Frequently during some of the hearings, most recently for Leon Panetta and David Ogden, the question of the "human ticking time bomb" has come up in the context of the legitimacy of torture as a technique under those circumstances. And, as far I can tell, not one nominee presented with this hypothetical has attacked the logic behind it. Panetta, no doubt feeling pushed into a corner, admitted that he would ask the President for extraordinary authority if necessary.
Perhaps I should watch 24, but may I suggest the following answers to this question.
1. Based on our experience of Guantanamo detainees (to say nothing of our own criminal justice system) where more than 2/3 of the detainees have been repatriated because they didn't represent a danger to the U.S., this argument assumes that the "good guys" really have caught a "bad guy".
2. If the guy is indeed a "ticking time bomb", all he has to do is hold out under the torture until it's too late for his interrogators to do anything, or give them a story that will keep them occupied ("yea, I put the bomb in location X" - when it's really in location Y.)
3. What constitutes a situation of this gravity? This is a slippery slope argument. The possible injury or death of 1 person, 100 people, 1000 people? Does it matter if the threat appears to be a couple men with machine guns, a nuclear bomb, or anthrax?
4, We didn't torture during WWII, after we'd been attacked, when we were suffering enormous losses in the Pacific, at Normandy, etc. Is it really possible that the nation is in so much greater danger today than it was then? Then it was during the Revolutionary War? Do we today approve of what happened at Andersonville?
I'm sure others could come up with more objections to this hypothetical case. And it is well past time that we stopped letting this straw man be thrown at anybody who opposes torture without tearing it down.
Friday, February 6, 2009
David Ogden - Deputy Attorney General - Man Without Principles?
Watching the confirmation hearing for David Ogden's appointment as Deputy Attorney General may rank as the most frustrating and infuriating of all the confirmation hearings so far.
Either Mr. Ogden has no principles or was so fearful of saying something that might prevent his nomination, not very likely under the circumstances, that he was afraid to say anything that might upset anybody, esp. the Republicans on the committee.
In particular, he did everything but disavow his briefs in favor of libraries fighting the requirements for libraries to prevent access to internet pornography by minors in libraries, in support of a 14-year-old girl's right to an abortion without parental notification, against the death penalty for a man convicted of a murder when he was a minor, the use of international standards when trying to assess cruel and unusual punishments, and even a memo in praise of Harry Blackmun, for whom he clerked, on affirmative action (the U of M/Bakke case).
All of these briefs were, of course, criticized by Specter and Sessions, etc. And in all these cases, Mr. Ogden pretty much said he didn't really believe what he argued in his briefs, that he was acting on behalf of clients. Now, obviously, lawyers do often defend criminals they know to be guilty. But lawyers rarely take on these kinds of issues if they do not agree with their clients. We must thus conclude that Mr. Ogden has no principles when it comes to arguing constitutional cases, as long as he is being paid, or lacks the courage to defend his convictions. His disavowal of his praise for Blackmun's opinion pretty much proves that the latter explanation is the correct one.
Even worse, however, was the softball question from a Democrat about the Bush Justice memo stating that torture could be defined only as an act that resulted in the failure of a major organ. The Senator wanted to know how Ogden would respond to such an argument if it had been presented to him. Did Ogden say he would reject it outright? (Think about it: under this definition, you could beat somebody senseless, rape him or her, break bones, pull out fingernails and toenails, use electrodes to deliver high voltage electric shocks, even put somebody on the Inquisition's rack.) No. Mr. Ogden said he would talk to the lawyer who wrote the memo, try to understand the argument, consult with others, etc.
Mr. Ogden, in short, was unwilling to state, point blank, that torture is wrong. Indeed, he bent over backwards to assure the committee that terrorism was the greatest threat facing the U.S., that he would be vigorous in defense of the country, etc.
What on earth has happened to this country that Democratic nominees (even Leon Panetta in his confirmation hearing) are so afraid of being declared to be soft on terror that they refuse to say torture is wrong, period.
Either Mr. Ogden has no principles or was so fearful of saying something that might prevent his nomination, not very likely under the circumstances, that he was afraid to say anything that might upset anybody, esp. the Republicans on the committee.
In particular, he did everything but disavow his briefs in favor of libraries fighting the requirements for libraries to prevent access to internet pornography by minors in libraries, in support of a 14-year-old girl's right to an abortion without parental notification, against the death penalty for a man convicted of a murder when he was a minor, the use of international standards when trying to assess cruel and unusual punishments, and even a memo in praise of Harry Blackmun, for whom he clerked, on affirmative action (the U of M/Bakke case).
All of these briefs were, of course, criticized by Specter and Sessions, etc. And in all these cases, Mr. Ogden pretty much said he didn't really believe what he argued in his briefs, that he was acting on behalf of clients. Now, obviously, lawyers do often defend criminals they know to be guilty. But lawyers rarely take on these kinds of issues if they do not agree with their clients. We must thus conclude that Mr. Ogden has no principles when it comes to arguing constitutional cases, as long as he is being paid, or lacks the courage to defend his convictions. His disavowal of his praise for Blackmun's opinion pretty much proves that the latter explanation is the correct one.
Even worse, however, was the softball question from a Democrat about the Bush Justice memo stating that torture could be defined only as an act that resulted in the failure of a major organ. The Senator wanted to know how Ogden would respond to such an argument if it had been presented to him. Did Ogden say he would reject it outright? (Think about it: under this definition, you could beat somebody senseless, rape him or her, break bones, pull out fingernails and toenails, use electrodes to deliver high voltage electric shocks, even put somebody on the Inquisition's rack.) No. Mr. Ogden said he would talk to the lawyer who wrote the memo, try to understand the argument, consult with others, etc.
Mr. Ogden, in short, was unwilling to state, point blank, that torture is wrong. Indeed, he bent over backwards to assure the committee that terrorism was the greatest threat facing the U.S., that he would be vigorous in defense of the country, etc.
What on earth has happened to this country that Democratic nominees (even Leon Panetta in his confirmation hearing) are so afraid of being declared to be soft on terror that they refuse to say torture is wrong, period.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
HARRY MARKOPOLOS - HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
Listening to this man's testimony (Feb. 4, 2009) was fascinating, not just for what he did but for who he is. This is a man who is so close to being your typical web jerk that is easy to understand why he might have been ignored.
He honestly believed that he was endangering his life by reporting on Madow.
He left an envelope for the head of the SEC in a library he thought the man would be at, and made sure he left no fingerprints.
He offered to go undercover (change his name, appearance, leave his family), etc., to expose the fraud for the sake of the country.
He doesn't know the people at the SEC but he is confident that ALL of the senior staff should be dismissed and that all of them are so dumb they couldn't find first base in a baseball stadium.
For anybody who spends much time on internet forums, these characteristics and the sense of self-righteousness, are all too common of a certain kind of net flake. That he supplied the SEC with detailed information backing up his allegations doesn't change this. Indeed, it is typical. There are people on the web who can write pages and pages and pages of complex text and calculations proving that perpetual motion machines do work and the earth does not revolve around the sun. (Pharyngula regularly exposes the "intellectual" diatribes of anti-evolutionists.)
I don't mean to excuse the SEC. They are clearly understaffed. They get hundreds of thousands of complaints and I don't even know if they have a method for logging them into a central database (issuer of the complaint, nature of the complaint, object, documentation, etc.) But Markopolos's personality and his persistence are so typical of a certain kind of internet pest that I can partly understand why he was ignored.
He honestly believed that he was endangering his life by reporting on Madow.
He left an envelope for the head of the SEC in a library he thought the man would be at, and made sure he left no fingerprints.
He offered to go undercover (change his name, appearance, leave his family), etc., to expose the fraud for the sake of the country.
He doesn't know the people at the SEC but he is confident that ALL of the senior staff should be dismissed and that all of them are so dumb they couldn't find first base in a baseball stadium.
For anybody who spends much time on internet forums, these characteristics and the sense of self-righteousness, are all too common of a certain kind of net flake. That he supplied the SEC with detailed information backing up his allegations doesn't change this. Indeed, it is typical. There are people on the web who can write pages and pages and pages of complex text and calculations proving that perpetual motion machines do work and the earth does not revolve around the sun. (Pharyngula regularly exposes the "intellectual" diatribes of anti-evolutionists.)
I don't mean to excuse the SEC. They are clearly understaffed. They get hundreds of thousands of complaints and I don't even know if they have a method for logging them into a central database (issuer of the complaint, nature of the complaint, object, documentation, etc.) But Markopolos's personality and his persistence are so typical of a certain kind of internet pest that I can partly understand why he was ignored.
"BAD" GOVERNMENT SPENDING
There's been a lot of news coverage on all the "wasteful" government spending in the stimulus package - thanks to the Republicans' ability to sell their message, the media's lack of interest in anything remotely resembling research, and our MIA Democratic leaders.
Why the Washington Mall spending was attacked is beyond me. By all accounts, the Mall is a national disgrace. Fixing it up would mean hiring workers, buying landscaping supplies, sweeping, repairing/replacing public bathrooms, etc. This is spending. People get hired. Supplies get bought. And the result is a necessary improvement of a national monument. Yes, it does mean spending money in D.C., which may be the real problem, but unemployment there is high, so why not?
Buying hybrid cars for government employees? Yes, it benefits those terrible government civil servants. But the Detroit 3 are bleeding. January sales were even worse than the worst expectations. I don't think Detroit cares who buys the cars and they sure have cars to sell.
Finally, let's be brutally honest here: the Federal government could spend 40 million dollars buying dog food and handing it out to dog owners around the country and that would be stimulative. It would help not only the producers and sellers of dog food but would relieve dog owners, temporarily, of an expense - and they could spend that savings elsewhere.
In an economic disaster like this one, with a deflationary spiral a real threat, there is no such thing as bad government spending. Yes, ideally, the money should be spent on projects (like the Washington Mall or repairing school buildings) that will have long-term benefits, but in this environment, even Washington pork isn't all that bad.
Why the Washington Mall spending was attacked is beyond me. By all accounts, the Mall is a national disgrace. Fixing it up would mean hiring workers, buying landscaping supplies, sweeping, repairing/replacing public bathrooms, etc. This is spending. People get hired. Supplies get bought. And the result is a necessary improvement of a national monument. Yes, it does mean spending money in D.C., which may be the real problem, but unemployment there is high, so why not?
Buying hybrid cars for government employees? Yes, it benefits those terrible government civil servants. But the Detroit 3 are bleeding. January sales were even worse than the worst expectations. I don't think Detroit cares who buys the cars and they sure have cars to sell.
Finally, let's be brutally honest here: the Federal government could spend 40 million dollars buying dog food and handing it out to dog owners around the country and that would be stimulative. It would help not only the producers and sellers of dog food but would relieve dog owners, temporarily, of an expense - and they could spend that savings elsewhere.
In an economic disaster like this one, with a deflationary spiral a real threat, there is no such thing as bad government spending. Yes, ideally, the money should be spent on projects (like the Washington Mall or repairing school buildings) that will have long-term benefits, but in this environment, even Washington pork isn't all that bad.
TAX CUTS - FOR REPUBLICANS, SURPISE, NOT ALL TAX CUTS ARE EQUAL
It turns out that Republicans don't approve of all tax cuts after all. Those small-dollar increases in after-tax pay don't please them. They assert that they tried it before and it didn't work. Now, what they tried before was a refund which all too many people used to pay down debt or increase savings (normally a good thing but not in this particular downturn). They don't understand that a little extra in each paycheck may be more likely to be spent just because it is so small. Sure, some people will still save it or use it to pay down debt. But if you get just enough extra to buy a latte or a Big Mac, there's a reasonable chance that's what you'll spend it on.
No, Republicans want the usual Republican tax cuts. Two deserve special comment. Cutting the corporate tax rate is not going to create jobs. (Full disclosure here: I am not an economist and barely survived Econ. 101, but that lack of background doesn't stop other people from asserting uninformed opinions so I see no reason why it should stop me.) Companies are shutting plants and laying off employees because nobody is buying. Demand has dried up. These companies aren't going to open up those plants and hire back employees to sell goods nobody is buying just because their corporate income tax rate has dropped.
The other suggestion, the payroll tax holiday, is disastrous on three grounds. First, it is another frontal attack on the funding of the social security system which, of course, Republicans still want to kill. Second, these cuts can mean to many workers a significant (two-three figures) increase in take-home pay. That is sizable enough to risk that much of it will be hoarded (saved or used to pay down debt) rather than spent. Third, it will hurt like hell when it is reinstated.
And that last point is the most important reason for objecting to Republican tax cuts. Those tax cuts, whether for payroll taxes or income taxes or whatever, will have to go up when the crisis is over. And that will give Republicans the club they love to use: liberal Democrats are raising your taxes to pay for all those awful liberal programs. And probably no tax increase would be felt as strongly by ordinary citizens as the reinstatement of payroll taxes after a 6-month or 1-year holiday.
No, Republicans want the usual Republican tax cuts. Two deserve special comment. Cutting the corporate tax rate is not going to create jobs. (Full disclosure here: I am not an economist and barely survived Econ. 101, but that lack of background doesn't stop other people from asserting uninformed opinions so I see no reason why it should stop me.) Companies are shutting plants and laying off employees because nobody is buying. Demand has dried up. These companies aren't going to open up those plants and hire back employees to sell goods nobody is buying just because their corporate income tax rate has dropped.
The other suggestion, the payroll tax holiday, is disastrous on three grounds. First, it is another frontal attack on the funding of the social security system which, of course, Republicans still want to kill. Second, these cuts can mean to many workers a significant (two-three figures) increase in take-home pay. That is sizable enough to risk that much of it will be hoarded (saved or used to pay down debt) rather than spent. Third, it will hurt like hell when it is reinstated.
And that last point is the most important reason for objecting to Republican tax cuts. Those tax cuts, whether for payroll taxes or income taxes or whatever, will have to go up when the crisis is over. And that will give Republicans the club they love to use: liberal Democrats are raising your taxes to pay for all those awful liberal programs. And probably no tax increase would be felt as strongly by ordinary citizens as the reinstatement of payroll taxes after a 6-month or 1-year holiday.
BIPARTISANSHIP REPUBLICAN-STYLE
Thanks to the fact that Obama, Pelosi and Reid have been MIA when it comes to selling the stimulus package or defending how much they've given in to Republicans, Republicans have managed - with the help of our clueless media - to define "bipartisanship" as doing things the Republican way. It seems never to have occurred to CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc., etc., that "bipartisanship" means BOTH parties have to give a little. None of them is asking what Democratic ideas Republicans have accepted.
Now, I've spent hours watching C-SPAN hearings. There have been a number of bipartisan amendments. But the Republican amendments that have failed have been the same old Republican ideas (you know, the counterpart of the partisan "liberal pet projects"): across-the-board income tax cuts (5%), reducing the corporate income tax, a tax holiday from payroll taxes, tax credits for business, etc., etc. And the projects they oppose are the projects they've always opposed.
But the ordinary American watching cable wouldn't know this. And it isn't all the fault of those overpaid mannequins who pretend to be journalists. Democrats are not doing what they should be doing.
Now, I've spent hours watching C-SPAN hearings. There have been a number of bipartisan amendments. But the Republican amendments that have failed have been the same old Republican ideas (you know, the counterpart of the partisan "liberal pet projects"): across-the-board income tax cuts (5%), reducing the corporate income tax, a tax holiday from payroll taxes, tax credits for business, etc., etc. And the projects they oppose are the projects they've always opposed.
But the ordinary American watching cable wouldn't know this. And it isn't all the fault of those overpaid mannequins who pretend to be journalists. Democrats are not doing what they should be doing.
PELOSI AND REID - MIA AS USUAL
Has anybody noticed how the Republicans have hijacked the debate over the stimulus package? Well, I have. And Rachel Madow has. But Pelosi and Reid? Not so much.
Now, Reid's being MIA isn't so hard to understand. He's a Democratic Senator from the Republican state of Nevada and he's up for reelection in two years. And, oh yes, Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Majority Leader of the Senate and another Democrat in a Republican state (South Dakota) lost his reelection. So Reid doesn't want to upset his Republican voters. (Why Democrats would elect as Majority Leader a man beholden to Republican voters is a matter only a political shrink could explain.)
But Pelosi's inability or unwillingness to fight Republicans is harder to understand. She comes from a liberal district in one of the most liberal cities in the country, San Francisco. Yet, since she became Majority Leader, bipartisanship (read: appease the Republicans at all costs) has for her, as for Obama, been a mantra. She apparently believes, even after an overwhelming Democratic win in Nov. 2008, that the Republicans and Independents who switched parties really still believe in Republican policies. Republicans play to their base. Pelosi not only ignores hers, she is so unsure, apparently, of the rightness of Democratic ideas, that she believes she can't sell them to the very people who voted for them.
What did we ordinary voting Democrats ever do to deserve two such lily-livered Congressional leaders?
Now, Reid's being MIA isn't so hard to understand. He's a Democratic Senator from the Republican state of Nevada and he's up for reelection in two years. And, oh yes, Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Majority Leader of the Senate and another Democrat in a Republican state (South Dakota) lost his reelection. So Reid doesn't want to upset his Republican voters. (Why Democrats would elect as Majority Leader a man beholden to Republican voters is a matter only a political shrink could explain.)
But Pelosi's inability or unwillingness to fight Republicans is harder to understand. She comes from a liberal district in one of the most liberal cities in the country, San Francisco. Yet, since she became Majority Leader, bipartisanship (read: appease the Republicans at all costs) has for her, as for Obama, been a mantra. She apparently believes, even after an overwhelming Democratic win in Nov. 2008, that the Republicans and Independents who switched parties really still believe in Republican policies. Republicans play to their base. Pelosi not only ignores hers, she is so unsure, apparently, of the rightness of Democratic ideas, that she believes she can't sell them to the very people who voted for them.
What did we ordinary voting Democrats ever do to deserve two such lily-livered Congressional leaders?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Harry Reid Explained
As I've said before, Harry Reid is quite possibly the weakest Majority Leader of either party in the last half century, at least.
Now I know why. He's not only a Conservative Democrat. He comes from a Republican state where his re-election is not guaranteed. In short, he has to be careful not to seem "too" Democratic if he wants to stay in office.
Fine. I can understand the instinct for self-preservation. But that does not explain why the Democratic Senate first elected him as Majority Leader and then re-elected him. Except, of course, that Senate Democrats (like the equally cowardly House Democrats) are so afraid of being labeled "partisan" or "liberal" by the media that they don't want a "real" Democrat in the position.
I, quite frankly, am not happy with a Democratic President who thinks that partisanship, action on behalf of a set of firm beliefs, is wrong. That both Pelosi* in the House and Reid in the Senate share this view does not bode well for Democrats like me who believe in traditional Democratic values.
*Pelosi's cowardice and weakness, even with a Democratic majority, has no similar excuse. She comes from a reliably liberal district in one of the most liberal cities in the country.
Now I know why. He's not only a Conservative Democrat. He comes from a Republican state where his re-election is not guaranteed. In short, he has to be careful not to seem "too" Democratic if he wants to stay in office.
Fine. I can understand the instinct for self-preservation. But that does not explain why the Democratic Senate first elected him as Majority Leader and then re-elected him. Except, of course, that Senate Democrats (like the equally cowardly House Democrats) are so afraid of being labeled "partisan" or "liberal" by the media that they don't want a "real" Democrat in the position.
I, quite frankly, am not happy with a Democratic President who thinks that partisanship, action on behalf of a set of firm beliefs, is wrong. That both Pelosi* in the House and Reid in the Senate share this view does not bode well for Democrats like me who believe in traditional Democratic values.
*Pelosi's cowardice and weakness, even with a Democratic majority, has no similar excuse. She comes from a reliably liberal district in one of the most liberal cities in the country.
Burris - the new Junior Senator - Media Missing in Action
One of the things that has most amazed me about the Burris case has been the kid gloves with which this man has been treated.
Everybody, including Harry Reid (not that his judgment means much), insists that Burris is untainted,is a good man.
But Burris ran for Governor 3 times and lost. He also, I believe, ran for Senator and lost. In short, the people of Illinois have repeatedly rejected him.
He knew that the Governor has been accused of trying to sell the Senate seat. He knew that the Senate did not want to seat an appointee of that Governor. But he wanted to be Senator so much that he, apparently (I read or heard this somewhere), put himself forward for the position and accepted the nomination. Think about that.
One can draw only two conclusions about Burris the man, based on this action. Either he is so ambitious, so desirous of becoming Senator that he doesn't care how it looks or how he gets the position or his ethics are so weak (perhaps non-existent) that he simply can't understand why the character of the person appointing him, and the situation under which the appointment was made, taints the appointment. One can't help but wonder what other ethical matters he will be blind to.
Everybody, including Harry Reid (not that his judgment means much), insists that Burris is untainted,is a good man.
But Burris ran for Governor 3 times and lost. He also, I believe, ran for Senator and lost. In short, the people of Illinois have repeatedly rejected him.
He knew that the Governor has been accused of trying to sell the Senate seat. He knew that the Senate did not want to seat an appointee of that Governor. But he wanted to be Senator so much that he, apparently (I read or heard this somewhere), put himself forward for the position and accepted the nomination. Think about that.
One can draw only two conclusions about Burris the man, based on this action. Either he is so ambitious, so desirous of becoming Senator that he doesn't care how it looks or how he gets the position or his ethics are so weak (perhaps non-existent) that he simply can't understand why the character of the person appointing him, and the situation under which the appointment was made, taints the appointment. One can't help but wonder what other ethical matters he will be blind to.
Rich & Holder - Missing the Point
First, in spite of all the ink and air time spent on this issue, I still honestly don't know why the Republicans think the pardon of Rich was the equivalent of a high crime.
Who was this guy? What was the pardon for (what crimes)? Who requested the pardon?
Beyond those important basics, however, Holder's answers appear evasive because he has focused on the fact that the decision "was a mistake". He made assumptions that he should not have made. Etc., etc.
Holder seems to assume that the members of the committee already know all the details (probably true) but the public audience probably doesn't.
What he needs to do and what he has yet to do is to explain how the the process works, how the issue came before him and what criteria he used to approve the pardon. Just saying that he made a mistake or that he made erroneous assumptions, however correct as far as those statements go, simply makes him sound evasive.
I, BTW, believe this is all a red herring raised by Republicans who still hate Bill Clinton and who want to cause trouble for Obama (for whom I did not vote), and seriously doubt that it deserves the attention it has been given (given all the pardons issued by all past Presidents), but it does bother me that Holder seems so locked into planned responses that he is unable to hear what he is being asked and to respond in a way that would explain why he acted as he did.
Who was this guy? What was the pardon for (what crimes)? Who requested the pardon?
Beyond those important basics, however, Holder's answers appear evasive because he has focused on the fact that the decision "was a mistake". He made assumptions that he should not have made. Etc., etc.
Holder seems to assume that the members of the committee already know all the details (probably true) but the public audience probably doesn't.
What he needs to do and what he has yet to do is to explain how the the process works, how the issue came before him and what criteria he used to approve the pardon. Just saying that he made a mistake or that he made erroneous assumptions, however correct as far as those statements go, simply makes him sound evasive.
I, BTW, believe this is all a red herring raised by Republicans who still hate Bill Clinton and who want to cause trouble for Obama (for whom I did not vote), and seriously doubt that it deserves the attention it has been given (given all the pardons issued by all past Presidents), but it does bother me that Holder seems so locked into planned responses that he is unable to hear what he is being asked and to respond in a way that would explain why he acted as he did.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
