Adam Serwer Nails It

Benjamin Wittes
Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 5:17 PM
Responding to my earlier post on Buck McKeon's detention bill, Adam Serwer says the following, on which I cannot improve:
I still maintain that there's less difference between Republican and administration priorities than there appears to be, and both sides can probably get a lot of what they want if they deci

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Responding to my earlier post on Buck McKeon's detention bill, Adam Serwer says the following, on which I cannot improve:
I still maintain that there's less difference between Republican and administration priorities than there appears to be, and both sides can probably get a lot of what they want if they decided to cooperate. The question is really whether Rep. Buck McKeon is negotiating in good faith, or whether he's just going to propose policy that hamstrings the executive in a way that no administration would ever agree to. The funny thing is that if it's the latter, McKeon is going to end up helping the administration's civil-libertarian critics more than anyone else.
I'm not sure if Adam is saying this last sentence (as I suspect) hopefully or (as I would) regretfully, but it is exactly right.

Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.

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