Via Glenn Greenwald, it appears that we have a case of dueling anonymous sources. The elves talking to Scott Horton think that Eric Holder will focus on administration officials behind the torture regime.
One could interpret conflicting reports like this several different ways. Either Horton or Carrie Johnson at the Washington Post could simply be wrong. Alternatively the difference could, as Zandar argues here, come from the writers’ own contrasting perspectives. Zandar argues persuasively that Johnson’s story reflects the strong Village tilt against accountability (warnings about destroying Obama’s agenda could be seen as a type of concern trolling) whereas Horton clearly and unambiguously supports accountability.
If I had to guess (that is to say, blog) I think that Holder has not made his own mind up yet. If true I wouldn’t automatically count that as a bad thing. The decision will unquestionably have momentous and lasting consequences no matter what he chooses. Going back and forth on the issue would, however, drive reporters batty trying to figure out which of their sources talked to the Attorney General most recently.
If I’m right (remember: blog) then there could hardly be a more opportune moment make it clear that the wrong decision will also have a political cost. I hate to disappoint anyone who thinks that team Obama has somehow transcended the limitations of ordinary humans, but it ain’t so. They need supervision like every government in American history. Piping down and hoping for the best when a) Obama has a demonstrated ability to disappoint, and b) pressure works, is a fool’s bet and a basic failure of citizenship.
Persia
The Washington Post wrong? Unpossible.
You’re right that Holder might not have made a final decision, though.
eastriver
I firmly believe (remember: commenter on a blog) that the whole Holder-is-considering-investigation thing to be high school Kabuki. They don’t have any intention of investigating. They want the right to say they thoroughly looked into looking into it, but, hey, who put all this white shit on my face?
Next.
A Mom Anon
Couldn’t Holder just be going after the little guppies first to build a case for nailing the bigger sharks? We know the fuckers are guilty,but getting all the evidence together is a different matter entirely. Even the most stalwart admirer/minion of a Cheney or Rumsfeld could turn if it’s their own ass in a sling. It could take years of putting others through trials before they get to the big guys.
Punchy
Allow me to cut to the chase and give y’all Holder’s findings:
We find the Bush Administration repeatedly broke myriad laws, wantonly abused Executive Branch powers, and completely eviscerated the Geneva Conventions. However, since everyone involved refuses to testify under oath, there’s nothing else we can do. That wraps it up. Have a good day.
Bada bing.
Mnemosyne
I rarely see anyone saying we should “pipe down,” but I often see a lot of people insisting that saying anything won’t do any good because they’re all totally corrupt, so why bother? See comment #2 for yet another example — it’s all just high school kabuki, so why bother to express an opinion to the administration one way or another?
I can’t figure out if this is cynicism or learned behavior after the demonstrated indifference to public opinion by the Bush administration. Either way, saying that there’s no point in speaking up because they’re all the same is exactly as destructive — if not more destructive — than saying that we shouldn’t criticize lest we hurt the administration’s other initiatives.
We already have several examples of public pressure getting the administration and Congress to back down from statements. I’d like the cynics to give some evidence that contacting the government and telling them we’re displeased doesn’t work at all so we shouldn’t even bother.
Crusty Dem
Ugh, given the policies Obama has been pushing so far, I can’t understand anyone believing there’s any chance for accountability coming from this administration.
None of which gives any hint why Holder would bother with going after the little fish..
kay
I think there’s a huge difference between citizen action to pressure elected officials and trying to direct a criminal investigation.
At what point does the pressure stop? Do you plan to direct Holder’s investigation?
jrg
Shorter MSM: “Prison rape has become a huge problem, therefore we should stop incarcerating rapists.”
It astonishes me how complicit the MSM is on every cover-up of the Bush administration. I’m not even sure if it’s a plot, I think it’s just laziness, pandering to conservatives, and the bottom line.
Talk shows and opinion columns are to the news as reality shows are to entertainment networks: cheap and disposable. Tehran or DC, it does not matter. Instead of hearing the truth, we are told why we don’t get to hear the truth.
kay
I mean, now that we’ve written the indictment, what’s wrong with pressuring the DOJ to investigate the specific charges we wrote?
inkadu
@eastriver:
I’m not sure want that one explained.
Hey, my question from the other thread still stands. Can’t we try these bastards on the documents alone? They are ipso facto illegal. We could start at the top — or near the top — and threaten disbarment for starters. I’m not sure why we necessarily need to work our way up from Lyndie England.
JK
Against my better judgement, I watched some of the Sunday shows. Obama was basically put on notice by the pundits on the various roundtables and told that he should simply keep walking.
bob h
In any event, we should lose the fear of Republican reaction and just take this where the law says it should go. They are not ten feet tall; they are in fact the objects of public contempt and internal confusion. Just pursue justice and fuck the Republicans who object to that.
Tim F.
@kay:
…so you think that Eric Holder is not weighing the political aspect of his decision? Don’t get me wrong. I think he should not. His job description encourages the utmost isolation from political concerns. Nonetheless, the idea that he is not weighing the costs of each decision strikes me as rather naive.
The cost of making the right decision is plain as day. The media Village and the GOP have their megaphones. The least that we can do, as I already wrote above, is to make clear that the wrong decision will also have a cost.
Ash
I fully admit that I’m terrified that the concern trolls are right. We’ve all seen what can happen when the Republicans, and their megaphones on tv and in the op-ed pages, get into a tizzy.
kay
@bob h:
You’re never going to get there from here. We started with this premise: “Eric Holder is compromised because the following crimes have been committed, and he hasn’t yet directed his investigation to fit the charges in our indictment”.
I’m not seeing this. Maybe it’s me. I think I’ll wait for the investigation before we go to the grand jury, thanks.
General Winfield Stuck
Seems cut and dried to us. But I am certain that 4 Supremes will likely say they aren’t and the fifth, Kennedy is tilting more wingnut by the day. One reason, I think, that Obama is letting all the old Bush era lawsuits on this stuff go forward is that ultimately these questions need to be settled by the SCOTUS. Any criminal convictions and even investigation procedures would be the same. That is the end game here, unless it is done with a truth and reconciliation commission, done by offering immunity up the ladder till you get to the top./
And what people like Markos and Greenwald don’t understand, or care about, is the profound conflicts of interest a criminal investigation would pose, having people still serving in the government, mainly DOJ that would be part of any criminal investigation brought to fruition. It is a nightmare scenario that could only be straightened out by the SCOTUS in the end, and would consume our fed justice system for years or decades to come. And in the end, Not Bush, or Cheney will ever see a day in jail. And if they did, it would bring the country possibly, or probably into civil armed conflict. Forget about the minor concerns of Obama’s agenda.
But we need to know what happened in a definitive sense and to depoliticize it to the greatest extent possible. That’s why an independent commission is the only way to go.
But don’t let that detract from the glory of liberal law and order crusaders pursuit of liberty, justice, and the American way via teh bong fueled jihad to frog march Dick Cheney out of his undisclosed location.
Hunter Gathers
@jrg:
It’s not that astonishing, really.
Bush appealed to their fear and their pocketbooks.
“Oh conservative overlords, we beseech thee to lock up the unclean brown Muslims whom threaten us. We also beg of you to bless us with the tax cuts we so richly deserve.
We shall always love you, Saint George, Our Decider. You may committ any crime you like in the name of Our Safety, as long as you do not accept oral sex in the Oval Office from a woman whom is not your wife. For that is the greatest crime of all.”
Comrade Jake
@JK:
I wonder where the talking heads got the idea that the DOJ is simply an extension of the White House? I swear to Christ you lose many a brain cell watching those shows.
kay
@Tim F.:
I am really, really bothered by this approach. I see your larger point, and while I won’t say I want people prosecuted, I will unequivocally say I want people investigated.
I don’t think this approach makes sense politically, legally or ethically.
Let me ask you something, Tim. If I told you that conservative lawyers and/or groups were pressuring Eric Holder to expand a planned investigation into any other criminal matter, would you be okay with that?
I’m not okay with this. This can’t be about gamesmanship. Keep pressure within the political sphere. Stay away from the DOJ.
ppcli
On one hand, I’m not hopeful that anything will happen. The administration has been dishearteningly timid on everything important. But I do have enough of a (fading) memory of the repeated jujitsu of the campaign to cling to a bit of hope. Time and again I would want them to respond vigorously, only to realize that an elaborate set of traps were set and disguised by the apparent placidity. Maybe (a long shot, I know) that’s going on here.
.
Let’s face it – right now the narrative is controlled by the people who are saying (speciously, of course) “If we hadn’t waterboarded evil Al-Qaida terrorist overlord Cruella bin Murder we wouldn’t have gotten the information that saved millions of Americans including *your parents*. (See, it says right here: among the targets are Bill and Ethel Grundy of Davenport, Iowa. Then it it says [evil laugh follows]).” Just like on 24.
.
Politically, this is a hopeless battle as it is currently configured. Instead, try changing the narrative to focus on all the poor schnooks who did absolutely nothing wrong beyond foolishly following the orders of some madrassa teacher who told them to go to the Northwest Frontier to “defend muslims”. In particular, document the cases where prisoners *died* during, or just after the “enhanced interrogation” sessions. Then if people start shouting about saving American lives, etc. etc. you can say “Hey, we’re not talking about that at all. Just these rogue cases who didn’t follow the rules. The rules aren’t at issue.” Then when you’ve documented enough horror stories – and I dare say there are many – you can start working up the ladder.
.
This is a huge undertaking, and it is pointless to rush into it blindly.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
Herein lies the ultimate irony in all of this. When you peel away the onion what you get is “this is the way Bush would have done it” so why not us. Goose/Gander. And when Obama or Holder chooses to take it slow and by the book we hear cries of “he’s just like Bush”. A sober look would see that is the exact opposite of what is happening. This is why Bush did what he did, because it was easy and quick, none of the grinding silliness of democratic institutions making stinky sausage. Or, shoot first, ask questions later.
SGEW
This is an oft overlooked concept in this debate (i.e., that there is a debate).
A) We have very reasonable grounds to believe that the former administration engaged in crimes against humanity, and that there is enough evidence to successfully prosecute them. Failure to pursue objective justice for these war crimes would be a grievous wound to this nation’s credibility, security, and, indeed, the very foundation of the rule of law. Allowing the precedent to stand would almost ensure future abuses and would be complicity in both previous and future crimes. Additionally, both modern ethics and retributive principles demand accountability for such heinous acts. For what that’s worth.
B) On the other hand, domestic criminal prosecution of a former head of state after a peaceful transfer of power has never happened in a democracy before. This is sui generis stuff; historical terra incognita. The government is legitimately concerned about the potential negative political and social ramifications of such a divisive and unprecedented act – ramifications such as political and regional fragmentation, armed insurrection, and/or the failure of our system of civil governance. “Failed State” stuff. (It has been noted that Obama is a “small ‘c’ conservative” (insert Burkean bell here), which I take to mean “will avoid political movements whose unintended consequences might annihilate the social contract or make the streets run red with blood.”)
Now, I believe that side A) has the ultimate moral and legal grounds, and I do not believe that the tide of woeful horrors in B) would come to pass. However, I acknowledge that there are matters to be weighed, and that the needle to be threaded is truly monumental, and that the eye is so very small.
No?
General Winfield Stuck
@SGEW:
Yes!
AhabTRuler
Can we toss this idea onto the trash heap with “the copz iz in yer howz destroyin’ yer growz litez.” I have seen absolutely nothing that would convince me that we are even remotely close to Civil War II: the dumb get crushed. Crackpots /= a house divided!
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
I’m all sputtery and incoherent, because my gut is just screaming “wrong way! go back!” :)
Getting out in front of the prosecutor just violates my process-oriented core.
General Winfield Stuck
You can if you want. Not me. Not in this country, where it has happened before. That said, we are not close to civil war currently, but a years long bitter legal battle between the two major parties culminating in jail sentences for one’s leaders is not a recipe for stability, especially with a populace armed to the teeth.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
I don’t think you are at all.
Tim F.
@kay:
Please explain where exactly you disagree with me.
SGEW
@AhabTRuler: @General Winfield Stuck:
I don’t think anyone really thinks that there could potentially be an “American Civil War II,” with ranks of soldiers under arms, competing systems of law, chains of command, etc. That’s preposterous. We might as well fear an invasion by Napoleon III.
Nowadays, people fight armed insurrections that use distributed information networks, terrorist tactics, and fundamentalist religious ideologies. Use them very efficaciously, one hastens to add.
This, I believe, is a legitimate concern. The level of threat, or even plausibility of such, is up to debate, of course.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Holder told Newsweek that this crisis of duty v political considerations arose when he took a weekend and read something factual and appalling and considered the criminal implications of what he read.
That’s what he said.
He did not say that he responded to political pressure so decided to prosecute.
We reject or ignore what he does say, and decide that what he doesn’t say is proof positive of his compromised motives. We reject the assumed political pressure to limit a proposed criminal inquiry, but plan on relying on political pressure to expand a criminal inquiry. Do I have that right?
General Winfield Stuck
@SGEW:
This is why I originally termed it Civil Armed Conflict. And an argument could be made that it is already occurring at a very low level from right wing activists, though individual, in the recent rash of killings. Whether it would reach the point of modern version of”skirmish lines” squared in fields of Manassas like the GCW part deux, I agree, is unlikely.
SGEW
.@General Winfield Stuck:
Half in jest, I kind of believe that the one thing Obama fears most is the Wingularity.
AhabTRuler
@General Winfield Stuck: Maybe. Just maybe.
But I think its a stretch. Compared to many other nations in the world, the US doesn’t even understand social unrest, much less open violence and rebellion. Time and time again, the majority of the US population has recoiled from instability, violence, and horror. Whether it is the criminality of Vietnam, Oklahoma city, Bush v. Gore, Iraq II, and even torture (how and how far we recoil is being determined even now) have been understood (it takes time, we’re slow) the nation has turned away.
Furthermore, I don’t actually believe that Bush would ever be indicted or handed over to a foreign jurisdiction (watch where you Travel though, Georgie!), but every but him (including Cheney) could be. As much as I would love to see George Bush in the Hague detention center, I believe that the prosecution Yoo, Addington, possibly Cheney, and a few others would be enough to permanently stain the Bush Administration forever, and I’ll settle for that. Leaving aside the issue of imprisonment, the way to destroy George Bush is to destroy his social standing and influence, as those are the things that George Bush has an brilliant and instinctive grasp of. A trial and conviction of even a few of the above people would reveal things about Bush and his administration that would utterly, utterly destroy Bush. Like Nixon, only much, much worse (Nixon was a brilliant, but deeply flawed man; as much as he did many horrible things, I do hold some vestige of pity for the man; Not so with Bush).
inkadu
@General Winfield Stuck: My question is based on the idea that somebody wants to prosecute up the chain of command. The fact is the memos advocate torture. That’s the case we should be prosecuting, not whether people went outside (whatever perceived) boundaries of the memo.
I really don’t know how you make a case against someone for creating an environment conducive to torture, especially not at the higher levels.
I haven’t come to a decision on the other things yet… This is a rather nasty intersection of law and politics. But if the Supreme Court rules in Bush Regime’s favor, we can pretty much hang up our ideas of a civil rights and freedom. The Republic, as we knew it from history class, will be officially dead, and not just the mostly dead it has been for quite some time.
And I find your concerns about armed insurrections a bit overstated. I am sure there is going to be violence, I do not doubt that for a moment; but I don’t think it will be destabilizing. And I think violence will ultimately be self-extinguishing. The more violent people get, the more public support they lose. The loose variable there is the MSM.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
Pretty much, I think, though I have no problem with people speaking up to what they think should happen. People like Greenwald and Markos are just playing the time honored Washington way of advocacy. Demand everything now, or else. I don’t begrudge them this, until they start making Bush Obama comparisons or reading stuff into events that haven’t happened yet or aren’t true, then I speak up. Free speech for all.
General Winfield Stuck
@inkadu:
See my follow up comment for clarification on what I meant.
@General Winfield Stuck:
As to being de-stabilizing, nobody can say for sure. I grew up in the south, so I’m not as confident as you.
As for the torture issue, Most of the country agrees waterboarding is torture. Most of the country also thinks it’s justified sometimes, or don’t care. just sayin’
kay
@Tim F.:
I can’t start with who I want prosecuted, and for what, and then work backwards.
Eric Holder can’t do that.
You are absolutely right that prosecutors have a certain amount of discretion, and the scope of an inquiry can determine the eventual charges brought, it’s the first decision, and it can and does affect everything after.
But, I won’t apply political pressure to the prosecutor to broaden a potential criminal inquiry anymore than I will apply political pressure to limit one.
I want to at least begin on firm footing. This is Holder’s call. If he’s compromised, show me. You’ll have to show me something more than statements he hasn’t made or acts he hasn’t taken, yet.
General Winfield Stuck
@SGEW:
Of course he does, certainly until getting reelected to a second term.
AhabTRuler
Anything short of a body count that approaches that of highway deaths or smoking related deaths is small change, and merely terrorism, and the great thing about terrorism is that you control the impact of any individual attack.
Good (eh, mediocre) Christ on a flaming pogo stick, Margaret Thatcher was an hour’s late night work away from getting blowed up in Brighton, and London was bombed on more than one occasion (Canary Wharf, and the assassination of Airy Neave come to mind), yet life in London when I was there in 1986 or 87 was absolutely, bloody normal. Obviously, things were a little more stressful in NI, but the point is that even a moderately sized insurrection would have (could have, I don’t know, are American’s pussies?) little to no impact on life in general.
Even the sum result of Oklahoma City and 9/11 is that office buildings in America are now over-securitized with poorly paid and under-trained contract security. As the recent GAO report highlighted, even Federal buildings have lousy security (one guy discharged his weapon in the can practicing quick-draws!).
General Winfield Stuck
@AhabTRuler:
Yes, but the Tories weren’t bombing the Labourites who were trying to put Thatcher in prison. And England isn’t America, land of the well armed crazies. Otherwise, I hope you’re more right than I about the potential for violence IF Bush or Cheney were imprisoned which was my premise..
SGEW
Thinking narratively, here’s a screenplay pitch:
Cheney and Bush are bad men, who did bad things in a very tricky way. Obama and Holder are good men, who also do things in a very tricky way. Big election happens! [ed. note: prologue material? over opening titles?] Soon, Obama is saying “no prosecutions, forward not backward, always twirling, twirling!” playing the role of “idealistic crusader corrupted by the system,” while Holder plays the role of a tortured ingenue, still wounded by his previous naïveté that led to his dishonor (i.e., Mark Rich), who struggles with his loyalty to his friend and comrade but finally follows his conscience and does the right thing. The conflict is heightened between the two former friends, now a “team of rivals,” as they match wits and willpower. Their friends and family choose sides. Courtroom drama occurs. Bad guys (mostly) go to jail [ed. note: needs work here. call script doctor.]. The two former friends come to understand each other better, and agree to work together towards hope and progress. Fade out. Possible plot twist! Holder, Axelrod, Emmanuel, and Obama were all in on it and worked it out before hand, and they laugh as the public (and history!) suspend their disbelief. Kind of a Wag the Dog, but for awesomeness, right? [ed. note: too unbelievable. stick with original idea.]
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Sure. I’m not trying to silence anyone, and I’m not protecting Holder or the Democrats, who I think are probably implicated or at least complicit.
It sounds wildly lofty, but I guess I’m trying to revive or protect the notion that the DOJ does not engage in politically motivated prosecutions or politically motivated lack of prosecutions.
I will accept that they do, if that is now where we are on the Rule Of Law sliding scale ‘o ethics, but you’ll have to show me something persuasive.
Tim F.
@kay:
If I didn’t know better I would think that you just described a normal criminal inquiry. But I do know better. When I proposed that Holder enact one of those rather than a whitewash inquiry focused solely on the grunt-level torturers, you went bonkers. Either you changed your mind from earlier or you never understood my argument.
ellaesther
@SGEW: This makes an enormous amount of sense to me.
Some time surrounding the release of the torture memos, my husband just looked at me and said “Why do they keep talking like there are two sides to this issue? There are no two sides to this issue!” And he was right, and I’ve been saying that ever since. Torture is, you know, TORTURE, and there are no “two sides” to the issue.
But there are ramifications to dealing with it, and it is wise to go into threading the needle (to continue your metaphor) with a clear sense of where the eye is, and just how small. Maybe put a little spit on the thread (that’s what I always do, anyway. I’m not sure what in the American justice system would constitute metaphorical “spit,” but never mind that).
My biggest concern is that Obama appears to have closed the door on investigation. At first I thought he was wisely and openly leaving it up to Holder — as he should, for it is the AG’s decision, not the President’s — but he seems to have, in the meantime, come down pretty decisively against it. Which, for lack of a more hard-nosed politic term, breaks my heart. Because this country isn’t supposed to be about that.
Bvac
To anyone entertaining the idea that Holder is going after small fish to create a case for prosecuting the higher ups, I have one thing to say: Scooter fucking Libby.
Get a brain morans, we just walked on by a steaming pile of shit and stepped in another one.
Phoebe
The chickens are coming home to roost!
I think Holder is going to be “bad cop” while Obama wrings his hands in public, and it may take awhile, and the drama may get dragged out, hopefully while we get all that healthcare ‘n’ shit, but ultimately there will be the transparency and accountability that I actually do believe Obama in fact wants.
That is my hunch. Should people bellyache for the t&a right now? Absolutely.
bago
@Tim F.: See, here’s where you get to the nub. There is a 27% crazification factor. If you try to invoke an action based purely on logiv, the 27% will be up in arms shouting “Criminalization of Politics” and in general with the war criminals throwing every wrench they have into the process, you aren’t going to get anywhere. However, by revealing details to build a public base to counter the crazies, you can fight off the wrenches of the guilty. Rule of Law.
General Winfield Stuck
I wonder if anyone else is suspicious about these two articles appearing with anonymous sourcing on the eve of the most monumental domestic policy debate we’ve had for a long time..What better way to get the wingnut base riled up in time to mobilize against “big govment run healthcare” as the wingers like to call it. Wingnut DOJ moles fomenting Debauchery via a press hungry for partisan warfare? you decide.
kay
@Tim F.:
I don’t think you described a regular criminal inquiry. You said “will focus on administration officials behind the torture regime”.
Can you tell me what Eric Holder has done that would allow me to assume he’s protecting Dick Cheney, or Obama, or the powers that be, by limiting or not limiting the scope of his proposed inquiry? I can make a perfectly plausible argument that it makes the most sense to to begin with those individuals who exceeded the quasi-legal limits in those wack-job memos, because they’re not going to fall on their swords, they’re not Lyddie England, and someone authorized that.
Starting with the most egregious examples makes sense, from a PR standpoint, certainly, and a public opinion standpoint, too. We already know (and Holder does too, because he said so) that The Public yawned when the torture memos were released. Why do you want him to start with Yoo?
Other than a probably justified and healthy natural reticence to accept the State’s justification for anything, I got nothing on Holder.
kay
@Bvac:
It’s so funny you would mention Scooter, because Holder actually has a long and painful history with him.
Holder says the worst mistake he ever made was opining favorably on the pardon of Marc Rich. Holder’s wife says in the Newsweek article that Holder was duped by Rich’s lawyers, one of whom was….Scooter Libby!
Here’s HRC on it: “the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff”
Tsulagi
@General Winfield Stuck:
You’re not alone, General. Thinking on the same track Commander EE of the RSSF is right there with you. Always thinking of balls and playing with them, he writes…
It’s all about the balls.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
I don’t know. I watched the GOP Senators make their case for their health care program this morning, and I don’t think the rank and file will go for it.
It involves taxing employer-provided benefits for the good of the common.
It’s a tax increase on comfortable, smug conservatives who are sitting on health benefits to provide funds for uninsured people to buy health insurance. Yeah. Republican voters will love that idea.
Tim F.
@kay:
Um, criminal inquiries always work their way from the bottom up. The question was whether it would stop there (WaPo) or keep going as far as the evidence led (Horton). Which do you prefer?
Since we no longer have an Independ Counsel statute, we won’t have any Ken Starrs running around chasing every lead they find. How far up this goes depends entirely on parameters that Holder will set when he hands this over to an independent prosecutor.
SGEW
I love this crowd.
General Winfield Stuck
@Tsulagi:
I guess we need bats, lots of bats.
These other balls can keep bouncing off the walls.
Not half bad as wingnut poetry goes.
kay
@Tim F.:
Tim, Eric Holder can’t just proclaim that Yoo acted in bad faith, and that seems to be the only thing that will satisfy you. You can, and that’s what you believe, and I believe that too, but I’m hoping Holder has a more rigorous approach than that, because if he doesn’t, every defense lawyer in the country’s head will explode.
I feel as if you’re way out in front of the prosecutor, and if you’re ahead of the prosecutor, you’re ahead of the facts.
Again, why would Holder begin with what is in my estimation the absolute weakest argument of this whole tragedy, which is the good faith/bad faith intent of the lawyers? That isn’t a slam dunk. They left out controlling authority, but they are going to get enormous deference because 1. the circumstances and 2. what they are going to claim was good faith professional judgment.
How about we start with the individual people that died or were tortured, and go from there?
Tim F.
@kay:
Dealing with you has become too frustrating to continue. Here is me again.
Here is my question again.
Read your own comments. You have already answered the question. Given the actual question that Holder has to weigh you agree with me in every meaningful detail, yet you keep arguing anyway. This is not worth my time.
kay
@Tim F.:
And your point about the independent prosecutor is a good one, I have thought about that, but I haven’t researched it, and I don’t know how much control Holder has over a DOJ prosecutor he appoints to do an independent inquiry. Patrick Fitzgerald is our template, right? How much control did DOJ exert over him? He didn’t reach Cheney, but that was because Scooter lied and took the perjury.
If I accept your premise, that Holder has complete authority to limit an investigation, then he has complete authority to expand one, right, if this person he trusts and appointed says he/she requires a broader mandate?
I just don’t know the answer to that.
kay
@Tim F.:
Well, sorry I wasted your time. I had no idea.
kay
But, Tim, read this:
Williams – “The Obama administration’s review of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay has yet to find a single detainee who needs needs to be held indefinitely, and their feeling now is they may only have two categories: those to be released, and those to be put on trial. This third category of people that have to be held forever? That may simply not exist.”
That Eric Holder. Conducting a careful review again. Shame he’s so boring and lawyerly. He should have come out guns blazing before looking at the facts.
Tim F.
@kay:
Thank you for stating your assumptions. I believe that the Independent Prosecutor, once empaneled, is independent.
You agree about practically everything and yet you not only continue arguing but act like an ass about it. Try to understand how that would seem like a less than rewarding use of my time.
kay
@Tim F.:
No, I don’t agree with either the premise or the tactics. I don’t believe that it’s rational to assume the AG is hopelessly compromised, without a single shred of evidence. The still-to-be-appointed special is also hopelessly compromised, and will act unethically unless political pressure from internet lawyers who are above reproach or question is applied.
He looked at every individual Gitmo detainee, then he made a decision, despite demands that he make a decision and an announcement, prior to fact-finding. That’s good lawyering. I don’t know what this other thing is. Commentary, maybe.
Tim F.
Kay, I would love to know who you are arguing with.
joe from Lowell
shortly followed by
You know, it’s possible to disagree with you without being “anyone who thinks that team Obama has somehow transcended the limitations of ordinary humans,” and you should really remove the straw from your own eye.
joe from Lowell
Torture prosecution concern trolling is the intellectual heir of “colorblind” opposition to affirmative action.
Compare:
Because I don’t want there to racial injustice in the world, I am opposed to the sorts of racially-conscious actions which are necessary to undo racism.
Because I don’t want politics to interfere with torture prosecutions, I am opposed to the sorts of politically-conscious actions which are necessary to bring about torture prosecutions.
And also, a pony.
Tim F.
@joe from Lowell:
How did you know that my favoritest part of discussing is having to define simple terms? Cool!
“Pearl clutching” means whining about people acting mean to you. If I criticize Obama and you bitch about it, you are pearl clutching by proxy. Other than that, which barely counts, no one is.
“Concern trolling” means counseling against a desirable action for bogus reasons because it might work. ‘Trolling’ indicates that the person is being insincere, as in hoping that the other person takes the advice and suffers. Let’s say for example that you whine about terrible consequences if Eric Holder emplaced an Independent Prosecutor with an open brief to investigate torture. Now let’s say that you secretly worry that too much accountability would harm the Republican party (hard to argue with that point). Rather you could, say, hope that a few grunt-level employees take the fall and everyone considers justice done.
In that unlikely event you would be “concern trolling”.
I don’t think that you secretly want prosecutions to fail. Thus no trolling. I think that you “act like a dick” because you think Obama officials would never whitewash something as heinous as a government torture program. You also don’t think that he would get away with it if he tried, which strikes me as pretty funny since that strategy worked fine with Abu Ghraib.
Hey, I just thought of an online neologism that does work here. “Tinkerbell strategy”. As in, if we pipe down and clap hard enough Obama officials will make every decision right all on their own.
joe from Lowell
Funny, my favorite part includes the consideration and testing of actual ideas.
I generally find a long-winded obsession with definitions to be the act of someone attempting to deflect the consideration and testing of ideas.
Anyway, I find your commentary on the issue of torture prosecutions to be indistinguishable in practice from concern trolling. Whenever there is a push from the administration, you reflexively denounce it and declare them to be too compromised, political, and imperfect to be taken seriously.
I can get that crap at Red State.
I “act like a dick” in response to being insulted. From your post, Dick:
You don’t get it, you puffed up little fool: your bleatings don’t make it more likely that torture prosecutions will happen. Rather than providing constructive commentary that could push things in that direction, you buy into and repeat the CONCERN TROLLING one finds on right-wing blogs. If I thought your posts had any consequence, it would be to make torture prosecutions less likely.
Tim F.
Crazy me! Your comments suggest that you find your groove bitching about people criticizing Obama.
Aaaand I find it tiresome when people misuse loaded words to piss off the other guy. Another type of dishonesty that annoys me is the unsupported generalization.
Self-aggrandizement would annoy me if I didn’t blog. Pot, kettle. I dig that. Anyhow, you declared that you love ideas and then ignored the idea. I will repeat it.
That is a falsifiable statement. Tell me that I am wrong, and I am wrong. It’s the easiest argument that you ever won.
Revisit the link above. I agree fully that blogging is almost universally a vain, pointless ego driven waste of time. Except for those precious few moments when it isn’t.
Now that we have that behind us, ideas. You have argued that an Independent Prosecutor must necessarily begin with a limited investigation because anything more than that would risk political mayhem. The key assumption underpinning this argument holds that this particular prosecution represents step A in a series of inevitable subsequent steps that would bring us to full accountability.
Contrariwise, I suggested that if Holder limits the Prosecutor’s brief to interrogators who overstepped John Yoo’s boundaries then that is all that the Prosecutor will investigate. My key assumption is that the Prosecutor we are discussing today would not be the first step in accountability but rather the last step. For evidence, reference the full report from Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation. What is in it? We will never know. The Independent Prosecutor’s authorization specifically rules out releasing a full report to the public. Thus, the only valuable new information that we will gain from a round of low-level prosecutions are nuggets that leak out during trial. Nothing guarantees that a next step takes place, and in fact two aspects of Obama’s character leads me to think otherwise: his preference to avoid conflict, and his administration’s disturbing embrace of Bush-era secrecy and government power doctrines.
The precedent risks inherent in allowing Yoo’s legal drivel to stand as the effective law of the time strike me as incidental but nonetheless worth taking into account.
You would respond that even if step B, full accountability, does not necessarily follow from a legally straitjacketed step A, Obama himself would act to make sure that full accountability happens regardless. I would respond with something about faith.
And around we go.
joe from Lowell
I believe you when you say that’s all you see. You’ve never demonstrate the slightest awareness that disagreement with you can be motivated by any concern beyond unthinking defensiveness about Barack Obama.
From your post: I hate to disappoint anyone who thinks that team Obama has somehow transcended the limitations of ordinary humans… Loaded words to piss off the other guy AND an unsupported generalization. Yes, I can see how bothered you are by those things.
OK, you’re wrong. I think it’s entirely possible that there are peole in the Obama who would whitewash things in order to protect themselves, and I think it is very easy for high-level government officials to get away with covering things up. You’re right, that was very easy.
I haven’t written anything about blogging, in a general sense, having no effect. I wrote about you, and the tack you take.
But these positions are not, in fact, contrary. The investigation and prosecution of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib most certainly did not represent the end of attention and accountability for torture in Iraq – and that was a case in which it very much was supposed to be all that was investigated. We’re still talking about the abuses and crimes there, and the responsibility of high administration officials for them. Investigations take on a life of their own, and limiting one prosecutor’s brief doesn’t rule out further investigations.
I would do no such thing. You can keep telling yourself that you don’t have to consider anything I actually write. You can keep telling yourself that my arguments are based on hero-worship towards Barack Obama.
The problem is, those things won’t actually become true, just because you want so desperately to believe them.
Tim F.
@joe from Lowell:
Your patience is truly impressive, and I will try it once more by trying to understand your argument in its entirety. As always, correct any errors.
We can set aside the reasons behind the motivation to limit an investigation. It honestly does not matter. Maybe they don’t want to set a precedent. Motive is enough. You have granted means as well.
You also granted my Abu Ghraib analogy for the scope in which I intended it. That is to say, sacrificing a few grunts effectively killed public demand for accountability for the remainder of the Bush administration. I see no reason why sacrificing some CIA interrogators would not serve the same purpose for the duration of the Obama’s term. That assumes, as you grant, the possibility that correctly placed officials have no appetite to take it further. The cathartic effect of sacrificing a lamb is hard to understate.
This point is important. As a nation our collective attention span amounts to the interval between one crisis and the next. The next time terrorists blow up a train or weather levels an important city, the political drive to revisit an issue two or three crises back will evaporate. There is no reason to think that any outside force will compel this administration to revisit the crimes of its predecessor once the present crest of public interest breaks over some other shoal. Whatever gets enacted now could be all we get (see also: cap and trade).
“Could” does not exactly satisfy me. As someone with a similar opinion of faith in government I imagine that you feel the same.
The only viable conclusion is that we disagree about how the Independent Prosecutor will operate. Something about the process gives you confidence that I seem to lack regarding its ability to keep the torture issue alive.
Do we have reason to think that the putative IP’s business will operate with more transparency than did Patrick Fitzgerald or, to cite another example, the ongoing US Attorney firings probe? Independent Prosecution seems to be a monkish affair.
If Eric Holder limits the IP’s business to grunts, can a Prosecutor ignore such limits to chase a lead upwards? My magic eight ball says no. Still, the bastard has lied to me before.
If only we had a lawyer to settle these thorny questions. Obviously we cannot reference Glenn Greenwald, who already agrees with me, but regardless I have not seen Glenn address these specific questions. Given the above they strike me as important.
Anyhow, soon enough Eric Holder will make a decision and all this hooha will be moot.
joe from Lowell
Hedging now, I see. And as a matter of fact, no, it didn’t kill public demand for accountability, the Bush administration simply ignored the public.
Really? The existence of an extensive record of top White House, Justice, and DoD officials ordering and approving precisely the methods used doesn’t influence your opinion at all on the matter of whether an effort to blame a few bad apples will work? I find that a very odd statement.
And yet, oddly enough, here we are, continuing to investigate torture crimes committed in 2002-2004. Perhaps your low opinion of the people around you is no more justified than your inflated sense of your own importance.
The weather did level an important city in between the commission of the crimes that will be investigated and the demand for an investigation.
Your entire post, and the total discussion of this investigation, is taking place in the “could” verb tense. Oddly enough, it seems good enough to you to justify your certainty and denunciations.
The fact that it is an escalation from the current level of scrutiny demonstrates, definitively, that a special prosecutorial investigation advances the cause of bringing the torturers to justice.
Any law enforcement official who uncovers evidence of a crime must act on it.
The other point you seem to neglect is that there is, as I wrote, limiting one prosecutor’s brief doesn’t rule out further investigations. If the report from an investigation of grunts contains all sorts of evidence of wrongdoing by others, it will create both the political and legal pressure for further investigations, just like the Abu Ghraib report did.
Tim F.
Joe, your argument rests on two assumptions that are simply false.
One:
You must have a reason to think that an Independent Prosecutor can exceed his authorization. Let’s say, for example, that Patrick Fitzgeral uncovered evidence that Dick Cheney ordered John Yoo to write a memo that would let him torture people. Would the relevant law allow Fitzgerald to pursue that line of inquiry? Ken Starr could, but, again, the Ken Starr law expired. Cite me something other than these appeals to incredulity.
Two:
An Independent Prosecutor will not release a report. Full stop. He will operate in secret.
By “Abu Ghraib report” you must mean the Taguba report, an internal Pentagon investigation that Taguba leaked. You could also mean one of several Congressional reports. Those came from Congressional investigations exactly like what Chuck Schumer has proposed.
Eric Holder’s Independent Prosecutor idea would not happen alongside a more public inquiry. Rather, it is specifically intended by the Obama team to supercede Congressional action. If it passes, then the torture story will go completely quiet for the duration of the investigation. See, for example, the US Attorney probe. If that IP chooses not to prosecute, or settles for another Obstruction charge, then that’s it. No more US Attorneys scandal. Congress could theoretically act at that point, as long as it isn’t busy with something that Future Congress considers more pressing.
You could theoretically prove me wrong on point one. Point two, no. This report that you hope for will never appear unless some process separate and independent from Holder’s IP generates it.