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The Political Carnival: You can't reason with a sick mind
Brad DeLong: GOP congress critters couldn't find their asses with a map and two flashlights dept.
D-Day: Justice and accountability by inches
Newshoggers: Paging Dr. Mengele of the CIA
Economist's View: Do corporations have a right to free speech?
Informed Comment: 60 said killed in NATO bombings; US Aid money may support Taliban activities
Yglesias has a fairly convincing post arguing for LFO's "Summer Girls" as the worst hit song in history.
In the course of human affairs, people sometimes write bad songs. Indeed, we have no real idea how many bad songs are written and go unheard. But sometimes a really bad song becomes a widespread radio hit. And one dark summer, LFO’s “Summer Girls” was just such a song. A song that I believe to be the worst hit song ever recorded...
Matt's got a point, as these lyrics are appalling:
Fell deep in love,but now we ain't speaking
Michael J Fox was Alex P Keaton
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch
After some careful thought, this song does make it high on the list, but does not displace my longstanding titleholder, Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55".
Why is this:
When I drive that slow, you know it's hard to steer.
And I can't get my car out of second gear.
What used to take two hours now takes all day.
Huh - It took me 16 hours to get to L.A.!
Go on & write me up for 125
Post my face, wanted dead or alive
Take my license n' all that jive
I can't drive 55!
such a worse violation than "I like the girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch?"
I know I know, it's not as ostensibly tacky as LFO, but Hagar really is angry about the federally mandated 55 mph speed limit that was in effect in the 1980s (and in your humble DJ's opinion should still be), and probably feels like quite the rebellious protest singer taking a stand against such government tyranny.
If you take two equally awful songs, but one is angry and the other is happy, even celebratory, the angry one wins out for the stinker category - but barely.
I've been reading the coverage about the public option remarks yesterday, and I think I understand the likely scenario now.
First of all, don't panic. Believe it or not, Sebelius is right: The public option is not the only way to get accountability into the health care system. And a rose by any other name smells as sweet.
That said, President Obama is still claiming to back the public option.
Linda Douglass (comm director for White House Office of Health Reform): "Nothing has changed,” said Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform. “The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”
Jim Messina (White House deputy chief of staff): "Nothing has changed. POTUS [President of the United States] has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and increase choice and competition. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals."
But those quotes yesterday weren't accidental; that isn't how this game is played. So this quote from Chuck Todd seems right:
The White House has been hinting at this for weeks if not months. When Kent Conrad … came out with that co-op idea, I can tell you, insiders at the White House said: ‘Boy, this is going to gain a lot of traction.’ And those conservative Democrats -- this is not about getting a bipartisan bill out of the Senate, Lester. This is about getting folks like Ben Nelson in Nebraska; Joe Lieberman in Connecticut; Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor of Arkansas -- getting them on board. And a full-fledged public option was making them hesitant. Co-op will be the option that probably gets ‘em done. And that’s why the White House is allowing themselves wiggle room.
Seems to me this is more of a re-branding than an actual surrender. These senators are hesitant about the public option but will almost certainly embrace something that sounds more voter friendly.
Remember, the person to watch is Howard Dean. I know he's explained why co-ops don't work, and I think the newest version will be called a "co-op" - but that doesn't mean it works the same way.
So I'm waiting to see what Dr. Dean thinks of the finished product.
From an emailer:
This is Democrat Alan Grayson asking Chairman Ben Bernanke where the Federal Reserve sent $500,000,000,000 last year. And Chairman Bernanke doesn't know. He says it went to foreign central banks, but beyond that, he has no idea what those banks did with the money.
Whatever, it's only a half a trillion.
It would be nice to know where our money is going one would think. And with these "beyond Monopoly money" figures that went out to the world---why isn't there any form of accountability? I'll take a page from Bernanke's playbook. I don't know.
Coming from someone who was tortured as a prisoner of war himself, this is pretty astounding. Never mind any accountability for torture, it's good enough that someone has had their reputation ruined. Sadly, he can get away with this sort of talk since he's being enabled by the Obama administration with their refusal to go after Bush administration officials for torturing prisoners.
GREGORY: Speaking about investigations, there's now word from Newsweek magazine today with a story about the attorney general, that he's getting closer to investigating alleged torture during the Bush administration. This is the reporting from Daniel Klaidman, that Holder "may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four sources telling Newsweek that he's now leaning towards appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices." Would that be a good idea?
McCAIN: No. Look, I fought against waterboarding. I said waterboarding was torture. We passed the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibited cruel and inhumane treatment. I have spoken out as forcefully as possible everywhere against what went on and that we need--it harms our image so much around the world when photographs come out and--we all know that bad things were done. We all know that the operatives who did it most likely were under orders to do so. For us to continue this and harm our image throughout the world--I agree with the president of the United States, it's time to move forward and not go back.
GREGORY: But where's the accountability?
McCAIN: Well, the accountability, obviously, is that people's reputations have been harmed very badly. The question is, is do we want America's image harmed more by dragging this out further and further? You've got to--what's going to be the positive result from airing out and ventilating details of what we already knew took place and should never have, and we are committed to making sure never happens again? I do not excuse it, I'm just saying what's the, what's the effect on America's image in the world? I don't, I don't mean to drag out my answer, but I did meet with a high ranking member of al-Qaeda in a prison in Iraq who said his greatest recruiting tool was the pictures of Abu Ghraib. We don't want to give the, the terrorists and the radical Islamic extremists more tools and bullets to shoot against us and help their recruiting in this ongoing struggle we're in.
McCain was also asked about the CIA being told by the Bush admistration not to inform Congress about one of their programs. Of course McCain just doesn't know enough about it to weigh in on it.
Full transcript below the fold.
The Villagers were up in arms Sunday morning over on the set of ABC's This Week about the possibility that Eric Holder might appoint a special someone to look into the Bush/Cheney torture practices. Watch in awe and see how the Villagers feel about trying to get accountability from the Bush years.
Why, an investigation would just trash the place. Oh, the bitterness in D.C. would be too much to handle, all because those other people (that is, non-Villagers) would like to get to the truth.
Bob Woodward, who's trying to be the next David Broder by living off his long-degraded rep as the man who uncovered Watergate, wonders how we will ever be able to keep secrets again if there is some inspection. Um, isn't that what the Bob Woodwardses are supposed to do? Uncover stuff? Nope, not anymore. He's appalled that there might be a frakking investigation.
And he was all a-giggle with the thought that the CIA could actually lie. What a joke. I didn't hear him open his mouth when Newt Gingrich went all whiggy on Nancy Pelosi.
Cokie goes "Cokie" on us for a while and then after much trepidation comes down on the rule of law. Good for her, but she better take some R&R if it happens.
ROBERTS: I must say, I have very mixed minds about this. Because on the one hand, the whole idea of a prosecution gets Washington into that kind of horrible slog where everybody hates each other and the poison just gets very thick.
DONALDSON: Unlike at the moment, right?
ROBERTS: Well, no, it hasn’t been as bad lately as it was in the last 16 years.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And it seems like they’re trying to avoid at least in the design of this, criminalizing of policy.
ROBERTS: And just the whole atmosphere of getting that way again. On the other hand, the rule of law is terribly important. And we have to have it -- you know, we cannot operate in this country without the rule of law.
DONALDSON: So which hand do you come down on?
ROBERTS: I’d probably come down on the rule of law.
Digby writes much more:
Stephanopoulos reported on This Week that the possible Holder investigation is going to be very narrow and will not pursue policy makers or anyone who took orders directly from the policymakers. He's going after "rogue interrogators" who inflicted more torture than was strictly allowed.
The Village roundtable all gasped in horror anyway because who knows where such an investigation might lead and as Cokie complained, it would mean that the whole town would be mad at each other again and nobody wants that! "Everybody hates each other and the poison gets very thick." She did finally come down on the side of following the rule of law even though it would make her uncomfortable at cocktail parties, but it was a close thing.
Bob Woodward was very upset at the idea that the government can't keep secrets because "we need them!" Besides, Holder shouldn't be like Janet Reno and just initiate investigations willy nilly. (He seems to think that Reno authorizing independent counsels to investigate her own president for trivial political reasons is the same thing as investigating whether the previous administration tortured prisoners.) They all chuckled at the notion that Holder was really independent and if he is, that means he's a rogue interrogator himself.
George Will thought it was all just a bunch of balderdash because nothing bad ever happened during the Bush administration. Sam Donaldson said that reporters should probably pursue stories and Donna Brazile added that these things were coming out anyway so they might as well be investigated.
They all snorted and giggled and laughed throughout the whole segment about how silly it was to be upset that the CIA lied because well, that's what it does. And they all thought it was a ripping good joke that Cheney kept everything secret because well, everyone knows that's what he does. Hahahahaha.
Full transcript below the fold.
Mahablog: Life as a preexisting condition, and why the private health care industry will never, ever, not in a million years, come even close to solving the health care crisis.
No Comment: Partisan politics and accountability for torture. (But horrors, how could anyone question Cheney's virtue?)
Mock, Paper, Scissors: Because nothing is as funny as keeping innocent people in Gitmo.
The Hunting of the Snark: Dear Heaven, they've hired another one.
Zaius Nation: Doctor Zaius highlights some cool blog artists.
Guest post by Batocchio. Temporarily e-mail tips to batocchio9 AT yahoo DOT com.
Oopsie, I guess we really can't count this as a mark for "out of the mouth of babes", but Liz Cheney, perhaps inadvertently, admitted that part of the reason we've seen Dick Cheney more in the last two months than we did in the eight years of the Bush administration is that he is very nervous that there will be investigations and prosecutions in his future:
(M)any in the media have asked why Cheney — someone who had avoided the media at all costs during his eight years as vice president — would be airing his opinions in such a forceful and public way. Indeed, Cheney himself has answered this question, claiming he is speaking out because he believes that torture and other Bush administration anti-terror policies — many of which Obama is abandoning — were “exactly the right thing to do” and that “there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth.”
In turn, media figures have answered the question in much the same way. “I think he genuinely believes we are threatened now more because of what Obama is doing,” MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan has said. CNN’s David Gergen said, “I think Dick Cheney almost has a Churchillian view of this, and that is somebody has got to stand up and be the voice in the wilderness.” But while the narrative of Cheney’s motives focuses mainly on the righteous, it has all but ignored the selfish — that Cheney is trying to muddle the public debate with the goal of reducing public support for a criminal inquiry into the torture regime that he authorized.
Last night on CNN, however, Cheney’s daughter Liz revealed that fear of prosecution is indeed a motivating factor in the former vice president’s current media campaign:
L. CHENEY: I don’t think he planned to be doing this, you know, when they left office in January. But I think, as it became clear that President Obama was not only going to be stopping some of these policies, that he was going to be doing things like releasing the — the techniques themselves, so that the terrorists could now train to them, that he was suggesting that perhaps we would even be prosecuting former members of the Bush administration.
Sad that this "Get Daddy Out Of Jail Free" ploy seems to have all the news outlets lapping it up with nary a word on what the motives might be for a former Vice President to break with protocol and criticize a sitting President (and by doing so, implicitly admitting that Cheney--not Bush--was in charge). Can you imagine how the right wing noise machine would have gone into overdrive if Clinton had started criticizing Bush for not taking the al Qaeda threat seriously at the beginning of his presidency? By all reports, that's what happened. Richard Clarke was demoted, his reports ignored, and then 9/11 happened on their watch. And now terrorism has increased worldwide four-fold. However, even with this miserable track record (kept from the public by these media outlets eager for a Cheney appearance), Cheney thinks his opinion has any value to the discussion?
Heather has put up the larger Anderson Cooper interview at VideoCafe.
Steve Benen wonders if there isn't a more pecuniary motive to Cheney's sudden appearances (twelve in nine and a half days over four networks). Of course, Liz Cheney may also be trying to establish herself as a credible candidate in 2012 too:
The hottest Republican property out there isn't former Vice President Dick Cheney but his daughter Liz, who has taken to the airwaves to defend her dad and the whole Bush administration on national security and Guantánamo Bay issues. Liz Cheney, who followed the former veep's hard-hitting speech criticizing President Obama's policies with a CNN appearance, is becoming so popular in conservative circles that some want her to run for office. "She's awesome. Everyone wants her to run," said a close friend.
RNC Chairman Michael Steele predictably monopolizes all of David Gregory's questioning of the issue of torture, successfully distracting and obfuscating with his insinuations of how Republicans welcome investigations on torture now that the "REAL" issue of when and whether Nancy Pelosi knew about the techniques.
MR. GREGORY: Should there be a wider--should there be a truth commission? Should there be an investigation?
MR. STEELE: I think, I think you've heard a lot of Republicans call for that. And if this is, if this is a door that the Democrats and, and their leadership, since they have the House and the Senate and the presidency and they want to expose all of this...
GOV. KAINE: Mm-hmm.
MR. STEELE: ...then let's put it all on the table and let's take a closer look at it.
[..]The point is that you have the Speaker of the House who said that she, she wasn't told, she didn't have a clue. And, in, in fact, the evidence contradicts that.
Of course, when Gregory asks whether Steele himself thinks that torture was committed, Steele turns suddenly coy and tongue-tied. And surprise, surprise, Gregory lets him get away with it.
MR. GREGORY: Do you, do you think it was torture?
MR. STEELE: Well, my, my opinion on it doesn't matter. My personal opinion is look, I want the information.
MR. GREGORY: Yeah.
MR. STEELE: We'll get it however we can get it.
MR. GREGORY: But you do, you have an opinion?
MR. STEELE: I have a personal opinion, yes.
MR. GREGORY: Do you think it was torture?
MR. STEELE: That's my--I'm not, that's not appropriate here.
What crap. So he can spew verbal diarrhea in the form of opinions on the ethics of whether Nancy Pelosi was fully informed (and lie about the evidence) and there his opinion is not only appropriate but given freely, but as to the central question of whether torture has been committed (truly, not even a question, ask the Red Cross and the OLC), then he's shy?
And curses to any and all of the Democratic Party insiders who thought that the best way for Tim Kaine to serve his party was as the Chairman of the DNC. What a pathetically milquetoast weasel. Here we sit, with perfect potential for moral high ground, the likes of which hasn't been seen since WWII, and what we get is this weak tea, sitting-on-his-hands shadow of a Democrat simpering that isn't a good thing we all agree that we don't do torture? Dagnabit, Democrats. How hard is it to even getting half-way decent talking head? Way to represent, Kaine.
Transcripts below the fold
But everyone should understand: the difference between 58, 59, 60 senators is just fairly illusionary, because we still have to work on a bipartisan basis with whatever we get done.
Sigh. Remind me again, wasn't it Harry Reid and the Senate leadership that told us little people to be patient, because they could do all sorts of stuff once they got the majority--investigations, special prosecutors, accountability?
Now he wants us to believe it's all illusionary...
Is it okay to start questioning whether we really have someone who understands what it means to be the Majority Leader?
Dan Froomkin writes an impressive piece that exposes the torturers and their media enablers who covered up and participated in the torture policy of the Bush White House that is a must-read. It's called: "Complicity -- and Accountability -- on Torture," and he ends it on some wise words from Deepak Chopra: (correction)
"The more the right wing tries to justify the torture policy, the worse they look. Using national security to justify torture is just a bald-faced attempt to hide the truth. What really went on was simple. The Bush administration felt that Al-Qaida could not be defeated while still preserving what America stands for."
I want to congratulate d-day, the Courage Campaign, John Podesta and everyone who signed all the many petitions put there because the California Democratic Party heard you loud and clear. (C&L joined with the Courage Campaign.)
Thanks again to all of you who signed petitions and made phone calls and helped push the resolution to open a Congressional inquiry into Torture Judge Jay Bybee, which the California Democratic Party adopted at its convention yesterday. I have been told by the authors of the resolution that the pressure from the outside really aided their efforts.
The passage of the resolution was a beginning, not an ending. I view the impeachment of Jay Bybee from the 9th Circuit Court as a moral and legal imperative, but also an entryway into the larger fight for justice and accountability for those who authorized and directed torture in our name.
UPDATE: Ryan Grim of The Huffington Post has the full story of the passage of the resolution at the convention.
So what do we do next? Keep the heat on.
So what do we do now? Members of the California Democratic Party include 34 members of Congress, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and six men and women who sit on the House Judiciary Committee, where an impeachment inquiry would be remanded. They need to hear that their party just recommended that they open an immediate Congressional inquiry into Judge Bybee, with all appropriate remedies and punishments available. In fact, the entire House Judiciary Committee needs to hear this.
You can contact all the members through d-days site, the tools were provided for by Jane, and you can call you can call your members of Congress and tell them that they must support an immediate inquiry into the actions of Jay Bybee, federal judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Congressional switchboard at 1-866-220-0044 can connect you to your member of Congress as well.
George Santayana’s adage that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it has been quoted (and often mis-quoted) quite a lot recently. But it is not enough to simply remember the past in order to prevent the travesties of justice we have seen happening over the last decade in the United States, again and again. Patrick Leahy’s perhaps well-intentioned (if he’s being naïve) or misguided (if he’s being politically expedient) call for a bipartisan ‘truth commission’ based on such as the Church commission or the truth commissions in South Africa, while offering the enticement of granting immunity from prosecution, is simply not enough.
Nor is it enough for the current president to insist that, regardless of whatever crimes his predecessor or those in his administration have committed, the United States now obeys the law, and that he prefers to ‘get it right moving forward’. It is simply not enough.
It’s not enough, but not because of any inappropriate thirst for revenge on the part of the now liberal majority, or excessive fear that we might jeopardize a desperately needed economic recovery if we antagonise those on the right willing to obstruct the current administration should prosecution for war crimes be seen as potentially feasible against members of their own party. Those in our government who have committed war crimes must be aggressively prosecuted; not simply because we are legally obligated to under our own laws, and under laws and treaties our country was instrumental in establishing for the entire world. Not because this country’s reputation has been devastated by such acts of barbarity and inhumanity on the part of our leaders we would instantly condemn as those more apposite to tin-pot dictators and tyrannical madmen. It isn’t because we are morally obligated to pursue the ideals of justice on principle. It isn’t even because preventing such prosecutions would in turn make us all accessories after the fact, a position that fills me with a sense of both loathing and outrage.
It is vital for our survival as a nation, as a people, as a society, and even for the future of our entire world that we do so. Because in the words of Hannah Arendt, ‘it is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past’. She wrote that in 1963, and was speaking about the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, but what she wrote then, about a different time, a different nation, a different crime, hold true today. ‘It is essentially for this reason: that the unprecedented, once it has appeared, may become precedent for the future, that all trials touching upon “crimes against humanity” must be judged according to a standard that is today still an “ideal”’.
For if we do nothing, if we protect those accused of war crimes from investigation out of a misguided, even perverse ‘respect’ for the offices these individuals held, if we allow those who have abused the power of their office in order to commit war crimes to escape from being judged, claiming immunity for reasons of exigent circumstances, we establish a precedent. It isn’t enough to remember, it is necessary to also act, if we are to prevent history from repeating itself. The Dick Cheneys and Donald Rumsfelds and George Bushes will return, again and again, with different names, and different faces, but the same lust for violence and disregard for the rule of law that should be enforced to protect us all from crimes against humanity, and it will be those of us who established the precedent of bestowing immunity on the perpetrators of today’s war crimes from their acts who will be responsible for tomorrow’s crimes against humanity.
It is not enough to simply remember. Those who will not face the past will face a future neither you nor I will want to live in. That is the Janus effect Obama will have to deal with, and soon, if our country has any real future to speak of.
American presidents and their staff work for the American people, they are not monarchs with an inner court of priviliged nobles. President Obama has reminded all his predecessors of that simple fact, living up to a campaign promise to "nullify attempts to make the timely release of presidential records more difficult."
President Barack Obama, in his first full day in office, revoked a controversial executive order signed by President Bush in 2001 that limited release of former presidents’ records.
The new order could expand public access to records of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the years to come as well as other past leaders, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. …
Under Bush’s order, former presidents had broad ability to claim executive privilege and could designate others including family members who survive them to exercise executive privilege on their behalf.
Obama’s new order gives ex-presidents less leeway to withhold records, Aftergood said, and takes away the ability of presidents’ survivors to designate that privilege.
Separately, an Obama memorandum issued Wednesday also appears to effectively rescind a 2001 memo by President Bush’s then-Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft giving agencies broad legal cover to reject public disclosure requests.
Over at MoJo blog, they quote CREW chief counsel Anne Weismann as explaining:
"[Obama]'s putting former presidents on notice that if you want to continue a claim of executive privilege that [Obama] doesn't think is well-placed, you're going to have to go to court."
Even Ed Morrissey at Hot Air is impressed, writing "On Inauguration Day, I promised to offer praise for Barack Obama when he pursued good policy, and it didn’t take long." At least one other conservative thinks this executive order is "nothing more than him throwing a meaty bone to his constituency who hopes to be able to find out “The Truth” about the Bush administration’s alleged plans to turn this nation into a dictatorial theocracy." That's simply mean-spirited hyperbole, hiding an implied argument. Who would really want to argue, out there in plain words, that stopping Bush's bosses (the American people) from finding out what's in millions of his administration's emails is a good thing?
Crossposted from Newshoggers
On the eve of his inauguration, Keith Olbermann exhorts President-elect Barack Obama to do the one thing that will tell the world that we are a country of laws, and that will enable us to look forward without fear that we could once again face the trampling of the Constitution and the slide towards totalitarianism we've seen in the last eight years.
Mr. President-Elect, you are entirely correct.As you say, "what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past."
And that means prosecuting all those involved in the Bush Administration's torture of prisoners -- and starting at the top.
You're also right that you should not "want your first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch-hunt." But your only other option might be to let this sit and fester, indefinitely.
Because, Mr. President-Elect, some day there will be another Republican president -- or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics and this country's moral force -- and he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush -- or what you did not do -- and he will see precedent. Or, as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time.
Prosecute, Mr. President-Elect, and even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good, for generations unborn.
It's not as if Olbermann is going out on a limb here. On Obama's own site Change.gov, it's one of the most popular issues (though one the team is reluctant to answer), no doubt aided by Change.org's Bob Fertik's campaign to force it on the President-elect's agenda.
Transcripts below the fold
