NYT endorses Obama; makes a mistake

Easy, easy. . . there’s a semicolon up there. . . so, please, just read on.

In a lengthy editorial, published Friday, the New York Times endorsed Barack Obama for president:

The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.

As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.

Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.

In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.

Well, I could quibble with just what the Times might call McCain’s accomplishments, for most are ephemeral or singularly self-serving, but that is nothing to get too up in arms about really. Within a generation, John McCain’s “career,” for lack of a better term, will be reduced to an interesting footnote; the editorial’s reference to “accomplishments” might be little more than a rhetorical flourish.

Instead, I take umbrage at an assumption quite casually tossed out in the section of the endorsement labeled “National Security”:

The American military — its people and equipment — is dangerously overstretched. Mr. Bush has neglected the necessary war in Afghanistan, which now threatens to spiral into defeat. The unnecessary and staggeringly costly war in Iraq must be ended as quickly and responsibly as possible.

While Iraq’s leaders insist on a swift drawdown of American troops and a deadline for the end of the occupation, Mr. McCain is still talking about some ill-defined “victory.” As a result, he has offered no real plan for extracting American troops and limiting any further damage to Iraq and its neighbors.

Mr. Obama was an early and thoughtful opponent of the war in Iraq, and he has presented a military and diplomatic plan for withdrawing American forces. Mr. Obama also has correctly warned that until the Pentagon starts pulling troops out of Iraq, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

[emphasis added]

While I wholeheartedly advocate a quick end to the US occupation of Iraq, even if the next president engineers that exit, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan—because as numerous experts, General McKiernan, and even Barack Obama understand, there is no military solution to the problems in Afghanistan.

While I personally find it infuriating enough that it is accepted as dogma that the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was moral, necessary, and unavoidable (if our goal was to apprehend Osama bin Laden, other options were on the table), it is now even more exasperating to hear talk of escalation in that theater treated as if it were America’s strategic “big duh” moment. The Times’ asserted consensus ignores both recent experience and centuries of history, but, even more concretely, it ignores the current debate.

Take, for example, former New York Times Berlin and Istanbul Bureau Chief Stephen Kinzer, writing earlier this month in the Boston Globe:

The McCain-Obama approach to Afghanistan, like much of US policy toward the Middle East and Central Asia, is based on emotion rather than realism. Emotion leads many Americans to want to punish perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They see war against the Taliban as a way to do it. Suggesting that victory over the Taliban is impossible, and that the United States can only hope for peace in Afghanistan through compromise with Taliban leaders, has been taken as near-treason.

. . . .

In fact, long-run success in Afghanistan - defined as an acceptable level of violence and assurance that Afghan territory will not be used for attacks against other countries - will only be possible with fewer foreign troops on the ground, not more.

A relentless series of US attacks in Afghanistan has produced "collateral damage" in the form of hundreds of civilian deaths, which alienate the very Afghans the West needs. As long as the campaign continues, recruits will pour into Taliban ranks. It is no accident that the Taliban has mushroomed since the current bombing campaign began. It allows the Taliban to claim the mantle of resistance to a foreign occupier. In Afghanistan, there is none more sacred.

The US war in Afghanistan also serves as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. It is attracting a new stream of foreign fighters into the region. A few years ago, these jihadists went to Iraq to fight the Great Satan. Now they see the United States escalating its war in Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan, and are flocking there instead.

Civilian deaths alienating a local population, the honor inherent in resisting a foreign occupier, a US presence serving as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda—it all should sound chillingly familiar to even the most casual news consumer (no less a newspaper). It certainly seems to for at least one US Senator. . . and that one would be Russ Feingold:

We need to ask: After seven years of war, will more troops help us achieve our strategic goals in Afghanistan? How many troops would be needed and for how long? Is there a danger that a heavier military footprint will further alienate the population, and, if so, what are the alternatives? And – with the lessons of Iraq in mind – will this approach advance our top national security priority, namely defeating Al Qaeda?

. . . .

Regardless of whether we send more troops, we need to understand that, as in Iraq, there is ultimately no military solution to Afghanistan's problems. Unless we push for diplomacy and a regional approach, work to root out corruption, stamp out the country's narcotics trade, and step up development and reconstruction efforts, Afghanistan will probably continue its downward trajectory.

Not every paragraph of the Feingold piece is as clear as the ones above (if those are even that clear); in many ways, Feingold hedges his bets by refusing to rule out options and posing much in the form of questions. But at least he is asking a question. The New York Times (and, to an extent, the man that they endorsed) has not.

To be fair to Obama, I think he has made it pretty clear that he is a stronger advocate for multinational, diplomatic solutions than either Bush or McCain. But the nature of that diplomacy is yet undefined, while the “need” for more US troops in Afghanistan is a stated given. If and when a President Obama must make his plans more concrete, he would do well to enlist Feingold as an ally, and let the Democrat from Wisconsin ask him the questions quoted above. Obama would also be well served by talks with people who think like Kinzer:

Even if the United States de-escalates its war in Afghanistan, the country will not be stable as long as the poppy trade provides huge sums of money for violent militants. Eradicating poppies is like eradicating the Taliban: a great idea but not achievable. Instead of waging endless spray-and-burn campaigns that alienate ordinary Afghans, the United States should allow planting to proceed unmolested, and then buy the entire crop. Some could be turned into morphine for medical use, and the rest destroyed. The Afghan poppy crop is worth an estimated $4 billion per year. That sum would be better spent putting cash into the pockets of Afghan peasants than firing missiles into their villages.

Deploying more US troops in Afghanistan will intensify this highly dangerous conflict, not calm it. Compromise with Al Qaeda would be both unimaginable and morally repugnant, but the Taliban is a different force. Skillful negotiation among clan leaders, based on a genuine willingness to compromise, holds the best hope for Afghanistan. It is an approach based on reality, not emotion.

Perhaps the New York Times editorial board should give Kinzer a call as well.

* * *

But the Times actually needn’t go out of house. Here’s Nicholas Kristof from their own editorial pages:

Our intuitive approach to fighting terrorists and insurgents is to blow things up. But one of the most cost-effective counterterrorism methods in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan may be to build things up, like schooling and microfinance. Girls’ education sometimes gets more bang for the buck than a missile.

A new study from the RAND Corporation examined how 648 terror groups around the world ended between 1968 and 2006. It found that by far the most common way for them to disappear was to be absorbed by the political process. The second most common way was to be defeated by police work. In contrast, in only 7 percent of cases did military force destroy the terrorist group.

I quoted Kristof in a post last August. I also quoted Iliana Segura, who looked at the same RAND study and also applied it to Afghanistan:

If the United States really wants to improve the situation in Afghanistan, it should start by ending the occupation. It should then cough up money for humanitarian aid and reconstruction. (One estimate puts the tab at $10 billion.) This is not just for the sake of Afghanistan, but for the sake of Americans as well, who are no safer today than they were when the planes hit the towers. Ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is the first, crucial step in that elusive goal of "winning hearts and minds" that the United States claims to be so committed to in the region. As Iraq has demonstrated, occupying armies are not a deterrent to terrorism. Occupying armies breed terror.

Most important, it's time to stop thinking of Afghanistan as the "right front" of the so-called "War on Terror" -- an idea that has been perpetuated by everyone from Barack Obama to Jon Stewart (who idiotically told Colin Powell in 2005, "the Afghanistan war, man did I dig that. I'd like to go again") -- and start questioning the legitimacy of the "War on Terror" itself. . . .

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," wrote Seth Jones, the lead author of the study. "Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory."

I added my own two cents to those two fine columns, but you can go back and read those with a simple click. I expect Barack Obama has at least glanced at that RAND report; what could it hurt to sit down with Kristof and Segura, too?


(cross-posted on The Seminal)

Roasting an old chestnut

On September 17th, 1787, some 221 years ago today, a bunch of guys got together to sign their names to a little ditty that started something like this:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Yeah, spelling and punctuation was kind of quaint back then, but the rest of the thing holds up pretty well. . . or at least did for about 214 years or so. It was ‘round about then that the current vice president decided that he could form an even more perfect union—a union of his self-serving and paranoid worldview with virtually every aspect of American power and governance.

From drafting an “energy policy” all by his lonesome to manufacturing intelligence and lying the country into a war for oil, from kidnapping people abroad and disappearing them to torturing citizens in the basement of the White House, from abandoning the Geneva Conventions to abrogating the Fourth Amendment, Dick Cheney, with the blessings of his incurious regent patron, unitarily set about to edit away about two-thirds of the United States Constitution.

Well, not quite. As much as the biggest proponent of the unitary executive “theory” would like to think he did it alone, he couldn’t have really made his solo performance hum as well as he has without the cooperation of a furtive and feckless legislature. That the leadership of Congress changed hands two years ago has been of little consequence when it comes to these grand matters, and so, with Cheney due to relinquish his official control in just four short months, the 221-year-old Constitution is in more peril today than ever.

That point might seem odd to some—surely the menace has been two terms of rapacious Republican rule, and with that soon over, so, too, the threat, no?

No. For after eight years of complicity and codification, the current imbalance of power runs the risk of being passed on to another executive with little done to restore the equilibrium between the branches that is required by the Constitution, and nothing done to punish those that disregarded those constraints. That the next administration might be a Democratic one is of little consolation. Perhaps Barack Obama, who was, as we are oft reminded, a teacher of Constitutional law, will govern with a greater respect for the checks and balances envisioned by the founders, but his behavior in the recent battle over FISA revisions proves that such deference cannot be assumed. And without action by the Congress to reveal the Bush Administration’s transgressions, explain them to a distracted America, and hold responsible Cheney, Bush, and their minions, a restoration of the balance of power is most certainly not assured.

For without explanation of how harmful this has been to our Union, there will be little incentive for the next president to behave more in line with the provisions of Articles I, II, III, and, for that matter, IV and V, too, and without penalties assessed against those currently in violation, there will be no disincentive to behaving in much the same way. As has been noted before, there are few that would voluntarily choose to give up some of their power. A belief that this power might be used for good instead of evil makes that prognosis all the more certain. . . and grim.

America’s greatest strength these 221 Constitutionally governed years has been the openness that comes with a deliberative democracy. The push, pull, and pace may often be infuriating, but the informed debate is what keeps a country honest. It allows for a confident dissent and the contributions of a diverse population. It should, in theory, prevent wars of ego and choice, and guard against crony capitalism, selective prosecution, environmental exploitation, and a host of initiatives that benefit the friends of the current executive at the expense of the national interest.

In theory. The history of the US Constitution is littered with its failures, for sure, but those failures tend toward its misapplications or instances where it is not applied at all. Which brings to mind Article II, section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

If there were ever a day to revisit those words, it would be today; if there were ever a time to honor them, it would be now.

To that end, there are some in Congress who are trying—Democratic Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler come to mind. And, today, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold (D), as Chair of the Senate Judiciary’s Constitution Subcommittee, will host a celebrity roast, of sorts, in honor of the star document’s birthday. Titled “Restoring the Rule of Law.” Feingold introduced these hearings yesterday:

“Tomorrow, September 17, is the 221st anniversary of the day in 1787 when 39 members of the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in Philadelphia," said Feingold in opening the hearings this morning. "It is a sad fact as we approach that anniversary that for the past seven and a half years, and especially since 9/11, the Bush Administration has treated the Constitution and the rule of law with a disrespect never before seen in the history of this country."

Calling the Bush-Cheney shredding of our national creed "a shameful legacy that will haunt our country for years to come," Feingold addressed the difficulty that a new Congress will have in rectifying this administration's actions as the public and even Washington become numb to what Bush has made standard practice since September 11.

Feingold, to my mind, sells short the disrespect that the Bush-Cheney Administration had for the Constitution before 9/11/01, but the Senator fully recognizes the difficulties that lie ahead, especially considering how little support his and likeminded efforts have received from his own party’s leadership. Given that sorry state of affairs, and given the noise of the presidential election and the needs of a failing economy, I am not expecting much to come of Feingold’s hearings.

And that is a shame (and I mean that in the most condemnatory tone), for it will be harder to make the aggressive, long term changes to our financial markets, or our economy writ large, our energy policy, our national infrastructure, or our foreign policy, without the structures and strictures put in place 221 years ago. Not that it will be easy with them, but without the balance that has modernized and energized this Republic for two centuries, the rule of law is reduced to the whims of men and women. Any of those leaders will prove to be imperfect—even those that embody the hopes and good will of the majority are susceptible to the corrupting influences of power, the recalcitrance of institutions, the blindness of certitude, and the sway the interested few. It is the Constitution that protects the general welfare against misguided whims, that gives mere mortals the counterweight to politicized pressure, that gives the imperfect a means by which to become more perfect.

It is a 221-year-old idea—the idea of three co-equal branches each asserting their power equally and in the open—that gives a large and aging country the tools to make the change we need.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

A heartbreaking work of staggering cynicism

There have been many terrible, abhorrent, un-American, unacceptable, and unconstitutional laws passed over the last seven-and-a-half years (The Patriot Act, the AUMF, and the Military Commissions Act come immediately to mind), but today’s vote to codify the Bush Administration’s illegal surveillance program could top them all.

I have many reasons to feel that way; only one of which is the red raw emotion and strong sense of betrayal I feel as a Congress supposedly controlled by Bush’s opposition bends over backwards to give a president with a record low approval rating everything he could have ever wanted—even after so many of the Democrats’ own rank and file worked so hard for so long to fight the villainous activities of Republican rule.

As Senator Russ Feingold has pointed out, there are numerous ways in which this bill seriously erodes our Constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. The law provides little protection against reverse targeting, no prohibition of bulk collections, a giant loophole that allows intelligence agencies to spy without FISC approval virtually without end, no limits on the use of illegally obtained evidence in court, and few protections for citizens inside the US that correspond with parties outside of our borders.

As I have written in the past, the debate about changes to FISA has gone forward with little respect for what should now be common knowledge: The Bush Administration began its expansion of warrantless domestic surveillance within weeks of taking office—seven months before the attacks of 9/11/01. This is almost certainly (you know what, never mind “almost”—it is certainly) a program or collection of programs designed with an intent other than protecting America from foreign terrorists, and likely has made the fight to shield America from future violent acts more difficult.

There have been published accounts of how the Bush Administration used spy agencies to investigate journalists and their contacts. I would deem it likely that the White House used illegally obtained information to target Democratic politicians and civil organizations. It is even believed that the hospital contretemps between John Ashcroft, Andy Card, James Comey, and Alberto Gonzales was provoked by White House orders to illegally use intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens inside the US without a court order.

Also noted in the past, a majority of Americans oppose retroactive immunity and warrantless domestic surveillance. Democrats who fall in with the Bush Administration today are actually not only stepping on the Constitution, they are stepping across the line that divides the will of the American people from the interests of wealthy telecom executives and a political party that is bracing for record losses this November.

Many Democrats will also vote today to side with Bush and Cheney against the judgment of what’s left of this country’s independent judiciary, which, almost every step of the way, has tried to uphold the Fourth Amendment, force adherence to the original FISA restrictions, and insist that the White House turn over evidence explaining the timing and scope of their illegal spying endeavors.

Congress and the President will also be ignoring the advice of countless constitutional scholars who, like Jonathan Turley, have labeled this bill an act of “political convenience—not compromise” that shows “not an ounce” of respect for the Fourth Amendment. Democrats today will also turn a deaf ear to the calls of noted Americans such as Studs Terkel, who, having experienced nefarious government repression himself, has challenged the leadership to let other Americans who believe that they have had their rights abridged have their day in court.

And it is that day in court, and the very real probability that with the passage of this devilish capitulation none of us will have one, that has me thinking this the very darkest day of a very dark decade. Without a loyal opposition loyal to the interests of the American people, or a body of elected officials loyal to the oath that they took to protect and defend the Constitution, without a professionally (as opposed to ideologically) staffed Justice Department loyal to the rule of law instead of to the man that approved their hires, it is only through concerned citizens and through the civil courts that any of us can hope to uncover what really took place behind the thick, green glass of the Oval Office or inside the slick marble corridors of power that crisscross the Capitol.

If we are ever to know the who, what, where, when, and how of the Bush Administration’s illegal domestic spying program, we will need the civil suits currently making their way through the federal courts to go forward. It is the cessation of this process—first, foremost, and forever—that drives the urgency Bush and his enablers convey every time they address FISA. Indeed, President Bush has vowed to veto any bill that does not include retroactive immunity for the telecoms, and, by fiat, for him and his staff, too. He could get every other radically permissive spy tool he has ever sought, but without retroactive immunity, he has no interest in making this bill law.

And with the granting of this immunity by his own presidential pen, with a big thank you to Democrats Jay Rockefeller, Steny Hoyer, and many, many more, that Bush will make sure that American citizens’ options for justice will be severely and permanently limited. While any of the other aspects of this law could, theoretically, be revisited by the next Congress—while any of the other egregious laws passed during the Bush presidency can be (again, theoretically) revised, reformed, or overturned by a future Congress working with a different executive—once the government grants immunity, it cannot move to take it back. Retroactive immunity might be permissible, but retroactive criminalization is prohibited by the Constitution.

It is that irreversibility, that unredeemable point, that has me so inconsolably bereft today. Though looking up the page forbids me from saying that I am left without words, looking forward to an America without as many Fourth Amendment protections or without the same respect for the law that existed prior to this vote does leave me without any good explanation. It is a vote that can only be seen through the lens of beltway myopia, a political calculation born of cynicism and hubris. Democratic leaders might think that they are moving forward, putting a difficult national security issue behind them before the November election, but this is a giant step back, a closing of the door on years of actions that so badly need to be brought out into the open, without so much as a glimmer of hope.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

FISA: Watch, Read, Phone

First, as if you needed it, here’s a little pep talk, courtesy of Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), on why this FISA fight still matters.

With that impassioned defense of the Constitution still in your head, filling you with a warm and fuzzy feeling about what it means to live in an active Democracy, you then might turn your attention to this:

House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week’s FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision, according to an analysis by MAPLight.org.



In March, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity. But last week, 94 Democrats who supported the March amendment voted to support the compromise FISA legislation, which includes a provision that could let telecom companies that cooperated with the government’s warrantless electronic surveillance off the hook.



The 94 Democrats who changed their positions received on average $8,359 in contributions from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint from January, 2005, to March, 2008, according to the analysis by MAPLight, a nonpartisan organization that tracks the connection between campaign contributions and legislative outcomes.

. . . .

The 116 Democrats who remained opposed to telecom immunity received an average of $4,987 from the telecoms during the three-year period, the analysis showed.

. . . .

The members who voted yes on June 20 received, on average, $9,659 from the big three phone companies while those who opposed the bill received an average of $4,810, MAPLight found.

Of course, that was the House; now this egregious FISA legislation is before the Senate—often called “the millionaires’ club.” But, why should a bunch of millionaires care about a measly five thousand bucks. . . or even four or five times that? Is it really worth the relative pocket change to side with a greedy corporation and a corrupt administration over the people and the Constitution they swore to protect?

Let’s find out.

The Senate is likely to vote on cloture at about 10am (what happens after that is somewhat dependent on the progress of other pending legislation). Why not give your senators a call and tell them what you—part of “we, the people”—want: A “no” vote on cloture; should cloture pass, a “yes” vote on the Feingold/Dodd/Reid amendment to strip retroactive immunity from the legislation; and, should that specific amendment fail, a determined effort to stop this bill at all costs.

And, while you’re at it, phone Senator and possible next president Barack Obama and demand the same things.

You only have a little time, so pick up that phone!


(cross-posted on guy2k and The Seminal)

FISA: Yes We Can!

(updated below)

This post is going to be hard to write, for after a day of reading all of the analysis of, various statements on, and articles about the Hoyer/Bond/Bush FISA revision I’ve got an anger in me that is this close to blowing straight out my fingers and through the intertubes in all kinds of vial and unflattering ways.

For instance, I was tempted to title this piece “Yes we can capitulate!”

But more on that later.

First, the House “compromise” FISA bill was finally allowed to see the light of day on Thursday afternoon. . . and will come to a vote before the full House less than 24 hours later. No reasonable period for members to read the legislation and talk to their districts, no hearings, no time for even a perfunctory national debate ala the Sunday talk shows. This is the insta-vote tactic we’ve come to expect from Republicans during the last—oh, what, wait a minute, what’s that you say? Yes, that’s right, Democrats now control the House of Representatives!

You might want to remind them of that.

Second, as I mentioned on Wednesday, all you really need to know about anything with the words “Republican” and “compromise” in the description is that it is no compromise at all. Don’t believe me? Then perhaps you’ll want to know what Republican Senator Kit Bond has to say about this latest, uh, deal: “I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get.”

Bond led the negotiations on this “compromise.” Imagine, Republicans in the Senate negotiating with the Bush Administration and giving the president more than he could have imagined. That’s just the kind of BS faux-process that the Republican Senate leadership has turned into business as usual—what, huh? Oh, I see, Democrats are now the majority party in the Senate!

You might want to remind them of that.

Third, some Democrats—the ones that remember that they are Democrats (not to mention that they swore to protect and defend the Constitution)—recognize a bad deal when they see it. Senator Russ Feingold, for instance:

The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President's illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home. Allowing courts to review the question of immunity is meaningless when the same legislation essentially requires the court to grant immunity. And under this bill, the government can still sweep up and keep the international communications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection to suspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuse of this power. Instead of cutting bad deals on both FISA and funding for the war in Iraq, Democrats should be standing up to the flawed and dangerous policies of this administration.

Or Senator Christopher Dodd:

I cannot support the so-called ‘compromise’ legislation announced
today. This bill would not hold the telecommunications companies that
participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program
accountable for their actions. Instead, it would simply offer
retroactive immunity by another name.

As I have said time and time again, the President should not be above
the rule of law, nor should the telecommunications companies who
supported his quest to spy on American citizens. I remain strongly
opposed to this deeply flawed bill, and I urge my colleagues in
Congress to join me in supporting American’s civil liberties by
rejecting this measure.

These Senators remember the meaning of the phrase “rule of law.” You might want to thank them for that. . . and urge that they not only voice their displeasure but vow to stop this “compromise”—with a hold or a filibuster, if necessary—should it reach the Senate.

Fourth, the Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, can’t quite bring herself to say what she thinks about this legislation (h/t GG), even though her chief deputy, Steny Hoyer, negotiated it.

Tomorrow, we will be taking up the FISA bill. As you probably know, the bill has been filed. It is a balanced bill. I could argue it either way, not being a lawyer, but nonetheless, I could argue it either way.

What the fuck was that??? I could argue it either way? What is this, Pelosi’s audition for a summerstock production of Fiddler on the Roof? On the one hand. . . but on the other hand. Well, let me put this in Tevye terms for you, Madame Speaker: On the one hand, there is the Bill of Rights, and the Fourth Amendment, which protects every American from things like warrantless surveillance, and on the other hand. . . THERE IS NO OTHER HAND!

You might want to remind her of that.

Fifth, the Democratic Party’s newly anointed standard-bearer, Senator Barack Obama has (as of this writing) been uncomfortably silent on this crucial issue of the day. If Obama wants us to follow him into November fighting for a change in Washington, if he wants us to see him as a new kind of leader who doesn’t represent the cynicism of politics as usual, then now would be a good time to start leading.

You might want to remind him of that.

Sixth, if you need some talking points while you are doing all that reminding, how about the words of the ACLU’s Amanda Simon:

Remember that horrible bill the Senate passed earlier this year? The one that had virtually no Fourth Amendment protections? Ok, now imagine Congressman Hoyer and Senator Bond putting a really pretty, really meaningless bow around it to distract you from what’s actually inside. Then they added a giveaway to the phone companies. There. Now you have the current FISA bill. Let me explain.

Court review? Pssh. Please. This is how it would work: The government wants to tap someone’s phone. It claims “exigent circumstances” and begins to do so. Then it goes to the FISA Court to be granted a warrant. “Hold up,” says the court. “This application is problematic and based on heresay [sic].” Now the government starts the appeals process and that goes on for heaven knows how long. When does the surveillance stop on the problematic target? Um, never. The government is allowed to begin tapping without the courts and continue tapping when the court says no, provided it appeals. Nice, strong and meaningful judicial review, huh?

Immunity? Yes. Yes, it is. Here’s why: This immunity “compromise” sets the bar so low that anyone can clear it. Immunity hinges on whether a document from the president or government exists asking the companies to comply? We know they have them. You know who told us? The president. Asking the phone companies to put on their Sunday best, waltz to the courthouse and present a note from the leader of the free world does not a full and fair airing of the facts make. It’s a farce and, frankly, it’s offensive to those of us who cherish our privacy rights. Congress will be opening a Pandora’s box if this provision becomes law. What’s to prevent these companies from handing over our information again? Absolutely nothing.

Or how about Kevin Blankston, senior lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “No matter how they spin it, this is still immunity. It’s not compromise; it’s pure theater.”

Or, there’s the ever-intrepid Marcy Wheeler: “The ‘immunity’ provision here sucks ass.” (Actually, Marcy has a far more detailed rundown of the specifics here, like warrants, minimization, and exclusivity—please click on over to take a look.)

Then there’s the equally intrepid Glenn Greenwald:

The provision granting amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, Title VIII, has the exact Orwellian title it should have: "Protection of Persons Assisting the Government."

. . . .

So all the Attorney General has to do is recite those magic words -- the President requested this eavesdropping and did it in order to save us from the Terrorists -- and the minute he utters those words, the courts are required to dismiss the lawsuits against the telecoms, no matter how illegal their behavior was.

. . . . It's full-scale, unconditional amnesty with no inquiry into whether anyone broke the law. In the U.S. now, thanks to the Democratic Congress, we'll have a new law based on the premise that the President has the power to order private actors to break the law, and when he issues such an order, the private actors will be protected from liability of any kind on the ground that the Leader told them to do it -- the very theory that the Nuremberg Trial rejected.

And, Glenn adds after reviewing the full text of the capitulation:

Perhaps the most repellent part of this bill (though that's obviously a close competition) is 802(c) of the telecom amnesty section. That says that the Attorney General can declare that the documents he submits to the court in order to get these lawsuits dismissed are secret, and once he declares that, then: (a) the plaintiffs and their lawyers won't ever see the documents and (b) the court is barred from referencing them in any way when it dismisses the lawsuit. All the court can do is issue an order saying that the lawsuits are dismissed, but it is barred from saying why they're being dismissed or what the basis is for the dismissal.

So basically, one day in the near future, we're all going to learn that one of our federal courts dismissed all of the lawsuits against the telecoms. But we're never going to be able to know why the lawsuits were dismissed or what documents were given by the Government to force the court to dismiss the lawsuits. Not only won't we, the public, know that, neither will the plaintiffs' lawyers. Nobody will know except the Judge and the Government because it will all be shrouded in compelled secrecy, and the Judge will be barred by this law from describing or even referencing the grounds for dismissal in any way. Freedom is on the march.

And Josh Nelson:

Protecting the 4th amendment is an American issue, not a partisan one. Thoughtful Americans from across the geographic, demographic and political spectrum recognize the importance of fighting for the liberties that have served us for over 200 years. This is especially true in a time of war, when the temptation is great for those in power to abuse their responsibilities. There is no clause in the Constitution that says the executive branch can ignore provisions in the bill of rights when they deem it necessary, and for good reason.

And, if I might be so bold, me:

[T]he White House and its enablers [want] to hide their own grievous wrongdoing. And to do that, they must keep the lawsuits against the telcos from progressing in any way, for, as the Times understands: “Lawsuits against those companies are the best hope of finding out the extent of Mr. Bush’s lawless spying.”

This administration is committed to keeping the extent of that spying secret, of course, for if details came out, we would come to understand that the White House not only violated the Constitution, they did so not to protect us from any terrorist threat, but instead to protect their own hold on power. Remember, the warrantless surveillance started seven months before the 9/11 attacks, and was used to keep tabs on journalists and United States citizens inside the US. We know this much partly because of reporting in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today, among others, but we know more about the timing and targets because of what has come out in open court cases so far.

And, just to recap, there is that New York Times editorial from Wednesday:

The bill is not a compromise. . . . [M]any of its provisions are both unnecessary and a threat to the Bill of Rights. The White House and the Congressional Republicans who support the bill have two real aims. They want to undermine the power of the courts to review the legality of domestic spying programs. And they want to give a legal shield to the telecommunications companies that broke the law by helping Mr. Bush carry out his warrantless wiretapping operation.

Seventh, don’t look for any similar words of discontent from anyone in the Bush-Cheney camp—you won’t find them.

So how does all of this make you feel, dear reader? Are you ready for your Network moment? Are you mad as hell? Well, don’t open a window and yell about it, and don’t just sit and type, either. If you are mad as hell and determined not to take it anymore, if you thought that you worked so hard in 2006 to elect all those Democrats in the Democratic majority in order to stop crap just like this then you might want to remind them of that.

And you might want to remind them of that today.

McJoan was kind enough to provide us with the numbers:

Call Barack Obama and urge him to make a public statement reiterating his opposition to telco amnesty. His opposition could kill this deal: Phone (202) 224-2854, Fax (202) 228-4260

Call Steny Hoyer and tell him this is a bad deal: Phone (202) 225-4131, Fax (202) 225-4300

Call Nancy Pelosi and urge her to pull the bill from the House schedule: Phone (202) 225-4965, Fax (202) 225-8259

Call your representative and tell them to vote no on the FISA rewrite tomorrow.

Here are the Blue Dogs who supported the House's good FISA bill, the one that did not include amnesty. Call them and ask them to hold tough and vote against this bill tomorrow:

• Rep. Leonard L. Boswell, D-Iowa -- Phone: (202) 225-3806, Fax: (202) 225-5608


• Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark. -- Phone: (202) 225-4076, Fax: (202) 225-5602


• Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. -- Phone: (202) 225-3772, Fax: (202) 225-1314


• Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. -- Phone: (202) 225-2611, Fax: (202) 226-0893


• Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill. -- Phone: (202) 225-3711, Fax: (202) 225-7830


• Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga. -- Phone: (202) 225-2823, Fax: (202) 225-3377


• Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla. -- Phone: (202) 225-5235, Fax: (202) 225-5615


• Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif. -- Phone: (202) 225-6161, Fax: (202) 225-8671


• Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn. -- Phone: (202) 225-4714, Fax: (202) 225-1765


• Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah -- Phone: (202) 225-3011, Fax: (202) 225-5638


• Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind. -- Phone: (202) 225-4636, Fax: (202) 225-3284


• Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La. -- Phone: (202) 225-4031, Fax: (202) 226-3944


• Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan. -- Phone: (202) 225-2865, Fax: (202) 225-2807


• Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio -- Phone: (202) 225-6265, Fax: (202) 225-3394

These are the Blue Dogs who were with the Republicans on the last vote. Tell them it's never too late to redeem themselves and vote against this bad bill:

• Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla. -- Phone: (202) 225-2701, Fax: (202) 225-3038


• Rep. Christopher Carney, D-Pa. -- Phone: (202) 225-3731, Fax: (202) 225-9594


• Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. -- Phone: (202) 225-4311, Fax: (202) 226-1035


• Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn. -- Phone: (202) 225-6831, Fax: (202) 226-5172


• Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa. -- Phone: (202) 225-5546, Fax: (202) 226-0996


• Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C. -- Phone: (202) 225-6401, Fax: (202) 226-6422

This is not some inside-the-beltway sideshow. This is the Bill of Rights. This is why we fight. So pick up your phone and start calling! We helped beat back this sort of FISA capitulation late last year and earlier this year, and we can do it again. With everyone pulling together, we can help save our Constitution. Yes we can!

****

Update: Disgusting. Why do Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and 103 of their colleagues in the Democratic caucus hate America? Call the Speaker’s office and let her know how very disappointed you are in her lack of leadership and her neglect of the Constitution.

It is now more important than ever that Barack Obama demonstrate leadership on this issue, so it is now more important than ever that you give him a call (Phone: 202-224-2854, Fax: 202-228-4260) and ask for a) his public condemnation of the bill, b) his pledge to stop it, and c) his support for a filibuster should this House version come to the Senate floor.




(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Please sir, can I have some more?

I suppose you want your FISA update, don’t you?

Well, Tuesday saw the House vote out a 15-day extension of the PAA before they go the hell out of Dodge. That leaves this again up to the Senate, specifically the Senate Republicans, who now have to do a small twist (rather than a full pivot) if they want to accept for a fortnight what they just yesterday swore they would not.

I expect that Senate Republicans, with a gleeful push from some of our less bright Democrats, will agree to the extension. And though this will probably permit a period during which the Senate will consider amendments to the miserable SSCI FISA bill, the chance of any of the truly good amendments passing are slim.

If, by some miracle, any one of a number of these amendments is accepted, it might render the bill unsignable in the eyes of President Bush. Which, again, would be pretty much a victory from my standpoint—assuming Democrats are willing to say “shut up” to what will almost certainly be a pathetic whining from the White House and its spook-happy allies about how vulnerable this Democratic need for oversight and accountability would make us.

Of course, it wouldn’t make us the least bit vulnerable, as Democratic Representative from New Jersey Rush Holt explains (as transcribed by Glenn Greenwald):

[Even if the Protect America Act] expires, a perfectly satisfactory eavesdropping framework called "FISA" is already in place, along with the PAA's authorization that any programs begun under it can continue for one year after expiration.

(Greenwald also has video of Holt)

Holt even opposed the 15-day extension of the PAA, favoring its expiration if the Senate won’t take up the House version of the act (which, again, is far superior to the SSCI version). And Holt is right to do so—the PAA is a black mark on our nation’s history, not to mention a low point in the history of the supposedly Democratic controlled 110th Congress. As Greenwald reminds us:

With all the focus on the travesty of telecom amnesty, it has been easy to forget just how Draconian the Protect America Act really is, how radical are the warrantless eavesdropping powers it vested in the President. In essence, that bill allowed the Government to eavesdrop on every single international telephone call made or received by an American with no restrictions or judicial oversight whatsoever, and further empowered the Government to read every international email sent or received by an American with no restrictions or judicial oversight.

I also believe (as I previously explained) that the PAA has basically made each and every one of our e-mails fair game for warrantless surveillance—no matter where they go or who their from. In fact, the FISA regime, or lack thereof, under the PAA has likely cast so big a net that it has (as has been previously reported it would) overwhelmed our analysts with too much noise to provide anything resembling actionable intelligence on terrorism. It does, however, give this administration all the tools necessary to repress dissent, undermine a free press, and do opposition research on political opponents.

Don’t trust me. It’s already happened. Just ask Lawrence Wright. The Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Looming Tower has pretty good evidence that his phones were tapped starting in 2002. (And that was under a less permissive FISA structure.)

No, you don’t have to trust me—but why would you ever trust the Bush-Cheney Administration? As Senator Russ Feingold explains in the Greenwald piece that I link to above, “trust us” is all the assurance the White House ever gives, and all the oversight they will accept. After all that has happened in the last seven years, however, it is the last version of “oversight” that the Democrats in Congress should accept.

Nor should they have to. Practically no one in the country trusts this administration anymore. Everyone knows they have a penchant for secrecy and a complete disrespect for the rule of law. Everyone knows they are alternately venal and incompetent. And vast majorities of Americans rate the president and practically everything his government does as just plain awful.

Every time that Bush has spoken over the past three years or so, his popularity has gone down. So let him rant and wail; let him demand a FISA law with provisions that polls show a majority of Americans reject. Let the PAA expire and do so in the name of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, have the gumption to stand up to telecom lobbyists, their bought-and-paid-for legislators, and an unpopular, lame-duck president, and I promise you good things will come. (Fail to stand up, and most likely bad things will come. Does the Democratic leadership not remember how their PAA “blink” was received last August?)

No one sided with the proprietors of the workhouse in Oliver Twist. No one thought, “That cheeky boy, why is he not happy with his one glorious bowl of gruel? How dare he make noise!”

Instead of meekly accepting another bowl PAA/FISA gruel, why not look down Pennsylvania Avenue and demand more of something much more fulfilling? Please sir, can we have some checks and balances, proper oversight, our Constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy and due process—can we have more of those? Ask for that, instead of cowering to the politics of fear, and the American people will eat it up.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

What part of “majority” don’t you understand?

After weeks of standing tall and standing fast, the Democratic leadership seems on the verge of, once again, standing for nothing. Claiming that they don’t have the votes to override a Bush veto, the likes of Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Steny Hoyer have agreed to strip the Iraq war supplemental spending bill of any real restrictions on the president’s usurped power to continue to make mayhem in the Middle East.

Rather than building on a strategy that has unified most Democrats and allied Congress with the sentiments of three-quarters of American voters, while effectively driving a wedge between Republicans and those same voters, rather than ratcheting up the pressure that effectively planted a ticking time-bomb within the Republican caucus, causing those members that hope for a political future to privately, or sometimes openly, question their dead-ender president, rather than blaze a new way forward while just maybe saving a few lives in Iraq as well, Democrats, in their infinite wisdom, have chosen the comfort of concession, the tough talk without the tough action, the tried and true road back to mediocrity and minority.

Rather than strengthening the new narrative that had an out-of-touch president as the last man on earth that thought things were going well in Iraq, and Republicans slowly mustering their own circular firing squad as they nervously eye the electoral calendar, a vote on another blank check for George Bush will split the Democrats. When the supplemental comes to a vote, those members of the majority that still have a spine and a conscience—some predict 120 of them in the House—will vote against their leaders’ “compromise.” In the Senate, I expect a dozen or more Democrats will break with Reid, lining up with Senator Russ Feingold, who expressed his outrage this way:

Under the President’s Iraq policies, our military has been over-burdened, our national security has been jeopardized, and thousands of Americans have been killed or injured. Despite these realities, and the support of a majority of Americans for ending the President’s open-ended mission in Iraq, congressional leaders now propose a supplemental appropriations bill that does nothing to end this disastrous war. I cannot support a bill that contains nothing more than toothless benchmarks and that allows the President to continue what may be the greatest foreign policy blunder in our nation’s history. There has been a lot of tough talk from members of Congress about wanting to end this war, but it looks like the desire for political comfort won out over real action. Congress should have stood strong, acknowledged the will of the American people, and insisted on a bill requiring a real change of course in Iraq.

The length of time before the establishment media reverts to the “divided Democrats” meme will be measured in minutes, if not seconds.

And therein lies the other defeat for Democrats. Beyond losing the battle to end the battle in Iraq, beyond losing the trust of the progressives that worked so hard last year to return the party to majority status, beyond losing additional lives and limbs while they fecklessly wait for the next meaningless milestone or pretend deadline to see them in September, the Democrats, by backing down this week, have lost control of the narrative, and so, have lost control of their brand story.

As Drew Weston wrote—and I blogged about—last week, how the Democrats square off with the White House sends a meta-message about how they will handle confrontations across the board:

The willingness of Democratic leaders such as Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi to stare down the president has done far more to reassure the American people that Democrats know how to deal with aggression than all the efforts over the last five years to show that they, too, "support our troops."

It had done more, anyway. Now, with Reid saying we just can’t override Bush’s veto, goshdarnit, and Pelosi helping to negotiate a bill that she then announces she cannot support, the party is back to sympathizing with losers. Reid, who likes to remind us from time to time of his prizefighting days, should know better. You can’t win this one on points. History is not written by loveable losers, and there is no short-end money for the thousands upon thousands of Americans and Iraqis who will have their lives permanently altered over the next 120 days.

Reid and his Democrats could have been contenders, but, instead, they have bought themselves a one-way ticket back to Palookaville. Once again Democrats will be forced to argue that they really, really do “support our troops,” instead of being allowed to talk about how Bush’s rope-a-dope is killing our fighting men and women and the very civil and military structures that truly safeguard our country.

Of course, the idea that refusing to throw more good money after bad and refusing to sacrifice more soldiers and marines to the disappearing dream of a permanent Republican majority is somehow anti-troop is absurd on its face. The thought that de-funding Bush’s war will somehow strand Americans on a sand dune somewhere in the “triangle of death” with no bullets and no ticket home is so ridiculous it shouldn’t require a response. Yet, this is the story that Democrats are about to let Republicans and their media mediators tell: We can’t have a stand off with the White House, because we support our troops. Refusing to approve the blank check supplemental, so the story will go—has to go—is tantamount to leaving Americans in Iraq to fend for themselves.

Nothing, of course, is further from reality—I mean real reality—wars have been de-funded before, and the result hasn’t been “run for your lives!” The result has been a reasoned and reasonable redeployment, and would be this time, as well. The generals in the field know it, the Pentagon knows it, even the White House knows it (albeit they keep it to themselves), but if the American people are to know it—know it in a way that frames the debate moving forward—then the Democrats have to embrace it.

Instead, it seems, we will continue to be held hostage by the Republican myth machine, with our Democratic leaders exhibiting what might be the first recorded instance of Stockholm Syndrome by proxy.

But it doesn’t have to be this way, the Democrats have, if only for a few more hours, the cheers of an adoring nation. . . or, if not adoring, strongly supportive. Three quarters of Americans—what we call a vast majority—think this occupation is going horribly wrong. A majority support a drawdown of American troops. A majority support a real timeline with an end certain. A majority trust the Democratic Congress more than the President to manage this mess. A majority of independents, a majority of suburban voters, a two-thirds majority of voters in Republican districts all want to see Congress send Bush a bill with restrictions or deadlines. No matter how you slice it, a majority of Americans are against this war, and a majority of Americans want you, the Democrats in Congress, to bring it to an end.

Do that—or, at least continue to try to do that—and you, the Democrats who represent us in Congress, will be thought of as strong. Even if Bush vetoes and threatens to veto again, Americans will have your back because they will believe that you have theirs. Continue to fight, and you will be winners. Capitulate, and you will be losers.

How hard is that to understand?


Action alert: The vote on this compromising compromise could come as early as today. Please call your Representative—especially if he or she supported the McGovern amendment—and call your two Senators—especially if they had voted for the Feingold-Reid resolution last week—and tell them to stand strong and vote “no” on this version of the supplemental spending bill.


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)