The Dish

Here’s a disturbing video showing U.S soldiers watching as their Iraqi Army colleagues – Shia – brutally beat Sunni civilians to near-death, as U.S. soldiers hoop and holler in support. It shows what this president is now risking: that the U.S. will become a party to one side in a sectarian civil war. It is happening already. It must be stopped. However grim things are in Iraq, this president’s policy could make things far, far worse.

Here’s a YouTube purporting to expose what president Kennedy might say to president Bush if he were still alive, on the question of government secrecy and executive power. It’s worth acknowledging that, whatever his rhetoric, Kennedy wasn’t so good at transparency either. And, if anything, he was more reckless in foreign policy than his rich-kid, daddy’s boy successor, George W. Bush.

A reader writes:

The Attorney General was correct, technically, when he said that the Supreme Court’s holding in Rasul v. Bush was based on a statute (28 U.S.C. § 2241, the Congressional habeas corpus statute) and not the Constitution. However, this is standard Court practice, as they do their very best to try and reach an answer to a question without reaching a Constitutional question, whenever possible (“Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine”). And to be fair to Senator Specter, his gut instinct is probably correct that the Court would hold that there is a guarantee to habeas corpus (and if the question only applied to American citizens, as opposed to anyone under U.S. jurisdiction, Justice Scalia would be on board without question — see his dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, joined by Justice Stevens — and given that it’s explicit in the Constitution, any ruling on this matter would probably be unanimous, despite the serious deference this Court has given the Executive).

I find it appalling that the Attorney General would advance such a position. While I can appreciate Mr. Gonzales’ verbal gymnastics, as I am a law student, there is no doubt in my mind that the authors of the Constitution would be appalled at any assertion that the writ of habeas corpus was not guaranteed to everyone, absent explicit Congressional action suspending it in a time of invasion or rebellion.

As I would call myself a conservative, this was the mortal sin of the Bush administration for me. I cannot fathom a President not immediately firing, rebuking, or reprimanding such an un-American, and this is un-American, opinion by the man he hired to be the leading attorney for upholding the Constitution of the United States. There is nothing conservative about an Executive branch committed to grabbing as much power as it can at the expense of anyone else, be it the Legislative Branch, the Judicial Branch, or in this case, the civil liberties of the American people.

Perfectly put, I’d say. No conservative can support this administration. Except those conservatives gripped by power, partisanship and pride.

A reader writes:

In your post, "Between Failure & Horror," you referred to David Brooks’ Thursday column. While he may be right about a soft partition, Brooks drives me absolutely bonkers, and this paragraph is exactly why:

"The Democratic approach, as articulated by Senator Jim Webb – simply get out of Iraq "in short order" – is a howl of pain that takes no note of the long-term political and humanitarian consequences. Does the party that still talks piously about ending bloodshed in Darfur really want to walk away from a genocide the U.S. is partly responsible for? Are U.S. troops going to be pulled back to secure bases to watch passively while rivers of Iraqi blood lap at their gates? How many decades will Americans be fighting to quell the cycle of regional violence set loose by a transnational Sunni-Shiite explosion?"

Webb understands what Brooks has refused to since the get-go – this administration isn’t serious about its responsibilities in Iraq, and nothing points this out more clearly than Plus Up, Tastes Great, Less Filling – whatever the hell we’re calling this thing.  I think this has far less to do with Webb failing to understand long-term political and humanitarian consequences, and much more to do with his painful understanding that what’s happening now isn’t a serious effort to win, or even establish a peace, but a crass effort to smear some of this on the next administration, no matter which unlucky bastards comprise it.

If we leave before he’s out of office, the whole of this sorry affair is his.  He has no one to blame for his failures. If somebody else comes in and, miracle of miracles, pulls something off, Bush will act as if he loosened the jar that somebody else finally opened. If the next (probably Democratic) administration pulls out, Bush will have succeeded in wiping his sticky booger on them, and his water carriers will take delight in trying to spread the meme that Democrats lost the war.

The bloodletting has been going on for a couple of years now. Not only have we not been able to do anything about it thus far, but the president’s plan offers no reasonable hope that we’ll do anything to stem it. And, at the risk of expressing a purely selfish interest, how many American lives is he prepared to throw at this?  Brooks asks "How many decades will Americans be fighting to quell the cycle of regional violence…?" Here’s a question for him: how many decades does he expect us to stay there, with no sign of the existing violence abating?

I, too, find the possibility of a soft partition worth investigating, but I remember being chastened when I heard Walter Russell Mead’s comment about it – sure, we’ve had so much fun trying to establish one government; imagine how much three will be. It gives a person pause.

(Photo: Dennis Cook/AP.)

Dean Barnett defends the loyalty oath proposed by Hugh Hewitt. Since Hewitt is only appealing to Republican activists to put pressure on Republican senators who are leaning toward criticizing Plus Up, it seems a legitimate, if misguided, exercize to me. If your goal is Republican purity, it makes some sense, even though it would also mean the loss of several Republican Senate seats, if played out fully. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t sign it because it assumes good faith on the part of the president (after the last four years, who can still believe that?) and assumes that Plus Up is in any serious way a solution to our problem (it isn’t, I’m afraid). A senator’s duty, therefore, is to say what he believes is in the interests of the country. Period. John McCain, who may been conned one too many times by this president, would be well advised to tell Hewitt where to shove it.

A reader writes:

Long time reader but this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to write to you.  As a parent with a child with autism, I couldn’t watch more than a minute of that video.  What that autistic person is doing is not a form of communciation.  Communication in essence is a way to relate to others and what I was seeing is basically a serious sensory disorder and an inability to function and communicate in today’s society.  Autism is a serious illness, which causes many problems for not only the autistic individual but also their families.  If you want to focus on autism, then discuss how Applied Behavioral Analysis is not covered by health insurance.  Talk about how difficult it is to get a medicaid waiver for autistic individuals.  Talk about the need for respite care for caregivers.  This is an neurobiological disorder Andrew, not a lifestyle choice.

Watch the full video. The full eight minutes are worth it.

Sheriff Andy Taylor has some things to tell you about the law.