Month: May 2007

Gates of Hell, But With a Smile

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by publius With my soon-to-be-described hiatus nearing its end, I caught some of the GOP debate last night. Just some helpful advice for McCain — expressing a willingness to chase terrorists to the “gates of hell” is more effectively done when not followed by a goofy Welcome-to-Wal-Mart smile. And on McCain (grrr… gates of hell!… … Read more

Truthiness In History

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by hilzoy This is too funny: Matt Yglesias quotes a surreal moment from the Republican debates: “Giuliani said the only thing worse than an American-led military offensive against Iran would be Iran having nuclear weapons, which he called “the worst nightmare” of the Cold War. The way to stop Iran, he said, was resolute American … Read more

A Distant Episode

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by von WE BREAK FROM POLITICS* to reconsider our relative youth.  And one of the better tunes from the late 1990s: You’re such a willing stick to beckon that wanting knife and you’ve been looking for it the right blade, all your life saying: "who’s gonna cut me down to a size that suits me? … Read more

Harvey Mansfield On The Rule Of Law

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by hilzoy

Via Glenn Greenwald: Harvey Mansfield has written one of those articles in which the writer’s elegance, erudition and stylistic flair make an abhorrent position sound halfway reasonable. One lovely sentence follows another, and if you aren’t careful, they lull you into overlooking the fact that he is arguing against the rule of law. Glenn writes:

“Much of the intense dissatisfaction I have with the American media arises out of the fact that these extraordinary developments — the dominant political movement advocating lawlessness and tyranny out in the open in The Wall St. Journal and Weekly Standard — receive almost no attention.

While the Bush administration expressly adopts these theories to detain American citizens without charges, engage in domestic surveillance on Americans in clear violation of the laws we enacted to limit that power, and asserts a general right to disregard laws which interfere with the President’s will, our media still barely discusses those issues.

They write about John Edwards’ haircut and John Kerry’s windsurfing and which political consultant has whispered what gossip to them about some painfully petty matter, but the extraordinary fact that our nation’s dominant political movement is openly advocating the most radical theories of tyranny — that “liberties are dangerous and law does not apply” — is barely noticed by our most prestigious and self-loving national journalists. Merely to take note of that failure is to demonstrate how profoundly dysfunctional our political press is.”

He’s right. Since the article is behind the WSJ’s subscription wall, I’ll excerpt and comment on it below the fold. But nothing I have to say is more important than Glenn’s point: that in this article, a prominent conservative intellectual is arguing for an idea that is profoundly opposed to everything this country stands for — the idea that the President has the right to set aside the laws — and while the media devote endless amounts of time to trivialities, they do not seem to regard this as act as though this were worthy of notice.

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Chait On The ‘Netroots’: 1

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by hilzoy

Jon Chait has written a very interesting article on “the netroots” in TNR. There’s a lot in it that’s good and very insightful, and it’s worth reading in its entirety. I do, however, have a few fairly serious disagreements with it, which I’ll spell out below the fold.

(Actually, I only get to one of them.)

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Lebanon, Take 1

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by hilzoy Yesterday, an Israeli panel issued a damning preliminary report on the war in Lebanon. Among its findings: “a. The decision to respond with an immediate, intensive military strike was not based on a detailed, comprehensive and authorized military plan, based on careful study of the complex characteristics of the Lebanon arena. A meticulous … Read more

Mission Accomplished

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by hilzoy Then: Hardball, 5/1/03: “MATTHEWS: What’s the importance of the president’s amazing display of leadership tonight? (…) MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically […], the president deserves everything he’s doing tonight in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, … Read more

“I Can’t Hear You!”

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by hilzoy Steve Clemons and Sean-Paul Kelley have long excerpts from last night’s Nelson Report, which Kelley describes as an “uber-insider Washington newsletter”. Insofar as a non-uber-insider like myself can judge, the Nelson Report has always been on the money. Last night’s Report begins: “Sometimes insider gossip seems to confirm what all us outsiders think … Read more

Read It And Weep

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by hilzoy

Via TPM: Murray Waas has a really important story in the National Journal. It’s worth reading in its entorety, since Waas reports that Alberto Gonzales first took complete control of all hiring and firing authority of DoJ political appointees who don’t need Senate confirmation — which is to say, large swaths of the upper levels of the DoJ — and then delegated that authority to Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling. Recall that both Sampson and Goodling are in their thirties, neither has much legal experience at all, and Goodling was the White House liaison.

What I think this means is that the political operation at the White House was taking over the upper levels of the Department of Justice in a way that goes far, far beyond the sorts of politicization that are usually regarded as scandalous. It’s scandalous if the DoJ decides to prosecute someone Just because that person is a political enemy, or not to prosecute someone because he or she is a political ally. It’s way, way past scandalous if the White House political operation tries to make the DoJ into its enforcement arm.

Excerpts:

“Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides — who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys — extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. A copy of the order and other Justice Department records related to the conception and implementation of the order were provided to National Journal.

In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison “the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration” of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department’s political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

A senior executive branch official familiar with the delegation of authority said in an interview that — as was the case with the firings of the U.S. attorneys and the selection of their replacements — the two aides intended to work closely with White House political aides and the White House counsel’s office in deciding which senior Justice Department officials to dismiss and whom to appoint to their posts. “It was an attempt to make the department more responsive to the political side of the White House and to do it in such a way that people would not know it was going on,” the official said.”

More excerpts and comments below the fold.

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