Politics

After two years of delays and having lost two rounds in lower courts, Cheney is about to face the final test in his quest to keep private his records of work on a national energy strategy.

Cheney Secrecy Case Goes to High Court

The executive branch’s argument in this battle is that forced disclosure of confidential records intrudes on a president’s power to get truthful advice. The questions (pdf file) they’re asking the Supreme Court to answer are

Whether the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C. App. 1, §§ 1 et seq., can be construed, consistent with the Constitution, principles of separation of powers, and this Court’s decisions governing judicial review of Executive Branch actions, to authorize broad discovery of the process by which the Vice President and other senior advisors gathered information to advise the President on important national policy matters, based solely on an unsupported allegation in a complaint that the advisory group was not constituted as the President expressly directed and the advisory group itself reported.

and

Whether the court of appeals had mandamus or appellate jurisdiction to review the district court’s unprecedented discovery orders in this litigation.

The argument of the groups pressing the matter, Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club, is that the public should be able to see what influence energy industries had in outlining our national energy policy.

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I wish I had a first-hand account of yesterday’s march to share with you (feel free to use this as an open thread to share your experiences if you were there). I’ve attended previous marches in Washington focussed on preserving a woman’s right to choose, but didn’t attend this one. It sounds like I missed quite an event:

Massive March in Support of Abortion Rights

The turnout was among the largest seen in a city with a fabled history for such gatherings. Authorities no longer offer official crowd estimates, but various police sources informally estimated the throng at between 500,000 and 800,000 in the mile-long stretch of green space between the Capitol and the Washington Monument.

Perhaps most significant about the gathering (which included the usual mix of politicians, celebrities, and true believers) was the focus on “mobilizing a new generation of women to the fight.”

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Now, if you just feel like rolling your eyes at Mr. Hewitt and his latest column about Senator Kerry (International Man of Apology), that’s your own lookout. I’m mostly interested in the last paragraph, as it’s the most likely to actually be able to spark a real discussion:

… He “leads” the party that invented the Torricelli Option, and folks like Daschle have to be worried about a November wipe-out. A “presumptive nominee” isn’t the nominee. Who was that lady on Larry King this week?

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If Larry Niven ever wrote a colder sentence, I haven’t read it – and it was in the back of my head as I was plowing through Senator Clinton’s recent New Yorker article about health care issues. It was less dry than I expected; unrepentant VRWCer I may be, but I give her full points for starting off with “I know what you’re thinking. Hillary Clinton and health care? Been there. Didn’t do that!” Not Eddie Izzard-level humor, mind you, but for a career politician it wasn’t bad.

As to substantive comments, Jane Galt doesn’t agree with Senator Clinton that the difficulty of people with pre-existing problems to get insurance represents a market failure (although her comments section is debating the issue quite politely, in the main), but is more concerned that (in her opinion) this article violates the spirit of the campaign-finance rules; Robert Tagorda liked the idea of better use of information technology, but has issues with her number of uninsured Americans. (Links via Pejmanesque)

As for me… well, it’s not a technical piece, to be sure, and it’s certainly not designed to serve as an argument against getting a national health care system. That being said, a good number of the problems listed are not partisan ones. We do need to revamp our disease protocols to handle the modern era, our existing healthcare system is notably inefficient and we really should start assessing just what modern diagnostic techniques are going to do to our health coverage, just to pick three examples at random*. Discussing them can’t hurt. Truth be told, I also find that I am happier about contemplating the national health care proposals of the duly elected junior Senator from New York than I am in those of the unelected First Lady, which is no doubt some sort of horrible flaw in me, but what the heck. I’m allowed to be quirky, seeing as I’m just this guy on the Internet.

No, really. There’s, like, a blanket permission for it somewhere around here…

Moe

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Note: if you’re allergic to conspiracy theories, I don’t recommend this posting

I have an acquaintance I love discussing politics with. I’ll call him Dr. V. A self-made multimillionaire with a quickly growing international banking business (he’s opening five new European offices this year alone, I believe), Dr. V collects advanced degrees and classic electric rock-and-roll guitars. Dr. V also has what I’ll generously term a “vivid imagination.” (Look up “conspiracy theorist” in the dictionary and you’ll find his photo.)

We’ll meet socially every month or two and eventually find ourselves free to bring up politics, and normally he’s chock full of outlandish predictions. He’ll usually begin “So, what have you learned recently?” in a slightly insulting tone that suggests I have potential as a protege. I refrain from bringing up the predictions he made that didn’t come true (that leads to mindnumbing tangents), but he’s right far more often than he’s wrong. Right after 9/11, he predicted both the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions more or less exactly the way they happened. Some of his other predictions are too wacky (or scary) to share, but at a party this past Saturday night he outlined a doozy. I’ll call it “The Chaos Theory.”

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According to reports of what’s in Bob Woodward’s new book “Plan of Attack,” Secretary of State Colin Powell was a reluctant team player in the invasion of Iraq:

Two months before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned President Bush about the potential negative consequences of a war, citing what Mr. Powell privately called the “you break it, you own it” rule of military action, according to a new book.

“You’re sure?” Mr. Powell is quoted as asking Mr. Bush in the Oval Office on Jan. 13, 2003, as the president told him he had made the decision to go forward. “You understand the consequences,” he is said to have stated in a half-question. “You know you’re going to be owning this place?”

I watched with disbelief as Powell, the member of Bush’s administration I’ve always held in the highest regard, made the case for invading Iraq before the United Nations. Not that I knew he was doing so against his best judgement, per se, but from a source very close to Powell, I’ve known for some time he had no intention of serving in a second Bush administration (despite his insisting otherwise publically).

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair is in the US for talks with President Bush. Expected to be on the agenda are the need for a new UN resolution (which they seem to agree on); concern over hardline tactics in Iraq (which they are expected to disagree about somewhat); and Bush’s support of Sharon’s plan (which by many accounts may have really pissed the PM off).

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Kerry’s going to take a bit of heat from my side of the spectrum for this exchange:

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Robotic Menace (to the world in general, and Sydney Poitier in particular) Mecha-Streisand Entertainer Barbra Streisand, not being content with contributing to Gephardt being gutted like a cod on a Atlantic trawler* having discovered that she has a taste for Democratic politics, has apparently decided to permanently associate the current Democratic candidate with her name, politics and inability to do basic research throw Senator Kerry a party. I am actually feeling sorry for the man, now: I mean, he has to be nice to people like Streisand, not to mention actually pretend to take her seriously. I wouldn’t go into politics if my life depended on it hope they all have a good time. I watch helplessly, every day, as my cobloggers suck up all the important stories, leaving me nothing but scraps and Barbra Fragging Streisand to blog about** always find this sort of thing interesting.

Via Wonkette Wonkette

UPDATE: On reflection, deliberately misspelling the names wasn’t as funny as I imagined it being, so I fixed it.

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As a general rule of thumb, when writing your own alternate history scenarios in response to other people’s alternate history scenarios, it helps if you can demonstrate at least a cursory knowledge of your subject matter. Like, say, knowing exactly what impeachment entails, the non parliamentary nature of the United States government, minor little details like that. As for being humorless and heavy-handed, well, Willis and Easterbrook were about even there anyway. Finally, when you get caught out, don’t get huffy about it.

(UPDATE: The mockery ends here, btw.)

Still, it’s a good question: how would have things gone under a hypothetical Gore administration? In my admittedly odd and heretical opinion: pretty much the same as under Bush. In my opinion, the recession, 9/11 and the Afghanistan invasion would have happened pretty much on schedule; as for Iraq… six month delay at most, more likely three, possibly even no delay at all, depending on how little said h.G.a. felt like humoring the UN. About the most significant difference would probably be that we’d probably have a Democratic Senate, maybe a Democratic House (I kind of doubt it, but it’s possible)… and a lot more lip service support from certain foreign countries. Everything else? Same old, same old: there’d be a recovering economy (none of this stuff about tax cuts and interest rates, it’s all about appeasing the economic gods with the appropriate animal sacrifices), a seething Iraq and a scandal-ridden UN* in this alternate, too.

As to how well Gore would have handled this… if you want to believe that he would have solved it all and wrapped it up in a bow, knock yourself out; likewise to those who’d consider the “We’d All Be Doomed” scenario to be more likely. We’re never going to know either way – or even if a third option (“Eh. He got through it, some good here, some bad there, got lucky a few times, got knocked back once or twice”) would have been the end result.

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Hey, you guys remember Senator John McCain? You know, the Republican who was the subject of speculation that he was going to be offered Kerry’s Veep slot? The Republican that CW’s designated as most likely to be praised by Democrats? Him?

Well, he put the knife in tonight on national TV:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Trying to stamp out speculation that he might consider joining Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s ticket, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona insisted Sunday that he would not do so under any circumstances.

He said he would campaign and vote for President Bush in the fall, despite their policy differences.

“No, no and no. I will not leave the Republican Party. I cherish the ideals and principles of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan,” he said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

(emphasis mine)

Now, personally I think that you can find the ideals and principles of at least the first two in the Democratic Party, too (I think that it’s a bit early for everyone to be comfortable with feeling all bipartisan about Ronnie), but then again I’m not the Republican Senator responsible for deliberately screwing over Democratic fundraising efforts for probably the rest of the decade (I’m also not up for reelection this year, either). Granted, this SOB is on my side, but we already have enough people in both parties ready to slap at outstretched hands, thanks; no need to encourage the process.

Just… stop encouraging him, ‘kay*? It’s painful to watch, sometimes.

(Via Centerfield)

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Differences in opinion with Roman Catholic bishops, that’s what (via The World Wide Rant:

BOSTON, April 11 — Rejecting the admonitions of several national Roman Catholic leaders, Senator John Kerry received communion at Easter services today at the Paulist Center here, a kind of New Age church that describes itself as “a worship community of Christians in the Roman Catholic tradition” and that attracts people drawn to its dedication to “family religious education and social justice.”

Mr. Kerry’s decision to receive communion represented a challenge to several prominent Catholic bishops, who have become increasingly exasperated with politicians who are Catholic but who deviate from Catholic teaching.

Not that we’re precisely alike; Senator Kerry is still attending Mass, while I haven’t entered a Roman Catholic church since August of 2003. That previous sentence should be read as approving towards Kerry and disapproving towards me, just so we’re clear: he’s right to go and I’m wrong to stay away (those interested in why can see it below the fold: fair warning, it’s long, involved and quite possibly self-indulgent).

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