By Hanlon, on March 22nd, 2007 at 07:25 PM
This just gets more and more interesting. The House already authorized the issuing of subpoenas to Rove and the gang, and now the Senate committee has done the same. What’s most interesting, though, is that it appears to be a severe majority opinion, and the debate is getting firey.
Most Republicans argued that it would be better to negotiate with the White House before engaging the White House in a protacted court battle but agreed with the majority Democrats that any interview of White House staffers should be in public and under oath (or at least transcribed).
Democrats pointed out that Bush, either as a tactic or a matter or truth, said there would be no negotiaton.
And that’s the thing. I don’t want anyone to be subpoenaed. If this can be settled without them, I’m just fine with that. What I am not fine with, however, is Bush’s insistence that nothing be on the record, nothing be public, nothing be transcribed, and nothing be followed up on. If they’re willing to go on the record, under oath, and allow things to be verified, plus open themselves up for later questioning, then there’s no need for subpoenas.
The thing is, if they’re just telling the truth about everything, what’s the problem? This logic also amuses me.
Some Republicans argued issuing subpoenas could set a constitutional crisis in motion.
“Not only is the authorization of the subpoena now unnecessary but I think it might ultimately prove counterproductive,” said Senator Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. “We need to think about the damage to the relationship between the [White House and Congress].”
Jon Kyl was a senator during the Clinton trial, and for those curious here’s what he had to say about the acquittal.
What is striking about this case is the President’s persistent, sustained, carefully calculated, deliberate and callous manipulation of the judicial process for over a year. . . .
An acquittal in this case will make it much harder to deal properly with similar conduct in the future. We will be hard pressed to perpetuate a double standard, so the lowest common denominator of conduct will be established as the permissible norm. And this cannot help but weaken the ability of courts to enforce truth-telling and prevent obstruction of justice.
The precedent set by this case may not change the law overnight, but this unforgettable episode is now part of the institutional life of our country. The chief magistrate perverted justice and remained in power. The lesson is corrosive. Like water dripping on a rock, it eventually makes a deep hollow in the American justice system.
So it’s safe to say Jon Kyl didn’t mind it back when the republican-led Congress was attacking Bill Clinton nonstop. But just asking questions to White House staff members to see if something was illegal? Why, that would cause a constitutional crisis!
Please.
By Hanlon, on March 21st, 2007 at 01:58 PM
Snagged this one from AmericaBlog and it’s a doozie. Granted, Tony Snow is talking about Clinton, but that doesn’t make the following passage any less powerful.
“The wall of separation between Mr. Clinton and his deeds remains strong because minions have stuck to their alibis. But now comes an episode in which the Man from Hope stands alone. It is his recent attempt to claim executive privilege for counselors Bruce Lindsey and Sidney Blumenthal and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“Mr. Clinton can’t blame his lawyers for this latest feint. He alone can assert the privilege. The maneuver places him at the heart of his administration’s ongoing effort to use executive privilege as a way of concealing the truth about whether the president exposed himself….
“Earlier in this administration, then-White House legal counsel Lloyd Cutler decreed that the White House never would assert privilege in the face of a criminal investigation. He merely was reiterating long-standing executive-branch policy along those lines. President Ronald Reagan didn’t invoke privilege in Iran-contra, and neither did President George Bush.
“But precedent is gone, and Mr. Clinton wants to protect conversations about a chubby intern from Hollywood. In so doing, he becomes the first president since Richard Nixon to use executive privilege in a criminal inquiry.
“Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.
“Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.
“One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public’s faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold the rule of law.”
Gorgeous.
By Hanlon, on March 21st, 2007 at 01:56 PM
I was wondering exactly what Bush was planning on doing when he said that he would resist any efforts to make Rove, Miers, etc to testify under oath. I may get to find out, since the House Judiciary Committee basically told Bush to cram it, they’re going to have their subpoenas.
The House Judiciary subcommittee vote was to authorize subpoenas. It does not mean that subpoenas will be issued; only that they could be if the four White House officials Democrats want to question do not voluntarily testify under oath.
But the act puts congressional Democrats on a collision course with President Bush. He said Tuesday that the four — top political adviser Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, and their two deputies — could be interviewed in the matter, but no oath could be administered and no transcript would be taken.
Not technically a guarantee, but it appears that we have an assurance that these four will give an official testimony.
What baffles me is how terrified Bush and the boys seem to be of testifying under oath and on the record. Whatever they want to be said, they don’t want it to have to be true and they don’t want it to be subject to fact-checking. Comments like this confuse me:
“I would strongly prefer that we postpone the issuance of subpoenas until we’ve had a chance to get the White House, who has made an offer to comply, to review the Department of Justice documents,” said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Florida.
I don’t see what the big deal is with a subpoena. It’s a document that means you have to get on the stand and tell the truth about something. Oh no, not that. You’d think simply telling the truth would be easy for these guys, if it’s true that they didn’t do anything wrong.
Chris Matthews said there’s a chance that Rove may fall subject to being asked about absolutely everything, which is a valid concern but certainly not enough to cause such a furor about having him on the stand. All that means is they’re afraid he may be asked to speak under oath about other instances of corruption. If they were all innocent across the boards it would just be a waste of his time to be asked about the other things. Or maybe I’m crazy.
By Hanlon, on March 20th, 2007 at 10:46 PM
I know I previously mentioned my distaste for debating whether or not religion is a good thing or a bad thing, and I still stand by my assertion that it all comes down to whether or not it’s true. That said, as I obviously personally believe that all supernatural-based religion is false, I am that much more motivated to wipe it out of humanity.
This motivation is heavily bolstered, of course, by things such as a study coming out that thoroughly examines the relationship between religion and general advancements in society. That’s a study that’s dang worth looking at, no matter which direction it goes in. Now, we all know about the wars and whatnot, the blunting of scientific advancements, but the study brings about a conclusion I honestly didn’t predict.
There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002).
The trend seems to be that the more religious the region is, the more violent, the less sexually responsible, and the less stable they seem to be. Which makes little to no sense given the “godless anti-values San Francisco!” rhetoric that the likes of Hannity likes to yammer on about. Sam Harris in his “Letter to a Christian Nation” found a related list of facts, showing that red states have a disproportionately high rate of violent crime, among other things.
Take a look at these graphs, as well.
The two sections of each graph I want you all to look at are the “absolutely believe in God” and the “agnostics and atheists” specifically (though the graphs as a whole are worth examining). Realize there is a significant and clear relationship between the religiosity of a nation and the rates of murders, youth pregnancy, and abortions.
Intriguingly, that relationship is quite opposite from what the religious right would like you to believe. Take from it what you will.
By Hanlon, on March 20th, 2007 at 06:20 PM
So the president had his little speech earlier today, which really hardly needs touched upon. It was a good 10 minutes or so of the man telling us that subpoenas are a part of a “partisan fishing expedition” and that he thinks it’s plenty to offer a handful of interviews with Rove et al. But the interviews come with a few caveats.
The White House offered to arrange interviews with Rove, Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings, a deputy to White House political director Sara Taylor, who works for Rove.
“Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony, or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas,” [White House counsel Fred] Fielding said in a letter to the chairman of the House and Senate judiciary committees.
I want you to read that a few times and let it really sink in. Just absorb the overwhelming stupidity of it.
What we’re hearing is that Rove and the others can be interviewed, but the contents can neither be revealed nor written down, they can’t be talked to again, they can’t go to court, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll tell the truth. You can imagine just how trustworthy such “interviews” would be. I’d love to come up with a witty zinger about it, but I’m failing miserably. Try to think how well it would work if this was applied to anyone else in the country.
“Mr Hanlon, did you or did you not murder that man?”
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll talk to you in an interview as long as there’s no record of it, I’m not under oath, and you can’t follow up on it.”
I’m sure that would work smashingly well.
Another point that keeps coming up in this debate is this one:
In his letter, Fielding said the White House was willing to provide lawmakers with wide access.
“These documents, together with the interviews to be provided by department officials, will provide extensive background on the decisions in question, including an account of communications between the department and senior White House officials,” he wrote. “Congress, in short, is receiving a virtually unprecedented window into personnel decision-making within the executive branch.”
Right, right, the letters. There’s just one problem with those letters: they don’t actually explain the firings. The article itself is a little hazy, so read through it twice. Here’s a little piece, though:
In the letter, which Sampson says was “cleared” by the White House, the Justice Department says: “At no time has the Administration sought to avoid the Senate confirmation process by appointing an interim United States Attorney and then refusing to move forward, in consultation with home-state Senators, on the selection, nomination and confirmation of a new United States Attorney. Not once.”
But in a Dec. 19, 2006, e-mail, released earlier, Sampson says of efforts by Arkansas’ two Democratic senators to pick a permanent replacement for Cummins: “I think we should gum this to death…. All this should be done in ‘good faith’ of course.”
One thing that pops out at me from what little I’ve gotten so far is that the whole thing is fairly ambiguous. Naturally the documents are going to have critical things to say on little spreadsheets concerning the ousted attorneys. But it doesn’t get nearly far enough into the how’s and why’s of the issue. Not to mention it’s, predictably, sliced apart.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) complained about redactions in the documents, and said: “One of the many things I want to look at in Appropriations is how much they’re spending on white out, because they’re certainly not spending much on print. We’re not getting a full answer.”
I understand the need for secrecy, but this is blatant abuse of said need simply to keep their red hands hidden. The government should not, should not, be secret from itself. Secret from the public? All right. CIA activities? I’ll grant that. But there is no good reason that Congress should not be allowed to see every single shred of existing communication concerning those booted attorneys.
“If the White House is forced to be accountable for its actions, then the terrorists win!!!”
By Hanlon, on March 20th, 2007 at 03:18 PM
I’m not sure anyone really needed this one pointed out, but here it is anyway. As is par for the course, the right’s immediate response to the furor over the abrupt attorney dismissals was to say that Clinton did it too. It’s a knee jerk reaction, I swear. So the good people over at ThinkProgress decided to take a look and as it turns out, that assertion is disastrously false.
– Of the 468 confirmations made by the Senate over the 25-year period, only 10 left office involuntarily for reasons other than a change in administration prior to the firings that took place in December.
– In virtually all of those 10 previous cases, serious issues of personal or professional conduct appeared to be the driving issue. Prior to December, for example, only two U.S. Attorneys were outright fired for improper, and in one case criminal, behavior. The CRS report identifies six other U.S. Attorneys who resigned during the 25-year period who were implicated in news reports of “questionable conduct.” For two others, the CRS was unable to determine the cause.
That’s 10 over the course of a quarter of a decade, versus 8 that all got purged last December. It seems like when Bush goes, he goes big. Other presidents ask for a few wiretaps, he asks for tens of thousands (or more). His dad does a little invasion into Iraq, Dubya goes full-scale. Other presidents use a few signing statements, Bush Deux goes for around 800. When attorneys get fired at a rate of one every two and a half years, Bush shoves out a whole group of them all at once.
But there’s an interesting wrinkle. If it turns out that any of these attorneys were fired due to a lack of cooperation with the White House, there’s a good chance that their termination was downright illegal.
In law schools, it is common to give an exam called the “issue spotter,” in which students are given a set of facts and asked to identify all the legal issues and possible crimes. The facts about the purge are still emerging. But based on what is known — and with some help from Congressional staff members and Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University — it was not hard to spot that White House and Justice Department officials, and members of Congress, may have violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 1501-1520, the federal obstruction of justice statute.
And you can look through the individual issues at your leisure.
What worries me the most, though, is that we’ll end up with a Rumsfeld-type situation where Alberto Gonzales will get ousted and the issue will simply fall away. There’s a lot of discussion concerning Berty’s potential dismissal, but how is that any kind of resolution? It isn’t, it’s a token gesture and it will likely change very little, certainly not rectifying the problem.
Congress had better remember where their balls are, because I’m getting sick and tired of waiting for them to do what they were voted in to do. We didn’t campaign and rally and do all this work so they could sit on their asses and reflect on how great it is to finally be in power. We want to see results and the high has worn off after the first 100 hours. It’s time for the big guns.
By Hanlon, on March 19th, 2007 at 11:21 PM
Contrary to popular belief, I do not revel in failure in Iraq. I decided to stop repeatedly writing article blips about death tolls because I realize that there will be deaths no matter what. If they hit a record, I may note that only in that when a death toll record is set in 2007 that means that progress from 2003 is sorely lagging behind. That said, it’s unfair to make a note every time a bomb goes off and a few does Iraqis and a handful of soldiers die.
Stories of massive import, such as irrefutable evidence that a lie was made to fool the country or the failure at Walter Reed (though I missed the latter story) naturally warrant writing however. Largely symbolic stories as well, such as this: the man who brought down the statue of Saddam Hussein, saying the occupation is worse than life under Saddam.
He explained: “There were lots of people from my tribe who were also put in prison or hanged. It became my dream ever since I saw them building that statue to one day topple it.”
Yet he now says he would prefer to be living under Saddam than under US occupation. He said: “The devil you know [is] better than the devil you don’t. We no longer know friend from foe. The situation is becoming more dangerous. It’s not getting better at all. People are poor and the prices are going higher and higher.”
Saddam, he says, “was like Stalin. But the occupation is proving to be worse”
I got nothin’ to add to that.
By Hanlon, on March 19th, 2007 at 07:30 PM
Sometimes I get the feeling that Bush literally does not have a connection to the world around him. I don’t mean this in any kind of partisan bitterness or that I’m simply assuming the worst. It just seems like when he speaks, he does so with absolutely no consideration for what’s going on or what he’s said before.
Take his recent speech on progress in Iraq. As you’re reading this, take into consideration what makes this speech any different from the others we’ve heard over the past few years, and add in just general thoughts of what’s happened since the Iraqi invasion. Let’s kick things off:
Four years ago today coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to remove Saddam Hussein from power. They did so to eliminate the threat his regime posed to the Middle East and to the world.
I am willing to bet we will never hear Bush mentioning WMDs when he talks about Iraq again. It’s patently false enough that Iraq posed a significant threat to even the Middle East, let alone the world, but notice that he says the mission was the removal of Saddam Hussein. The fact that the nation was repeatedly told of weapons of mass destruction and that invasion was simply based on that has gone away. Moving on…
So with our help, Iraq’s government is carrying out an aggressive plan to secure Baghdad. And we’re continuing to train the Iraqi security forces so that they ultimately take full responsibility for the security of their own people.
…
Prime Minister Maliki and General Petraeus emphasized that the Baghdad security plan is still in its early stages and success will take months, not days or weeks.
These are things we should have had years ago. It seems to suggest that between May of 2003 and now there hasn’t been an aggressive plan to secure Baghdad. March of 2007 simply should not be the time when we’re hearing about a plan to secure Baghdad in its “early stages”. We’re nearing up on four years after Saddam was taken out of power, and this speech could have come in March of 2004 and sounded perfectly applicable, the progress since then is lacking, to say the least.
My heart goes out the most to our soldiers. They’re being sent into this mess with inadequate equipment, an undefined goal, and hollow words for support from Washington. Yes yes, we all support the troops and we all want them to win the war and come home safely. Unfortunately, Bush has systematically refused to do what’s necessary to at least complete his mission and as a result he’s doing nothing to ensure they’ll come home safely.
By Hanlon, on March 18th, 2007 at 10:04 PM
While I do often talk religion, one thing I generally avoid is the discussion of whether or not religion is a cause of evil or a cause of good. I do mention that without religion we wouldn’t have people flying into the twin towers and such, and I do acknowledge that religion’s effect on humanity is something worth discussing, but in my discussions about God and my atheism and the like, the one thing I avoid is that same matter. Why?
Simple: that debate hinges entirely on whether or not God is real in the first place, but has no bearing on it.
One thing atheists may not admit out loud but still inwardly know is that if there were a god, there would be no excuse not to follow the Bible to the last detail. The pious sinless life spent testifying the salvation through Christ would be the only option. If I believed in Jesus Christ and that Hell was a true place that one could go to, then I would have no way to justify living a life in sin.
Moreover, it would simply be illogical to even tempt eternal damnation for immediate pleasures. If it were true that I will live for roughly 80 years and my time spent during it will determine what happens to me for eternity, then it seems odd that I would risk the fires of hell for the remainder of time so I can have sex or sleep in on Sunday.
Pascal’s Wager comes to mind: believing in god is safer than not believing. This is thoroughly lambasted by Dawkins in The God Delusion, but it’s a reasonable question for agnostics. If you aren’t sure one way or the other, and you consider it a possibility that God is real, then live as though he is. You acknowledge that it might be the case, so why would you not err on the safe side of your own unsureness?
What I’m getting at is the simple concept that religious fundamentalism would be the only option if God were real. If there were a God, then obviously we would all have to act as he commanded and I would be right on board with all of the fundamentalists. The “goodness” or “badness” faith has on humanity is completely irrelevant because in a situation where God is real and the Bible is true, we have no choice but to do whatever it says, and it would all be considered “good” as such.
On the flip side, if God is not real, then the debate may occur in that we have to consider that some people should not be deprived of their illusion. Certainly people exist who do good things because they think they’re doing God’s work and they may not find reason to do so if robbed of their faith.
I don’t find that particularly compelling. People will continue to do good things no matter what. And those who lose their motivation, I think, will find that a temporary setback. Even without believing God is watching, these people will find their sympathy for the plight of the poor and needy undiminished. At least I’d like to think so. I gave a fair amount to multiple Hurricane Katrina charities, my lack of belief proving no barrier to my desire to help others.
Secondly, even if acting upon faith is a good thing, it doesn’t change it’s falsehood. And at heart I am more concerned with the truth than anything, no matter how much it hurts. If there is no god, then that is the truth and from a strictly intellectual standpoint it hurts me to suggest that because it’s somehow beneficial that the truth can be ignored and the lie can be spread down the generations. I’m not a believer in the “tis better to believe a noble myth” theory.
Not to mention belief in God is inherently antithetical to a number of scientific spheres as well as social ones. The origin of the universe and multiculturalism being the two most obvious examples. Of course, in the first example then it wouldn’t matter because it’s a given that god is real so any evidence found would simply bolster that, but now I’m drifting in another direction.
So you see, whether belief is good or bad is irrelevant. If there is a god, then faith is mandatory, its effect on humanity has no bearing on the issue. If there is no god, then faith should be eliminated because as a culture who is concerned with the truth and the pursuit of such, holding onto false beliefs is simply unethical.
It should also be noted that one can still hold onto Christianity or Islam and still acknowledge that god does not exist. Social reasons, liking the morality, etc. You can find many atheists in churches of all kinds.
By Hanlon, on March 17th, 2007 at 10:17 PM
No real updates today, I’ve got to get through these:
See you all tomorrow!
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