Attacking Congress for what it fails to do is a timeless Washington tradition. But some attacks are misplaced, and that includes charges leveled recently by the Brookings Institution, which faulted Congress for failing to write a detailed code specifying the procedures courts must use as they decide who at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, may be lawfully detained.
Perhaps in response to that attack, on March 4, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) introduced a bill in the Senate that would codify the government’s power to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely without charge or trial. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is reportedly trying to negotiate White House support for something similar.
