Category: Politics

Glenn Greenwald nails the state of conservatism in the United States today:

What it takes to make someone a “conservative” in Bozell’s eyes is the same as what is required in the eyes of all Bush followers — a willingness to support Bush’s actions because they are the actions of George Bush…. That’s because “conservatism” is now a term used to describe personal loyalty to the leader (just as “liberal” is used to describe disloyalty to that leader), and no longer refers to a set of beliefs about government.

Welcome to North Korea (or is it 1984?).
[Hat-tip to Sully.]
UPDATE: Glenn has posted an interesting followup which demonstrates beautifully how most of the vituperative criticism of his original piece simply reinforces his thesis.

As Susie says, you can’t make this stuff up. From the NYT:

The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.
A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation’s oil imports.

There have been a couple of interesting developments in the Bush/FISA story. First, a group of lawyers have comprehensively demolished the attempt by the Department of Justice to provide a legal justification for Bush’s actions. Money quote:

The argument that conduct undertaken by the Commander in Chief that has some relevance to “engaging the enemy” is immune from congressional regulation finds no support in, and is directly contradicted by, both case law and historical precedent. Every time the Supreme Court has confronted a statute limiting the Commander-in-Chief’s authority, it has upheld the statute. No precedent holds that the President, when acting as Commander in Chief, is free to disregard an Act of Congress, much less a criminal statute enacted by Congress, that was designed specifically to restrain the President as such.

Second, Doug Thompson at Capitol Hill Blue has identified a fairly impressive list of Bush appointees who told Bush that his actions were “breaking the law” and “could doom your administration”. They include:

• Colin Powell, ex-Secretary of State
• James D. Comey, ex-Deputy Attorney General
• John Ashcroft, ex-Attorney General
• George Tenet, ex-Director of the CIA

Of course all are now “ex”….

From Suburban Guerrilla

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women’s latrine after dark.

Just to be clear, we’re talking about women in the US Army choosing to risk death to avoid being assaulted or raped by their brothers-in-arms. Somehow I missed this aspect of the Army’s guiding ethos.

Here’s a stirring piece by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian about today’s Commons’ debate on the Religious Hatred bill. Money quote:

Free speech is fragile: laws change cultural climates in the media and inside minds. Police who can, absurdly, question Sir Iqbal Sacranie for his homophobic views yet never arrest him for his inflammatory remarks over Salman Rushdie, will make no sense of this law. Police stations will be besieged by insulted zealots brandishing ancient books. Only the attorney general can agree an actual prosecution. Refusing will add offence to the already offended.

It’s an absurd bill, a bad bill, a deeply illiberal bill. Hopefully MPs will boot it out.
Update: The MPs did the right thing by endorsing the Lords’ amendments – and curiously, when the time came for the decisive vote, Tony Blair was nowhere to be found!!

A long and thoughtful piece by Rachel from north London, a survivor of the 7/7 bombings in London. The bottom line:

To understand the roots of terrorism is the only way to defeat it.

From my colleague, Jeff Kesselman:

And remember… only Nixon could go to China and only Sharon could pull out of the west bank. Perhaps, for the same reasons, only Hamas can bring peace to the Palestinians.

I really have to stop raising my blood pressure by reading The Weekly Standard. However I followed a link to a piece by Harvey Mansfield (William R. Kenan Jr. professor of government at Harvard) entitled The Law and the President, and thought it might be interesting. It was – but not in the way I thought. It was sophomorically bad. Is this bozo REALLY a tenured professor at Harvard?
An example from the very first paragraph: “But enemies, being extra-legal, need to be faced with extra-legal force.” Say what? Aren’t all criminals “extra-legal”? Does this mean we give the police “extra-legal” force? Or take this sentence: “The Federalist tells us that a republican constitution needs energy and stability, terms taken from physics to designate discretion and law.” In what way does “energy” correspond to “discretion”?
Of course all of this is in service of his dubious thesis that the Constitution should be interpreted as endorsing a unitary (unchecked) executive:

In rejecting monarchy because it was unsafe, republicans had forgotten that it might also be effective. The Framers made a strong executive in order to have both power and security, and they took note of emergency occasions when more power gives more security.
Separation of powers was a republican invention of the 17th century, but the Framers improved it when they strengthened the executive. They enabled the executive to act independently of the legislature and not merely serve as its agent in executing the laws.

Note the selective use of the word “emergency”. Mansfield (and others of his way of thinking, like Alito) introduce the word to justify exceptional action in exceptional conditions, and then quietly drop it to leave the impression that they’re talking about ordinary, everyday powers. The equivocation is relentless – and blatant.
For a more complete take-down of this “profoundly silly” piece, see David Luban’s analysis over at Balkinization.

I just finished watching Al Gore’s speech in Washington today. (Here‘s the link to the RealMedia stream from C-Span, and here‘s the text of his remarks.) Highly recommended. And as Suburban Guerilla notes, it’s getting widespread positive coverage in the press. Perhaps the fourth estate is getting a spine. Congress next?

Must-read: Terry on “an environment of active hatred”. There’s no excuse for liberals to descend to the moral depths of Coulter and Derbyshire. None whatsoever.