Speed Gibson

Many have commented on yet another pass issued to Rep. Keith Ellison by the uncurious, all-forgiving Minneapolis Star Tribune. Granted, it's on the Editorial page, but that isn't a license for printing false information. This is why I dropped my subscription of what - 35 years? - to this paper. As long as statements like this appear:

Bush and his team seem intent on enlarging his authority and defying those who would challenge him or his administration. Geneva Conventions? Quaint¹. Habeas corpus? Flexible². Court approval of wiretaps? Outmoded³. Rising calls to replace a secretary of defense? "I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."⁴

I added the superscripts as references to the following points.

1. The Geneva Conventions, written in the plainest of language, plainly do not apply to our battle with Islamic terrorists. It is Bush's opponents that are trying to reduce Presidential and Executive Branch constitutional authority, not Bush trying to increase it.
2. Habaeus Corpus is for American citizens, not foreigners and enemy combatants captured on the battlefield. Congress and the Courts attempts to expand its constitutional scope and meaning is again, an attempt to reduce Executive constitutional authority, not President Bush's to increase it.
3. The word "wiretap" was falsely expanded by most of the press and Bush's opponents to include even pattern recognition of telephone numbers. But even so, the Patriot Act only expedited a well-known legal practice going back many administrations, including that of Jimmy Carter. The fact that the left insists that there is no difference listening to a foreign terrorist calling America vs an American calling the Home Shopping Network is very telling. Again, the President is not doing anything different than prior administrations like Carton and Clinton of which the Strib approves. The Bush Administration obvious has done more of it given 9/11, but it's essentially the same process and not a power grab.
4. Is the Strib serious? All Cabinet officers serve at the pleasure of the President, short of impeachment and conviction, and it's been that way since 1791 when the Constitution was adopted. Where's the power grab?

Remember the larger context, that we are to wrong to believe Keith Ellison didn't mean exactly what he said. It's our problem for taking him out of context, only there is no context here, none whatever, that, oh, "sands off the truth" here.

My argument isn't with Keith Ellison here. He's free to say and think and vote as he sees fit, but has no reason to think he can fool the adults in the room, even with the Star Tribune's help.

No, it is the Star Tribune that has truly stepped in it once again here. Just as their loaded coverage of Ellison's campaign was the final straw that ended my subscription, this continuing insistence on printing provably false information precludes any re-subscription soon.