In the run-up over the last weeks to the presidential transition, there has been a lot of talk about what to do about the Bush/Cheney administration's eight-year assault on the Constitution. (See, for example, Harvard law professor and former Reagan appointee (solicitor general) Charles Fried, Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick, Yale law professor Jack Balkin, Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, among others.)
Some say those who were responsible at the highest levels for authorizing such abuses as torture, incarceration for years without access to lawyers or legal process, warrantless wiretap programs, allowing the Justice Department to become a partisan vehicle for rewarding the administration's supporters and punishing its critics - to name just a few - should be criminally prosecuted. On the other extreme, some say what's done is done, and we need to look forward, so we should do nothing.
Probably the best approach, however, everything considered, is the middle ground: holding a full set of hearings so that we will finally be able to know the full extent of the various abuses and egregious excesses (given his advocacy for the technique in getting people to spill, maybe Dick Cheney should be waterboarded if he continues to resist providing information - what's good for the goose is good for ....); but not going for criminal prosecutions, with all of the delays and legal maneuverings that would entail.
Yes, we want to hold the perpetrators accountable, but the most important thing is to expose all of what went on so that it can be held up to the light of national and international condemnation. Criminal prosecutions would hinder that goal, and could turn into a frustrating legal circus. By contrast, a sort of American version of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would more easily allow the evidence to come forth since it would not be subject the rigorous procedural and evidentiary requirements of a criminal trial.
In this way these people may be fairly judged - and likely condemned - by the court of history, with their names living on in infamy for betraying the high principles of fairness and justice for which America and its constitutional form of government stands.
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Monday, January 19, 2009
Friday, December 19, 2008
Turning the Titanic - Kudos to George Bush on Interim Loan to Automakers
Kudos to George W. Bush for offering an interim loan to American automakers.
While there is plenty of reason to be angry with the short-sightedness of the Big Three, and there is a real temptation to let them fail for their poor management, there is just too much at stake - especially in this reeling economy - to allow them to do so. Bush is correct in stating that "[a]llowing the auto companies to collapse is not a responsible course of action"; that bankruptcy would deal "an unacceptably painful blow to hardworking Americans."
The $17.4 million of loans to GM and Chrysler (Ford doesn't need them at this time) appropriately comes with strings attached - the companies must come up with viable restructuring plans by March 31 or the loans will be called. "The time to make hard decisions to become viable is now, or the only option will be bankruptcy," Bush said. "The automakers and unions must understand what is at stake and make hard decisions necessary to reform."
We'll see - is Detroit capable of turning the Titanic?
While there is plenty of reason to be angry with the short-sightedness of the Big Three, and there is a real temptation to let them fail for their poor management, there is just too much at stake - especially in this reeling economy - to allow them to do so. Bush is correct in stating that "[a]llowing the auto companies to collapse is not a responsible course of action"; that bankruptcy would deal "an unacceptably painful blow to hardworking Americans."
The $17.4 million of loans to GM and Chrysler (Ford doesn't need them at this time) appropriately comes with strings attached - the companies must come up with viable restructuring plans by March 31 or the loans will be called. "The time to make hard decisions to become viable is now, or the only option will be bankruptcy," Bush said. "The automakers and unions must understand what is at stake and make hard decisions necessary to reform."
We'll see - is Detroit capable of turning the Titanic?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
George Bush Shoe Incident
Just when you think you've seen it all, the President is victimized in a vicious shoe attack .
Slate suggests in "When the Shoe Fits" that this may be the best thing to happen to George Bush in quite some time. People will "marvel at the president's quick reflexes and calm," John Dickerson writes. "Bush brushed off the incident, joking that he saw into his attacker's 'sole,' a reference to his famous misreading of Vladimir Putin. It's the kind of incident where Bush's no-big-deal attitude, so maddening in other contexts, serves him well. 'It was just a bizarre moment,' Bush told journalists later on Air Force One. 'But I've had other bizarre moments in the presidency.'"
In any event, you have to give the man credit for his slick dodge.
Slate suggests in "When the Shoe Fits" that this may be the best thing to happen to George Bush in quite some time. People will "marvel at the president's quick reflexes and calm," John Dickerson writes. "Bush brushed off the incident, joking that he saw into his attacker's 'sole,' a reference to his famous misreading of Vladimir Putin. It's the kind of incident where Bush's no-big-deal attitude, so maddening in other contexts, serves him well. 'It was just a bizarre moment,' Bush told journalists later on Air Force One. 'But I've had other bizarre moments in the presidency.'"
In any event, you have to give the man credit for his slick dodge.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Obama's Victory - What it Means
Reflections the morning after Barack Obama's historic victory - in what amounts to nothing less than a national catharsis.
What's most moving to me is to think of what this means to all of those within and outside of the United States who have long felt disenfranchised or oppressed by government tyranny. The United States was founded 232 years ago and the Constitution framed 219 years ago as a slave-holding country - and now a son of the formerly-enslaved peoples will be president of the United States. Amazing, ... and incredible. It redeems one's hope that America is not destined to go the way charted for it by George W. Bush and Richard Cheney for the past eight years, where torture is authorized and individual liberty stolen by overzealous government.
And what about overseas? It's deeply moving to see the images of celebration around the world in response to Obama's victory. America has long been a beacon of hope for people around the world, and its image has been severely tarnished in recent years. But the fact that the American people can elect an African American, a son of a Muslim, goes a long way to beginning to restore a bit of America's luster. It is possible for reason, and tolerance, to prevail; instead of arbitrary, meaningless judgments based on skin color, religion or the like.
The New York Times reports from Gaza this morning, in "For Many Abroad, An Ideal Renewed":
"From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth — call it America — where such a thing happens.
"Even where the United States is held in special contempt, like here in this benighted Palestinian coastal strip, the “glorious epic of Barack Obama,” as the leftist French editor Jean Daniel calls it, makes America — the idea as much as the actual place — stand again, perhaps only fleetingly, for limitless possibility.
“It allows us all to dream a little,” said Oswaldo Calvo, 58, a Venezuelan political activist in Caracas, in a comment echoed to correspondents of The New York Times on four continents in the days leading up to the election.
"Tristram Hunt, a British historian, put it this way: Mr. Obama “brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to — that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen.”
"But wonder is almost overwhelmed by relief. Mr. Obama’s election offers most non-Americans a sense that the imperial power capable of doing such good and such harm — a country that, they complain, preached justice but tortured its captives, launched a disastrous war in Iraq, turned its back on the environment and greedily dragged the world into economic chaos — saw the errors of its ways over the past eight years and shifted course.
"They say the country that weakened democratic forces abroad through a tireless but often ineffective campaign for democracy — dismissing results it found unsavory, cutting deals with dictators it needed as allies in its other battles — was now shining a transformative beacon with its own democratic exercise.
"It would be hard to overstate how fervently vast stretches of the globe wanted the election to turn out as it did to repudiate the Bush administration and its policies. Poll after poll in country after country showed only a few — Israel, Georgia, the Philippines — favoring a victory for Senator John McCain.
"“Since Bush came to power it’s all bam, bam, bam on the Arabs,” asserted Fathi Abdel Hamid, 40, as he sat in a Cairo coffee house.
"The world’s view of an Obama presidency presents a paradox. His election embodies what many consider unique about the United States — yet America’s sense of its own specialness, of its destiny and mission, has driven it astray, they say. They want Mr. Obama, the beneficiary and exemplar of American exceptionalism, to act like everyone else, only better, to shift American policy and somehow to project both humility and leadership.
...
"Such contradictory demands and expectations may reflect, in part, the unusual makeup of a man of mixed race and origin whose life and upbringing have touched several continents.
"“People feel he is a part of them because he has this multiracial, multiethnic and multinational dimension,” said Philippe Sands, a British international lawyer and author who travels frequently, adding that people find some thread of their own hopes and ideals in Mr. Obama. “He represents, for people in so many different communities and cultures, a personal connection. There is an immigrant component and a minority component.”
"Francis Nyamnjoh, a Cameroonian novelist and social scientist, said he saw Mr. Obama less as a black man than “as a successful negotiator of identity margins.”
"His ability to inhabit so many categories mirrors the African experience. Mr. Nyamnjoh said that for America to choose as its citizen in chief such a skillful straddler of global identities could not help but transform the nation’s image, making it once again the screen upon which the hopes and ambitions of the world are projected.
"Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at the People’s University of China, said Mr. Obama’s background, particularly his upbringing in Indonesia, made him suited to understanding the problems facing the world’s poorer nations.
"He and others say they hope the next American president will see their place more firmly within the community of nations, engaging in what Jairam Ramesh, junior commerce minister in the Indian government, called “genuine multilateralism and not in muscular unilateralism.”
Assuming Mr. Obama does play by international rules more fully, as he has promised, can his government live up to all the expectations?
"“We have so many hopes and wishes that he will never be able to fulfill them,” said Susanne Grieshaber, 40, an art adviser in Berlin who was one of 200,000 Germans to attend a speech by Mr. Obama there in July. She cited action to protect the environment, reducing the use of force and helping the less fortunate. In essence, she wants Mr. Obama to make his country more like hers. But she is sober. “I’m preparing myself for the fact that peace and happiness are not going to suddenly break out,” she said.
...
"“Definitely, this will improve America’s image in Russia,” said Sergey M. Rogov, director of the Institute for U.S.A. and Canada Studies in Moscow. “There was this perception before of widespread racism in America, deeply rooted racism.”
...
"So foreigners are watching closely, hoping that despite what they consider the hypocrisies and inconsistencies, the nation they once imagined would stand as a model for the future will, with greater sensitivity and less force, help solve the world’s problems."
It is indeed a new, more hopeful, day in America - and in the world - today.
What's most moving to me is to think of what this means to all of those within and outside of the United States who have long felt disenfranchised or oppressed by government tyranny. The United States was founded 232 years ago and the Constitution framed 219 years ago as a slave-holding country - and now a son of the formerly-enslaved peoples will be president of the United States. Amazing, ... and incredible. It redeems one's hope that America is not destined to go the way charted for it by George W. Bush and Richard Cheney for the past eight years, where torture is authorized and individual liberty stolen by overzealous government.
And what about overseas? It's deeply moving to see the images of celebration around the world in response to Obama's victory. America has long been a beacon of hope for people around the world, and its image has been severely tarnished in recent years. But the fact that the American people can elect an African American, a son of a Muslim, goes a long way to beginning to restore a bit of America's luster. It is possible for reason, and tolerance, to prevail; instead of arbitrary, meaningless judgments based on skin color, religion or the like.
The New York Times reports from Gaza this morning, in "For Many Abroad, An Ideal Renewed":
"From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth — call it America — where such a thing happens.
"Even where the United States is held in special contempt, like here in this benighted Palestinian coastal strip, the “glorious epic of Barack Obama,” as the leftist French editor Jean Daniel calls it, makes America — the idea as much as the actual place — stand again, perhaps only fleetingly, for limitless possibility.
“It allows us all to dream a little,” said Oswaldo Calvo, 58, a Venezuelan political activist in Caracas, in a comment echoed to correspondents of The New York Times on four continents in the days leading up to the election.
"Tristram Hunt, a British historian, put it this way: Mr. Obama “brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to — that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen.”
"But wonder is almost overwhelmed by relief. Mr. Obama’s election offers most non-Americans a sense that the imperial power capable of doing such good and such harm — a country that, they complain, preached justice but tortured its captives, launched a disastrous war in Iraq, turned its back on the environment and greedily dragged the world into economic chaos — saw the errors of its ways over the past eight years and shifted course.
"They say the country that weakened democratic forces abroad through a tireless but often ineffective campaign for democracy — dismissing results it found unsavory, cutting deals with dictators it needed as allies in its other battles — was now shining a transformative beacon with its own democratic exercise.
"It would be hard to overstate how fervently vast stretches of the globe wanted the election to turn out as it did to repudiate the Bush administration and its policies. Poll after poll in country after country showed only a few — Israel, Georgia, the Philippines — favoring a victory for Senator John McCain.
"“Since Bush came to power it’s all bam, bam, bam on the Arabs,” asserted Fathi Abdel Hamid, 40, as he sat in a Cairo coffee house.
"The world’s view of an Obama presidency presents a paradox. His election embodies what many consider unique about the United States — yet America’s sense of its own specialness, of its destiny and mission, has driven it astray, they say. They want Mr. Obama, the beneficiary and exemplar of American exceptionalism, to act like everyone else, only better, to shift American policy and somehow to project both humility and leadership.
...
"Such contradictory demands and expectations may reflect, in part, the unusual makeup of a man of mixed race and origin whose life and upbringing have touched several continents.
"“People feel he is a part of them because he has this multiracial, multiethnic and multinational dimension,” said Philippe Sands, a British international lawyer and author who travels frequently, adding that people find some thread of their own hopes and ideals in Mr. Obama. “He represents, for people in so many different communities and cultures, a personal connection. There is an immigrant component and a minority component.”
"Francis Nyamnjoh, a Cameroonian novelist and social scientist, said he saw Mr. Obama less as a black man than “as a successful negotiator of identity margins.”
"His ability to inhabit so many categories mirrors the African experience. Mr. Nyamnjoh said that for America to choose as its citizen in chief such a skillful straddler of global identities could not help but transform the nation’s image, making it once again the screen upon which the hopes and ambitions of the world are projected.
"Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at the People’s University of China, said Mr. Obama’s background, particularly his upbringing in Indonesia, made him suited to understanding the problems facing the world’s poorer nations.
"He and others say they hope the next American president will see their place more firmly within the community of nations, engaging in what Jairam Ramesh, junior commerce minister in the Indian government, called “genuine multilateralism and not in muscular unilateralism.”
Assuming Mr. Obama does play by international rules more fully, as he has promised, can his government live up to all the expectations?
"“We have so many hopes and wishes that he will never be able to fulfill them,” said Susanne Grieshaber, 40, an art adviser in Berlin who was one of 200,000 Germans to attend a speech by Mr. Obama there in July. She cited action to protect the environment, reducing the use of force and helping the less fortunate. In essence, she wants Mr. Obama to make his country more like hers. But she is sober. “I’m preparing myself for the fact that peace and happiness are not going to suddenly break out,” she said.
...
"“Definitely, this will improve America’s image in Russia,” said Sergey M. Rogov, director of the Institute for U.S.A. and Canada Studies in Moscow. “There was this perception before of widespread racism in America, deeply rooted racism.”
...
"So foreigners are watching closely, hoping that despite what they consider the hypocrisies and inconsistencies, the nation they once imagined would stand as a model for the future will, with greater sensitivity and less force, help solve the world’s problems."
It is indeed a new, more hopeful, day in America - and in the world - today.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Bush Worst President - 79 Days Left
Nicholas Kristof reports in today's New York Times that "[a]n unscientific poll of 109 professional historians this year found that 61 percent rated President Bush as the worst president in American history. A couple of others judged him second-worst, after James Buchanan, whose incompetence set the stage for the Civil War. More than 98 percent of the historians in the poll, conducted through the History News Network, viewed Mr. Bush’s presidency as a failure."
Only 79 days left in the Bush/Cheney American nightmare. Either one of the presidential candidates will be a vast improvement (as would one of the vice-presidential candidates, Joe Biden; whereas Sarah Palin is not up to the task); but what specifically will the new president do to start to restore America to its past honor and greatness? Kristof suggests America must rejoin the world:
"[Bush] turned a superpower into a rogue country. Instead of isolating North Korea and Iran, he isolated us — and undermined his own ability to achieve his aims.
"So here’s the top priority for President Barack Obama or President John McCain: We must rejoin the world. There are three general ways in which we can signal a new beginning and “refriend” our allies:
"• We should not only close the Guantánamo prison but also turn it into an international center for research on tropical diseases that afflict poor countries. It could thus become an example of multilateral humanitarianism.
"The new president should also start a Truth Commission to investigate torture and other abuses during the “war on terror.” This should not be a bipartisan panel but a nonpartisan one, dominated by retired generals and intelligence figures like Brent Scowcroft or Colin Powell.
Such a panel would be respected as fair and authoritative in a way that one composed of bickering Democrats and Republicans would not, and it would underscore that we are eager to return to the norms of the civilized world.
"• The new president also should signal that we will no longer confront problems just by blowing them up. The military toolbox is essential, but it shouldn’t be the first option for 21st-century challenges. You can’t bomb climate change.
...
A new approach means a vigorous effort for peace in the Middle East. We also need to commit to negotiating with odious countries. President Clinton’s engagement policy toward North Korea was a constant headache, for Kim Jong Il was brutally repressive and tried to start a secret uranium program. But North Korea didn’t produce nuclear materials for a single weapon during Mr. Clinton’s years in office; under Mr. Bush, it has produced enough for a half dozen.
So here’s the score: Clinton diplomacy, 0 weapons; Bush fulmination, 6 weapons.
"• We must cooperate with other countries on humanitarian efforts, including family planning. One of the Bush follies that has bewildered and antagonized our allies has been the vacuous refusal to support family planning through the United Nations Population Fund.
The upshot of the failure to support contraception has been millions of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. It’s difficult to think of any person alive today whose policies have led to more unnecessary abortions worldwide than Mr. Bush.
...
"Look, a friendlier, more multilateral policy will not solve the world’s problems. Iran isn’t going to give up its nuclear program because it likes us, and brawn is necessary to back up brains.
But without global political capital, we don’t have the leverage to organize more muscular persuasion. Without diplomatic heavy lifting, we can’t credibly threaten military heavy smashing.
"In the aftermath of World War II, the United States led the international effort to construct global institutions to promote peace and prosperity. These included the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and they served our interests. Now, in the aftermath of the cold war, we need to rethink and refurbish this architecture for the next half century or more.
"The United States needs to be a part of the International Criminal Court and should lead the push for a new climate change treaty, for example. The new president should be an architect of this emerging order, rather than AWOL as the Bush administration has been.
"For eight years, the United States has been in self-imposed exile, and that is one reason Mr. Bush’s presidency has failed on so many levels. After Tuesday, let’s rejoin the world."
Only 79 days left in the Bush/Cheney American nightmare. Either one of the presidential candidates will be a vast improvement (as would one of the vice-presidential candidates, Joe Biden; whereas Sarah Palin is not up to the task); but what specifically will the new president do to start to restore America to its past honor and greatness? Kristof suggests America must rejoin the world:
"[Bush] turned a superpower into a rogue country. Instead of isolating North Korea and Iran, he isolated us — and undermined his own ability to achieve his aims.
"So here’s the top priority for President Barack Obama or President John McCain: We must rejoin the world. There are three general ways in which we can signal a new beginning and “refriend” our allies:
"• We should not only close the Guantánamo prison but also turn it into an international center for research on tropical diseases that afflict poor countries. It could thus become an example of multilateral humanitarianism.
"The new president should also start a Truth Commission to investigate torture and other abuses during the “war on terror.” This should not be a bipartisan panel but a nonpartisan one, dominated by retired generals and intelligence figures like Brent Scowcroft or Colin Powell.
Such a panel would be respected as fair and authoritative in a way that one composed of bickering Democrats and Republicans would not, and it would underscore that we are eager to return to the norms of the civilized world.
"• The new president also should signal that we will no longer confront problems just by blowing them up. The military toolbox is essential, but it shouldn’t be the first option for 21st-century challenges. You can’t bomb climate change.
...
A new approach means a vigorous effort for peace in the Middle East. We also need to commit to negotiating with odious countries. President Clinton’s engagement policy toward North Korea was a constant headache, for Kim Jong Il was brutally repressive and tried to start a secret uranium program. But North Korea didn’t produce nuclear materials for a single weapon during Mr. Clinton’s years in office; under Mr. Bush, it has produced enough for a half dozen.
So here’s the score: Clinton diplomacy, 0 weapons; Bush fulmination, 6 weapons.
"• We must cooperate with other countries on humanitarian efforts, including family planning. One of the Bush follies that has bewildered and antagonized our allies has been the vacuous refusal to support family planning through the United Nations Population Fund.
The upshot of the failure to support contraception has been millions of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. It’s difficult to think of any person alive today whose policies have led to more unnecessary abortions worldwide than Mr. Bush.
...
"Look, a friendlier, more multilateral policy will not solve the world’s problems. Iran isn’t going to give up its nuclear program because it likes us, and brawn is necessary to back up brains.
But without global political capital, we don’t have the leverage to organize more muscular persuasion. Without diplomatic heavy lifting, we can’t credibly threaten military heavy smashing.
"In the aftermath of World War II, the United States led the international effort to construct global institutions to promote peace and prosperity. These included the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and they served our interests. Now, in the aftermath of the cold war, we need to rethink and refurbish this architecture for the next half century or more.
"The United States needs to be a part of the International Criminal Court and should lead the push for a new climate change treaty, for example. The new president should be an architect of this emerging order, rather than AWOL as the Bush administration has been.
"For eight years, the United States has been in self-imposed exile, and that is one reason Mr. Bush’s presidency has failed on so many levels. After Tuesday, let’s rejoin the world."
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Sarah Palin's Ridiculous Debate
As noted in my previous post, expectations were so low for Sarah Palin going into last Thursday's debate with Joe Biden that merely managing not to fall off the stage would be considered a success.
And by those standards she did acquit herself well enough - she stayed on her feet and was able to string a few sentences together here and there with lots of winks, you betchas and darn rights. (I confess it was a relief not to see her implode on live television before 50 or 60 million people - thanks to the kid glove treatment by moderator Gwen Ifill, who apparently was sufficiently cowed by the conservative right's claims of her Obama bias not to follow up on any of Palin's non-answers to her questions.)
Palin's performance did demonstrate that she is qualified.... for senior class president. The vacuous non-answers, winks, smiles, and colloquialisms are all fine for someone trying to win a popularity (or beauty) contest, but not for someone running for the second highest office in land. We now have first-hand experience with what happens when we elect someone on the basis of aw-shucks likeability - and George W. Bush has done more to weaken the United States in his eight years than any president in history. We cannot afford any more ignorance in the president's office - and I'm sorry folks, Sarah Palin may be a nice lady and good in beauty contests, but she is not presidential timber.
The following letter to the editor in yesterday's New York Times rings true:
"As someone who teaches history," writes from Barbara Weinstein of New York, "I often give essay exams, and inevitably there are students who arrive ill prepared to take the exam. These students typically adopt one of two strategies: they either construct an essay that is a torrent of words, hoping that by filling up the space I will not notice that they don't know anything (Sarah Palin's performance in the Katie Couric interviews); or they ignore the question I've asked, and answer something else they do know a little about (Ms. Palin's performance in the vice-presidential debates).
"Both strategies earn an F, since neither indicates that they can tackle a crucial issue in the course."
As a teacher myself who grades hundreds of law school essay exams a year, I can vouch for Ms. Weinstein's observation on the tactics adopted by a student who may be clueless on a particular question, and concur with the ultimate failing grade either way. As she says, by "adopt[ing] what amounts to Strategy No. 2 in the debate, and therefore avoid[ing] seeming as clueless as she did in the Couric interviews," Palin reassured the Republican base that the beauty queen can still deliver scripted comments, but "it was no more helpful in establishing her ability to be an effective vice president than Strategy No. 1."
And by those standards she did acquit herself well enough - she stayed on her feet and was able to string a few sentences together here and there with lots of winks, you betchas and darn rights. (I confess it was a relief not to see her implode on live television before 50 or 60 million people - thanks to the kid glove treatment by moderator Gwen Ifill, who apparently was sufficiently cowed by the conservative right's claims of her Obama bias not to follow up on any of Palin's non-answers to her questions.)
Palin's performance did demonstrate that she is qualified.... for senior class president. The vacuous non-answers, winks, smiles, and colloquialisms are all fine for someone trying to win a popularity (or beauty) contest, but not for someone running for the second highest office in land. We now have first-hand experience with what happens when we elect someone on the basis of aw-shucks likeability - and George W. Bush has done more to weaken the United States in his eight years than any president in history. We cannot afford any more ignorance in the president's office - and I'm sorry folks, Sarah Palin may be a nice lady and good in beauty contests, but she is not presidential timber.
The following letter to the editor in yesterday's New York Times rings true:
"As someone who teaches history," writes from Barbara Weinstein of New York, "I often give essay exams, and inevitably there are students who arrive ill prepared to take the exam. These students typically adopt one of two strategies: they either construct an essay that is a torrent of words, hoping that by filling up the space I will not notice that they don't know anything (Sarah Palin's performance in the Katie Couric interviews); or they ignore the question I've asked, and answer something else they do know a little about (Ms. Palin's performance in the vice-presidential debates).
"Both strategies earn an F, since neither indicates that they can tackle a crucial issue in the course."
As a teacher myself who grades hundreds of law school essay exams a year, I can vouch for Ms. Weinstein's observation on the tactics adopted by a student who may be clueless on a particular question, and concur with the ultimate failing grade either way. As she says, by "adopt[ing] what amounts to Strategy No. 2 in the debate, and therefore avoid[ing] seeming as clueless as she did in the Couric interviews," Palin reassured the Republican base that the beauty queen can still deliver scripted comments, but "it was no more helpful in establishing her ability to be an effective vice president than Strategy No. 1."
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Evolution & Republicans' Assault on Reason
A long time ago in a career far far away, I taught high school science - which leads me to especially appreciate a column in today's New York Times by Olivia Judson entitled "Optimism in Evolution."
There's a true wonder to science -to trying to understand and to reason why things work, grow or develop the way they do. As Judson says, "the most important thing about studying evolution is something less tangible. It’s that the endeavor contains a profound optimism. It means that when we encounter something in nature that is complicated or mysterious, such as the flagellum of a bacteria or the light made by a firefly, we don’t have to shrug our shoulders in bewilderment.
"Instead, we can ask how it got to be that way. And if at first it seems so complicated that the evolutionary steps are hard to work out, we have an invitation to imagine, to play, to experiment and explore. To my mind, this only enhances the wonder."
Nicely stated. Not all are so curious, though, as Judson also points out in explaining another more philosophical reason for teaching evolution: "It concerns the development of an attitude toward evidence. In his book, 'The Republican War on Science,' the journalist Chris Mooney argues persuasively that a contempt for scientific evidence — or indeed, evidence of any kind — has permeated the Bush administration’s policies, from climate change to sex education, from drilling for oil to the war in Iraq. A dismissal of evolution is an integral part of this general attitude.
"Moreover, since the science classroom is where a contempt for evidence is often first encountered, it is also arguably where it first begins to be cultivated. A society where ideology is a substitute for evidence can go badly awry. (This is not to suggest that science is never distorted by the ideological left; it sometimes is, and the results are no better.)"
Dismissal of reason among groups of Americans is nothing new - back in the mid-1800s, for example, there was a nativist political group that gained traction for several years known as the "Know Nothings," whose philosophy is remembered by Paul Krugman as "the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise, ... [and whose slogan might have been]: "Real men don’t think things through." By and large, to America's great credit, in that case and throughout American history, the Enlightenment principles of reason and science have eventually prevailed against such movements.
The current Republican anti-intellectualist War on Science is no different - it must be fought and repelled by Reason.
There's a true wonder to science -to trying to understand and to reason why things work, grow or develop the way they do. As Judson says, "the most important thing about studying evolution is something less tangible. It’s that the endeavor contains a profound optimism. It means that when we encounter something in nature that is complicated or mysterious, such as the flagellum of a bacteria or the light made by a firefly, we don’t have to shrug our shoulders in bewilderment.
"Instead, we can ask how it got to be that way. And if at first it seems so complicated that the evolutionary steps are hard to work out, we have an invitation to imagine, to play, to experiment and explore. To my mind, this only enhances the wonder."
Nicely stated. Not all are so curious, though, as Judson also points out in explaining another more philosophical reason for teaching evolution: "It concerns the development of an attitude toward evidence. In his book, 'The Republican War on Science,' the journalist Chris Mooney argues persuasively that a contempt for scientific evidence — or indeed, evidence of any kind — has permeated the Bush administration’s policies, from climate change to sex education, from drilling for oil to the war in Iraq. A dismissal of evolution is an integral part of this general attitude.
"Moreover, since the science classroom is where a contempt for evidence is often first encountered, it is also arguably where it first begins to be cultivated. A society where ideology is a substitute for evidence can go badly awry. (This is not to suggest that science is never distorted by the ideological left; it sometimes is, and the results are no better.)"
Dismissal of reason among groups of Americans is nothing new - back in the mid-1800s, for example, there was a nativist political group that gained traction for several years known as the "Know Nothings," whose philosophy is remembered by Paul Krugman as "the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise, ... [and whose slogan might have been]: "Real men don’t think things through." By and large, to America's great credit, in that case and throughout American history, the Enlightenment principles of reason and science have eventually prevailed against such movements.
The current Republican anti-intellectualist War on Science is no different - it must be fought and repelled by Reason.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Bush Legacy
With his performance as president despised by so many, when it comes to his legacy George W. Bush reportedly is seeking perhaps his only available solace - that perhaps history will treat him more kindly.
Not likely.
What many people and present-day commentators such as the New York Times refer to as "the most disastrous presidency in modern times" is also viewed similarly by respected and reputable historians.
For example, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the late historian, commented to Jane Mayer of the The New Yorker for her new book, "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” that “the Bush administration’s extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history,” reports Bob Herbert in today's NYTimes.
Schlesinger concludes, after considering all of the breakdowns of law that occurred throughout American history in prior administrations, including Watergate, that "No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world — ever.”
Not much solace there for Mr. Bush.
Not likely.
What many people and present-day commentators such as the New York Times refer to as "the most disastrous presidency in modern times" is also viewed similarly by respected and reputable historians.
For example, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the late historian, commented to Jane Mayer of the The New Yorker for her new book, "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” that “the Bush administration’s extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history,” reports Bob Herbert in today's NYTimes.
Schlesinger concludes, after considering all of the breakdowns of law that occurred throughout American history in prior administrations, including Watergate, that "No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world — ever.”
Not much solace there for Mr. Bush.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
A View From Germany of George W. Bush's America
I feel like a broken record in decrying George W. Bush's disastrous presidency, but it's hard not to be angry when you read the sort of commentary (as part of an OpEd, "Obama at the Gate," on whether Barack Obama should speak at the Brandenburg Gate) by author Christoph Peters, translated from the German for publication day before yesterday in the New York Times.
Peters says, "George W. Bush’s contempt for the rules and institutions of international politics, his revival of preventive war, with all its unforeseeable consequences, his abrogation of the rule of law in his own country, and his ignorance of every issue related to environmental conservation have become, for me and for the vast majority of Germans, synonymous with a high-handed, ugly America. This state of affairs has provoked not only rage and horror, but also great sadness, for the United States has always been the symbol of freedom, democracy and law."
184 days and counting - better things are in store....
Peters says, "George W. Bush’s contempt for the rules and institutions of international politics, his revival of preventive war, with all its unforeseeable consequences, his abrogation of the rule of law in his own country, and his ignorance of every issue related to environmental conservation have become, for me and for the vast majority of Germans, synonymous with a high-handed, ugly America. This state of affairs has provoked not only rage and horror, but also great sadness, for the United States has always been the symbol of freedom, democracy and law."
184 days and counting - better things are in store....
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Bush and the Loss of Reason; What Happened
Commenting on former Bush-Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new tell-all book, "What Happened," detailing the lies and duplicity of Bush, Cheney, Rove, etc, Maureen Dowd pinpoints what's so maddening about Bush:
"It turns out that our president is a one-man refutation of Malcolm Gladwell’s best seller “Blink,” about the value of trusting your gut. Every gut instinct he had was wildly off the mark and hideously damaging to all concerned. It seems that if you trust your gut without ever feeding your gut any facts or news or contrary opinions, if you keep your gut on a steady diet of grandiosity, ignorance, sycophants, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, those snap decisions can be ruinous…."
As Dowd comments, "We already know What Happened, but it feels good to hear Scott say it."
"It turns out that our president is a one-man refutation of Malcolm Gladwell’s best seller “Blink,” about the value of trusting your gut. Every gut instinct he had was wildly off the mark and hideously damaging to all concerned. It seems that if you trust your gut without ever feeding your gut any facts or news or contrary opinions, if you keep your gut on a steady diet of grandiosity, ignorance, sycophants, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, those snap decisions can be ruinous…."
As Dowd comments, "We already know What Happened, but it feels good to hear Scott say it."
Sunday, March 9, 2008
George W. Bush Protects Torture Technique
Last week an advisor to Barack Obama resigned because she referred to Hillary Clinton as a "monster" during an interview with a Scottish publication.
One should pause, and hesitate again, before damning another human being with such an incendiary term, defined by Webster's Unabridged as "a person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc." Obama's advisor was correct to resign - Hillary Clinton has done nothing to deserve such a label.
George W. Bush, on the other hand, comes close to deserving the label after his veto yesterday of a bill that would have banned the torture technique of "waterboarding" and other techniques not allowed in the Army field manual on interrogation (which prohibits physical force against prisoners). To use the massive power of the office of the President of the United States to advocate (over the objection of the democratically-elected legislature, no less) what is widely regarded as cruel, inhumane and beyond the bounds of decency is, by definition, nothing short of monstrous.
Understand that most experts - including the military and law enforcement agencies like the FBI - believe the technique is unnecessary and even counterproductive. Bush's own commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Patraeus, has argued that the use of such techniques creates risks for any future American prisoners of war.
So why does he persist? In a word - Power. Power of the presidency vis-a-vis Congress and anybody else who crosses his sanctimonious good vs. evil worldview.
And the all-too-shameful fact is the veto will not be overridden. (The bill passed 221-199 in the House and 51-45 in the Senate, short of the two-thirds needed to override the veto.) It is most unfortunate that there are enough in Congress - mostly Republicans, it happens - who lack the spine and courage to stand up against Bush's fearmongering. Who are these people? Have they no shame?
This is why people around the world justifiably hate George W. Bush's America.
One should pause, and hesitate again, before damning another human being with such an incendiary term, defined by Webster's Unabridged as "a person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc." Obama's advisor was correct to resign - Hillary Clinton has done nothing to deserve such a label.
George W. Bush, on the other hand, comes close to deserving the label after his veto yesterday of a bill that would have banned the torture technique of "waterboarding" and other techniques not allowed in the Army field manual on interrogation (which prohibits physical force against prisoners). To use the massive power of the office of the President of the United States to advocate (over the objection of the democratically-elected legislature, no less) what is widely regarded as cruel, inhumane and beyond the bounds of decency is, by definition, nothing short of monstrous.
Understand that most experts - including the military and law enforcement agencies like the FBI - believe the technique is unnecessary and even counterproductive. Bush's own commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Patraeus, has argued that the use of such techniques creates risks for any future American prisoners of war.
So why does he persist? In a word - Power. Power of the presidency vis-a-vis Congress and anybody else who crosses his sanctimonious good vs. evil worldview.
And the all-too-shameful fact is the veto will not be overridden. (The bill passed 221-199 in the House and 51-45 in the Senate, short of the two-thirds needed to override the veto.) It is most unfortunate that there are enough in Congress - mostly Republicans, it happens - who lack the spine and courage to stand up against Bush's fearmongering. Who are these people? Have they no shame?
This is why people around the world justifiably hate George W. Bush's America.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Fiscal Irresponsibility and the Crippling Cost of Iraq
If the moral and international law problems with George W. Bush's ill-fated adventure in Iraq were not enough, the holdout war-supporter need only look to the crippling economic cost of the war to understand the damage it has done to America.
As described in Bob Herbert's New York Times column yesterday, "The $2 Trillion Nightmare,"
"On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
"Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”
"Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.
"What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares. Mr. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia, has been working with a colleague at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, to document, among other things, some of the less obvious costs of the war. These include the obligation to provide health care and disability benefits for returning veterans. Those costs will be with us for decades.
...
"Mr. Hormats told the committee:
"“Normally, when America goes to war, nonessential spending programs are reduced to make room in the budget for the higher costs of the war. Individual programs that benefit specific constituencies are sacrificed for the common good ... And taxes have never been cut during a major American war. For example, President Eisenhower adamantly resisted pressure from Senate Republicans for a tax cut during the Korean War.”"
"Said Mr. Stiglitz: “Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself ... By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.”"
Thanks, George.
As described in Bob Herbert's New York Times column yesterday, "The $2 Trillion Nightmare,"
"On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
"Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”
"Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.
"What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares. Mr. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia, has been working with a colleague at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, to document, among other things, some of the less obvious costs of the war. These include the obligation to provide health care and disability benefits for returning veterans. Those costs will be with us for decades.
...
"Mr. Hormats told the committee:
"“Normally, when America goes to war, nonessential spending programs are reduced to make room in the budget for the higher costs of the war. Individual programs that benefit specific constituencies are sacrificed for the common good ... And taxes have never been cut during a major American war. For example, President Eisenhower adamantly resisted pressure from Senate Republicans for a tax cut during the Korean War.”"
"Said Mr. Stiglitz: “Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself ... By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.”"
Thanks, George.
Monday, March 3, 2008
American Government's Betrayal
The George W. Bush Administration's dismal record on human rights, often as enabled by Congress, has caused inestimable damage to America's prestige around the world these last seven-plus years. And given the needless squandering of America's previously-held hard-won reputation for fairness, due process, and human rights, one can't help but feel infuriated by the massive betrayal of those principles by the American government. What would have seemed impossible just seven years ago - waterboarding, rendition, secret CIA torture camps, indefinite imprisonment without adequate process, warrantless spying on citizens, etc. etc. - is now reality.
As The Sun Editor and Publisher Sy Safransky comments in a 2008 reflection on the nature of the American government’s betrayal, “I wonder: Do I feel betrayed? Not like a groom whose bride backs out of the wedding at the last minute. Not that kind of betrayed. Maybe more like a groom whose bride shows up an hour late because she was entertaining the CEO of Halliburton in her motel room. The room with the waterbed. That kind of betrayed.”
Note the distinction. The first leads to feelings of betrayal, sure - but as the groom, one can rationalize that the bride is acting on principle in making the excruciatingly difficult decision in electing not to go through with the marriage if she is not ready, and if so maybe it's for the best after all. The second, on the other hand, with its callous, cynical disregard and outright mocking of a solemn trust - on a day of high hope and promise, no less – is of a different, more insidious sort altogether. It's just slimy - and that's about how things have gone these last seven years both abroad and at home.
As The Sun Editor and Publisher Sy Safransky comments in a 2008 reflection on the nature of the American government’s betrayal, “I wonder: Do I feel betrayed? Not like a groom whose bride backs out of the wedding at the last minute. Not that kind of betrayed. Maybe more like a groom whose bride shows up an hour late because she was entertaining the CEO of Halliburton in her motel room. The room with the waterbed. That kind of betrayed.”
Note the distinction. The first leads to feelings of betrayal, sure - but as the groom, one can rationalize that the bride is acting on principle in making the excruciatingly difficult decision in electing not to go through with the marriage if she is not ready, and if so maybe it's for the best after all. The second, on the other hand, with its callous, cynical disregard and outright mocking of a solemn trust - on a day of high hope and promise, no less – is of a different, more insidious sort altogether. It's just slimy - and that's about how things have gone these last seven years both abroad and at home.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Dream - This is George W. Bush's America
So I had this dream last night.
I was at some big out-of-town public event - maybe a concert, maybe an evening art fair; something pretty crowded, with lots of inadvertent jostling, bumping up against people, etc.
The next day as I'm leaving my hotel room I'm approached by a group of 10-12 guys in full military dress (vaguely Latin American, maybe some Central or South American country) with lots of medals hanging from their chests. One guy says, "Were you at this event last night?"
"Yes," I reply.
"Did you know that there was an attack on our soldiers?" he asks. I tell him no, I didn't, and he continues, "Well we think you do."
"No, I really don't," I reassure him, but he doesn't believe me, repeatedly demanding, "What do you know? What do you know?"
"I promise you, I don't know anything," I say more urgently, trying to convey that I truly do not know anything.
"Well we're just going to ask you some questions," he says as his colleagues close around me and start tying me to a chair. I think to myself, "Well I'll be okay - after all I'm an American, and since we treat people with basic decency they have to treat me okay as well."
But as the ropes tighten I remember torture memos, waterboarding, and those awful stories of people (sometimes completely innocent - guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time) kept for years and yes, tortured, by anyone else’s definition, in Guantanamo Bay and secret CIA interrogation camps, and I think to myself, "Oh s**t, my life is over….”
And then I wake up.
If only this were just a dream.
I was at some big out-of-town public event - maybe a concert, maybe an evening art fair; something pretty crowded, with lots of inadvertent jostling, bumping up against people, etc.
The next day as I'm leaving my hotel room I'm approached by a group of 10-12 guys in full military dress (vaguely Latin American, maybe some Central or South American country) with lots of medals hanging from their chests. One guy says, "Were you at this event last night?"
"Yes," I reply.
"Did you know that there was an attack on our soldiers?" he asks. I tell him no, I didn't, and he continues, "Well we think you do."
"No, I really don't," I reassure him, but he doesn't believe me, repeatedly demanding, "What do you know? What do you know?"
"I promise you, I don't know anything," I say more urgently, trying to convey that I truly do not know anything.
"Well we're just going to ask you some questions," he says as his colleagues close around me and start tying me to a chair. I think to myself, "Well I'll be okay - after all I'm an American, and since we treat people with basic decency they have to treat me okay as well."
But as the ropes tighten I remember torture memos, waterboarding, and those awful stories of people (sometimes completely innocent - guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time) kept for years and yes, tortured, by anyone else’s definition, in Guantanamo Bay and secret CIA interrogation camps, and I think to myself, "Oh s**t, my life is over….”
And then I wake up.
If only this were just a dream.
Monday, December 31, 2007
New Year - American Soulsearching in the Bush Era
As we bring down the curtain on 2007 and take stock in where we stand as a nation at the end of Year Seven in the reign of George W. Bush and the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, it's worth taking a look at today's OpEd page editorial in the New York Times.
In substantial part, the piece, entitled "Looking at America," states:
"There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.
"It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001....
"Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.
"In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.
"We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.
"Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.
"The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could....
"Prisoners are held [in Guantanamo Bay] with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.
"In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that “experts” could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.
"The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect for life or law, sending prisoners — some of them innocents kidnapped on street corners and in airports — to be tortured into making false confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were let go without any apology or hope of redress.
"These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.
"We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America."
In substantial part, the piece, entitled "Looking at America," states:
"There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.
"It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001....
"Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.
"In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.
"We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.
"Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.
"The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could....
"Prisoners are held [in Guantanamo Bay] with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.
"In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that “experts” could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.
"The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect for life or law, sending prisoners — some of them innocents kidnapped on street corners and in airports — to be tortured into making false confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were let go without any apology or hope of redress.
"These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.
"We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America."
Monday, October 1, 2007
Post-Bush America
One of the lasting effects of the George W. Bush presidency is that U.S. credibility is so damaged around the world that it will be difficult for his successor to shape events ranging from addressing global warming, to economic integration, to middle-east politics, and so on and so on.
Perhaps most worrisome is that democracy itself, as a viable political system for the greater good, is damaged by U.S. behavior under Bush's leadership. Why democracy, one might ask, in view of the messes the U.S. is making in Iraq, global warming, Guantanamo Bay, etc., etc.? As Roger Cohen suggests in today's New York Times, "Liberal democracy has taken a battering. A countermodel now exists: the authoritarian-capitalist, or Leninist-capitalist, systems of China and Russia. They have benefited from Iraq's democracy-as-mayhem."
Democracy is the best system yet devised for protecting the Enlightenment-based values of Reason and Individual Liberty. With the bungling of Bush and the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, the next president will have a tall task in restoring faith around the world in the American version of democracy epitomized in the values of pluralism, rule of law, independent media, market economies, tolerance, and basic human decency.
Perhaps most worrisome is that democracy itself, as a viable political system for the greater good, is damaged by U.S. behavior under Bush's leadership. Why democracy, one might ask, in view of the messes the U.S. is making in Iraq, global warming, Guantanamo Bay, etc., etc.? As Roger Cohen suggests in today's New York Times, "Liberal democracy has taken a battering. A countermodel now exists: the authoritarian-capitalist, or Leninist-capitalist, systems of China and Russia. They have benefited from Iraq's democracy-as-mayhem."
Democracy is the best system yet devised for protecting the Enlightenment-based values of Reason and Individual Liberty. With the bungling of Bush and the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, the next president will have a tall task in restoring faith around the world in the American version of democracy epitomized in the values of pluralism, rule of law, independent media, market economies, tolerance, and basic human decency.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Bush Administration Extremism in War on Terror
You know there's truth to the charges leveled here and elsewhere that the George W. Bush administration has exceeded constitutional bounds in its no-holds-barred approach to the War on Terror when its former key constitutional adviser says so.
As reported by Jeffrey Rosen in the September 9, 2007 New York Times Magazine, Jack Goldsmith, formerly head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (the division that advises the president on the limits of executive power) and now a law professor at Harvard, says he is speaking publicly in a new book, "The Terror Presidency," to be published later this month, because he hopes that "future presidents and people inside the executive branch can learn from our mistakes." (In writing this book, Goldsmith is no George Tenet seeking to cash in with a tell-all memoir - he is donating his advance and all proceeds to charity.)
Starting in 2002, Goldsmith served in the Pentagon as a legal adviser to the general counsel of the Defense Department; then in October 2003 he was hired to head the Office of Legal Counsel, only to resign nine months later. As Rosen reports, "Although [Goldsmith] refused to discuss his resignation at the time, he had led a small group of administration lawyers in a behind-the-scenes revolt against what he considered the constitutional excesses of the legal policies embraced by his White House superiors in the war on terror.... By the end of his tenure, he was worn out. 'I was disgusted with the whole process and fed up and exhausted,'" he said.
"In Goldsmith's view," Rosen continues, "the Bush administration went about answering questions [about the legal limits of executive power] in the wrong way. Instead of reaching out to Congress and the courts for support, which would have strengthened its legal hand, the administration asserted what Goldsmith considers an unnecessarily broad, 'go-it-alone' view of executive power. As Goldsmith sees it, this strategy has backfired. 'They embraced this vision,' he says, 'because they wanted to leave the presidency stronger than when they assumed office, but the approach they took achieved exactly the opposite effect. The central irony is that people whose explicit goal was to expand presidential power have diminished it.'"
Goldsmith's opinion is especially telling since he was a member of the innermost circle of the Bush administration's dealings in the War on Terror. He was in the room, in fact, in the now-famous visit by Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room to demand that Ashcroft approve, over Goldsmith's and others' objections, the secret terrorist surveillance program. Goldsmith describes the scene:
"Ashcroft, who looked like he was near death [with a bright light shining on him and tubes and wires coming out of his body], sort of puffed up his chest. All of a sudden, energy and color came into his face, and he said that he didn't appreciate them coming to visit him under those circumstances, that he had concerns about the matter they were asking about and that, in any event, he wasn't the attorney general at the moment; Jim Comey was. He actually gave a two-minute speech, and I was sure at the end of it he was going to die. It was the most amazing scene I've ever witnessed."
Goldsmith concludes that the Bush administration "badly overplayed a winning hand," telling Rosen that in retrospect "Bush 'could have achieved all that he wanted to achieve, and put it on firmer foundation, if he had been willing to reach out to other institutions of government.' Instead, Goldsmith said, he weakened the presidency he was so determined to strengthen."
If there's any silver lining to the sad saga of the Bush presidency, it's in Goldsmith's concluding words: "I don't think any president in the near future can have the same attitude toward executive power, because the other institutions of government won't allow it. The Bush administration has borrowed its power against future presidents."
That, indeed, is the system of checks and balances that the Constitution's structural separation of powers was designed to create.
As reported by Jeffrey Rosen in the September 9, 2007 New York Times Magazine, Jack Goldsmith, formerly head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (the division that advises the president on the limits of executive power) and now a law professor at Harvard, says he is speaking publicly in a new book, "The Terror Presidency," to be published later this month, because he hopes that "future presidents and people inside the executive branch can learn from our mistakes." (In writing this book, Goldsmith is no George Tenet seeking to cash in with a tell-all memoir - he is donating his advance and all proceeds to charity.)
Starting in 2002, Goldsmith served in the Pentagon as a legal adviser to the general counsel of the Defense Department; then in October 2003 he was hired to head the Office of Legal Counsel, only to resign nine months later. As Rosen reports, "Although [Goldsmith] refused to discuss his resignation at the time, he had led a small group of administration lawyers in a behind-the-scenes revolt against what he considered the constitutional excesses of the legal policies embraced by his White House superiors in the war on terror.... By the end of his tenure, he was worn out. 'I was disgusted with the whole process and fed up and exhausted,'" he said.
"In Goldsmith's view," Rosen continues, "the Bush administration went about answering questions [about the legal limits of executive power] in the wrong way. Instead of reaching out to Congress and the courts for support, which would have strengthened its legal hand, the administration asserted what Goldsmith considers an unnecessarily broad, 'go-it-alone' view of executive power. As Goldsmith sees it, this strategy has backfired. 'They embraced this vision,' he says, 'because they wanted to leave the presidency stronger than when they assumed office, but the approach they took achieved exactly the opposite effect. The central irony is that people whose explicit goal was to expand presidential power have diminished it.'"
Goldsmith's opinion is especially telling since he was a member of the innermost circle of the Bush administration's dealings in the War on Terror. He was in the room, in fact, in the now-famous visit by Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room to demand that Ashcroft approve, over Goldsmith's and others' objections, the secret terrorist surveillance program. Goldsmith describes the scene:
"Ashcroft, who looked like he was near death [with a bright light shining on him and tubes and wires coming out of his body], sort of puffed up his chest. All of a sudden, energy and color came into his face, and he said that he didn't appreciate them coming to visit him under those circumstances, that he had concerns about the matter they were asking about and that, in any event, he wasn't the attorney general at the moment; Jim Comey was. He actually gave a two-minute speech, and I was sure at the end of it he was going to die. It was the most amazing scene I've ever witnessed."
Goldsmith concludes that the Bush administration "badly overplayed a winning hand," telling Rosen that in retrospect "Bush 'could have achieved all that he wanted to achieve, and put it on firmer foundation, if he had been willing to reach out to other institutions of government.' Instead, Goldsmith said, he weakened the presidency he was so determined to strengthen."
If there's any silver lining to the sad saga of the Bush presidency, it's in Goldsmith's concluding words: "I don't think any president in the near future can have the same attitude toward executive power, because the other institutions of government won't allow it. The Bush administration has borrowed its power against future presidents."
That, indeed, is the system of checks and balances that the Constitution's structural separation of powers was designed to create.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Iraq Mistakes - Paul Bremer
Did you happen to see Roger Cohen's column in today's New York Times?
In it he discusses one of the many mistakes made in Iraq: the naming by George W. Bush of Paul Bremer to operate as grand poobah of all operations and governance in Iraq, despite the fact that there had been a thoroughly-discussed plan to leave the ruling during the post-Saddam reconstruction to the Iraqis with the US operating behind the scenes.
The plan that never emerged involved sending Zalmay Khalilzad, the Beirut-educated, Farsi-speaking Sunni Muslim who actually has a clue about the Islamic world currently serving as American ambassador to the United Nations, and who had previously worked in Afghanistan to shepherd of Hamid Karzai to power in Kabul, to Iraq to convene a meeting of Iraqis to plan for governing themselves.
As Cohen tells it:
"Khalilzad’s anguish centers on May 6, 2003. That’s the day he expected Bush to announce his return to Iraq to convene a grand assembly — something like an Afghan loya jirga — that would fast-forward a provisional Iraqi government.
Instead, the appointment of L. Paul Bremer III to head a Coalition Provisional Authority was announced. Khalilzad, incredulous, went elsewhere. In the place of an Afghan-American Muslim on a mission to empower Iraqis, we got the former ambassador to the Netherlands for a one-year proconsul gig.
'We had cleared both announcements, with Bremer to run things and me to convene the loya jirga, both as presidential envoys,' Khalilzad told me. 'We were just playing with a few final words. Then the game plan suddenly changed: we would run the country ourselves.'
Alluding to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser, Khalilzad continued: 'Powell and Condi were incredulous. Powell called me and asked: ‘What happened?’ And I said, ‘You’re secretary of state and you’re asking me what happened!’'
Powell confirmed his astonishment. 'The plan was for Zal to go back,' he said. 'He was the one guy who knew this place better than anyone. I thought this was part of the deal with Bremer. But with no discussion, no debate, things changed. I was stunned.'
The volte-face came at a Bush- Bremer lunch that day where Bremer made a unity of command argument to the Decider. 'I put it very directly to the president: you can’t have two presidential envoys running around Iraq,' Bremer told me.
A MacArthur-Karzai debate had raged within the administration for months: should the United States run Iraq like Gen. Douglas MacArthur in postwar Japan or seek a local Karzai-like leader and operate behind the scenes? ...
'The way we did it gave Iraqis the best chance of a sustainable political process,' [Bremer] argued.
Nonsense, Khalilzad believes. 'I feel strongly that the U.S. ruling was wrong. We could have had an interim Iraqi government. I argued, based on Afghanistan, that with forces, diplomacy and money, nothing can happen anyway without your support.'
Powell agrees. 'Everything was Bremer, the suit, the boots, the whole nine yards.' It was a mistake not to move 'more rapidly to putting an Iraqi face on it.'
Khalilzad and Powell are right. The insurgency that took hold after Bremer’s arrival had a clear target: the guy in Timberlands. Given the extent of its post-cold-war power, the United States must wield it with subtlety. This was the sledgehammer approach.
And chosen over lunch. 'Unfortunately, yes, the way that decision was taken was typical,' Powell said. 'Done! No full deliberations. And you suddenly discover, gee, maybe that wasn’t so great, we should have thought about it a little longer.'”
Lessons from this sad tale? We've long known the Decider makes bad decisions, period. He has made bad decisions his entire life, but has managed to thrive nonetheless when Poppy Bush and his gang bail him out. The saddest point is that the American people, with plenty of evidence of George W. Bush's bad decisionmaking and otherwise poor skills, nonetheless re-elected him in 2004.
In it he discusses one of the many mistakes made in Iraq: the naming by George W. Bush of Paul Bremer to operate as grand poobah of all operations and governance in Iraq, despite the fact that there had been a thoroughly-discussed plan to leave the ruling during the post-Saddam reconstruction to the Iraqis with the US operating behind the scenes.
The plan that never emerged involved sending Zalmay Khalilzad, the Beirut-educated, Farsi-speaking Sunni Muslim who actually has a clue about the Islamic world currently serving as American ambassador to the United Nations, and who had previously worked in Afghanistan to shepherd of Hamid Karzai to power in Kabul, to Iraq to convene a meeting of Iraqis to plan for governing themselves.
As Cohen tells it:
"Khalilzad’s anguish centers on May 6, 2003. That’s the day he expected Bush to announce his return to Iraq to convene a grand assembly — something like an Afghan loya jirga — that would fast-forward a provisional Iraqi government.
Instead, the appointment of L. Paul Bremer III to head a Coalition Provisional Authority was announced. Khalilzad, incredulous, went elsewhere. In the place of an Afghan-American Muslim on a mission to empower Iraqis, we got the former ambassador to the Netherlands for a one-year proconsul gig.
'We had cleared both announcements, with Bremer to run things and me to convene the loya jirga, both as presidential envoys,' Khalilzad told me. 'We were just playing with a few final words. Then the game plan suddenly changed: we would run the country ourselves.'
Alluding to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser, Khalilzad continued: 'Powell and Condi were incredulous. Powell called me and asked: ‘What happened?’ And I said, ‘You’re secretary of state and you’re asking me what happened!’'
Powell confirmed his astonishment. 'The plan was for Zal to go back,' he said. 'He was the one guy who knew this place better than anyone. I thought this was part of the deal with Bremer. But with no discussion, no debate, things changed. I was stunned.'
The volte-face came at a Bush- Bremer lunch that day where Bremer made a unity of command argument to the Decider. 'I put it very directly to the president: you can’t have two presidential envoys running around Iraq,' Bremer told me.
A MacArthur-Karzai debate had raged within the administration for months: should the United States run Iraq like Gen. Douglas MacArthur in postwar Japan or seek a local Karzai-like leader and operate behind the scenes? ...
'The way we did it gave Iraqis the best chance of a sustainable political process,' [Bremer] argued.
Nonsense, Khalilzad believes. 'I feel strongly that the U.S. ruling was wrong. We could have had an interim Iraqi government. I argued, based on Afghanistan, that with forces, diplomacy and money, nothing can happen anyway without your support.'
Powell agrees. 'Everything was Bremer, the suit, the boots, the whole nine yards.' It was a mistake not to move 'more rapidly to putting an Iraqi face on it.'
Khalilzad and Powell are right. The insurgency that took hold after Bremer’s arrival had a clear target: the guy in Timberlands. Given the extent of its post-cold-war power, the United States must wield it with subtlety. This was the sledgehammer approach.
And chosen over lunch. 'Unfortunately, yes, the way that decision was taken was typical,' Powell said. 'Done! No full deliberations. And you suddenly discover, gee, maybe that wasn’t so great, we should have thought about it a little longer.'”
Lessons from this sad tale? We've long known the Decider makes bad decisions, period. He has made bad decisions his entire life, but has managed to thrive nonetheless when Poppy Bush and his gang bail him out. The saddest point is that the American people, with plenty of evidence of George W. Bush's bad decisionmaking and otherwise poor skills, nonetheless re-elected him in 2004.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
War of Ideology - Who Writes History?
The new Atlantic Monthly's cover story entitled "Lessons From a Failed Presidency" got me thinking.
By now it is clear to reasonable people that the George W. Bush presidency has been nothing short of disastrous. Yet we still see Fox News reporting a different all-is-well story, and we still read reports from some, like neo-con William Kristol and other apologists, encouraging us to stay the course - if not escalate - in Iraq, and to continue to engage in other misadventures around the world (CIA camps, etc. etc.). And this is not to mention the administration's systematic denial of rational scientific evidence in its approach to domestic policy (stem cell, energy policy, etc.).
So the Atlantic's cover story got me thinking about how history will view this era. One hopes there will be a balanced approach, but there's a worry that the Fox News version will prevail.
There is precedent. After the Civil War and the Union victory, the South ultimately won the subsequent "history-writing war." For a brief time following the war, when Reconstruction was underway, there was true equality opportunity for people of all races (women aside, but that's another, major, story). Thereafter things changed, as historian Eric Foner explains:
"By the turn of the century, Reconstruction was widely viewed as little more than a regrettable detour on the road to reunion. To the bulk of the white South, it had become axiomatic that Reconstruction had been a time of ‘savage tyranny’ that ‘accomplished not one useful result, and left behind it, not one pleasant recollection.... This rewriting of Reconstruction’s history was accorded scholarly legitimacy – to its everlasting shame – by the nation’s fraternity of professional historians, … [and] shaped historical writing for generations.... Few interpretations of history have had such far-reaching consequences as this image of Reconstruction, … [which] ‘did much to freeze the mind of the white South in unalterable opposition to outside pressures for social change and to any thought of … eliminating segregation, or restoring suffrage to disenfranchised blacks."
The historians of whom Foner speaks were an early twentieth-century group of young scholars from the South studying the Reconstruction at Columbia University under Professor Dunning, who “were taught … [that Blacks] were ‘children’ utterly incapable of appreciating the freedom that had been thrust upon them. The North did ‘a monstrous thing’ in granting them suffrage, for ‘a black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself succeeded in subjecting passion to reason, has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind.’… These “Dunning School” views … achieved wide popularity through D.W. Griffith’s film, Birth of a Nation (which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and had its premiere at the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency). … Southern whites, … [it was said,] ‘literally were put to the torture’ by ‘emissaries of hate’ who inflamed ‘the negroes’ egotism’ and even inspired ‘lustful assaults’ by blacks upon white womanhood.’”
In 100 years, will the George W. Bush presidency be remembered in the history books as, perhaps, the era when religion and government were finally properly melded in policymaking? Or, perhaps, the era when the executive finally emerged as the dominant branch, after dispensing with the quaint notion of separation of powers, thus allowing the President to undertake the important task of guiding America in its sacred role as the world's policeman unencumbered by outdated niceties like congressional and judicial oversight?
The War of Ideology in the writing of the history is just beginning.
By now it is clear to reasonable people that the George W. Bush presidency has been nothing short of disastrous. Yet we still see Fox News reporting a different all-is-well story, and we still read reports from some, like neo-con William Kristol and other apologists, encouraging us to stay the course - if not escalate - in Iraq, and to continue to engage in other misadventures around the world (CIA camps, etc. etc.). And this is not to mention the administration's systematic denial of rational scientific evidence in its approach to domestic policy (stem cell, energy policy, etc.).
So the Atlantic's cover story got me thinking about how history will view this era. One hopes there will be a balanced approach, but there's a worry that the Fox News version will prevail.
There is precedent. After the Civil War and the Union victory, the South ultimately won the subsequent "history-writing war." For a brief time following the war, when Reconstruction was underway, there was true equality opportunity for people of all races (women aside, but that's another, major, story). Thereafter things changed, as historian Eric Foner explains:
"By the turn of the century, Reconstruction was widely viewed as little more than a regrettable detour on the road to reunion. To the bulk of the white South, it had become axiomatic that Reconstruction had been a time of ‘savage tyranny’ that ‘accomplished not one useful result, and left behind it, not one pleasant recollection.... This rewriting of Reconstruction’s history was accorded scholarly legitimacy – to its everlasting shame – by the nation’s fraternity of professional historians, … [and] shaped historical writing for generations.... Few interpretations of history have had such far-reaching consequences as this image of Reconstruction, … [which] ‘did much to freeze the mind of the white South in unalterable opposition to outside pressures for social change and to any thought of … eliminating segregation, or restoring suffrage to disenfranchised blacks."
The historians of whom Foner speaks were an early twentieth-century group of young scholars from the South studying the Reconstruction at Columbia University under Professor Dunning, who “were taught … [that Blacks] were ‘children’ utterly incapable of appreciating the freedom that had been thrust upon them. The North did ‘a monstrous thing’ in granting them suffrage, for ‘a black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself succeeded in subjecting passion to reason, has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind.’… These “Dunning School” views … achieved wide popularity through D.W. Griffith’s film, Birth of a Nation (which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and had its premiere at the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency). … Southern whites, … [it was said,] ‘literally were put to the torture’ by ‘emissaries of hate’ who inflamed ‘the negroes’ egotism’ and even inspired ‘lustful assaults’ by blacks upon white womanhood.’”
In 100 years, will the George W. Bush presidency be remembered in the history books as, perhaps, the era when religion and government were finally properly melded in policymaking? Or, perhaps, the era when the executive finally emerged as the dominant branch, after dispensing with the quaint notion of separation of powers, thus allowing the President to undertake the important task of guiding America in its sacred role as the world's policeman unencumbered by outdated niceties like congressional and judicial oversight?
The War of Ideology in the writing of the history is just beginning.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Separation of Powers Showdown
The President's position that his aides are absolutely immune from testifying before Congress, despite congressional subpoenas for information on the abrupt firings of federal prosecutors, sets up a separation-of-powers showdown that will be resolved ultimately by the Supreme Court - which these days is an increasingly scary proposition.
As reported by MSNBC, "the White House has said that Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former legal counselor Harriet Miers, among other top advisers to President Bush, are absolutely immune from subpoenas because their documents and testimony are protected by executive privilege." In response, House Democrats today are preparing contempt of Congress citations against Bolten and Miers.
This is just the latest in George W. Bush's assault on the Constitution. The Supreme Court, IF it adheres to precedent on this issue, will hold that executive privilege does not extend to allow aides to avoid responding to congressional subpoena. This would be the correct decision, in that it recognizes the proper separation of powers among the executive and legislative branches envisioned by the framers of the Constitution.
That's a big "if," though, since the Roberts Court has demonstrated in its recently-completed 2006-07 term that it is perfectly willing to discard precedent when it might have more cautiously decided the cases on other grounds. And we're perilously close - if we're not there already - to having a majority of the Court ratify the President's extreme views of Executive power. Even a case that seemed as open-and-shut as the 2006 Hamdan case, holding that the executive lacked the power to unilaterally limit the due process rights of enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, was only 5-3 (actually, 5-4, since Chief Justice Roberts recused himself, having decided the case below in favor of the President while on the DC Federal Court of Appeals).
I've said it before, but this is yet another illustration of the notion that our constitutional regime has an Achilles Heel in the vast power of the Supreme Court - i.e., if we ever get five justices (enough for a majority) who consistently vote in ways that systematically undermine the text and spirit of the Constitution, there's little We the People can do to reverse the decisions of these appointed-for-life Justices. Oh, technically we can amend the Constitution or argue that Congress will impeach the Justices, but both of these alternatives are so remote as to be virtually non-existent.
Stay tuned for the future of our constitutional democracy.
As reported by MSNBC, "the White House has said that Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former legal counselor Harriet Miers, among other top advisers to President Bush, are absolutely immune from subpoenas because their documents and testimony are protected by executive privilege." In response, House Democrats today are preparing contempt of Congress citations against Bolten and Miers.
This is just the latest in George W. Bush's assault on the Constitution. The Supreme Court, IF it adheres to precedent on this issue, will hold that executive privilege does not extend to allow aides to avoid responding to congressional subpoena. This would be the correct decision, in that it recognizes the proper separation of powers among the executive and legislative branches envisioned by the framers of the Constitution.
That's a big "if," though, since the Roberts Court has demonstrated in its recently-completed 2006-07 term that it is perfectly willing to discard precedent when it might have more cautiously decided the cases on other grounds. And we're perilously close - if we're not there already - to having a majority of the Court ratify the President's extreme views of Executive power. Even a case that seemed as open-and-shut as the 2006 Hamdan case, holding that the executive lacked the power to unilaterally limit the due process rights of enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, was only 5-3 (actually, 5-4, since Chief Justice Roberts recused himself, having decided the case below in favor of the President while on the DC Federal Court of Appeals).
I've said it before, but this is yet another illustration of the notion that our constitutional regime has an Achilles Heel in the vast power of the Supreme Court - i.e., if we ever get five justices (enough for a majority) who consistently vote in ways that systematically undermine the text and spirit of the Constitution, there's little We the People can do to reverse the decisions of these appointed-for-life Justices. Oh, technically we can amend the Constitution or argue that Congress will impeach the Justices, but both of these alternatives are so remote as to be virtually non-existent.
Stay tuned for the future of our constitutional democracy.
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