Some people involved in McCain’s campaign for President in 2000 spoke to the NY Times on condition of anonymity. They recounted their concern at the time that the senator’s “appearance of a close bond” with lobbyist Vicki Iseman was potentially politically destructive. They outlined the steps they took to distance the candidate from the lobbyist.
According to senator McCain, this one story constitutes a “hit and run smear campaign” by the New York Times. If only he'd been given an opportunity to address this outrageous claim, instead of being shamelessly blind-sided. Oh wait, he was:
“The senator declined repeated interview requests, beginning in December. He also would not comment about the assertions that he had been confronted about Ms. Iseman…”
Well, it’s still simply appalling, Bill Bennett bleated on CNN, that the Times didn’t present any “counter evidence” to the claim (not contained in the article) that McCain always favored interests fronted by Iseman. Except they did:
“[Mark Salter] and Mr. Davis also said Mr. McCain had frequently denied requests from Ms. Iseman and the companies she represented. In 2006, Mr. McCain sought to break up cable subscription packages, which some of her clients opposed. And his proposals for satellite distribution of local television programs fell short of her clients’ hopes.”
Even if the story wasn't deplorable drive-by journalism, everyone in broadcast media zeroed in on the real issue. It's not whether (more) poor judgment by a man who would be president is relevant, it’s about the press and their responsibility to never use unnamed sources, ever, no matter how well their representations can be cross-checked and verified. It is the duty of the press to expose any and all of their sources, and not simply the verifiable facts those sources present, to public scrutiny. After all, its not like these “unnamed individuals” are running for public office and are thereby entitled to a private life!
And the use of unnamed sources is only troubling when it occurs in print. On CNN et.al., the phrases “a source close to the investigation,” “someone familiar with the campaign,” “an official in the pentagon” are in daily use, year in and year out. No blush of shame is ever evident on the face of the reporter who utters one.
Perhaps because CNN has proclaimed itself "the most trusted name in news," no more than the frequent repetition of this catch-phrase is needed to assure us that their unnamed sources are solid and reliable.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Shadow Justice
Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, Legal Advisor to the Convening Authority in the Department of Defense Office of Military Commissions (to give his full title once), briefed the press on the process to be used to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 5 others by military commission.
Gen. Hartmann took great pains to emphasize how the military commission system closely mirrors civilian and military courts, and that it was thus set up precisely "to ensure that every defendant receives a fair trial, consistent with American standards of justice.”
He enumerated what seemed to be the familiar rights of defendants in criminal proceedings and said that all are afforded to those tried by military commission:
“In the military commission process, every defendant has the following rights. The right to remain silent and to have no adverse inference drawn from it. The right to be represented by detailed military counsel, as well as civilian counsel of his own selection, at no expense to the government. The right to examine all evidence used against him by the prosecution. The right to obtain evidence and to call witnesses on his own behalf, including expert witnesses. The right to cross-examine every witness called by the prosecution. The right to be present during the presentation of evidence. The right to have military commission panel of at least five military members determine his guilt by a two-thirds majority or, in the case of a capital offense, a unanimous decisions of a military commission composed of at least 12 members. The right to an appeal to the Court of Military Commission Review, then through the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to the United States Supreme Court.”
“ We are going to give them rights. We are going to give them rights that are virtually identical to the rights we provide to our military members, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who fight in the battlefield and I think we'll all agree are national treasures.”
If military commissions so closely mirror civilian and military judicial proceedings, why not use these proceedings, as was done with the original Twin Towers bombers? Why invent a new system if it essentially duplicates existing ones? When asked this the General was a bit evasive:
“Fundamentally it's because the president of the United States and the Congress of the United States created the Military Commission Act [hereafter ‘MCA’] and determined that that was the appropriate place to proceed with these people.”
In truth, military commissions aren’t so much the mirror of civilian and military courts as their shadow. While utilizing familiar language borrowed from civilian and military justice, the MCA very deliberately walls-off military commissions from civilian and military court proceedings. From initial incarceration to final appeal the military commission process runs in isolation from the rest of American jurisprudence. The detainee in custody is proscribed from seeking a ruling in any American court on the legality of his detention. He is barred from trial in any venue other than a military commission. He is barred from appealing a conviction based on any claim other than that the rules laid down in the MCA for military commissions were not followed.
Unlike defendants’ rights in regular military and civilian courts, the rights of defendants tried by military commission, while meant to echo and evoke familiar constitutional rights, do not find their source in the constitution. Detainees owe such rights as they have to something far more capricious:
“Pretrial, trial, and post-trial procedures, including elements and modes of proof, for cases triable by military commission under this chapter may be prescribed by the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Attorney General. Such procedures shall, so far as the Secretary considers practicable or consistent with military or intelligence activities, apply the principles of law and the rules of evidence in trial by general courts-martial.” (949a (a))
America may be (or have been), as the General reminded us, “a nation of laws and not men” but the world described by the MCA is very much a world of one man. The Secretary of Defense, not the law, not the constitution, has the final say in all matters arising from the conduct of military commissions. That is to say, the nature and extent of every “right” accorded a defendant is the sole discretion of the Secretary. Whether it is proper to describe what may be withdrawn or modified by the Secretary of Defense "as the Secretary considers practicable" a “right” at all is a legitimate question.
But let’s consider the putative rights of detainees in military commissions as listed by General Hartmann:
(1) “The right to remain silent and to have no adverse inference drawn from it.”
In civilian justice, the right to remain silent is a right against self-incrimination. This right, the MCA makes clear, defendants in military commission hearings do not have. 948b(B) of the MCA says those tried by military commission do not have the rights enumerated in the UCMJ, 831, Art. 31: “Compulsory Self-Incrimination Prohibited.” Noteworthy in particular is the inapplicability of article (d): “No statement obtained from any person in violation of this article, or through the use of coercion, unlawful influence, or unlawful inducement may be received in evidence against him in a trial by court-martial.”
While taking pains to ensure that coerced statements will not be excluded, the MCA prohibits the use of statements obtained by "torture." We know by now that the idiosyncratic definition of “torture” employed means that practices historically considered torture by the US (e.g., waterboarding), and still considered torture by the rest of the world, fail to qualify.
(2) “The right to examine all evidence used against him by the prosecution.”
General Hartmann was most insistent about this right:
“Every piece of evidence, every stitch of evidence, every whiff of evidence that goes to the finder of fact, to the jury, to the military tribunal will be reviewed by the accused, subject to confrontation, subject to cross- examination, subject to challenge…”
This is, plain and simple, complete fiction. The MCA makes it perfectly clear that in NO instance are defendants allowed to examine “every stitch…every whiff ” of the classified evidence against them. Under the provisions of section 949j (b) of the MCA the judge may delete classified information from documents given to the defense; or substitute either a non-classified summary of the classified information or a non-classified list of the “relevant facts that the classified information would tend to prove.”
Imagine being a defendant presented with the later. “Classified evidence tends to prove the following facts: (a) That you materially aided terrorists by supplying them with money; (b) That this money was used to purchase explosives; (c) That these same explosives were used in an attack that killed a civilian.” (Which makes this a capital crime). The names, dates and other specifics are withheld because the classified source of the information and vital operational methods might otherwise be identifiable.
Now it’s your turn to “confront,” and “challenge” this evidence against you. Since vital specifics are withheld, specifics which you might well be in a position to challenge, all that remains possible is a general, and so meaningless, denial.
The classified information from which these damning conclusions are drawn may be false. You may, in fact, be in possession of evidence which shows that it is false. But because you will never know the classified information, only some form of non-classified substitute, you can never put the two together in a meaningful “confrontation” of the evidence against you. In this scenario you may be executed based on evidence you could have proven was false, had you truly been able to "confront" it.
The General said he was told classified evidence will play little or no part in these first trials. This may well be so. Why highlight this travesty of justice in the trials that will receive the most public attention?
(3) “The right to obtain evidence and to call witnesses on his own behalf, including expert witnesses.”
The same restrictions which limit access to classified evidence limit access to its sources. So none of these may be on the defense witness list, no matter how vital they may be to a meaningful defense.
The MCA says the defendant will be given “reasonable opportunity to obtain witnesses.” Who determines what is reasonable? The same person who finally determines everything else: the Secretary of Defense. Will the opportunity be ‘reasonable’ by civilian standards? Who knows?
The witnesses the defendant calls can only be compelled to appear (as by subpoena) if in “a place where the United States shall have jurisdiction.” Those exculpatory witnesses elsewhere may decide for themselves whether or not they will put themselves in the hands of Americans and connect themselves with a “high profile terrorist” and his trial.
(4) "The right to cross-examine every witness called by the prosecution."
This sounds good, as it is meant to, but in a military commission proceeding, not all the witnesses against a defendant will be called. This is because hearsay evidence “not otherwise admissible under the rules of evidence applicable in trial by general courts-martial” is allowed in military commission proceedings [949a (E)]. It will only be excluded if the defendant can show that it is false. The ability to cross examine only the witnesses actually called, not those whose hearsay evidence is introduced, makes this right hollow:
Smith: “A classified source told me someone told him that the defendant often spoke of his hatred for freedom and his desire to commit the act with which he is charged.”
Cross examination (???) “Er, my client says he never did those things….?”
Smith: “My source says he did.”
The admissibility of hearsay also bears on right (2) “The right to examine all evidence used against him by the prosecution.” The defendant may be able to know what Smith will testify to, but how can that be described as a meaningful ‘examination' of the hearsay evidence Smith presents?
(5) “The right to an appeal to the Court of Military Commission Review, then through the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to the United States Supreme Court”
General Hartmann: “In this process, they all go through the Court of Military Commission Review first, and then to the D.C. Court of Appeals.”
Q: “So there is an eventual possible appeal to the civilian courts.”
General Hartmann: “Yes, absolutely, absolutely.”
Absolutely not. The Court of Military Commission Review may review only whether or not the procedures set out in the MCA were followed:
‘‘In a case reviewed by the Court of Military Commission Review under this section, the Court may act only with respect to matters of law.”
Subsequent civilian court review is limited to one and only one court: the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. No other civilian court has jurisdiction. The scope of such review is, again, confined to whether or not MCA procedures were followed:
‘‘The jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals on an appeal under subsection (a) shall be limited to the consideration of— (1) whether the final decision was consistent with the standards and procedures specified in this chapter; and (2) to the extent applicable, the Constitution and the laws of the United States.” (950g(c))
Gen. Hartmann took great pains to emphasize how the military commission system closely mirrors civilian and military courts, and that it was thus set up precisely "to ensure that every defendant receives a fair trial, consistent with American standards of justice.”
He enumerated what seemed to be the familiar rights of defendants in criminal proceedings and said that all are afforded to those tried by military commission:
“In the military commission process, every defendant has the following rights. The right to remain silent and to have no adverse inference drawn from it. The right to be represented by detailed military counsel, as well as civilian counsel of his own selection, at no expense to the government. The right to examine all evidence used against him by the prosecution. The right to obtain evidence and to call witnesses on his own behalf, including expert witnesses. The right to cross-examine every witness called by the prosecution. The right to be present during the presentation of evidence. The right to have military commission panel of at least five military members determine his guilt by a two-thirds majority or, in the case of a capital offense, a unanimous decisions of a military commission composed of at least 12 members. The right to an appeal to the Court of Military Commission Review, then through the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to the United States Supreme Court.”
“ We are going to give them rights. We are going to give them rights that are virtually identical to the rights we provide to our military members, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who fight in the battlefield and I think we'll all agree are national treasures.”
If military commissions so closely mirror civilian and military judicial proceedings, why not use these proceedings, as was done with the original Twin Towers bombers? Why invent a new system if it essentially duplicates existing ones? When asked this the General was a bit evasive:
“Fundamentally it's because the president of the United States and the Congress of the United States created the Military Commission Act [hereafter ‘MCA’] and determined that that was the appropriate place to proceed with these people.”
In truth, military commissions aren’t so much the mirror of civilian and military courts as their shadow. While utilizing familiar language borrowed from civilian and military justice, the MCA very deliberately walls-off military commissions from civilian and military court proceedings. From initial incarceration to final appeal the military commission process runs in isolation from the rest of American jurisprudence. The detainee in custody is proscribed from seeking a ruling in any American court on the legality of his detention. He is barred from trial in any venue other than a military commission. He is barred from appealing a conviction based on any claim other than that the rules laid down in the MCA for military commissions were not followed.
Unlike defendants’ rights in regular military and civilian courts, the rights of defendants tried by military commission, while meant to echo and evoke familiar constitutional rights, do not find their source in the constitution. Detainees owe such rights as they have to something far more capricious:
“Pretrial, trial, and post-trial procedures, including elements and modes of proof, for cases triable by military commission under this chapter may be prescribed by the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Attorney General. Such procedures shall, so far as the Secretary considers practicable or consistent with military or intelligence activities, apply the principles of law and the rules of evidence in trial by general courts-martial.” (949a (a))
America may be (or have been), as the General reminded us, “a nation of laws and not men” but the world described by the MCA is very much a world of one man. The Secretary of Defense, not the law, not the constitution, has the final say in all matters arising from the conduct of military commissions. That is to say, the nature and extent of every “right” accorded a defendant is the sole discretion of the Secretary. Whether it is proper to describe what may be withdrawn or modified by the Secretary of Defense "as the Secretary considers practicable" a “right” at all is a legitimate question.
But let’s consider the putative rights of detainees in military commissions as listed by General Hartmann:
(1) “The right to remain silent and to have no adverse inference drawn from it.”
In civilian justice, the right to remain silent is a right against self-incrimination. This right, the MCA makes clear, defendants in military commission hearings do not have. 948b(B) of the MCA says those tried by military commission do not have the rights enumerated in the UCMJ, 831, Art. 31: “Compulsory Self-Incrimination Prohibited.” Noteworthy in particular is the inapplicability of article (d): “No statement obtained from any person in violation of this article, or through the use of coercion, unlawful influence, or unlawful inducement may be received in evidence against him in a trial by court-martial.”
While taking pains to ensure that coerced statements will not be excluded, the MCA prohibits the use of statements obtained by "torture." We know by now that the idiosyncratic definition of “torture” employed means that practices historically considered torture by the US (e.g., waterboarding), and still considered torture by the rest of the world, fail to qualify.
(2) “The right to examine all evidence used against him by the prosecution.”
General Hartmann was most insistent about this right:
“Every piece of evidence, every stitch of evidence, every whiff of evidence that goes to the finder of fact, to the jury, to the military tribunal will be reviewed by the accused, subject to confrontation, subject to cross- examination, subject to challenge…”
This is, plain and simple, complete fiction. The MCA makes it perfectly clear that in NO instance are defendants allowed to examine “every stitch…every whiff ” of the classified evidence against them. Under the provisions of section 949j (b) of the MCA the judge may delete classified information from documents given to the defense; or substitute either a non-classified summary of the classified information or a non-classified list of the “relevant facts that the classified information would tend to prove.”
Imagine being a defendant presented with the later. “Classified evidence tends to prove the following facts: (a) That you materially aided terrorists by supplying them with money; (b) That this money was used to purchase explosives; (c) That these same explosives were used in an attack that killed a civilian.” (Which makes this a capital crime). The names, dates and other specifics are withheld because the classified source of the information and vital operational methods might otherwise be identifiable.
Now it’s your turn to “confront,” and “challenge” this evidence against you. Since vital specifics are withheld, specifics which you might well be in a position to challenge, all that remains possible is a general, and so meaningless, denial.
The classified information from which these damning conclusions are drawn may be false. You may, in fact, be in possession of evidence which shows that it is false. But because you will never know the classified information, only some form of non-classified substitute, you can never put the two together in a meaningful “confrontation” of the evidence against you. In this scenario you may be executed based on evidence you could have proven was false, had you truly been able to "confront" it.
The General said he was told classified evidence will play little or no part in these first trials. This may well be so. Why highlight this travesty of justice in the trials that will receive the most public attention?
(3) “The right to obtain evidence and to call witnesses on his own behalf, including expert witnesses.”
The same restrictions which limit access to classified evidence limit access to its sources. So none of these may be on the defense witness list, no matter how vital they may be to a meaningful defense.
The MCA says the defendant will be given “reasonable opportunity to obtain witnesses.” Who determines what is reasonable? The same person who finally determines everything else: the Secretary of Defense. Will the opportunity be ‘reasonable’ by civilian standards? Who knows?
The witnesses the defendant calls can only be compelled to appear (as by subpoena) if in “a place where the United States shall have jurisdiction.” Those exculpatory witnesses elsewhere may decide for themselves whether or not they will put themselves in the hands of Americans and connect themselves with a “high profile terrorist” and his trial.
(4) "The right to cross-examine every witness called by the prosecution."
This sounds good, as it is meant to, but in a military commission proceeding, not all the witnesses against a defendant will be called. This is because hearsay evidence “not otherwise admissible under the rules of evidence applicable in trial by general courts-martial” is allowed in military commission proceedings [949a (E)]. It will only be excluded if the defendant can show that it is false. The ability to cross examine only the witnesses actually called, not those whose hearsay evidence is introduced, makes this right hollow:
Smith: “A classified source told me someone told him that the defendant often spoke of his hatred for freedom and his desire to commit the act with which he is charged.”
Cross examination (???) “Er, my client says he never did those things….?”
Smith: “My source says he did.”
The admissibility of hearsay also bears on right (2) “The right to examine all evidence used against him by the prosecution.” The defendant may be able to know what Smith will testify to, but how can that be described as a meaningful ‘examination' of the hearsay evidence Smith presents?
(5) “The right to an appeal to the Court of Military Commission Review, then through the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to the United States Supreme Court”
General Hartmann: “In this process, they all go through the Court of Military Commission Review first, and then to the D.C. Court of Appeals.”
Q: “So there is an eventual possible appeal to the civilian courts.”
General Hartmann: “Yes, absolutely, absolutely.”
Absolutely not. The Court of Military Commission Review may review only whether or not the procedures set out in the MCA were followed:
‘‘In a case reviewed by the Court of Military Commission Review under this section, the Court may act only with respect to matters of law.”
Subsequent civilian court review is limited to one and only one court: the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. No other civilian court has jurisdiction. The scope of such review is, again, confined to whether or not MCA procedures were followed:
‘‘The jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals on an appeal under subsection (a) shall be limited to the consideration of— (1) whether the final decision was consistent with the standards and procedures specified in this chapter; and (2) to the extent applicable, the Constitution and the laws of the United States.” (950g(c))
“To the extent applicable” is an important qualifier. The constitution has been very deliberately and systematically excluded from the military commission process. If it applies at all at the end of the process, to the verdict in a trial by military commission, is an open question.
This bears on the meaningfulness of final declaration in (5) of the possibility of appeal to the Supreme Court.
The MCA could be said to have been designed by the Supreme Court. The roadmap to constitutionality supplied by Hamdan and related cases virtually assures that the MCA will not be judged “repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States.” If it is not, an appeal to the Supreme Court of a verdict in a trial by military commission can only result in the same limited review to determine whether lower courts acted in accordance with MCA provisions.
General Hartmann: “It's our obligation to move the process forward, to give these people their rights. We are going to give them rights. We are going to give them rights that are virtually identical to the rights we provide to our military members, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who fight in the battlefield ….”
It would be a magnificent thing, if it were true. That we would afford to our enemies rights generally reserved for citizens would be the clearest possible evidence that we are, first and foremost, a nation of laws. But it's not true. We have opted instead for shadow justice in shadow trials, which says just as loudly and just as plainly that we are, after all, merely a nation of men.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Bad Bill Clinton, Bad!
Let's sum up: According to Geoffrey R. Stone (“Bill Clinton's folly a party disgrace”), political discourse in the good old days was much harsher, and judged by that standard Bill Clinton’s recent remarks* about Barack Obama were “tepid.” In modern times, leading Democratic candidates have "for the most part...stayed above the slime." So shame on Bill Clinton for not carrying on this (quasi)tradition of the modern democratic party.
Mr. Stone apparently imagines the cringing servility currently exhibited by Democrats to be in a (largely imaginary) glorious democratic tradition of "mutual respect and robust but civil disagreement and debate." Having, at least in his mind, secured and maintained the moral high ground, it doesn't surprise him that Democrats "are particularly sensitive these days to any conduct that might undermine party unity and lessen the party's prospects for success in November." Really?
I would have said that “conduct that might lessen the prospects for success in November” was thoroughly descriptive of democratic leadership's behavior. What else should you call the determined efforts to be seen as the impotent enablers of a catastrophic leader?
Mr. Stone's article is an object lesson in the power of self-deception. Mr. Stone deceives himself that craven boot-licking makes Pelosi and Reid statesmen; and those two persons apparently sustain a similar fantasy, in spite of polling even lower in popularity than the most unpopular president in modern times.
Any elements of half-truth and omission in Clinton’s remarks (whatever they might be) are as unhelpful as they are anywhere else in political discourse. But a “personal attack and distortion,” “divisive and destructive behavior,” ruinous to democratic chances in November? Please.
I can’t make myself cringe over Bill Clinton’s supposed “conduct unbecoming” on the campaign trail. If it’s true that the Clinton’s, in the words of Mark Karlin of BuzzFlash, “have gone after Barack Obama with a ferocity that we have seen from neither of them in the last several years toward the Bush and Cheney Administration,” they rightly deserve our condemnation, but for following in the tradition of the modern democratic doormat, not for poisoning the otherwise oh-so-pure waters of democratic political discourse.
*Different commentators seem to have different remarks in mind when expressing their chagrin, moral outrage, etc.. These seem to be the main contenders:
(a) ‘Obama’s whole campaign is a fairy tale.’ But he didn't say that:
"Time's Gibbs repeated falsehood that Bill Clinton referred to Obama's candidacy as a 'fairy tale'"
(b) Clinton’s comparison of Obama’s North Carolina Campaign to that of Jesse Jackson’s in ‘84 and ‘88. The remarks about which Jesse Jackson said "Bill has done so much for race relations and inclusion, I would tend not to read a negative scenario into his comments."
(c) Clinton’s “hit job” remarks in reaction to Obama’s campaign document calling Hillary “the Senator from Punjab” ? Is the cavil at the use of the phrase "hit job"? because the document’s claims are so clearly meant to be understood in that fine old tradition of 'mutual respect,' blah, blah…?
Mr. Stone apparently imagines the cringing servility currently exhibited by Democrats to be in a (largely imaginary) glorious democratic tradition of "mutual respect and robust but civil disagreement and debate." Having, at least in his mind, secured and maintained the moral high ground, it doesn't surprise him that Democrats "are particularly sensitive these days to any conduct that might undermine party unity and lessen the party's prospects for success in November." Really?
I would have said that “conduct that might lessen the prospects for success in November” was thoroughly descriptive of democratic leadership's behavior. What else should you call the determined efforts to be seen as the impotent enablers of a catastrophic leader?
Mr. Stone's article is an object lesson in the power of self-deception. Mr. Stone deceives himself that craven boot-licking makes Pelosi and Reid statesmen; and those two persons apparently sustain a similar fantasy, in spite of polling even lower in popularity than the most unpopular president in modern times.
Any elements of half-truth and omission in Clinton’s remarks (whatever they might be) are as unhelpful as they are anywhere else in political discourse. But a “personal attack and distortion,” “divisive and destructive behavior,” ruinous to democratic chances in November? Please.
I can’t make myself cringe over Bill Clinton’s supposed “conduct unbecoming” on the campaign trail. If it’s true that the Clinton’s, in the words of Mark Karlin of BuzzFlash, “have gone after Barack Obama with a ferocity that we have seen from neither of them in the last several years toward the Bush and Cheney Administration,” they rightly deserve our condemnation, but for following in the tradition of the modern democratic doormat, not for poisoning the otherwise oh-so-pure waters of democratic political discourse.
*Different commentators seem to have different remarks in mind when expressing their chagrin, moral outrage, etc.. These seem to be the main contenders:
(a) ‘Obama’s whole campaign is a fairy tale.’ But he didn't say that:
"Time's Gibbs repeated falsehood that Bill Clinton referred to Obama's candidacy as a 'fairy tale'"
(b) Clinton’s comparison of Obama’s North Carolina Campaign to that of Jesse Jackson’s in ‘84 and ‘88. The remarks about which Jesse Jackson said "Bill has done so much for race relations and inclusion, I would tend not to read a negative scenario into his comments."
(c) Clinton’s “hit job” remarks in reaction to Obama’s campaign document calling Hillary “the Senator from Punjab” ? Is the cavil at the use of the phrase "hit job"? because the document’s claims are so clearly meant to be understood in that fine old tradition of 'mutual respect,' blah, blah…?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Sua Culpa
The Speaker of the House still thinks protecting and defending the Constitution is not a high priority:
“It was my belief that an impeachment of the Vice President or the President … would be very divisive in our country,... It should have come to [sic] no surprise when I became Speaker I said it again, and I continue to hold that view.”
In the Speaker’s special world, the unity and harmony we enjoy now, across the country and in Congress, is simply too valuable to tamper with.
In truth, the only divide impeachment proceedings will create is between those who honor the Constitution and its claims and obligations, and those who do not. Nancy Pelosi has chosen her side.
Failing to act to impeach Bush and Cheney makes her fully complicit in their crimes. By ensuring that unprecedented executive powers are passed on to the next president, she must also bear a full measure of responsibility for the future harm to the country such powers must bring. By turning a blind eye to the criminal conduct of the executive branch she has established a precedent that will make undoing this harm all but impossible.
Bush and Cheney have damaged the republic. Nancy Pelosi will be remembered as the person most responsible for making that damage irreparable.
“It was my belief that an impeachment of the Vice President or the President … would be very divisive in our country,... It should have come to [sic] no surprise when I became Speaker I said it again, and I continue to hold that view.”
In the Speaker’s special world, the unity and harmony we enjoy now, across the country and in Congress, is simply too valuable to tamper with.
In truth, the only divide impeachment proceedings will create is between those who honor the Constitution and its claims and obligations, and those who do not. Nancy Pelosi has chosen her side.
Failing to act to impeach Bush and Cheney makes her fully complicit in their crimes. By ensuring that unprecedented executive powers are passed on to the next president, she must also bear a full measure of responsibility for the future harm to the country such powers must bring. By turning a blind eye to the criminal conduct of the executive branch she has established a precedent that will make undoing this harm all but impossible.
Bush and Cheney have damaged the republic. Nancy Pelosi will be remembered as the person most responsible for making that damage irreparable.
Friday, January 18, 2008
The Shameful Success of the Surge
Military: 75% of Baghdad Areas Now Secure
Security did improve in Baghdad after the surge, and its residents used the lull to flee the city in unprecedented numbers. In a new poll of Iraqi refugees in Syria:
“... 78 percent said they'd come from Baghdad, which has been the focus of military operations since the U.S. troop buildup began last February. Thirty-five percent said they'd fled between July and October, when U.S. troop strength peaked.”
Former residents of Baghdad make up nearly 60 percent of the four and a half million Iraqis that have been internally and externally displaced by the war.
1.2 million residents of Baghdad have been internally displaced.
The emptied, ethnically cleansed neighborhoods of the city are no longer hot spots of violence. With this 'success,' it must be time for the displaced to come home? Not quite:
"It's a problem that everybody can grasp,.. You move back to the house that you left and find that somebody else has moved into the house, maybe because they've been displaced from someplace else. And it's even more difficult than that, because in many cases the local militias . . . have seized control and threw out anybody in that neighborhood they didn't like."
The surge has reduced violence. But the means employed to reach that end should be a source of national shame, not pride.
Security did improve in Baghdad after the surge, and its residents used the lull to flee the city in unprecedented numbers. In a new poll of Iraqi refugees in Syria:
“... 78 percent said they'd come from Baghdad, which has been the focus of military operations since the U.S. troop buildup began last February. Thirty-five percent said they'd fled between July and October, when U.S. troop strength peaked.”
Former residents of Baghdad make up nearly 60 percent of the four and a half million Iraqis that have been internally and externally displaced by the war.
1.2 million residents of Baghdad have been internally displaced.
The emptied, ethnically cleansed neighborhoods of the city are no longer hot spots of violence. With this 'success,' it must be time for the displaced to come home? Not quite:
"It's a problem that everybody can grasp,.. You move back to the house that you left and find that somebody else has moved into the house, maybe because they've been displaced from someplace else. And it's even more difficult than that, because in many cases the local militias . . . have seized control and threw out anybody in that neighborhood they didn't like."
The surge has reduced violence. But the means employed to reach that end should be a source of national shame, not pride.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Shibboleth
The next president will deal with issues arising in such areas as agriculture, energy, medical research, education, the environment that cannot be understood outside of the context provided by science. To formulate policy in these areas without attention to the consensus of expert opinion is to deliberately limit one’s understanding in a way that must inevitably distort both one’s grasp of the essential problems, and their solutions. Deliberately cultivated ignorance is disturbing, but even more disturbing is the disdain this displays for the proposition that, as rational beings, we ought to shape our views about the physical world in conformation with the discernible facts.
The current occupant, and several leading candidates for President of the United States, have expressed doubts about, or outright rejection of, the fact of human evolution. In the case of evolution, the discernible facts support the reality of human evolution to such an extent that to chose an inconsistent view one must abandon the pretense of regard for science and its core tenet that beliefs about the physical world must be shaped by facts, not the facts by beliefs.
Carefully cultivated ignorance is on full display in Mike Huckabee’s views on evolution:
"If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, I'll accept that....I believe there was a creative process."
Ron Paul simply rejects evolution, and doesn’t see what the big deal is:
". . . I think it's a theory, a theory of evolution, and I don't accept it, you know, as a theory, but I think it probably doesn't bother me. It's not the most important issue for me to make the difference in my life to understand the exact origin. I think the Creator that I know created us, every one of us, and created the universe, and the precise time and manner, I just don't think we're at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side.”
Mitt Romney has expressed a qualified acceptance of “theistic” evolution: he accepts that human evolution occurred, but with God’s as it’s guide.
"I believe that God designed the Universe and created the Universe. I believe he used the process of evolution to create the human body." (Super-natural selection?)
McCain is murkier, he may or may not embrace a variety of ‘theistic’ evolution:
“When I stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I know that it was the hand of God...only God could have created that magnificence. But at the same time, I think that Darwin's theories are valid, and I think that natural selection and survival of the fittest are clearly scientifically based. But I also believe that in time before time, that there was a divine hand in creation.
. . .
I think that evolution should be taught. I think it's absolutely the most valid and scientifically based and proven conclusion that we can draw. But I respect the fact that some people believe in intelligent design and they should have their views vented also. But in my own personal opinion, I don't think they're contradictory.
Q: So do you believe in both?
Well, if you're saying that intelligent design is the earth created in seven days, then no. But I do believe that time before time there was a divine hand that brought this magnificent world and human beings into it.” (Emphasis mine. The theory of evolution is ‘valid,’ but 'a divine hand' brought human beings into the world, so humans did/did not evolve?)
Unlike other issues that divide the candidates, and ordinary Americans, that evolution occurred, and still occurs, is not something about which reasonable people may disagree. It’s not like the social security ‘crisis’ or the threat posed by Iran. On the question of whether or not humans evolved there is one answer overwhelmingly supported by observation and evidence.
Let’s be clear, the answer to the question “Did human beings evolve?” is unequivocally “yes.” Not so the answers to questions about how they did so. Reasonable people can and do disagree about the mechanics of evolution.
When confronted with overwhelming evidence that evolution occurs, these candidates blithely turn their back on the testimony of observation and evidence and instead embrace a belief about physical matters of fact inconsistent with both.
“I'm not sure what in the world that has to do with being president of the United States."
Says Mike Huckabee
What it has to do with being president, of course, is that it provides insight into the intellectual honesty of candidates, their grasp of critical reasoning, their basic understanding of science, and, specifically, how they may reason when required to make decisions informed by a consensus of scientific opinion.
If these men can overlook the overwhelming prevailing scientific consensus about evolution, what does this say about their grasp of and respect for scientific reasoning? If biology, anthropology, paleontology astrophysics, geology, genetics all say “evolution happened,” and you turn a deaf ear, it's not simply a matter of personal taste or individual conviction. To accept as true beliefs about the physical world inconsistent with overwhelming factual evidence is irrationality, not healthy self-expression.
Presidents, and the rest of us non-experts, have to make determinations about scientific matters based on the consensus of experts. We trust that consensus because of our understanding of how science self-regulates. We know that scientists routinely submit their claims to the scrutiny of fellow scientists and must adapt or abandon views this process reveals to be unsupported by the evidence.
What Huckabee and Paul in particular have shown us is a basic disregard for this process and its result: scientific consensus. When, as non-experts, they are required to make a determination informed by the consensus of scientific opinion they are perfectly willing to simply ignore it.
This suggests a capacity for self-deception, or mendacity or willful ignorance (“if you want to believe your family came from apes…”) or all three, that is disturbing in any individual, not only a president.
We know what it's like to have a President with these qualities. We may never recover from having one, we surely cannot survive two.
Richard Dawkins in a conversation with Bill Moyers:
MOYERS: What do you think happens to a society that tolerates the belief that the universe was created in six days?
DAWKINS: Well, I'm all for tolerance, but I'm worried about a society where a sufficiently large number of the electorate can actually swing the vote, not of course that the age of the earth actually affects current politics directly. But it shows such a divorce from reality. Such an inability to apprehend the real world in which people live.
… I really worry about the judgments that people will make in other fields, … When you think about how young the world is supposed to be, according to this view, it's 6,000... it's less than 10,000 years old. This means the entire universe began sometime after the middle stone age. I mean, what kind of a grasp on reality does that suggest?
Willingness to turn one’s back on scientific evidence and the consensus of scientific experts is a shibboleth, a test or criterion for determining membership in a group. In this case, the group is The Rational. By this test our current president and a disturbingly large chunk of the field of presidential candidates have shown a willingness not just to tolerate, but to actively embrace, irrationality.
The current occupant, and several leading candidates for President of the United States, have expressed doubts about, or outright rejection of, the fact of human evolution. In the case of evolution, the discernible facts support the reality of human evolution to such an extent that to chose an inconsistent view one must abandon the pretense of regard for science and its core tenet that beliefs about the physical world must be shaped by facts, not the facts by beliefs.
Carefully cultivated ignorance is on full display in Mike Huckabee’s views on evolution:
"If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, I'll accept that....I believe there was a creative process."
Ron Paul simply rejects evolution, and doesn’t see what the big deal is:
". . . I think it's a theory, a theory of evolution, and I don't accept it, you know, as a theory, but I think it probably doesn't bother me. It's not the most important issue for me to make the difference in my life to understand the exact origin. I think the Creator that I know created us, every one of us, and created the universe, and the precise time and manner, I just don't think we're at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side.”
Mitt Romney has expressed a qualified acceptance of “theistic” evolution: he accepts that human evolution occurred, but with God’s as it’s guide.
"I believe that God designed the Universe and created the Universe. I believe he used the process of evolution to create the human body." (Super-natural selection?)
McCain is murkier, he may or may not embrace a variety of ‘theistic’ evolution:
“When I stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I know that it was the hand of God...only God could have created that magnificence. But at the same time, I think that Darwin's theories are valid, and I think that natural selection and survival of the fittest are clearly scientifically based. But I also believe that in time before time, that there was a divine hand in creation.
. . .
I think that evolution should be taught. I think it's absolutely the most valid and scientifically based and proven conclusion that we can draw. But I respect the fact that some people believe in intelligent design and they should have their views vented also. But in my own personal opinion, I don't think they're contradictory.
Q: So do you believe in both?
Well, if you're saying that intelligent design is the earth created in seven days, then no. But I do believe that time before time there was a divine hand that brought this magnificent world and human beings into it.” (Emphasis mine. The theory of evolution is ‘valid,’ but 'a divine hand' brought human beings into the world, so humans did/did not evolve?)
Unlike other issues that divide the candidates, and ordinary Americans, that evolution occurred, and still occurs, is not something about which reasonable people may disagree. It’s not like the social security ‘crisis’ or the threat posed by Iran. On the question of whether or not humans evolved there is one answer overwhelmingly supported by observation and evidence.
Let’s be clear, the answer to the question “Did human beings evolve?” is unequivocally “yes.” Not so the answers to questions about how they did so. Reasonable people can and do disagree about the mechanics of evolution.
When confronted with overwhelming evidence that evolution occurs, these candidates blithely turn their back on the testimony of observation and evidence and instead embrace a belief about physical matters of fact inconsistent with both.
“I'm not sure what in the world that has to do with being president of the United States."
Says Mike Huckabee
What it has to do with being president, of course, is that it provides insight into the intellectual honesty of candidates, their grasp of critical reasoning, their basic understanding of science, and, specifically, how they may reason when required to make decisions informed by a consensus of scientific opinion.
If these men can overlook the overwhelming prevailing scientific consensus about evolution, what does this say about their grasp of and respect for scientific reasoning? If biology, anthropology, paleontology astrophysics, geology, genetics all say “evolution happened,” and you turn a deaf ear, it's not simply a matter of personal taste or individual conviction. To accept as true beliefs about the physical world inconsistent with overwhelming factual evidence is irrationality, not healthy self-expression.
Presidents, and the rest of us non-experts, have to make determinations about scientific matters based on the consensus of experts. We trust that consensus because of our understanding of how science self-regulates. We know that scientists routinely submit their claims to the scrutiny of fellow scientists and must adapt or abandon views this process reveals to be unsupported by the evidence.
What Huckabee and Paul in particular have shown us is a basic disregard for this process and its result: scientific consensus. When, as non-experts, they are required to make a determination informed by the consensus of scientific opinion they are perfectly willing to simply ignore it.
This suggests a capacity for self-deception, or mendacity or willful ignorance (“if you want to believe your family came from apes…”) or all three, that is disturbing in any individual, not only a president.
We know what it's like to have a President with these qualities. We may never recover from having one, we surely cannot survive two.
Richard Dawkins in a conversation with Bill Moyers:
MOYERS: What do you think happens to a society that tolerates the belief that the universe was created in six days?
DAWKINS: Well, I'm all for tolerance, but I'm worried about a society where a sufficiently large number of the electorate can actually swing the vote, not of course that the age of the earth actually affects current politics directly. But it shows such a divorce from reality. Such an inability to apprehend the real world in which people live.
… I really worry about the judgments that people will make in other fields, … When you think about how young the world is supposed to be, according to this view, it's 6,000... it's less than 10,000 years old. This means the entire universe began sometime after the middle stone age. I mean, what kind of a grasp on reality does that suggest?
Willingness to turn one’s back on scientific evidence and the consensus of scientific experts is a shibboleth, a test or criterion for determining membership in a group. In this case, the group is The Rational. By this test our current president and a disturbingly large chunk of the field of presidential candidates have shown a willingness not just to tolerate, but to actively embrace, irrationality.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Setting the Record Straight on “1-14”
As the nation prepares to remember “1-14,” the day a pretzel almost ended the Bush Presidency, there is word from Guantanamo that interrogators there have uncovered information which casts the events of that day in a new light. Recall the explanation White House physician Dr. Richard Tubb gave for the President’s cheek-first encounter with the floor: "He fainted due to a temporary decrease in heart-rate brought on by swallowing a pretzel." Despite the undeniable plausibility of this explanation, there were, nevertheless, suspicions that this was not an ordinary near-fatal pretzel accident. Such suspicions were gratifyingly confirmed this week when interrogators at Gitmo learned that the President's embarrassing "accident" was actually the culmination of an 18 month-long terrorist operation. Bored, under-employed Wednesday, January 2, 2008
If You Think Our Long National Nightmare Will End in '08, Think Again
Glad as I will be to see the worst president in American history take up brush clearing full-time, I don't for a second imagine that the nightmare into which he has sunk America will end when he does so.
If every illegal power he assumed for the executive branch persists, if his rank criminal behavior goes unpunished, the course of the country will still track as inexorably toward something ugly and fundamentally un-American.
None of the leading democrats recognize that we are at a tipping point in the history of the country. Past that point is ever more authoritarian government, cloaked in the increasingly substance-less forms of 'democracy.' The natural culmination of this process is a nation of flag-worshippers, focused on the now-empty symbols of democracy, deprived of the rights and freedoms that give them meaning.
If you think that merely electing a democrat will reverse this course, think again:
"If elected president in 2008, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton would consider giving up some of the executive powers President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have assumed since taking office."
Apparently, she has considered it, and, in the case of signing statements at least, has decided against it:
"Democrat Hillary Clinton says 'in very rare instances,' she might attach a so-called signing statement to a bill reserving a right to bypass ‘provisions that contradict the Constitution.'"
Obama, Clinton and Edwards all embrace the idea that the executive may unilaterally determine constitutionality, and use signing statements to rewrite law already passed by the legislature. They insist, naturally, that their use of signing statements will be judicious, well-founded, etc., in short, that such power will never tempt them to abuse.
And while they now condemn Bush’s use of other powers he has assumed, who would care to wager that, once in office, they will not ‘discover’ that even these powers, when used properly, can be potent tools of freedom and democracy, and that it would be rash, even irresponsible, to abandon them?
A president possessed of tyrannical powers who, for whatever reason, doesn’t use them, or uses them with restraint, is as potent a threat to the Republic as Bush. The preservation and transmission of these powers imbues them with the authority of precedent. When they finally and inevitably come into the hands of one who will use them without restraint, how will they be stopped?
There is one way and one way only to wake up from the nightmare: Impeachment. It doesn't matter, as John Conyers insists, that "the votes aren't there." Impeachment isn't pointless unless successful. To seriously undertake the process is to say "we draw the line here" in a way that establishes a precedent future executives can't ignore.
John Nichols has summed up the situation better than I can:
"On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any president has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don't give away the tools. They don't give them up. The only way we take tools out of that box is if we sanction George Bush and Dick Cheney now and say the next president cannot govern as these men have."
Limitless executive detention, rendition, torture, warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, destruction of evidence, withholding of evidence and obstruction of justice with sweeping claims of executive privilege, ignoring the law at will. These are some of the behaviors and powers we are set to legitimize and make permanently within the scope of acceptable executive authority, by handing them intact to the next executive. John Nichols again:
". . . we are defining what the presidency will be in the future today because we do know the high crimes and misdemeanors of George Bush and Dick Cheney. They have been well illustrated even by a-- rather lax media. They have been discussed in Congress.
If we know these things and we do not hold them to account, then we are saying, as a people and as a Congress, we are saying that we can find out that you have violated the rule of law. We can find out that you have disregarded the Constitution. . . . we can find out that you've done harm to the republic. But there will still be no penalty for that. If that's the standard that we've set, it will hold. It will not be erased in the future."
Impeachment is not about punishment now, its about course correction.
If every illegal power he assumed for the executive branch persists, if his rank criminal behavior goes unpunished, the course of the country will still track as inexorably toward something ugly and fundamentally un-American.
None of the leading democrats recognize that we are at a tipping point in the history of the country. Past that point is ever more authoritarian government, cloaked in the increasingly substance-less forms of 'democracy.' The natural culmination of this process is a nation of flag-worshippers, focused on the now-empty symbols of democracy, deprived of the rights and freedoms that give them meaning.
If you think that merely electing a democrat will reverse this course, think again:
"If elected president in 2008, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton would consider giving up some of the executive powers President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have assumed since taking office."
Apparently, she has considered it, and, in the case of signing statements at least, has decided against it:
"Democrat Hillary Clinton says 'in very rare instances,' she might attach a so-called signing statement to a bill reserving a right to bypass ‘provisions that contradict the Constitution.'"
Obama, Clinton and Edwards all embrace the idea that the executive may unilaterally determine constitutionality, and use signing statements to rewrite law already passed by the legislature. They insist, naturally, that their use of signing statements will be judicious, well-founded, etc., in short, that such power will never tempt them to abuse.
And while they now condemn Bush’s use of other powers he has assumed, who would care to wager that, once in office, they will not ‘discover’ that even these powers, when used properly, can be potent tools of freedom and democracy, and that it would be rash, even irresponsible, to abandon them?
A president possessed of tyrannical powers who, for whatever reason, doesn’t use them, or uses them with restraint, is as potent a threat to the Republic as Bush. The preservation and transmission of these powers imbues them with the authority of precedent. When they finally and inevitably come into the hands of one who will use them without restraint, how will they be stopped?
There is one way and one way only to wake up from the nightmare: Impeachment. It doesn't matter, as John Conyers insists, that "the votes aren't there." Impeachment isn't pointless unless successful. To seriously undertake the process is to say "we draw the line here" in a way that establishes a precedent future executives can't ignore.
John Nichols has summed up the situation better than I can:
"On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any president has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don't give away the tools. They don't give them up. The only way we take tools out of that box is if we sanction George Bush and Dick Cheney now and say the next president cannot govern as these men have."
Limitless executive detention, rendition, torture, warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, destruction of evidence, withholding of evidence and obstruction of justice with sweeping claims of executive privilege, ignoring the law at will. These are some of the behaviors and powers we are set to legitimize and make permanently within the scope of acceptable executive authority, by handing them intact to the next executive. John Nichols again:
". . . we are defining what the presidency will be in the future today because we do know the high crimes and misdemeanors of George Bush and Dick Cheney. They have been well illustrated even by a-- rather lax media. They have been discussed in Congress.
If we know these things and we do not hold them to account, then we are saying, as a people and as a Congress, we are saying that we can find out that you have violated the rule of law. We can find out that you have disregarded the Constitution. . . . we can find out that you've done harm to the republic. But there will still be no penalty for that. If that's the standard that we've set, it will hold. It will not be erased in the future."
Impeachment is not about punishment now, its about course correction.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Bind Them Down From Mischief by the Chains of the Constitution
"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Thomas Jefferson
After seven years of abusive executive of power, what we need most from a new administration is a promise that such abuse will end. It doesn’t look like we’re going to get it.
Candidates on Executive Power: A Full Spectrum
“… while all the Democrats condemned Bush's use of signing statements, Clinton, Edwards, and Obama each said that they would use them too - just less aggressively. Obama said the problem with Bush's signing statements is not the device itself, but rather that Bush has invoked legal theories that most constitutional scholars consider ‘dubious’ when reserving his alleged right to bypass certain laws.
‘No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives; unfortunately, the Bush administration has gone much further than that,’ Obama said.”
No one doubts.
“Democrat Hillary Clinton says ‘in very rare instances,’ she might attach a so-called signing statement to a bill reserving a right to bypass ‘provisions that contradict the Constitution.’"
No one should be President of the United States who has the view of presidential power and the Constitution expressed by these democratic candidates. Period. The president is charged with seeing that the laws are faithfully executed, not with unilaterally determining whether or not they “contradict the Constitution,” and rewriting them to conform to a pet theory of executive power.
Those canny practical psychologists, the framers of the constitution, understood that the office holder is just a human being, and thus capable of mischief. The powers of the office must be circumscribed to limit the scope of that predictable mischief. We have allowed an office holder to dictate the powers of the office, with catastrophic results. The major democratic candidates for president say they, too, will not be bound by the chains of the constitution, so they must be bound down involuntarily.
The best way to do this is to begin impeachment hearings now. Whether such hearings lead to impeachment or not is less important than the fact that they will say to the present and future executive, 'we won’t permit lawless, unconstitutional behavior by a president. No office holder can unilaterally decide to ignore laws, to ignore treaties, to commit domestic and international crimes and consider themselves untouchable.'
The other option is to “wait and see.” While the democratic contenders for the next president haven’t said they will give up the power Bush has seized, they have said they will use it less frequently and/or “less aggressively.” Maybe the tools Bush has taken up will, by and large, go back into the toolbox and the behavior of the next president take on a more familiar and acceptable quality.
This is a vindication of the malignant political theory used to justify the assumption of tyrannical power by the executive. If another president inherits the powers Bush has taken up, these powers will received the imprimatur of precedent, and the course of the country will be unalterably set towards a darker future.
To let these powers persist unchecked is also a victory for neoconservatives: If they can’t be in power, let the illegal powers they have seized for the office of the president be waiting for them when they are.
And a democratic president with tyrannical powers who isn’t using them at the moment, or is only using them “less aggressively,” is no more compatible with democracy than a president like George Bush who is using them with zeal. No president should have the power of limitless executive detention without recourse to the courts, the power to ignore any law, to rewrite law, to be the sole interpreter of treaties, to torture.
Suppose one of these democrats is elected and executive overreaching, less aggressive and abusive though it may be, finally becomes intolerable to the public. This eventuality is also victory for neoconservatives: If public outrage finally demands rebuke and censure, let it be a democratic administration that is publicly slapped down, not the republican president who rightly earned this punishment. All the better to allow a new administration, pledged to “restore the dignity of the office of the president” to ride into office.
To wait and see, to allow illegal executive powers to persist and to rely upon the goodness of men to protect us from future abuse, is a fool’s errand. Bind them down from mischief, and do it now, or expect mischief.
After seven years of abusive executive of power, what we need most from a new administration is a promise that such abuse will end. It doesn’t look like we’re going to get it.
Candidates on Executive Power: A Full Spectrum
“… while all the Democrats condemned Bush's use of signing statements, Clinton, Edwards, and Obama each said that they would use them too - just less aggressively. Obama said the problem with Bush's signing statements is not the device itself, but rather that Bush has invoked legal theories that most constitutional scholars consider ‘dubious’ when reserving his alleged right to bypass certain laws.
‘No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives; unfortunately, the Bush administration has gone much further than that,’ Obama said.”
No one doubts.
“Democrat Hillary Clinton says ‘in very rare instances,’ she might attach a so-called signing statement to a bill reserving a right to bypass ‘provisions that contradict the Constitution.’"
No one should be President of the United States who has the view of presidential power and the Constitution expressed by these democratic candidates. Period. The president is charged with seeing that the laws are faithfully executed, not with unilaterally determining whether or not they “contradict the Constitution,” and rewriting them to conform to a pet theory of executive power.
Those canny practical psychologists, the framers of the constitution, understood that the office holder is just a human being, and thus capable of mischief. The powers of the office must be circumscribed to limit the scope of that predictable mischief. We have allowed an office holder to dictate the powers of the office, with catastrophic results. The major democratic candidates for president say they, too, will not be bound by the chains of the constitution, so they must be bound down involuntarily.
The best way to do this is to begin impeachment hearings now. Whether such hearings lead to impeachment or not is less important than the fact that they will say to the present and future executive, 'we won’t permit lawless, unconstitutional behavior by a president. No office holder can unilaterally decide to ignore laws, to ignore treaties, to commit domestic and international crimes and consider themselves untouchable.'
The other option is to “wait and see.” While the democratic contenders for the next president haven’t said they will give up the power Bush has seized, they have said they will use it less frequently and/or “less aggressively.” Maybe the tools Bush has taken up will, by and large, go back into the toolbox and the behavior of the next president take on a more familiar and acceptable quality.
This is a vindication of the malignant political theory used to justify the assumption of tyrannical power by the executive. If another president inherits the powers Bush has taken up, these powers will received the imprimatur of precedent, and the course of the country will be unalterably set towards a darker future.
To let these powers persist unchecked is also a victory for neoconservatives: If they can’t be in power, let the illegal powers they have seized for the office of the president be waiting for them when they are.
And a democratic president with tyrannical powers who isn’t using them at the moment, or is only using them “less aggressively,” is no more compatible with democracy than a president like George Bush who is using them with zeal. No president should have the power of limitless executive detention without recourse to the courts, the power to ignore any law, to rewrite law, to be the sole interpreter of treaties, to torture.
Suppose one of these democrats is elected and executive overreaching, less aggressive and abusive though it may be, finally becomes intolerable to the public. This eventuality is also victory for neoconservatives: If public outrage finally demands rebuke and censure, let it be a democratic administration that is publicly slapped down, not the republican president who rightly earned this punishment. All the better to allow a new administration, pledged to “restore the dignity of the office of the president” to ride into office.
To wait and see, to allow illegal executive powers to persist and to rely upon the goodness of men to protect us from future abuse, is a fool’s errand. Bind them down from mischief, and do it now, or expect mischief.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
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