By Hanlon, on July 12th, 2009 at 02:20 PM
 Actually this is awesome for two reasons. Not only what he’s doing, but the thought process that is going into doing it.
Okay, so, we’ve all been waiting to see if anyone in the government actually gives a shit enough about ideas like “justice” and “responsibility” to go after the Bush administration’s policies on torture, and Eric Holder’s just taken the torch. Which, actually, was pretty surprising because I didn’t expect this guy to show up in the news at all. I had him pegged as a kind of quiet lackey. But lo and behold.
These are not just the philosophical musings of a new attorney general. Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama’s domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. “I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president’s agenda,” he says. “But that can’t be a part of my decision.”
Now that is how it’s done.
As the article points out, the AG has to be careful not to go too far in one direction or the other in terms of loyalty and independence or else they’ll undermine themselves. However, if one has to pick a side to err towards, I’ll go with “independent” any day.
One of the problems that exists all throughout Washington, even in its interaction with the media, is the “quid pro quo” idea. This notion of “well I gave you that appointment/interview/donation, now you owe me this and this.” Alberto Gonzales seemed to operate under the principle that since Bush hired him, his job was to do whatever Bush wanted. What we need, and what this hints at, is for the president and his appointees to operate under the idea that “you got the job because I trust your decision making, so you do what you think is best for this country.”
I was watching Face the Nation this morning and they had Pat Leahy on. A point he made, which I wish more people would get through their heads, was that one reason to prosecute any lawbreaking at any level of the administration is to reinforce that we won’t stand for it in the future. As adorable as Obama standing up there saying “I promise we won’t do that,” a prosecution would actually mean something.
We got yer back, Holder. Do it right. I’m sorry if Obama is too limp to take a stand, but you shouldn’t be.
By Hanlon, on June 16th, 2009 at 03:59 PM
 The election of Barack Obama was rightly seen as a rebuke of George W Bush. Not just his policies, but of his politicking, his style, the whole works. From origins to race, party to demeanor, Barack Obama was in many ways the Anti-Dubya. Not a white Republican from a privileged family with a folksy demeanor that was big on dick-waving, Barack Obama’s a black Democrat who scraped his way up and talks with huge words but doesn’t meddle in shows of bravado.
To be sure, liberals, moderates, and even some conservatives have hailed the new president for his differences from Prez 43, but there’s one field in which Obama could take some lessons from Bush Jr: Bush knew how to get shit done.
For all of Cheney/Romney’s bleating that Obama’s policies have made us weaker, there’s been a conspicuous lack of change of any real substance. Oh sure, Gitmo’s closing, but the fate of 200-odd detainees is more symbolic than substantial. Even Bush was saying he might want to close Guantanamo a few years ago. We’re still in Iraq, he’s right with Bush on DoJ secrecy, even just today he decided that the White House visitor lists should remain secret. Military tribunals continue, no investigating torture, where’s the change?
Then we get into the gay rights issue which is starting to brew an outright storm. He said the Defense of Marriage Act must be repealed, then he defends it. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Still in place. All these things he said with outright conviction during the campaign, and arguably that’s the bulk of the list of the “change” his supporters wanted to see. Health care and the economy helped, but they weren’t the flagship issues.
One election later and now Obama’s relented on the most high-profile promises he’s made. Even the health care reform hasn’t gone anywhere of note, and the economic strategy is just to add more late-Bush era bailouts to the list.
To be sure, Bush the Younger had his share of flip-flops between candidacy and president. Enough so that people made lists. The bulk of those, though, were times when Bush moderated a little (gay marriage) or arguably was talking about something without a full grasp of it (steel tariffs). What we’re seeing in President Obama is a complete lack of courage to follow through with the various promises he made.
Bush, once his mind was set on something, either got shit done or ran himself ragged trying to get it done. He wanted in Iraq? We’re there. Crazy irresponsible tax cuts? Done. Secret prisons with no real restrictions on how to “interrogate”? Got ‘em. Spying on Americans in violation of FISA? Yes sir. Legal immunity for himself and everyone involved? Quicker than you can say “worse than Watergate”. George W Bush was a man who dove in head first to push for his policies.
Even when Bush failed it wasn’t for lack of trying. He was unable to get social security privatized, but that was after months of cross-country touring, media blitzes, and press conferences where poor Scott McClellan had to act like there were Democrats other than Allen Boyd who were on board with the idea. If one were to draw an analogy, Bush was the guy covered in bruises with one hell of a photo album, Obama’s the one with nary a scratch but few interesting pictures. His ideas may have been terrible, and some of them crashed and burned, but by god he put his all into it.
The most curious part is that Bush fought all of his battles uphill. A war on Iraq, privatizing social security, legal immunity and skirting the Abramoff debacle? These weren’t exactly popular notions. When Bush wanted to pass something he sat on his base and then fought tooth and nail to get juuuust enough of the opposition to rally beside him, even if polls showed sweeping majorities disagreed. Recall the famous quote:
I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.
Obama, meanwhile, is dealing with issues that either already enjoy massive popularity or are trending upwards. Support for gay marriage is slowly creeping toward majority status, most agree with shutting down Gitmo, and even two years ago most people supported federal health care. Bush’s 2004 victory was a squeaker that came down to a handful of counties in Ohio, but that prompted Cheney to declare a mandate. Obama, with a victory margin more than double Bush’s and a far more pronounced electoral victory, is acting as though he won by the skin of his teeth and hasn’t any political capital to spend.
It would be foolish to suggest that Obama should adopt Bush’s “renegade” streak to that extreme; no one wants another president that forges his own path no matter what anyone around him thinks. However, it would be nice if he’d be willing to press on in the face of opposition (or, as is often the case, perceived opposition) once in a while.
By Hanlon, on June 12th, 2009 at 03:59 PM
George H.W. Bush, on Sonia Sotomayor:
“I don’t know her that well but I think she’s had a distinguished record on the bench and she should be entitled to fair hearings. Not – [it's] like the senator John Cornyn said it. He may vote for it, he may not. But he’s been backing away from these…backing off from those radical statements to describe her, to attribute things to her that may or may not be true. … And she was called by somebody a racist once. That’s not right. I mean that’s not fair. It doesn’t help the process. You’re out there name-calling. So let them decide who they want to vote for and get on with it.”
I think the pressing question is… when did George Bush Sr start hating white people?
By Hanlon, on June 11th, 2009 at 01:09 PM
 As right-wing rhetoric amps up (and more people find themselves with extra bullet holes), we’re going to be treated to the claim that conservative anger is either no different or not as severe as left-wing anger during the Bush years. O’Reilly and Olbermann are two sides to the same coin, as the false dichotomy goes.
For the moment, let’s forget where my personal biases lie and just take that claim on its face. I don’t mean taking a bullet point list of wacky things said by Rachel Maddow and lining it up against something or other Neil Cavuto has said. Rather, just sort of an overall examination of the line of attack being thrown at the opposition from combatants A and B.
For the most part, anti-Bush rhetoric didn’t really start up until 2002. Oh yes, many were mad at the way the election turned out, but for the bulk of 2001 it was closer to distanced aversion of the man, opposing his policies but seeing him as more of a lame duck than a “dire threat”. The assumption was we’d grit our teeth and then make sure he was a one-termer like his father.
When the attacks of September 11th happened, two days later Bush’s approval was somewhere in the area of 110%. The PATRIOT Act, despite not having been read, passed overwhelmingly. There was no significant opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan. What little there was came in the form of being annoyed at tactics on the ground; too many civilians killed, that kind of thing. In the wake of a terrible attack on our nation’s soil, the entire country cast aside political parties and decided that what we needed was unity.
It’s not as if in early 2001 there was no indication attacks were coming. We know by now that Richard Clarke was frantically trying to sound the alarms. Bush had his August 6th briefing. The WTC had been bombed in 1993 and an embassy had gone down in 1998, amongst others. Terrorism was a real threat that the Clinton administration was tackling, and yet when the towers fell the country didn’t turn on Bush for failing to protect us.
I ask you now: if Al Qaeda brought down the Washington Monument tomorrow, how many Republicans would pull behind Obama?
It wasn’t until mid-2002 that liberals really started to turn against Bush when the Iraq War idea was floating around. It took a war, a war, for the left to even begin to unite against the President. Even that wasn’t a true unity for years, if it ever became one. As the old saying goes, Democrats are more like cats: very hard to get to do anything.
The right was against Obama in a big way even before he took office. I admit my memory of elections only goes back with any real clarity to 1996, but it seems as though Republicans have come out of the cannon with more vitriol than any president in recent history so early in his first term. To be sure, they hated the Clintons, but it wasn’t until 1994 that the “Gingrich Revolution” really picked up any steam, and it was a few years still before things got to the depths. The impeachment trial was in 1998, liberals didn’t call for impeachment until into Bush’s 2nd term, but there are websites and commentators howling for for Obama’s impeachment already. I saw some back last November, even.
Aside from the speed in which the attacks started up and the general viciousness of them, the very character of the attacks goes beyond the pale. Clinton may have been a morally-bankrupt pervert and Bush an empty-headed warmonger, but that was still limited to the simple need to vote them the hell out of office. The worst attacks on either of those two were limited to the realm of “that person is a bad man to be president!”
In stark contrast, Obama’s strongest detractors (which are increasingly starting to envelope the likes of Rush and, by extension, the rest of the party), aren’t simply saying Obama is the wrong guy to be president. He doesn’t have bad policies. Rather, he’s not an American, and he doesn’t love this country. Clinton being a perv and Bush being a crazy evangelical were one thing, now there are people saying Obama is secretly (secretly!) a Muslim who wasn’t born in the United States and is passing secret (secret!) messages to terrorist states in order to show subservience to them.
This isn’t just a case of vocal opposition to policies or distaste for his character. This is dehumanizing. Making Barack Obama seem like an “other”, a non-American shadowy figure whose very presence is built solely around his inherent desire to kill Americans. He isn’t from this country, he doesn’t worship our God, in fact he’s siding with the enemy and bows to their leaders instead of our flag. As Shep Smith said, how far does one have to go in that direction before they pick up a gun?
What we’re seeing now is different than, honestly, any political opposition I’m familiar with. It’s dangerous because five months into Obama’s first term he’s already been pinned as a man who is in the pocket of Al Qaeda and constitutionally not allowed to be president. With that kind of a base to build upon over the next few years, I can’t imagine how much worse things will be come 2010 or 2012. When the President is that level of danger, how many “patriots” can sit by and just wait for him to force socialism on us before bin Laden is given a spot in the cabinet?
By Hanlon, on June 10th, 2009 at 01:11 PM
Thanks, Dormilona! And no, I hadn’t seen this before.
Seems Obama himself actually doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the deficit.
By Hanlon, on June 8th, 2009 at 08:49 AM
 The more we see the lives of the Bushes (or, really, what little we see), the more I’m starting to develop a begrudging respect for them. Here’s what former First Lady Laura Bush had to say about Sonia Sotomayor, plus some bonus diplomacy:
“I think she sounds like a very interesting and good nominee,” Bush said of Sonia Sotomayor, the federal appeals judge Obama picked.
Mrs. Bush said in an interview broadcast Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that “as a woman, I’m proud that there might be another woman on the court. I wish her well.” She was interviewed in Dallas, where the Bushes moved after their White House tenure.
As far as occupants of the Bush White House went, Laura was far and away the most popular. Sometimes it seemed like her approval rating was higher than the rest of theirs added together. And yet, somehow, I’m not anticipating that her words will resonate much. Not when we’ve got Gingrich coining dumbass terms like “racialist”.
It’s a shame, too, because Mrs Bush also let this one drop:
On another subject, Mrs. Bush said her husband will have no comment on any Obama decisions. He feels that as a former president, “he owes President Obama his silence on issues and there’s no reason to second-guess any decisions he makes,” Mrs. Bush said.
See that’s what I mean about begrudging respect. For the past seven months, even before Obama took office, we’ve watched as Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Ari Fleischer have formed a makeshift mafia, spending pretty much every waking hour touring the media outlets to trash Obama over what he’s done, what he said he’d do but hasn’t, what he’s said he will do, and what he’s never said he’d do but they’re assuming he’ll do anyway.
In rather stark contrast to those three, Bush’s conspicuous silence (not to mention his public reasoning for it) is downright admirable. It makes you wonder what the dynamics were in the Oval Office. I’m starting to get the image of a bright, if simple, man who wanted more than anything to do something great in order to step out of his father’s shadow, led horribly astray by shameless and vile men like Cheney and Rove.
By Hanlon, on May 4th, 2009 at 09:58 PM
 Okay so we all remember Condi’s moment where she said that by definition if the president authorized it, it wasn’t illegal. She defended her remarks recently, arguing that it totally wasn’t a Nixon/Frost kind of gaffe, with the following, um, reasoning:
Rice: I said at one point that it was ahhh, given, right that if the president authorized it, it was legal. This was not a “Nixon/Frost” moment. What I intended to say or what I meant to say about this is: The president said I won’t authorize anything that is illegal. It’s not that because he authorized it, it was legal…
I’m going to do something unexpected here and help Ms Rice out.
Clearly what Rice is trying to get across is not that by authorizing it the president makes anything legal, but rather that the only way President Bush would have authorized it was if it was legal. The defense is still that the president can’t break the law, but in the sense that he is constrained from doing so rather than that his power extends infinitely.
Problem being that doesn’t really help us out. It’s a case of defining a term with the term. The authorization was legal because the president can only authorize legal activities. It was legal because if it wasn’t legal the president wouldn’t have authorized it. It’s telling us that we needn’t (or more likely shouldn’t/can’t) ever actually investigate anything because the very fact that the president authorized it answers the question of its legality.
Actually, though, I’m pretty sure Nixon was trying to say the same thing. So it was in fact a Frost/Nixon moment.
By Hanlon, on April 21st, 2009 at 01:46 PM
 Over the past three months, it’s become impossible to even mention Bush without a flood of accusations coming from the right. Obama and the left are “blaming” or “scapegoating” Bush, “smearing” him and “obsessed” with the 43rd president. It’s not hard to find evidence of it, just google Obama, blame, and Bush and you’ll get blog posts and editorials on the topic.
The gist of it is the same: Obama is just dragging his predecessor through the mud. As one of the comments from that FOX article said, “Never before has one administration tried to pile so much hate and blame on the previous one.”
Well, this may be a little ironic, but I’m going to respond to that by… blaming Bush.
We all have a pretty good bead on the various Bush scandals and unethical actions. However, most of them tend to be a “post-9/11″ variety, since that’s when George Walker Bush seemingly came out of his shell and gave us all of our favorite stories: NSA, Iraq, Katrina, etc. One of the famous of the “blaming the predecessor” variety is that of blaming Clinton for 9/11, as this was in curious contradiction to the fact that people didn’t blame Bush Sr for the 1993 WTC attacks.
But there’s one that happened very early in Bush’s tenure that got swept under, and it happen quite literally as soon as he took office. I’m speaking of the story about Clinton completely trashing the White House during the transition. The original Drudge Report article is oddly missing, but we have an article from January 26th, six days into Bush’s term, that outlines the damages.
Some recent press reports suggest Bill Clinton and his crew left behind a different sort of legacy at the White House when they departed Saturday. Weekend reports of Clinton aides gamely popping the “W” off computer keyboards quickly turned to accusations of vandalism, with Matt Drudge reporting that the damage bordered on the criminal — with phone lines slashed, obscenities scrawled on walls, something called “porn bombs” and vulgar messages left on the voice-mail system, among other transgressions. Drudge also reported that the incoming Bush administration is conducting a full investigation of these actions.
That was just the beginning, along with desks glued shut and locks jimmied which trapped officials in their own offices. Ari Fleischer and others played the “we don’t want to play the blame game” game, implicitly confirming the story. After all, if the story was false, it would have been easy to step up to the podium and say “we’ve been here a week and haven’t found anything trashed.”
The story was a Bush team invention, spread through the media to slime the outgoing president. By not actually conducting an investigation, they had the dual benefit of making themselves seem above the fray by “wanting to keep the story quiet”. Unfortunately, Republican Bob Barr didn’t catch on and called for an investigation, which promptly proved that there was no evidence the story happened.
Obama, in his first 100 days, explaining that he has inherited many situations from Bush is not smearing and piling hate on his predecessor. Bush’s crew inventing a BS story about Clinton vandalizing and stealing from the White House before they ran out is. Get it straight.
By Hanlon, on April 16th, 2009 at 07:37 PM
By Hanlon, on March 18th, 2009 at 05:43 PM
George W Bush.
“He was not my first choice for president, but, when he won, I thought it was good for the United States of America,” Mr. Bush said.
“I want the President to succeed,” he added, “I love my country a lot more than I love politics.”
“I’m not going to spend my time criticizing him. There are plenty of critics in that arena,” he continued.
I think the man’s sobered up a bit, politically speaking. Hat tip ThinkProgress.
|
|
|
