Reply #3: Confusing the warning with the thing of which the warning speaks

[markpkessinger]

Excellent point, groovedaddy. But there's another dimension to this that, so far, I've not seen anyone really pick up on in the blogosphere. Simply based on the way media pundits talk about the issue, there seems to be another widespread misapprehension that the reading of the Miranda advisory to a suspect functions as some kind of trigger whereupon "Miranda rights" are conferred to a suspect. But this is a total fallacy. Miranda, as you point out, merely advises the suspect of his/her rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and serves as a mechanism to ensure that such rights are respected. The suspect is already in full and complete possession of those rights from the moment he is detained. And no amount of monkeying with the timing or exceptions to the reading of the Miranda warning changes that. In fact, nothing short of a Constitutional Amendment could change that.

What's even more ironic about all this, given that the discussion is taking place in the wake of the would-be Times Square bomber, is that the Times Square bomber very recently went through the naturalization process, and thus would have studied the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Thus, he would likely have been well aware of his rights under the Constitution; more aware, in fact, than many native-born Americans.

I was actually quite disappointed to see the Obama Administration engage in this particular bit of political posturing. Obama and Holder are certainly well aware that this is a non-issue in terms of substance, and were obviously trying to mollify critics on the right. You would think by now they would have figured out that the right has no interest in being mollified nor even of having their concerns addressed. Their sole raison d'etre at this point is to try to gain political advantage by inflicting political wounds.