Academic

The occasionally unhinged Keith Olbermann (incorrectly) on Khadr

By Tung Yin

One of the cable news/talk shows that I enjoy watching is "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," partly because I remember back when he was a sports reporter on the local L.A. news -- yes, even before his ESPN days.  "Countdown" is snarky, quirky, and utterly devoid of any pretense of objectivity.  Plus, Olbermann has a hilarious obsession with mocking Bill O'Reilly (whom he refers to as "Bill Orally").  Who doesn't find humor in the segment on "Today's worst person in the world"?

But at times, Olbermann's anti-Bush tirades get so unhinged that I actually cringe -- and almost feel bad for Bush.

Last night, in remarking on the military judge's ruling in the Khadr case -- in which a military judge dismissed charges against a Guantanamo detainee -- Olbermann exclaimed that the ruling called into question the basis for detaining Khadr and Hamdan and others during the past several years.

Except . . . the judge's ruling was a statutory one, based on the fact that the Military Commissions Act gave jurisdiction to the military tribunals over trials of "unlawful enemy combatants."  The Combatant Status Review Hearings convened beginning in 2004 made no findings of unlawfulness, only that the detainees were or were not "enemy combatants."  Thus, there was no basis for concluding that Khadr was an unlawful enemy combatant, and as such, the military judge concluded that he had no jurisdiction to hear the case.

Apart possibly from the one issue identified by Bobby Chesney, this ruling seems eminently sensible and correct.  But notice what the judge's ruling does not cover: it says absolutely nothing about whether Khadr is appropriated detained as an enemy combatant.  All it says is that Khadr can't be tried under the current statutory scheme until he's been properly classified as an unlawful enemy combatant.

So why does Olbermann think that the ruling calls into question the detention of Khadr, Hamdan, and others?  I have no idea.

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on June 05, 2007 (boomark / email).