One Thing About Palin Bothers Me

Well, there's more than one thing, but this is a big one. In her speech, she criticized Obama by saying,"Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights." Now, I understand the rhetorical device, but that's not very libertarian, or constitutional of her. Obama picked up on this, as recounted by the Washington Post:

But Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade, said captured suspects deserve to file writs of habeus corpus.

Calling it "the foundation of Anglo-American law," he said the principle "says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, 'Why was I grabbed?' And say, 'Maybe you've got the wrong person.'"

The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, "because we don't always have the right person."

"We don't always catch the right person," he said. "We may think it's Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it's Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president."

I gotta give credit where credit is due, Obama was right on calling her out on this; and if Governor Palin means that people are not innocent until proven guilty, and that suspects aren't due full protection under the U.S. Constitution, then she and I have to part company. I do hope Charlie Gibson asks her about this instead of who is Trig's real father and how she feels about the Jews and Pat Buchanan.