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Saturday, September 30, 2006
The Sanity in the Bush Administration
30 Sep 2006 07:26 pm
It's there, all right, which makes Bush's ultimate decisions all the more maddening. You can see it in the rational attempts of people like Gordon R. England, the acting deputy secretary of defense, and Philip D. Zelikow, the counselor of the State Department. You see it in Condi Rice who knows that the legacy of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib - both direct consequences of Bush's decision to abandon Geneva rules - have severely damaged America's reputation and made winning the war of ideas infinitely harder. But ee come back to the central issue: the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis of brutal incompetence. An attempt to deal rationally with detained terror suspects was proposed by some last year, but the unhinged Rumsfeld blew one of his famous gaskets:
When the paper first circulated in the upper reaches of the administration, two of those officials said, it so angered Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that his aides gathered up copies of the document and had at least some of them shredded.
"It was not in step with the secretary of defense or the president," said one Defense Department official who, like many others, would discuss the internal deliberations only on condition of anonymity. "It was clear that Rumsfeld was very unhappy."
Then there's this astonishing quote from a senior Pentagon official, obviously worried about Captain Queeg:
"The problem fell for some period of time into the too-hard category," one senior administration official said. "It fell so far into the too-hard category that it was lost from view."
I guess the Iraq war also fell into that "too-hard" category. There's more:
The element of the new legislation that raised the sharpest criticism among legal scholars and human rights advocates last week was the scaling back of the habeas corpus right of terrorism suspects to challenge their detention in the federal courts. But in dozens of high-level meetings on detention policy, officials said, that provision was scarcely even discussed.
Habeas Schmabeas. The more we know, the more we find out that this administration is deeply dysfunctional, its members at war with each other, and headed by a weak, brittle, overwhelmed president unable to rally them to a common cause. In normal times, this would be distressing. In today's world, it's alarming.
The View From Your Window
30 Sep 2006 05:37 pm
Princeton, New Jersey, 4.30 pm.
YouTube of the Day
30 Sep 2006 03:11 pm
Here's a depiction of a water-boarding by the SS, from the movie, Jacob the Liar. Remember that the Wall Street Journal editorial board has declared that what you are watching isn't even "close to torture." The SS were just deploying "alternative interrogation techniques."
A reader adds:
I wept on September 11th. I felt as though the country had died. Now I weep because I may have been right.
Bush Code?
30 Sep 2006 02:42 pm
Is this paranoia - or is there some truth to it?
The Closet
30 Sep 2006 02:30 pm
For almost my entire adult life, I've been openly gay. Why? It was too humiliating and psychologically destructive to lie. I don't think of this as a virtue, really. In some ways, I think it was my pride that forced me to be honest with myself and others; and a deep sense that obviously this was how God made me, and it behooved me to deal with it forthrightly. It was alo fueled by a conviction, as the 1980s darkened for so many gay men, that I had an actual responsibility to be out, and to advance the dignity of so many fighting literally for their lives. It was like being black in the 1950s. My own HIV diagnosis convinced me to fight harder, because I truly believed it might not be for much longer. And in those years and beyond, others chose to sit it out, to run for cover, even to distance themselves from who they were and from their fellows who so desperately needed their help.
Maybe we should feel anger at these people. I don't. I feel sadness. Sadness at the compromises they made and the misery they fueled for themselves. In so far as someone like Jim McGreevey has, for whatever reason, overcome his shame, then I have no interest in judging him. I feel glad he has found some happiness at last, despite his past corruption, human flaws and past opposition to marriage equality. We are all human, and my own life has its own share of emotional and sexual mistakes. Equally, the news about Mark Foley has a kind of grim inevitability to it. I don't know Foley, although, like any other gay man in D.C., I was told he was gay, closeted, afraid and therefore also screwed up. What the closet does to people - the hypocrisies it fosters, the pathologies it breeds - is brutal. There are many still-closeted gay men in D.C., many of them working for a Republican party that has sadly deeply hostile to gay dignity. How they live with themselves I do not fully understand. But I have learned you cannot judge someone's soul from outside. That I leave to them and their God, and some I count as good friends and good people.
What I do know is that the closet corrupts. The lies it requires and the compartmentalization it demands can lead people to places they never truly wanted to go, and for which they have to take ultimate responsibility. From what I've read, Foley is another example of this destructive and self-destructive pattern for which the only cure is courage and honesty. While gays were fighting for thir basic equality, Foley voted for the "Defense of Marriage Act". If his resignation means the end of the closet for him, and if there is no more to this than we now know, then it may even be for the good. Better to find integrity and lose a Congressional seat than never live with integrity at all.
Best. Abramoff. Email.
30 Sep 2006 02:14 pm
Kevin Drum has a beaut.
The Right and Deliberation
30 Sep 2006 12:59 pm
A reader says it better than I could:
You mention Glenn Reynolds' concern about applying the new torture law to citizens, but there's a bigger point to be made here. One of the many problems with this law is the way it was forced through Congress. Until Thursday, nobody even knew what the language said. They held no committee hearings. They just wrote it up, forced it through, and passed it before the Congressional session ended, because Bush wanted to ensure he could muck up the definition of a war crime before the Democrats took over Congress and made it difficult to pass a bill, and because Karl Rove thought this would be a great issue to run on in the 2006 elections.
The point is, conservatives and right-leaning libertarians like Reynolds who express concern over this or that provision in the bill (even if they are much more amenable to the major goals of the legislation) really have no standing to say a thing about it, because I saw no protests from any of those websites regarding the process by which this bill was being shepherded through the Congress, which anyone with any intelligence should have realized was going to result in a bill with a bunch of bad provisions in it.
All they would have had to say is "let's think about this a bit, hold some hearings, write a good bill". But the problem is, doing that would have kicked it past the election. Ergo, no issue for the Republicans to run on, and possibly no Republican Congress after the election to attempt to immunize Bush and his subordinates from war crimes liability.
These folks, by their silence, cared more about the political aspects of this than they did about the legislative process. And then they have the gall to say that they think that some of the provisions of the bill went too far.
On issues as grave as habeas corpus and torture, these people couldn't even call for a delay to make sure we knew what we were doing. That's how deferent they are to politics before principle.
The Anger Card
30 Sep 2006 09:03 am
A reader writes:
The right wing has quite a gig. Bush divides the nation after 9/11, bull-rushes into and botches a war in Mesopotamia, spends my grandchildren's taxes like a Bizarro-world LBJ, and tramples on civil liberties. Then, when the left (and center) get furious, they label them as "angry." Or "Bush-bashers." Rove then says something about Democrats wallowing in "swamp gas."
The best word for torture is "torture." The best word for a liar is "liar." When Bush's actions are infuriating, it is OK to be furious.
Please keep calling it as you see it.
Dread
30 Sep 2006 06:53 am
A reader writes:
I'm feeling enough dread these days to trot out the words of the 19th Century Slovak poet Jan Kollar, translated by Josef Skvorecky, from his essay in the famous Winter 1990 issue of Dedalus, the one dedicated to the rebirth of freedom in Central Europe...
Do not give the holy name of homeland
To the country where we live.
The true homeland we carry in our hearts,
And that cannot be oppressed or stolen from us.
Another Refugee
30 Sep 2006 02:09 am
A reader writes:
It would seem that all political discourse is now deteriorating into taking sides - not in the context of a particular issue, but in the Manichean sense of are you a supporter of the administration or you are against it. It is increasingly difficult to take a nuanced stance on any topic. For the record:
I do not support the war in Iraq but I fully supported the effort to topple the Taliban and rebuild Afghanistan. I oppose a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman but fully support states' rights to amend their own. I fully support the need for the West to stand up to Islamic religious extremism and forcefully espouse the virtues of the Western Enlightenment, but oppose the contorted lengths that the administration will go to justify torture, suspend Habeas Corpus for legal aliens and ignore the checks and balances of the founding fathers.
I do believe in moral values such as honesty, forgiveness, trust and tolerance but oppose the religious extremist's (of whatever faith) right to define morality for me. I do believe in the capitalist system of competition but oppose the corrupt cronyism that passes for an entrepreneurial culture in the current times. I do not believe in the phrase "if it feels good, do it" but oppose the government deciding what is moral.
I do believe in the fourth estate, but I am frustrated that the press wants to present every side of a debate as if it carries equal weight. I do believe that Western countries should have a strong military but do not believe that diplomacy is a weak option. I do believe that the UN has become a bloated body incapable of making hard decisions but do not believe that the UN is an evil conspiracy out to destroy the USA. I do believe that society, via Government has a duty to help ameliorate poverty but do not believe in massive entitlement programs.
What label should I self apply? I no longer know.
Me neither. We're in the same party, it seems. Pity it doesn't exist.
News Alert
30 Sep 2006 01:37 am
Michelle Malkin does not have a sense of humor.
Friday, September 29, 2006
The View From Your Window
29 Sep 2006 10:26 pm
San Diego, 6.30 pm.
Reynolds Shrugs
29 Sep 2006 09:16 pm
A reader writes:
I haven't regularly read Reynolds since well before the '04 election but it is incredible to see in the post you linked to today that he is still as lame and depressingly predictable a thinker as ever.
There's the passive indifference to the details of a specific issue ("I haven't read the actual bill"), a creepy deference to the will of the public no matter how wrong the "public" may be ("this is pretty consistent with polls I've seen on public attitudes") and, of course, hollow pleas for civility (bloggers behind Porkbusters "treat people ... with some minimal courtesy, an approach that Andrew might consider emulating in his next crusade.")
It's been obvious to anyone remotely sentient that Glenn became a parody of himself long ago but it's less than clear why, exactly, anyone still reads him.
For comfort, mainly. And you can see why.
"I'm Done"
29 Sep 2006 07:50 pm
A reader writes:
As much as I've enjoyed your blog (stopping by several times a day over the last 5 or so years) I'm taking a lengthy break from reading you. I'm fatigued by your inability to accept that honest disagreement is possible. In the last year it seems that those who reach a different conclusion on difficult issues are liars, torturers, "Christianists," (although in the case of John McCain and NR I believe you decided they weren't Christians). This is all beneath you or, at least, too overbearing for me such that I find myself uncomfortable standing with you even on issues where we share general agreement. I'll be back, I suppose, but not any time soon.
On the question of torture, I'm afraid I do believe that the president is a demonstrable liar and that, on such a profound question, there can be no compromise. I have never questioned John McCain's faith and never would. What I do question is whether a defense of torture is compatible with even the most minimal level of Christian faith. I doubt the Senator disagrees and has fought a tough battle. On the deployment of religion as a partisan political matter, I feel just as strongly. But I have no window into others' souls; and we all have to live with our own consciences on this. My criticisms are on the basis of principles - limited government, secular politics, free speech, individual freedom, and competent, accountable war-making. The cynicism of the current Republican leadership and its acolytes on all these fronts is something I find repellent. Hence my passion. If it's too much, you're welcome to read someone else. But I have to write what I believe - or not write at all.
The Death Rate In Iraq
29 Sep 2006 07:38 pm
We've allowed it to return to Saddam's levels of brutality, according to this analysis from a pro-war person like myself:
"Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power."
Of course, the violence included peaks and valleys. But the toll in the last two months is about 117 civilians a day. So we're back where we started. But now, the violence and torture is not directed by one tyrant, but by anyone, anywhere, in the anarchy Rumsfeld deliberately unleashed and deliberately ignored.
Conservatives For Torture
29 Sep 2006 07:14 pm
David Horowitz's online magazine publishes the following:
Waterboardingis fleeting in duration with the actual discomfort lasting seldom more than a couple of minutes. And since a man can be safely deprived of oxygen for at least twice as long, there is almost no risk of long-term harm. The possibility of injury is further reduced by the fact that the procedure calls for no direct physical contact between the subject and his interrogators. Not even as much as pushing or chest slapping is required at any time, making waterboarding one of the safest and least confrontational among interrogation methods. Involving the lowest risk of long-term harm and the least amount of cumulative discomfort, it is also the most humane.
The Khmer Rouge as humane interrogators. This is the abyss in which conservatism now finds itself. One reason I became a conservative was because as a teenager in the 1970s, conservatives seemed the only people to grasp the true evil of the Sovet Union. At the core of its evil was its deployment of torture to break free people's souls and to obliterate their liberty by the brute force of the state. Now conservatives are the ones justifying torture - by the United States. They have become what they once fought. Unchecked power does that to you.
The View From Your Window
29 Sep 2006 07:07 pm
Atlanta, Georgia, 2.30 pm.
Breaking News
29 Sep 2006 06:26 pm
The Onion has the scoop:
Led by a bipartisan group of senators critical of White House policy on suspected terrorists, the Senate passed a bill Thursday that prohibits interrogators from exceeding 100 amps per testicle when questioning detainees. "Even in times of war, it is counterproductive and wrong to employ certain inhumane interrogation techniques, and using three-digit amperage levels on the testicles of captives constitutes torture," said Sen. John Warner (R-VA), who has also supported reducing the size of attack dogs and the height of nude pyramids.
Laugh? Cry?
Andy and Laura
29 Sep 2006 05:55 pm
Bush's closest confidants both tried to get Bush to dump Rumsfeld, and both failed, according to Woodward:
Card made his first attempt after Bush was reelected in November, 2004, arguing that the administration needed a fresh start and recommending that Bush replace Rumsfeld with former secretary of state James A. Baker III. Woodward writes that Bush considered the move, but was persuaded by Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, that it would be seen as an expression of doubt about the course of the war and would expose Bush himself to criticism.
Card tried again around Thanksgiving, 2005, this time with the support of First Lady Laura Bush, who according to Woodward, felt that Rumsfeld's overbearing manner was damaging to her husband. Bush refused for a second time, and Card left the administration last March, convinced that Iraq would be compared to Vietnam and that history would record that no senior administration officials had raised their voices in opposition to the conduct of the war.
When even Andy Card knows they're headed for disaster, you know it's true.
Tell It, Sister
29 Sep 2006 05:18 pm
"On every issue, there are big differences but the biggest difference is the disregard for our constitutional democracy, the disdain for checks and balances, the denial of accountability that marks this president and vice president, and that's really our entire system being put at risk. Maybe we can dig ourselves out of the hole on fiscal responsibility, energy and health care before it's too late, but we cannot afford to have our Constitution shredded and our country's commitment to freedom basically thrown out after centuries of setting the standard by which others are judged.
There are a lot of people, not just Democrats, who know we have to change direction in our country. I have so many Republicans coming to my events [who] say things like 'I didn't sign up for all this,' and the 'this' would be a long list depending upon their particular concerns. They're coming, because frankly, they're patriots, and they don't want this administration to continue leading us down into a blind hole like they are, undermining our future, failing to invest to make us safer and stronger and richer and smarter, more competitive, fairer for the future," - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
This administration wants a fight; and we need to give it to them. They have bungled the war, trashed the constitution, wrecked the fiscal future, deeply damaged America's reputation, and profoundly corrupted conservatism as a coherent political philosophy. I don't care what we have to do to get rid of them, but we must by every peaceful, lawful means imaginable. They have gone too far. Vote them out.
Et Tu, Bob?
29 Sep 2006 04:01 pm
Woodward concurs with the bulk of the reporting: this president's war-management has been criminally negligent:
Robert D. Blackwill, then the top Iraq adviser on the National Security Council, is said to have issued his warning about the need for more troops in a lengthy memorandum sent to Ms. Rice. The book says Mr. Blackwill’s memorandum concluded that more ground troops, perhaps as many as 40,000, were desperately needed.
It says that Mr. Blackwill and L. Paul Bremer III, then the top American official in Iraq, later briefed Ms. Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, about the pressing need for more troops during a secure teleconference from Iraq. It says the White House did nothing in response.
This president knew what was required to win in Iraq and he refused to provide the resources or adjust his strategy. He is responsible for one of the biggest strategic disasters in recent history. And when confronted with the incalculable cost of his incompetence and hubris, he tries to change the subject and plays politics with torture. If the American people don't punish this record in the mid-terms, then we are truly lost.
An Empirical Question
29 Sep 2006 03:03 pm
A free press is now becoming obsolete in Iraq. Each day, countless torture victims and beheaded corpses are discovered on the streets. 7,000 civilians have died in the past two months alone, according to the U.N. There is a simple empirical question here. Are more innocent people being murdered and tortured in Iraq now than under Saddam? I don't want to get into all the policy and moral questions this raises. I'mjust interested in an empirical answer. I fear it's not a good one.
Quote for the Day
29 Sep 2006 02:25 pm
"According to an email published by Jonah Goldberg, the bill doesn't just apply to aliens. That conflicts with the report above, and with my understanding, and with a piece I heard on NPR this morning. But if it's true, it's a major problem with the bill, one that increases the likelihood ofits being found unconstitutional, and one that would make me much more unhappy with the bill," - an allegedly "libertarian" law-professor, on the ball with respect to Congressional threats to individual liberty.
No worries, Glenn. The law's passage is inevitable now, so the Bushies won't be mad at you. Vigilance is the eternal price of ... whatever. Back to Porkbusters!
Testosterone and Brain Cells
29 Sep 2006 02:10 pm
A case-study at YouTube. And I'm not embedding this one because he might find out and beat the crap out of me.
The View From the Base
29 Sep 2006 02:09 pm
A reader explains:
States' rights and balanced budgets are fine things, no doubt, but in the context of our time, they are secondary issues. One's conservatism must be defined by one's posture to the one overarching cause of our time, the war against Islamic Fascism.
You have made increasingly insincere noises regarding your support for this war. You act wounded if anyone suggests that attacking the commander in chief in time of war is anything other than a patriotic act of dissent that should be lauded. There were those who thought and behaved exactly as you did during the Civil War: they were called Copperheads. There were many, of the McLelland camp, who believed Lincoln was waging war with criminal incompetence and that a change needed to be made. Thank God McLelland's people didn't get the 'change' they were seeking!
Just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbour these same practioners of this so-called noble patriotic dissent were known as Isolationists, and they were vocal about FDR's barely suppressed desire to enter the war on the Allied side. Except that few - if any - prominent Isolationists continued a relentless attack on FDR's comptence after the loss of the Philippines and the battle of the Kasserine pass.
How can somebody as superficially bright as you miss the fact that, for all his shortcomings, Bush is our current leader in this fight, and if he may not be the most inspiring leader at times, attacking him as you do effectively removes you from the list of 'conservatives'.
And please stop wasting your time on the 'torture' issue! It's not resonating at ALL among the people. They see what happens when an American soldier is caught by these animals, and are not impressed by people like you and McCain who want to Mirandize them and appoint them an ACLU lawyer.
The "Emergency Exception"
29 Sep 2006 12:37 pm
A reader writes:
It may interest you to know that the New York Daily News has already used the slogan "You have no civil liberties if you're dead" in an editorial endorsing the Bush bill.
And that takes me back to a point I've mentioned before: Bush's supporters will inevitably use the fact that virtually all of us can think of some emergency exceptions to an absolute "no torture" rule. ("Ace of Spades" has been yelling for some time about the need to enable it to expose plots that "endanger thousands of lives", and specifically cites the London airliner bombing plot in that regard.) This argument has real teeth in it, and the only way to counter it is to point out that - in any case where torture really was necessary to stop such a plot - there is no way in hell that the torturer would ever actually go to jail for it; the jury would certainly not convict him, even if the prosecutor indicted him. (To say nothing of the President's power to pardon.) It would fall into the category of "justifiable assault". So it's time we all started bringing that little fact up - and pointing out that therefore the only reason to actually legalize torture is if you want to make its use utterly routine, for cases in which there's a serious chance that a jury would regard its use as indefensible.
The fallback argument that the Bushites may then use is: "We can't allow a public jury trial because it would give away too many intelligence secrets." In that case, what we obviously need is an equivalent of the FISA Court - with its members being approved by a large super-majority of either the US Senate or the US Supreme Court, thank you very much - to approve torture in those rare cases when its use may be justifiable, rather than letting one man (the President, the Defense Secretary, whoever) decide that entirely on his personal whim.
If the Democrats make that argument and the voters still back the Bush policy, then the country really is doomed.
The View From Your Window
29 Sep 2006 10:09 am
Cherry Grove, New York, 9.15 am.
What We're Curious About
29 Sep 2006 09:44 am
Here's a list of the top 100 pages in Wikipedia this month. Humans appear to be a very horny species. Oh, and Steve Irwin. Then there's a sequence like this in the top 30s and 40s:
36. Buggery Act 1533
37. Tupac Shakur
38. Masturbation
39. New York City
40. Penis
41. Canada
42. World War I
43. Vagina
44. Germany
Canada?
Thursday, September 28, 2006
This Is An Actual Waterboard
28 Sep 2006 09:59 pm
David Corn has posted some pictures that help illuminate one of the techniques directly authorized by this president for use against military detainees. Check them out. Here's one:
You can see how the CIA's official description makes sense now. Here it is:
"The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt."
Where do the photographs come from? David explains that they
are photographs taken by Jonah Blank last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khmer Rouge atrocities.
This is America under this president. Look at it.
Hillary's Break-Through Speech
28 Sep 2006 09:20 pm
Someone finally says no to torture.
After Habeas Corpus
28 Sep 2006 09:16 pm
The Onion was ahead of us all again, of course.
Last Throes Watch
28 Sep 2006 07:52 pm
The violence in Iraq continues to surpass even its own previous psychopathic levels. Key fact of the day:
[T]he past week saw the highest number of suicide bomb attacks of any week since the American-led invasion in 2003, according to the chief United States military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV. "This has been a tough week," General Caldwell said. "This week’s suicide attacks were at their highest level in any given week." But such attacks, he said, are still not the No. 1 killer of Baghdad civilians. "Murders and executions are," he said.
I'm waiting for Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds to dismiss this as media bias. But this is a U.S. general telling the truth. And this is where we are: the signature act of the Jihadists, suicide bombing, is at an all-time high. But this isn't the biggest problem. Iraq is now a failed state. It failed because we decided to let it fail - because the pride and arrogance of Cheney and Rumsfeld were more important than the most vital mission of our time. Their incompetence has made us all much, much less safe. And their authoritarianism has made us much, much less free.
The Goldwater Girl
28 Sep 2006 06:46 pm
"The light of our ideals shone dimly in those early dark days [of the Revolutionary War], years from an end to the conflict, years before our improbable triumph and the birth of our democracy. General Washington wasn't that far from where the Continental Congress had met and signed the Declaration of Independence. But it's easy to imagine how far that must have seemed. General Washington announced a decision unique in human history, sending the following order for handling prisoners:
"Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren."
Therefore, George Washington, our commander-in-chief before he was our President, laid down the indelible marker of our nation's values even as we were struggling as a nation – and his courageous act reminds us that America was born out of faith in certain basic principles. In fact, it is these principles that made and still make our country exceptional and allow us to serve as an example. We are not bound together as a nation by bloodlines. We are not bound by ancient history; our nation is a new nation. Above all, we are bound by our values.
George Washington understood that how you treat enemy combatants could reverberate around the world. We must convict and punish the guilty in a way that reinforces their guilt before the world and does not undermine our constitutional values.
Now these values – George Washington’s values, the values of our founding – are at stake. We are debating far-reaching legislation that would fundamentally alter our nation's conduct in the world and the rights of Americans here at home. And we are debating it too hastily in a debate too steeped in electoral politics.
The Senate, under the authority of the Republican Majority and with the blessing and encouragement of the Bush-Cheney Administration, is doing a great disservice to our history, our principles, our citizens, and our soldiers. The deliberative process is being broken under the pressure of partisanship and the policy that results is a travesty," - Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton, in a great speech.
Readers know my long-standing suspicion of all things Hillary. But her speech today is a speech that rings with the sound of an opposition finally - finally - finding its voice. It is a speech a future president might make. Maybe it just was.
(I got a copy from a source. I cannot find a link yet online. If you find one, please let me know. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty.)
Yglesias Award Nominee
28 Sep 2006 06:13 pm
"As a political writer, [Frank] Rich is a marginal crackpot — just this side of a flat-out shelled nut. And yes — he's done gigantic harm to liberal interests over the course of the past dozen years. And yet, sensitive liberals cry and complain when someone dares to notice the problem. Why would a Democrat dislike Rich's work? Frankly, because he has read it," Bob Somerby, criticizing Frank Rich from the left. I wouldn't be so harsh, but it's ballsy, that's for sure.
Habeas Corpus R.I.P.
28 Sep 2006 05:03 pm
Yes, in some respects, it is. Money quote:
"What this bill would do is take our civilization back 900 years," to before the adoption of the writ of habeas corpus in medieval England, Senator Specter said.
Mr. Leahy said the bill as written would allow the executive branch to hold any lawful immigrant in the United States indefinitely without charge. "We are about to put the darkest blot on the conscience of the nation," he said, charging that the push for quick passage was purely for political gain. "There is no new national security crisis," he said. "There’s only a Republican political crisis."
This is what conservatism has now become. Because of McCain's capitulation and the Democrats' cowardice, this bill will now pass. The use of torture as a campaign weapon will be brutal, and deployed first and foremost by this president:
Underscoring the political stakes involved, White House spokesman Tony Snow said today that President Bush will emphasize Democratic opposition to the bill in campaign appearances.
"He'll be citing some of the comments that members of the Democratic leadership have made in recent days about what they think is necessary for winning the war on terror," Mr. Snow told reporters en route to a fundraiser in Alabama, according to a transcript provided by the White House.
The only response is for the public to send a message this fall. In congressional races, your decision should always take into account the quality of the individual candidates. But this November, the stakes are higher. If this Republican party maintains control of all branches of government, the danger to individual liberty is extremely grave. Put aside all your concerns about the Democratic leadership. What matters now is that this juggernaut against individual liberty and constitutional rights be stopped. The court has failed to stop it; the legislature has failed to stop it; only the voters can stop it now. If they don't, they will at least have been warned.
Quote for the Day II
28 Sep 2006 04:06 pm
"Congress isn't driving the bus over a cliff - that's what the administration asked for, but thanks to the bold rebellion of Senators McCain, Warner and Graham, [Congress] refused. Instead they simply removed the guard rail, fired the traffic cops, gave the keys to a drunk driver, and closed their eyes," - Obsidian Wings' blog, on the torture and detention-without-charge bill.
Marty Lederman dissects the rightly blistering NYT editorial today here. They used my formulation:
"Americans of the future won't remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration. They'll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation's version of the Alien and Sedition Acts."
Neither party comes out of this looking anything but cowardly, unprincipled and morally bankrupt.
Yglesias Award Nominee
28 Sep 2006 03:31 pm
"There were a helluva lot of us who got dragged along for the [Iraq War] ride, played like chumps we now know with hindsight. Realist types like me mostly did based on fears of Saddam's supposed chemical and biological WMD capability (relying on Tenet's 'slam dunk' for the casus belli), thinking 9/11 might have inspired Saddam, and per 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,' that he might decide to cozy up with transnational terror groups like al-Qaeda to deliver a severe second-round blow to the U.S.
Like many New Yorkers and others who were impacted or witnessed the attacks, I suspect, I suppose I also felt much anger, fused with an ill-advised sense of absolutist, moral righteousness that was its own form of self-indulgent vanity too, one that helped spur on copious helpings of jingo-fever in the air - with too few of us asking the hard questions about the hows and why and whos of how the post-war nation-building effort would be pursued (I speak here of Iraq, not the fully warranted conflict in Afghanistan). Such public confessionals aren't particularly pleasant, of course, but they have the merit of being honest reflections of what I now believe, for whatever they're worth," - Greg Djerejian.
I see a lot of my own vanity in those months as well. And I feel the same way about it as Greg does.
The Pope Gets It
28 Sep 2006 02:30 pm
For the second time, the Vatican has thrown its weight behind the argument that extreme religious fundamentalism can pose a threat to civilization. This strikes me as a big deal:
"It falls to all interested parties - to civil society as well as to states - to promote religious freedom and a sane, social tolerance that will disarm extremists even before they can begin to corrupt others with their hatred of life and liberty ... Human pride hampers the acknowledgment of one's neighbor and the recognition of his or her needs and even more makes people distrusting. Today, that same negative fundamental attitude has given rise to a new barbarism that threatens world peace."
That's the Vatican's spokesman at the U.N. I have said many negative things about this Pope. But I've have also tried to recognize the positive things he has done, when appropriate. His first Encyclical on agape was sublime; he has at least addressed the terrible crimes of Father Maciel; his intellectual engagement with the irrational in Islam was courageous, and his defense of God-as-reason important in a world where God-as-unreason is increasingly dominant. This latest indirect address shows that this Pope sees the terrible danger religious extremism poses to our modern world. He is still sadly mistaken in my view in several areas, and far too restrictive of Catholic dialogue and reform. The hideously anti-gay Instruction - and its implicit bigotry - remains a deep stain. Religious extremism, moreoever, is not restricted to Islam, although that is where our current crisis is coming from. Its spread within Christianity is deeply worrying. But credit where due: this Pope is getting some big things right; and using his powerful voice to speak the truth. I'm not afraid to change my mind. On this Pope, it's changing.
(Photo: Andrew Medicini/AP).
Extra-Special K
28 Sep 2006 01:46 pm
The club-drug, ketamine, is essentially an animal anaesthetic. Because it gives people pleasure and in large doses can be dangerous, it's illegal for recreational use. But, as we know, the fact that a substance provides pleasure has no correlation with its other potential therapeutic properties. Pharmaceuticals are all pharmaceuticals. So it's encouraging but not surprising that ketamine turns out to have a new and surprising power against clinical depression. More research, please.
The View From Your Window
28 Sep 2006 01:29 pm
Yerevan, Armenia, 8.30 am.
The Torture "Compromise"
28 Sep 2006 12:38 pm
Hard to improve on Stephen Colbert.
Quote for the Day
28 Sep 2006 12:34 pm
"The new anxiety is the global struggle against terrorism without mercy or limit. This is a struggle that will last a generation and more. But this I believe passionately: we will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy, that somehow we are the ones responsible. This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it. It's not the consequence of foreign policy. It's an attack on our way of life. It's global. It has an ideology. It killed nearly 3,000 people including over 60 British on the streets of New York before war in Afghanistan or Iraq was even thought of. It has been decades growing. Its victims are in Egypt, Algeria, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Turkey. Over 30 nations in the world. It preys on every conflict. It exploits every grievance. And its victims are mainly Muslim.
This is not our war against Islam. This is a war fought by extremists who pervert the true faith of Islam. And all of us, Western and Arab, Christian or Muslim, who put the value of tolerance, respect and peaceful co-existence above those of sectarian hatred, should join together to defeat them," - British prime minister, Tony Blair, yesterday. I agree with every word.
The Future?
28 Sep 2006 11:30 am
Could this one day be a GOP campaign poster? Here are other graphic thought-experiments about what a truly Christianist nation could feel like.
Testosterone and Brain Cells
28 Sep 2006 12:57 am
I feel deeply let down that no hostile blogger has jumped on this story to accuse me of dementia. Mickey? You okay? Goldstein? C'mon. Standards are slipping.
The Tide Turning?
28 Sep 2006 12:38 am
How refreshing to see German politicians stand up to Islamist political corrrectness. Good for Merkel.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
If the Shoe Fits
27 Sep 2006 10:36 pm
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent," - Isaac Asimov.
(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty.)
Our Decision
27 Sep 2006 09:43 pm
A reader writes:
Hammer. Nail. Head.
The question for the American people is this:
Send 500,000 troops and raise taxes to pay for the war, or retreat.
What is unfortunate is that the Democrats seem incapable of putting the issue to the American people in this manner while the Republicans are content in avoiding it altogether in hopes of staving off defeat in November. The current state of political polarization and what passes as our political discourse means we will never, ever be asked to meaningfully discuss the pros and cons of either option by our political leaders.
My personal opinion is that we should get out, but if presented with a viable way to stave off collapse and catastrophe through the sending of more troops and the expenditure of more money, I would consider supporting it. What is clear, however, is that current policy only portends more and greater disaster if we continue on the path we are on now. The status quo is only a recipe for failure. That we are still on it is entirely due to our dysfunctional, paralyzing domestic politics.
Christianism Watch III
27 Sep 2006 08:29 pm
"The civil rights movement, [Rev. Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Texas] said, was grounded in moral authority, truth and righteousness, the impetus to freedom, constitutional authority, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In contrast, he said, the gay rights movement was inspired 'from the pit of hell itself,' and has a 'satanic anointment.' The gay rights movement was birthed and inspired by the anti-Christ. He suggested that the anti-Christ is himself gay, citing a verse from the book of Daniel saying the anti-Christ will have no desire for a woman.
'I don't think there is any issue more important than how we are going to define the family,' McKissick said . Television shows portraying homosexuality in a positive light have put us 'on the road to Sodom and Gomorrah,' and 'God's got another match ... He didn't run out of matches," - another report from the Values Voters summit last weekend. Welcome to today's Republican Party: where using black homophobia to win white and black voters is a central electoral strategy.
The New America
27 Sep 2006 07:52 pm
What happened to Maher Arar, a completely innocent man, could happen to you one day. The bill now being rushed through the Congress makes it more likely. Just don't say you haven't been warned.
"Walking Back" on "Tyranny"?
27 Sep 2006 07:12 pm
Late last night, before nodding off, I wondered, as I often do, whether I'd hyperbolized the threat from the looming detention-torture bill. "Legalizing tyranny" is a very strong phrase and I don't want to cry wolf. In the sense that this president intends to seize random Americans and rush them into black sites and torture them at will, it's hyperbole. But in a deeper sense, I think it's completely accurate. The system we're talking about is to do with wartime. A president in the past has had the option of seizing enemy combatants on a battlefield and detaining them without charge as POWs. There's no threat to liberty there. What's new is that in this war, enemy combatants have been designated as such not just on the battlefield - but anywhere in the world. What's new is that they are no longer entitled to POW status. What's new is that this war is for ever. So any changes are not just for a time-limited emergency but threaten to alter basic balances in constitutional order. What's also new is that torture is now allowed on the down-low, on the president's authority. And what's also new is that an enemy combatant may or may not be an American citizen.
Put all that together and you really do have the danger of taking emergency measures for wartime and transforming a peace-time constitution into an essentially martial system, where every citizen or non-citizen can be apprehended at will and detained without charge. I repeat: this is a huge deal. It really should be a huge deal for conservatives who care about restraining government power. Its vulnerability to abuse is enormous; sanctioned torture, history tells us, never remains hermetically sealed. It always spreads. It eats away at decency and law and civility. If the president sincerely believes that torture is our most potent weapon in this war, and that habeas corpus is a quaint relic from the past, then we are in far greater peril than even the most dire pessimists believe.
The View From Your Window
27 Sep 2006 07:02 pm
Clapham Common, London, 2 pm.
Kinsley on Newspapers
27 Sep 2006 07:01 pm
Good sense, as usual. Brutal on the L.A. Times. Money quote:
[T]here is room between the New York Times and myleftarmpit.com for new forms that liberate journalism from its encrusted conceits while preserving its standards, like accuracy.
I'm not sure what that new form will look like. But it might resemble the better British papers today (such as the one I work for, the Guardian). The Brits have never bought into the American separation of reporting and opinion. They assume that an intelligent person, paid to learn about some subject, will naturally develop views about it. And they consider it more truthful to express those views than to suppress them in the name of objectivity.
Torture and Responsibility
27 Sep 2006 06:28 pm
A reader writes:
Real patriots will break the law for the greater good and proudly face the music for their actions. Sometimes we have to do things that are wrong, but making the wrong lawful cheapens the choice.
The president and his crowd come from the top of corporate America where one can run a company into the ground and still get paid tens of million. Bush has no concept about self-sacrifice for the greater good. The army and CIA have always done things against the law but did it in the shadows. If they were caught, then they accepted their punishment. Oliver North made a choice. He broke the law and paid the price (sort of). This administration wants to take away that price. It is cheapening acts of patriotism. When an interrogator looks into a suspect's eyes, he should see a jury of his peers looking back and then he needs to make his choice.
When Americans think of torture they think of Dirty Harry standing over a serial killer whose next victim is running out of air at a remote location. Americans think of Harry as a hero for doing everything he can to save the victim. But what most people fail to realize is the thing that makes Harry the hero is not the act of torture. It is the choice to torture given he will face consequences for his action. If the consequences are removed then Harry becomes a meter maid.
Once the torture bill passes it won't take long before many, many more terror suspects will be tortured. A time will inevitably come when a detainee is found to contain some information that could have stopped a loss of life or property. At that time interrogators will have to account for not getting the information. Torture will become a cover-your-ass technique.
This is a sad time for morality and accountability.
This is the Bush era.
Christianism Watch II
27 Sep 2006 05:56 pm
"This matter of gay — I want the gays mad at me. I’m not on enough of their hit lists ... But I want to tell you something is, they don't know, we're driven by God to deal with this stuff, and I want to say to you that, in this regard, I'm not playing with you. That when it comes to the matter of this gay stuff, I know that a family is not a man and a man or a woman and a woman. It's a man and a woman. That's the creative order, and I'm not backing down. I'm standing flat-footed on that right there. [Applause]
Everywhere I get to speak, I am guarded by the grace of God, being strong on it. Now they're fussing on it, they're saying a few things, but they don't have me, you know, in their, you know, on their web sites. They're not coming at me strong, and I would say this. Back in the days when I was a kid, and we see guys that don't stand strong on principle, we call them 'faggots.' A punk is — and our people, I'm from the ghetto, so sometimes it does come out a little bit. I got another one I'm gonna say in a minute — [laughter] — that don't stand up for what's right, we say, 'You're sissified out!' 'You're a sissy!' That means you don't stand up for principles. And I just believe that God hasn't called us to be sissies on a principle level. We're called to be, to stand up and be men. I'm not talking about as in gender. I'm talking about man of God, men in the marketplace, and when a U.S. senator or congressman says that he wants me to vote for them, and he's not biblically based — if he doesn't have God as his Lord, how can somebody that doesn't feel the need for God lead me?" - Bishop Wellington Boone, speaking last weekend at the Republican Values Voters summit.
Among those attending the summit: Tony Snow, Attorney General Gonzales, Senator George Allen, Governor Mike Huckabee, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.
Quote for the Day
27 Sep 2006 05:23 pm
"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another," - Jonathan Swift. (Anyone know the precise source?) [Update: Of course, you do. It's from "The Battle of the Books And Other Short Pieces" at the beginning of Chapter XVI: "THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS".]
YouTube of the Day
27 Sep 2006 05:07 pm
The Scissor Sisters give pop music an adrenaline injection. Jake Shears flames out. And I can look at Babydaddy's beard all day.
Data from Denver
27 Sep 2006 04:49 pm
An open seat, formerly Republican, previously considered close. A new poll shows a massive Democratic lead. The Dem has a 40 percent lead among self-described "moderates". A fluke? Or a harbinger of an awakening?
Polling Iraqis
27 Sep 2006 04:35 pm
A new survey suggests they want us out within a year:
A new WPO poll of the Iraqi public finds that seven in ten Iraqis want US-led forces to commit to withdraw within a year. An overwhelming majority believes that the US military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing and there is growing confidence in the Iraqi army. If the US made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government. Support for attacks on US-led forces has grown to a majority position—now six in ten. Support appears to be related to a widespread perception, held by all ethnic groups, that the US government plans to have permanent military bases in Iraq.
I can't verify the acuracy of this poll, but felt it was relevant to the debate prompted by the NIE. More data here.
Another Witness
27 Sep 2006 04:12 pm
I believe her:
Mrs. Hawkins, who described herself as a rural Virginia housewife and an active Democrat, said in an interview Tuesday that she heard Mr. Allen use the slur repeatedly at a party on election night in 1976. She said Mr. Allen used the term while deprecating the intelligence of the black players on the Washington Redskins football team, which Mr. Allen’s father coached. Recalling remarks about its star running back, Larry Brown, Mrs. Hawkins said that Mr. Allen 'started in effect bad-mouthing him, saying what a shiftless you-know-what' he was.
She said she remembered the conversation because she was a big fan of the team and was shocked. She said Mr. Allen's statement on Monday was 'just plain a lie.'
Can you imagine what he says about gays behind our backs?
The NIE
27 Sep 2006 02:59 pm
It's an excruciating read. Here's my summary: we've made real progress against the organized professional leadership of al Qaeda. Everywhere else, we've lost ground. One reason we've lost ground - both strategically, ideologically and politically - is because of the bungled war in Iraq, which has produced the worst of all worlds: an ineffective occupation that doesn't bring democracy, has turned the image of the U.S. into Abu Ghraib, and has inspired many more decentralized and dangerous Jihadists across the globe. As a supporter of the war in Iraq, it's clear that over three years later, it has spawned more terrorism, and is now causing more innocent deaths on a daily basis than Saddam's vile regime. Whether this was inevitable or a function of the way it was conducted will be debated for decades. But this much we know: it was conducted dreadfully anyway, on the cheap, and without even minimal strategic intelligence and care. At this point in time, there's no way to spin this except as a fiasco that has obviously made us less safe right now and in the immediate future. The only arguments the Bush administration has left is that in 2050, historians may regard it as a turning point, and that leaving now would be even worse. The first argument is pathetic; the second argument is true but only underscores their unforgivable recklessness.
The NIE further concludes that our continued ineffective presence in Iraq is spawning more terrorism, and that our departure would also be a huge morale boost to the Jihadists and foment even more hell. Great. (What the war has done to increase Iran's power and potential danger is not addressed in the sections I've read. But it surely adds to the negatives.) What's clear to me is that we therefore have a gamble ahead of us: do we withdraw from Iraq in some way - either completely or to Kurdish areas - or do we seriously try and get the occupation right? At this point, I'd say the argument is very finely balanced. Obviously, the first step must be to get rid of the people so far responsible for the Iraq disaster. Until Rumsfeld is dismissed, we have no hope for any improvement. General Casey needs to be fired as well, along with several other military leaders who have presided over this mess. For the first time in this administration, we need some accountability. Then we have a decision to make. Do we have the troops necessary to make this work? Or do we not? If we need a draft, do we have the guts to say so and debate it?
My own view is that we should either drastically up the ante in Iraq - by adding tens of thousands of new troops in a serious, concerted attempt to provide order for the first time; or we should withdraw. Anything in between continues the same worst-of-all-worlds nightmare. We knew occupying a Muslim country would be a very high-risk venture. Which is why it had to be done with overwhelming force, meticulous planning, and an equally painstaking political strategy for the aftermath. We know now that Rumsfeld and Cheney just wanted to bomb the crap out of the place to prove they had more testosterone than the Democrats and to scare a few leaders in the Middle East. But the time for their amateurism is over. Either get serious or leave, guys. And make up your mind soon.
(Photo: U.S. troops in Baghdad this month, by Yuri Kozyrev for Time.)
Power Line and Jeffrey Hart
27 Sep 2006 02:24 pm
I have a simple question: were all of Power Line's trio of Dartmouth alums students of Jeffrey Hart in college? Was he their mentor in conservatism at the time? Their blog has mentioned him several times in the past glowingly, and Scott Johnson has identified himself as a disciple of the professor "emeritus and extraordinaire." They speak warmly of him here and recommend an essay of his. Here they imply that they were former students. Scott Johnson here recalls how "everything I think I know about literature I learned as a grateful student of Professor Hart." There's a poignant reminiscence here, and an endorsement of a new book by Jeffrey Hart. Scott Johnson wrote the following about his former mentor here:
Professor Hart disabused me of my addled adolescent liberalism and smugness over the four years I was his student as an undergraduate. I remain his grateful student ... Professor Hart joined the editorial board of National Review in 1969. In the course of his long association with the magazine he met up with virtually all of the magazine's great characters. In the current issue of the New Criterion, Professor Hart brings his gifts for portraiture to bear on an autobiographical reflection on the founding father of National Review and the modern conservative movement: "Buckley at the beginning." This brilliant essay is difficult to excerpt. Please read the whole thing.
Of another essay by Professor Hart, Johnson wrote: "There won't be a better essay published this year."
And yet, strangely, the most brilliant essay of this year by Jeffrey Hart is ignored by the trio of his former students. Here it is. It's a brutal excoriation of the toxic brew of authoritarianism and Christianism that Hart's former students now try to pass off as "conservatism." Money quote:
If [Bushism] amounts to a worldview, it’s certainly not that of Burke. Indeed, Bush would probably be more at home a