Month: January 2009

Daschle

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by hilzoy What is it with these people and their taxes? First Geithner, now Daschle: "Thomas A. Daschle, nominated to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, did not pay more than $128,000 in taxes over three years, a revelation that poses a potential obstacle to his Senate confirmation. The back taxes, … Read more

Gregg at Commerce?

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by publius Let me say that I think Senator Gregg would be an outstanding Commerce Secretary.  There are few people in the entire history of mankind I admire more — and I think he'd do an excellent job. Needless to say, I'm thinking only — only — about the welfare of the Commerce Department.

A Stimulus for Tomorrow, Part 4 – Improvements

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by von UPDATE:  I have no illusions about this, but I think it's important to do Division A of the current House package right:  More time and debate may not lead to my ideas being adopted, but they will improve the current, Democratic ideas.  Since most of Division A won't take effect until after this year, we can afford to wait … Read more

Open Thread…

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by Eric Martin For your assorted idiosyncratic pleasures and other odds and ends that don't quite fit anywhere else.  The Island of Misfit Threads if you will.  With stop motion animation of course. UPDATE: Um, Von's open thread is kind of fancier what with all its plumage, so feel free to ignore this jalopy.

Yes, but Can They?

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by Eric Martin The first round of provincial elections in Iraq since 2005 are slated for tomorrow, January 31.  The always insightful Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group has a nice summary of some of the issues in play (the ICG's full report (pdf) can be found here).  These elections could lead to major shifts in Iraq's … Read more

They Just Don’t Work

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by publius A common critique I get in the comments (h/t Brett) is that I ascribe bad faith to Republicans too often.  That is, I should acknowledge that most Republicans favor policies because they think those policies will ultimately help people (regardless of their redistributive effects).   And that’s a fair critique – the Bush years … Read more

Suicide In The Army

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by hilzoy I don't know what to say about this, other than that it's just awful: "Stressed by war and long overseas tours, U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year at the highest rate on record, the toll rising for a fourth straight year and even surpassing the suicide rate among comparable civilians. Army leaders said they … Read more

I’m OK, You’re OK

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by publius It’s easy – very easy – to ascribe bad motives to the House GOP’s united opposition to stimulus.  And bad motives are certainly part of the picture – but not all of it.  It’s just implausible to think that the entire caucus is voting in bad faith. That's why we should also see … Read more

The RedState Strike Force Strikes!

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by hilzoy Erick Erickson of RedState has a message for the RedState Strike Force about their latest triumph (and may he enjoy many more victories like this one): "Persevere. And relish victories like we had last night – the House Republicans heard us and stood united against Barack Obama’s socialist stimulus plan." He seems to be … Read more

Obama’s First Gesture Toward Iran

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by Eric Martin According to The Guardian, the Obama administration is wasting no time in changing the posture of the US government vis-a-vis Iran: Officials of Barack Obama’s administration have drafted a letter to Iran from the president aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks, the Guardian has learned. The … Read more

A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours

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by Eric Martin

While I generally try to leave the filleting of the conservative movement's more outrageous voices to the experts (knives being sharp and all), I occasionally attempt a skewer or two when so moved.  At the risk of relying on anecdote, though, it seems that every time I write something about Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh I'm chided from the left ("why waste time talking about them?") or the right ("they don't really represent the Republican Party/conservative movement in America").

Well, an interesting thing is happening within the Republican Party, and it only exposes the prominence of voices like Limbaugh's, and the extent to which he can actually bring elected GOP representatives to their knees.  I'm sure many of you are already familiar with the story of Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, who recently had some mild criticismsfor Limbaugh – particularly appropriate given Limbaugh's recent declaration that he hopes the Obama Presidency fails, consequences to the American public be damned, and that the Republican leadership seemed frightened to pursue such a strategy. 

After Gingrey's faint rebuke, Limbaugh lashed out, and Gingrey supplicated himself before El Rushbo:

“I never told Rush to back off,” Gingrey continued. “I regret and apologize for the fact that my comments have offended and upset my fellow conservatives — that was not my intent … Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and other conservative giants are the voices of the conservative movement’s conscience.”

As Steve Benen observed:

Gingrey went on to say, "I see eye-to-eye with Rush Limbaugh," adding that he's among millions of Americans "inspired" by Limbaugh

Note, Gingrey hadn't said anything especially controversial yesterday. It iseasy for political observers on the outside to criticize, as compared to keeping a party together. But Gingrey not only faced a swift rebuke for daring to question Leader Limbaugh, but apologized, in writing, and in an embarrassingly meek tone.

The Republican Party is suffering something of a leadership vacuum. It's pretty obvious who's calling the shots. [emphasis added throughout]

Indeed.  But it didn't end there.  Mike Pence (R-IN) was next in line to make gestures in Limbaugh's direction cooing about how he "cherish[es]" Limbaugh's "voice in the debate."  Yeah, what's not to love. 

But stillit did not end there.  The Wall St. Journal lept into the fray and offered Rush a spot on its Op-Ed pages from which to offer a solution to the economic crisis – a sophomoric proposal that doesn't even pretend to take into account questions of efficacy.  No, to Rush, it's all a political ruse:

Fifty-three percent of American voters voted for Barack Obama; 46% voted for John McCain, and 1% voted for wackos. Give that 1% to President Obama. Let’s say the vote was 54% to 46%. As a way to bring the country together and at the same time determine the most effective way to deal with recessions, under the Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009: 54% of the $900 billion—$486 billion—will be spent on infrastructure and pork as defined by Mr. Obama and the Democrats; 46%—$414 billion—will be directed toward tax cuts, as determined by me.

Brilliant!  Erected on such solid economic principles! How could that possibly fail! 

So there you have it, the cherished voice of the conservative conscience offering a fiscal gimmick that, however ludicrous, the GOP leaders know better than to question.  No, I expect them all to tiptoe around l'enfant terrible as if he was little Anthony Fremont.

But now that the GOP has acknowledged Rush's place in the movement's firmament, shouldn't we all drop the protests that Rush is too insignificant to discuss, or that discussing his views would be a waste of time because he doesn't really speak for the GOP?  Why, he's one of their most revered pundits.  "Inspirational" even.

Given this, I believe it would be fair – no necessary - that the media ask a whole host of questions of GOP representatives regarding Limbaugh's past statements/positions.  After all, the media has a duty to inform the American people of just how much influence the extreme right wing has over the Republican Party.

A short list below the fold, but feel free to add your own.

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A Stimulus For Tomorrow – Part 3 – Heck Yeah, America! Get Some! (Patriotic Jingle And Response To Hilzoy)

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by von It's good to see Hilzoy join the discussion regarding the stimulus package working its way through Congress and respond to one of my two posts on the subject.  This is a debate worth having. And it's good that Hilzoy acknowledges that there are three components to the package, which the CBO divides into … Read more

A Stimulus For Today And Tomorrow, And That’s OK

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by hilzoy Earlier, von criticized the parts of the stimulus bill that involve government appropriations, as opposed to tax cuts or direct transfers to people (e.g., food stamps, unemployment benefits, etc.) on the grounds that “the requested government spending won’t occur until after the recession is projected to end.” I’m responding to it partly because I think … Read more

The House GOP Goes All In

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by publius When you start losing in Texas Hold ‘Em, you eventually face a difficult choice – a crossroads if you will.  The problem is that your chip stack is getting smaller and smaller while the blinds take bigger and bigger chunks of your money each turn.  The choice then is whether to go down … Read more

Bipartisanship And The Stimulus

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by hilzoy From the NYT: "Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as Congressional Democrats sought to temper their own differences over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending. (…) All but 11 Democrats voted for the plan, and 177 Republicans voted … Read more

Somalia, We Hardly Knew Ya

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by Eric Martin Matt Yglesias and Rob Farleybeat me to the punch*, but it's still worth discussing recent developments in Somalia.  Basically, the last of the Ethiopian troops (those left over from a December 2006 invasion that the US government actively supported) withdrew from Somalia, and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) propped up by Ethiopia's forces quickly fell: … Read more

Cram Downs!

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by hilzoy From the WSJ: "A measure to allow judges to reduce the principal amounts of mortgages for troubled borrowers in bankruptcy cleared a key hurdle Tuesday when it was approved by a U.S. House panel. (…) Under the legislation, borrowers would be eligible to have a bankruptcy judge reduce the principal balance on their home … Read more

Make It Bigger

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by publius Tomorrow’s Post article (via TPM) usefully outlines some criticisms of the current stimulus plan from Democrats – namely, too many tax cuts and too little public infrastructure investment.  This is a good development – the pressure on the bill shouldn’t be coming solely from the Eric Cantors of the world.  There needs to … Read more

A Stimulus for Tomorrow, part 2

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by von The largest part of the proposed stimulus is appropriations — aka, government spending.  But, as noted below, this part of the stimulus isn't much of a stimulus.  It can't have nearly as much of a stimulus effect as the other two parts of package — direct payments and tax cuts — for a very simple reason: … Read more

A Stimulus For Tomorrow. Maybe.

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by von    The premise of the stimulus is that it will get money — now! right now! — into the hands of folks who will spend it.  An immediate, "dramatic" jolt to the economy of near-unprecedented size is the promise.  But the as-delivered still doesn't fully meet that standard.   The most recent version of the stimulus has three parts … Read more

International Colouring Contest

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by Eric Martin There is little doubt that for the many that sacrificed to advance the cause of civil rights in America – and for those that simply lived through the painful chapters of our racist legacy - watching the inauguration of President Obama was a powerful, emotional experience.  At the risk of sounding maudlin, my eyes welled up on more … Read more

Range Roving with the Cinema Stars

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by Eric Martin I'm pleased to announce the launch of a new foreign policy site that I'm editing called The Progressive Realist.  It is the brainchild of author and pundit Robert Wright - the founder of bloggingheads.tv.  Here is a brief synopsis of the site's mission: The blog is meant to occupy a niche that seems thinly populated. There aren’t many full-service blogs … Read more

More Good News

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by hilzoy From the NYT: "President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday. The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush … Read more

Feed the Rich

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by publius Steve Benen informs me that John McCain will not be voting for the stimulus in its current form.  McCain would prefer more business tax cuts and to make the Bush tax cuts permanent instead.  In short, McCain prefers a bold “Leave No Rich Person Behind” response to our economic crisis. McCain’s priorities – … Read more

Dear Ben Stein …

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by hilzoy Ben Stein has a truly unbelievable column in today's NYT (h/t). You should stop reading this post right now, and after you've made sure that you won't get Diet Coke all over the keyboard once you start laughing, click through and read it.  For those of you who didn't take my advice: he starts by telling … Read more

There Are No Files, Part 2

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by hilzoy

This morning, I read this declaration in a GTMO case (pdf). It's very much worth reading: the author, LTC Darrel Vandeveld, is a member of the Reserve JAG Corps who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was the lead prosecutor against a detainee, Mohammed Jawad, until he resigned last September. After spending over a year on the case, he became convinced that the government had no good case against Jawad, that Jawad had been badly mistreated and was suffering serious psychological harm, and that continuing to hold him was "something beyond a travesty." (p. 1) That's why he wrote the declaration in question, in support of Jawad's habeas petition.

Jawad was between fifteen and seventeen when we took him into custody. That was more than six years ago.

I wasn't reading this because I thought it might have something to do with last night's post on files. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found the following, on p. 3 (note: OMC-P is "Office of Military Commissions — Prosecutions"; CITF is "Criminal Investigative Task Force"):

"7. It is important to understand that the "case files" compiled at OMC‐P or developed by CITF are nothing like the investigation and case files assembled by civilian police agencies and prosecution offices, which typically follow a standardized format, include initial reports of investigation, subsequent reports compiled by investigators, and the like. Similarly, neither OMC‐P nor CITF maintained any central repository for case files, any method for cataloguing and storing physical evidence, or any other system for assembling a potential case into a readily intelligible format that is the sine qua non of a successful prosecution. While no experienced prosecutor, much less one who had performed his or her duties in the fog of war, would expect that potential war crimes would be presented, at least initially, in "tidy little packages," at the time I inherited the Jawad case, Mr. Jawad had been in U.S. custody for approximately five years. It seemed reasonable to expect at the very least that after such a lengthy period of time, all available evidence would have been collected, catalogued, systemized, and evaluated thoroughly — particularly since the suspect had been imprisoned throughout the entire time the case should have been undergoing preparation.

8. Instead, to the shock of my professional sensibilities, I discovered that the evidence, such as it was, remained scattered throughout an incomprehensible labyrinth of databases primarily under the control of CITF, or strewn throughout the prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely‐labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on the tops of desks vacated by prosecutors who had departed the Commissions for other assignments. I further discovered that most physical evidence that had been collected had either disappeared or had been stored in locations that no one with any tenure at, or institutional knowledge of, the Commissions could identify with any degree of specificity or certainty. The state of disarray was so extensive that I later learned, as described below, that crucial physical evidence and other documents relevant to both the prosecution and the defense had been tossed into a locker located at Guantanamo and promptly forgotten. Although it took me a number of months ‐‐ so extensive was the lack of any discernable organization, and so difficult was it for me to accept that the US military could have failed so miserably in six years of effort ‐‐ I began to entertain my first, developing doubts about the propriety of attempting to prosecute Mr. Jawad without any assurance that through the exercise of due diligence I could collect and organize the evidence in a manner that would meet our common professional obligations."

Its description of the lack of GTMO case files is not even close to being the most important part of this declaration, which is worth reading in its entirety (it's only 14 pages long, and quite well-written.) It just makes me angry when an anonymous "former senior official" can say that when the Obama administration claims that there are no case files, it is just "'backpedaling and trying to buy time' by blaming its predecessor." That "former senior official" is counting on the fact that most people have no idea whether there are case files on GTMO detainees, and thus no idea who is telling the truth. So s/he thinks that s/he can say anything, and who's to say that s/he's wrong? 

That makes me angry. Not nearly as angry a lot of other things about this case, some of which I've put below the fold, but it's the only one I can do something about.

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The Costs of Hawkishness

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by publius One of my frustrations with debates about "hawkishness" is that the abstract arguments and imagery are wholly divorced from the reality that hawkishness creates.  In making arguments intended to make themselves feel serious and strong and morally clear, the hawks ignore the ultimate fruits of their labors — rubble, displacement, death, etc. And … Read more

Chill Out

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by hilzoy From the NYT: "Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed coming to a prison near you?One day after President Obama ordered that the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, be shuttered, lawmakers in Washington wrestled with the implications of bringing dozens of the 245 remaining inmates onto American soil. Republican lawmakers, who oppose Mr. Obama’s plan, found a talking point … Read more

There Are No Files

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post: "President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials — barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees … Read more

The Exorcism of 2002

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by publius There’s an awfully lot to like about Obama’s sweeping reversals of the Bush administration’s detention policies.  Most obviously (and as hilzoy has noted), they restore the rule of law and basic decency to our national security policies.  And that’s a big big deal.  But the orders are also exciting for what they say … Read more

Open Thread: Less is More…

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by Eric Martin …And quality over quantity.  Or something.  Either way, Greg Djerejian broke one of his periodic bouts of silence to drop a manifesto like an anvil.  Sometimes I think to myself: what if most conservatives were like Djerejian, Larison, Bacevich and Joyner, and the outliers were Douthat and Salaam.  And then I go and … Read more

Going for Dolo

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by Eric Martin The indispensable Stephen Walt seeks to temper some of Robert Pape's fears associated with America's declining power relative to the rest of the world: Pape now warns that "American relative power is declining to the point where even subsets of major powers acting in concert could produce sufficient military power to stand a reasonable … Read more

The Fourth Circuit — Love and Harmony

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by publius Judge Wilkinson is considered the conservative intellectual heavyweight on the 4th Circuit.  He's tried to soften his edges in recent years, hoping for a Bush appointment.  But make no mistake — he was as aggressively and ideologically conservative as they come, sitting on what has been the most aggressively ideological circuit in the … Read more

No More Extraordinary Rendition

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by hilzoy In comments, CharlesS notes a section of one of Obama's executive orders that I somehow missed. (I sort of zoned out once it started in on the composition of committees; this was clearly a mistake.) This order establishes a Special Interagency Task Force one of whose missions is: "(ii)  to study and evaluate … Read more