistan. Omar lost sight in one eye in the fighting and is now a U.S. detainee in Guantánamo.
Son Abdul Karim, 14, half-paralyzed by wounds sustained in the October 2003 shoot-out that left his father dead, is presently prisoner in a Pakistani hospital.
Fortunately, there is also one positive story:
Son Abdurahman, 21, reluctantly trained with Al Qaeda, was captured by coalition forces in November 2001 and agreed to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in Kabul, Guantánamo, and Bosnia. He returned to Canada in October 2003, where he denounced both extremism (“I want to be a good, strong, civilized, peaceful Muslim” ) and his family’s terroristic ways.
Jill, note the American soldier Khadr killed was a MEDIC. a MEDIC!
rafflaw: would you say Rush hoping Bin Laden fails would be the equivalent of the left hoping Bush fails, because that is what you have been whining here. It is called politics; if I believe, as a single example, abortion is murder, don’t I want Obama to fail at liberalizing abortion?
Jill, note the American soldier Khadr killed was a MEDIC. a MEDIC!
Jill, the Khadr family:
“We are an Al Qaeda family.” So spoke one of the Khadrs, a Muslim Canadian household whose near single-minded devotion to Osama bin Laden contains important lessons for the West.
In 1985, in the course of working in Afghanistan, Khadr met bin Laden and became his close associate. Sometimes Khadr was described as the highest ranking of Al Qaeda’s 75 Canadian operatives.
In 1996, he and his wife set up an Islamic charity they named “Health and Education Project International.” When the Taliban took control in Afghanistan a few months later, the parents and their six children decamped there. As he worked closely with bin Laden, Khadr became known for his militant Islamic vitriol, leading one Frenchman in Afghanistan to observe about him,” I never met such hostility, someone so against the West.”
Like other Al Qaeda leaders, Khadr disappeared from view soon after 9/11. He spent two years on the lam, reappearing only in October 2003,when Pakistani forces unexpectedly found that the DNA of one unrecognizable corpse from a bloody shootout matched Khadr’s.
The terrorism-related activities of other Khadr family members — wife, one of two daughters, three of four sons — complement their patriarch’s record.
Wife Maha Elsamnah took her then 14-year-old son Omar from Canada to Pakistan in 2001 and enrolled him for Al Qaeda training.
Daughter Zaynab, 23, was engaged to one terrorist and married, with Osama bin Laden himself present at the nuptials, a Qaeda member in 1999. Zaynab endorses the 9/11 atrocities and hopes her infant daughter will die fighting Americans.
Son Abdullah, 22, is a Qaeda fugitive constantly on the move to elude capture. Canadian intelligence states he ran a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan during the Taliban period, something Abdullah denies.
Son Omar, 17, stands accused of hurling a grenade in July 2002, killing an American medic in Afghanistan. Omar lost sight in one eye in the fighting and is now a U.S. detainee in Guantánamo.
Son Abdul Karim, 14, half-paralyzed by wounds sustained in the October 2003 shoot-out that left his father dead, is presently prisoner in a Pakistani hospital.
Fortunately, there is also one positive story:
Son Abdurahman, 21, reluctantly trained with Al Qaeda, was captured by coalition forces in November 2001 and agreed to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in Kabul, Guantánamo, and Bosnia. He returned to Canada in October 2003, where he denounced both extremism (”I want to be a good, strong, civilized, peaceful Muslim” ) and his family’s terroristic ways.
PS:
Rachael Maddow needs to apologize to American soldiers.
doglover 1, January 21, 2009 at 10:48 pm
But But PattyC “summahs” near the Chief Justice.
P.S. One can not determine Jawad’s guilt or innocence until the young man is given a fair and proper trial (can you say, “due process”?)
—
No, the Chief Justice ’summahs’ near Patty C…
My response was to Jill who repeatedly makes medical and scientific
(and legal!!!) proclamations, here, when she obviously has no training in either field – whatsoever…
9/11 Families Outraged by Obama Call to Suspend Guantanamo War Crimes Trials
Families of victims of terrorist attacks say they are outraged by President Obama’s call to halt the trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
AP
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Family members of people killed on September 11, 2001, and in other terror attacks say they are outraged by President Obama’s draft order calling for the suspension of war crimes trials of prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay.
“To me it’s beyond comprehension that they would take the side of the terrorists,” said Peter Gadiel, whose son, James, was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11. “Many of these people have been released and been right back killing, right back at their terrorist work again.”
“To me it’s beyond comprehension that they would take the side of the terrorists,”
_____________________________________________
The only side Mr. Obama is taking involves the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, and U.S. signed treaties. I would add it just also happens to be the ‘good/right side’.
FFLEO -
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
But Mr. Copy/Paste will likely not be satisfied …
Please do NOT feed the troll.
FFLEO said,
“To me it’s beyond comprehension that they would take the side of the terrorists,”
_____________________________________________
The only side Mr. Obama is taking involves the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, and U.S. signed treaties. I would add it just also happens to be the ‘good/right side’.
______
I’d like to point out that Neocon conservatism, by FFLEO’s very astute definition, is categorically evil. The inverse function. The flip side of the coin. Post partisan doesn’t mean giving evil a pass, but you keep trying to spin your way out of it. It won’t work in the long term. Don’t act evil, you won’t get treated like you’re evil. I don’t give a shit if your feelings are hurt. Your lot turned this country into just what the terrorists wanted: a fascist police state. A little pain might teach you shitheels a lesson. MSNBCer and the other trolls will found out soon enough – Obama or not, they WILL be paying a price for what they have done to this country. That price can be paid peacefully if they turn over the guilty. NOW. Resist and there will be violence. That’s not a threat. That’s a pattern of history. “Let them eat cake” ring a bell? So let them “defend” Bush and evil. They choose poorly. And poor choices have consequences. Forgive and forget? Not f-ing likely. The GOP’s trouble is just starting if you don’t turn over the guilty. That IS a promise.
Finally, just in case anyone forgets: we have legal controls and protections to above all minimize the chance of (and devastation of, should it occur) innocents being drawn into the criminal or military confinement systems, not to be nice to actual miscreants etc. And many innocents have been drawn into the systems of Gitmo and elsewhere.