David Brooks gets the balance perfectly right:
Is this country going to slide into progressive corporatism, a merger of corporate and federal power that will inevitably stifle competition, empower corporate and federal bureaucrats and protect entrenched interests? Or is the U.S. going to stick with its historic model: Helping workers weather the storms of a dynamic economy, but preserving the dynamism that is the core of the country’s success.
Al Giordano doesn’t believe that Clinton is seriously under consideration for Secretary of State:
The whole thing is a media freak show being served up by members of the Clinton factions in the Democratic party and obliged by a national media (some of them also Clinton noisemakers) in search of a story. The speculation is not because Senator Clinton wants the job, but because her people so desperately want to muddy the waters and throw up a roadblock to either New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson or Massachusetts Senator John Kerry – two of the leading contenders – serving in the post, whom they consider turncoats for having endorsed Obama vs. Clinton earlier this year.
First Read considers the logic:
The best reason for Obama to be looking for a place in his cabinet for Clinton is simple: to get her out of the Senate. Just ask George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter what it was like to have a once or future presidential rival in the Senate serving as a one-person Roman tribunal.
Remember how easily the press gravitated to John McCain in ’01 or Bob Kerrey in ’93 or Ted Kennedy in ’77 to allow them to be one-senator judge/juries on Administration proposals? The upside for Obama putting Clinton at State (or even the Pentagon) is that it gets her out of the Senate and gets her out of the domestic policy debates. Also, one other thing to keep in mind if Clinton does end up at State, she’ll be off the political circuit; it’s considered unseemly to practice politics while serving in one of the big cabinet posts, especially at State or Defense. So this would mean no more Hillary on the stump for candidates, no more Hillary raising money, no more Hillary collecting chits.
(hat tip: Goddard)
Jesse Walker gives Republicans some tips.
Conor writes that prosecuting Cheney would "be a dark day for the United States." Larison disagrees:
In the event that the officials responsible for these decisions were arrested or found guilty of crimes, that would not be a dark day, but rather the day when the sun has finally started to peak through the clouds of arbitrary and illegal government actions. If high officials have broken the law, the day when they are brought to justice should be considered a very good day indeed. Is it regrettable that these officials created this situation? Of course. What we should never regret or lament is the successul revival of the rule of law that holding such officials accountable would represent. However, it remains to be seen whether such a revival will even be attempted.
Yesterday Greenwald wrote:
Obama’s transition chief for intelligence policy, John Brennan, was an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity.
Today James Gordon Meek writes:
Much speculation centers on John Brennan, a highly respected retired CIA official who stood up the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004 and is advising the President-Elect. Among many things Democrats like about the softspoken Brennan are his anti-torture views.
They both can’t be right.
Greenwald links to an article by Jane Mayer to support his claim. Here’s the part on Brennan:
Among the few C.I.A. officials who knew the details of the detention and interrogation program, there was a tense debate about where to draw the line in terms of treatment. John Brennan, Tenet’s former chief of staff, said, “It all comes down to individual moral barometers.”
And here’s part of a 2006 interview with Brennan:
…there is a question about how aggressive you want to be against terrorism in terms of, what does it mean to take the gloves off? There was a real debate within the agency, including today, about what are the minimum standards that you want to stoop to and beyond where you’re not going to go, because we don’t want to stoop to using the same types of standards that terrorists use. We are in this business, whether it be intelligence or the government, to protect freedom, democracy and liberty, not to violate that.
When it comes to individuals who are determined to destroy our nation, though, we have to make sure that we take every possible measure. It’s a tough ethical question, and it’s a question that really needs to be aired more publicly. The issue of the reported domestic spying — these are very healthy debates that need to take place. They can’t be stifled, because I think that we as a country and a society have to determine what is it we want to do, whether it be eavesdropping, whether it be taking actions against individuals who are either known or suspected to be terrorists. What length do we want to go to? What measures do we want to use? What tactics do we want to use?
Hopefully, that "dark side" is not going to be something that’s going to forever tarnish the image of the United States abroad and that we’re going to look back on this time and regret some of the things that we did, because it is not in keeping with our values…
Sometimes there are actions that we are forced to take, but there need to be boundaries beyond which we are going to recognize that we’re not going to go because we still are Americans, and we are supposed to be representing something to people in this country and overseas. So the dark side has its limits.
Your call. But I’d say that "ardent supporter of torture" is a stretch.
Two third-graders pretty much sum it up.
"There are bound to be casualties when any nation veers from its domestic and international obligations to uphold human rights and international humanitarian law. Those casualties are etched on the minds and bodies of many of the 62 former detainees interviewed for this report, many of whom suffered infinite variations on physical and mental abuse, including intimidation, stress positions, enforced nudity, sexual humiliation, and interference with religious practices.
Indeed, I was struck by the similarity between the abuse they suffered and the abuse we found inflicted upon Bosnian Muslim prisoners in Serbian camps when I sat as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, a U.N. court fully supported by the United States. The officials and guards in charge of those prison camps and the civilian leaders who sanctioned their establishment were prosecuted—often by former U.S. government and military lawyers serving with the tribunal— for war crimes, crimes against humanity and, in extreme cases, genocide," – Patricia M. Wald, foreword, Human Rights Center’s report on former Gitmo detainees.
Wald served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1979–99) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1999–2001). Judge Wald was also a member of the President’s Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the U.S. Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004–05).
The report (PDF) can be downloaded here.
I’ve been a little taken aback by the news that gun sales have rocketed in red states since Obama was elected. Watching O’Reilly and reading Drudge lately has also been a bit of a revelation. A reader sums it up:
I can’t tell whether the lack of serious attention given to the continued hysteria about our President-Elect still emerging from various corners of the Right is a good thing or bad thing. By hysteria I mean things like Congressman Jim Broun from Georgia equating Obama with Hitler and then his lame excuse of an apology. I also mean Sarah Palin using her 15 minutes to slime our President-Elect with Bill Ayers one more time, wink wink, and the 24/7 vitriol from demagogues like Hannity and priests who refuse to give Obama voters communion.
It’s why as a 27-year-old voter, the Republican party has been off the table for me since I could vote in the 2000 election. No matter how much I like or identify with any of "conservative" ideas, I refuse to stand in any tent, now matter how big, with people like Sarah Palin, Jim Broun, and Sean Hannity.
And for all of those "non-kook" conservatives out there scratching their heads about why the country polls "center-right" but voted so strongly for Obama, there is your answer, especially in my generation.
Whether my generation becomes life-long Democrats because of President-Elect Obama remains to be seen. We have no undying loyalty to the Pelosis, Harry Reid’s, and the baby boomers of the left (we know their faults as well). But we will be able to forgive them if they come up short in trying to get us a renewable energy plan, affordable healthcare, and a government that is as technically savvy as its population.
The questions is, how the hell could we ever forgive the Republicans for coming up short on all of that because they were too busy trying to make a boogeyman out of an honest President?
Tomorrow, a virally-generated national day of protest across America is taking shape to protest the attack on the core civil rights of a small minority in California. It’s a protest to demand equal treatment under the law for gay couples. It’s a radical demand for a traditional institution and also a protest against those who seek to impose religious restrictions on civil law. It is a defense of both religious freedom and the freedom of those whom many (but not all) religions condemn.
The Dish will devote Saturday to covering the protests. Please send me stories, anecdotes, photographs, music, Youtubes, and graphics that reflect what’s going on around the country. As on election day, we’ll try and let you speak via this blog to the wider world, and convey a sense from the ground up of how people are feeling and arguing and acting.
There are demos all across the country, and a new one seems to spring up every minute. You can find the details for yours here. Show up. And then email me about your experience. The protests converge at 1.30 pm EST. They now seem to be spreading globally.
Fight Back. ACT UP!
The Dish 