The Dish

Here’s more evidence that the Bush administration never had any interest in bringing suspected terrorists to "justice." The kangaroo court set up by the administration to determine who’s a terrorist or not – the  Combat Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) – is still in operation. I guess we should never have expected much more from a president who, as governor, mocked a woman sentenced to death. That’s why we have a constitution, however inconvenient today’s "conservatives" find it.

Chicago, Illinois, 5.30 pm.

The final installment of Patrick Moore’s series is now posted. Patrick emails to say:

This piece could be subtitled, "I love George Bush," because it talks about how one alcoholic can love another while acknowledging all of their character flaws.  With two alcoholics, that love often looks like a kick in the ass, which is just what I think George needs.

Bob Wright reminds me that he too has written about this. It’s worth reading, which is true of everything Bob writes (even the pieces I disagree with).

Colorado Springs, Colorado, 6.30 pm. The reader insists he isn’t making this up. From his email:

This is looking out my basement window (sliding door, actually) yesterday. And no, I don’t live in a zoo. That’s my basement patio in the foreground. I believe the bear saw me through the glass, and just turned around and walked away. The picture’s not very good since I was a little anxious, but you get the idea. I asked my wife to go stand outside so we could get a size perspective, but she declined.

I asked for it. A day after I requested more banal photos, I get this. I wonder if Stephen Colbert has moved to Colorado Springs. But the threat is obviously real. I hope Colbert sees this picture and can sound the alarm appropriately. As he always does.

But you can’t resist it. More reason to believe YouTube is a gift from the Gods.

When Hinduism meets soccer.

"Whether you are gay or straight, everyone needs someone to love. While we may not agree on every issue, we are united in the values of love, understanding and tolerance," – Arnold Schwarzenegger, at a meeting of the Log Cabin Republicans.

Yay! The redirect has been permanently fixed and we are now on Time’s servers. The head of the small company I used to rely on died unexpectedly, hence the recent disruptions. It’s more difficult to do these transfers than you’d think. Anyway: we’re far more secure now. Thanks to everyone at Time.com who helped the process along.

Absorbing the Hamdan decision today prompts the following thoughts. This is not an unprecedented moment in America’s constitutional history. In war-time, presidents have over-reached before, and they will over-reach again. The over-reach is often for good reasons; and after 9/11, it’s understandable that some corners were cut. What this decision represents is therefore the re-balancing of the constitutional order, after the heat of the moment. Think of it as the moment when King George’s crown was yanked off his head. The Congress has tried a couple of times, but been foiled by "signing statements." So the judiciary has stepped in. Other presidents have tried mini-coronations. What we are seeing is the end of the latest monarchical pretension.

This time, however, the relief is greater for a few reasons. The first is that this war has no clearly defined enemy and no clearly defined end-point. So the presidential over-reach was particularly grave because it threatened a permanent expansion of law-free executive power (which is another word for an elected tyranny). As Orwell understood, a permanent war is integral to the maintenance of tyranny; and in our current predicament, vigilance is warranted perhaps more than in any previous, more discretely formulated conflict.

There is also clear evidence that much of what this president attempted was not simply a good-faith attempt to protect American civilians. It was a deliberate attempt to expand executive authority, promoted by radical theorists of state power, and fomented by a cabal of dead-enders, bent on avenging Nixon. The intent of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Addington, Cambone, Yoo, and the other advocates of an untrammeled executive was the acquisition of unaccountable power. In wartime, such dangerous characters are even more of a threat, because they can use the cover of security to seize new prerogatives. By far the most disturbing aspect of those prerogatives was the power to torture. The ever-lasting stain on this president will be his abandonment of centuries of Anglo-Saxon prohibition of this evil. Eventually, when we discover the full extent of his torture program, we will be able to assess the profound damage he has done to his own country and the civilization which it defends.

Lastly, this is not over. The court decision was relatively close. If Roberts had not already endorsed a quasi-monarchy in a perpetual war, he would have voted with the dissenters. The Republican party, which has become an enemy, rather than a friend, of domestic liberty, cannot wait to place another proponent for an executive-on-steroids on the Supreme Court. When the next attack comes, the possibility exists for another, graver suspension of constitutional liberty. If Bush-style Republicans keep winning the presidency, there is no knowing what permanent suspensions of basic liberties we may confront. There is a balance here, of course. Some loss of liberty is inevitable in a conflict such as the war on terror. Many of those shackled in Gitmo are dangerous, ruthless and barbaric. But many, many are not; and were not detained "on the battlefield" as the president keeps saying. They were picked up often far from battlefields, incarcerated on the flimsiest of evidence, tortured, abused and sent into a black hole of lawless arbitrary power. That is what we are fighting. It is not what we should become. We have been granted a chance to maintain that distinction. But if we do not keep that constantly in our minds, we may lose it. And in losing that distinction, lose ourselves.

The trip to Ptown was not the easiest. The first leg on Tuesday was in what appeared to be a monsoon; then we had grinding traffic from New York today. (My other half delayed us an extra night in New York because he had some dumb-ass free tickets to see Madonna. Whatever.) Eddy puked twice in the car, the server went down, and we’re just grappling with the usual issues of opening up a shack shut down for the winter. Still, the first thing we did when we got here was to bring Eddy down to the water’s edge. She has never seen the ocean before, and we couldn’t wait to see what she made of it. It was dark and she’s a puppy. She ran away from the waves at first; and then paddled in. Tomorrow: we swim.