Quote of the Day II

Do no read if you suffer from high blood pressure-

"The meaning of evangelical leader Ted Haggard’s downfall needs to be well understood by religious conservatives, lest the tragedy be compounded. The pain that has befallen the man — now resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals — along with his family and church is the consequence of his poor decisions.

What would be worse than his personal destruction, however, is if the side of the culture war that Haggard ably fought against in his public life were allowed to define his sins as a final proof that religious conservatism itself is cruel, stupid, and morally corrupt. On the contrary, the Haggard story confirms some truths of the worldview he defended...

...The conservative case against redefining marriage is based on the observation of human vulnerability to temptation. Haggard confirms what we’ve said all along. It is pervasive moral weakness that makes such things necessary.

If everyone were in control of his appetites, there would be no need for the government to be involved in endorsing some sexual relationships while withholding endorsement from others. The more society undermines ancient standards of moral conduct, the harder it becomes to withstand temptation. This is why gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. When the awe in which people once held matrimony is diluted, by treating it as a man-made and thus amendable institution rather than a divinely determined one, heterosexuals find sexual sins of all sorts harder to resist.

So the experience of Ted Haggard strengthens the case for legally constituted social institutions like traditional marriage. Did the acceptability of gay love in today’s culture hasten Haggard’s fall? No doubt it did. It’s possible that the same man in a better time and place would have been beset by no such temptation.

But if even Haggard, this Christian fighter against homosexual culture, succumbed, doesn’t that prove that gay identity is natural, inborn, and therefore normal? Well, yes, in a way it does. But all temptations are natural, many are inborn, and to be called to fight against them in ourselves, according to a religious view, is the most normal thing in the world...

...In the Ted Haggard affair, then, we are confronted with questions not only of right and wrong but, more fundamentally, of moral responsibility versus biological determinism. Conservatives, not only religious ones, need to be very clear where we come down on this."

--David Klinghoffer, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, instructing conservatives not to take the 'wrong' lesson from Rev. Haggard's downfall.

Rather than seeing the revelations of Haggard's actions as a symbol of the larger hypocrisy of cultural conservative scolds (see also: Limbaugh and drugs, O'Reilly and sexual harassment, Bennett and gambling, Foley and child predators, etc) and realizing that maybe conservatives should not base their entire domestic agenda on trying to legislate their 'morality' until America goes back to being the Rockwell painting it never was... Klinghoffer sees all this as even more reason to keep up the fight and stop the gay demons from destroying God's country. After all, if even a true believer like Haggard could be tempted by the gay demons inside him, then the enemy is more powerful than they thought and efforts must be doubled to stop the gay!!!

Klinghoffer instructs gay Christians to repress their evil temptations, comparing it to the way a Jewish person who keeps kosher must avoid pepperoni pizza (the guys I have dated would be surprised to learn that they are merely the equivalent of a slice of pizza to the religious right). He also calls homosexuality the most 'extreme' of temptations, stating "another thing that makes a homosexual temptation difficult to resist is that, at least until the advent of AIDS, it produced no physical ravages". Thank God for AIDS, for now the sinners know the price of their weakness.

These people are delusional and they need help. They also need to be booted out of politics forever. Please realize that they currently are in control of a large chunk of our country's political discourse. This article, for instance, is published in the National Review, the top conservative magazine in the country. To me, this is the equivalent if The Nation ran editorials by 9/11 conspiracy theorists. But they don't. Because those people are crazy. As are these cultural conservatives... except these are the people who currently control the Republican party (note that the one Senator the National Review's cover spotlights as the top conservative in America is Rick "man on dog" Santorum).

People like Klinghoffer are the cultural version of the neoconservatives. The lesson the neocons learned from the Iraq debacle was not that the war was a mistake in both principle and execution-- a reputiation of their philosophy of preemptive war and American military dominance in every corner of the world. No, the lesson they chose to learn was that the President was a wimp who didn't fight the war as hard as he was supposed to (a frightening notion). They hope that they will get it right in the future (with President McCain?) with more wars.

It seems almost too easy and cheap to say that our national politics are controlled by people who are insane. But here we are. Our foreign policy has been controlled by people who view war as the norm and diplomacy as sign of weakness. Our domestic policy has been controlled by religious charlatans who preach hate and intolerance, even after their own hypocrisy is exposed. That so much of this is under-the-radar type stuff is how people have quietly accepted it as political reality. But it should not be. We have a duty to take our country back from these people.

Or I could just not pay attention, like everyone else seems to. But then people like Klinghoffer win. No thanks.

Specter: 'President Bush To Consider Pretend Oversight On Spying'!!! :D

Actual compromise... or more masturbatory nonsense from Arlen Specter?

All logic would indicate the latter.
(NOTE: Updates added at the bottom)

AP: Surveillance oversight plan gets a boost

The White House has conditionally agreed to a court review of its controversial eavesdropping program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday.

Specter said President Bush has agreed to sign legislation that would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's most high-profile monitoring operations...

This is what Arlen is celebrating- the President, 5 years after secretly authorizing an illegal and widespread wiretapping program that is known to have targeted innocent Americans with no actual success, agreed to (maybe) let Congress and the courts kind of do their job?

Pathetic.

Some revealing passages from the AP article...

First-

Specter said the court would make a one-time review of the program rather than performing ongoing oversight of it.

So basically the program will continue endlessly (warrantless wiretapping of thousands of Americans- and all that that entails)... and there will still be no actual oversight of the program at all. Just a one-time rubberstamp from the FISA court. What a fucking joke.

Furthermore, the bill isn't even binding-

An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the bill's language gives the president the option of submitting the program to the intelligence court, rather than making the review a requirement.

The official said that Bush will submit to the court review as long the bill is not changed, adding that the legislation preserves the right of future presidents to skip the court review.

Once again, that ol' GOP Congress is giving President Bush the option of obeying the law and the Constitution. No biggee, though. And future Presidents will also have the option to refuse oversight on this indefinite spying justified by our indefinite war.

Conservatives, think you'll be bothered by this when the next Democrat is elected?

And furthermore-

Specter told the committee that the bill, among other things, would:

...Expand the time for emergency warrants secured under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from three to seven days.

A pointless move. The time for warrants was never the issue, as they could be issued retroactively. The issue was that the President believes that he is above the law. This is a problem that is the root cause of numerous other issues- Guantanamo, torture, etc. Until that problem is resolved, this is all just a farce.

And an early reaction-

The Center for National Security Studies and other civil liberties advocates have consistently faulted Specter's proposals. "They would set up a system of sham judicial review," said the center's director Kate Martin.

Bingo.

Why do Republicans have such a low opinion of our democracy?

Finally, some humor-

Specter said the legislation, which has not yet been made public, was the result of "tortuous" negotiations with the White House since June.

Yes, I imagine Arlen waterboarded Gonzales for hours before he would agree.

A final question... does Sen. Specter still intend to grant amnesty for those who authorized illegal wiretaps?

Fourth Amendment, rest in peace. You will be missed.

[See also previous entry:
Spy Lies

UPDATE: An excellent analysis from Glenn Greenwald- here and here.

UPDATE #2: Josh Marshall looks at an interesting nugget in the Knight-Ridder report.

UPDATE #3: Marty Lederman sums up this constitutional travesty- "So what does Specter do in the wake of the momentous Hamdan decision, which put all the cards in Congress's hands? He introduces a bill, with Administration blessing, that gives the Administration everything it ever wanted, and much, much more. Indeed, come to think of it, the Specter bill is basically the sort of legislation one would expect if the Supreme Court had just held that Congress is powerless to enact legislation constraining the President's 'inherent' war powers -- something that not a single Justice in Hamdan so much as suggested." As I noted above, this really is pathetic. And because the media is labeling all of this as a 'compromise' (!), the public outrage will not be forthcoming.

UPDATE #4: Washington Post editorial- Wiretap Surrender]

When Are We Going To Have A Grownup Debate?

A few entries down, I posted the new Tom Tomorrow cartoon which asks if we can have an adult conservation about the war or illegal surveillance without conservatives resorting to childish accusations of Bush critics supporting terrorism.

The answer, apparently, is a big NO.

The President said today this-

Calling a censure resolution "needless partisanship," Bush challenged Democrats to go into the November midterm elections in opposition to eavesdropping on suspected terrorists. "They ought to stand up and say, `The tools we're using to protect the American people should not be used,'" Bush said.

Once again, we see the White House falsely frame the debate... while the media does not care to offer a correction. They blindly accept the President's assertion/lie that anyone has ever tried to stop the government from conducting legal surveillance of terrorist communications. No, to them, the debate is not about the law that the President broke. It's not an issue of executive power and of the fate of checks and balances during wartime. No, it's merely a fictional debate between the War President and weak Democrats who want to help Al Qaeda. This is, of course, a strawman argument, as is the President's speciality.

This nonsense needs to be challenged, publicly and as often as possible.

Democrats- TAKE THE CHALLENGE.

But not the fake one that the President has invented. You can blow off that debate in a minute by flatly stating, as Feingold has, that the President is a liar and that he had/has numerous tools for wiretapping terrorists, but chose to violate the law simply because it was easier to do so, not out of necessity.

The President's case is weak, which is why he and his followers are busy knocking down strawmen, calling people 'moonbats', and accusing critics of not wanting to capture terrorists. The fact that he is winning this debate is only because Democrats are letting him. In one sentence, above, I knocked this down. But I am nobody, so that's irrelevant. We need all Democrats (and some sensible Republicans) to show some courage and take on these liars and demand that this debate be based on the facts- not on third-grade level name calling and spin.

Questions that should be asked- Why did the President need to break the law, as opposed to simply wanting to? How did the incredibly accomodating provisions of FISA (which, among other things, provides options for retroactive warrants) hamper the President's ability to move quickly in ordering surveillance? Did the President and the Justice Department just think up the AUMF and/or Article II legal justification after the program was outed or is that what they believed all along? Why did the President make several statements in 2004 making it clear (falsely) that all wiretapping involved court orders? How does this program relate to recent reports of the Pentagon (etc) spying on peaceful political activists? How many secret, illegal spying programs are going on? Will Congress or the courts ever be briefed on them? Since no court orders or records are kept of this warrantless wiretapping, how can they offer assurances that innocent Americans aren't being spied on (factoring in FBI reports noting that this has happened)?

More- Considering terrorists are very well familiar with methods and practices of surveillance, how did the leak hurt national security? Does the President respect whistleblower laws? What impact does jailing reporters have on a democracy? Does the President believe there is any limit to his power? If so, where specifically would he draw the line?

I could go on for hours... but I won't.

And I won't hold my breath waiting for the National Review crowd to focus on those issues.

Glenn Greenwald (who luckily is being read more and more) looks at this false debate, including a new RNC ad accusing the Democrats of "reprimanding President Bush for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda". He also schools National Review neocon Ramesh Ponnuru for his false statements on the censure statement and rolls at his eyes at the childish 'moonbat' label. That post was in response to a KCRW radio discussion Greenwald had yesterday with Ponnuru, John Dean, and others on this issue. Is the media too afraid of offending these cons by pointing out these same things?

Finally, back on the issue of censure itself, Russ Feingold was on the Charlie Rose show. There is a partial transcript and a link to video- here. The Senator challenged his Democratic colleagues to stand up for themselves and said-

"How can we be afraid at this point, of standing up to a president who has clearly mismanaged this Iraq war, who clearly made one of the largest blunders in American foreign policy history? How can it be that this party wants to stand back and allow this kind of thing to happen?...

...The idea that Democrats don't think it's a winning thing to say that we will stand up for the rule of law and for checking abuse of power by the executive --- I just can't believe that Democrats don't think that isn't something, not only that we can win on, but it does, in fact, make the base of our party, which is so important, feel much better about the Democrats. The Republicans care deeply about making the base of their party feels energized. What about the people of our party who believe in the Democratic Party especially because they fight for the American values of standing up for our rights and civil liberties?"

A good question.

And, like the numerous ones I posed above, who knows when it will get answered...

More Fun With The National Review

There seems to be a game at the National Review where each post must out-crazy the last. And if you liked Kudlow's corporate apologist post, you'll love this one. In a post entitled 'Obama's Political Origins', Lisa Schiffren, former speechwriter for VP Quayle and Sen. Santorum, writes-

"Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics. (During the Clinton Administration we were all introduced to then U. of Pennsylvania Professor Lani Guinier — also a half black/half Jewish, red diaper baby.)...

...Time for some investigative journalism about the Obama family’s background, now that his chances of being president have increased so much."

You heard her, liberal media... get to work! Is Obama's mother a communist Jew? Are we close to electing a "red diaper baby" for President? Is Sen. Obama planning to, as she later wonders, "stir up discontent among American blacks, with an eye toward using them as the leading edge of the revolution"? The fate of our nation rests in the answers to these questions!

Regarding the relationship of Obama's parents, she asks of its origins-

"Love? Sure, why not? But what else was going on around them that made it feasible?"

Holy cow. This is a woman who was not definitely not hugged enough as a child.

Defending herself and her queries, she writes that-

"Political correctness was invented precisely to prevent the mainstream liberal media from persuing [these] questions"

Well thank Christ then, Lisa, that you have the courage to be paranoid enough to ask them.

The Wright Scandal For The Right

I mock the walking caricatures at the National Review all the time, and maybe that's unfair, so allow me to single out a post for praise because of its unabashed honesty.

The National Review gang, like Fox News and talk radio, have been foaming at the mouth about the Obama/Wright controversy-- and talking about little else-- and pretending that they actually care about this story (Sean Hannity was totally gonna vote for Obama until he saw those clips!). Responding to reader complaints about this obsession, John Derbyshire writes the most honest post written on this subject at that magazine-

"I don't get the sensitivity and slack-cutting towards Obama that Charles Murray's post typified. Obama's the enemy — a far-left Democrat. We should be attacking him at every weak point. That's politics.

A pro-Obama emailer whines to me that the Pastor Wright business is 'a Swift Boating of Obama.' Well, duh!"

Yes, after months of trying to throw attacks at Obama (flag pin! Muslim! his mean ol' wife!), the right-wing noise machine finally found something that sticks... and they're certainly not going to give it up just because their attacks are over the top and divisive. That's the whole point! Anyone expecting intellectual honesty or integrity from this 'debate' was always going to go home disappointed.

But just how damaging is this 'Swift-boating' to Obama in the long term? If polling data is to believed (is it?), not very. Gallup poll results show that the week the Wright story hit, Obama's lead over Clinton dropped to a point where she was leading him by 7 points. The newest results-- those coming after his speech on the matter last Tuesday-- show him now back ahead of Clinton by 3 points. How this affects his general election fight with McCain depends on a number of factors we can't know right now.

Part of the Obama resurgence in the polls is likely due to the pushback by his camp... not just the speech, but also the fight to put the shocking words of Rev. Wright in their proper context. Andrew Sullivan looks at the sermon (in full) from which the infamous clips/sound bites were culled. I'm not sure seeing them as part of a larger narrative will make anyone offended by them feel reassured, but at least doing so would be, yes, honest.

[PS- And if this silliness is really the worst thing they have on Obama, he must be a saint.]

New Hampshire Decides... Hillary/McCain Win

Proving that pollsters, the media, and even bloggers like myself don't know as much as we think we do about voter sentiments, New Hampshire voters went in the exact opposite of their Iowa counterparts... Hillary Clinton won a very tight race against Obama, and John McCain dominated the GOP side (TPM's final scorecard- here). The next day will be filled with endless-- and occasionally mindless-- media speculation as to how this came to be.

As it's late and I am tired, I'll just let others supply the commentary for me. First, Daily Kos-

"Politics has a way of constantly surprising. Time will decide. But one thing's for sure -- no matter how Obama does tonight, this thing ain't over. ... With quick knockouts by Gore and Kerry the last two primary battles, and a Bill Clinton reelection coronation the cycle before that, we've forgotten what a real primary contest looks like. You have to go back 16 long years to 1992 for one of those."

And Andrew Sullivan-

"There's one other possible explanation for the apparent Clinton revival in the last few days. Maybe Democrats decided that a sudden blowout for Obama wasn't good for their party ... But I suspect that Clinton's frankness, desperation, emotional volatility, temper and vulnerability these past three days pushed some to keep her campaign alive."

Will Bunch, making with the snark-

"A Clinton is on top, John McCain is a popular 'straight talker' again, and Rudy Giuliani is a punchline. It must be 1999 all over again -- put all your money into Pets.com."

And, from the conservative side, Rich Lowry at National Review-

"Whatever happened to hope sweeping the country? That was so 2 p.m.

And, from another National Review blogger, a warning-

"We will have Hillary Clinton to kick around anymore, and I'm glad."

And that's two states down. Out of, ummm, a lot. This will be a long year. Buckle up!

Liberal Fascism: From The Minimum Wage To Organic Baby Carrots

The National Review's editor-at-large, Jonah Goldberg, is in the midst of a promotional whirlwind for his satirical masterpiece, 'Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning' (which I discussed previously- here). The National Review even just added a specific Liberal Fascism blog for Mr. Goldberg. Eat your heart out, Madame Coulter!



Salon's Alex Koppleman did an in-depth interview with Goldberg earlier this month about the book. There's some many wonderful nuggets in here, I don't know where to begin. Let's start at the beginning-

What's the book about?

It's a revisionist history.

Well, at least he's honest. Continue, please!

For 60 years most historians have been putting fascism on the right, or conservative, side of the political spectrum. What are you able to see that they weren't?

...To sort of start the story, the reason why we see fascism as a thing of the right is because fascism was originally a form of right-wing socialism. Mussolini was born a socialist, he died a socialist, he never abandoned his love of socialism, he was one of the most important socialist intellectuals in Europe and was one of the most important socialist activists in Italy, and the only reason he got dubbed a fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I...

Or maybe it's because he founded the Fascist Party. But again, continue...

Related to your definition, at least as I read the book, was something that's been controversial about it. Especially because of one of the earlier iterations of the subtitle, ["Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation From Hegel to Whole Foods"] there's a perception that your argument comes down to things like both Nazis and liberals being proponents of organic food. Is that how it works? Because the Nazis liked dogs and I like dogs, I'm a Nazi?

No, no. I mean, I try to reject that kind of thing ... I don't believe that liberals are Nazis; I believe that if Nazism came to the United States it is entirely possible that liberals would be at the forefront of the battle to stop it. [BLUEDUCK'S NOTE: Notice how he is unsure if us liberals would oppose Nazism if it came to America... but no, he's not comparing us to them at all!] So would conservatives. I'm not trying to do any argument ad Hitlerum in this book.

But what I am trying to do, at least in the chapter that you're talking about, is show how -- [take] Robert Proctor, who wrote an award-winning, widely esteemed book called "The Nazi War on Cancer." He points out that this organic food movement, the whole-grain bread operation, the war on cancer, the war on smoking, that these things were as fascist as death camps and yellow stars. They were as central to the ideology of Nazism as the extermination of the Jews.

Just sit on that one for a moment. Seriously. He tries to backpedal from this as soon as he said it, saying "that is not the same thing", even though he just implied that it is. This is a truly awful man.

He then goes on some more on the evils of organic food, which he seems to believe some imaginary dictator is forcing on him (paging Dr. Freud, clearly this is a man whose mom forced vegetables on him at supper, and he has issues about it), stating "you have people saying that you can't smoke in your own home or that you can't eat certain foods". He does, however, concede that not all laws and edicts are evil. "The autobahn was fascistic -- that doesn't mean that we should ban highways," he says. Phew!

Want more? No? Well, here it comes anyway-

I mentioned seat-belt laws, which are really aimed at the individual who's supposed to be wearing the seat belt. And on the right, there's the Terri Schiavo debate.

Yeah. Well, but the Terri Schiavo debate is an interesting example. The Nazis were grotesque euthanizers. Long before they went to the Jews they started exterminating the mentally ill, the enfeebled, what they called "useless bread gobblers," people who couldn't contribute to the society. And there are all sorts of criticisms that I think are legitimate that you can aim at pro-lifers, but you can not argue that pro-lifers are somehow Nazi-like in their support of the pro-life cause, because it is exactly contrary to the way the Nazis operated to believe that every life is sacred.

Get that? The people-- those darn activist judges, 85%+ of Americans-- who supported Michael Schiavo's personal decision to remove his wife's feeding tube were grotesque Nazi euthanizers. But he's not calling people Nazis, why do you keep saying that?!??

More-

You write about militarism being central to fascism, and a militaristic strain remaining in today's liberalism -- the war on cancer, the war on drugs, the War on Poverty. [BLUEDUCK'S NOTE: Don't forget The War on Terror] Why include the war on drugs formulation with liberalism? It was Richard Nixon who declared it, then it withered under Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan really brought it back and was the drug warrior.

I think that's probably a fair criticism. But I should start at the beginning ... What appealed to the Progressives about militarism was what William James calls this moral equivalent of war ... They're not the ones who want to go to war all that much. But they're still deeply enamored with this concept of the moral equivalent of war, that we should unite around common purposes. Listen to the rhetoric of Barack Obama, it's all about unity, unity, unity, that we have to move beyond our particular differences and unite around common things, all of that kind of stuff. That remains at the heart of American liberalism, and that's what I'm getting at.

Barack Obama's calls for unity are equivalent to the drug war? Brilliant. He continues-

As for the war on drugs part, I think you make a perfectly fine point, except I would argue that Nixon was not a particularly conservative guy. Measured by today's standards and today's issues, Nixon would be in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Yes, but only because soulless goons like you dragged the GOP so far to the right since then.

Finally, he says to the book's critics-

And if you can't get past the cover and the title, then you're not a serious book reader and you're not really a serious person.

Yessir, if you're judging this book by its title, cover, and content, then you are not a serious person (unlike Jonah, who is very, very serious person). You may in fact be a Nazi. Not that he'd ever compare anyone to them. Duh.

Liberal Fascism (Continued...)

I had been planning to write about that book today anyway, and got a treat as Jonah Goldberg showed up as the guest on A Daily Show last night (video- here). The actual interview apparently went on for 18 minutes, though it had to edited down-- and noticeably so-- to 6 minutes for TV purposes.

I already hammered Goldberg enough, so just one more point about the way that movement conservatives think.

In the interview, when asked for an example of modern liberal fascism, Goldberg discusses Hillary Clinton's 1996 book, "It Takes a Village", in which she suggested the airing of public service messages offering advice on how to take care of ones children. This is, of course, the same man who lamented that foiled terror attacks prevent new draconian security policies and prayed for a Pinochet-like figure to come along and smash the Iraqis into submission... And other Bush-era insanity like that. That tells all you need to know about his worldview and how serious his concerns over "fascism" are.

I know his National Review colleagues are upset there's no way to see the full interview, but I seriously doubt that there's anything of redeeming value in the full 18 minutes.

[PS- He also says the New Republic magazine was "openly pro-Mussolini in the 1920s", but perhaps Mr. Goldberg should take a look at what his own National Review was supporting as late as the 1970s. Not pretty.]

Modern Conservatism in a Nutshell

I was reading the National Review the other day, as I do for amusement, and I came across this post by its editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez, 'Disturbed About Obama'. What disturbed her?-

"I thought Terri Schiavo was a jarring presence at the debate [Tuesday] night. When Senator Obama was asked what legislative regrets, he didn’t try to walk away from his radical ways any by citing his votes against born-alive infant protection or against banning the transport of children across state lines to circumvent parental notification/consent laws. Instead he said he would have voted to stop Congress from intervening to save the life of Terri Schiavo."

She then links to an article of hers on Sen. Obama and the "culture of death" (paging Ramesh Ponnuru!).

Let's talk about Schiavo and radicalism for a minute. First, here's what Obama said-

"Well, you know, when I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo. And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decisionmaking process of the families.

It wasn’t something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped. And I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better.

And so that’s an example I think of where inaction… can be as costly as action."

He is right... the majority of the American people-- 85%+-- stood opposed to what the fanatics in the Republican party were doing in the Schiavo case. You had the entire party coming together to interfere in a private family matter, in a crass attempt to score political points with the religious right. You had the Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, offering his diagnosis of her via an old VHS tape on the Senate floor. You had the House Majority Leader, Tom Delay, threatening judges and talking about how "God has brought to us... Terri Schiavo" to use. You had the President of the United States ending his vacation early and flying back to DC in the middle of the night to sign 'emergency legislation', a courtesy he would not extend later that year to the trapped citizens of New Orleans.

And yet the people who looked at all of this and saw a circus, a gross abuse of power... they are the radicals? According to the National Review, the answer is yes. Remember that NR's Jonah Goldberg just last month compared those opposed to the Schiavo intervention to "grotesque euthanizers" and "Nazis".

Poor Mr. Buckley is not even yet in his grave and he's already spinning!

The Right Priorities

If you need any more proof that the Republican Party is a) out of touch, and b) ran out of good/new ideas a long time ago, look no further than this National Review post by editor Rich Lowry-

"Speaking of energy prices, this would be an excellent time for Republicans to emphasize reducing the cost of living and of raising a family across the board: on energy, drilling and opposition to more energy taxes; on health care, a reduction of insurance regulation to make it easier to buy low-cost plans; on taxes, the Ponnuru tax reform with its massive child credit for families; on prices, free trade to keep the prices at Wal-Mart and elsewhere as low as possible, an end to ethanol subsidies, and opposition to inflationary Fed rate cuts. (Granted, curtailing illegal immigration doesn't fit with this theme, but there are other reasons to do it.)"

Except for an end to ethanol mandates, I can't think of a single thing on here that doesn't sound like a pander. And if that's the goal here (scoring political points), then yes they may have luck with such an approach. But if he actually means this to be taken seriously as substantive policy, it's quite embarrassing.

I don't know which is more offensive... the idea that all that pesky regulation (after years of endless deregulation) is all that is keeping insurance companies from treating their customers as human beings rather than obstacles to profit, or the idea that the primary function of our trade policies should be to keep the shit at Walmart as cheap as possible.

The saddest part is that I am picturing him writing stuff like this in his fancy office, leaning back in his chair, and thinking 'I am a genius'. I am convinced that getting a job at the National Review is not that difficult.

Don't Blame The Whistleblowers

On Saturday, I wrote about the firing of a CIA agent who leaked information about the secret torture prisons to the Washington Post. This firing, while within the right of the CIA, does appear to be part of a partisan campaign by the White House to stop a series of leaks that have been damaging to them politically (as opposed to the White's House politically-motivated leaks, which are supposedly 'good for America'). As usual, the White House's top priorities seem to be secrecy and their public image rather than a genuine concern for the letter of the law. CBS' Bob Schieffer weighed in on this issue on 'Face The Nation'-

At my age, nothing much surprises me, but my jaw dropped when I read the FBI has been trying to go through the files of dead columnist Jack Anderson to see if he had any classified documents.

Mind you, Anderson was 83 when he died and did virtually no work for 15 years because of Parkinson's, but the FBI has been pressing his family to get at those files. The family said no.

Dare I state the obvious: that with Osama Bin Laden still on the loose, maybe there are more important things for the FBI to do.

And it happened the same week the CIA fired an agent for hanging out with Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, who just won a Pulitzer Prize for revealing the CIA is operating a secret prison system. The Justice Department will decide whether to bring charges.

Almost every day now brings news of another leak investigation, but it's not the leakers, it's what they're leaking that scares me.

After all, why should a democracy be operating secret prisons anyway? If the government hadn't told us they exist, can we ever be sure who might wind up inside them?

Isn't finding out stuff like that what reporters are supposed to do?

Yes. Yes, it is.

Luckily, the Democrats haven't stayed silent on this issue, pointing out the partisan double-standard being employed here. Rep. Jane Harman (ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) said, "while leaks are wrong, I think it is totally wrong for our president in secret to selectively declassify certain information and empower people in his White House to leak it to favored reporters so that they can discredit political enemies". And Sen. Kerry stated that, "A CIA agent has an obligation to uphold the law, and clearly leaking is against the law. And nobody should leak... [However] you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the White House for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington, D.C." Bolded added by me for emphasis. This really is the issue here. The White House leaked to hurt a political enemy and support the false information that lead to war; others like this agent have leaked to expose potential wrongdoing by the government. As I noted in my entry on Saturday, the President's actions here (or inaction in the case of the leaks from the White House) are a little too reminiscent of the Nixon White House for my tastes.

The right-wingers meanwhile are beside themselves with glee over the firing, demanding prosecution and jail-time for this agent and other leakers (ie. those who exposed the warrantless wiretapping programs). The use of torture and secret prisons is of no concern to any of the ones I read today. In fact, many state the prisons don't even exist and it was all a lie (ignore that the White House has yet to deny the existence of the prisons). Yet, whether they want to accept the reality of these prisons or not, all rely on the same talking point that exposing information like this hurts the 'war effort'. I wonder if they believe that Congress attempted to 'hurt the war effort' when they passed a law last Fall (by a veto-proof majority margin) banning torture completely. Keep in mind these are the same people who believe the war is going well, Abu Ghraib was just fraternity pranks, and Sec. Rumsfeld is doing a remarkable job.

Also, Andrew McCarthy at National Review (where conservative conventional wisdom is born) states-

Mary McCarthy's position — the post from which she is likely to have learned the most sensitive information at the heart of the leak controversy — was inside the CIA's inspector general's office. This is the unit that investigates internal misconduct. This is the unit to which government employees are encouraged to report government abuse or illegality so it can be investigated, potentially reported to Congress, and prosecuted if appropriate.

That is, it is the legal alternative to leaking national secrets to the media.

Ahhh yes, the old 'if she believed there had been wrongdoing, she should have gone through the proper channels' line. How naive and ridiculous. Concerned government and military personnel regularly file concerns of abuse and their superiors promptly write up the report on the ol' invisible typewriter.

I am immediately reminded again of President Nixon and Mark Felt (Deep Throat). When Felt revealed himself last year, Nixon administration criminals like G. Gordon Liddy and Chuck Colson were furious and spoke out against the leaks that exposed to America the seedy underbelly of that administration. Colson said "Mark Felt could have stopped Watergate. He was in a position of that kind of influence." Liddy said "If he possessed evidence of wrongdoing, he was honor-bound to take that to a grand jury and secure an indictment, not to selectively leak it to a single news source." Of course, as I noted at the time, Felt likely had tried to go through the proper channels, but the White House (including people like Liddy and Colson) were engaging in a massive coverup that made that impossible. Going around them by leaking to the press was the only way to get any movement on the issue. Does Mr. McCarthy and his National Review friends believe that Felt was a traitor and deserves prosecution? He's still at large, you know... I'll call the FBI, should they move in?

And Mark Kleiman believes that the CIA agent here won't be prosecuted, because the White House doesn't want this issue spotlighted in the press or take the chance that a major legal battle would ensue that they would likely lose.

There is a big difference between leaking and blowing the whistle on a crime. This woman did the latter.

Ultimately, Bob Schieffer is right- the American people do deserve to know if their government is operating secret prisons. A democracy has no business engaging in the actions that we decry in our enemies. And the media has an obligation to help bring that information to light. The agent who exposed it may be out of a job now, but she deserves our gratitude for letting us know what is being done in our name.

[UPDATE: The agent has denied she was the source of the leaks. The saga continues.]

The Iran Bombshell

The long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has finally been released, after a number of delays from inside the Bush/Cheney bunker. After years of doomsday warnings from the Bush administration and other neocon cheerleaders, the findings of our intelligence community (cleaned up after the Iraq debacle) following detailed research must be quite frightening, no?

No. The NY Times has the details-

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.

Bolded added by me, because... well, duh. This is big, BIG news. The article continues-

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

“Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program,” [it] states.

It further notes that, even if Iran were to resume a nuclear weapons program, it'd still be several years before they could build a weapon, and it's "very unlikely" they could produce the necessary materials in that time.

Think Progress has more on the NIE assessment.

No reaction yet from the President, Vice President, or the usual warmongers, but one administration official is trying to spin this news to their advantage. Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, states that this proves they were right about Iran all along (?!), and adds that "It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that [nuclear proliferation] does not happen." Yes, your 2005-2007 rhetoric is definitely responsible for the halting of their program in 2003.

The article does partly credit "international pressure" and "sanctions" for the halt.

2003 was also the year when Iran offered the U.S. a diplomatic agreement (they'd renounce terror ties, allow transparency of nuclear work, etc... we'd renew diplomatic normalcy) which the Vice President had nixed. This new news might be a great opportunity to try and renew those talks.

After all, this is just two weeks after this also-encouraging news-

Iran seems to be honoring a commitment to stem the flow of deadly weapons into Iraq, contributing to a more than 50-percent drop in the number of roadside bombs that kill and maim American troops, a U.S. general said yesterday.

The comments by Maj. Gen. James Simmons marked rare U.S. praise for Iranian cooperation in efforts to stabilize Iraq.

Despite what so many have spent years telling us, war with Iran is not inevitable. Their threat has been exaggerated, using the same script as with Iraq. Now that reality is cemented in the form of this report, that scary rhetoric won't have the same impact. Not that the neocons won't still try, of course. Reality is a mere inconvenience for them.

But for now, another win for diplomacy, and another loss for war.

[UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias joked that neocon warmongers would decry this as a conspiracy to deny them their war. And proving that you can't out-satire our reality now, that's exactly the opinion of the National Review's Cliff May. As Time's Joe Klein notes, this report was gathered from multiple intelligence sources over a long period of time.]

Things That Happened This Weekend

Was a fairly slow weekend news-wise, but here's the most interesting stories...

Mayor Ray Nagin wins reelection in New Orleans. Conservatives expressed confusion at how someone with such a poor track record could win reelection, even after having having failed to provide leadership in a key crisis. I refer to them to the encyclopedia under "2004 President Election" for the answer. Right-wing bloggers in particular were upset, often making borderline racist jokes in the process, yet are now pretending to be angry at allegations that the national DNC may have worked against Nagin's reelection. Me? All I care about is whether anyone is aware that hurricane season is not far away.

Citing national security reasons (what else?), Attorney General Gonzales reiterated the administration's belief that they should prosecute journalists who publish leaked government information. He also denied that they "engage in domestic-to-domestic surveillance without a court order" in efforts to find journalists' sources, but one wonders if they consider the type of phone record spying that ABC News reported as 'surveillance'. Meanwhile, ABC's Brian Ross warns of the dangers of the administration's actions. Finally, Geoffrey Stone has a great post at the Huffington Post on the issues between freedom of the press and national security.

Sen. McCain gives the commencement speech at NYC's New School and is met with protests from the students. Said one student puzzled by the choice of speaker, "we're graduating, not voting". National Review's Rich Lowry was appalled that the New School students would treat a war hero so poorly. As the students should know, only Republicans running a presidential reelection campaign are allowed to malign war heroes.

Rep. William Jefferson (D- LA) is caught on tape accepting $100,000 in bribes. Adios, loser.

Fox News' Brit Hume states that "I think everything we’ve seen so far has shown that the Iraqis continue marching on politically down the road toward democracy in spite of the violence and... perhaps to some extent because of it." Well, good news then! Dozens of Iraqis were killed or wounded in a new wave of insurgent violence over the weekend.

Gen. Hayden- CIA nominee- doesn't just support domestic spying, he supports torture too.

Finally, the GOP's election year immigration stunts are turning off Hispanic voters.

Christianism In Our National Parks

I wish this was satire, but it isn't-

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is 'no comment.'"

To the religious right and their White House allies, it is politically incorrect to acknowledge basic scientific reality.

Is it 2009 yet?

Morning in America

A new lead article in the National Review-- 'The Grim Truth'-- seems a more depressed version of all those 'Okay, we're going to get our asses kicked in this election, but let's try to minimize the impact' articles from last year. It was written by Ramesh Ponnuru (whose name I can't read without remembering his ass-kicking by Jon Stewart last year) and Rich Lowry.

The article's subtitle-- 'Republicans face a calamitous political situation; but they can act to avoid it'-- gets to the crux of what the article hopes to convey to conservatives. However, for me, it contains a few revealing truths about the intellectual dishonesty of Republicans.

Noting how the surge has put the GOP back on offense on the Iraq issue, they write that "If more supporters of the war had been willing to admit that the war was going badly in 2005–6," this could've begun sooner. Yes, if only they hadn't spent the last 4+ years bullshitting the public about the war for pure partisan gain, maybe things wouldn't have gotten as quagmire-y over there. Put your trust in these folks, America!

In the next paragraph, after lamenting the fact that, in the near future, the Supreme Court could have more than 2 out of 9 Justices appointed by a Democrat, they also state that "[Democratic victory] would probably also mean a national health-insurance program that would irrevocably expand government involvement in the economy and American life, and itself make voters less likely to turn toward conservatism in the future." Boy, I wish!

That last line is revealing to me. It doesn't seem to argue (explicitly) that a national health-care system would be bad, though I'm sure they feel it would be. In fact, it notes that it is something that the public would likely be very satisfied with, and that would lead to... and here's the bad part... the public being more likely to have more positive attitudes toward liberal government. And that's really what it's all about, right? It's what the S-CHIP fight was about too. That was a successful program that showed thousands of families (as Medicaid has done for seniors, and low-income families) that dealing with the government for health care $$ rather than the insurance industry is much more reliable and efficient. It threatens the conservative argument that the government that works best is the government that works least, and therefore has to be destroyed.

Right on the merits or not, what mattered was that it is a threat to conservatism.

Finally, they sum up the GOP's problems as resulting from "A mishandled war, coupled with intellectual exhaustion on the domestic front," and add that "It is not just the politicians but conservative voters themselves who are out of touch with the public, stuck in the glory days of the 1980s and not thinking nearly enough about how to make their principles relevant to the concerns of today." I agree completely here. All the more maddening then that the party and base (including the usual writings of Ponnoru and Lowry themselves) have taken previously sane candidates and forced them to the party's extremes to even be considered contenders.

So that advice would be well-followed by conservatives, but it won't be. The 2006 defeat seems only to have made the GOP base nastier and more divisive. That, in turn, has sealed their fate with the general public next year. Maybe a 2008 thumpin' will finally wake the party up and force them into the 21st century. If we're lucky.

Even More Odds and Ends

Roundups of the millionth Democratic debate-- here, here, and here. Video- here.

From what I saw it seems that despite discussing such serious topics as national security v. human rights, Pakistan, immigration, Social Security, constitutional concerns, etc, it felt that everyone-- CNN hosts included-- was just interested in advancing their story lines. It's stuff like that which makes Onion articles like this so true.

(BTW, if National Review commentators say that Hillary's the "trustworthy one on national security", that means the one most likely to bomb stuff.)

What's up with all the corporate scandals lately? It's like the summer of Enron all over again. Are corporate chiefs just getting more incompetent and corrupt? Or is this years of bad economic policy coming due again?

Matt Drudge may say it's decision time on Iran, but I'll let the non-black-and-white news speak for itself: "Iran seems to be honoring a commitment to stem the flow of deadly weapons into Iraq, contributing to a more than 50 percent drop in the number of roadside bombs that kill and maim American troops, a U.S. general said Thursday, [which] marked rare U.S. praise for Iranian cooperation in efforts to stabilize Iraq."

Going full-circle, Jonathan Schwarz & Markos Moulitsas discuss silly Social Security debates.

Dick Cheney: A Law Unto Himself

Most legal scholars might take issue with this, but the Vice President insists that he has the power to declassify government secrets at will (depending on how it suits his political needs at the time). This assertion will likely be crucial to the countering the Plamegate prosecution, because if Cheney can insist that any information passed to reporters had been personally declassified beforehand, then it will become harder to prosecute on national security violations.

Yes, that's BushCo- Abusing national security matters for personal gain since 2001.

AP: Cheney Says He Can Declassify Secrets

Vice President Dick Cheney says he has the power to declassify government secrets, raising the possibility that he authorized his former chief of staff to pass along sensitive prewar data on Iraq to reporters...

Byron York has an excellent column at National Review exploring this matter. The Executive Order from which Cheney's claims to this odd authority originates is Executive Order 13292, issued by President Bush on March 25, 2003. While such power was previously only held by the President, this Order also grants it to the Vice President. The Order only specifically mentions the power to classify, but Cheney appears to be using a broader interpretation of it to grant the power to declassify as well. Pretty serious, and scary, stuff.

While York doesn't specifically address it, the timing of this Executive Order is the key to this story. The Order was signed by Bush right around the time the war began (and as their WMD case began to crumble almost immediately). Then, a few months later, after Wilson's criticism goes public with his NY Times article, administration officials leak the Plame identity to reporters. No doubt the White House wanted to give itself the tools necessary to deal with the fallout from that. As Andrew Sullivan notes, "the circumstantial evidence seems pretty clear to me that the president gave the vice-president constitutional authority to smear Joseph Wilson. It also seems to me that this is a big deal."

Well, no disagreement there.

The Washington Note's Steve Clemons also tackles this issue:
Can Cheney be His Own Declassification Machine?

The question for the media- Will this get the attention you gave the Whittington matter? I'm skeptical.

[PS- This headline says it all- Cheney Mishap Takes Focus Off CIA Leak]

What's the Deal with Pakistan?

A friend of mine IM'ed me trying to figure out what is actually happening in Pakistan behind the vague headlines of 'emergency rule'. I found this good, succinct summary from-- where else?-- Wikipedia-

On November 3, 2007 President Musharraf declared an emergency rule across Pakistan and purported to suspend the Constitution, imposing martial law. In Islamabad, troops apparently entered the Supreme Court and were surrounding the judges' homes and opposition leaders were put on house arrest. Troops have been deployed inside state-run TV and radio stations, while independent channels have gone off air. Land and mobile telephone lines are down in Islamabad. The court was to decide whether Musharraf was eligible to run for election last month while remaining army chief.

A new chief justice has been appointed, due to the refusal of the previous chief justice to endorse the emergency order, declaring it unconstitutional.

To quote Atrios, "No one could have predicted that an unelected dictator who took power in a military coup would behave just like that."

The latest updates this morning are that "Police fired tear gas and battered thousands of lawyers protesting .... as Western allies threatened to review [foreign] aid." Fun!

Politically-speaking, the reaction of the right is again revealing (as their reactions to crises in Afghanistan and Myanmar have been). "Is Musharraf a patriot? Tyrant?," Blogs For Bush's Mark Noonan asks in a non-committal manner. The National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez laments this turn of events, but also notes that, as odious as Musharraf may be, the thought of what would follow his fall is even more frightening. More proof that a) their supposed disdain for dictatorial thug leaders in that region is inconsistent and only activated when convenient, and b) the dirty liberals are right that these issues are never black-and-white.

Some in the State Department, meanwhile, are apparently glad to have a distraction from Iraq. Somehow I think the majority of our diplomats in that region aren't finding a silver lining in all this.

Live Earth: Recap

Well, Live Earth is over and global climate change has been stopped at last.

Sorry, sarcasm over now. I don't want to be like the usual suspects attacking Live Earth, and Mr. Gore specifically, for 'hypocrisy' when they themselves are in hysterical denial about the very issue the concert meant to highlight.

Matt Drudge is always reliable for this. Michelle Malkin, on a high after helping defeat the immigration bill, freaks out. National Review has an entire blog dedicated to Gore-bashing. The Reality-Based Community's Michael O'Hare has a very thoughtful smackdown of all this noise, stating "Don't like Live Earth? Fine, write a review; even better, organize your own concerts to trash the planet, or accelerate the apocalypse, or whatever. But if your key insight on Live Earth is the wattage of the amps, you are seriously missing the point."

And in the end, it was a really good show. Here are some highlights... First, Spinal Tap-



I also found good videos of performances from: Black Eyed Peas, Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Duran Duran, Crowded House, John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band, Smashing Pumpkins, Bon Jovi, Keith Urban and Alicia Keyes, Shakira, The Police (featuring Kanye West And John Mayer), and Foo Fighters.

[Related listening: Will Live Earth Be Good for the Planet? (KCRW's 'To The Point')]

Weekend Odds and Ends

I can't believe how lucky my new Governor is to be black and blind. Here's the news...

Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg says this recession will be worse than the 1970s. And the White House wants you to know... no comment. Press Secretary Dana Perino says "I’m under strict instructions, and have been from the beginning, to not talk about the dollar."

The EPA takes the super bold stance that smog is bad for the environment.

President Bush weighs in on high oil prices: "You know, I don’t know. You’re going to have to ask the experts that. I’m just a simple president." He then chewed on a tall piece of grass and dusted off his overalls.

House Democrats this week "pushed through a measure Tuesday to create an outside panel to review possible ethical lapses by its members." Members of this new panel "could not be current members, federal employees or lobbyists. Recommendations of censure or punishment, including expulsion, would still rest with the ethics committee." Strong opposition, not surprisingly, came from congressional Republicans who insist that "lawmakers should be able to police themselves."

Capitol Hill also got a rare treat as all three presidential candidates returned to participate in the debate over important earmarks legislation. For what it's worth, Sen. Obama has now released all his earmarks, the other candidates? Notsomuch.

While the Senate debates a bill to send money to fight AIDS and disease in Africa, Republicans insist on keeping an abstinence requirement in. And, right on time, new studies show that shaming people into not having sex doesn't actually work, and that maybe people should use some contraceptives.

Glenn Greenwald checks in with the truly fascinating discussions at the National Review.

Finally, news from elsewhere in the world. In Iraq, things continue to be bad. In Afghanistan, they're not much better. A little further east, Hamas sets it terms for a cease-fire with Israel. And in Africa, Sudanese and Chadian leaders "signed a peace agreement on Thursday meant to end cross-border rebel attacks."