by publius
Lordy, what to say about Schumer and Feinstein. It’s all pretty depressing, but there’s a larger point here. Specifically, the whole sorry affair provides a textbook example of how adopting extreme political positions can successfully shift a debate’s center of gravity.
As annoyed as I am, I actually feel for Schumer — but just a tiny bit. He backed himself into a tough spot. Mukasey is his guy, and he apparently promised the White House (prior to the nomination) that Mukasey would sail through. He could, of course, argue that the “deal” had an implied clause — “said agreement is contingent on said nominee not supporting Spanish Inquisition torture methods publicly in Senate hearings.” But still, it’s a tough spot on the microlevel (i.e., the personal day-to-day dealings with the White House).
Feinstein, though, is a different story. I suppose it’s political cover for her buddy, but that’s not a good excuse in light of the consequences (more on that below). She needs to hear about this.
But turning back to Schumer, the more troubling issue is that he let himself get backed into this corner at all. In fact, his excuse — “this is the best we can hope for” — completely vindicates the administration’s extreme tactics. Essentially, the administration’s lawbreaking and DOJ-politicization have been so extreme that a candidate who refuses to call waterboarding torture is transformed into a “compromise” nomination. After all, says Feinstein, “he’s no Alberto Gonzales.” Boy, that’s a ringing endorsement. And sound logic too. Here’s a warm plate of tuberculosis for ya. Say what you will, it ain’t the bubonic plague.
Given our low expectations and mangled baselines, refusing to call Spanish Inquisition-era torture “torture” is now something a “compromise” candidate can do and still get through a Democratically-controlled Senate committee. But that’s the point. The Bush administration — and the GOP more generally — goes long. They push hard so that yesterday’s “extreme” becomes tomorrow’s “compromise.” And in this case (like so many others), the tactics have proven successful.
What’s most troubling though is the consequences — and the precedent that non-accountability sets. At times, I wish the Dems wouldn’t even fight if are 100% certain that they’re going to fold in the end. That’s because fighting half-heartedly and losing only encourages the GOP to embrace torture even more strongly. There are no consequences, so why not?
All that said, it’s important to keep some perspective. Yes, Schumer and Feinstein were an embarrassment this week. But it’s worth noting that Mukasey will have unanimous Republican support and that the opposition is basically 100% Democrat. It’s also worth noting the near-unanimous position of the top GOP presidential candidates on these issues. Most of the Dems are at least trying — and that’s significant.
My fear of course is that these episodes will cause people to throw their hands up and say “both parties suck equally.” That’s not true, but that fact doesn’t excuse Feinstein’s vote.
A foreign friend asked me to summarize why our politics were so messed up and I said, “Republicans are insane and Democrats are cowards.” As you say, it’s not the majority of Democrats that this is true of; but how I wish it couldn’t be said at all.
I’m having one of my “we’re doomed” moments this evening. The Republican Party as a party is completely capitulated to the force of American tyranny, but that’s not really news. I used to think that this reflected more badly on rank and file Republicans than I do now, seeing the same subjugation settling in on the Democratic Party as a party. None of the major candidates is really talking about just how seriously evil this situation is and how thoroughly a real recovery would require investigation from top to bottom, with mass firings and hundreds or thousands of trials for those who instigated and assisted in the crimes of this administration. That’s all been set aside, and I see no prospect of it being recovered.
It is true that many Democratic congresspeople are doing okay when it comes to key votes, and a handful are doing genuinely well. But the party leadership simply has no real interest in even slowing down the pace of administration crimes, let alone stopping them. The “we’re biding our time” argument stops working at some point. In this case, all it would have taken is a simple agreement among Democrats to say “This is not acceptable.” Yes, of course Bush would give a recess appointment to his interim candidates. But the Democrats would have done their job.
Step back for a moment and say it again. Torture is the law of the land, because the Republican leadership wants it and the Democratic leadership doesn’t care to stop it. Who would have thought that, in 2000? How do we manage to live with ourselves, I sometimes wonder. I’m sickened and shocked and grieved. In some ways I wish I believed more in the feasibility of revolutionary violence, because I don’t believe in the feasibility of much short of that. “I didn’t think it would get that bad” and “I wasn’t sure what to do” seem like sorry, pathetic things to say to the people that Katherine interviews, and their families, and the whole world. They are pathetic and sorry things to say.
I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t see any way out of this darkness we’ve plunged into. It would help if I had any reason to believe that the opposition leadership was at least working as hard as they could to focus attention on the problems, rein in abuses whenever they could, and to roll them back where possible. Gentility just doesn’t quite cut it at a time like this.
Can’t we just clone Jim Webb and put him in charge of every committee?
I talked to her office the other day, and they were sweating bullets. I think we all knew she would do this. They refuse to even use their leverage to do anything. I will call again on Monday. I will ask the staffer to explain how this is leadership from the Senator from the most populous liberal state- voting to provide cover for Schumer, and hanging the rest of the Judiciary out to dry late on a Friday afternoon. Pathetic.
To boil my gripe down: no branch of American government now stands for the rule of law and liberty, and the one branch set up with an oppositional, deliberative structure only fakes the motions of deliberation and won’t oppose. So only the most fear-deranged and rage-deranged portions of the public have any representation.
Feinstein has an op-ed in today’s LA Times explaining her decision.
Gotta love this:
The LAT also has more details on the the meeting between Schumer and Mukasey mentioned in the NYT article linked by publius:
And watch how quick the veto pen comes out if such legislation as suggested by Feinstein actually does pass (or how expediently a handy-dandy signing statement is drafted–do you suppose Dubya uses the same writing implement, regardless?)
“Most of the Dems are at least trying — and that’s significant.”
Not hard enough, nor when it counts. Intent don’t mean sh!t without results.
This may reflect badly on Feinstein and, to a degree, on Schumer. But the fact that waterboarding is not regarded as torture in this country reflects absolutely horribly on republicans and their shmibertarian enablers. I have always had a hard time understanding how some gay libertarians seem to cozy up to the authoritarian right wing, but I suppose it is possible to care more about philosophical principles refarding one’s wallet than about public pronouncements about sexual morality. But re: torture, I have a hard time understanding how anyone with a modicum of decency and intelligence can feel anything but profound shame at being republican.
Martin, Webb does a lot of good things, but he caved on the FISA revision and I fear he’ll cave again on the permanent one.
Granted that Judge Mukasey is light-years ahead of former AG Gonzales on nearly every measure, he’s still shown himself insufficiently ‘curious’ for this position at this time. Are there 40 senators who can stick their necks out for this? Folks might want to talk with theirs.
“They push hard so that yesterday’s “extreme” becomes tomorrow’s “compromise.” ”
that’s key. the strategy is: foul on every play, and they can’t call them all.
and then work the refs if they do call any.
then foul the refs if they don’t stay worked.
pretty soon, they call none.
it’s sickening to watch.
and i have to think that the press is deeply implicated in the failure of oversight. they do a lot to set the tone and calibrate the shame-triggers.
but i’m in no mood to let the dems off light, either.
Maybe the real reason is that they are hoping that Dodd’s hold will prevent Mukasey from coming to a vote?
Of course, to complete the kabuki, all he has to say is no waterboarding, and everything will be ok.
Except for the other enhanced interrogation methods.
Is this more of the “They’ll call us soft on terror!” cowardice, or do they figure nobody but political junkies is paying attention (and whose fault is that, when they have a perfect opportunity to drag the fact the Bush administration keeps torturing people into the news, day after day?), are they really that corrupt, or do they have this hare-brained idea they need to “wait” for the right moment, instead of making the right moment, which is the only way it’ll come?
We can has new Democratic leadership plz?
Argh, f*cking Feinstein. It’s already banned! Many times over! And your attempt to ban it by name will not be signed into law anytime soon. Stop listening to the Washington Post editorial page! If you insist on taking instructions from editorials, at least make it the NY Times! Way to lend credence to bad faith arguments that it’s not really torture, you idiot.
F*cking Schumer, too. I’m staying 2 blocks from his apt. in Brooklyn this weekend; if I knew what unit # he was in, I’d consider leafletting it.
They always hold out just long enough that I start to think: maybe I’m too bitter, maybe I’m underestimating them, maybe this time it will be different.
Ah well. I’m hoping to convince Dodd to keep up the pressure on these issues–a couple times now, Dodd’s taken a stand, Obama’s followed him, & Hillary’s followed Obama. Maybe we can keep duplicating that through primary season.
Yeah, I know the Dems aren’t as bad as the Republicans. But man does it feel like they’re just daring us to vote Green.
as for the overall state of the Democrats thing:
–the Democratic party doesn’t represent me
or care about the issues I care about
but
–every individual politician who DOES represent me or care about the issues I care about is a Democrat.
Marty Lederman on the Post editorial Katherine refers to.
Katherine, out of genuine curiosity, and not trying to play gotcha games or any others, how is Bernie Sanders on these issues?
Both parties do suck. They don’t need 60 votes. They don’t need one single Republican to go along with them. They only need to unite as Democrats and Mukasey would not be confirmed. The Democrats confirmed an Attorney General who stated that the President may properly violate the law.
The Senate has rendered itself irrelevant.
Schumer and Feinstein are worse than cowards. They are hacks. If ever there was a simple test for an AG of the USA nominee to pass it has to be that even the President is not above the law. Otherwise, this nation means nothing.
If ever there was a simple test of humanity for anyone in any position it has to be that under any circumstances waterboarding, even in its more carefully controlled form, is very easily understood to inflict severe pain of body and/or mind.
Mukasey doesn’t pass the simplest test of whether he’s fit to be AG. Nor does he pass the simplest test of humanity.
Publius is absolutely right. After this, what won’t Cheney attempt to do? He knows no one will stop him.
Was anyone really surprised by Feinstein on this vote? Seriously? After Southwick? That’s as bad a vote at this one, but lower profile. Given her record, especially in recent years, I’d have laid money two weeks ago that she was going to vote this way, along with Schumer.
No kidding……WHich is worse, dying in a plane crash, or getting shot?
The question becomes, which of two emerging solutions is the more feasible: impeachment of Bush/Cheney; or a restoration of law through the (remaining) political processes.
Bruce Fein andJohn Nichols make strong arguments that only impeachment can cleanse this ignominious stain. Mentioned at least six times in the COnstitution, it is a remedy which the founders clearly envisaged to be a practical, workable part of the process; not some aberration that must be avoided at all costs.
Which of the candidates offers realistic, human expectations, that these nearly unspeakable wrongs will be righted if that person were elected? Practically, I see no incentive for any Republican; and perhaps only Obama among the Democrats, as hopes for some restoration of law.
Given the probabilities of either course resulting in a restoration, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that impeachment must be pursued.
I saw a bumper sticker last weekL “I never thought I would one day miss Richard Nixon.”
It’s an error to even think of Feinstein as a Democrat. She is more properly a representative of the moneyed class, who has maintained a registration as a Democrat because the voting public in CA is undiscerning in such matters. It was years ago that she was sponsoring anti-flag-burning laws (or was it amendments, I think the latter), the kind of hackery that indicates that in most respects she has never had a clue about what it ought to mean to represent, you know, like the people.
Schumer I can’t explain. He shouldn’t have cut this deal. But this is absolutely typical behavior for Feinstein. It’s a pity she got renominated and reelected in 2006; we’ll be stuck with her until 2012.
I like John Dean’s idea:
“Before the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee completely cave-in to Bush, at minimum they should demand that Judge Mukasey appoint a special prosecutor to investigate if war crimes have been committed. If Mukasey refuses he should be rejected.”
Re: Pluralistic Utopian Torture Techniques vs. Islamic Torture Techniques vs. Dripping Water on Bad Guys (aka “Spanish Inquisition-era torture”)
“Using a leather strap we would fasten the [prisoner’s] heels to the back of his head, doing so gradually–sometimes pressing in on the [prisoner’s] spinal column, other times stretching it, tearing it. This generated unendurable pain. In front of his own comrades, even the most obstinate zek soon began to ask for mercy, then to beg for it, then to cry and moan, and eventually to howl and lose consciousness. We would pour water on him, bring him back to consciousness, and then begin the torture anew. The prisoner would beg us [to stop], promising his tormenters that he would do everything we wanted. Then we would untie him and force him to lap up his own urine from the floor like a cat.”
“Drill bits.”
99+% of waterboarding in America is done to our servicemen, in routine training. The survival rate is somewhere near, umm, 100%. The scars run deep too. Waterboarding has been known to cause bragging rights at the bar in the hours following the act.
http://internationalstudies.uchicago.edu/torture/abstracts/jeffreyburds.htm
That is a very good idea. I’ll write Cardin now.
As we lose all pretense of democracy, human rights, freedom, rule of law, etc., let’s hold onto good manners and the English language:
the opposition is basically 100% Democrat.
Either Democrats or Democratic, please, publius.
99+% of waterboarding in America is done to our servicemen, in routine training. The survival rate is somewhere near, umm, 100%. The scars run deep too. Waterboarding has been known to cause bragging rights at the bar in the hours following the act.
You understand that 1) that “routine training” is training to LEARN TO RESIST TORTURE, and that 2) it’s a mortal-lock guarantee that the training will stop at some point long prior to death, since we aren’t going to just kill servicemen in training for the hell of it, right? Are you really so dense as to not get that?
Bill,
Waterboarding has been known to cause bragging rights at the bar in the hours following the act.
This line of reasoning makes me question someone’s humanity and intelligence. Taken to its logical conclusion it would suggest waterboarding is so harmless that it’s pointless to try to use it to gather intelligence. After all, perhaps terrorist suspects undergoing it chuckle to themselves during the procedure, thinking of the fun they’ll have with their friends later at the bar bragging about how they survived it. If that’s the case, then why do it at all?
Or, do you think, perhaps, your implied parallel between someone submitting to it freely for training purposes and someone subjected to it against their will is lacking in intellectual honesty?
I certainly do.
I don’t think we should write off the attempt to pass legislation just because Bush will veto it. It is a valuable exercise in manipoulating the boundaries of debate to push legislation. Look atthe Schip situation. So yes the Democrats should draft and push legislatin banning torture. They absolutley should, if for no other reason than to force the Republicans to argue against it and to force Bush to veto it. It is an excellent tool for clarifying differences.
“The survival rate is somewhere near, umm, 100%.”
When just a kid, my brothers and I would kidnap our sisters, and/or some neighbor kids and march them blindfolded into the woods and subject them to torture of our own devising. We’d extract secrets about where the enemies (the kid next door and his brothers) were hiding.
The survival rate was 100%, according to one jovial sister over drinks some years back.
Last night my son took his girlfriend to see “Saw IV”. Numerous folks were tortured, minced, sliced, and diced. Despite the audience’s anxiety, the survival rate among the actors and their stunt doubles was, umm, near 100%.
He arrived home past his curfew, so I waterboarded him. Call the authorities, because I’m not sure what the survival rate was. Really, you never know with me. Your hunch might be wrong.
On Halloween night, two kids came to the door, one dressed as Jack the Ripper, and one dressed as a headless person. Jack the Ripper made like he was stabbing me with a knife and the headless kid had gore splattered all over the hole where his head should have been.
I gave them chocolate-covered razorblades. The survival rate for all of us was 100%, though later, in telling the story over beers, I gave out a blood curdling scream.
Barry Bonds now has more career homers than Hank Aaron.
It’s doubtful Aaron will buy Bonds a drink at the bar and that they will regale each other about how they survived the ordeal, since Aaron is 100% sure that Bonds’ stat deserves an asterisk next to it.
I can’t get over a little hypothesis whispering in my mind: that the Democratic leadership is pursuing some sort of grand strategy meant to insure a huge sweep in next year’s elections. That they’re deliberately acquiescing to these outrages because they want the public to be so completely fed up with the Republicans that they’ll throw them all out and give the Democrats absolute control of Congress as well as the Presidency. Perhaps Ms. Clinton is telling her Democratic colleagues to keep it cool and let the pile of dirt grow higher.
Of course, this hypothesis looks pretty stupid when you consider that most voters will also blame the Democrats for the bad behavior of the government — but then, perhaps the Democrats are saying, in effect, “ALL of politicians are filthy and disgusting, but at least we Democrats have good intentions!”
So I think of the possibility of this hypothetical secret plan to win the elections, and then I think of Mr. Nixon’s secret plan to end the war in Vietnam…
Well this should be interesting.
Only 21 cosponsors though. Anyone familiar with the process for a privileged resolution? I’m finding a few references that indicate it could go to the Judiciary Committee even without a vote.
There is no excuse for Feinstein. She’s done a triple Lieberman with full twist; she should be ostracized as much as possible and divorced from her patronage network (by denying them contributions and/or re-election). The consequences for being a Quisling, for she is one as much as is Lieberman.
As for Schumer, so he promised that Mukasey would sail through at least the Democratic guantlet, if not Bush vetting machine.
What, pray tell, was the conditionality Schumer imposed on that promise? What qualified independence was Mukasey to have had in exchange for those Yays? What facts did that commitment assume, what freedom of maneuver, what ability to remake the DOJ’s priorities, staff, opinions?
Surely, a politician as street smart as Schumer laid down markers. What were they? Has he given up on them? Or, as with Feistein, should we assume that Schumer procured exactly what he wanted?
Disgusting.
The craven impotence of the Democratic majority means we lose just as often as we did under the Republicans. And by “lose” I mean things like our rights, our national honor, and our self respect.
Ok, Publius, NOW do you get it? Why the liberal base is so mad at the congressional Dems? THIS IS WHY. You were so eager to defend them (why, I have no idea) a couple of weeks ago, and now you’re surprised by the same behavior the rest of us have been condemning for months. They cave over and over, when they don’t have to. This is why OpenLeft and Atrios are campaigning for “Real Democrats” who aren’t Feinstein/Schumer quislings (I’m still mad at Schumer over the hedge-fund-billionaire tax break issue too).
I would have preferred the spectacle of Bush making good on his threat to have no AG the rest of his term — what better way to showcase the Administration’s fundamental lawlessness? — that a compliant “conservative” who has already signaled that he’s ready to do Cheney’s bidding. Shumer should take a major hit for this. Feinstein’s cave-in is more predictable, but no less reprehensible.
Easy. Richard Blum, Feinstein’s husband has a contract with the U. S. govement for $1 billion dollars.
I see the fine hand of AIPAC in this mess.
And how can you feel for Schumer at all?
The US loves torture plain and simple. We the citizens have lost all moral standing and we seem to just love it.
“I see the fine hand of AIPAC in this mess.”
That must be it.
I agree with Kagro X: David Addington is de facto Attorney General, just as his boss is de facto president. The other guys just sit in the corner or oval office and do what they’re told.
Unless and unitl the Dems start fighting the real demons of this administration, they are doomed to failure. Sadly, that is precisely what they most want to avoid. Heaven knows why; the polls make clear that they would be amply rewarded if they changed tack.
I have news for Rahm, Nancy, Harry and company. Sitting quietly in the corner and waiting for November ’08 as fervently as Bush is pining for January ’09 is not responsible, it is not governing, it is not practical politics or doing the best possible job with a weak hand. It is craven support for a lawless administration, extending and cementing its hold on power and its ability to escape without just retribution.
A lot of BushDogs will not have their public employment contracts renewed; more will find earning that public paycheck a lot harder.
If anyone is interested, I just noticed that NBC is rerunning tonight that episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that deals with government torture.
Oh look, one of my least favorite Senators anywhere (representing my state of course) does deeply stupid things. God I love politics.
There pretty clearly isn’t any party I can feel I can reliably vote for. I had given up on Republicans, but boy the Democrats aren’t doing much to get my vote.
As for impeachment, I think it has fallen into serious disuse. Impeachment should be a serious, but perfectly OK tool in policing against corruption, abuse of office and overreaching. The fact that judges and administrators almost never get impeached is almost certainly a sign of political weakness more than it is a sign that people refrain from using their office in ways that are seriously improper.
OCSteve – The only thing I found (PDF) made it sound you have to do an unanimous consent request.
99+% of waterboarding in America is done to our servicemen, in routine training. The survival rate is somewhere near, umm, 100%. The scars run deep too. Waterboarding has been known to cause bragging rights at the bar in the hours following the act.
If I read you right, Bill, your point is that waterboarding is a day in the park compared to what some other folks do.
You could be right.
Unfortunately, we’ve also done some of those other things. Strappado, beatings, extreme stress positions. Murder. So, our moral advantage seems to be something less than one might hope.
Once upon a time, torture was something we just didn’t do. Not because of any utilitarian calculus, but because it was wrong. Morally wrong.
Those days are gone.
In any case, your point of view has won the day. We won’t know, really, what that’s cost us in the big picture for a little while. But, you know, every little victory is worth celebrating.
Enjoy it.
Thanks –
Its not just the waterboarding, as heinous as that is. It is that Schumer and Feinstein are giving their blessing to an unspoken agenda: that the DOJ is no longer the peoples’ law firm charged with enforcing the laws of this country for the benefit of the citizenry.
Rather the whole agency, if this guy is confirmed as AG, will have been given tacit authority to change clients (without the having been fired by the agency’s current clients), and this nominee, or indeed any attorney chosed by this administration as a nominee, will be violating the Canons of Ethics just by accepting the nomination in that he or she will be unable to zealously represent the interests of the client — us.
In the final analysis, any attorney that accepts the USAG nomination under the current climate is by definition unqualified as lacking professional ethics.
Any member of Congress who approves any nominee without ensuring that the client to be represented is us and not the president, should be voted out of office.
The waterboarding brouhaha is just a smokescreen to hide a more pervasive and potentially insidious abuse AGAINST U.S. CITIZENS — THE VOTING PUBLIC.
The real issue here is the erosion of Americans’ right to be heard in court. When coupled with the ex post facto immunization of corporations from breach of contract or tort liability after the commencement of litigation as contemplated by the FISA bill…well, my law license will be worth almost as little as the rights of aggrieved victims.
People — the DOJ is supposed to represent your interests — not the interests of someone that already has a tax-payer funded legal staff. While I haven’t thought it through, maybe we’d be better off letting the clock run out with no confirmed nominee.
Speaking of presidential power, this sounds familiar somehow:
My 2 cents, I don’t see how letting the clock run out would improve the DOJ’s situation at all. It would address the problem of having Democrats give their blessing to the situation, which is reason enough to oppose Mukasey, but the situation itself would be at least as bad. I’m sure that Acting AG Keisler is at least as likely to follow orders as Mukasey, and anyone Bush brings in in a recess appointment (Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, Jenna, Barney) will probably be even worse.
Yeah, but KC, at least there would be no official congressional imprimatur.
We pay these DOJ attorneys (USAG included) to represent our interests as American citizens through the legal system. They are supposed to be our lawyers and the laws are supposed to be enforced by them for the benefit of the citizens, DOJ is supposed to be my lawyer and your lawyer and the law firm support staff such as the FBI — we pay them, they work for us.
If Congress, either de facto or de jure, changes the functionality of the DOJ so that they DON”T EVEN PRETEND TO work for us, they have failed us. They are elected to represent OUR interests and our interests include competent and conflict-free counsel.
On the other hand, if just some hackish interim is appointed, abuses will continue, but without any color of Congressional (and taxpayer) approval. It places us on the record as NOT agreeing to this bait and switch.
If nothing else, its at least morally defensible to not let this guy have any nominee with any whiff of conflict of interest approved. It comports with the spirit of our Founders and with the principles upon which the American judicial system was founded.
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