by hilzoy
You all probably read TPM anyways, but in case you missed it, Josh Marshall has two really good posts up tonight. The first one, which I’m just going to encourage everyone to read, is here. The second is an attempt to answer the question: what’s the big deal with the US Attorneys scandal?
“For all the intensity and hostility awash in our politics, there are some lines we just assume aren’t going to be crossed, lines that are so basic that the civil compact itself can’t easily survive if they’re not respected.
One of those is the vote. Whoever’s in power and however intense things get, most of us assume that the party in power won’t interfere with the vote count. We also assume that the administration won’t use the IRS to harrass or imprison political opponents. And we assume that criminal prosecutions will be undertaken or not undertaken on the facts.
Yes, there’s prosecutorial discretion. And the grandstanding, press-hungry DA is almost a cliche. But when a politician gets indicted for corruption we basically all assume it’s because they’re corrupt — or, given the assumption of innocence, that the prosecution is undertaken because the prosecutor believes their case is strong and that the defendent committed the crime.
This is followed by a lengthy acknowledgment that the system is imperfect, that some of the people in it don’t always play by the rules, etc. Then:
So, all of this is to say that no system is perfect and partisan affiliation may distort the justice system at the margins.
But none of what we’re seeing here is at the margins. What we seem to see are repeated cases in which US Attorneys were fired for not pursuing bogus prosecutions of persons of the opposite party. Or vice versa. There’s little doubt that that is why McKay and Iglesias were fired and there’s mounting evidence that this was the case in other firings as well. The idea that a senator calls a US Attorney at home just weeks before a federal elections and tries to jawbone him into indicting someone to help a friend get reelected is shocking. Think about it for a second. It’s genuinely shocking. At a minimum one would imagine such bad acts take place with more indirection and deniability. And yet the Domenici-Iglesias call has now been relegated to the status of a footnote in the expanding scandal, notwithstanding the fact that there’s now documentary evidence showing that Domenici’s substantial calls to the White House and Justice Department played a direct role in getting Iglesias fired.
So what you have here is this basic line being breached. But not only that. What is equally threatening is the systematic nature of the offense. This isn’t one US Attorney out to get Democrats or one rogue senator trying to monkey around with the justice system. The same thing happened in Washington state and New Mexico — with the same sort of complaints being received and acted upon at the White House and the Department of Justice. Indeed, there appears to have been a whole process in place to root out prosecutors who wouldn’t prostitute their offices for partisan goals.
We all understand that politics and the law aren’t two hermetically sealed domains. And we understand that partisanship may come into play at the margins. But we expect it to be the exception to the rule and a rare one. But here it appears to have become the rule rather than the exception, a systematic effort at the highest levels to hijack the Justice Department and use it to advance the interest of one party over the other by use of selective prosecution.”
Every so often, I have occasion to say: I am not normally nearly this angry about the conduct of political officials, Democrat or Republican. Honestly, I’m not. The reason Bush strikes me as different in kind from most of the other Presidents I’ve seen (Nixon being the obvious exception) is that most of them have believed, more or less, in the kinds of lines Josh talks about, whereas as far as I can tell, Bush does not acknowledge their existence. I think that for Bush and Rove, there are virtually no limits at all on what they would be prepared to do to gain some political advantage.
For the most part, during my lifetime, political arguments have operated within certain basic limits that everyone took for granted. They could be absolutely vicious within those limits, but the limits still existed. For instance, most politicians generally seemed to agree that the purpose of government was to, well, govern, and that while that was consistent with certain amounts of graft, it was not consistent with turning an entire Department into a political machine. They recognized that there were agencies in the government whose job it was to find out relevant facts, and that, broadly speaking, the people in those agencies should not be leaned on too hard. (I’m thinking of the various scientific agencies — the FDA, for instance — as well as intelligence agencies.) They put in political appointees and hacks, but they generally also recognized that federal agencies are supposed to accomplish certain tasks, and for the most part they allowed them to perform those tasks. They also tended to have some respect, however minimal, for the Constitution.
What made Nixon’s crimes so genuinely shocking was that he really seemed to have tried to use the mechanisms of government for pure political advantage. He sicced the IRS on his political opponents. He had his people breaking into buildings — not just the DNC headquarters in Watergate, but Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. He wiretapped all sorts of people, like adolescent me. He actually considered bombing the Brookings Institution. And he threw Constitutional checks and balances out the window: he broke the laws, he lied to Congress, he tried to shut down the Special Prosecutor, not to mention little things like bombing a neutral country without informing Congress.
With this administration, it’s the same thing, with this one difference: that Nixon actually seemed to have some views about policy, views he cared about, while as far as I can tell this President has none, outside his peculiar ideas about the Middle East. Like Nixon, he has thrown out all the most basic assumptions that the government relies on. You can see it in the outing of Valerie Plame: someone who had made real sacrifices, and perhaps risked her life, for her country was exposed for no reason other than pure political benefit. You can see it in the President’s statements leading up to the war in Iraq. I don’t want to get into the question whether Bush technically lied or not; that’s semantics, and it’s less important than the obvious fact that he and his administration went around making a series of claims — that there were links between Saddam and al Qaeda, that there was any remote chance that Iraq might get a nuclear weapon — that they either knew or should have known were false. You can see it in the President’s promises to rebuild New Orleans, a promise he promptly forgot as soon as the klieg lights were turned off. You can see it in this story about the politicization of the GSA. And you can see it in the US Attorneys scandal.
They know no limits at all.
For the record, I think that one of the things that enables this sort of behavior is the fact that so many people are already convinced that all politicians are corrupt. I think we need to get better both at recognizing when this is not so, and at distinguishing different forms of corruption. That none of them are OK goes without saying. Still, there’s a world of difference, to me, between someone who hires his brother-in-law to do nothing, which costs the taxpayer the brother-in-law’s salary, but does no further harm; and someone, like Duke Cunningham, who gets his dubious friends contracts performing important jobs for the Department of Defense and the CIA, which can compromise our security and get people killed. And there’s a big difference between either of them and someone who corrupts an entire branch of government, like the Department of Justice, which undermines the foundations of our government. We need to become better at distinguishing these things, and while we should not accept any of them, we should react to them differently.
And, of course, we should allow for the possibility that some politicians are actually decent people who are not corrupt at all. If we assume that that’s impossible, we will be unable to respond to any decent politicians who appear; and that would be a real pity.
Good points here, you remind me of the discussion about whether the Republicans are a revolutionary power. I think they are and that way more Republicans still support everything this administration has done than will still admit it.
You all probably read TPM anyways
I used to, but stopped when Josh started putting up adverts that crashed my browser on a regular basis (and, even after several people had complained to him about it, claimed that this wasn’t happening). I recognize the information is useful, but prefer to read it quoted on other sites.
Good article, anyway: and fell nicely into place with a sleepy argument I was having with Rilkefan last night. (I was sleepy. Rilkefan appeared to be wide awake.)
I object to many of the things my government does, or the things it announces it plans to do. But I expect my government to do these things via a process of law – part of my problem with any British government that has a massive majority in the House of Commons, is that it is virtually rebellion-proof: a hundred-seat-plus majority means if the government wants to pass a law, it will get passed.
To use a concrete example: there have been instances – more instances, recently – where US law enforcement demanded the extradition of a British citizen, but was unable to present evidence satisfying a British court that they had grounds for extradition. The response of the Blair government to US objections to this, was to pass a Act that – among other things – makes it legal for the US* to extradite a British citizen on accusation/evidence of identity alone. I find it horrifying and shameful that we have such a law on the books: but it would be worse by a huge jump if Blair had simply overridden a court’s decision and handed a prisoner over to the US as the government of Bosnia did a while ago.
Or the case of Brian Haw, who set up camp outside the House of Commons on 2nd June 2001 to protest the government’s policy on Iraq, and is still there. He is one of the few people in history who can claim to have had an Act of Parliament written with him in mind: the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 states that anyone wanting to demonstrate inside a zone in central London that includes Westminster, must seek permission from the police, even if the demonstration takes place in a public place (as Brian Haw’s demo does) where people are ordinarily allowed to make political protests without let or hindrance. The law was passed, but it can’t stop Brian Haw’s demo continuing, because Haw’s demonstration was taking place before the law was passed, and so long as he chooses to continue it, a post-facto law can’t touch him. (I object to the law itself, which appears to have been written and passed in the belief that MPs shouldn’t have to be publicly embarrassed by the electorate – but it was passed legally, is not being enforced illegally, and can be protested or overturned by the usual channels: the limits are still respected.)
*Very specifically, the US. Part of our “special relationship”, you see. It was proposed that the US should pass a parallel law and this was blandly turned down on the grounds that such a demand would violate the inalienable rights of US citizens. Yes, I’m bitter.
They know no limits at all.
hmm…. they have one clear limit: is it legal?
but, they’re using an interpretation of ‘legal’ that’s a bit different, a bit more weighted towards the executive, than most other people. everything they do, they claim is legal. everybody else, after the initial WTF wears off, is left to say “wait, you mean you’re interpreting the law that way? that’s crazy!” but things rarely get past that.
i hope the Dems start pushing back on these radical interpretations.
Being from Washington State and recalling the 2004 gubernatorial election, I am not sure why the expectation that there would be an investigation into the voter rights in that state is held as an example of unreasonable expectations. It was very frustrating to have piles of votes found in closets and under coffee tables every other day in an election decided by 100 or so votes. This article comports fairly well with my memory:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110006543
There was a lawsuit regarding the felon vote, I think, in State Court, but I don’t recall any serious investigation of King County (where I live) to see about voting rights infringement there.
Hmm… bogus if it was Democrats. Probably true if it was Republicans. Easy to see how one can reach the basic conclusion here if you start with that assumption.
Sadly, something you stopped practicing quite some time ago. I guess if you can’t beat them you have to joing them, right? Sounds like a good excuse to me.
Well atleast you aren’t so distracted by the culture of corruption in Congress anymore and can still manage to focus on Bush’s 8 versus Clinton’s.. what 96?
More shenanigans from Congress. Now they are out right trying to make sure no one can see how corrupt they are…
I guess not all the American people. Some will continue to ignore it and focus on the real problems like 8 instead of 96.
I wonder when many here will admit they got duped by these Democrats…
Bril, Hilzoy’s now written quite a few fine and informative posts about the US Attorneys who got fired and why this matters: suggest you go read them all and then you can comment in a more well-informed fashion.
Yours was a great post, especially the last two paragraphs. I wasn’t born until 1973 – the day after Spiro Agnew resigned, in fact – and my attempts to talk about politics with peers have been stopped, again and again, by the repeated, word-for-word insistence “But all politicians are crooks” that, on further discussion, is almost always literally meant.
This, I think, is more than anything the legacy of the Vietnam War. It made serial liars, and mass murderers, of two consecutive presidents, the first of whom would have been a solid nominee for Greatest President Ever if he hadn’t sabotaged his own War on Poverty to escalate a shooting war he knew for a fact was a waste of time and (other people’s) lives. If Nixon had been alone, unique, it’s possible the 1960-and-beyond generation would have been as shocked by Watergate as the adults were … or it’s possible the news media would have succumbed either way to permanent snark and doomed us all. As is, though, a generation came of age used to expecting the worst.
Ironically, Hubert Humphrey – a perfect example of a decent man in politics – almost certainly was the fair winner of the 1968 election. However, the votes were not miscounted by “the party in power”, but by the long-established tendency of voting machines in poor neighborhoods to “spoil” ballots at ten times the rate of voting machines in rich ones, with no clear partisan intent.
I’m all for investigations of voter fraud. As long as we don’t define the problem to exclude from investigation the methods of fraud popular with the Republican party.
I’m in Florida, where manipulation of the voter roles and “purge” lists are the stuff of legends. But I’m talking about more than that, the kind of thing that never seems to make the news.
For instance my niece was a volunteer with ACORN, working on get out the vote efforts in the minority neighborhoods of Tallahassee during the 2004 election. In those areas virtually every household she spoke to had received one of two calls. Both calls were from a person purporting to be with the leon county supervisor of elections office. One call told the person that due to expected high turnout and long lines at the polls the dates of the election had been extended and Republicans would be voting on Tuesday, Democrats would vote on Wednesday. The second call also cited the expected high turn out and lines to explain that procedures had been changed so they could mark the sample ballot they had received in the mail and mail it back to the election office where it would be counted as an absentee ballot.
A couple of calls could be a prank. My niece talked to over a hundred people who had received those calls, in several neighborhoods. Other volunteers reported the same thing. Which means that there must have been many thousands of calls made. I would also note that my niece asked and was told it was not an automated call, there was a real person on the line. That’s not a prank. It takes multiple people a lot of time and effort to make that many calls. My niece, and the ACORN supervising the Tallahassee get out the vote effort reported this to the State attorney’s office and to the Florida Secretary of State’s office but were blown off both places. As far as I know, no report on this made even the local news.
I would also note, before the reflexive right wing attack on ACORN, they are in the clear again. Within the last couple of weeks the last civil suit against them was dismissed, and the last criminal investigation was concluded some time before that.
They know no limits at all.
That is a flaw in their education, but a correctable one.
Subpoena them and make them testify under oath.
If they refuse hold them in contempt.
If they lie, prosecute them for perjury.
If they have abused their office, impeach them.
If they have broken the law, send them to jail.
Loss of office and/or loss of personal freedom will be very effective in concentrating their minds.
It’s not complicated. Congress has the authority to do all of the above.
If you’re angry, put your anger to work. Call your Congresspeople and tell them what you want done. Make a pest of yourself if need be.
Bril, welcome back. I’m sorry to inform you that Bill Clinton is no longer President of the US, we have a new President now.
Thanks –
@cleek:
“hmm…. they have one clear limit: is it legal?”
You’re 100% right: This Adminstration, more than any I can recall (and that’s quite a few) has relied on its own interpretation of the (broadly defined) “law” – especially as it relates to the powers and privileges of the Executive – interpretations which may or may not conflict with established law, custom, practice or Constitutional authority; but have just gone with whatever suites their purposes.
I have long thought that the GW Bush Administration’s attitude towards the “separation of powers” and the interpretation of regulations is rather like dealing with a huge corporation (say, a mail-order company), from whom you order goods, pay them your money, and then they refuse to send you your order: citing, instead, a letter from their in-house lawyer saying that, in their opinion, commercial law doesnt apply in your case, and that you’re just out of luck.
You have only a few options in cases like this: 1) keep protesting 2) threaten to sue for your stuff (or your money back) or 3) actually sue. And of course, the imbalance of resources will, in every case be on their, not your side (not to mention the time factor).
I think a more concise definition of this Adminstration’s attitude towards “limits” would be simply: “what can we get away with”?; or its recently revised corollary: “what can we get away with till January, 2009”?
You can see it in the outing of Valerie Plame: someone who had made real sacrifices, and perhaps risked her life, for her country was exposed for no reason other than pure political benefit.
Actually, it was Richard Armitage who leaked her name, and he was not exactly part of the Bush inner circle, and he wasn’t seeking political benefit for Bush. And actually, Armitage told Bob Woordward before the Novak column came out that Joe Wilson himself was “calling everybody” to talk about Plame.
Here’s the MP3 file where you can listen for yourself.
And here’s the relevant transcript:
Here’s a Washington Post story on the above exchange:
John Doe: Actually, it was Richard Armitage who leaked her name
Actually, Armitage reported (hearsay) that “Joe Wilson’s been calling everybody.” He didn’t claim he himself had received a phonecall from Joseph Wilson. And no one out of that “everybody” has come forward to claim that Joseph Wilson called them. The most likely conclusion is that someone else – who, we don’t know – told Armitage “And they know ’cause Joe Wilson’s been calling everybody. He’s pissed off ’cause he was designated as a low level guy went out to look at it. ….. Because his wife’s an analyst at the agency.” But thanks for repeating this easily-debunked right-wing meme. I needed a coffee-break.
jrudkis: I am a Washington resident and although a registered Democrat, I have no love lost for Chris Gregoire, the Dem candidate and ultimate victor on the Gov’s race. In fact, if truth be told, I did not vote for her. I would have been happy to see her go down in flames, and my opinion of her is further confirmed recently when she tried to shove the rebuilt viaduct down Seattlites’ throats.
That being said, I do not think that the election had hallmarks of voter fraud sufficient to justify an investigation. The King County prosecutor is a Republican. That’s where most of the votes were in question. He did nothing. The Repubs lawsuit was filed in E. Washington in front of a Republican judge. He found against them. The Wa. Sec’y of State is a Republican. He found nothing worth investigating. The new Wa Atty General is a Republican. He could have but chose not to investigate the election on a statewide basis to uncover voter fraud. I think you are wrong as shown by the behavior of Republicans, who if there was indicia of fraud, would have jumped on it like white on rice. It just does not hold up.
It’s not so much that the Bushies disregard the rules in pursuit of some other goals, it’s that they’re obsessed with proving that the rules don’t apply to them–forget things like habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions, they don’t even believe that the rules of economics or the laws of nature can constrain them.
But on the bright side–I want to give a little credit to a non-corrupt politician, just to start that ball rolling. I live about a block from former senator Sarbanes. The day that Duke Cunningham was indicted I happened to drive by his house where he was out raking his own leaves in an old, too-small track suit. The contrast was striking.
Oh, and ps. A Wall St. Journal opinion citing minor doughy pantsload, Stefan Sharkansky (Wa’s answer to Jonah Goldberg), does not change the equation.
and my attempts to talk about politics with peers have been stopped, again and again, by the repeated, word-for-word insistence “But all politicians are crooks” that, on further discussion, is almost always literally meant.
I was a little kid when Agnew and Nixon resigned, and a few years later, during the Ford and Carter administrations, I remember having this conversation with other kids my age who had already absorbed post-Watergate omni-cynicism from their parents. “The only difference with Nixon is that he got caught doing what they all do.”
Personally, I don’t actually believe that all politicians burglarize their opponents’ campaign offices and draw up extensive enemies’ lists of activists, actors and newspaper columnists to be targeted by dirty-tricks operatives. But since it may be hard to convince people of that, my standard response to this now is: “If that’s really what they all do, better to come down hard on it to put a scare into them.”
But thanks for repeating this easily-debunked right-wing meme. I needed a coffee-break.
Sheer speculation = “easily debunked”? Sorry, try again.
The only point on which you’re not making stuff up is when you say that no one of the “everybody” has come forward to say that Joe Wilson called him or her. OK. Big surprise. With a special prosecutor looking into this entire issue and even prosecuting people for perjury if they slipped up when telling their story, maybe people weren’t eager to thrust themselves in the public spotlight. Ever think of that?
John Doe: Sheer speculation = “easily debunked”? Sorry, try again.
No speculation on my part, John. For Armitage to say he was told that Wilson was “calling everyone” is hearsay evidence, non-admissable.
Your assertion that the reason witnesses didn’t come forward, in October 2003, when Bush said he wanted to clear things up, to say then that Wilson called them a few months earlier was because they “weren’t eager to thrust themselves in the public spotlight” is pure speculation. In October 2003, no one had been charged with perjury, remember. In October 2003, if the truth was that six months earlier Wilson had been “calling everyone”, and that was how Plame’s covert identity has been outed, White House staff would have been required to come forward: Bush had publicly said he wanted to clear things up, and such evidence would have, in fact, completely cleared the shadowy figures in the Bush administration who were alleged by Novak to have leaked Plame’s identity to him.
Easily debunked. Thanks for the teabreak. (I don’t like to drink too much coffee.)
John Doe – you are accusing others of “sheer speculation”?
poor John Doe – if only the CIA would listen to his evidence, we could put this whole Plame affair behind us.
wait, wait! Isn’t it Mr. Maguire who opines on Plame and Mr. Doe who is the expert on the attorney firings?
I don’t normally comment on this blog, but just had to say something. My husband gives me the “all politicians are this way” line all the time. He does vote, and for the most part he votes the same way I do – but never because he thinks someone is better, but rather that they are “less terrible”.
I love what you have said. It hit a real cord in my mind. I need to re-read it and try and use it in my discussions with him. Yes, there is a difference. Thanks.
If we should turn a blind eye to Bush or Nixon because “the only difference is they got caught,” does that also apply to murderers, drug-dealers and rapists?
Deep in their Conradian jungle outpost, where they have sought refuge in the elemental purity of primitive, eyelidless human motivations, John Doe, and Bril and Brett deliver their last exasperated Brando breaths, chuffing out the words:
“The hypocrisy ……. the hypocrisy!
Vine tendrils creep up their pantlegs.
😉
Gotta say, though, that I’m deeply disappointed in Pete Domenici in this whole affair. I considered him wrong on lots of stuff, but a good egg. Someone whom, when the jungle reclaimed the crazy people in the Republican Party, would once again deliver some honesty and integrity to our flawed system.
Instead, he looked into Bush’s soul and fell off the edge, mesmerized by the whirlpool far below.
For Armitage to say he was told that Wilson was “calling everyone” is hearsay evidence, non-admissable.
Attention, please: This is a blog, not a court of law. You don’t have to put aside common sense in order to abide by strict rules of evidence here.
Do you have any actual evidence that Armitage was lying? None whatsoever.
Do you even contest the fact that — whether or not Wilson had called “everybody — it was Armitage himself who spilled the beans about Wilson’s wife, and that he wasn’t doing so for political advantage? No, you don’t. The post is simply regurgitating partisan hackery on this point.
In October 2003, if the truth was that six months earlier Wilson had been “calling everyone”, and that was how Plame’s covert identity has been outed, White House staff would have been required to come forward:
Huh? Why in the world do you think Armitage was saying that Wilson had been calling “White House staff,” rather than journalists (such as Kristof of the New York Times)?
Terrific post, Hilzoy. You hit two of my own favorite rants: (1) most politicians really are pretty honest and trying to help; and (2) the current Republican leadership shows a qualitatively different its contempt for the law than any recent party.
Sorry, please delete “its” from that last clause
It’s amazing how administration loyalists have internalized the talking point that “Armitage was the outer,” as if the orchestrated leaking campaign never occurred. It’s not as if Rove, Libby, et al, thought to themselves “wow, I’d never go public with the information that Wilson’s wife works for the CIA, but now that Armitage has talked to Woodward about it, I guess it’s okay!”
I know it’s fun and all that to claim “Armitage was THE leaker” but a little more honesty would be refreshing.
There are some systemic problems with the American government that are unearthed in this discussion.
1. One of the very few things Alexander Hamilton was wrong about was inclusion of the President’s power to pardon in the Constitution. Nixon belonged in jail and his pardon by Ford (in advance of any indictment –an unheard of procedure at the time) has given every high level federal crook since the “hope” that he would be able to drive away from his own felonies without doing time.
The Nixon pardon embittered the Baby Boomer generation and poisoned our participation in politics. If you don’t believe that, look at the two boomer POTUS scum: Billy Jeff and “W”. Nixon’s pardon guaranteed another scandal (Poindexter and North). North’s clever escape from jail time by an appeal financed by Jerry Falwell guaranteed another scandal. All of this present corruption was utterly predictable. Unequal Treatment under the law especially favoritism in criminal misconduct, didn’t start yesterday.
2. Congress gave itself the power to subpoena witnesses under oath in the power-tripping joyride after the Civil War. What good legislation has ever come out of the power to subpoena? Ever? The Federal Election Commission and campaign spending limitations after Watergate?
Government by inquisition has been a failure. Don’t expect it to solve the problems that “W” has created or exacerbated.
3. Congress has passed too many loosey-goosey fluid-law bills authorizing commissions and semi-indepedent agencies that make their own rules and then report for Congressional “oversight.” So this is government by arrogant beaurocrat subject to review by committee testamony under oath. This is the root of the problem hilzoy discussed. “Look at what Clinton did to the EPA.” He ruined it. So why complain, now, that “W” and his goons are wrecking the National Science Foundation, the FDA, and ignoring the weights-and-measures, safety and engineering responsibilities of the federal government? Nobody cared when this dry rot started. Nobody.
4. Who wants honest, ruthless federal prosecutors? Oh, you do. Really? Watch what happens when the best prosecutor of all, Rudy Guliani, gets into the heat of campaign. Everyone from left and right is going to smear him to smithereens. Nobody really wants those federal prosecutors and federal marshalls to enforce the law. Wait and see, in a year I’ll be a prophet for having pointed this out. Read “Prince of the City” to understand what’s really going on — and how long it’s been going on.
5. “W” and Cheney are stooges for some very bad people who know how to win at “cops and robbers.” So the goal of the POTUS and Veep is to survive until January, 2009. That comment was absolutely correct.
Steve, of course Armitage was the leaker. AFter all, he discovered all on his little lonesome all the details about Wilson and Plame. In fact, all on his lonesome, he found out every important thing except her actual status.
Then he, all on his own, decided to talk to people about it. Only afterwards, when other people discovered, although never acknowledging it, that he had told Woodward, did they decide to, all on their own, talk to other media people.
And of course, none of this was for political advantage. It was purely trying to set everybody right on how nefarious Wilson and Plame both were.
How can you be so cynical not to believe this.
Evidence of absence as evidence of presence. Didn’t we go through that with Iraq WMDs?
Blah, I of course meant “Absence of evidence”, but my meaning was probably clear. The point is that it’s not enough to insinuate that “Gee, maybe nobody felt like coming forward!” Bullshit. That doesn’t prove anything. Literally. You can’t point to nothing and expect that it proves a point.
If you think you can, well, I’ve got this anti-tiger rock to sell you. It works, I promise! You don’t see any tigers around, do you?
John Doe joked,
Do you have any actual evidence that Armitage was lying? None whatsoever.
This is a blog, not a court of law. You don’t have to put aside common sense.
Armitage was working for the White House. So common sense says to distrust anything he says until it’s confirmed by a reliable source.
At any rate, if the prosecutor had any reason to think it might be true, it would have been necessary for him to ask Armitage who told him that. And then he would get that person under oath and ask them, “How did you find out that Wilson was telling everybody?” and that person would have told him which journalists told him that Wilson had told them, etc. Or admitted it was a lie. And if it was true then they call the journalists involved and get it from them, and then they charge Wilson.
See, if it wasn’t a lie, then it would be *important*. But you want to believe it, presumably for your own personal reasons.
Do you even contest the fact that … it was Armitage himself who spilled the beans about Wilson’s wife, and that he wasn’t doing so for political advantage?
Why should we make assumptions about why Armitage did it and was the one who got caught doing it? It’s at least as reasonable to suppose that he was just following orders.
Being from Washington State and recalling the 2004 gubernatorial election, I am not sure why the expectation that there would be an investigation into the voter rights in that state is held as an example of unreasonable expectations.
moe has already pointed out that a number of Republican officials declined to move forward after examining the evidence- Id just like to add that there is a gigantic difference between election fraud and a poorly-designed and -run system.
Much of what happened in Florida in 2000 was the result of conflicting and vague rules concerning elections, recounts, challenges, etc. (Of course, some of it was fraud eg Harris’s voter roll purge).
real problems like 8 instead of 96
So if I have no problem with the CEO of IBM laying off 5000 workers, I ought to have no problem with him firing his secretary for not sleeping with him. ‘cos 5000>1. Gotcha.
they have one clear limit: is it legal?
I think that’s backwards- they determine what they would like to do, and then claim that it’s legal. The claim can be flimsy, or contrived, or downright ludicrous- but as long as they can repeat it with a straight face on the Sunday morning talk circuit, the SCLM will be happy to do their he-said she-said stories (“Rice Says That President As CIC Has Power To Fund Troops: Democrats Disagree”).
Do you have any actual evidence that Armitage was lying?
The point is that Armitage is clearly not reporting something he himself experienced. He’s reporting something he was told by someone else.
If you hadn’t noticed, some members of the Administration are willing to bend the truth in order to get what they want. So even if Armitage is telling the truth that he heard this, that doesn’t make the underlying fact true (ie that Wilson was calling people).
(and, fwiw,
He’s pissed off ’cause he was designated as a low level guy went out to look at it. So he’s all pissed off.
Wilson volunteered for the job, he wasn’t compelled. Armitage’s explanation of why Wilson is “pissed off” doesn’t make a lick of sense. Nor does Wilson’s outing of his own wife in this context- if he’s pissed about the assignment, why does he need to involve his wife?
What makes sense here is that Armitage is reciting the spin points generated by the WH. Sure, they weren’t in print yet, but the WH smear campaign was spreading the word- this is evidence of a larger conspiracy (not necessarily involving Armitage, but providing him information), not evidence that Armitage acted alone. It’s certainly not evidence that Joe Wilson did *anything*.)
Robert Novak this weekend:
But this is less a Gonzales problem than a Bush problem. With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress — not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment.
…
The I-word (incompetence) is also used by Republicans in describing the Bush administration generally. Several of them I talked to cited a trifecta of incompetence: the Walter Reed hospital scandal, the FBI’s misuse of the USA Patriot Act and the U.S. attorneys firing fiasco. “We always have claimed that we were the party of better management,” one House leader told me. “How can we claim that anymore?”
Also, at least this latest is a distraction from the war… Nice.
The I-word (incompetence) is also used by Republicans in describing the Bush administration generally. Several of them I talked to cited a trifecta of incompetence:
My, my, my….they ARE being conservative in their numbering, aren’t they….
OCSteve, you are definitely becoming more cynical as time passes. To believe that this is a distraction from the war. I would almost believe that you thought it was planned that way.
The reason Bush strikes me as different in kind from most of the other Presidents I’ve seen (Nixon being the obvious exception) is that most of them have believed, more or less, in the kinds of lines Josh talks about, whereas as far as I can tell, Bush does not acknowledge their existence.
And he is supported by the likes of the denizens of Bizarro World, where today we learn that “Guantanamo Bay is a reminder [to certain terrorists/would be terrorists] of the strength and resolve of the United States, and the obstacle we present to their jihad. Wouldn’t closing it constitute a victory for them—a non-conventional victory, yes, in this non-conventional war, but an important one nonetheless?”
Moe Lane makes an appearance in the comments, explaining “The folks at Gitmo are illegal combatants who have been captured while they were fighting in violation of the Geneva Conventions.”
john miller: Sorry – I wasn’t clear. Novak was reporting that “some Republicans” find a saving grace in that the scandal distracts us from the war.
The saving grace that some Republicans find in the dispute over U.S. attorneys is that, at least temporarily, it draws attention away from debate over an unpopular war.
It seems to be true. Hilzoy’s posts for the last week:
AG scandal: 8
War: 2
They got you Hil! 😉
And I was referring to the little editorial comment “nice”.
Lam on a ‘short leash’.
“One of those is the vote. Whoever’s in power and however intense things get, most of us assume that the party in power won’t interfere with the vote count. We also assume that the administration won’t use the IRS to harrass or imprison political opponents. And we assume that criminal prosecutions will be undertaken or not undertaken on the facts.”
Hmmm, I think Josh didn’t notice why Republicans were angry in the 1980s then.
I have long assumed that interference with the vote count happens regularly–that is why easy-fraud procedures (see especially Wisconsin, Minnesota and Florida) have persisted across many iterations of either party having power. Neither party wants to shut down their own corrupt practices (they always pretend that they don’t exist) in order to shut down their own corrupt practices.
The IRS harrassing church and anti-abortion groups is completely expected whenever a Democrat controls the levers of power (most recent example–Clinton an organization I was involved with was subjected to year-long audits 6 out of the 8 Clinton years and the IRS couldn’t even find enough to require additional tax liability on any year).
Prosecutorial discretion has always been a big deal and has always been tied up in political power. There is a certain Senator Kennedy who knows plenty about that.
The more I look at the attorney firings, the less I like it. It appears to cronyism in at least one case and some other type of wrong-headedness in others (possible obstruction of an investigation in at least two cases, and generally very counterproductive grudge settling in at least one of the other).
The would suggest that the change is indeed a line being crossed, but not really the one Josh suggests. He is closest when he says it is about systematizing things. Many previous administrations of both parties (and especially Nixon and Clinton in most recent pre-Bush history) have been super-permissive of, or in some cases generally encouraging of, local corruption with national ramifications. Bush’s innovation (if it is an innovation because some of the Arkansas investigations under Clinton and the Mark Rich and Susan McDougal at least hint otherwise) is to centrally demand such corruption.
John Doe:
Actually, it was Richard Armitage who leaked her name, and he was not exactly part of the Bush inner circle, and he wasn’t seeking political benefit for Bush.
Wrong. It’s off topic but annoying to see this disinformation.
Armitage was only one of the leakers (along with Libby, Rove, Fleisher, etc.), and along with Rove, the only leaker that got a reporter (if Novak can be called that) to print the link between Plame and Wilson. Armitage reportedly got the idea from the CIA memo prepared at Libby’s request concerning the Wilson trip to Niger, which was also given to Armitage. The memo was marked as classified. The linking of Plame to that trip in order to discredit Wilson did not originate with Armitage. The extent to which Armitage was in direct contact with Libby et al. about this has not been publicly revealed (i.e., did Armitage independently think up the smear or was he echoing something the Libby/Cheney had clearly conjured earlier), but I am sure it was something covered in his secret grand jury testimony. Armitage has not come clean on many aspects of his story — only the portion that serves the interests of Bush apologists.
Armitage is a loyal Republican, and although not a member of the Bush inner circle, certainly a wanna be. He was spreading the ‘Wilson’s a girly-man who only got his trip because of his CIA wife’ meme to help the Bush administration — there was no other purpose for the blabbing on the topic. Per Novak, he was spoon fed the info because his sources thought it important.
Sebastian,
“”One of those is the vote. Whoever’s in power and however intense things get, most of us assume that the party in power won’t interfere with the vote count. We also assume that the administration won’t use the IRS to harrass or imprison political opponents. And we assume that criminal prosecutions will be undertaken or not undertaken on the facts.”
Hmmm, I think Josh didn’t notice why Republicans were angry in the 1980s then.”
Is there a typo here? Since Republicans held the Executive Branch for the entire decade of the 1980’s from 1/20/81 on, I don’t think any abuses in that decade should give rise to Republican complaints.
One could argue for a whole different set of reasons for Republicans to be angry, but that is a topic for a different post.
Maybe Sebastian is referring to Iran-Contra, a “fake scandal” that never should have been investigated?
what, no comments yet on the Anna Nicole Smith autopsy results that detail her drug use and methods and state she was 178lbs? I’m shocked shocked! vbg.
“Is there a typo here? Since Republicans held the Executive Branch for the entire decade of the 1980’s from 1/20/81 on, I don’t think any abuses in that decade should give rise to Republican complaints.”
No, you’re right it was the abuses earlier that led rise to the focused anger in the 1980s.
Never forgiven the Democratic Party for Watergate, have you? Seriously, what specifically are you talking about?
Also the cynic in me wonders if these types of lines were crossed all the time but not exposed until the internet-news age. (And to be clear, if they weren’t exposed in the past but are now exposed, I count that as a good development).
Also the cynic in me wonders if these types of lines were crossed all the time but not exposed until the internet-news age
i’d be shocked if they weren’t.
From Marshall’s post (first link above): “And the president is fine with all of this.”
I think he does a fair amount of mind-reading there and subsequent. The president may be unhappy about the situation but calculating that candor would lead to bad consequences. What’s known is plenty without trying to overread it into Bush’s mind.
Abuse of prosecutorial disrection: this is frankly a constant. Sometimes it is an acceptable change of focus, sometimes it isn’t. But there isn’t any question that Kennedy should have been tried for manslaughter–instead the investigation was shut down almost immediately.
IRS Audits of right-wing organizations–this was a big area for Clinton. The Judicial Watch audit which began four days after they released their impeachment report. The National Rifle Association audit. The Heritage Foundation audits. And fun timing on individual audits too–Paula Jones audited just after the Supreme Court ruling in her favor. Juanita Broaddrick audited just after her rape allegations aired. Billy Dale audited as the Travel scandal blew up (coincidentally which is just what William Kennedy threatened to do when the FBI refused to manufacture charges against him).
The Susan McDougal pardon anyone? If there is a Libby pardon, it will be an exact counterpart to the McDougal pardon. (And remember that McDougal’s testimony wasn’t supposed to be about a blowjob, it was about financial corruption.)
Mark Rich pardon? Did we ever hear of even a remotely legitmate sounding reason why he was pardoned? I’m not talking something that passes the smell test, just anything at all.
I don’t think Marshall was commenting on Bush’s emotional state, only that by his actions he found the status quo acceptable.
Hmmm, I think Josh didn’t notice why Republicans were angry in the 1980s then.
The Reagan “revolution” had nothing to do with voter fraud or federal investigations. According to Merle and Earl Black, it had everything to do with the GOP embracing “states rights” and lower taxes. This enabled Reagan to turn what had been a Democratic South into a GOP lock.
Mark Rich pardon? Did we ever hear of even a remotely legitmate sounding reason why he was pardoned? I’m not talking something that passes the smell test, just anything at all.
Sure, that one I know offhand (this may be garbled somewhat, I’m remembering rather than looking it up). Rich’s conviction was for tax fraud, under circumstances where his defense was that his original position was a good-faith interpretation of the law. Given the complexity of the tax law, SDNY standard procedure before the Rich case was to pursue such cases only civilly, rather than criminally — while generally ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’, it makes a certain amount of sense to make it a partial excuse given the arcane nature of the laws in question. The fact that Rich was criminally prosecuted at all under the circumstances was very unusual, and the pardon made sense given that fact.
Mark Rich pardon? Did we ever hear of even a remotely legitmate sounding reason why he was pardoned? I’m not talking something that passes the smell test, just anything at all.
There was also the phone conversation Clinton had with Ehud Barak, during which Barak apparently requested that Rich be pardoned.
The Susan McDougal pardon anyone? If there is a Libby pardon, it will be an exact counterpart to the McDougal pardon.
I think the more apt counterpart is the Iran-Contra pardons.
Mark Rich pardon? Did we ever hear of even a remotely legitmate sounding reason why he was pardoned? I’m not talking something that passes the smell test, just anything at all.
Two distinguished professors of tax law opined that what Rich had been convicted of wasn’t tax evasion.
and there’s this interesting tidbit from wiki:
During hearings after Rich’s pardon, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who had represented Rich from 1985 until the spring of 2000, denied that Rich had violated the tax laws, but criticized him for trading with Iran at a time when that country was holding U.S. hostages.
Sebastian:
“Bush’s innovation ….. is to centrally demand such corruption.”
I think this formulation is about right. Thus the Consiglieri in the corner office doing the “business” of the country on the wrong e-mail account.
Since we’re talking about Armitage … this from George Packer’s article in the new Yorker, entitled “Betrayed”, regarding what we have wrought in Iraq:
“When I met Armitage recently, at his office in Arlington, Virginia, he was not confident that Iraqis could be similarly (to Vietnamese refugees) resettled. ‘I guarantee you no one’s thinking about it now, because it’s so fatalistic and you’d be considered sort of a traitor to the President’s policy,” he said. “I don’t see us taking them in this time, because notwithstanding what we may owe people, you’re not going to bring in large numbers of Arabs to the United States, given the fact that for the last six years the President has scared the pants off the American public with fears of Islamic terrorism.”
“Even at this stage of the war, Armitrage said, officials at the White House retain ‘an agnosticsm about the size of the problem.” He added, “The President believes so firmly that he is President for just this mission and — and there’s something religious about it — that it will succeed, and that kind of permeates. I just take him at his word these days. I think it’s very improbable that he’ll be successsful.”
Read the rest, too, but take something to sooth the vomit reflex. I love the use of the terms “agnosticism” and “religious” in the same paragraph, the first referring to reality and the second referring to the visions of a crazy person.
Personally, I like a little corruption in my elected officials, seeing as how they should be a reflection of the American electorate. After all, LBJ had to have a whole bunch of chits to call in to get some good things done.
Nixon was a thug, but kind of an endearing one at the end, what with all the blubbering and such. Clinton’s corruption I found to be fairly petty. Reagan was so blissed out by his confusion between himself and all the B movie characters he played that any reasonable person could see that his crackpottery required the odd Oliver North or two to accomplish his dreams. Bush the Senior was a pale LBJ, aware of the levers of power and the unsavory manipulation required among a Nation of kidders, barkers, and idealists.
Bush the Junior and the current crowd, however, are a whole new tapestry of twisted, in-grown zealotry. It’s like finding out the Mafia has been invited by the Pope to place slot machines in every pew.
They are monolithic, dangerous, subversive.
To what end, I keep wondering? There has to be a better punchline than simple incompetence, or simple corruption, or simple ideological rigidity, or simple religious zealotry.
Incidentally, I love the fact presented in the Packer article that thousands of the betrayed Iraqis are seeking asylum and becoming Swedes. They are becoming Swedes: don’t ya just love the luscious irony of the Red State foreign policy?
They still dream of America, the article concludes. Don’t we all. But at least they get universal healthcare now.
I’m not so sure Bush et al. are any more corrupt than previous administrations. To my mind they seem simply to be more incompetent. Surely they could have gotten out ahead of the US Attorneys story better than they did. I mean, evidence of the kind of the poor performance they keep citing must be readily available. It always is, even with stellar performers.
What separates them from previous administrations, IMO, is their arrogance. The assumption that they can get away with anything (when history keeps proving them wrong) never seems to die down. They simply don’t learn from their mistakes. And so they don’t prepare for how to handle the leaks or poor performances. They’re terrible at covering their tracks, because they’re not worried about being caught. (There might also be something to the notion raised earlier that Internet journalism makes getting away with things harder than ever, but the jury’s out on that, I think.)
What’s so hideous about their arrogance is how it’s continually led them to trample American ideals and values in their pursuit of power far more than other administrations have. Watergate and its repercussions were kid’s play next to the payback coming from Abu Ghraib and G-bay torture. Ask the British sailors currently being “interrogated” by the Iranians if they’d go back in time and protest the systematic dismantling of the rights of prisoners by the US. Whether they’re being abused or not, I’m sure they’re more afraid of it than they would have been 5 years ago.
Sebastian,
If there is a Libby pardon, it will be an exact counterpart to the McDougal pardon.
I don’t recall all the details of the Susan McDougal case, but what I do remember doesn’t make it seem like a parallel to a hypothetical Libby pardon at all.
First, McDougal spent a considerable amount of time in jai, both fo rher felony convictions and for refusing to testify. Libby, if pardoned, is unlikely to be similarly inconvenienced.
Second, she claimed, IIRC, not forgetfulness or whatever, but that she was being pressured to testify falsely.
I don’t see these as comparable cases.
“Rich’s conviction was for tax fraud, under circumstances where his defense was that his original position was a good-faith interpretation of the law. Given the complexity of the tax law, SDNY standard procedure before the Rich case was to pursue such cases only civilly, rather than criminally — while generally ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’, it makes a certain amount of sense to make it a partial excuse given the arcane nature of the laws in question. The fact that Rich was criminally prosecuted at all under the circumstances was very unusual, and the pardon made sense given that fact.”
That can’t be the explanation, because Mr. Rich fled the country upon indictment and never subjected himself to a trial, so there was no jury-reviewed defense and no conviction.
Sebastian,
If there is a Libby pardon, it will be an exact counterpart to the McDougal pardon.
I don’t recall all the details of the Susan McDougal case, but what I do remember doesn’t make it seem like a parallel to a hypothetical Libby pardon at all.
First, McDougal spent a considerable amount of time in jai, both fo rher felony convictions and for refusing to testify. Libby, if pardoned, is unlikely to be similarly inconvenienced.
Second, she claimed, IIRC, not forgetfulness or whatever, but that she was being pressured to testify falsely.
I don’t see these as comparable cases.
It’s still a defense, even if not presented at trial. The point is not that he should have been acquitted, but that prosecuting him criminally at all for tax fraud under the circumstances was highly unusual and looked like prosecutorial overreaching. I’m not saying that that excuses his flight, but it’s an explanation for the pardon.
Note that Clinton also (a) conditioned the pardon on Rich paying a $100,000,000 fine; and (b) despite the pardon Rich still lives abroad, as I believe he’s still wanted on state charges (as the President cannot pardon someone for those).
“Second, she claimed, IIRC, not forgetfulness or whatever, but that she was being pressured to testify falsely.”
The solution to that is what witnesses do every day–testify truthfully.
I agree with Edward on this: “What separates them from previous administrations, IMO, is their arrogance”. And it is their arrogance which leads to, in my opinion, their worst fault–inability to respond flexibly to situations which demand it. Even if it were true, for example, that there was a good chance that we didn’t need very many troops in Iraq, it became obvious to anyone who isn’t just being stubborn that it didn’t play out that way.
The solution to that is what witnesses do every day–testify truthfully.
Again, you must not have been paying close attention to the McDougal case if you don’t remember the basis of her position — she was claiming that her truthful testimony was contrary to other information that Starr was relying on, and believed that if she testified truthfully she would be prosecuted for perjury. You don’t have to accept her position, but it’s not terribly close to the facts of the Libby case, where he admitted to saying things that weren’t true, and just claimed to have erred innocently rather than intentionally.
The Susan McDougal pardon anyone? If there is a Libby pardon, it will be an exact counterpart to the McDougal pardon.
Apparently, immediately after the impeachment trial, McDougal went ahead and testified to the stuff she’d avoid testifying to before:
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/23/mcdougal/
She testified that Clinton hadn’t done anything wrong concerning the David Hale $300k loan, and had been truthful in his statements.
So, she was willing to sit in jail for 18 months when Starr’s power was at its zenith, but once Starr had been defanged she was willing to testify. And her testimony was exculpatory.
IMO that lends quite a bit of credence to the idea that she was not protecting Clinton, she was protecting herself from a rapid prosecutor.
Tick tick tick:
Monica Goodling, a Justice Department official involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings, citing Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said Monday.
“So, she was willing to sit in jail for 18 months when Starr’s power was at its zenith, but once Starr had been defanged she was willing to testify. And her testimony was exculpatory.”
Or alternatively, once the impeachment failed it didn’t matter because the danger to Clinton had passed.
Or alternatively, once the impeachment failed it didn’t matter because the danger to Clinton had passed.
She was holding back her exculpatory testimony to protect Clinton?
Or alternatively, once the impeachment failed it didn’t matter because the danger to Clinton had passed.
But her testimony was exculpatory. If she’d given it, it would have helped Clinton — the only bad outcome that could have come from the testimony she actually gave would have been a perjury prosecution directed at her.
“the danger to Clinton had passed.”
When will the danger OF Clinton pass?
Because I’m trying to concentrate on the Bush corruption over here in the 21st century.
Yeah but, what about Grover Cleveland? 😉
When will the danger OF Clinton pass?
Nevaaaaaaahhh!!! He will only become more powerful as attempts to strike him down fail. Behold:
First Gentleman William Jefferson Clinton Esq.
Galactus trembles.
“But her testimony was exculpatory. If she’d given it, it would have helped Clinton — the only bad outcome that could have come from the testimony she actually gave would have been a perjury prosecution directed at her.”
Perjury has a base offense level of 14. She spent as much time in jail in contempt of court as she could expect to get for perjury (even if she would have gotten a perjury conviction which strikes me as hugely unlikely given that the evidence against her would pretty much be the word of an admitted cheat).
A few weeks after her initial jailing for contempt:
McDougal suggested from the beginning that her refusal to testify was to protect Clinton from prosecutors who were out to get Clinton.
Clinton broadly hinted that he would pardon her–even while she was still at the very beginning of her refusal to testify. And then he did in fact pardon her.
But at least she avoided the immediate post-revelation IRS audit, unlike Clinton’s (alleged) rape victim.
McDougal suggested from the beginning that her refusal to testify was to protect Clinton from prosecutors who were out to get Clinton.
Well, yes. As Ugh and I have both said above, her position was that she was being threatened with a perjury prosecution if she didn’t lie under oath to enable Starr to ‘get’ Clinton. Her refusal to testify as Starr wanted her to was to protect Clinton; her refusal to testify at all was to protect herself.
meanwhile, in the present day, in which Clinton has no power, a Bush DOJ official would rather take the 5th than tell Congress the truth.
Sebastian, that’s a long quote and, near as I can tell, has nothing to do with the fact under discussion: i.e., that McDougal had no incentive to withhold testimony, si nce it was exculpatory of Clinton.
Care to take another swing at it?
Is there some recounting somewhere of Clinton’s use of the IRS to audit his enemies? When I google I get a bunch of newsmax-esque type sites and a breathless Bob Novak column.
There was a congressional investigation linked here recently that said it didn’t happen — let me look around for it for you.
I overstated it; the investigation only covered tax-exempt organizations, not individuals. (Anarch linked it in an earlier US Attorneys thread.)
Thanks LB. Would be interesting if there was a report on the individuals. In this vein there are generally several level of audits that the IRS performs on individuals – from correspondene audits (e.g., a letter saying “please provide documentation supporting this deduction”) to face to face audits, to audits where you have to prove everything (even that your kids are your kids- though I think the IRS has cut back on these recently). Plus there is IRS audit software that flags returns automatically for further review – without any human intervention at all.
I wonder, after all the breathless stories on using the IRS to go after political enemies, if there are any stories on the result of these nefarious audits.
…an organization I was involved with was subjected to year-long audits 6 out of the 8 Clinton years…
Funny, the investigation seems to have missed this obvious example. One can draw one’s own conclusions.
Clinton broadly hinted that he would pardon her–even while she was still at the very beginning of her refusal to testify. And then he did in fact pardon her.
Did he do it somewhere other than the article you quoted? Bc all he said there was that there was a process. Unless you have such suspicions of Clinton that even the most bland and innocuous statement becomes a secretly coded conspiracy.
Also, note that his end-of-term pardon did not spare her any of the jail time she served for contempt. You seem to broadly hint at a secret bargain (which fyi would’ve probably been better handled *in secret*, doncha think?) wherein she is spared the cost of keeping silent- but she in fact paid that cost in full.
Per policy, a mention of Broaddrick requires a mention of Selene Walters and the observation that liberals (for some reason) chose not to attempt to make political hay with a dubious allegation of the most heinous sort.
Some conservatives apparently lack such scruples.
Huh. I’d never heard that story before googling it just now.
The devolution of this thread reminds me why I didn’t read, watch, or listen to any U.S. news having to do with anything but Turkey and Colombia from 1997 to 2001.
And once again, a thread about Bush degenerates into musings on the Clenis…
PS, Nell: There’s no such thing as “devolution”, only “Intelligent Undesign”.
And once again, a thread about Bush degenerates into musings on the Clenis…
Must be why Seb vanished, having accomplished his goal.
Has Goodling testified before Congress already? I’m getting from the letter that she hasn’t, but I haven’t been following this closely. (The letter does mention that another DOJ official claimed that she hadn’t fully informed him before his testimony–but that’s not a potential basis for charges against her, right?)
If not, her theory is that she has to take the Fifth because she might incriminating herself by lying under oath at that hearing, or those untrustworthy Senators might claim she did?
If the latter, that strikes me as bullsh*t (or a “novel legal theory” as we say), and it would basically gut subpoena power. The Fifth Amendment means protects you from being compelled to confess to a crime or incriminate yourself; it does not protect you from being compelled to testify because you might COMMIT (or be accused of committing) perjury/lying to Congress/etc.! What witness couldn’t potentially lie under oath or be accused of doing so?
I have a job, sorry.
“It is the politically charged environment created by the members of the committee … that has created the ambiguous and perilous environment in which even innocent witnesses would be well advised not to testify,” Dowd wrote.
I have to remember that if I am ever called before one of these things.
Orin Kerr had the same reaction I did, except he actually knew what he was talking about instead of having a vague sense that this wasn’t kosher.
Orin Kerr had the same reaction I did, except he actually knew what he was talking about instead of having a vague sense that this wasn’t kosher.
(I suppose she could be worried about conspiracy/accessory liability to previous false statements by McNulty. That would be a real reason to invoke the Fifth Amendment but she’d have to do it question-by-question on her role in preparing McNulty for the hearing.)
My first thought was that she is, or perhaps should be, concerned with suborning perjury, wrt the testimony of McNulty.
There’s also conspiracy to obstruct justice — if as WH liason she is the link between people who want investigations interfered with (but lack the power to do so) and the people who lack that intent, but have the power to interfere, I can imagine a cautious lawyer thinking she ought not talk about it.
Hey, I’m not accusing anyone of anything. Just thinking of Karl asking, in exasperation, “will no rid me of this meddlesome priest . . .”
I see that I might as well turn of my computer and go do something else. Carry on, Katherine.
When will the danger OF Clinton pass?
Never, apparently.
Clinton pardoned his friends.
Bush I pardoned his co-conspirators in Iran-Contra.
Reagan was President during Iran-Contra.
Carter lusted in his heart, was attacked by rabbits, and tried to buck us all up in out hour of distress by wearing Mr. Rogers’ sweater on the TV while giving us a schoolmarmish lecture about turning down the thermostat. Sheesh.
Ford pardoned Nixon.
Nixon, of course, was Nixon.
LBJ knew how to louse a guy up better than anyone before or since.
JFK won a squeaker of an election with pretty good evidence of voter fraud in Texas and Illinois. Let’s not even touch upon his private life.
Eisenhower might have played a little footsie with his driver during WWII. Or not.
Harry Truman got his political foot in the door through the sponsorship of the notoriously corrupt Tom Pendergast.
And, as alluded to above, the Tilden/Hayes election of 1876 was a hell of a mess.
NONE OF THESE PEOPLE ARE CURRENTLY THE PRESIDENT OF THE US.
Not a few of them are, in fact, no longer with us at all.
How are the sad tales of Susan McDougal, Juanita Broderick, Whitewater, Vince Foster, the nefarious campaign contributions of the PRC, or any other tale of sordid Macbethian machinations by anyone named Clinton relevant, in any way shape or form, to the issue at hand?
They are not.
Thank you
Ah, Seb brings up Clinton’s pardons and Drudge “reports”:
Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-TX) today asked Former President Bill Clinton if he would be available to testify at the Democrats’ Thursday hearing on presidential pardon authority.
“Former President Clinton is no stranger to controversial pardons, most notably the pardon of Marc Rich on his last day in office,” stated Ranking Member Smith. “I can think of no better person to address this issue.”
At Thursday’s hearing of the Judiciary’s Crime Subcommittee entitled, “The Appropriate Use of the Presidential Pardoning Power,” Democrats are expected to explore what is and is not the appropriate use of pardons, despite a president’s plenary power to issue pardons.
President Clinton granted pardons or commuted the sentences of nearly 500 people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose wife donated $450 thousand to the Clinton Library. Other pardons included a person accused of cocaine trafficking and a former Democratic committee chairman indicted on political corruption charges.
The Constitution gives the President the absolute authority to grant clemency, commutation, and remission of fines for offenses. Despite this absolute authority, presidents are not immune from criticism and even congressional attempts to restrict pardon authority.
“Mr. Clinton’s exercise of his pardon authority would be of real interest to Members of the Subcommittee,” concluded Smith. “I hope he will lend his expertise[“]
Has anyone seen Sebastian Holsclaw and Matthew Drudge in the same room together?!!?
Ugh, I would try to respond to you, but you don’t appear to have a point.
Ugh, I would try to respond to you, but you don’t appear to have a point.
I was entirely kidding and meant no offense. I knew I have should have put a (or should it be “an”) “;-)” at the end.
shorter Ugh: I had no point.
Well, if we go down that path, maybe the Committee should also call Bush, to get his take on pardons.
CaseyL: now that would be interesting. “Mr President, do you or do you not intend to pardon Lewis Libby, if his appeal fails?”
I believe Bush’s appropriate response would be: “And I would-my position would be that their cases should be handled like others, they should go through-there’s a regular process for that, and I have regular meetings on that, and I review those cases as they come up after there’s an evaluation done by the Justice Department. And that’s how I think it should be handled.”
I’m sure you’re right that would be an appropriate response. I just wonder if Bush would opt for something more ambiguous so that he couldn’t be called out for lying after he pardoned Libby in early January 2009, or if he just didn’t care what anyone said about him after he left office, so long as damaging witnesses were kept happy.
I’d want to know if Bush is going to offer his crew of thieves, liars and traitors the kind of pardon Nixon got: a blanket pardon that prevents any future charges from being brought against them.
I believe Bush’s appropriate response would be: “And I would-my position would be that their cases should be handled like others, they should go through-there’s a regular process for that, and I have regular meetings on that, and I review those cases as they come up after there’s an evaluation done by the Justice Department. And that’s how I think it should be handled.”
Now that, is a good riposte (I can read it in both the stuttering Bush and the smooth – or not so smooth in this case – Clinton style).
the latter being the actual case, of course.
Sebastian:
The Susan McDougal pardon anyone? If there is a Libby pardon, it will be an exact counterpart to the McDougal pardon. (And remember that McDougal’s testimony wasn’t supposed to be about a blowjob, it was about financial corruption.)
Covered above, but McDougal’s was clearly not like Libby should he receive a pardon. McDougal completed her prison term in 1998, and was pardoned for that crime in 2001. The Whitewater deal was already concluded at the time the pardon was given with no prospect of being reopened. McDougal had made it clear that she had no testimony to offer helpful to the a potential charge against Clinton. There is no conceivable parallel.
I believe Bush’s appropriate response would be: “And I would-my position would be that their cases should be handled like others, they should go through-there’s a regular process for that, and I have regular meetings on that, and I review those cases as they come up after there’s an evaluation done by the Justice Department. And that’s how I think it should be handled.”
Yes, that would be the appropriate response. But what would the stupid response be?
I believe Bush’s appropriate response would be: “And I would-my position would be that their cases should be handled like others, they should go through-there’s a regular process for that, and I have regular meetings on that, and I review those cases as they come up after there’s an evaluation done by the Justice Department. And that’s how I think it should be handled.”
Yes, that would be the appropriate response. But what would the stupid (i.e., Bush’s actual) response be?
a blanket pardon that prevents any future charges from being brought against them.
Was it ever decided by, say, the Supreme Court whether such a pardon was Constitutional? It seems obvious to me that it’s not but there’s a reason IANAL…
Yes, that would be the appropriate response. But what would the stupid (i.e., Bush’s actual) response be?
The same, but with giggling once the press was gone.
But what would the stupid response be?
Bush: “Who cares what you think?”
Bush: “I leave it to a higher father to respond to that, since my biological father is obviously being influenced by unnamed Democrat Democrats.”
Bush: “We have received credible evidence that Al Qaeda is planning attacks on the U.S. Mainland.”
Bush: I am the decider and I’ve decided all condoms should be confiscated and quilted into a gigantic tent, to be placed over the U.S. Capital until January 2009. Abstinence for thee, protection for me.”
Bush: “Surges abroad, purges at home. I love me a good rhyme.”
Bush: “Switchgrass!”
Sorry, I was wrong: it’ll be the same, but with added dickishness.
Ugh (name and exclamation, in this case), Lamar Smith is the one who torpedoed the DC voting rights bill by trying to add an amendment to repeal DC’s gun laws.
I got to talk to Eleanor Holmes Norton for a few minutes tonight at a DNC reception. She says the Democratic leadership will be bringing the bill back soon. She also seems happy with her ability to handle Stephen Colbert, despite Rahm Emanuel’s advising Democrats not to go on the show (though going on Fox is just fine).
I volunteered at the Women’s Legal Defense Fund back in 1981, helping the attorneys there prepare for hearings in front of Orring Hatch’s committee on sexual harassment. I met Eleanor as part of that process and was most impressed. It was quite a hearing w/ Phyllis Schlafly testifying that “when a woman walks into a room she walks with a universal body language….” or something similar that elicited hisses from many in the audience and a quick retort from Hatch that he would eject any caught doing that again from the hearing room. Little did we know that it was just the start.
Her refusal to testify as Starr wanted her to was to protect Clinton; her refusal to testify at all was to protect herself.
Whatever the real reason for Susan McDougal’s conduct, it can’t have been the idiotic explanation that so many folks here are giving. It makes no sense. “I’m afraid that if I tell the truth, a prosecutor will cook up a completely spurious perjury charge against me; therefore I’ll willingly spend more time in jail than would have been the case for an actual perjury conviction.”
It’d be impossible if (a) she knew how long she was going to be imprisoned for on the front end, and (b) if the length of imprisonment was the only issue. Given that neither of those was the case, not so much impossible.
OK, even putting aside the prison terms, the explanation still doesn’t make any logical sense. “I’m afraid that if I tell the truth, a prosecutor will cook up a completely spurious perjury charge against me.”
Occam’s razor, folks. There’s never been another case in American history where a truth-telling witness was supposedly THAT afraid of a perjury conviction. Thus, if she was afraid of a perjury conviction, it’s probably because she wanted to say something that really was perjurious.
John Doe: Whatever the real reason for Susan McDougal’s conduct, it can’t have been the idiotic explanation that so many folks here are giving. It makes no sense.
Actually, that’s the explanation Susan McDougal herself gave:
And while you may now assert that it’s an “idiotic explanation” for her to say she refused to testify because she was afraid that the independent prosecutor would twist her words and change her with perjury, you asserted on this thread yesterday at at 10:14 AM that this was a perfectly sensible reason why witnesses who could have exculpated the Bush administration might not have come forward to testify in October 2003.
The difference is, we have testimony directly from Susan McDougal’s mouth that this is why she refused to testify before Starr. But you don’t even know for sure that these hypothetical witnesses even exist – you were simply putting forward what you now say is an “idiotic explanation” that “makes no sense” to explain why none of these witnesses have come forward to testify.
This is idiotic and makes no sense. Unless you’re not John Doe, but… Richard Roe!
OK, even putting aside the prison terms, the explanation still doesn’t make any logical sense. “I’m afraid that if I tell the truth, a prosecutor will cook up a completely spurious perjury charge against me.”
amusingly, that’s exactly what Monica Goodling (or, her lawyer) has claimed as one of her reasons for taking the 5th in the USA/DOJ issue.
spin!
John Doe must really be upset at Monica Goodling right now…
How is it that with the current utterly-corrupt administration under investigation, we’re spending so much time hashing out the problems of previous administrations?
Clinton got caught and punished. Now it’s time to catch and impeach Bush. Let’s do a better job of it this time.
How is it that with the current utterly-corrupt administration under investigation, we’re spending so much time hashing out the problems of previous administrations?
that’s due to Tim F’s Second Law of Interchat:
as online discussions of Republican transgressions lengthen the probability of an attempted Clinton Did It! distraction approaches one.
“She has said she refused to answer questions because she believes Starr would twist her words to suit his purposes”
Note that is the FIRST complaint, not the perjury issue. Suggesting that her testimony would be something that was awfully close to (something that could be spun into) something damaging to Clinton. Protecting Clinton was the first concern. That paid off well.
Fwiw, I saw Susan McDougall about a year ago on CSPAN, at a reading of some part of her book. It was mostly about religion, and was incredibly moving, in that regard. But someone asked her about this, and (iirc) she said that at a certain point, after some attempts to — well, ‘cooperate’ is the wrong word, since it has a legal meaning, but to do her part as a citizen — and a lot of evidence that what was going on was an attempt to find anything at all that could be used against the Clintons, she just woke up one morning, afraid, and feeling way, way out of her depth in the face of what seemed like a hostile and incomprehensible legal machinery and thought: I’m not going to say anything. Period.
I found this quite plausible as an explanation of how a non-lawyer might feel when confronted by Ken Starr et al, fwiw.
I would bet no money on the claim that there aren’t enough precedents for witnesses threatened with perjury charges (or worse) for not lying in favor of the prosecution in US history. Not even necessary to go back to the days of Tailgunner Joe, just look at police/justice corruption in a number of US states. There should be tons of examples.
I have no opinion of the case in question here but I would not be surprised, if Starr has used such methods.
Seb: ” Suggesting that her testimony would be something that was awfully close to (something that could be spun into) something damaging to Clinton.”
The sentence (without the parenthetic clause) has no connection to the parenthetic clause.
The fact that something can be spun into a negative does not mean the thing itself is in any way close to being a negative.
John, the sentence has almost the same meaning without the parenthetic clause.
” Suggesting that her testimony would be something that was awfully close to something damaging to Clinton.”
Something that damages him with spin etc.
Without the parenthetical there’s the possibility that the meaning is something that damages him by exposure of crimes he did. But that’s only one way the damage might go.
And while you may now assert that it’s an “idiotic explanation” for her to say she refused to testify because she was afraid that the independent prosecutor would twist her words and change her with perjury, you asserted on this thread yesterday at at 10:14 AM that this was a perfectly sensible reason why witnesses who could have exculpated the Bush administration might not have come forward to testify in October 2003.
Are you really unable to see the difference between the two situations?
1. A witness voluntarily goes to jail for 18 months because she’s supposedly afraid of a perjury charge for telling the truth.
2. A private citizen or journalist doesn’t volunteer his or her story to all the world, not wanting to get involved in a public scandal in any way or form.
Yes, 1 is idiotic. It’s just incomprehensible that someone would willingly go to jail as a way of avoiding a hypothetical risk of going to jail. 2 is not idiotic, as it does not involve anyone going to jail.
Sebastian, it would be interesting to see you analyse the Susan MacDougall situation vis-a-vis the Monica goodling situation.
J Thomas, I stated myself poorly. Seb’s suggestion, if I understood him correctly, was that since McDougall thought her testimony could be spun into something negative, then her testimony itself must come close to damaging Clinton. One does not follow from the other.
“It’s just incomprehensible that someone would willingly go to jail as a way of avoiding a hypothetical risk of going to jail.”
Obviously, you don’t have much of an imagination or seem to see only one thing.
A conviction on a perjury charge carries with it more than just jail time. It says to the world that you are a liar and not to be trusted. And particularly if you believe that your words could be used against their original intent to harm someone for something they didn’t do.
This thread proves that Bush, Rove, and Gonzalez read the market correctly when they replaced the Federal prosecutor in Arkansas with the handpicked oppo research smear merchant.
The only way folks are going to forget about the Clinton sins is if Hillary flys a couple of planes into some large buildings in Manhatten and then disappears into the Pakistani hinterlands.
THAT they’ll forget! Except as an excuse to invade Thailand and eliminate corporate taxes.
If Hillary is elected, expect a seamless resumption of the anti-Clinton clusterf***.
I hope Obama wins. It’ll take the usual suspects at least two weeks to interrupt the business of governing to gin up some stories about his wife decorating the White House Christmas tree with butt plugs and off we go again.
I don’t care what Susan McDougall did or did not do. But she was savvy enough to look around and see what was going on. And it wasn’t concern for the rule of law or probity in government that she recognized in the eyes of her accusers.
It was a desire to ruin a political party and seize a government by any means so that it could be ruined, stolen, and subverted.
Good for her.
She knew Bill Clinton could govern better than this sorry lot were he to be placed in a dungeon and in leg irons, and provided with a rotary phone.
So this is it, huh? This is what all the crap in the last eight years of the 20th Century was all about? To put Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld, Delay, Cunningham, Norquist, Abramoff and the rest of the incompetent, thieving, lying garbage in power.
This is all you’ve* got?
Heck, after all of the moral lectures and self-righteous outrage we endured, I was half afraid you guys* would elect Abraham Lincoln again. Then were would we be?
*I refer, of course, to a large group of people across the electorate and the Internets who can’t get over it. Any resemblance to anyone on this thread is solely a figment of my imagination.
Note: I’m writing in Susan McDougall for President 2008! She’s my hero.
Occam’s razor, folks. There’s never been another case in American history where a truth-telling witness was supposedly THAT afraid of a perjury conviction. Thus, if she was afraid of a perjury conviction, it’s probably because she wanted to say something that really was perjurious.
This ignores the fact that she did testify, and her testimony was exculpatory- but only *after* Starr was effectively crippled by the failed impeachment. If she committed obvious perjury then, surely Starr would’ve charged her. That is, if he had solid evidence to the contrary.
Im not sure Whose Razor it is when your explanation fails to account for known contradictory facts, but there’s got to be a Razor out there for this sort of situation. Maybe Schick sells one you could use.
[Also, are you so ignorant of American history that you believe that innocents haven’t been imprisoned by overzealous prosecutors?]
[Finally, mindreading foul. You neither know the actual truth-value of historical witnesses’ statements nor their level of fear.]
That paid off well.
Seb, are you still implying that McDougal got something out of the deal other than jail time? That there was some quid pro quo? Because that’s an indefensible load of crap. You can argue that McDougal protected Clinton out of a sense of loyalty & that she had something on him she refused to reveal, but if you want to argue (or just underhandedly imply) quid pro quo you need to explicitly state what McDougal was supposed to be receiving for her silence.
Now, for the idea that Starr had real evidence that she would’ve been perjuring herself- that would imply that Starr had evidence that Clinton pressured Hale into giving the $300k loan (or, evidence that McDougal knew about it). Now, some of this evidence might have been considered hearsay for a direct challenge to Clinton’s statement (eg a statement by a McDougal associate that she discussed the deal), but it strains credibility to suggest that such evidence wouldn’t have found its way into the public ear. And nothing would’ve stopped Starr from using such evidence even after the impeachment.
Ergo, using Wu’s Schick Quattro Disposable Razor (I use whichever Razor is handy), we know that such evidence did not exist. Starr might have been willing to use Hale, though, in a he-said, she-said perjury case. It would be weak- but then, so was his referral to the House.
What the hell does this have to do with what’s going on NOW?
Is the handling of the attorneys acceptable or not?
What the hell does this have to do with what’s going on NOW?
Ahh…you haven’t seen “Thanks for Smoking”, have you?
The lesson of that film with regards to political debate was that it’s better to change the subject (thereby to dominate the dialog) than to stand on the merits of your case if its wobbly. In other words, talking about Clinton, et al. is a tactic employed to avoid talking about Gonzales, et al.
A conviction on a perjury charge carries with it more than just jail time. It says to the world that you are a liar and not to be trusted.
I’m reminded of Billy Martin’s comment about Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner
“They’re made for each other. One’s a born liar, the other’s convicted.”
*nods*
Edward_’s right. Just as normally one only has to point out that it’s slimy for a White House official to blow the cover of a covert CIA agent for political spite, to have someone claim that it was justified because her husband wrote an op-ed for the NYT, and then start in on the spin claiming that her husband lied anyway. Anything other than discuss straightforward issues in which their guy is straightforwardly in the wrong.
Yes, 1 is idiotic. It’s just incomprehensible that someone would willingly go to jail as a way of avoiding a hypothetical risk of going to jail.
So, I guess nobody has ever pleaded “No Contest” to a charge they felt they were not guilty of but would probably be convicted of? Ever? Really?
CaseyL: “Sebastian, it would be interesting to see you analyse the Susan MacDougal situation vis-a-vis the Monica goodling situation.”
Sure. That is easy. Neither of them had/have a defensible reason not to testify. Both are using the same “the situation is too political to get a fair hearing so I’ll make things worse by not telling the truth when subpoened” excuse and in both cases they are wrong. Goodling puts a slightly different spin on it by taking the 5th in a novel way, but when Congress gives her immunity (which there is no reason not to, since what are the chances that she was the ‘decider’ of anything she might testify to?) that excuse goes away and we are left with the same garbage that Susan McDougal was raising.
I think the other side presented in these comments is much harder to defend: that it is remotely defensible to play the “afraid of unfair perjury” card in the highly politicized Clinton case but that it is not so in the highly politicized Bush case. That begins to look a lot more like an anti-rule-of-law ‘different rules for candidates I like than for those I detest’ standard. And remember that the McDougal case is NOT about a BJ, but rather about bribery and corruption.
Carleton Wu: “Seb, are you still implying that McDougal got something out of the deal other than jail time? That there was some quid pro quo? Because that’s an indefensible load of crap. You can argue that McDougal protected Clinton out of a sense of loyalty & that she had something on him she refused to reveal, but if you want to argue (or just underhandedly imply) quid pro quo you need to explicitly state what McDougal was supposed to be receiving for her silence.”
No implication, I’m stating it. She got a left-wing martyr book deal and a presidential pardon. She was convicted of defrauding the government, and got to spin that into something positive in many circles. Surely you are aware of at least the pardon?
Sure. Which doesn’t mean that she testified truthfully, it means that the fear of a perjury charge was always ridiculous. Your ‘crippled’ Star trope cuts either way though. Once all the evidence was out on display, it may have become clear that she could perjure herself with impunity. That fits the facts at least as well (and in my opinon much better) for a situation where someone pulls as much actual jail time avoiding a perjury charge as the sentencing guidelines would hit her with for perjury if she hypothetically were convicted of it.
“A conviction on a perjury charge carries with it more than just jail time. It says to the world that you are a liar and not to be trusted.”
That is silly in McDougal’s case. She had already been convicted of fraud. She was already a liar who is not to be trusted.
Now back to Goodling. Congress should offer her immunity to defeat the 5th Amendment problem (such as it is, which I really think it isn’t) and then throw her in jail if she doesn’t testify. I really don’t think it is that complicated.
My position is that you don’t have a right to obstruct an investigation by refusing to testify just because you think that the investigator will misuse your testimony. That just isn’t legitimate if your name is McDougal and it isn’t legitimate if your name is Goodling.
Sebastian, one of the most famous lawyers of history, Sir Thomas More, said that “no law in the world can punish any man for his silence.”
Of course, this was 572 years ago, nearly. And September 11 changed everything.
“The lesson of that film with regards to political debate was that it’s better to change the subject (thereby to dominate the dialog) than to stand on the merits of your case if its wobbly. In other words, talking about Clinton, et al. is a tactic employed to avoid talking about Gonzales, et al. ”
Except I’ve made my position on Goodling very clear.
It is just amazing to me to watch the pirouette performed by so many people in these comments as we seamlessly transition from McDougal to finding out halfway in the thread about the Goodling position.
I raised McDougal as a parallel to Libby. Many of you didn’t think it was a good parallel for various reasons–and one of the biggest was the unreasonable “fear of perjury” because the investigation is politically charged defense. And then I couldn’t have written it better if I were making a novel–the news breaks of a Bush staff member making the same stupid excuse. And I’m still the one getting piled on for being unreasonable.
It makes me sad about the possibility of reasoned discussion, even here.
No implication, I’m stating it. She got a left-wing martyr book deal and a presidential pardon. She was convicted of defrauding the government, and got to spin that into something positive in many circles. Surely you are aware of at least the pardon?
Yeah, she got a retroactive pardon. That is, she had already served the time for the crime. Since we were already discussing the pardon, I could hardly no be aware of it- surely you’re aware of that?
It’s just that a pardon for a crime when you’ve already served the time is not that great of a benefit. You’re willing to say that a perjury conviction couldn’t mean anything to her bc she was convicted of fraud, but suddenly she thirsts for the pardon (by a close friend) that will ‘clear’ her name?
Why is the one is irrelevant to her but the other worth 2 years in prison? Because you need those two points to make your argument, regardless of how they obviously conflict.
So, you’ve got a theory. It’s based on some contradictions, some mindreading (did she really want a book deal that badly?), etc. It could explain events. But other theories explain events without the bizarre stretches- yet you reject those, because they don’t implicate The Clenis.
Once all the evidence was out on display, it may have become clear that she could perjure herself with impunity.
So, Starr mislead her about what evidence he had (in your theory), and she felt she couldn’t lie with impunity. It is so ridiculously far from that theory to the theory where Starr misled her about what he had- and that this fictional evidence contradicted the truth, rather than supporting it?
They are virtually the same situation- yet you find one “fits the facts” and the other so unreasonable that you can’t even bring yourself to discuss it.
It makes me sad about the possibility of reasoned discussion, even here.
Id sad for you too. Hopefully, you’ll stop feeling that the only possible explanation for events is that which is satisfying to you, and reasoned discussion will yield fruit again.
uh, Jesurgislac: Sir Thomas More lost his life because of his silence.
I know too much about the persecution of Julie Hiatt Steele and others to believe that Susan McDougle had nothing to fear, sorry.
What the Dems are up to is typical partisan politics coupled with a legitimate issue deserving of investigation by Congress. You can’t compare it in any way, shape or form with Ken Starr’s unmoored crusade.
Now back to Goodling. Congress should offer her immunity to defeat the 5th Amendment problem (such as it is, which I really think it isn’t) and then throw her in jail if she doesn’t testify. I really don’t think it is that complicated.
Once she has immunity, she’s free to take as much of the blame as she possibly can given the evidence- shielding other wrongdoers and claiming to have acted alone, misled them into agreeing, etc.
Of course, that would be very useful to the GOP, wouldn’t it?
Maybe more complicated than you thought.
“So, Starr mislead her about what evidence he had (in your theory), and she felt she couldn’t lie with impunity. It is so ridiculously far from that theory to the theory where Starr misled her about what he had- and that this fictional evidence contradicted the truth, rather than supporting it?”
Huh, why in the world would Starr be required to mislead her at all? He didn’t have to tell her what he had on Clinton. He almost certainly wouldn’t tell her what he had on Clinton. It is completely normal practice not to reveal your case against someone to a witness in that case. So she almost certainly had no real idea what Starr knew at the time of her stint in jail. Suddenly, when she does know, she is willing to testify. That certainly does not point more to your case than mine.
“Id sad for you too. Hopefully, you’ll stop feeling that the only possible explanation for events is that which is satisfying to you, and reasoned discussion will yield fruit again.”
Did you read the ‘pirouette’ part of that comment or do you for some reason believe that your comment addresses that? You are attacking a point that isn’t even part of that. I realize it can be difficult to track two whole threads of conversation on one comment section, but you might at least try before becoming snotty.
Steve- thanks, Id forgotten about Steele. She was indicted for failing to tell Starr what he wanted to hear, despite Starr’s lack of evidence that she was lying. She lost her job, the legality of her adoption of her son was threatened, and she lost her life savings defending herself.
So claims that Starr couldn’t possibly have indicted and gone to trial with flimsy evidence of perjury is not just unproven, it’s demonstrably untrue.
“Once she has immunity, she’s free to take as much of the blame as she possibly can given the evidence- shielding other wrongdoers and claiming to have acted alone, misled them into agreeing, etc.”
If she was making high level decisions, that would be a damning indictment of the administration in itself.
Furthermore the firings are almost certainly not ILLEGAL, they really do serve at the pleasure of the president. The hearing is about almost certainly LEGAL actions that have really bad political implications. So ‘taking the blame’ doesn’t really help in that sense.
Starr had nothing on Clinton. Starr’s key witness was David Hale; unfortunately for Starr, Hale’s credibility was nonexistent given his history of bilking the SBA and using his municipal judgeship as a private ATM. And Starr and his team knew Hale’s testimony wouldn’t stand up on its own.
Starr needed corroboration of Hale’s tale from the McDougles.
Starr was trying to fabricate a case from circumstances he knew were very likely false.
OTOH, we have a case where the AG has been less than truthful regarding his participation in the attorney purge. Email from Ms Goodling appears to corroborate this.
Sir Thomas More lost his life because of his silence.
Yes. He was living at a time when the balance of powers in England, between the Church and the King, had shifted, and the monarch had taken to himself the unchecked right to rule at his own pleasure without constraint.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
“So, Starr mislead her about what evidence he had (in your theory), and she felt she couldn’t lie with impunity. It is so ridiculously far from that theory to the theory where Starr misled her about what he had- and that this fictional evidence contradicted the truth, rather than supporting it?”
Huh, why in the world would Starr be required to mislead her at all? He didn’t have to tell her what he had on Clinton.
What evidence Starr had against *her*. We’re talking about whether or not Starr could build a perjury case against *her*.
In order for *her* to be worried about what evidence Starr had against *her*, and then (according to you) Once all the evidence was out on display, it may have become clear that she could perjure herself with impunity *she* became free to perjure *herself* because *she* knew that Starr didn’t have any evidence that could impeach *her* testimony.
On the one hand, you want to talk about how Starr’s evidence was then “on display”. You want to talk about how she might have thought her lies could be exposed in 1998, but by 1999 realized that she was safe to lie.
But when confronted with the mirror-image scenario (where she’s confronted with false or misleading evidence and afraid to tell the truth, but finds out by 1999 that this evidence doesn’t exist), you suddenly get all confused and muddled. Weren’t we talking about Clinton? Huh?
I mean, this was *your theory* (ie that Starr’s evidence was revealed, as quoted above), and now you’re confused about it?
I realize it can be difficult to track two whole threads of conversation on one comment section, but you might at least try before becoming snotty.
Im just pointing out that your behaving childishly. I don’t need to avoid quoting your tantrum just bc it was in reference to something else.
No, it’s not confusing- for someone who can’t keep track of the subject of the conversation (eg above), you spend a lot of time in vain attempts to belittle others intelligence. Spend more time on your argumentation, it could use some work.
Just to be clear, Im not saying that your scenario is *impossible*, just that it clearly isn’t the only scenario. In fact, it’s easy to produce a scenario that is very similar- but where Wiley is telling the truth (ie in both cases she’s concerned that Starr has evidence contrary to her desired testimony; in one case, the evidence is false or misleading).
That’s not the only other alternative scenario, but I actually find it more persuasive than yours bc:
-you hold that Wiley doesn’t care about the perjury conviction, but does care a great deal about clearing her name of the fraud conviction.
-you hold that Wiley doesn’t really care about serving several years in prison, including quite a bit of time in solitary
-you hold that Wiley values publicity above serving time in prison
-you hold that Wiley was uncertain whether Starr could impeach her testimony in 1998 but knew in 1999. But evidence impeaching McDougal (eg a witness who would say she told them about Clinton pressuring Hale) might not have been admissible against Clinton (hearsay), but might still have been admissible against McDougal if she had given a statement under oath. So this (hypothetical) witness wouldn’t necessarily have come to light in Clinton’s impeachment.
-Steele’s case makes it clear that Starr was willing to pursue an unwinnable perjury case to penalize an uncooperative witness.
-McDougal can only prefer the perjury risk to the contempt risk (given equal jail time) if she knows in advance that she’ll serve the full time. This is clearly not the case, so arguments that choosing silence was illogical are faulty.
Point is, you’re sticking to one story, despite its flaws, and denying the possibility of the other stories. And I don’t see any factual basis for the preference. You don’t even seem *interested* in making a factual basis for the preference.
If she was making high level decisions, that would be a damning indictment of the administration in itself.
She can claim to have misled her superiors, etc. I said that already. That wouldn’t make her the decider.
Furthermore the firings are almost certainly not ILLEGAL, they really do serve at the pleasure of the president. The hearing is about almost certainly LEGAL actions that have really bad political implications. So ‘taking the blame’ doesn’t really help in that sense.
Lying to congress is illegal. Obstruction of justice is illegal (not saying we’re there yet, but there’s much yet to be uncovered). So there’s obviously the possibility of illegal activity.
Besides which, who said that her blame-taking would be entirely of the legal variety? She could soak up any lying and obstruction counts while simultaneously taking a lot of the political blame, once she’s got immunity. Im sure there’d be a nice private-sector job for her when she was done.
Now, Im not saying that the existing evidence will allow her to do any of that. Im just saying that granting her immunity at this point is foolishness- we need to understand the matter well before even thinking about doing something like that. And we’d want to choose our grants of immunity carefully, not dole them out to the first person who reaches the stand.
Even if “Clinton did it” were true, which it aint, it wouldn’t excuse the Republican’s current obstrution of justice, which contra Slarti is still a crime.
Sebastian:
I am still trying to follow your logic re McDougal, and still can’t find it.
If self-interest was her sole motive, then she could have gone the way of her ex-husband, and tell Starr whatever he wanted to hear. And she could still get her book deal (from Regerny) and be a hero — just to the other side of the aisle.
Her testimony and comments was always the same — Clinton did nothing wrong. She feared being charged with perjury if she testified that way to the grand jury — Starr did it to Steele, so it was a real fear. She would have been better of telling her story anyway, and she ended up spending a lot of time in prison because she would not talk. But she got no benefit from Clinton, and could have reaped benefits by turning on him. The pardon was after-the-fact — and the pardon was hardly necessary to set her up for a book deal. To the extent she is a “left-wing hero” (she isn’t — just another Starr victim), she earned that credential by standing up to Starr. Clinton’s pardon did not do it.
There is no parallel.
Goodling is not faced with a biased prosecutor like Starr, and has no legitimate reason to fear giving truthful testimony. She just does not want to get involved, which is understandable but not a legal option unless there is actual grounds that she might incriminate herself, which seems unlikely.
I raised McDougal as a parallel to Libby. Many of you didn’t think it was a good parallel for various reasons–and one of the biggest was the unreasonable “fear of perjury” because the investigation is politically charged defense. And then I couldn’t have written it better if I were making a novel–the news breaks of a Bush staff member making the same stupid excuse.
McDougal didn’t plead the 5th. She went to jail for contempt. Surely you are aware of this?
If Goodling wants to fall on her sword and go to jail rather than speak, I can’t say that I’d endorse it- but at least the situations would be somewhat parallel.
(Except insofar as Starr has a record of prosecuting people for perjury on ridiculous evidence; the US Congress has no such record that I am aware of. It will add to the parallelism later if Goodling testifies that she did nothing wrong and there’s no evidence that she’s lying.)
Here’s a question for the lawyers though- can a Presidential pardon excuse someone for ongoing contempt of Congress? Since the Congress has the “inherent power to punish for contempt” (In re Chapman, 166 U.S. 661, 671 -672 (1897)), not clear who wins.
“Point is, you’re sticking to one story, despite its flaws, and denying the possibility of the other stories. And I don’t see any factual basis for the preference. You don’t even seem *interested* in making a factual basis for the preference.”
Except I’m not. I have a preference for my story (mainly because it is deeply stupid to spend as much time in jail for contempt as you would for perjury) but I’m not saying that it is certain to be true. I’m saying that the pardon cases are parallel in one way (If Libby gets pardoned) in that the President pardoned a low level player in a legal/political attack against the President. The defense of McDougal in these comments ended up boiling down directly into the same defense that Goodling is now using. This is a great test case the McDougal argument. IF you believe the McDougal excuse is ok, attacking Goodling for the same excuse is at least problematized. I’m sure you can pull it off with enough contortions, but it should be at least problematized. It apparently isn’t, which I wish I could say were unsurprising.
I see you are having trouble here, but I honestly don’t see why.
A)McDougal refuses to testify. Allegedly because she is afraid her testimony will be contradicted forcefully enough to SUCCESSFULLY hit her with a perjury charge. Since the testimony will be about Clinton, this hypothetical evidence that McDougal is worried about must be something about Clinton. She clearly doesn’t have access to all of Starr’s evidence about Clinton–nor should she have access to such evidence. Her testimony is supposed to be merely truthful. She isn’t entitled to know how it fits together with other evidence before she testifies. This is extremely typical, because you don’t want the testimony colored by other things and if they make things up, you don’t want them to know you might catch their lies.
B) The impeachment happens, and Starr’s evidence is out for the public to see.
C) NOW, McDougal testifies.
YOU claim this shows (or strongly suggests) that she is now testifying truthfully. I say that at a very minimum it is equally plausible that once she has seen the evidence available, she knows she won’t be caught in a lie.
In any event, it is an illegitimate attack on the truth-finding ability of the legal process to defend witnesses from their responsibility to tell the truth by appealing to the hairy political situation and worrying about perjury. It is wrong when McDougal does it and it is wrong now. For purposes of depressing arguments, it is amazing to see how easily (and without any apparent appreciation for the logical difficulty of the situation) we dance from the one situation to the other.
didn’t mean to pile on Seb, but we’ve seen far too often the issue at hand during Bush’s reign get brushed aside as business as usual because of some supposed parallel with what Clinton did.
The more I think about the US attorne scandal (i.e., the timing of how nearly 10% of the lot of them were dismissed just after the Patriot Act insertion took effect and thereby Senate confirmation would not be needed [I mean, Bush had been in his second term for over a year already, so the excuse they’re peddalling about timing it with that falls flat]), the more it irks me that they thought they could get away with it (see earlier comments re: arrogance).
Not even the humiliating thumpin’ in November seems to have halted their overreaching…it’s like a compulsion with this crew. Someone, something, somewhere MUST restore balance, and I personally don’t want to see comparisons with Clinton used to water down the aggreious abuse of power here.
Think about what they almost got away with. Think about the power to launch investigations on any sitting Dem in the upcoming 2008 elections.
Think about what they almost got away with.
almost?
those attorneys are still fired, right ?
Edward,
I guess I take tu quoque as a serious thing, bc it’s the only good way I can see to figure out where the lines ought to be in a world where politics has dirty margins. We can’t easily lay down hard and fast rules in that environment, so we’re forced into deciding if something is truly out of bounds by asking if both sides can agree. But some partisans are unwilling to agree, so we examine their past behavior- is this truly heinous, or did you defend it last week when *your* senator did it?
OTOH, you’re correct, it often turns into a red herring. What can you do? Ill assume that others are arguing in good faith even when I suspect that they might not be.
mainly because it is deeply stupid to spend as much time in jail for contempt as you would for perjury
1)Starr could charge her with obstruction as well as perjury, in which case more jail time would be attached. Starr never charged her with perjury or obstruction, but he did charge Steele with obstruction in a similar situation (Steele’s maximum sentence if convicted would’ve been 35 years. I fear I must point out for you that 35 > 2).
2)as I pointed out above, only if she knows the future- that she will serve the entire contempt sentence.
Since neither of those are true, it may not be “deeply stupid”. Knowing exactly how things would play out, she presumably would’ve testified immediately that Clinton knew nothing, since Starr had nothing to disprove her testimony.
So, if “deeply stupid” = “not precognitive”, I guess I agree.
McDougal refuses to testify. Allegedly because she is afraid her testimony will be contradicted forcefully enough to SUCCESSFULLY hit her with a perjury charge.
As I pointed out above, Steele paid a very high price for an unsuccessful attempt to convict her of perjury. She lost her life savings. She was tied up in court proceedings for a long time. Starr allegedly threatened to look into the legality of her adoption of her son. She lost her job.
The impeachment happens, and Starr’s evidence is out for the public to see.
As I pointed out above (why must I keep pointing things out repeatedly?), the impeachment would not necessarily have revealed a witness who says they heard McDougal say she heard Clinton talking about the Hale loan. Or an email from McDougal to a friend admitting that she knew Clinton was lying. That would be hearsay in a charge against Clinton. The impeachment proceedings could have failed to reveal many things that might be used to impeach McDougal’s testimony.
That is to say
Since the testimony will be about Clinton, this hypothetical evidence that McDougal is worried about must be something about Clinton
is mistaken, and I’ve pointed that out already. It’s, excuse me, obviously mistaken. Mistaken in a way that is so sloppy in its thinking it’s almost wishful.
In fact, since the impeachment wasn’t about Whitewater, even things directly bearing on Clinton’s role in eg the Hale loan would not necessarily have come to light.
Now, it’s *possible* that events of the impeachment revealed to McDougal that she could lie safely, but it is far from clear that that was the case, for those two reasons. I would even say “unlikely”, given the second point.
In any event, it is an illegitimate attack on the truth-finding ability of the legal process to defend witnesses from their responsibility to tell the truth by appealing to the hairy political situation and worrying about perjury. It is wrong when McDougal does it and it is wrong now.
But you have no tears to shed for prosecutorial misconduct. You have nothing to say about Steele’s case, where she was prosecuted for he-said, she-said perjury where *both* major players had lied- a case where a decision beyond a reasonable doubt was a ludicrous hope. A case so weak that it was a mistrial even though Steele’s attorney’s didn’t present a lick of evidence.
You want to trot out crap like Broaddrick’s 20-year-old rape allegation- which she lied about in an affadavit, and which she decided she just had to get off of her chest at a most poliitcally convenient time for the GOP. This story arouses no suspicions at all from you. (nb maybe Broaddrick is telling the truth, I have no way of knowing. But I don’t see any evidence supporting her claim, and much that makes it suspicious).
And yet you want to beat your breast over political bias. If you wish for the sake of political convenience to make witness integrity the only issue of the day and ignore prosecurtorial misconduct, fine. But don’t call it political bias when the rest of us choose not to join you.
Besides which, are you so ready to ignore hilzoy’s lesson from the post itself that situations are flexible? Do you condemn, for example, someone who refused to name associates for McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee? Because that’s what this sounds like to me- you’re making a hard and fast moral rule on the fly, but one that IMO is obviously flawed. And you’re doing it because it’s politically convenient.
“didn’t mean to pile on Seb, but we’ve seen far too often the issue at hand during Bush’s reign get brushed aside as business as usual because of some supposed parallel with what Clinton did.”
But that isn’t my argument. My argument is that Goodling’s excuse is pathetic, just like McDougal. And that unlike McDougal, no one should be excusing it.
For me this is an illustration of how illegitimate justifications that seem nice because you like your side can come back and bite you later. In a similar vein, if penumbras and emmanations can create a new Constitutional right, or cause it to outlaw the death penalty when it is clearly provided for, you have to expect that your exciting tool will be used to twist the Constitution in ways you don’t like too.
If we sow the seeds to destroy the fabric of the legal order so we can get a temporary advantage, we shouldn’t be shocked when the other side does it. That is why I find the current Republican party so frustrating. The things I opposed in the Democratic Party, which the Republican Party vocally opposed, end up being ignored when the Republican Party wins. And then when the Repbulican Party wins for a few years in a row, they use the tools I hated cause different perversions of the law than Democrats would do, but perversions nonetheless.
And that leaves me pretty much nowhere. I can become that oppositionalist, but I find that deeply unfulfilling.
“That would be hearsay in a charge against Clinton.”
Hearsay was allowable in the Clinton trial because the Senators all think they are smart enough to deal with hearsay adequately.
The Steele case isn’t nearly as clear cut as you seem to think. She directly contradicted herself on the most important point of the investigation. Her initial statements supporting Willey and her affidavit contradicting that showed (not suggested, showed) that she blatantly lied in one of those two statements. (And remember she was not prosecuted for perjury, she was prosecuted for false statements and obstructing an investigation–a la Martha Stewart.) Now I happen to think that the Martha Stewart prosecution was crap, and the same for Steele for exactly the same reason. But once again, I’m not the one trying to defend both sides of something depending on whether it is my side getting in trouble or not.
The Steele case isn’t nearly as clear cut as you seem to think. She directly contradicted herself on the most important point of the investigation. Her initial statements supporting Willey and her affidavit contradicting that showed (not suggested, showed) that she blatantly lied in one of those two statements.
Hate to repeat myself yet again (this is getting old), but quoth the Wu:
she [Steele] was prosecuted for he-said, she-said perjury where *both* major players had lied
Here’s some help if you had trouble following that: one of the “major players” is Steele. I apologize for not spelling that out.
She lied to Isakoff. Then she retreated her statement to Isakoff prior to publication, saying that Wiley asked her to lie as a friend. Wiley, it must be pointed out, also had serious memory issues, claiming she couldn’t remember certain things under oath, yet suddenly recalling them in great detail later.
Based on that, Starr goes to trial. Beyond a reasonable doubt…
So, that’s not the same kind of crap that Stewart got into. That’s prosecuting someone with virtually no chance of getting a conviction, as payback for not giving the story Starr wanted to hear.
But once again, I’m not the one trying to defend both sides of something depending on whether it is my side getting in trouble or not.
Yes you are. Just in a different way- suddenly you’ve decided that witnesses’ honesty is the only important factor worth discussing. Prosecutorial misconduct is *not interesting* to you, because it points in the wrong direction.
You’re not stupid enough to just defend one position on the merits and not the other. But you’re not honest enough or apolitical enough to recognize how you’ve manipulated the standards of the discussion to reach the desired outcome.
Hearsay was allowable in the Clinton trial because the Senators all think they are smart enough to deal with hearsay adequately.
I stand corrected- thanks. That doesn’t change
1)just because something is admissible doesn’t mean it gets used and
2)the impeachment wasn’t about Whitewater, so evidence pertaining to Whitewater and David Hale would have little reason to be exposed by the impeachment.
That is to say, you’ve managed once again to respond without taking on the substance of the argument- you are mistaken to claim that McDougal would’ve had access to all of Starr’s Whitewater evidence after the impeachment.
Carleton Wu, you wrote:
Perhaps you didn’t read:
I’m not sure where you go the idea that I thought the prosecution was other than crap, but there it is. But it isn’t crap for the reasons you say. She made two blatantly conflicting statements. At least one of those statements was blatantly false. It isn’t a he said/she said situation. It is a Steele said/Steele said situation.
Furthermore, I find it very difficult to believe that the Steele situation had any effect on McDougal’s judgment–as she entered jail for contempt on Sept. 4th 1996 and the Steele lies (whichever ones they were didn’t occur until 1998).
bet you didn’t know that Ken Starr employs two US Supreme Court Justices in the summer.
Here it is:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1174912592026
“Hearsay was allowable in the Clinton trial because the Senators all think they are smart enough to deal with hearsay adequately.”
LOL! As I recall, no evidence whatsoever was allowed in the Clinton trial, because the Senators were offended by the idea of having to listen to lowly House members, and insisted on going straight to a vote without letting the House present it’s case first.
The things I opposed in the Democratic Party, which the Republican Party vocally opposed, end up being ignored when the Republican Party wins.
And vice versa. The party in power will use the power they have. Period, which is why we can’t let one branch of government get too strong.
Here’s the crux of the bigger issue for me. The further we let Bush push and erode the checks and balances, the more likely his successor is to abuse the newly gained powers.
I’ve seen for some time now the real threat is not Bush…he’s too incompetent to become King (seriously, he’s toast)…but a smarter, less scrupulous (it’s possible) president with the powers Bush has carved out for himself could do serious harm to the country. I know it’s gonna strike some folks are paranoid, but I would never want Rudy to have those kinds of powers. Never. I wouldn’t want Hillary to have them either. I sure the f*ck don’t want a Cheney or DeLay to have them.
I’m not sure where you go the idea that I thought the prosecution was other than crap, but there it is. But it isn’t crap for the reasons you say. She made two blatantly conflicting statements. At least one of those statements was blatantly false. It isn’t a he said/she said situation. It is a Steele said/Steele said situation.
The first time she wasn’t under oath, she was talking to a reporter. Under oath she told one consistent story.
Either you know that, and you’re obfuscating, or you don’t, and you’re just babbling. People lie *all the time* for various reasons, and it’s legal. Steele had a reason for (she claims) lying to Isakoff the first time. And she retracted her claim to Isakoff long before Starr had anything to do with it.
Since I said from the beginning that *both* of the major players had lied previously to their testimony, I don’t know why you think that emphasizing Steele’s initial (claimed) dishonesty over and over (“blatantly”, no less) makes some sort of point.
The point is, there was no case. Nothing remotely resembling a case. Starr went ahead with it anyway, and the only motive that I can see for his behavior is vendetta.
And, you ‘care’ about prosecutorial misconduct, Im sure. It’s just that your concern about it vanished into thin air when convenient, and you started going on about the sanctity of the judicial process.
Furthermore, I find it very difficult to believe that the Steele situation had any effect on McDougal’s judgment–as she entered jail for contempt on Sept. 4th 1996 and the Steele lies (whichever ones they were didn’t occur until 1998).
No one said that. The Steele case demonstrates that Starr was willing to go far beyond ethical standards in order to prosecute those who didn’t say what he wanted on the stand.
With that example of his conduct, it’s easy to think that he might have conducted himself in a similar ‘crappy’ manner in the past. This makes McDougal’s account much more credible.
Or, perhaps you thought that I meant that McDougal foresaw Steele’s case and therefore worried about an obstruction charge. But Im not the one who thinks McDougal can see the future- she had no idea what she might be charged with, so we can’t assume that she would know that the two prison terms would be equal. In fact, we have no reason to think that Starr wouldn’t have charged her with obstruction- so maybe she can see the future, and chose to go with the shorter sentence.
(and fyi, if Steele is telling the truth now she only lied once, to Isakoff, in 1987. Interesting slip that you say her lies took place during her trial. It’s almost like you’ve prejudged from some partisan prejudice, but we all know you’re above that).
Im baffled that someone who would throw out backhanded references to Clinton as a rapist could also view themselves as some sort of nonpartisan saint. Some evenhanded arbiter of right and wrong, unable to stand the common hypocrisy and partisanship of the masses.
I mean, as evidenced here you can’t even condemn GOP wrongdoing without contorting yourself into the position of simultaneously condemning Democrats- no, mostly condemning Democrats.
Your first post in this thread referenced
1)Senator Kennedy
2)Susan McDougal
3)Marc Rich
It’s 90% about the Clenis and 10% about how you’re not completely happy with Bush because he’s behaving like the Clenis.
Given that opening statement, it’s hard to pretend that you’re doing anything but damage control. In your own head, maybe, but damage control- of the “they do it too” variety.
Your crying about all this vicious partisanship while simultaneously pimping an unsubstantiated rape allegation for partisan purposes is a bit hard to take.
In any case, Im done. I explain to you twice that Steele lied to Isakoff, and then you present it as if it were something new that you’d just uncovered. Something that I hadn’t already talked about. Something that completely overturns my understanding of the situation (ie But it isn’t crap for the reasons you say).
I don’t see any point in continuing the conversation if Im going to dig up facts, present them to you twice, and then have you pretend you’ve found them and that the somehow undercut what Im saying- even when they don’t come close.
Sebastian:
If your point is about the nonsense of a witness refusing to testify because of fear of mistreatment, then there is a parallel between McDougal and Goodling. The difference is that it turns out McDougal had some basis in fact for fearing a vindictive perjury prosecution from Starr if she did not give the story she he wanted to hear. I do not think many lefties praise McDougal — she was lucky to have escaped a finding of guilt for fleecing the Mehtas.
It’s worth noting that any such strong-arming would have been by one of the awful underlings under Starr (who have gone on to further misdeeds in the DoJ) — Starr himself knew nothing about such subtle points of criminal prosecutions, as he had zero experience as a prosecutor. He would have rubber-stamped the tactic, though.
“I mean, as evidenced here you can’t even condemn GOP wrongdoing without contorting yourself into the position of simultaneously condemning Democrats- no, mostly condemning Democrats.
Your first post in this thread referenced
1)Senator Kennedy
2)Susan McDougal
3)Marc Rich”
The premise of this post is that Republicans engage in “no limits” politics. Josh Marshall specifically suggested that this was a new Republican phenomenon.
My argument is that it is not a new phenomenon, its seeds were planted in past actions (many of them used by Democrats to consolidate their own temporary power) and at best perfected (or at least made as perfect as they have been made thus far) by the Bush Administration.
I agree with Edward when he writes:
The seeds of the rationale for the Goodling idiocy can be easily found in the defense of McDougal’s attempt to evade the workings of the justice system. That defense appears to have been well embraced here–with embarassing results as the Goodling justification appeared.
Senator Kennedy’s evasion of manslaughter or murder charges show that Josh’s formulation of “And we assume that criminal prosecutions will be undertaken or not undertaken on the facts,” is a strange assumption to have made.
The prospective pardon of Libby is well grounded in the political dialectic that defends the pardons of McDougal, Rich and the drug-dealing non-President Clinton. Those abuses of power can be indirectly traced to some of the Iran-Contra pardons. And so on.
The crappy intellectual defense of stupid Consitutional theories brought forth by Gonzales in the torture cases and the detainee cases find their roots in the extra-Constitutional gamesmanship charted by working well beyond the text into penumbras and emannations. Frankly, the awful Gonzales rationales are more closely grounded to the actual Constitution than Roe–but you shouldn’t mistake that for a compliment to Gonzales at all.
I’m very certain that even conservatives who still defend the President today will be dismayed by how the tools he is attempting to craft get used in the future.
My point is very conservative–abusing the process for temporary advantage often lays the groundwork for the other side to stretch when it can get temporary advantage. This goes on and on and isn’t good for the overall health of the country.
The reason I draw comparisons to commonly defended practices (like McDougal or Roe) is NOT to defend the administration. It is specifically not tu quoque. I’m hoping ( in vain I am almost sure) to draw attention to the danger or illegitimacy of using and defending such techniques EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE IT HELPS YOUR SIDE IN THE MEDIUM RUN.
Frankly, the awful Gonzales rationales are more closely grounded to the actual Constitution than Roe
What Griswold-like case precedents and language in the 9th and 10th Amendments exist to support Gonzales’s torture rationales?
“and fyi, if Steele is telling the truth now she only lied once, to Isakoff, in 1987”
This seems unlikely as Clinton wasn’t even elected until 1992 and the alleged groping incident was in 1993. I’ll presume you mean 1997, though I don’t understand how you think it helps. Did Steele believe that Isikoff wouldn’t report it? Very odd.
“I explain to you twice that Steele lied to Isakoff, and then you present it as if it were something new that you’d just uncovered.”
A) I did no such thing, and B) I have no idea what you think you are accomplishing with this sentence or the paragraph it is found in. You dig up facts and ‘facts’ but the way you apply them to get conclusions is what I’m disputing. The idea that McDougal’s behaviour argues that she meant to tell the truth all along is at the very best highly questionable. The idea that the pardon should count for nothing in the analysis of what happened is highly questionable. The idea that the highly suspect defense of “I’m afraid of perjury charges when I tell the truth, THEREFORE I will say nothing even when ordered by the court” can be embraced in any case without leaving the door wide open for other stupid applications of it seems highly suspect to me.
You repeatedly seem to cast me as a defender of the administration when that is the exact opposite of what I’m doing. I’m attacking the misuse of law to get your own social ends. I get very little traction when I merely point out the misuse–I typically get a “sure Roe may be formally suspect but I agree with the end result so I’ll defend it anyway”. I get much more traction from suggesting how the pseduo-justifications employed for Roe pave the way for abuse of judicial process as later manifest in the habeas corpus cases.
That isn’t a defense of the habeas corpus cases AT ALL. It only sounds like it because lots of people are deeply and emotionally invested in Roe. The same is true of the McDougal case. I’m not protecting Goodling at all. I’m saying that the McDougal rationale was incredibly stupid and defense of it is destructive to the rule of law. The Goodling rationale is deeply similar, a step further IN THE SAME DIRECTION, and is destructive to the rule of law.
I use the McDougal case to illustrate the bankruptcy of the argument to Bush supporters and the Goodling case to illustrate the same to Clinton supporters.
There are far more of you in the latter group here. Hence, knowing my audience, you see which one I have to mention more.
I don’t have to convince you of how stupid the Goodling rationale is. It should be self-evident to non-Bush supporters.
The premise of this post is that Republicans engage in “no limits” politics. Josh Marshall specifically suggested that this was a new Republican phenomenon.
My argument is that it is not a new phenomenon…
Josh addressed stuff like the Kennedy Thing when he discussed ‘the margins’. So, all of this is to say that no system is perfect and partisan affiliation may distort the justice system at the margins.
But none of what we’re seeing here is at the margins. What we seem to see are repeated cases in which US Attorneys were fired for not pursuing bogus prosecutions of persons of the opposite party.
Part of your thesis seems to be that liberals accepted the Kennedy Thing. That we think that that was Ok, and that therefore (according to you) we’re accomplices in this degradation of the system.
Since you apparently need to hear it, I would gladly see Ted Kennedy removed from the Senate for his role in The Thing. He’s done good things, but The Thing was wrong, ugly, and unrectifiable.
So your theory is untrue in both its prongs: liberals do not generally endorse The Kennedy Thing, and the occurrence of the Thing is clearly a one-off, marginal event- not an attempt to hijack the machinery of the Justice Department for partisan political purposes.
Likewise, something like the pardon of Roger Clinton. It may be wrong, but it is clearly not using the system to pervert politics and destroy our institutions. The former is an irritant to our sense of fairness. The latter is a very dangerous phenomenon to our democracy.
It is specifically not tu quoque.
Thus the necessity to mention en passant an unsubstantiated rape allegation. With “alleged” in parenthesis, emphasizing your apparent belief that the accusation is true.
Thus the coincidence that *every single example* you chose to provide was of Clinton. (You did say “Nixon” once, if that gets you any credit).
You were so outraged at this Republican offense that you could think of nothing but… The Clenis.
Sorry, not buying. Maybe you sleep better for your explanation, but it holds no water.
You repeatedly seem to cast me as a defender of the administration when that is the exact opposite of what I’m doing.
If the exact opposite is not saying much to condemn them while using past examples to try to show that their behavior is actually typical, then yes, that’s the exact opposite. I see it more like “token opposition followed by tu quoque followed by obtuseness and smokescreening”.
There are far more of you in the latter group here. Hence, knowing my audience, you see which one I have to mention more.
oh geez, Im so sorry about making you turn on your all-Clenis-all-the-time powers. If only I could restrain myself. I will certainly try harder next time; perhaps then your ostensibly ‘a pox on both your houses’ comments will actually use Republican examples. Or, should I be so lucky, you’ll respond to a Democratic misdeed with a bunch of qualifications, tu quoques, and little dribbles of leftwing wingnuttia.
“Josh addressed stuff like the Kennedy Thing when he discussed ‘the margins’.”
Kennedy can’t be dismissed to the margins. The Kennedy’s were every bit as important a political family as anyone and their evasion of the justice system was not limited to that one incident.
And this is entirely in line with how you are engaging my argument. Dismissive, even when forced to be clearly wrong in doing so.
“Since you apparently need to hear it, I would gladly see Ted Kennedy removed from the Senate for his role in The Thing. He’s done good things, but The Thing was wrong, ugly, and unrectifiable.”
The funny thing is that you have illustrated repeatedly that you don’t accept similar statements from me about Republicans.
2-3 years from now Democrats will be saying, “But Bush did it too! Bush did it worse!” and I’ll be saying, “Bush who? Is he still president? We’re talking about your guy, why do you keep bringing Bush into it? Ah-Ha! Changing the subject…”
Of course that assumes Internet access in the re-education camp, which seems unlikely.
Two or three years from now seems about the right amount of time for Bush to be on trial in the Hague….
In any event, it is an illegitimate attack on the truth-finding ability of the legal process to defend witnesses from their responsibility to tell the truth by appealing to the hairy political situation and worrying about perjury. It is wrong when McDougal does it and it is wrong now.
Sebastian, nobody defended McDougal. She served her time.
But 9/11 changed everything. Now it’s time to ship Goodling to Gitmo and force her to testify. 😉
Seriously now, nobody defended McDougal and she did serve her time. So let’s nobody defend Goodling and make sure she serves time too.
You really aren’t arguing that close to Gonzales is innocent, are you? We’re agreed that these guys are at least as bad as Clinton, right? Worse than Clinton? Do we agree that they’re even worse than Clinton?
Oops, that was “You really aren’t arguing that anybody close to Gonzales is innocent, are you?”.
No Sebastian bashing. It’s perfectly possible to explain one’s disagreement with him without impugning his motives.
I’d consider adding something, but I didn’t pay much attention to McDougall at the time, and have a pretty deep disinclination to revisit the whole episode. However, for what it’s worth:
Chappaquiddick: bad, bad, bad.
Roger Clinton: Ew.
Pardon of Marc whatshisname: I had always thought ‘bad’, but on reading some of the comments here, I think that before expressing a view I’d have to go research the case. So I’ll just say: I’m perfectly prepared to think that it was bad.
Monica Lewinsky: I didn’t think it merited impeachment, myself, but I may never forgive Clinton for handing that weapon to his enemies.
Ken Starr: bad.
Newt Gingrich: How our country ever got to the point where we didn’t collectively get the giggles and then usher him permanently from the room when he blamed liberalism for the fact that a mother killed her two children, I’ll never know.
The whole impeachment process: serves to distinguish seriousness from faux-seriousness, since it had almost limitless quantities of the latter while being about as profoundly un-serious about the Constitution as it’s possible to be.
Clinton’s Christmas card list: a profound threat to the nation. — Oh, wait.
I could go on, but must I?
Brett: LOL! As I recall, no evidence whatsoever was allowed in the Clinton trial, because the Senators were offended by the idea of having to listen to lowly House members, and insisted on going straight to a vote without letting the House present it’s case first.
And once again, your recollection is simply wrong. Not a little bit wrong: completely wrong. Ganz falsch. See, for example, the University of Michigan archive on the impeachment, or the collected transcripts of the impeachment at the Washington Post, where you’ll see an entire day of the trial devoted to the House managers’ presentation of the initial evidence as well as another entire day of the trial devoted to presenting additional video materials relating to the trial, the whole trial taking more than a month. Not exactly “going straight to a vote”, that.
In fact, your “LOL” notwithstanding, your recollection falls into Pauli’s derisive category: nicht einmal falsch. Not even false. Please — especially if you feel compelled to snarkily undercut someone — try to spend a modicum of effort at being accurate in the future.
And on an unrelated note: Carleton, I like your general points but would you mind walking back the antagonism against Sebastian? Right-wing or not, he (and OCSteve, should it come to that) doesn’t deserve that kind of attitude. Just correct him and be done with it.
ETA: Dammit, hilzoy beat me to it. Oh well, it still applies.
Kennedy can’t be dismissed to the margins. The Kennedy’s were every bit as important a political family as anyone and their evasion of the justice system was not limited to that one incident.
I see that Josh’s entire point flew harmlessly past your head.
There has always been political corruption. There has always been favoritism, etc. But it is rare in America that justice is perverted wholesale. Not just to protect a favorite son, but perverted to the ends of an entire political party.
If you confuse Kennedy and Roger Clinton with Carol Lamm, you are intentionally failing to grasp the gravity of the situation. If Kennedy walked, that was one evildoer unpunished. If USAs only prosecute the ‘other’ party (and then even when they’re innocent), we’ve got a serious problem. The credibility of the entire system will be in jeopardy, and we’ll be on the road to a system like Nigeria (where a bunch of opposition candidates were recently removed from the election lists bc of presumably bogus indictments).
If, for example, the Menendez indictment was a bogus smear (not a known yet, but suspicious), then that’s a bad sign. A sign that ‘corruption’ is being re-defined to mean ‘out of power’. Real corruption will hide behind power and its lack of desire to prosecute it.
This is all much worse than one drug user getting his record cleaned.
And this is entirely in line with how you are engaging my argument. Dismissive, even when forced to be clearly wrong in doing so.
I am dismissive of you because your reaction to Republican wrongdoing has been, at best ‘a pox on both’ and at worst drive-by claims of sexual assault. Your examples are not on point (we’re talking, again, about wholesale use of the Justice Department for partisan gain, not one individual getting away with a crime on a state level). But they were a best-hits collection of wingnuttia.
I don’t doubt that you wish that the USA scandal had not occurred. But you couldn’t just condemn it, or consider the implications, etc. For whatever reason you had to drag the Clenis into it and make it clear that Dems weren’t any better than Repubs (worse, more likely). You’ve spent something like 3 paragraphs with your concern about the USA incident, very mild paragraphs with no rape allegations or anything.
The funny thing is that you have illustrated repeatedly that you don’t accept similar statements from me about Republicans.
The day I show up in a thread about Democratic corruption (eg one of the recent Jefferson threads, or let’s say a hypothetical thread about The Kennedy Thing) saying “Of course, this is no good- but really, if Reagan the Rapist hadn’t done it first and worst, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Don’t blame us Dems for Reagan, we tried to warn you!”- that day, you can dismiss my claim to be truly upset.
And, like I said- I never claimed you weren’t unhappy with the scandal, just that your reaction has been to obscure and smokescreen it.
No Sebastian bashing. It’s perfectly possible to explain one’s disagreement with him without impugning his motives.
I admit, this is someone about OW that’s always bugged me. It’s ok for a poster to offhandedly suggest that someone is a rapist if that person isn’t posting. If they’re posting, we must give the benefit of the doubt even when the doubt appears to have already benefitted twice over…
Not proposing a solution or anything- we need to be able to talk about things in the world & that often means being blunt about those acting in the world. I don’t think Seb saying that is something that shouldn’t occur on the board, but then I want to be able to point out what I think about his action & what that does to the conversation- but now I must watch the line?
It’s a little weird.
Anarch,
I don’t really think of it as antagonism towards Seb personally. Just towards his explanations or arguments. Maybe that explains why I can sound like this and still think of the board as a happy and friendly place.
It would be very English Club of us to agree to disagree or to never question motivations, but Im not real gentlemanly about such things. And I don’t really expect to get that benefit either- Seb has repeatedly questioned by motivation, claiming that Im merely covering for ‘my side’- and that’s fine, IMO. He can take that line if he thinks it’s correct.
As for the mudslinging- well, there may be a fine line between suggesting that the other party is an idiot for forgetting the basics of the discussion and actually calling them an idiot outright, but Id just as soon insults directed at me found the courage to stand upright anyway.
Irony thy name is Wu?
Hilzoy:Clinton’s Christmas card list: a profound threat to the nation.
I had forgotten about that. 140 hours of hearings! (Yes, I had to look that up.)
Reading through all this I am amazed out how much I don’t recall. Sucks getting old(er) – or maybe it is some kind of psychological block to preserve my mental health.
Oops, that was “You really aren’t arguing that anybody close to Gonzales is innocent, are you?”.
OCSteve: there was a reason why some of us who don’t like perjury even a little bit, and thought (as noted above) that Clinton was an idiot to have handed the GOP such a huge weapon as Monica (and for her? please), nonetheless thought that the Congressional Republicans at that time were either on an obsessive witchhunt, or willing to tolerate people who were on an obsessive witchhunt as their leaders.
I mean: honestly, I didn’t care who Clinton sleeps with, myself. I think that’s between him, Hillary, and Chelsea. As far as I’m concerned, he could have had a thing for insects or unicellular organisms and I wouldn’t care. I really didn’t like the lying under oath. But I also really didn’t like the hearing after hearing after hearing on one trumped-up, stupid thing after another — Christmas cards, filegate, travelgate, blah blah blah. Part of what absolutely blew my mind about the Monica thing was the thought that when those utterly amoral people were after him, he actually gave them something true to talk about.
I completely sympathize with people who loathe the whole Christmas-card-list0investigating mentality so much that they find themselves defending the perjury. I really disagree with them, and I think: this is just one of those cases where totally disliking someone does not imply that the people they go after aren’t sometimes in the wrong. But I understand exactly where they’re coming from.
One of the minor ironies of the last few years has been listening to the very same people who were so absolutely horrified by the idea that someone would deny an affair under oath suddenly go all blase when it comes to, say, Scooter Libby, or the administration’s claims about smoking guns and mushroom clouds, and so on. And the very same people who acted as though the Christmas card list really was a sign of total moral bankruptcy come up with reasons why outing CIA agents out of political spite is actually not a problem.
In another context, it would be incredibly funny.
you people still going on about Clinton?
i’ve got some bad news for you, Sunshines: you can argue about the past till the stars fall from the sky for you and i, but not even Cher could turn back time. the dirty deeds are done, and there aren’t any new tales to tell about them. yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone. don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. but really, try to stop living in the past.
That begins to look a lot more like an anti-rule-of-law ‘different rules for candidates I like than for those I detest’ standard.
McDougal went to jail. Clinton was impeached.
I would be perfectly happy to see the same happen to Goodling and Bush. So you can put me down in the “same rules for candidates I like” etc. column.
I’m not sure what you’re getting out of reliving the high points of the Clinton scandals, Sebastian, but it’s boring the hell out of me. I think we’ve all been there and done that 1,000 times by now.
What’s your point?
Thanks –
And the very same people who acted as though the Christmas card list really was a sign of total moral bankruptcy come up with reasons why outing CIA agents out of political spite is actually not a problem.
Hey, remember when the Republicans took control of Congress because Democrats were kiting personal checks on their personal House bank accounts? Thousands of dollars changed hands.
Good times.
Thanks –
B.O.S.H.M.O.!
BOSHMO shall rule the earth!
Hilzoy: I didn’t care who Clinton sleeps with, myself. I think that’s between him, Hillary, and Chelsea.
I hope you meant to say: between him, Hilzoy, and Monica. Otherwise, ew.
What does BOSHMO stand for?
What does BOSHMO stand for?I hope you meant to say: between him, Hilzoy, and Monica. Otherwise, ew.
I hope you meant to say: between him, Hillary, and Monica. Otherwise, likewise, ew.
I hope you meant to say: between him, Hillary, and Monica. Otherwise, likewise, ew.
Oh god. *covers head in shame* My apologies, Hilzoy: I didn’t mean to imply that you would ever, ever want to sleep with or otherwise have anything to do with Bill Clinton. (Typo! It was a typo!)
What does BOSHMO stand for?
according to the Noise Machine, nothing but himself and his oversized ambition!
[Barak Osama Saddam Hussein Madrassa Obama]