Doubts About Senator Sanders ?

I wonder why Bernie Sanders last week decided to vote to confirm David Barron's ascent to a powerful judicial position on the First Circuit Court of the United States, a judicial position which often addresses significant issues related to Americans’ constitutional rights.



I should like to read the Senator's views on this before writing him off as just another faux-populist, trojan horse, wolf in sheep's clothing...whatever.

From Peregrin Wood at Irregular Times website here, here and here.

The most troubling issue in David Barron’s record is his role as the author of the legal opinion that justified what is rather coldly referred to as “extrajudicial killing” by the United States federal government. Put more plainly, David Barron concocted a legal justification for President Barack Obama, so that the President could order the U.S. military to execute American citizens, because of suspicion of criminal behavior, without any trial or due process.

In Barron’s legal opinion, the people who are to be executed by the President of the United States don’t need to be warned and given the chance to turn themselves in, so that they will have the opportunity to defend themselves in court. David Barron thinks that the President can simply send remote-controlled flying robots to kill them.

To put a lawyer who is willing to engage in such an outrageous violation of civil liberties in the position of a federal judge is extremely reckless. Yet, all but two Senate Democrats voted to approve the David Barron nomination – and the two supposedly progressive independents in the Senate did too – including Bernard Sanders. Why did they do it? They wanted to show political support for Barack Obama as their leader, regardless of the implications.

Also listed (at the first link above) are names of the U.S. Senators who voted against the Barron confirmation. Are they the good guys in this political story? Hardly. Almost every one of the senators who voted against the Barron confirmation supported equally outrageous violations of civil liberties when they were conducted by the most recent President of their own party, George W. Bush. Just as the Senate Democrats voted in favor of David Barron only to demonstrate solidarity with Barack Obama, regardless of the merits of Barron’s record, the Senate Republicans only voted against David Barron to demonstrate their opposition to Barack Obama.

Earlier this month, Sanders wrote that President Obama “has drawn concern from senators who are disturbed by David Barron’s authorship of legal memos that justified the United States’ killing of an American citizen overseas with a drone.” Yet... Senator Sanders voted in favor of giving Barron a high judicial position in the federal government. Sanders abandoned his scruples in order to do a favor for President Obama and his Democratic allies.

Supporters of Sanders may brush off this vote as just one bad vote in an otherwise excellent record. They’re missing the point, however, that this vote shows that what we expect of Bernie Sanders and what he actually does when political power is at stake are two different things.

I had intended to support Senator Sanders if he decided to run in the 2016 presidential campaign. I hope this isn't the first sign that he is just another broken reed. I'll hold on for a while to see whether Senator Sanders has anything to say on the topic.

Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him. (Isiah 36:6 King James Bible)