Month: October 2008

You Say that Like It’s a Bad Thing

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by Eric Martin Joe Klein saw what I saw: Pundits tend to be a lagging indicator. This is particularly true at the end of a political pendulum swing. We’ve been conditioned by thirty years of certain arguments working–and John McCain made most of them last night against Barack Obama: you’re going to raise our taxes, … Read more

The Corner: Objectively Pro-Socialist

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by hilzoy K-Lo gets an email about the stock market: “OK, I’ll say it…I believe today’s massive decline was, in part (and maybe a big “in part”), in fear that the debate tonight won’t go well for McCain and the implications that will have for an Obama victory. The likelihood of a recession has been … Read more

Pride Goeth Before the Fall

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by publius the plumber They’re over — we’re free at last. I suppose we could parse this or that exchange, but the big story is that there’s no story. It was another snoozer, with no game changing moments. And that means Obama won by not losing — and by not allowing the campaign’s dynamics to … Read more

It’s Going To Get Ugly

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by hilzoy Nouriel Roubini, sunny as ever: “Nouriel Roubini, the professor who predicted the financial crisis in 2006, said the U.S. will suffer its worst recession in 40 years, driving the stock market lower after it rallied the most in seven decades yesterday. “There are significant downside risks still to the market and the economy,” … Read more

Perspective

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by hilzoy From the Detroit Free Press (h/t): “The median price on a house or condo sold in Detroit last month plummeted 57%, to $9,250, from $21,250 a year ago, according to figures released Monday by Realcomp, a multiple listing service based in Farmington Hills. Foreclosures represented two-thirds of sales in Detroit in September, and … Read more

Fair and Balanced

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by Eric Martin If there’s one thing the McCain camp has excelled at, it’s hiring lobbyists in an even-handed, post-partisan manner.  Consider the across-the-aisle balance revealed by the lobbying efforts of Randy Scheunemann and William Timmons.  On the one hand, Randy Scheunemann was working closely with Ahmad Chalabi in the effort to gin up public … Read more

You Go Mavericks!

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by publius Via Lessig and Ars Technica, I see that the McCain/Palin campaign has a written a pretty sweet letter to YouTube complaining about bogus DMCA takedowns and “overreaching copyright claims.” Good for them. Apparently several of the campaign’s ads triggered DMCA takedown notices, and YouTube automatically complied (that’s their policy). The McCain team is … Read more

The Dread “Outlier” Syndrome

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by publius The new CBS/NYT poll has Obama +14 among likely voters. The McCain camp calls the new poll improbable. At Hot Air, Allahpundit notes that it’s a “hefty outlier” and provides the pro-Dem party ID breakdown to provide some comfort (though admittedly while conceding it’s bad news). Ah, I remember these games. Whenever a … Read more

Mythogoguery

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by Eric Martin Daniel Larison with a Two-Fer Tuesday special.  First, on the importance of political mythmaking, and its applicabaility to the modern Republican Party: Another reason why political myths are so powerful and enduring is that they help to justify past actions that cannot really be justified and to cover over present actions that … Read more

Luck

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by publius

Mark Twain:

The harder I work, the luckier I get.

If Obama ultimately wins, I expect to hear complaints that he simply got lucky that the markets crashed. Indeed, via Fallows, I see that Steve Schmidt is already saying as much.

It’s true, Obama has gotten lucky in some respects. But he’s also made his own luck. Focusing on “luck” obscures just how strong his campaign has been. The Obama team’s long-term strategy and disciplined tactics put it in a position to reap the benefits of positive developments. Similarly, the McCain camp’s lack of strategy and discipline left it vulnerable to these same developments.

It didn’t have to be this way though. The market crash would of course been hard for any Republican. But McCain is arguably the one Republican who could have potentially weathered it — assuming the campaign had been run differently.

Let’s imagine a different world. Let’s imagine that, in the spring of 2008, McCain wraps up the nomination and charges headfirst to the center. From March to October, he preaches two themes: (1) I’m a reformer who bucks the GOP; and (2) Obama’s not ready. No stupid gimmicks. No Britney ads. From Day 1, he’s pursuing a simple, disciplined strategy of distancing himself from the GOP, keeping his favorability ratings high with independents and conservative Democrats (and the press), and challenging Obama in a tough but substantive way.

These are the themes that McCain’s campaign should have been built around — the themes of his underrated convention speech (in fact, Nate Silver has speculated his bump came from that speech rather Palin’s partisan one). In this imaginary world, McCain could have distanced himself from Bush and from the GOP — much the same way that Bush did in 2000.

It’s not that hard. In a year where being Republican is toxic, don’t run as one. Run as an above-the-fray bipartisan. If he had, he would have been in a position to escape the anger directed at the White House because he would have been disassociated from it. Instead, McCain just assumed everyone thought he was independent because of a campaign many young voters don’t even remember that well.

Yes, the base would have been a problem in this world. But the Palin pick shows that they’re pretty cheap dates. Someone like Huckabee could have solidified the base, while simultaneously reinforcing the “different kind of Republican message.”

Also too (my new favorite phrase), McCain could have distanced himself in a diplomatic way. He could have distanced himself not by attacking the GOP, but by casting himself as a “fundamentalist” in the truest sense of the word. He would have been John the Baptist — the voice in the wilderness. My friends, the Washington GOP has gone astray and we need to get back to the fundamentals that Reagan taught us. Or something like that — not a repudiation, but a restoration of the lost golden age, which is a message many conservatives would find appealing.

But that’s not at all what happened.

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Bailout 2.0

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by hilzoy

Huggyhank

From the WSJ:

“The U.S. government is expected to take stakes in nine of the nation’s top financial institutions as part of a new plan to restore confidence to the battered U.S. banking system, a far-reaching effort that puts the government’s guarantee behind the basic plumbing of financial markets.

To kick off Tuesday’s expected announcement, the government is set to buy preferred equity stakes in Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. — including the soon-to-be acquired Merrill Lynch — Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of New York Mellon and State Street Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. (…)

Other elements of the plan, which will be announced Tuesday morning, include: equity investments in possibly thousands of other banks; lifting the cap on deposit insurance for certain bank accounts, such as those used by small businesses; and guaranteeing certain types of bank lending. It builds on an earlier plan to buy up rotten assets dragging down banks, which failed to calm investor fears, and follows similar moves by major European countries.

Formulated jointly by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., these moves are designed to keep money flowing through the financial system, ensuring that banks continue lending to companies, consumers and each other. A freeze in these markets rippled through the economy and helped cause stocks to crater last week.

Along with the government’s involvement come certain restrictions, such as caps on executive pay. For example, firms can’t write new employment contracts containing golden parachutes and their ability to use certain executive salaries as a tax deduction is capped. These restrictions are relatively weak compared with what congressional Democrats had wanted when they approved this spending, a potential flash point.”

Two big caveats before I go on. First, this reporting is preliminary; the report tomorrow should have more details. Second, I am not an economist, so take my opinion for what little it’s worth. That said:

This sounds a lot better than the original plan to buy up troubled assets. In fact, it sounds so good to Brad DeLong that he wants to start singing hymns of praise in Latin. And that’s a wonderful thing. So this post is not meant to detract from the fact that as best I can tell, this is a very, very good thing.

However, I note a couple of things that have generally been part of discussions of this kind of plan. First, there is no triage: no attempt to separate banks that are basically solvent from banks that are not. Second, there are no forced writedowns. I would have thought that either would be a very good idea, under the circumstances.

One of the things you really, really want, under the circumstances, is for everyone to know that the banks are now trustworthy: that no more big unpleasant surprises lurk in their balance sheets. One of the things that I gather you do not want is for banks to put off unpleasant revelations as long as possible. To do this, people seem to think that one should figure out which banks are insolvent, “and like Old Yeller, “gently” put them down.” Then:

“Before they get new equity, banks must be forced to write down the value of their assets to nuclear-winter levels. And they must disclose, in detail, the carrying value of their assets so the market can make sure they have done this.

Why?

Because the goal of investing taxpayer equity in banks is threefold:

*Improve the banks’ capital ratios, so they can start lending again

*Persuade private investors to invest in banks again

*Flush all the crap so we can start fresh…unlike Japan.

If the government does not force banks to write down their assets before injecting new equity, we won’t have fixed the problem. Instead, the US taxpayer will just be the lastest sucker to fall for the banks’ assertions that all the bad news is out of the way. Private investors, meanwhile, will stay on the sidelines and watch the taxpayer get sandbagged. Lastly, and most importantly (for the economy), banks won’t start lending again. Why not? Because they’ll want to keep all that new capital as a cushion for the next wave of writedowns.

Japanese banks played this game for a decade…and we know where it got them (NIKKEI Index is currently one-fifth of the peak value 18 years ago.) In Sweden, meanwhile, the government insisted on writedowns, and the economy recovered almost immediately.”

I suspect that Paulson and others in the administration have a hard time accepting the need for this sort of policy. They are, after all, conservatives, and this is, after all, partial nationalization of banks. But if my reading is correct, hanging back is a bad idea. If you’re going to do this sort of thing, you should be quick and aggressive about it. As I understand it, that’s the best way both the get the economy back on its feet and to get the government out of the banking business as quickly as possible.

But for all that, the plan sounds like a big step in the right direction.

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Cut Him Loose

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by hilzoy One of the nice things about watching the Republicans crash and burn is that we can learn from their mistakes rather than repeating them. It’s a pity Tim Mahoney doesn’t seem to have taken advantage of this opportunity: “The Democrat who replaced disgraced Florida Rep. Mark Foley — running on a pledge to … Read more

“Just Where We Want Them”

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by hilzoy John McCain on the Obama campaign: “My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.” That’s like the captain of the Titanic saying he had the iceberg just where he wanted it: Seriously, though: when politicians lie, they normally try to say things that are somewhat plausible. Does John McCain actually expect … Read more

Mystery of Chessboxin’

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by Eric Martin Just wanted to note in passing that Obama’s been quite masterful in maintaining a zen like calm, and in deploying a jujitsu-like flexibility in deflecting and redirecting attacks.  In fact, he’s turned McCain’s haymakers back on the sender.  It’s been a pleasure to behold.  Along those lines, this made me laugh:

“Weird In A Positive Way”

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by hilzoy From the NYT’s Economix: “Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday. “It’s been an extremely weird day, but weird in a positive way,” Mr. Krugman said in an interview on his way to … Read more

We Report; You Decide

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by hilzoy

TPM has a post about Fox’s recent documentary about Obama. I was dimly aware of it, but I didn’t know that when Andy Martin appeared on Fox, he claimed that Obama “had once trained to overthrow the [US] government.” I went and looked up the transcript on Lexis/Nexis, and post the relevant parts below. But first, a bit of background on Andy Martin:

“A quick word about Andy Martin. During a 1983 bankruptcy case he referred to a federal judge as a “crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race.” Martin, who in the past was known as Anthony Martin-Trigona, is one of the most notorious litigants in the history of the United States. He’s filed hundreds, possibly thousands, of lawsuits, often directed at judges who have ruled against him, or media outlets that cover him unfavorably. A 1993 opinion by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Atlanta, described these lawsuits as “a cruel and effective weapon against his enemies,” and called Martin a “notoriously vexatious and vindictive litigator who has long abused the American legal system.” He once even attempted to intervene in the divorce proceedings of a judge who’d ruled against him, petitioning the state court to be appointed as the guardian of the judge’s children.”

That’s Chris Hayes, from the Nation. You can see some of the rulings in a few of Martin’s court cases here (check out footnotes 3 and 4) and here. The last contains one of Martin’s complaints, which I excerpt below the fold, so that you can see who we’re dealing with.

Now for the transcript. It’s from Hannity’s America, ‘Obama And Friends: A History Of Radicalism’, aired on Oct. 5. (Video here.)

“HANNITY: In 1985, fresh from Columbia University Obama returned to Chicago to become just that, a community organizer, a job he says qualifies him in part to hold a nation’s highest office. What exactly is a community organizer? After all, he didn’t know what it was when he started as one.

ANDY MARTIN, AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: I think a community organizer in Barack Obama’s case was somebody that was in training for a radical overthrow of the government. You have to really stretch to believe his story that he was living in New York City. He was earning 50,000 to 60,000 a year. And he left this to come to Chicago, to a city where he knew no one, to suddenly start, quote, “organizing,” unquote, people.

In my opinion, Barack Obama had already been influenced by his radical ideology and philosophy, probably had met William Ayers in New York and was coming here to lay the foundations for what he thought would be some sort of a political movement that he would be a part of.

My view is that the community organizing was actually kind of sham event that really Bill Ayers was testing him. Because the way these radicals work, they don’t give you a big project until you pass muster with a small project. And so they sent him out to Chicago to see what he would do. He passed the test.

OBAMA: And I decided to become a community organizer. I organized black folks at the grassroots. It was in these neighborhoods I received the best education that I ever had.

MARTIN: He had virtually no impact in his so-called community organizing career except to lay the foundation for his future radical associations. It was then also I believe that he was exposed perhaps by Louis Farrakhan to Kahlid al-Mansour. Because while he was a community organizer that Khalid al-Mansour starts raising money to promote Obama to Harvard Law School.

So obviously, in Ayers’ mind and al-Mansour’s mind, Obama had proven his reliability. He was somebody that could be trusted to do what he was told. And all of a sudden, they now are going to take him to the next level. All that comes out of the years in Chicago. Obama wasn’t organizing a community. He was organizing his career and organizing his life’s step to the next level. That’s all he did in Chicago.”

I see. Obama “probably” met William Ayers in New York, and followed him to Chicago, where he could be groomed for higher things, and subjected to “tests”. That makes perfect sense. Also, someone with an Arab name starts “raising money to promote Obama to Harvard Law School”, apparently under the misapprehension that you can buy your way in. It’s all a very clever ploy, because somehow — via communications from the spirit plane? a Ouija board? — Ayers et at knew that Obama would end up running for high office, and winning.

Right.

Sometimes people describe Fox News as a sort of antidote to more liberal news stations. That’s not true. When CNN airs a “documentary” that presents, unchallenged, claims that John McCain is running a child porn ring from one of his seven houses, we can talk about equivalence. Until then, we have several news networks, but Fox is not among them.

As noted above, I put excerpts from some of Martin’s filings below the fold. I thought it might be a good idea to provide some context that would allow you to assess his credibility. If crazed and ugly anti-Semitic ravings upset you, do not read them.

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The First Amendment as Sword

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by publius

One silver lining of not having Internet access for three weeks is that I had more time to read. The best book I read was Lessig’s Free Culture, which shows — in an accessible and compelling way — why our copyright policies are so absurd.

Consider this blog for instance. Copyrights automatically apply to us the owners — we don’t have to do anything; we just have them. Our blog would also be considered a “joint work.” Accordingly, Obsidian Wings will remain copyrighted throughout the life of the last living author, plus 70 years. So assuming one of us lasts another 50 years or so, Obsidian Wings will enter the public domain around 2138. It’s absurd.

Anyway, Lessig (who has a new book coming out called Remix) had an interesting column in the WSJ this weekend on the continuing absurdity of our intellectual property laws. Specifically, he focused upon people’s growing ability to “remix” audio and video into new creative formats using modern technology (e.g., Girl Talk; amateur videos of children dancing to copyrighted background songs).

The upshot is that remixing is a potential source of tremendous creativity and even economic activity. We have a legion of amateur tech-savvy artists, armed with Macs and YouTube, ready to be unleashed. The problem, though, is that intellectual property law casts a shadow upon the whole thing — and potentially imposes severe penalties simply because of the Internet’s unique distribution characteristics (e.g., each page view/download is a distinct “copy”).

None of this is terribly new, but this passage in particular caught my eye:

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Document The Atrocities

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by hilzoy Today’s stupid fake equivalency comes from Cokie Roberts on ABC’S This Week (video). The exchange that follows comes from 3:36 before the end: “Krugman: This is not just about McCain and what he did. The fact of the matter is, for a long time we have had a substantial fraction of the Republican … Read more

His Love-Hate Affair With His Racist Clientele*

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by Eric Martin An interesting bit of campaign-related gossip (via Newshoggers, my favorite home away from other homes): With his electoral prospects fading by the day, Senator John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign. McCain has become alarmed about the fury unleashed by Sarah … Read more

Uh Oh …

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by hilzoy The IMF agrees with Nouriel Roubini: “The IMF warned on Saturday that the global financial system was on the brink of meltdown, while France and Germany pushed ahead with a pan-European crisis response to try to prevent the worst global downturn in decades. At a joint news conference, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and … Read more

And Speaking Of Incoherent Policy…

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by hilzoy No sooner did I finish my last post than I found this, from Politico: “As part of a plan to reinvigorate his flagging campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is considering additional economic measures aimed directly at the middle class that are likely to be rolled out this week, campaign officials said. Among the … Read more

Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.

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by hilzoy Here’s a peculiar piece from the NYT: “At the presidential debate in Nashville last Tuesday, Senator John McCain made his case for fiscally conservative, smaller government, calling for an “across the board” spending freeze and denouncing what he described as Senator Barack Obama’s “government will do this and government will do that” approach … Read more

Obama’s Ghostwriters — ObWi Exclusive!!

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by publius Andy McCarthy has a major scoop today — he suggests that Bill Ayers not only knows Obama, but that he actually wrote Obama’s book. I was understandably skeptical that Ayers would ghostwrite a book about growing up fatherless and black in a white community, but then I thought — when has McCarthy ever … Read more

The RNC’s Toxic Asset

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by publius Over at Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell has some interesting RNC gossip. According to his source (caveat emptor), the RNC is about to shift money from the McCain campaign to the endangered Senate seats. In other words, the RNC may be on the verge of conceding the presidential election. The RNC’s dilemma illustrates why … Read more

The Palin Report

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by hilzoy I have read through the first 81 pages of the Troopergate report (pdf). (If you want to cut to the chase, read the findings, p. 8, and the explanation of the first finding, pp. 48-68.) The NYT summarizes: “Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to … Read more

Credit Where Credit’s Due

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by publius McCain finally steps in and tells his audience to be respectful. Good for him. It’s not exactly an easy thing to do at a campaign rally, but it’s the right thing. David Kurtz has more.

Non-Gary Farber Themed Open Thread

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by E-Mart This weekend’s open thread does not endorse Gary Farber, nor is it endorsed by Gary Farber.  This open thread is in no way associated with Gary Farber, nor did this open thread have relations with Gary Farber. One thought before I commence to drowning in a vat of spirits:  Have you been reading … Read more

McCain Blames Self For Economic Meltdown

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by hilzoy And he even says he did it on purpose! Just look: John McCain, yesterday: “The fact is, that the same people that are now claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were willing co-conspirators causing these problems we are in.” Politico, “McCain claims bailout credit”, Sept. 28, 2008: “Previewing a … Read more

Dishonor

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by Eric Martin Josh Marshall links to this op-ed from Frank Schaeffer: John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of … Read more

The GOP’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice Problem

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by publius

David Brooks wrote a good column yesterday criticizing the GOP’s excessive anti-intellectualism. It’s a bit whitewashed, but I still commend him for writing it. Anyway, the Brooks theory goes something like this — the GOP’s criticism of narrow aspects of elitist liberalism has morphed into a broader hostility against the educated classes as a whole.

Mickey_3

In short, conservatives told educated people to go away, and they have. Brooks writes:

[The GOP] has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away.

Well, that’s part of it. But it’s not really what’s driving educated people away. If you asked 100 educated “liberal elites” why they would never even consider voting Republican, it’s not because those mean conservatives told them to go away. It’s not even economics. It’s the social issues. For many liberals (myself included), the dealbreaker is the enthusiastic and nasty embrace of social views that we find repellant and stupid.

Don’t get me wrong — there’s nothing about college that necessarily makes you a better or even smarter person — drunker, maybe, but not better. Instead, college forces you — often for the first time — to experience diversity. Many Americans meet their first gay friends in college. Or maybe they develop their first true friendships with people of different ethnicities or religions or ideologies. I, for instance, was quite fascinated to learn that not everybody in the United States celebrates Christmas — Rosh a Whata? (I was equally fascinated to learn that some families celebrate it with adult beverages — next life, Catholic).

Anyway, once you’ve had these experiences, it’s beyond disgusting to see, for instance, the rabid gay-bashing of 2004, or the immigrant-bashing of 2005, or the “Barack Hussein Obama” business, or the audacity of an idiot vice presidential candidate claiming that Obama “pals around” with terrorists — you know, people who murder Americans. Urban educated Republicans don’t even try to defend this garbage, but instead are embarrassed by it — probably far more than they publicly acknowledge. Sometimes, though, the embarrassment spills out — see, e.g., David Brooks and David Frum.

In short, the GOP has made an unholy alliance with the mob — and now the long-term debt is coming due. And they deserve it. After all, it’s not that the GOP establishment merely tolerated them, or treated them like the crazy uncle you basically nod at but ignore. They’ve been riling them up — feeding the hate. They’ve based campaigns on things like gay marriage and immigration and terrorist appeasing. They go on the Rush Limbaugh show, and validate his venom. They tell people who don’t have time to learn otherwise things like giving mortgages to poor minority families caused the housing crisis (Daniel Gross has the appropriate response to that — essentially, “it’s not risky to lend to minority families, it’s risky to lend to rich white people.”)

And you know, it sort of makes sense. If I thought Obama was a Muslim terrorist communist committing perpetual voter fraud, I might get mad too at the prospect of an Obama presidency. And so that’s what you have — a lot of angry, proudly uninformed conservatives out there. And they’re not going away.

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Temper, Temper

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by hilzoy Here’s a story about John McCain’s temper (h/t): “McCain’s game is craps. So is Jeff Dearth’s. Jeff was at the table when McCain showed up and happily made room for him. Apparently there is some kind of rule or tradition in craps that everyone’s hands are supposed to be above the table when … Read more

Reverse the Curse

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by Eric Martin George Packer has a thought-provoking piece in the most recent installment of the New Yorker that deals with issues related to Obama’s difficulties connecting to working-class white voters, as well as the underlying racial dynamic that is, in many ways, related.  This excerpt offers an approximate summation of the thrust of Packer’s … Read more

Putting the Big in Small

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by Eric Martin

This brief excerpt from Sarah Palin’s speech at the RNC rather concisely encapsulates much of what is wrong with the Republican Party’s approach to Constitutional protections and individual freedoms:

Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America … [Obama’s] worried that someone won’t read them their rights? Government is too big … he wants to grow it.

The second phrase highlights some of the internal contradictions in "small government" conservativism.  First of all, the government that is deemed "too big" by Palin is the same government that was enlarged exponentially under a Republican president and a compliant Republican Congress.  So the rhetoric, even in terms of fiscal discipline and budgetary matters, varies wildly from the actual policies.

Second, this statement betrays the lack of regard for individual liberties that undermines the GOP claim to the small government mantle.  For the modern Republican Party, there is little fear expressed with respect to a government being too "big" when it comes to employing police state powers that encroach on rights enshrined in the Constituion (other than Second Amendment rights, to be fair).  In fact, not only is the GOP mute on these matters, it is the party implementing the "big" government policies that weaken individual rights.  When it comes to the GOP’s views on executive authority and police powers, bigger is apparently better.

Getting back to Palin’s speech, the first phrase from that excerpt reveals one of the fundamental misconceptions about the purpose and effect of Constitutional freedoms.  Arguing that suspects deserve habeas corpus rights is not the same as arguing that al-Qaeda terrorists deserve habeas corpus rights (even if, in the process of granting such rights to the accused, some al-Qaeda terrorists will be granted them).  The argument is that when people are accused of a crime, they deserve the basic protections of a legal system that recognizes the incontrovertible fact that sometimes innocents will be detained, and thus the accused deserve a right to an attorney, the right to know the charges being leveled against them, the right to confront witnesses, etc.  You know, innocent until proven guilty.  Republicans, focusing on the reprehensible nature of the criminals sought ("terrorists"), seek to usher in a legal regime that treats anyone accused of terrorism as, by virtue of that accusation alone, an actual terrorist.

Hilzoy recently discussed the case of 17 Chinese nationals that were wrongly detained at Guantanamo and are might finally going to be released after a long an ongoing battle through a Kafka-esque legal system implemented by the Bush administration*.  These Chinese prisoners were not the only innocent people that we have detained at Guantanamo, and elsewhere, who were denied basic legal protections. 

This type of demagoguery in the service of curtailing liberty is not, by any logic, necessarily limited to the realm of law enforcement/executive action in response to terrorism.  It is easy to imagine a determined politician introducing rights-stripping legislation under an emotionally charged title like, say, the "Child Rape and Child Murder Prevention Law."  Under that law, those accused of the heinous crimes of raping and murdering children would be denied some or all of the following: habeas corpus rights, the right to an attorney, the right to confront witnesses and evidence and other protections that are currently denied "terrorists."

Think of the enormous potential for serious and irreversible injustice.  Countless innocent people would be destroyed, without recourse.  Yet, if and when some politicians oppose this Child Rape and Child Murder Prevention Law, the Sarah Palins and John McCains of the world could stand up and say:

Rapists and murderes still plot to savagely assault your children… [Obama’s] worried that someone won’t read them their rights?

And if you think my hypothetical is too fanciful, I invite you to review the recent "developments" in the area of anti-drug laws.

The same type of "presumed guilty" rationale, and commensurate demagoguery of opponents, underlies the push for warrantless wiretapping and other forms of domestic surveilance that erode our search and seizure rights.  Again, as should be obvious, these programs do not infringe on the rights of terrorists alone, so when one is concerned about their impact, that is not the same thing as concern for terrorists.  For example, earlier this week, we learned of this:

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