RUSH: We talked yesterday, just as the program was ending we got the news, Stephen Hayes, at the Weekly Standard on his blog mentioned that terrorist detainees in Afghanistan are being read their Miranda rights. This signals a huge shift once again that fighting terrorism is a criminal enterprise. It brings back the old days of the way the Clinton administration went about it. But when you start Mirandizing noncitizens, especially foreign enemy combatants on the battlefield, when you start Mirandizing them, you are granting them constitutional rights when they are not citizens. Now, if you can do that, if you can grant a constitutional right and Mirandize a foreign terrorist, enemy combatant, then I guess you can automatically grant citizenship to people who are not citizens, couldn’t you?
Andy McCarthy has written much about this at National Review Online, and he actually goes back and says one of the people that can be blamed for this is Senator McCain. I don’t have his story right in front of me, but Senator McCain supported — back when McCain was on his anti-torture bandwagon and was trying to curry favor with people on the left to get their votes by agreeing that the US tortured people. One of the ways that McCain sought to prevent torture and make it illegal, which it always has been anyway, was to make it possible for what the Obama administration is doing. And they did this on the quiet. It took a member of Congress finding this out. Sarah Palin warned of this in her acceptance speech at St. Paul, the Republican convention, last September.
PALIN: Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read ’em their rights.
RUSH: It’s exactly right. Now, Obama, on March 22nd, this year, on 60 Minutes, said this.
OBAMA: Now, do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not.
RUSH: Well, there you have it, there’s Barack Obama, March 22nd, ‘No, they don’t deserve Miranda rights.’ They’re getting ’em. They are being Mirandized in Afghanistan today. So once again it’s not what Obama says; it’s how he says it that appeals to people. Yesterday this all came up at the afternoon press briefing with the most brilliant and articulate press secretary we’ve ever had, according to several in the government-run media. Major Garrett of Fox News said, ‘Do you know if it’s true or untrue that Miranda rights are read to terrorists in Afghanistan?’
GIBBS: I have no reason to — to disbelieve a member of Congress, but I don’t know any of the circumstances that are involved around it.
REPORTER: Would it come as a surprise to the White House that that’s what would be happening?
GIBBS: It’s not a surprise to me.
RUSH: Not a surprise. Yet your boss said on March 22nd that they don’t deserve Miranda rights. And Gibbs says, yes, he’s not surprised to him that it’s happening, but that he didn’t know it. So they aren’t denying it. And of course it requires us to go back and find Obama saying that they don’t deserve Miranda rights on 60 Minutes in March because government-controlled media is not going to do it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, these Miranda rights for terrorists: When can we expect congressional hearings on this policy? Nobody knew it was happening. The president’s press secretary didn’t know it was happening. When will there be congressional hearings? And I have another question. If we are going to Mirandize enemy combatants on the field of battle — we are in a war in Afghanistan, folks. We’re not there in a ‘police action.’ We’re there in a war. If we’re going to Mirandize terrorists, the enemy combatants, does that mean they don’t have to say anything until they get a lawyer, and if they can’t afford a lawyer, are we going to appoint one for them? I mean, isn’t that part of the Miranda rights? So where are the congressional hearings on this?