I no longer think that House Republicans have the balls to impeach Obama, but maybe I’m wrong:
If the president authorized the disclosure of national security secrets that exposed a covert action and undermined a U.S. ally in an effort to gain a political advantage in his reelection campaign, that would be a scandal of gigantic proportions. As one former top Justice Department official told me “if done for political gain, rather than for a bona fide purpose advancing the public interests of the United States, it could be grounds for impeachment.”
In other words, at best ObamaLeaks may be a crime; at worst, they could be an impeachable offense. So the question is: What are those senior Obama administration officials telling investigators when confronted “with evidence of contact with journalists”? Were the leaks unauthorized? Or are they defending their disclosures by invoking the President’s personal authority to declassify national security information without formal process?
If the former, then we could see senior Obama administration officials put on trial. If the latter, then it is the president who should be on trial — in the chamber of the United States Senate.
That’s Marc Thiessen, a crazy motherfucker from around the way, even by WaPo standards. I wonder if this will gain any traction with serious people.
burnspbesq
Every time the Post publishes something by Thiessen, what little remains of its brand equity is further diminished.
Patricia Kayden
I may need to cancel my Washington Post subscription if this is the kind of opinion they’re going with. Very silly indeed.
And impeach President Obama for what now? Repubs better get themselves together and stop worrying about President Obama. He already did what he was supposed to do, i.e., get himself re-elected. He has nothing to lose now.
Villago Delenda Est
Can you say “Valerie Plame” boys and girls?
I knew you could!
A meteor falling on Marc Thiessen (and Fred Hiatt, who is allowed to trash the Post’s already shitty rep by permitting Thiessen’s shit to be published) cannot come a nanosecond too soon.
James Hare
Thiessen deserves neither the link back to his article nor the dignity of being treated as a reasonable opponent. Anybody who takes the opinion of Marc Thiessen on executive overreach seriously should be under psychiatric care.
sal
Haven’t heard of this scandal du jour, but if all their worst suppositions were true,wouldn’t this essentially be a replay of the Plame affair? How much cognitive dissonance can a wingnut take before their head explodes? Rhetorical question, I know.
PeakVT
In other words, at best ObamaLeaks may be a crime; at worst, they could be an impeachable offense.
It’s the other way around, actually, since there’s no real standard for what is impeachable.
But bqhatevwr. There’s zero chance of conviction, so a giant impeachment circus in the House will just make House Repukes look (more) like assholes.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
IOKIYAR. Say it loud, say it proud!
aimai
I think the true believers on the Republican House side would prefer to go with something big–something like “Obama personally killed the Seals who would have revealed that Bin Laden wasn’t even at that house, he was already dead, there was no corpse.” This is an actual wingnut legend beling floated on the internet in the wake of the shooting death of the Sniper on the Texas shooting range. Its quite well fleshed out with numerous “uninvestigated” and “suspicious” deaths. Leaked some stuff to the press? weak beer.
Alexandra
Please proceed, governor.
redshirt
@sal: All of it, Katie. There’s no limit to the amount of dissonance. Consider their opening salvo: They’re Christians, and want to see you go die in the fucking street.
Use that for starters in considering how far their dissonance can take them.
peach flavored shampoo
I missed something seemingly important in your post. Leaks of what to whom?
Ben Franklin
Just continue the policy of FOIA denial of service…..classify everything then just use the exclusionary rules to derail any attempts to retrieve. We already know how to deal with any whistleblowers.
Simple
dan
Please proceed, indeed.
JasonF
Coming right after a Republican administration that passed out sensitive intelligence on a regular basis — most notably, Valerie Plame, but she was by far the only example — often accopanied by an argument that if the administration leaked it, it was be definition declassified, this is silly. Coming in the midst of the GOP’s ongoing freak-out that the administration didn’t provide real-time updates of the CIA’s investigation of Bneghazi last September, this is pathetic.
Roger Moore
@sal:
I’ve come to the conclusion that they are incapable of cognitive dissonance because that would require cognition. They’re pure stimulus/response without any intervening thought, so they don’t have to worry about cognitive dissonance at all.
liberal
Except for the fact that there’s no treaty that makes Israel a formal ally.
catclub
@sal: “replay of the Plame affair”
I would say more relevant is the Judy Miller affair of releasing secrets to Judy Miller and then confirming them by referring to her articles in the NYT.
Linda Featheringill
I am not aware of any unwise disclosures of classified information recently. Except some Republicans went to a classified briefing and then talked out of school. And, of course, there is always Plame.
But the Obama administration has actually been relatively leak free, compared to previous administrations.
catclub
@peach flavored shampoo: “Leaks of what to whom?”
Our precious bodily fluids, Mandrake!
Nylund
@peach flavored shampoo: The leaks in question are about the cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But yeah, it’s hard to read about it without thinking, “Valerie Plame?”
It’s yet another example of IOKIYAR.
Villago Delenda Est
@peach flavored shampoo:
Leaks to the Romulans about Klingon defense posture in the Mutara sector.
catclub
@liberal: My favorite thing to point out to people who say we have to back Israel in all it does.
liberal
@PeakVT:
Agreed, but try telling that to all the asshats who seem to think that you can only impeach if the president committed a statutory crime. IMHO not even the Founders thought of it that way—rather, they thought of it as being used for political crimes.
Baud
Two things will happen:
1. The leak will be found to have been from a Republican.
2. The conservatives will argue that prosecution of said Republican is politicizing the Justice Department.
Sayne
It may not gain any traction among serious people, but it might just among Serious people.
liberal
@catclub:
Me too, though there’s a danger—god forbid that encourages them to actually try to write such a treaty. Though for whatever reason I can’t recall Israel itself seems opposed to it.
Unnecessary treaties with small countries that are likely to go to war is an evil.
redshirt
@Villago Delenda Est: Vulcans ARE Romulans, my friend. Think about it.
Jay
Also, Thiessen’s got the whole Gingrichesque Giant Toddler look going.
Marky Mark must be a treat at his Vassar reunions…
TenguPhule
By this standard, Bush and Cheney can still be held accountable for leaking a CIA agent’s name.
Oh wait, IOIYAR.
The Other Chuck
If a Republican administration had taken out Bin Laden, they’d be crowing about it so often, we’d need to condense it into a new fucking punctuation mark.
Chris
The impeachment against Clinton was a final gesture of rage by Gingrich and his posse after their revolution had run aground, after that little “he made me sit in the back!” fiasco turned Newt into an object of ridicule, after they’d failed to prevent Clinton’s reelection, after their gains in Congress were starting to be rolled back, after they’d tried and failed to collect enough dirt for a real scandal ever since the beginning of his presidency. It was basically them picking up their last bucket of shit, flinging it at the wall and hoping that one stuck where all the previous ones hadn’t. It didn’t.
I would say the current teabagger Congress is about where Gingrich’s was after Clinton’s reelection, and even more terrified because Obama’s coalition is based on a rising demographic tide that Clinton’s didn’t have and spells really bad news for the future. So yeah, I could totally see them going for broke and attempting impeachment. Again. What the hell, it’s worth it to them just to tie up the business of government some more while throwing red meat to their base.
TenguPhule
@redshirt: Technically not quite true. Romulans have some extra hemotes in their blood developed from presumably mutations while living in a different solar system. Of course, that is Expanded Universe…..
Yutsano
I clicked. I feel dirty now.
? Martin
This is a tactical move. Clinton’s impeachment didn’t start with Lewinsky, it started with fishing around Whitewater which allowed them to kick over enough trashcans until they found something better. The assumption being that every President has done something worthy of impeachment if only you can dig deep enough.
So, Thiessen is inventing something to start digging with. I don’t think anyone will take the bait, though. The House GOP under Clinton actually had some credibility with the public. The current House GOP has none.
Chris
@? Martin:
It really says something about Clinton’s governance when the worst thing they could find about him was that he cheated on his wife.
redshirt
@TenguPhule: That’s what the Vulcan media would have you believe. Wake up, Earthlings! The Vulcans are using you as a proxy in their CIVIL WAR with the Romulans.
Jay C
@peach flavored shampoo:
OMG – Thiessen’s blathering on over some supposed leak on the Stuxnet virus attack? Who the hell even remembers that now? Or cares? Or who (outside the wingiest of wingers) would buy in to Thiessen’s asinine theory that President Obama leaked this “very dangerous” info to score political points? – in an election he won anyway even without the vast majority of the public remembering or giving a crap about Stuxnet?
And THIS is what he thinks is going to send Barack Obama up before the Senate?
Whotta maroon…
The Dangerman
Impeach over Stuxnet? Never going to happen. Our partner in that event was Israel.
Next question.
Chris
@redshirt:
Human men! Human women! The Vulcan is using the Romulan as muscle against you. And you are left there helpless. Well, what are you going to do about it, human? Just sit there? Of course not! You’re going to join us! The members of the Earthling National Socialist Human People’s Party! An organization of decent, law abiding human folk. Just like you!
Enhanced Voting techniques
So the Republicans want to impeach Obama for attacking Iran? That will go over well.
Forum Transmitted Disease
I think not. Those that drank the Clinton impeachment kool-aid didn’t do so well when America decided that it didn’t give two shits about the Prez getting a hummer from a fat, grease-plastered cow.
KG
@Villago Delenda Est: The Aughts apparently didn’t happen. Or: what @Roger Moore said.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Chris: Humans should only be allowed to marry humans: Man-Woman, Man-Man, Woman-Woman. None of this Vulcan-Woman nonsense. It’s immoral.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Be nice
Just Some Fuckhead
Awesome, maybe now Cheney will be indicted.
aimai
Lets be clear here–they aren’t going to impeach Obama for the same reason we were told we would never impeach Bush–because it simply puts the VP into power. The last thing the Republican party wants is smokin’ Joe to become the face of the Democrats. The only hope they have for their party is to keep whipping up white resentment of Obama as a person and as a representative of all that is evil about multi-cultural modern America. When the Democratic party is fronted once again by an older white male with a knack for making grandma and grandpa comfortable? They will have lost every last bit of the paranoia that enabled them to pull senior citizens to the ballot box.
KG
@Chris: I would say that you raise some interesting points and would ask if you have a newsletter to which I may subscribe, but… I’ve been to the alternate universe and have seen what became of the Terran Empire.
dan
OT (but I am not the first), are any of the other Trekkies here bothered that JJ Abrams is doing yet another Star Trek movie where it is the Enterprise against a single bad guy? That’s comic book stuff. Are they fighting Loki next? Green Goblin?
My favorite episodes were where the crew would encounter a new civilization. It was fun to see what other worlds and cultures may be out there. The adventure would come from solving problems between or within that civilization. And sexy aliens!
ruemara
@Forum Transmitted Disease: wow, you’re right that people didn’t care, but you know, fuck your insults to someone you have no reason to insult. That’s some misogynistic bullshit right there.
Zifnab25
Impeaching Clinton was only really on the table because you had enough Republicans willing to pull the trigger in the Senate that the party bosses in the House thought they could lean on the rest. They were hoping they could squeeze a few DINOs like Lieberman as well. They didn’t, and that’s where the GOP really hurt itself. Republicans in the House walked away from impeachment looking like losers.
Impeachment now wouldn’t work in the slightest. The House would make a big fuss. Then the majority Dems in the Senate would squash the thing flat. It’s a guaranteed loss given the current political climate.
DLew On Roids
Wait, the last time these clowns were running the show, the argument was that the President decided what was classified, so he could declassify anything just by talking about it. But now that’s not the case.
I wonder what has changed.
redshirt
@Chris: LOL. I hate Illinois Humans.
Obama excepted of course!
Woodrowfan
@redshirt: Sheeple! It was the Tellarites! damn space-pigs!
Just Some Fuckhead
@DLew On Roids: Black potus trumps black ops.
soopertrooper
Gl00m Pr0n addict Doug J Galt back to concern trolling.
I guess that’s what he’s gotta do when there are no slivers of bad news in the economy to cherry pick.
AxelFoley
@Jay:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
max
I no longer think that House Republicans have the balls to impeach Obama
Everybody and their dog decided that the real reason (as in the polling was that people hated that) the R’s took a beating in 1996 was because of the government shutdown and everybody decided that the R’s lost house seats in 1998 because of impeachment.
I point out that this time around, with Newt Gingrich in the presidential race we had a ‘debt ceiling crisis’ and now we have the R’s threatening a government shutdown. Because this time it will work. Why wouldn’t they pass a bill of impeachment?
The key is that it only takes a majority of the House to impeach – it takes 2/3rds of the Senate convict. So there’s no chance of conviction, but impeaching is as easy as passing an Obamacare repeal 33 (or 34) times.
No need for mind-reading – if they talk themselves into it (and they’re probably going to talk themselves into it) they’ll impeach. It won’t matter but they’ll do it. At a minimum they’ll threaten to do it because it costs them nothing to do so.
max
[‘Don’t overread the results of the fiscal cliff or the debt ceiling delay. Those were not the result of tough fighting by Democrats, those were results of their team deciding not to accept battle at this time. They’re awaiting more favorable conditions for a fight.’]
catclub
@aimai: This is why I think Joe Biden is winning in 2016. He is incredibly reassuring.
(At least compared to boogety-boogety dangerous Obama. It is really hard to understand people who see Obama as dangerous.)
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@dan: It’s called a movie. Imagine a movie where the Enterprise pulls up to a planet and discovers a new civilization where the people are at the simple farming stage of evolution.
As for the movie coming out, it’s Khan, and it’s Benedict Cumberbatch. If you’re going to be bored by that, there’s no hope for you.
Bokonon
I’ve seen the wingnuts floating all sorts of creative grounds for impeaching Obama. My favorite of which is that Obama is violating the Declaration of Independence by refusing to protect the rights of the unborn. Which is a violation of the Constitution. And so Obama MUST BE IMPEACHED for his crimes!
Who knew that observing the Supreme Court’s rulings was an impeachable offense?
All that is pretty laughable, but the thing that concerns me is that this is the same doggoned free-floating drive to impeach the President that we all saw back in the early 1990’s concerning Bill Clinton. The GOP and the assorted wingers already know what they want to do – which is to smash Obama, and shut him up, and delegitimize him, and clear him from office using the peculiar legislative constitutional coup that impeachment allows. And then … the GOP will use Obama’s fall to break the back of the Democrats, and clear the way for the GOP ascend to its rightful place again (namely – in total control of the federal government).
These people already have their mechanism and their result and their goals all picked out … now they only need to find the justification. And the fact that their equation is backwards and vicious doesn’t make it any less serious, or any less worthy of concern. Let’s not underestimate this.
redshirt
I cannot agree with what seems to be accepted belief at BJ regarding Impeachment. These Wingnuts don’t care! They don’t care about anything except their little fiefdom and getting paid off. Period. Greater good? Common cause? LOL! Fuck that shit.
They will Impeach, even if it has zero chance of succeeding, even if it has zero basis in fact. Why not? It will be great political theater, and as at least 42% of the population know, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”.
What do they care about the media or opinion polls or any of that?
hoodie
@? Martin: If it is, it’s not particularly bright. Whitewater was good mudhole to wallow in because you could bring in a host of wacked out characters like Susan McDougal, Paula Jones, etc. They were all publicly available and easy to coax into going along with Republican fishing expeditions. This stuff is still classified and nobody is going to talk about it.
Thiessen is pulling this alleged conspiracy completely out of his ass. If you read the Post article he cites, there isn’t much of anything, someone anonymously saying “it’s pretty high up” which could be just some senior-level career types or some low-level fucker who really doesn’t know what’s going on. Thiessen is trying to bootstrap this as something close to the president, but there is nothing in that article that even comes close to suggesting that. In fact, the context of the article is all the leak prosecutions that have been pursued during the Obama administration, i.e., Obama has been more active in pursuing these kinds of leaks than other administrations have been. So, just when you think Thiessen can’t be any dumber, he proves you wrong.
AA+ Bonds
I think pretty much every President should be in jail but it’s never gonna happen through that process.
What’s sick is the bipartisan consensus on some sort of MI6 style kowtow to foreign intelligence services which have proven themselves time and time again to act with impunity and heap abuse upon abuse. The question here is why two separate attacks, one clearly on CIA agents in a CIA base, have been recast as a single attack on diplomats.
But no one, and I mean no one, in Washington will touch that one. Cole Was Right.
Similar scariness when everyone cackled at the politically expedient tactic of condemning Romney for acknowledging that Britain has a foreign intelligence service at all and that on occasion they discuss the Middle East. Of course Romney couldn’t have handled the hostility with which the rest of the world would have greeted him, but that hush hush cloak and dagger shit where you don’t even say the name of the agency is not really a great place to be in a democracy.
MomSense
@Jay:
Did you see the movie Butter? There was a butter statue of giant toddler Gingrich on horseback!
ranchandsyrup
UNLIMITED MANUFACTURED OUTRAGE!
Higgs Boson's Mate
The Republicans are not afraid of making asses of themselves.
The Republicans will do anything to take a piece out of Obama.
The Republicans can always use a distraction from their failures.
The Republicans can always use another bargaining chip.
Impeach Obama? Why not? It isn’t as though they have any stature or credibility to lose.
John
ObamaLeaks? Is this an actual thing outside Thiessen’s fevered mind?
Chris
@dan:
I’ve been “meh” at all the Star Trek that’s been done since DS9 (on TV) and ST:VI (in movies), so I’m used to it at this point. Abrams Trek isn’t what I like best, but at least it’s entertaining.
Bokonon
@hoodie: A GOP conspiracy theory that doesn’t make sense? The facts don’t add up? Then there must be a cover up! We then must investigate and prosecute the lack of evidence!!!
[Hey – it worked in Whitewater, didn’t it? It sucked up years of the nation’s time and attention, and diverted the nation’s attention while winning countless news cycles, and keeping the Clinton administration permanently on the defensive.]
JasperL
Remember what Norquist said a while back:
NJ: What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then?
NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress.
Maybe they’re just laying the groundwork? Norquist’s quote is proof enough the reason doesn’t matter. It’s on the table to find ANY reason if taxes go up too high.
Jay C
@ Doug Galt;
@Zifnab25:
I don’t think it’s so much a matter of balls as brains: while I think there are probably enough ODS-rabid Congresscritters in the House who would be only too happy to vote to impeach and try President Ni-CLANG, the leadership has got to know that doing so without even the pathetically-thin “indictment” the Gingrich Congress had on Bill Clinton (and when? before the next mid-terms?) would be even a louder death-knell for the GOP’s prospects than the ones they can hear ringing already. Fighting the Obama/Democrat agenda is already a hard enough fight as it is -is Orange Julius really likely to want to gin up some bogus Ken-Starr-like “investigation” (even harder now, since Congress can’t waste taxpayers’ millions on “Special Prosecutor” nonsense any more)? Over Stuxnet? Boehner and Cantor may be hacks, but they aren’t stupid: another “impeachment” circus would, I think, finally disgust enough marginal voters with the Republicans that even their most vigorous gerrymandering/voter-suppression efforts won’t be enough to preserve their unjustified majority.
srv
I’m still reeling from that photoshopped skeet shooting…
Now, if they could make a case involving drones, then they could get the John Cole’s of the Left behind impeachment.
dan
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I have no doubt that it will be a blast, and I am big JJ Abrams fan, but it’s missing a bit of what made Star Trek, the TV show, great.
And we don’t know for sure that it is Khan. KHAN!
nemesis
We no longer live in a reality based political universe.
Our leaders, our fellow countrymen and women, influenced by the hermetically-sealed rwnm echo chamber, engage in, nay, prefer discussing fake issues. Not real possibilities. Alternate reality bullshit. For a glimpse, just look at the NRA’s response to background checks. The NRA is not a serious organization, led by an unserious loon named LaPierre. He makes no attempt to further discussion, he only thwarts real discussion. A thumb in the eye of the libruls is way better than working hard to appear sensible.
Its opinion and altered reality 24/7. This type of communication, or the lack thereof, is crippling our country.
Assignment of the day: watch for and note every alternate reality issue discussed by VSP today.
AA+ Bonds
@srv:
This is a world of men with clubs and we’re the biggest man with the biggest club. It doesn’t mean the President isn’t a criminal under bodies of law the US uses to condemn others, but frankly, we’re bullies who don’t give a fuck because we get away with it. Even Glenn Greenwald accepts the (US-only) legal philosophy that all international law depends on the consent of the governments involved under treaty. It’s a sad and savage state to be in, a Chuck Krauthammer aerial-bombardment paradise that the US hasn’t done much at all to change since we torpedoed the ICC.
I think that interventionist liberals, to their credit, at least falsely believe they believe in international law. But they act as IR realists anyway, which makes the distinction meaningless in action.
In other words, this is much less a right-left issue and much more a U.S.-vs.-most-everyone-else issue.
Emma
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Holy Mither. Khan. Cumberbatch?
Wipes drool….
(edit) Back to the matter at hand. Impeachment? No. Gonna. Happen.
hoodie
@Bokonon: It worked in Whitewater because that provided a doorway to the notorious history of Bill Clinton’s pen1s. No way DoD is going to let them root around in their cyberwarfare playpen like they did in Arkansas banks and Paula Jones’ lingerie drawer. If anything, the whole cyberwarfare thing makes Obama look good, fucking with the Iranians and all with our good friends the Israelis.
Roger Moore
@Bokonon:
I’m not sure that this really is getting things backward. My understanding is that the framers included impeachment with the expectation that it would be used as a purely political means of forcing somebody unpopular out of office; they saw it as an alternative to assassination for getting rid of people who really needed to be gotten rid of. That’s part of the reason that they were very vague about what exactly classifies as “high crimes and misdemeanors” worthy of impeachment. I think that the Republicans’ attempts at getting rid of Democratic presidents by impeachment have gone along with what the founders intended.
Of course the founders also intended for removal from office to be an extraordinary event rather than the ordinary course of business. That’s why they set the bar for conviction in the Senate so high, and that’s why the Republicans’ desire to impeach Obama is farcical. They need a 2/3 majority in the Senate to actually remove Obama from office, which they aren’t going to get with some ginned up charges. What they’re talking about is pure political theater, and they’re going to wind up being the bumbling villains of the piece in the public eye.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@dan: I like how imdb has “Khan (rumored)” and yet one of the other characters is Dr. Carol Marcus. The character has appeared only one other time…
artem1s
@? Martin:
except the current House doesn’t have access to the unlimited powers that the special prosecutor had during the Clinton administration. Under the current law, I’m pretty sure their investigations would have to be confined to the scope of any original inquiry. They didn’t have that restriction under Whitewater. That’s why the ‘investigation’ never ran itself out despite, what 4-5 prosecutors throwing up their hands and declaring there was nothing to prosecute. And how we got from WW to Lewinsky in the first place. Even Starr tried to quit at one point and go take a chair at Pepperdine but he was bullied back onto the job by Newt and his gang. My understanding it was a special set of circumstances that came about because of the way the investigation was started and the way the special prosecutor operated at the time.
joes527
Is “this is exactly like that Plame thing” really as good as it gets?
Because I thought that the administration’s actions in the Plame affair should have resulted in prosecutions.
And the argument “both sides do it” is usually considered to be weak sauce around these parts, so I’m not sure why it is being put forward by so many folks in this case.
If this is really just like outing Plame, then it is a major fuck up. (as that was)
fuckwit
Reminds me of this:
http://www.lowculture.com/archives/2004/10/speed_bump_on_t.html
Rethugs only understand revenge.
Remember Darth Cheney leaking classified information for political purposes? NOvak? Valerie Plame? Anyone in the media have a fucking attention span longer than a hyperactive mosquito with ADHD?
Please.
Karl Rove and Cheney leaked classified information, exposing a CIA agent, in revenge for her husband criticizing the Bush Crime Family.
There was a special prosecutor, remember? Bush was investigated. Cheney was investigated, and both refused to testify under oath?
WHERE THE FUCK WAS EVERYONE? It wasn’t even that long ago. Leaking classified info from the White House. Nobody went to jail. One guy got convicted, and then immediatey pardoned by Bush. What the fuck?
Well, it seems they are still stinging from the AUDACITY of being investigated for that, and now, here they are looking for revenge for their revenge.
Honestly, they’re like the Sopranos.
redshirt
@Chris: I’m right there with you. Trek died in the early 2000’s. The JJ Abrams reboot is fun and pew-pew EXPLOSIONS!, but it’s just a sci-fi action series really with characters we’re already familiar with.
The defining feature of Real Trek is it made you think. In this way it was like a cross of Bonanza/Westerns/Twilight Zone.
They’ve lost the “thinking” part, but then, did we not as a country as well?
We get the Trek we deserve.
AA+ Bonds
@artem1s:
And the law authorizing Starr’s position, Independent Counsel, sunset in 1999 AFAIK.
AA+ Bonds
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
And Alice Eve has been styled to look like Dr. Dehner from “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. Is anyone really surprised that this flick is just going to be a maximum impact nostalgia bomb? At least they understand that everyone who thinks Star Trek is an intellectual pursuit is wrong.
Gin & Tonic
@catclub:
Am I the only one bothered by the fact that Uncle Joe, if he runs and wins, will be five years older than the previous oldest elected President who, if memory serves, was of declining faculties almost from the outset? I like him and all, but do we need a 75-year-old white guy as President in the second decade of the 21st century?
srv
@AA+ Bonds: I don’t think they act like realists at all, they act like confused neocons.
When they’re on the same side as Bill Kristol, you’d think they’d ponder that a bit.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Another DS9 fan *waves*. Enterprise was lame as was Captain Archer. I simply could not digest the stupidity that was the last movie with the Enterprise crew with Tom Hardy as the villain.
I haven’t seen Abrams (sp?) reboot. I may have to see the next movie though, if only for, Cumberbatch. Want!
Chris
@nemesis:
Yep. That, to me, is the defining feature of the America I grew up in. Real problems like the rising costs of health care and education, falling standards of living, the disaster that is the Middle East conflict, or the mother of all disasters, global warming simply cannot be addressed because so many politicians and members of the public would simply stick their fingers in their ears and wail loudly whenever you brought them up. Instead, we have to focus on entirely fictional problems like Saddam’s WMDs, black people leeching off of welfare, death panels and the confidence fairy.
You can’t even hold a conversation with these people; they’re not coming at things from a different point of view so much as living in an entirely fictional universe. Hopefully, the Obama presidency will be the start of a reversal in that trend (someone finally made a dent in the health care problem, which is good).
AA+ Bonds
@srv:
Well, yeah. I meant “realist” in the way the term is used in international relations, which is the home of most “neocon” writers and thinkers. It posits the world as a state of anarchy with existing states competing for their own interests and (at best) international structures or societies as temporal manifestations of that interest. It’s the philosophy that has guided U.S. foreign policy in both parties for decades, IMO, and even France is getting back in on the action nowadays. I have always appreciated Krauthammer for at least performing his barbarism in the nude.
I agree that the label is a dumb one, even though I could probably be pegged as “English school” myself (a sort of “liberal realism”) which I have tried hard to square with Marx and structural theories with (of course) a material focus. I haven’t succeeded yet but the community of ideas is clearly extremely powerful or the U.S. wouldn’t have wasted so much cash and ink on the language of international law while flouting it repeatedly.
Where there is daylight between me and a Marxist is that I think Jimmy Carter’s administration had some real fundamental differences with what came before and after, I guess.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
By this standard, Bush and Cheney can still be held accountable for leaking a CIA agent’s name.
Didn’t Cheney feed false WMD info to a NY Times reporter to create justification for war against Iraq?
@ Doug Galt;
@Zifnab25:
Yes, because being uppity is an impeachable offense if you are black and president of the United States.
Tonal Crow
Please, oh please, I beg of you Republicans, don’t throw us into the impeachment patch! We’ll die die die in there!
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Brachiator:
Being a Democrat and being president seems to be an impeachable offense.
Chris
@redshirt:
Pretty much exactly this. If I wanted the space action/adventure to take precedence over the “make you think” thing to the extent that it has, I’d watch Stargate or Farscape. And I say this as someone who actually prefers Stargate… but it’s not what Trek is supposed to be.
IMO, Star Trek was pretty well supplanted by Firefly and Battlestar Galactica in the “sci-fi that made you think” department as far as my generation was concerned. Maybe it’s for the best; the “dark/dystopian sci-fi” theme fits the America I grew up in a lot better than Star Trek’s sixties-liberal-optimism.
Poopyman
@AA+ Bonds:
Did you have to do that? I just finished lunch.
trollhattan
Programming note:
History’s worst monsterthe president is speaking on gun violence at 2:30 EST. (Must be easily amused because I love it when the White House emails me.)Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Actually, Enterprise was the only show that I thought would’ve had potential if done right. TOS showed us the optimistic future, TNG took it to the limit (turning “optimistic” into “utopian”), then DS9 explored the dark underbelly. The only interesting thing left to do would’ve been to show how we got from “now” to “then,” which is where Enterprise would’ve come in. But the end result was pretty lame, I agree.
trollhattan
Also, too, unaware of internet traditions, I have no idea what “ObamaLeaks” even is (supposed to be) but it certainly sounds like a private matter between him and his urologist.
Has Marc Thiessen been peeking?
redshirt
@trollhattan: Wow! You get emails from the White House?! You must be very important! ;)
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
The thought has occurred to me as well, but I have to admit Onion Joe is the only guy I’ve seen serving in the White House who seems to get YOUNGER on the job.
It’s eerie, I tell ya.
Poopyman
@trollhattan: Google only shows its use by Thiessen and Connor Friedersdorfffff. Draw your own conclusions.
Chris
@AA+ Bonds:
It’s supposed to be, but with the Bush administration’s “imposing democracy” shtick, the neocon political faction took a turn into a bizarro form of Wilsonian ideas. It ended up being a weird bastard child of liberalism and realism (in the IR theory sense of these words), combining the former’s interventionism and utopianism with the latter’s contempt for all international law or custom other than the law of the jungle.
trollhattan
@redshirt:
I yam, I yam!
It began when I signed
oneall of the gun-control petitions after Sandy Hook. These folks do understand internet traditions–I’m betting under a Romney administration one of his “first day in office” edicts would have been to tear out the WH internet, just like Saint Ronaldus tore out Jimmy Carter’s solar panels.eyelessgame
I was really hoping, from earlier ads showing frankly superhuman abilities as opposed to just manperfection, that Cumberbach would be playing Gary Mitchell.
Ah, well, There is nothing new under the sun.
trollhattan
@Poopyman:
Hmmm, must be a trial balloon from the Luntz Laboratories, then.
In honor of Dick Clark, I give it a 30 because it has no beat and cannot be danced to by anybody not named Tater.
ranchandsyrup
They are all Patrick Bateman:
eyelessgame
The only problem with Biden is that if Hillary Clinton were to win, she would become the second-oldest president to take office, and she’s four years younger than Biden.
Brachiator
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
RE: Yes, because being uppity is an impeachable offense if you are black and president of the United States.
I keep seeing people say this, but it seems to ignore reality. Obama regularly gets slammed for doing stuff that every president, including Democrats, do.
I recall issues related to Clinton and Lewinsky being blown up into an impeachable offense. I do not recall Republicans saying, “Surely there must be something we can impeach Clinton for” from the first day of his election.
I recall that Republicans and wingnut pundits kept insisting that Clinton was a rogue, that he was dishonest, that the voters had been fooled into voting for him.
I do not recall that Clinton was smeared as being inherently foreign, un-American, with a double twist of incompetence.
catclub
@Gin & Tonic: I agree. Very Old. Somehow I thought he would be 69 or 70 in 2016.
I would still vote for him over Up-n-comers like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio ;)
I guess Michelle Obama will have to run.
Hillary will be a spry 70 soon after inauguration in 2017.
srv
@AA+ Bonds: Erm, no. Idon’t think the label is a dumb one. Neocons aren’t realists, unless you think Wilsonianism is realist. Mr. Kennan would disagree.
Fukuyama may have thought he could write something that bridged realism and neoconism, but that’s like mixing ice cream and shit and thinking you’ve got sorbet.
AA+ Bonds
@Tonal Crow:
Hey, they know the press. “Mired in scandal” is another sin to add to the list. Ever read Bob Woodward’s (pretty bad) Shadow? The amount of ammo spent on transforming Carter’s administration into a bunch of pot smoking faggots was extraordinary.
AA+ Bonds
@srv:
I’ve been repeatedly trying to respond to this explaining the liberal realism of the neocons (as a liberal realist myself) but BJ keeps eating it and I have no idea why.
The dividing line for me was the absolute frivolousness of the UN case. But I think that the fact that they brought the case matters a lot.
I take the PNAC missives at face value. I think the neocons wanted democracy in Iraq and thought they could provide it, but failed because of the primitive technology we have. I could easily see myself making the same mistake and I think the material suicide of Iraq should have shaken Marxists as thoroughly as it should have neoconservatives. There are way, way better ways to be a neocolonial power, especially when extracting resources.
Chris
@Brachiator:
Yep. That would never have worked with Clinton (or Carter) – the white Southerner with the accent to match, the “he wasn’t born here” or “he’s a Muslim” slur would simply never have stuck. They only stick to Obama because he’s not what the average conservative voter considers “like them.”
They’ve definitely ramped up the crazy since the nineties. I’m just not sure to what extent it’s purely racial and to what extent it’s the fact that they’ve had another decade to sink deeper and deeper into crazy-territory (when Clinton was elected they hadn’t taken control of Congress yet, they didn’t have Fox News yet, the moderate Republican faction was on its deathbed but not quite dead yet, etc). I’m sure Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden wouldn’t have had to deal with the Birther slurs if they’d been elected president, but would they have faced any less of a “I hope he/she fails”/”our number one goal is to make him/her a one-term president” all-out intransigence that Obama’s had to deal with?
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: It had potential, which was wasted. Worst Captain of the franchise, in my opinion. I only saw the first season.
redshirt
@schrodinger’s cat: TONS of potential. Could have been the best of all the shows. Totally and absolutely wasted. What a terrible show, and the last few TNG movies were just as terrible.
Berman/Braga suck!
redshirt
@Chris: Good points. I view this period in US history as the finalization of the Great Realignment that began after LBJ got the Civil Rights Act passed, which in short order caused the near wholesale flipping of the South and North from Dem/Repub to Repub/Dem.
We’re near the end though, really, since as you point out the moderates in the Repub party are gone, and they get crazier with each election. They’re caught in a feedback loop of which there is only two escapes: 1. It consumes itself (most likely), or 2. It loses energy and fizzles away (less likely).
We probably already have the future US political alignment before our eyes, and it consists almost entirely of the Democratic Party – which would of course become 2 parties. A Blue Dog party and a more liberal party.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Brachiator:
That may have been because there were still a few shreds of decorum left in D.C. at the time. Obama has been slammed harder than if he’d been a white Democrat. I’d posit that a white Dem would have only received ninety percent othe shit being slung at Obama. Not much less than that, though.
handsmile
I’m really hard-pressed to decide which of these two stories today reeks more of Republican desperation and adversity: Thiessen’s almost incomprehensible description of his latest fever dream of Obama’s perfidy or the frantic Village media rumors that Tagg Romney might enter the Senate special election for Kerry’s former seat (based on a single Boston Herald report that he posted a Twitter pic of his sons getting a haircut [no joke, here’s the link]:
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2013/02/tagg_you’re_it_gop_senate_hopes
Impeachment? Please proceed, boys.
jonas
Marc Thiessen, former aid to Vice Classified Information Leaker Dick Cheney, is suggesting Obama be impeached for leaking classified information? This isn’t even chutzpah. The word chutzpah has just simply burst into flame and fallen to ashes on the floor.
Furthermore, as 99% of Americans are asking: “Stuxwhat”? How on earth could leaking details of Stuxnet — if that even happened — be done for calculated political reasons? Who, outside a small Washington clique of foreign policy/techie journalists or analysts, could this possibly have interested?
rikyrah
I’ll say it short and sweet:
I wish a muthafucka would.
Seanly
This doesn’t seem to be a thing with much legs. It’s pretty dry stuff and I don’t think the Justice Dept would be investigating if Obama had it leaked.
RE: Star Trek – I’d love to see a new good spaced-based sci fi show. I don’t think you’ll see any networks do it – I think the last one was Fox’s Space: Above & Beyond. That leaves basic cable where the production values may be okay, but the writing & talent will stink.
There are sci-fi shows out there, but they follow the X-files route – odd goings on in comtemporary settings.
trollhattan
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Hazy memories but didn’t they have a basicallly uninterrupted string of “-gate”like complaints and investigations, like travelgate, Vince Foster, Whitewater, whatever Hillary just said, Paula Jones, that other woman I can’t name, Bill eatin’, Bill joggin’, Bill breathin’…am pretty sure there were others.
Obama being blah and seemingly uncorruptable, and his cute family, makes him a tough target so they have to clap harder!
redshirt
@Seanly: Firefly and BSG were both more recent and were quite good. That’s all that comes to my mind though in the past 10-15 years.
Edit: Does Stargate count? I thought that was a pretty good show as well.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@handsmile:
Right. Tagg has never been elected to public office and he’s even less charismatic than his father. He does seem to bristle with the Romney sense of entitlement so I wouldn’t completely rule him out.
Brachiator
@redshirt:
I think that early on Rodenberry described Star Trek as being like “Wagon Train in space”, or something like that.
But isn’t the defining feature of any good film or tv is that it tells gripping and interesting stories? Even the most allegoricial Twilight Zone stories were first and foremost engaging drama or comedy.
One of the best ever Trek stories, “Amok Time,” or Spock’s Blue Balls, was an engaging tale that smartly dealt with the wild side of being a Vulcan. I don’t know that it really made you think much about anything.
But I do agree with what you appear to be saying about JJ Abram’s take on Trek being noisy fun, and maybe not much more. This by itself might be OK. For me though, part of the issue here is that he flattens the characters, but maybe this makes them more acceptable for the current generation of moviegoers.
@Chris:
I like individual episodes of Firefly, but was never particularly wowed by it. I do understand, though, why the show has lots of fans. On the other hand, I never cared for any of the iterations of Battlestar Galactica.
David Hunt
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I keep seeing persistent rumors that BC is playing Gary Mitchell from the second pilot Where No Man Has Gone Before. The fact that they’ve got someone playing Carol Marcus supports that as lots of people think that that Marcus is being referred to by Mitchell’s saying he “aimed a little blonde lab technician” at Kirk, who almost married her.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@trollhattan:
You forgot to mention the rumors that Bill Clinton headed up a gigantic drug smuggling operation based in Mena, Arkansas and the numerous hits he called in relevant to that.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
They didn’t say it out loud, but they were investigating the hell out of everything they could think of looking for a scandal. It’s not clear to me when they decided to progress from scandal mongering to impeachment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if their private goal had been impeachment all along and they were just better at keeping their mouths shut back then.
Chris
@redshirt:
Stargate is my favorite TV show to date (not just sci-fi), it just doesn’t strike me as being especially prone to social commentary the way Star Trek or BSG were. Which doesn’t mean it couldn’t make you think, mind you, more than once.
Bokonon
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: And let’s not forget, the things that the House of Representatives included in their articles of impeachment against Clinton were only the tip of the iceberg.
Consider the so-called “Rape Room” that Tom DeLay supposedly maintained, which was apparently full of nonpublic (and apparently defamatory) evidence against Bill Clinton. This is something that Tom DeLay and the other impeachment managers used to shepard reluctant GOP Congressmen through … and then buttonhole them, and DEMAND that the members give a impeachment vote against Bill Clinton. So Congress was not just voting on the Monica Lewinsky stuff, and not on the perjury issue, but on this secret evidence, off-the-record shadow basis that Clinton was a sex criminal, some sort of serial abuser of women, and someone that needed to be removed from the Presidency. It happened – you can look it up.
Of course, this was all wingnut hall of mirrors stuff. But that’s the best thing about secret evidence that doesn’t have to be held up to public scrutiny.
redshirt
@Chris: Agreed. It wasn’t “deep”, but it was a lot of fun. Not sure if it counts as a “Space based Sci-fi” show though, since technically it’s Earth based. The spin offs, sure, but they were never as good as the original.
redshirt
@Roger Moore: There’s the working theory that Clinton was the Repuke’s first shot to get back at the Dems for Watergate. As such, they would have impeachment in their mind from day one. Also, the 3 way split of Clinton’s elections made it seem he might be less legitimate (to their eyes).
handsmile
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Yes, and besides all those eminent qualifications, you may recall that Taggart Romney, aged 42, spoke about wanting to “take a swing” at President Obama following the second presidential debate. So I’d have to think that Tagg would be willing to slug Ed Markey if that Irish-Catholic mick gives him any lip during the campaign.
Seanly
@redshirt:
Was Firefly after Space: Above & Beyond? Then Firefly was the last major network outer space show. BSG was basic cable – I did like the show, but it seemed to run out of steam. When every episode is nothing but exposition on your long arc, thigns start to get a little dull.
Enterprise suffered several problems – in the DVD “Captain’s Summit”, Scott Bakula mentions part of the problem was that the crew never gelled like on the other shows. The writing was pretty lackluster and attempt to shoehorn in canon references often felt forced.
I could go on & on about my issues with sci-fi.
Jay C
@catclub:
Hillary Clinton was born October 26, 1947, so: if we should be lucky enough to live to see her inaugurated as the nation’s 45th President, she will, on January 20, 2017 be 69 years and 84 days old. Which would make the second-oldest President ever inaugurated (only Reagan was older). Joe Biden, btw, (born Nov. 20, 1942) would be 75 years and 61 days old next Inauguration Day: unfortunately, I agree that that’s a bit too old to be comfortable with as even a one-term President (though either Clinton or Biden would, IMO, be excellent choices to carry on Obama’s policies).
redshirt
@Seanly: Agreed about BSG.
Firefly first aired in 2002. S:A&B was mid 90’s.
Chris
@redshirt:
I think the only “deep” thing about it, even though it’s been done before, was the Jack/Daniel relationship and, in the field, the way their military/civilian approaches clashed and complemented each other. I never got the sense that we were supposed to think one was righter than the other, they both ended up being right quite a few times, the situations were just different.
Chris
@redshirt:
I still need to watch S:AB. From what I’ve heard it looked really good. It’s just not on Netflix or YouTube.
The Ancient Randonneur
I see I was beat to my initial reaction:
I would a motherF*cka would!
Brachiator
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Don’t agree with this at all. Let’s start with the birth certificate shit. Other Democrats have, and will be, slammed for all kinds of things. The challenge to Obama’s very legitimacy to be president is a whole different level of vile.
And yes, btw, I would expect a similar level of hysteria had Hillary Clinton been elected the first woman president. In addition to the standard Clinton hate, would be all kinds of nonsense over the inability of a mere woman to do a real man’s job.
liberal
@srv:
Agreed.
For one thing, I presume that realists start from the presumption of a state acting in its own interest. Neocons advocate the state acting in another state’s interest.
liberal
@Roger Moore:
Agreed.
Suffern ACE
@liberal: Well, that’s part of it. The other supposition is that being the world’s only superpower means that all people’s shall bow down before you and that any country, no matter how small, should be treated like a threat akin to Ghengis Khan.
redshirt
@Chris: Meh – I thought it was OK, and certainly would not go out of my way to watch it today. It’s a like a less bombastic “Starship Troopers” (movie version), also without Doogie Howzer in NAZI leather.
redshirt
@Suffern ACE: Gengis KHAAAAAAN you say?
trollhattan
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
D’oh, completely forgot! Maybe because I was one of his bestest customers, back in the day. Used to hide little bricks of product in orders of chicken fingers. (Yup, chickens haz fingers.)
J R in W Va
@Yutsano:
You may cleanse with a sweet contribution to the ACLU, and the Democratic Party of Texas, and sleep with a clean soul!
J R in W Va
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Now, now, Monica was a pretty girl. So don’t be bad and say ugly stuff about her. She may have helped the President be calm enough to stave off Nuculoar [sic] War later that night!
Mork. mork
xian
@Forum Transmitted Disease: your misogyny is not as charming as you may think
Keith G
I remember there was a time when our side liked to call itself the reality-based community. I guess that has been flushed.
Look, impeachment would depend on leadership buy-in and that was never and will never be a possibility short of Obama caught shagging Ahmadinejad at a Holocaust museum.
liberal
@Suffern ACE:
Yeah, there’s that.
“True” realists say that the optimum thing to do re Persian Gulf fossil fuel riches is “offshore balancing,” IIRC. Not invading every Arab or Muslim country that looks at you funny.
liberal
@Brachiator:
Have to (respectfully) disagree.
AFAICT, since the mid-1990s or so, the Repbulicans appear to have decided that any Democratic president is illegitimate.
Bokonon
@Keith G: The GOP already think that is going on. BENGHAZIIIIIIII!
J.D. Rhoades
Thiessen’s the idiot who complained that the Obama administration was killing too many terrorists rather that capturing them and water boarding them for intel. He’s got a raging case of ODS. Speculation about impeachment is a sign he’s entered the end-stage of the disease.
kay
“IF ….AND….IN an effort TO…”
Good Lord. I almost feel sorry for him. Can he not wait for at least one of these cascading conditions to be met before he starts salivating?
Honestly. Has a conservative ever had an unexpressed thought? Whatever passes thru their heads they must immediately blurt it out.
Mandalay
OT If the Obama Administration has any sense it will secretly and anonymously donate a gazillion dollars to this organization, and leave them to it.
The Taliban must hate and fear their truly awesome spokesperson, and she is a far more likely to defeat the Taliban than the US military.
What a great human being. Must be odds-on favorite for the Nobel Peace Prize, and she is only 15.
MattR
@David Hunt:
One of my favorite ST books as a teen was Enterprise: The First Adventure which told the story of Kirk’s first mission as captain (with Mitchell as an integral part of his crew) and included a lot of back story into the relationship between Kirk and Mitchell. Personally, I think it would be kinda cool to take advantage of the reboot and not kill Mitchell off, but rather keep him as part of the crew going forward.
J R in W Va
@redshirt:
Ha! Just contribute $25 and join the list!
steverino
@Seanly:
Bring back Quark!
teabow
is the meaning of “I no longer think that House Republicans have the balls to impeach Obama” the same as “I think that House Republicans no longer have the balls to impeach Obama”
jes wonderin’
Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo)
@Gin & Tonic:
I agree. Jindal/Rubio 2016!