Friend of Graham and Good Policy

Paul at PowerLine is as disappointed in Sen. Graham’s lack of a response to the issue of weather he is blocking the Haynes nomination as he is in the senator's recent letter to conservative groups. The partisanship of the retired military officer does not matter as long as his concerns are valid. I am sure that Paul would be signing a different turn if this military officer were a partisan Republican. The other man mentioned, Mr. Guter is not incoherent just because he disagrees with a policy. If Mr. Haynes could not break from his ’superiors’ as General Counsel of DoD than it is right to question his independence as a judge when dealing with the cases that are sure to come before the court in the interceding years.

Sen. Graham is relying on the testimony of former officers that either worked with Haynes or in the environment that Haynes created when he sold out his DoD position to go along with the Justice Department position. It is unfair to say that Sen. Graham is ignoring pro-Haynes viewpoints of the officer cited. If Maj. Gen. Michael Marchand would go in and talk to him or write a letter to him than He would consider his viewpoint as well.

He is talking about the JAG memos, which took him a year and one-half to get and they were classified for some unknown reason. He refers to these memos because they represented DoD policy and the concerns about the effect on the service men and women were valid. If the advice was followed than why couldn’t the Senator have them sooner? If they weren’t doing aything wrong why classify the opinion of the JAGs when the memos between Bybee, Haynes, Gonzales, and the other civilian lawyers were made public? Why did Secretary Rumsfeld later have to decertify some of the methods and why are we still dealing with this if he listened to their advice and the document addressed their concerns?

The argument that Sen. Graham did not consider the views of Maj. Gen. Roning or supporters of Haynes is wrong because just the fact that he called someone that positively assessed Haynes is telling about his willingness to consider views contrary to his own and the critics.

The letter does not directly address the issue of his role in stopping the Haynes nomination, but conservatives have drawn the conclusion from the wording that he is the impediment. This is no surprise to me because he has said that there was one nominee that he would vote against and I think Haynes is that nominee. If the Haynes nomination goes through committee and to the floor there will be a filibuster and I would rather see Sen. Graham do everything in his power to preserve the civility and working order of the Senate.