considering how badly the media has dealt with the legal issues surrounding surveilance and detainee treatment, i suggest you take the hype surrounding this compromise with a grain of salt. marty lederman has a good discussion of what this alleged "compromise" means. but more importantly he links to pdfs of the actual text of the agreement between the white house and the so-called GOP rebels.
the real story of the compromise is really quite simple. section 8(a)(3) of the agreement states: "the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions". but wait, didn't mccain spend the last two weeks resisting the administration's attempt to define our obligations under the geneva convention? this deal is presented as if the white house caved into mccain, but if you read the text it's pretty clear that it's the other way around. so what was mccain fighting about all this time? was it really nothing but a kibuki dance to brush up his "maverick" credentials?
and why is the press falling mostly for this bullshit? aren't they supposed to fact-check their articles? at least bloomberg is getting the story right. maybe in a day or two the others will catch on as well. but probably not unless people start making some noise.
(lederman link via tristero at digby's place)
