Month: April 2007

Megan and Glenn may be wrong about the study showing overwhelming targeting of local Democrats by the Rove-manipulated U.S. Attorneys system. Check out comments 6 and 7 on Megan’s blog. And check out this donloadable PDF analysis as well. This is beyond my expertise. I barely passed grad school stats. But that’s what the blogosphere is about. Have at the data. So far, I’m persuaded that we have serious circumstantial evidence of major corruption of the justice system for partisan purposes. But if someone can provide a better analysis of the data that proves otherwise, let me know.

There was a time when being a Republican or even voting for a Republican meant or implied, at least, some sort of commitment to individual liberty vis-a-vis the government. That time is over. Those of us who care about liberty, whether we choose to fight for it inside the GOP or as Democrats or outside as non-partisan freedom-lovers, need to understand that this idea of conservatism as an ally of freedom is currently in eclipse in the GOP. I noted yesterday the staggering casualness with which Republicans are now judging their candidates on their willingness as president to exercise the right to detain any American at will, imprison him without charges, subject him to kangaroo military courts, and torture him if necessary. Glenn Greenwald seconds my point here:

What kind of American isn’t just instinctively repulsed by the notion that the President has the power to imprison Americans with no charges? And what does it say about the current state of our political culture that one of the two political parties has all but adopted as a plank in its platform a view of presidential powers and the federal government that is – literally – the exact opposite of what this country is?

He cites Jefferson’s simple statement:

"I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

Perhaps some conservatives think of Jefferson as too liberal for their tastes. Here is Winston Churchill, fighting a war against the greatest evil imaginable, when the very survival of Britain as an independent and free country was in the balance. He spoke of

"the great principle of habeas corpus and trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the British people for ordinary individuals against the state. The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him judgement by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments… It is only when extreme danger to the state can be pleaded that this power may be temporarily assumed by the executive, and even so its working must be interpreted with the utmost vigilance by a free parliament… Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy. This is really the test of civilisation."

America is now failing that test. And the Republican party has lost not only its own soul; it is busy mortgaging the soul of America and the West as a whole. On this, there can be no compromise. Until a leading Republican commits to the full restoration of habeas corpus for American citizens, whether the executive considers them an "enemy combatant" or not, no one who loves freedom can support the GOP. In fact, any lover of freedom should consider it a duty to defeat them.

(Photo: Winston Churchill’s honorary American passport.)

Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow are good reminders that cancer knows no political party – and living with incurable but treatable diseases is now increasingly common. My take on a new culture of sickness in London’s Sunday Times.

(Photo: Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino talks to reporters about White House Press Secretary Tony Snow during a briefing at the White House March 27, 2007 in Washington DC. Snow underwent surgery to remove a small growth from his lower abdomen. Doctors determined that the growth was cancerous and that it had spread to his liver. By Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Saint Ignatius, Montana, 6.30 pm.

Here’s a party scene many straight guys would love. Pity no one’s interested in them.

The NYT’s debriefing  – degriefing? – of Matthew Dowd strikes a chord with me, as you might imagine. Many of us backed Bush in 2000 with the thought that we were supporting a moderate, inclusive Republican with a pragmatic small-c conservative domestic policy, and a humble approach to the rest of the world. We were wrong, but we bonded with the president we’d picked through the trauma of 9/11, and it took many of us time to come to terms with what it was we had ultimately enabled. It was in front of our noses, of course. But what Dowd calls a "love-affair" is sometimes hard to walk away from cleanly or even recognize as a nightmare before it is too late. I worried about spending rather quickly, but the war soon took precedence over everything else. For me, the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, the complete lack of planning, and the refusal to budge was the clincher. But Abu Ghraib – and the non-response to Abu Ghraib – made me realize that Bush was a danger to America, not an asset. The Federal Marriage Amendment obviously hit me in the solar plexus as well. It felt like a gratuitously vicious attack on a minority and a violation of conservatism. I knew my relationship with this president was over by the beginning of 2004. Some of us were mocked for backing John Kerry that year, and I can understand the mockery. Kerry? But yes, Bush really was that bad, that incompetent and that dangerous.

Dowd, it seems, took longer to recognize this. So have others. But what strikes me about the more thoughtful Bush alums – Matthew Dowd and David Kuo spring to mind – is their yearning for spiritual atonement. I think that for many the reckoning with these past few years may take longer to arrive. But there will be a wider reckoning. And it won’t be pretty.