In Quick Hits, counterspin spotted an incredible outrage,--citing a story from The Telegraph--something we'd all expect from the Bush DOJ, but never imagine from a "progressive" Harvard Law Review Democratic President. To wit: The Obama DOJ is arguing against the position--established in a 1986 Supreme Court ruling that police may not interview suspects who have a lawyer or have asked for one.
There's just two problems. First, it appears that this isn't true. A little digging around and I discovered Patterico says it's dead wrong and various commentators on this DKos diary say it's much more nuanced question than that. I quickly concluded that I wasn't going to get certainty on this anytime soon, but that the initial portrayal was definitely mistaken, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the actual position, once it's finally clear to me.
But that still leaves Problem #2: after trying to keep part of Bush's secret prison system going, and taking a stand against enforcing anti-torture treaties, I had no good reason not to believe this when I first read it. Sadly enough, the Obama Administration has created such an air of moral ambiguity and uncertainty that it's almost as if Karl Rove and/or Robert Bork were writing their script for them.
Rule of law, people. Once you blur that, you've blurred everything.
Nudge. Blur. It's all part of the same ill-defined, morally fuzzy universe that I, for one, want absolutely no part of. Yes, there really is such a thing as an intractable moral dilemma. And I deeply love literature--from the ancient Greeks to Josh Whedon's Dollhouse that deals with this aspect of our existence. But it's precisely because such dilemmas do exist that we want to hold on to all the moral, ethical and legal certainty that we possibly legitimately can.
After all, there is always time for mercy, forgiveness and atonement after judgment has been rendered. But if one cannot trust judgments in the first place, then everything imaginable has been made uncertain for no good reason whatsoever.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
This is the deepest and darkest aspect of the impact of Bush-Cheney's torture program on the constitution and the future. Leave aside for a moment the policy debate over torture in the abstract. From the very beginning, that has been largely moot. Why? Because even if you believe that the president has the duty to torture terror suspects, under the constitution, he has no legal right to do so without Congress' passage of legislation repealing the laws and treaties governing such torture. The use of torture is part of the laws of war and only Congress has the constitutional authority
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water
It can't really be clearer than that.
On the flip: Sullivan goes on to spell why it can't be clearer, and then gets into the illegality of failing to investigate and prosecute torture--first by Bush, and now by Obama. After that, I cite Bruce Fein as another example of a high-profile conservative who gets it--my choice for a special prosecutor on torture, precisely because he is a high-profile conservative. And I try to elucidate the vast difference between a healthy liberal-conservative dialogue, in the context of history, and the diseased shadow-play that Obama is furthering, in which both sides undermine everything good America is supposed to stand for.
Today Obama's CIA nominee, Panetta, recanted yesterday's testimony admitting that we, the United States, rendered persons to foreign countries to be tortured. There is ample public testimony from military and CIA officials that the U.S. has rendered persons to be tortured.
The Bush administration perpetuated its torture policy by secretly ordering the use of torture while publicly proclaiming that we do not use torture as a method of interrogation. Panetta's public statement today that he has no evidence that we rendered persons to be tortured makes it clear that the Obama administration will continue the Bush pro-torture policy.
The only way, let me repeat, the only way we as Americans can stop our policy of using torture as a method of interrogation is to shed light on our past actions, admit what we have done, and work to bring to justice those who ordered the use of torture. Panetta's public denial of our past policy of rendering persons to foreign countries to be tortured will work to effectively obstruct attempts to investigate our past practices, and it will greatly impede efforts to bring those who ordered the use of torture to justice.
I take Mr. Panetta's public statements today before a Congressional Committee to be proof positive that the Obama administration is a pro-torture administration.
Last night, Glenn Greenwald appeared on Bill Moyers Journal. For those of us familiar with his writing, there was really no new ground broken. It was simply supremely satisfying to see him talking sanely with Bill Moyers for a spell.
But there was one thing that stood out for me--not a new thought, but an aptly articulated one:
GLENN GREENWALD: ...it was only once I saw how radical of a war was being waged on the rule of law and our constitutional values by this administration, justified by the 9/11 attacks, that I think that political activism was necessary....
BILL MOYERS: ...all wartime presidents expand the powers of the office. Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon. I mean, there's something inherent in war and the expansion of powers. Are you saying that Bush and Cheney took it further?
GLENN GREENWALD: I'm saying they took it to an entirely different level. What we have, in the last eight years, is not merely a case of individual and isolated law breaking. It's a declaration of war on the whole idea of a law itself, on the idea that our political leaders are constrained in any way by the limitations of the American people imposed through our Congress. The rule of law has essentially ceased to exist. And that I do think is quite new.
Indeed, it didn't start with 9/11. It started with Bush v. Gore, with the utterly lawless Supreme Court decision that put Bush in the White House in the first place. But Glenn puts the problem perfectlty: "The rule of law has essentially ceased to exist." And there's a term to describe a society in which that happens. We call it a "failed state."
America today is a failed state.
The country in need of our nation-building attention today is not Iraq or Afghanistan. It's the USA.
On Tuesday, top Obama legal advisor Cass Sunstein appeared on Democracy Now! While it's not yet certain precisely what position he might occupy in an Obama Administration, he did clear up any doubts about his position in the afterlife, as those familiar with Dante's Inferno--Canto III, to be precise-- immediately realized. That is where Dante encountered "the melancholy souls of those/Who lived without infamy or praise," along with the angels who stood neutral between God and Satan. These are the moral triangulators between Good and Evil, and as Dante found them, they "Were naked, and were stung exceedingly / By gadflies and by hornets that were there."
Although they are not even within Hell, proper, Virgil tells Dante:
These have no longer any hope of death;
And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
They envious are of every other fate.
Sunstein is hardly alone, of course. But, first at Netroots Nation, then in his Democracy Now! debate with Glenn Greenwald, Sunstein has clearly staked out his leadership position in arguing against any sort of moral compass.
In his Democracy Now! appearance, Sunstein revealed three facets of the moral vacuum that lies disturbingly close to the heart of the Obama campaign. In the segment with Glenn Greenwald, he both defended Obama's FISA betrayal, and attacked the notion of any accountability for Bush Administration lawlessness. In a short followup segment on his book, Nudge (discussed by Matt in his diary yesterday here), Sunstein argued for an extreme minimalist approach in dealing with catastrophic market failures such as global warming.
What all three facets share in common is the basic acceptance of the rightwing hegemonic order established under Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Gingrich and Bush II. Under the rubric of listening to all sides, what is actually happening is that thoroughly discredited rightwing ideas are being accepted as defining the common sense framework inside of which Obama is proposing to make modest gestures in a progressive direction on one or another various issues. In short, Obama is trying to end the culture wars by surrenduring on the most basic of issues of defining political reality.
It's elementary, really. The terrorists' strategy is to draw out the "true face" of an evil and oppressive regime, so that the people will rise up against it. Of necessity, the terrorists strike innocents, because this is the only way to strike terror, and thus draw a repressive response. Whether they realize it or not, the terrorists are counting on the government they oppose being run by men just like themselves-men who believe in force, not law. So long as this is true, the terrorists win.
For five long years, the terrorists were winning, because the Bush Administration was run by men just like them. Instead of going after those who attacked us, the Bush Administration took out its enemies list and went after them, instead. Top of the list was Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqi regime. Nothing could have delighted bin Laden more. We knocked off his chief ideological rival, and fully validated his claim that America's interest and intent lay with fighting Muslims and occupying their lands.
Then in November 2006, the Democrats won the mid-term election.
