Is Levin in favor of the contested issue because the White House asked for it, or is he really against and initially tried to take the relevant 'languag'e out until the WH intervened?
According to my scant knowledge, Levin is 100% behind that provision (to include American citizens), and has been from the start.
And what about the veto the White House threatened if that language would stay in? How does that wash with Levin's claim?
Which threatened veto? (reported by who?) Anyway, Levin's claim would presumably trump any report... unless Levin (or someone) misread something.
Although I think it's a bit of a distraction, going into some detail about my comments/questions above is relevant to the general level of confusion about the topic, so here goes:
My comments were based on the the C-SPAN2 video link in your original post, and on the two articles in the Huffington Post linked to by you and Artie.
First that video clip. Levin repeatedly mentions the fact that it was the White House that insisted on removing the original stipulation agreed upon by the Senate Defense Committee (including Levin) that the proposed measure would NOT be applicable to US citizens. Levin doesn't explicitly state his own position in this clip, but the emphasis on who wants what out at least suggests that that wasn't his first choice, but that he's going along with it, perhaps persuaded by WH arguments and a reference to existing law applicability.
Next we get the HP article
Senate Votes To Let Militar...ns Veto. On the face of it, this title suggests a Senate position in line with what the WH seems to want as gleaned from the C-SPAN2 clip. This first impression appears to be supported by the opening paragraph of the article. What isn't made explicit are the details involved: did the Senate vote on the
controversial provision to let the military detain terrorism suspects on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial, or on the stipulation to exclude US citizens, as explained by Levin? The omission of the latter suggests the vote was on the former. Introducing further confusion is a remark about 1/4 down:
Backers of military detention of Americans -- a measure crafted by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich., which appears to contradict what I concluded above.
Finally we get to HP article
Senate Kills Effort To Ban Indefinite Military Detentions Of U.S. Citizens, which addresses the US citizen exclusion stipulation (which Levin said the WH wanted out): the exclusion was removed (allowing US citizens to be subject to military action), but the compromise included language saying that '
current laws on the matter stand' (which would prohibit US citizens to be subject to military action).
A bit further down the WH veto reappears: '
The passage may head off a showdown with the White House, which had threatened to veto the entire bill on the grounds that the section on detentions tied the hands of counterterrorism officials in law enforcement and the military.' Presumably this refers to the compromise without the explicit US citizen exclusion, but that's not all too clear.
In summary, it seems fair to say that the reporting is anything but unequivocal. Unless one was privy to all pertinent discussions (and perhaps not even then) the proper take-home message was (and is) incredibly hard to find.