{"id":2177,"date":"2009-11-25T17:27:35","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T17:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2009-11-25T17:27:35","modified_gmt":"2009-11-25T17:27:35","slug":"thank_you_phil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2177","title":{"rendered":"Thank You, Phil Carter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday&#8217;s news feeds brought news that Phil Carter &#8211; who I&#8217;ve known since we were both standing at the sidelines together at LA Press Club events &#8211; before he re-enlisted and went back to Iraq &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/11\/24\/AR2009112402503.html\" target=\"browser\">has resigned his position<\/a> as deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy.<\/p>\n<p>Phil and I did not always agree on first principles; but I have so much respect for him that when we&#8217;ve disagreed on policy I&#8217;ve always stepped back and revisited things from the ground up, and often wound up far closer to his positions than I&#8217;d began. Phil did not just talk about these issues, he involved himself in them. He re-upped and served as a MP training law enforcement, judges, and lawyers in Iraq when the war there was still quite hot. <\/p>\n<p>He commented once that he brought all his men home, and that nothing could make him prouder.<\/p>\n<p>An attorney, he involved himself as an amicus in detainee issues early on, and was an early supporter of Obama &#8211; and I&#8217;d be a liar if I didn&#8217;t tell you that his support for Obama gave Obama a huge leg up in getting my support.<\/p>\n<p>Detainee policy in this era is a minefield, and I don&#8217;t know if Phil caught a mine or if &#8211; genuinely &#8211; he just wanted a family life again. Knowing Phil, I&#8217;d tend to take his statement that it&#8217;s personal, not policy that&#8217;s sending him back to the private sector at face value.<\/p>\n<p>There are definitely things about Obama&#8217;s detainee policy that I disagree with, and that make me unhappy. But I am absolutely confident that no one could have navigated these treacherous waters better than Phil, and that we are all better off because he was there.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you, Phil, for everything.<br \/>\n&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phil Carter has left the building&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}