Category Archives: Politics: US

YATA, Afghanistan edition: In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths.

They didn't even think the guy was guilty, and they tortured him to death.

How many 'bad apples' in how many places does it take to make a pattern and practice? How many deaths by torture in how many different places does it take to get top military and civilian commanders to admit responsibility for negligence if not commission? Surely there is some number of deaths (not to mention other barbarisms) at which point we hold, say, Rumsfeld responsible? One? Ten? A hundred? Can we agree a number now, so that when we get there, we can impeach the guy? And then, I think, prosecute him.

This is not a good moment for the Republic. Ordinarily, the public is to blame if it doesn't get outraged over atrocities committed in its name. Can we justly blame the public if it is getting its news from Fox? A steady diet of lies makes it hard to see the truth.

Meanwhile, on the floor of the Senate, Senator Santorum compares Democrats to Nazis … because they filibuster judges. Don't expect to see the people who bayed at the moon about Howard Dean screaming get the least bit anxious about this one. You certainly won't see it repeated on the news several hundred times in one week, even though it is much more serious.

In this context of what people can be expected to know, it's quite significant that the GOP now wishes to fully neuter the already partly neutered staff at PBS and NPR, thus making the only non-conglomerate major broadcast media sound like the ones bought and paid for.

And, oh yes, the people who want to pack the courts with anti-consumer and (by and large) anti-civil-liberties judges…also want to unleash the FBI from judicial oversight. The draft update of the 'Patriot' Act would let the FBI subpoena records without permission from a judge or grand jury.

Yes, that's the same FBI that, it appears, has been investigating protesters on the grounds that protest is a suspicious activity.

Meanwhile, while the Senate fights about procedure, the economy is approaching a precipice.

All it would take to be fully Roman is well organized corruption (more), and orgies.

Oh. Wait.

Pat Robertson is not someone I want to defend.

I think he's dangerous. I think he's quite probably evil. He could be nuts.

He's certainly offensive. For example, Robertson's remarks after 9/11 in which he blamed the attacks on US liberals were monumentally creepy. Or his suggestion that we ought to have a a religious test for judicial office.

But I don't think Robertson is stupid. And I suspect he may be sincere in his religious beliefs, if not always in his political tactics.¹

And in last week's Robertson flap, much as it pains me to say so, I think Robertson kindasorta had a point.

Robertson was recently flamed around the blogosphere for his televised remark on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that judges are a bigger threat to the USA than terrorists. The cudgels came out: what about 9/11, deaths, tragedy, how could he? And yet. And yet.

Are 'the terrorists' really a threat to America? Unless there's evidence they have a nuclear bomb or a fast-mutating virus, I don't think so. 'Terrorists' (a very mixed lot) do threaten many Americans but the only threat to the nation comes from the threat to our fundamental values posed by the over-reaction to the perceived threat. Thus, if 'the terrorists' are no direct threat to our basic institutions it follows that if judges are even a small threat, they're a bigger threat than terrorists.

And who, understanding the simplest principles of threat analysis could deny that the people with the power to decide cases like Dred Scott or Bush v. Gore are a greater threat to the Nation, to national institutions, than any bin Laden? OK, it's a little weird that for Robertson the issues that demonstrate the fearsome power of the judiciary are … wait for it … their power to remove school prayer and “sanction pornography.”

Despite this great oddness on the details, I think that that Robertson's fundamental point, that the terrorists are just a particularly nasty form of modern pirate — geo-political fleas — while the judiciary has enormous power to reshape our domestic institutions, is basically correct. And that's why the Senate's advice and consent role should be taken so seriously.

¹ I narrowly missed my chance to put this presumed sincerity to the test. When he was running for President in the '80s, Robertson came and spoke at Yale. I queued to ask him a question, but they cut off the questions when I was next on deck. Had I been called on, I had planned to ask Robertson whether Christians had a duty to evangelize members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Mormons were some of Robertson's big supporters that year, but my reading of his theology suggested that he did not see them as true Christians any more than he would Catholics, which is to say pretty much not at all. It followed that there was a duty to minister to them. But saying so out loud would have really hurt Robertson with a big part of his base. I was betting the theologian would win over the politician.

How many stories of parlor-room totalitarianism does it take before it's right to be worried? How many to get very worried?

After reading Orcinus The undertow of totalism, where do we rate on the boiling frog scale? (Even if the metaphor is based on bad science.)

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's mad. Reid Calls Bush a 'Loser'. And it looks as if it has something to do with this:

Two weeks ago, Reid essentially called Bush a liar when Vice President Cheney said he agreed with Senate Republicans about changing the filibuster rule. Reid said that violated a commitment Bush had made to stay out of the fight. Reid said that it “appears he was not being honest.”

I missed that comment when it happened, although I inferred it (cf. The Telling Detail).

Actually, it's much worse than mere lying. Bush lies to us all the time, and few professional politicians take it personally, more's the pity. Politicians lie, and others live with it. But what this story is about is breaking your word, delivered eye-to-eye in private. Senators see that as much worse than lying to the public.

Texas cheerleaders would have to wear burqas under legislation passed by the Texas House.

Well, not really. But just about: Texas targets 'sexy cheerleading'. And who knows what the Texas Taliban plans next?

Has the Texas legislature nothing better to do? Did they conquer poverty while I wasn't looking?

This is actually yesterday's news, but it's a telling detail nonetheless. In an article by David Kirkpatrick entitled Rove and Frist Reject Democrats' Compromise Over Bush's Judicial Nominees, we learn that Bush has promised Sen. Reid that he wouldn't get personally involved in the fight over the nuclear option.

So Cheney and Rove are in the trenches (which breaks the spirit but not the letter of the promise?), but Bush will sit this one out. Or break his word. Which would make it all even more personal…