It's the Constitution, Stupid

You know, that old piece of paper the Bush administration shredded. Why is no one in Denver talking about it?

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008, at 6:34 PM ET

Pat Buchanan is right. There, I said it. Shoot me. Pat Buchanan and I are both maddeningly frustrated by the Democrats' inability to deliver red meat to their base, even when President Bush has spent eight years hunting, shooting, and filleting that red meat himself. Appearing last night on MSNBC, Buchanan, after arguing that Bill Clinton had utterly failed to rally the crowd about real issues, ended up hollering, "Has anybody heard the word Guantanamo mentioned this entire convention?" I've been kind of wondering the same thing.

Now, Buchanan was wrong in the particulars. John Kerry, in what was probably the finest speech of the week, actually mentioned the prison camp shortly after Clinton failed to do so. Kerry promised the crowd that "President Obama and Vice President Biden will shut down Guantanamo; respect the Constitution; and make clear, once and for all, the United States of America does not torture—not now, not ever." They roared. But it wasn't Buchanan's fault he'd missed it. Almost all the networks had cut away from what may have been the convention's only prime-time mention of the zenith of Bush administration lawlessness.