Year: 2005

“You link to dalythoughts.com as a “persuasive” piece of evidence. Didn’t you notice something terribly misleading about the setup? Daly concedes that “it is clear that things have been on a downhill trend since the Carter Presidency,” yet his damning tables compare the first terms of the various presidencies. This masks the downward trend since 1992, of course, by skipping only Clinton’s second term. (G.H.W. Bush never had one, as you’ll recall.) It is instructive instead to compare G.W. Bush I with Clinton II, since those are consecutive terms. When you do, you find that Clinton had 64 nominations, Bush 66. Clinton had 35 confirmed, Bush 35. Clinton had two withdraw; Bush has had one withdraw. Clinton had 27 rejected by the Senate; Bush 31. Strikingly similar, no? There’s really no excuse besides a polemical one for only comparing first terms – a comparison of the whole presidencies would have shown that G. W. Bush is right in line with the modern trend. But Daly’s “persuasive evidence” has been parroted by other Righties from Professor Bainbridge to Rush Limbaugh (and you, I guess) and turned into even more misleading graphics in the Economist!
One final note: Daly’s data show that seven circuit court nominees were returned in the Kennedy/Johnson years, even when the Democrats had huge, filibuster-proof majorities throughout. I think this is a good reminder that it’s possible to doubt the worth of some nominations for non-partisan reasons. Some of Bush’s current nominees, to wit, just plain suck.” Another emailer makes a different point, pointing out that in 2004, 41.6 million Americans cast votes for Democratic Senate candidates, while just 38.1 million voted for Republicans. The 44 Democratic Senators represent 148,026,027 Americans; the 55 Republican senators represent 144,765,157. (Not including Vermont with a socialist or DC, where you might as well be a Mongolian in terms of Senate politics). Alas, this won’t wash. The Senate is undemocratic. Always has been. That’s partly its point. But when one party controls presidency, Senate and House, is the Senate judicial filibuster more defensible? On the basis of tradition, I’d say no. On the basis of accountability and resistance to one-party government, maybe.

A defense of Janice Rogers Brown. In being luke-warm about the filibuster, I don’t mean to imply that the Democrats are all at fault. The way Republicans blocked Clinton nominees didn’t help. The increasing ideological polarization of the parties, the end of blue slips, the post-Bork poison in the nomination process: all these play a part.

This is from Scott Horton, a human rights activist deeply involved with the torture question:

Over the last ten years I have worked very extensively in Uzbekistan, on occasion spending up to a month at a time there on business for banking clients. During this time I became closely acquainted with a number of leading figures at the Uzbek bar and heard many gripping stories of abuse and mistreatment of ordinary citizens at the hands of President Karimov’s regime. Last year, a public commission which was looking into the situation there contacted me and I helped arrange a visit by commission members to Uzbekistan to look into freedom of conscience issues. I helped put them in touch with a Lutheran pastor who had been intimidated and mistreated, and several attorneys who represented Muslims who had been imprisoned and tortured. In Uzbekistan it is a grave offense to worship in any religious gathering which is not state-sponsored. As a result of US pressure, some room has opened up for Christians, but for Muslims, being caught worshipping other than at a state-sanctioned mosque is likely to be a life-altering experience. Severe beatings, lengthy “investigatory detention,” incarceration in TB-laden workcamps is the norm. A prisoner’s likelihood of survival at such camps is not much better than 50-50. And of course the famous cases of torture, such as boiling in water. All this reminds that the techniques of which Col Stoddart wrote so vividly in the 1840’s continue, with technological enhancements, under Islam Karimov. One of the commissioners apparently challenged President Bush about this when the commission had a meeting with the president. Couldn’t he issue an order prohibiting such renditions? Couldn’t he issue an unequivocal order against torture? The president, the commissioner said, reacted with near rage. He angrily snapped “Who said that? We do not practice torture!” The commissioner repeated that the president needed to send a clear message to the government that torture was a taboo. The president scowled and walked away in disgust.

The president, I’d say, is in an angry state of fraying denial. But why hasn’t the press corps been more aggressive than they have been? Open-ended questions about “rendition” don’t hack it. How about asking Bush directly how he can send terror suspects to Syria and Uzbekistan? How about asking him why he won’t allow a legislative ban on CIA torture? How about asking him directly whether he considers “water-boarding” to be torture? This is about as profound a moral issue as can be found in today’s politics. And yet the press lets the president off the hook. What gives? Are they really that afraid?

I’ll stick what’s left of my neck out and predict a very bumpy election night for Tony Blair. Iraq has emerged as an issue in the campaign exactly when Blair didn’t want it to; the latest polling suggests that 36 percent of the electorate may yet change its mind; and the Tory strategy of focusing on individual constituencies rather than a national polling advantage may bear fruit. Here’s the data that’s worrying for Blair. Alas, I’ll be on an airplane when the results come through (I’m going to L.A. to record the Bill Maher show for Friday). But I’ll blog the results and the spin when I get to California.

Cato has a new study of the transformation of the GOP into the big government, big spending party of Karl Rove and George Bush. Despite promises, things are not improving.

I have to say I’m underwhelmed by the arguments for the judicial filibuster as it is now deployed by the Democrats. The president and his party won the election; and the president should be able to nominate judges and have them brought to a vote in the Senate. Maybe an exceptional case could justify a filibuster; but I don’t see the broad decision to block so many nominees as a matter of precedent. This piece of evidence struck me as persuasive. On the other hand, Stuart Taylor makes a very good case for the constitutional extremism of one of the president’s favorite nominees, Janice Rogers Brown. Whatever else she is, she does not fit the description of a judge who simply applies the law. If she isn’t a “judicial activist,” I don’t know who would be. (I might add I’m not unsympathetic to her anti-statist views. But she should run for office, not the courts.)

WHAT THE BRITS THOUGHT: Kevin Drum is right, I think, to notice the leaked British memo about the preparations for the war to oust Saddam. It’s one person’s assessment of what was going on in Washington. It’s not the last word and it isn’t proof of anything but the British government’s own view of Bush’s foreign policy aims in 2002. Still, I’m struck by two assessments:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.… The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

In retrospect, doesn’t this sound quite insightful with regards to the weaknesses of the Iraq war policy? I still support the invasion on moral grounds and “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” But the Bush administration’s faith-based treatment of intelligence and its failure to plan for the aftermath of war still stand out as pieces of reckless governance.

“[G]overning is recognized as a specific and limited activity; not the management of an enterprise, but the rule of those engaged in a great diversity of self-chosen enterprises. It is not concerned with concrete persons, but with activities; and with activities only in respect of their propensity to collide with one another. It is not concerned with moral right and wrong, it is not designed to make men good or even better; it is not indispensable on account of the “natural depravity of mankind” but merely because of their current disposition to be extravagant; its business is to keep its subjects at peace with one another in the activities in which they have chosen to seek their happiness. And if there is any general idea entailed in this view, it is, perhaps, that a government which does not sustain the loyalty of its subjects is worthless; and that while one which (in the old puritan phrase) “commands for truth” is incapable of doing so (because some of its subjects will believe its “truth” to be error), one which is indifferent to “truth” and “error” alike, and merely pursues peace, presents no obstacle to the necessary loyalty.” – Michael Oakeshott, “On Being Conservative.” A reader reminded me of this passage which I hadn’t read in a while. A pretty good summary of the conservatism of doubt. But how alien to contemporary Republicanism!

I was struck by how weak the president’s statement in his recent press conference about torture was. Here’s the quote:

We operate within the law and we send people to countries where they say they’re not going to torture the people.

I don’t think even the president can disguise the fact that he knows this formulation is, in fact, an admission of the use of torture under the guise of a denial. Since public and press scrutiny exposed some of the more easily-discovered atrocities, the White House has rescinded its 2002 memo permitting torture and the military has drawn up stricter guidelines, while scapegoating grunts for decisions made by superiors. Revealingly, Bush still won’t allow a legislative ban on CIA-deployed torture. What has really gone on in Guantanamo is anyone’s guess. Even the official report has found disturbing patterns of abuse. Then check out this important story on prison conditions in Uzbekistan, where we send alleged, i.e. unproven, terror suspects. When the president’s only criterion for sending suspects to foreign prisons is that the regimes merely “say” they don’t torture, and when no one (including, presumably, a half-way informed president) doubts that torture is indeed used, isn’t the president essentialy saying: “Yes, we do use torture. You wanna make something of it?” Actually, that is what he said. He followed his lame formulation denying torture with the following:

But let me say something: the United States government has an obligation to protect the American people. It’s in our country’s interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm’s way [sic]. And we will do so within the law, and we will do so in honoring our commitment not to torture people. And we expect the countries where we send somebody to, not to torture, as well. But you bet, when we find somebody who might do harm to the American people, we will detain them and ask others from their country of origin to detain them. It makes sense. The American people expect us to do that. We — we still at war.

There’s a lot of nudging and winking in that defense of torture. But a defense is what it is.

MEANS-TESTING SOCIAL SECURITY: For what it’s worth, I thoroughly support the idea of means-testing social security benefits (the crude description of the president’s proposal). It’s an honest way of addressing the looming insolvency of the system, while protecting the neediest. It’s nutty to send big entitlement checks to people already financially secure in their retirement. The patent weakness of Paul Krugman’s spluttering opposition today is evidence enough of the merit of the president’s plan. If Bush can do this, nudge the retirement age up and include add-on personal accounts, he can declare victory at some point. The Democrats’ current complacency is, in my view, unwarranted.

THEOCONS VERSUS LAURA: This is too precious a story to miss. It’s not very often that the president’s and his wife’s own closeted tolerance and humor reveal themselves this starkly. The contrast between who they really are and the forces that sustain them in power isn’t often so obvious. So enjoy the cognitive dissonance. Does Laura even know that “Desperate Housewives” is the creation of a gay man? Of course, the virulent homophobia of the religious right sometimes turns comic. The notion that hybrid cars are somehow “gay” is hilarious. (Actually, too hilarious. Like Drudge, I thought this was legit at first. It’s a spoof.)

CAMPUS PENIS DAYS: What’s not to like? My only concern is with the “Penis Monologues.” I’m more into dialogues myself.

STEWART’S GAYWATCH: Here’s an online video of the Daily Show’s hilarious “GayWatch” segment last week.

A disturbing report on how some evangelical Christians are beginning to make the military a formally sectarian place. Of course evangelicals have an absolute right to practise their faith in a military context. But not at the expense of marginalizing others – or of unit cohesion. I cannot think of a shift more likely to strengthen the notion that we are in a war between Christianity and Islam, rather than a war to protect us all from religious fanaticism allied with violence.

FUNDAMENTALISM WATCH II: A closer look at the implications of the Alabama law that would ban books by gay authors in public schools shows its scope is much, much wider.

FUNDAMENTALISM WATCH III: Another outrageous calumny from the religious right is debunked by the Wall Street Journal. Too bad the debunking won’t stop Texas from passing yet another law to attack gay people.

FUNDAMENTALISM WATCH IV: Here’s a cheerful piece of religious propaganda … from a mayor in a town called Lebanon, Tennessee. Money quote from his letter to the citizens of that town:

Man has achieved highs and suffered lows during our history of struggling with the wiles of Satan in Satan’s quest for our souls. We have only and can only reach the heights of victory when we surrender ourselves completely to God and only when He intervenes on our behalf—and such has been our history. When the burden of man and our desires became such that the intervention of God would require the ultimate sacrifice to be paid, God paid it all. When our only recourse was to have a savior, God sent us Jesus.

And if you’re Jewish or an atheist? You don’t really belong in Lebanon, Tennessee, do you? (Hat tip: Nashville Scene.) Readers are invited to send in equally sectarian messages from public officials allegedly elected to serve all citizens equally, regardless of their faith.

I respond to a couple of Jonah Goldberg’s points on my “Crisis of Faith” essay on the debate page here. Readers also offer criticism, and support. Check it out. I’ll also be on the Chris Matthews Show again this Sunday with MoDo.