Apparently Obama believes that because he possesses rhetorical skills superior to Bush's he can juke the public and convince them that his plan is a move toward a constitutional detention regime. Renaming the process does not constitutionalize it. Maddow does a fine job breaking down into digestible pieces Obama's inconsistencies.
This is a good explication of the dilemma Obama has inherited (watch from 2:55 on):
This is the actual qoute from Justice Brandeis that the professor attempted to paraphrase:
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
I think this warning applies to Bush and to Obama. Of course, the latter, as a former "professor" of constitutional law, ought really to know better. And maybe he would, if he had actually been a professor instead of the beneficiary of a sinecure with the title of "professor." What Obama does not mention is the reality of a trade-off here. Do you want to play nice and adhere to the constitution or do you want to risk some blowback from deporting and potentially releasing some of these guys? Like Bush, Obama wants to have it both ways. But the contours of the constitution will not succumb to inventive euphemisms.
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