Category Archives: Politics: US

Hire an undocumented nanny, and you are unfit to join the cabinet. Sign a memo facilitating war crimes by mis-reading the Geneva convention, or commission a memo that facilitates torture by, excuse the term, torturing the English language and the relevant judicial precedents…no problem…

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, is quoted in today's New York Times as saying about Attorney General nominee Alberto R. Gonzales (the man who approved the Torture Memos),

“Generally, for an executive branch position the president gets the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “The general feeling on the committee is that he has probably met that lowered threshold.”

Whether Sen. Schumer was expressing a normative or a positive view, that is whether the quote represented Schumer's personal view or only Schumer's impression of the views of his fellow Senators on the committee, it's pretty horrible when the Senate's advice and consent role is this stunted. The bar is pretty low when that “lowered threshold” will admit a nominee who, in commissioning and passing on the torture memos participated in a scheme to

1. attempt to put a patina of legality on war crimes and
2. totally twist the Constitution to suggest the President has powers akin to Louis XIV^th's and
3. mis-state the relevant precedents to make it seem like the above have substantial judicial support when in fact the opposite is true.

There is of course an element of political calculation here. Many chickenhearted Senators believe that they expend political capital by opposing cabinet nominations, when in fact opposing the right ones may create it. But even if I'm wrong about that, for some things — torture, fundamental constitutional principles — the calculations should be left aside.

As far as I'm concerned, Congress was almost as much to blame for Iraq as Bush — they wrote him a blank check, with the Gulf of Tonkin precedent sitting there in front of them. If there isn't some serious attempt in Congress to come to grips with the torture scandal in the next year, then some of the torture dirt will stick to them as well.

Looks as if it's time to promote Wayne Masden's story about a Republican-commissioned program that changes votes out of the tinfoil category, as it seems to be breaking into the major media.

Having Democratic House Judiciary members give Clinton Curtis a platform didn't hurt (video and transcript).

The Cabinet lost one of its few competent members but retained one its most clueless and ineffectual (note the “and” — many are one or the other only some are both): CNN.com – Snow staying at Treasury. When does the press get to rats and sinking ships? (Although, to be fair, as political matter, pushing through an intelligence bill whatever its actual merits was good survival politics for the administration; failing to do so would have reeked of lame duckishness so hard no one could ignore it.)

Consider Many Women Say Airport Pat-Downs Are a Humiliation. If this were a Democratic administration being attacked by the GOP, you can just imagine what the bloviators on TV and radio would say about how the goverment is trying to feel up America's women, and should keep its prying hands to itself.

Democrats don't usually descend to that level of demagogary, although there are of course exceptions.

Should one fight fire with fire or with water?