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Archives for 2008
Grats!
Grats on the new digs, guys.
The Yoo Memo
Glenzilla has a piece up that is so scathing it will singe your eyebrows when you read it:
That John Yoo is a full professor at one of the country’s most prestigious law schools, and a welcomed expert on our newspaper’s Op-Ed pages and television news programs, speaks volumes about what our country has become. We sure did take care of that despicable Pvt. Lyndie England, though, because we don’t tolerate barbaric conduct of the type in which she engaged completely on her own.
Memeorandum round up here.
I have not read the entire memo, and to be honest, it would be pointless for me to do so with no legal training. My unlearned interpretation of the memo would most resemble a monkey fucking a football, so I have to rely on what legal experts I trust say. From what I understand from Balkin, Greenwald, and others is that the memo is breathtakingly brazen in the scope of authority it asserts for the President, but that there is nothing really surprising in the memo. Everything we sort of expected it would say is there.
What a shame this administration has put this country through this. What a shame they have dragged us down to the level of morality as a two-bit dictatorship. One last thing of interest from Balkinization:
Orin Kerr notes that John Yoo’s torture memo sounds very lawyerly in its arguments. This observation points to an important fact about legal discourse: Lawyers can make really bad legal arguments that argue for very unjust things in perfectly legal sounding language. I hope nobody is surprised by this fact. It is very commonplace. Today we are talking about lawyers making arguments defending the legality of torture. In the past lawyers have used legal sounding arguments to defend slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, rape (both spousal and non-spousal), Jim Crow, police brutality, denials of habeas corpus, destruction or seizure of property, and compulsory sterilization.
When you hear the right-wing defend this memo over the next few weeks, months, and years, put two and two together. Fifty years ago, these hacks would have been defending segregation. They are more than likely the same folks defending the current legal excesses created by the never-ending War on Drugs. It is a point worth making, and a point worth remembering.
Everybody, Chill Out
The Bill Clinton who met privately with California’s superdelegates at last weekend’s state convention was a far cry from the congenial former president who afterward publicly urged fellow Democrats to “chill out” over the race between his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Barack Obama.
In fact, before his speech Clinton had one of his famous meltdowns Sunday, blasting away at former presidential contender Bill Richardson for having endorsed Obama, the media and the entire nomination process.
“It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended,” one superdelegate said.
According to those at the meeting, Clinton – who flew in from Chicago with bags under his eyes – was classic old Bill at first, charming and making small talk with the 15 or so delegates who gathered in a room behind the convention stage.
But as the group moved together for the perfunctory photo, Rachel Binah, a former Richardson delegate who now supports Hillary Clinton, told Bill how “sorry” she was to have heard former Clinton campaign manager James Carville call Richardson a “Judas” for backing Obama.
It was as if someone pulled the pin from a grenade.
“Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that,” a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted.
The former president then went on a tirade that ran from the media’s unfair treatment of Hillary to questions about the fairness of the votes in state caucuses that voted for Obama. It ended with him asking delegates to imagine what the reaction would be if Obama was trailing by just 1 percent and people were telling him to drop out.
The thing I simply do not get is that Bill and Hillary and Clinton supporters honestly seem to believe that if the roles were reversed, and Obama were trailing in pledged delegates, trailing in the popular vote, trailing in the number of states won, trailing in fund raising, people would not be screaming for him to get out of the race. The media would be treating him like they treated Mike Huckabee, his money would have dried up, and people would be pressuring him to drop out of the race for the good of the party because he is young and can try again and probably would be the VP pick.
Hell, as it is, people are already telling him that, and he is winning.
*** Update ***
Another Judas. Doesn’t he know he has to support Clintons from here on out since he was a Clinton appointee? the nerve of these people.
Permanent War
Mission accomplished:
The Bush administration was caught off-guard by the first Iraqi-led military offensive since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a weeklong thrust in southern Iraq whose paltry results have silenced talk at the Pentagon of further U.S. troop withdrawals any time soon.
President Bush last week declared the offensive, which ended Sunday, “a defining moment” in Iraq’s history.
That may prove to be true, but in recent days senior U.S. officials have backed away from the operation, which ended with Shiite militias still in place in Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki possibly weakened and a de facto cease-fire brokered by an Iranian general.
“There is no empirical evidence that the Iraqi forces can stand up” on their own, a senior U.S. military official in Washington said, reflecting the frustration of some at the Pentagon. He and other military officials requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak for the record.
From the archives:
We are so fucked.
Another Endorsement for Obama
This one from Lee Hamilton:
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has won the endorsement of one of his party’s top foreign policy figures, Lee Hamilton, who hails from Indiana, home to one of the next crucial primary votes.
Hamilton, a former U.S. House member who co-chaired the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and headed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he was impressed by Obama’s approach to national security and foreign policy.
“I read his national security and foreign policy speeches, and he comes across to me as pragmatic, visionary and tough,” Hamilton said in an interview. “He impresses me as a person who wants to use all the tools of presidential power.”
Nice, but will have little to no practical effect on this never-ending primary.
April Fools
This one from AAAS is especially cruel.
WASHINGTON, D.C.–Struggling to put his presidency in a favorable historical light, U.S. President George W. Bush has announced a dramatic shift in his attitude toward science. “Critics have accused my Administration of ignoring scientific advice and even of twisting science to suit its own political agenda,” Bush said at a speech today at the National Center for Biochemical Medicine here. “Today, I say to those in the scientific community: ‘Let’s be friends.’ ”
As a gesture of reconciliation, Bush offered a $10 billion boost to the National Institutes of Health. That is a marked change from November, when he vetoed a spending bill that would have added more than $1 billion to the institute’s budget, calling it fiscally irresponsible (ScienceNOW, 13 November 2007). “It turns out, the only thing that was irresponsible was my belief that scientific advances could be made on a shoestring,” Bush told reporters today.
[…] In a final concession, Bush promised to be a better steward of the planet. “I haven’t always been clear about the threat global warming poses,” he said. “In retrospect, having oil industry lobbyists edit our climate reports was probably a bad idea.” [if you haven’t gotten the joke by now… -ed.] He also admitted that initiatives such as “Healthy Forests” and “Clear Skies” had led to excess logging and air pollution, respectively. To make amends, he has appointed former rival and Nobel laureate Al Gore to head his new conservation initiative, which calls for mandatory cuts on greenhouse gas emissions and rigorous protection for species classified as threatened or endangered.
Ha ha. Sob.