...maintained an even weight. No idea how, given the frequency of full breakfasts, surf-and-turf dinners, and spirits.
...read four books, including one about a giant prehistoric shark that terrorizes the California coast after escaping from a supposedly-secure entertainment facility. Those bureaucratic fools, to be sucked into the enormous jaws of death by the weight of their own hubris.
...absorbed the data from three fantasy football draft prep magazines. The clock is ticking and you guys are TOAST this year.
...spent two marvelous mornings boogie-boarding, wave-jumping, and hole-digging with my daughter and son at the beach. Blessings abound.
...indulged in two spirited discussions with my enormously sincere and well-meaning dad on the pointlessness of the right's agitation over the Cordoba mosque in Manhattan. Diverting and humbling, as I was reminded once again of the limitations on my rhetorical prowess.
...squeezed in 18 holes of golf with dad where we didn't talk politics, although I did develop a private theory about how my swing is a lot like the war in Iraq, what with all the various things that can go wrong and get in the way of victory.
...hung out at the pool with the kids and my amazing mom, who somehow never runs out of steam and always makes us feel like the absolute center of the universe.
...spent more time just chillin' with my beautiful, wonderful wife than I have in quite a while. The time just flew, and I can't wait to get home from work tonight.
And with that, we look forward to Christmas.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
The case of Maher Arar: Confirming the worst impulses of our legal system
In November, I wrote about the case of Arar v. Ashcroft, in which the Second U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 7-4 that an innocent man, Maher Arar, had no legal recourse against the government of the United States in redress of his claims of extraordinary rendition by American agents to Syria, where it has been well documented that the man was tortured for nearly one year, before his ultimate release back to Canada. Today, without further comment, the Supreme Court declined to hear Maher Arar's petition for review of his case, which effectively closes the matter for the judicial branch.
Let us review. Maher Arar, it is universally understood at this time, has committed no crime. He was picked up by mistake. The US Government has no current interest in detaining, investigating, or punishing him. The substance of the government's defense against Maher Arar's claims is that his rendition was actually a simple deportation, and that we received assurances from Syria that, if we sent him there in chains and a box so that his alleged ties to al Qaeda could be investigated, he wouldn't be tortured. Assurances from Syria. The Canadian government has performed a full investigation of the matter, and not only exonerated Arar of all charges and excoriated their own personnel and the American agents involved in the rendition, but also paid Arar a $9M settlement in recognition for his year's worth of unimaginable pain and suffering. Being tortured by Syrians. (Follow the link to my original post if you're up for the gory details.) The United States government, by contrast, has come to the final substantive legal conclusion not that Arar's claims are untrue or that no one in the government did anything wrong, but that our system of government doesn't permit him to have the question adjudicated by an impartial court. To repeat - the highest court in the land says that people under no suspicion of criminal activity don't get to petition the court with claims that they were tortured with the full knowledge of the United States government. They don't even get the courtesy of a hearing.
Remember why they hate us - because America is so damned free that they just can't take it.
I am certain to be told, as I so often am, that the case of Maher Arar is yet another sad case of the "realities of war." Much like the targeting of American citizens for assassination, the inadvertent killing of civilians by robot bombers, the operation of secret prisons beyond the reach of due process of human rights evaluation, the erosions of every last civil protection that generations of Americans have died to instill and preserve - these are all just unfortunate, unavoidable circumstances that have been inexorably forced upon this great nation by the intransigence of gangster theocrats. One knows not when it will end, or how far it will go before we can abate our sacred vigilance, only that everything we do must be Right and Good because we are a Right and Good people, who only ever does what is necessary to stave off destruction at the hands of our ruthless enemies, people so vile and cunning and malicious that they care not a whit for human dignity and the sanctity of all life, even to the point that they are willing to torture and kill innocents if it helps their cause. People who hold themselves accountable to no law, no mandate of the people, no standard whatsoever other than victory. Of course, we should and must wage total war against these people, and any self-imposed restraints on which we might rely out of nostalgia or misguided idealism must be wiped away - even if that means torturing and killing innocents if it helps our cause. Even if it means that our government should be held accountable to no law, no mandate of the people, no standard whatsoever other than victory.
It's been some time since I've written a full article on this blog, as opposed to simply posting links that reflect my point of view. I've committed to find the time in the future. There is much to discuss, for those of us with a visceral appreciation for both the blessings and responsibilities of representative government. We just put a stake in the ground that says we can torture innocent people and there's nothing anyone can do about it, and Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court all seem to be on the same page. And I'm guessing most of you only read it here, which means that it isn't even news. Sleep well, good friends.
Let us review. Maher Arar, it is universally understood at this time, has committed no crime. He was picked up by mistake. The US Government has no current interest in detaining, investigating, or punishing him. The substance of the government's defense against Maher Arar's claims is that his rendition was actually a simple deportation, and that we received assurances from Syria that, if we sent him there in chains and a box so that his alleged ties to al Qaeda could be investigated, he wouldn't be tortured. Assurances from Syria. The Canadian government has performed a full investigation of the matter, and not only exonerated Arar of all charges and excoriated their own personnel and the American agents involved in the rendition, but also paid Arar a $9M settlement in recognition for his year's worth of unimaginable pain and suffering. Being tortured by Syrians. (Follow the link to my original post if you're up for the gory details.) The United States government, by contrast, has come to the final substantive legal conclusion not that Arar's claims are untrue or that no one in the government did anything wrong, but that our system of government doesn't permit him to have the question adjudicated by an impartial court. To repeat - the highest court in the land says that people under no suspicion of criminal activity don't get to petition the court with claims that they were tortured with the full knowledge of the United States government. They don't even get the courtesy of a hearing.
Remember why they hate us - because America is so damned free that they just can't take it.
I am certain to be told, as I so often am, that the case of Maher Arar is yet another sad case of the "realities of war." Much like the targeting of American citizens for assassination, the inadvertent killing of civilians by robot bombers, the operation of secret prisons beyond the reach of due process of human rights evaluation, the erosions of every last civil protection that generations of Americans have died to instill and preserve - these are all just unfortunate, unavoidable circumstances that have been inexorably forced upon this great nation by the intransigence of gangster theocrats. One knows not when it will end, or how far it will go before we can abate our sacred vigilance, only that everything we do must be Right and Good because we are a Right and Good people, who only ever does what is necessary to stave off destruction at the hands of our ruthless enemies, people so vile and cunning and malicious that they care not a whit for human dignity and the sanctity of all life, even to the point that they are willing to torture and kill innocents if it helps their cause. People who hold themselves accountable to no law, no mandate of the people, no standard whatsoever other than victory. Of course, we should and must wage total war against these people, and any self-imposed restraints on which we might rely out of nostalgia or misguided idealism must be wiped away - even if that means torturing and killing innocents if it helps our cause. Even if it means that our government should be held accountable to no law, no mandate of the people, no standard whatsoever other than victory.
It's been some time since I've written a full article on this blog, as opposed to simply posting links that reflect my point of view. I've committed to find the time in the future. There is much to discuss, for those of us with a visceral appreciation for both the blessings and responsibilities of representative government. We just put a stake in the ground that says we can torture innocent people and there's nothing anyone can do about it, and Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court all seem to be on the same page. And I'm guessing most of you only read it here, which means that it isn't even news. Sleep well, good friends.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Health care reform: What hath we wrought
Before everyone forgets all about it (which could happen any day now), here are my thoughts on Barack Obama and the Democrats' legislative victory this week. As followers of this page know, I'm on record supporting the bill that is now the law of the United States, on the rudimentary grounds that it is intolerable in 21st century America, that access to the health coverage I take for granted be denied to individuals on the sole basis that they actually require health care. Every other factor in the debate, for me, is subject to that moral imperative, including economic costs and political realities. Put another way, if the government is going to spend itself into oblivion, I'd at least prefer it spend on this.
However. To my friends on the left, let there be no doubt that true progressives got rogered here but good, in two ways. First, the liberal wing in Congress proved yet again that they'll never actually abandon the Democratic party agenda when the chips are down; not in the way the far right will ultimately hang the Republicans out to dry. Second, as Greenwald articulates the way no one else can, this bill represents a massive expansion of the same private insurance industry whose worst practices it purports to correct. Nothing that would have reined in the free-market-gaming at the heart of this matter and truly lowered prices over the long term (e.g. interstate competition, bulk price negotiation, re-importation, and most especially, a public option) was ever truly on the table, because Barack Obama didn't think he could get this done if he had to fight with the insurance companies and the Republicans at the same time. And so the price for near universal coverage is an individual insurance mandate, which, while probably economically and Constitutionally sound, is nevertheless offensive to personal liberty. We could have done better, and this victory represents a continuation of a lousy precedent that keeps the public sphere beholden to cloistered corporate interest.
Second, also to my friends on the left, let no one doubt that the estimated costs of this program are likely way, way lower than reality, absent a high level of vigilance over the long term. My friend Paul lays out some examples on his blog of analogous government projections which turned out to be short - there's no reason to think this is going to be any different. The CBO score that came out Friday got the Democrats over the top - but that was political cover, not true economic reality. The reform is gonna need some reform, and it will be required long after Barack Obama leaves office. This is our responsibility now.
Third - to my friends on the right, I don't begrudge you the differences in philosophy or economic projections. What I do feel compelled to challenge, what I feel is somewhat unworthy of you, is the constant accusation that in enacting this reform, the Democrats have ignored the will of the American people, betrayed their oaths of public service, or, less prosaically, rammed this sucker down our throats. To wit, a couple of links. First, a recent CNN poll, from before the vote, that shows 52% of the American people either supporting the bill or opposing it because it isn't liberal enough. Not passing anything would not have pleased anyone in that group, so it was the will of the American people all along that something be done rather than nothing. Second, an overnight Gallup poll from immediately after the bill passage that shows an almost immediate increase in support the Democrats' achievement - it polls at an even split now, after only one day, which indicates that support is on the rise in the same way that Barack Obama's approval ratings after his election exceeded the percentage of votes that he got. And finally, a poll from FiveThirtyEight showing the high favorability ratings for all the individual components of the bill, even while approval for the full bill lagged behind, indicating more dissatisfaction with the legislative process than with the substance. None of this is to say that public opinion won't continue to shift, or that those in opposition to reform are wrong on the merits - only that sustaining an accusation that the Democrats are subverting the "will of the people" is like nailing jello to a wall. It doesn't stick, and we would all be wise to simply ignore the Republicans saying otherwise. The plain fact of the matter is that Barack Obama won an election the same way Scott Brown did, and so did 219 House Democrats and 59 Senate Democrats (from states representing over 70% of the people, by the way), and a lot of them were elected to do stuff just like this. That was the will of the American people. I have no idea what's going to happen this November or in 2012, mind you - and neither does anyone else - but my humble guess is that it will have a lot more to do with the candidates themselves and the economy than with this health care bill.
And about all those projections of doom and gloom, creeping socialism, tyranny, and the loss of the American soul. The skyrocketing premiums, the loss of personal wealth, the insurmountable government debt, the stalled innovation, the dearth of doctors - all those possibilities are empirically testable, through careful and honest analysis, now that this bill has become law. Better than that, if they do start to occur, there are legislative remedies for all of them, and elections every two years that can make a difference. We aren't done here, and we haven't just started - we're in the middle of a long, circuitous process that doesn't live or die with one bill. Keep at entitlement reform, keep tearing down barriers to competition, keep fighting - above all, go win elections by espousing good policy for Pete's sake, and keep in mind that being the opposition isn't the same thing as being the enemy.
Because here's what I love about all this: hidden deep within all the screaming matches, the mathematical acrobatics, the obfuscations, the anecdotes and the generalizations, is a real honest-to-God conversation about what kind of country we are, and what our contract with one another really means. What is the central political challenge of Western democracy? Is it ensuring that those who come by their wealth honestly don't have it unfairly confiscated and redistributed? Or is it promoting the general welfare, setting the conditions that provide the most opportunity and do the most good for the most people? Both of these are moral imperatives in public life, and neither the proponents of one nor of the other can claim to be the only ones on the side of angels. The left too often indulges an overconfidence about what can be achieved by government, and too easily glosses over unintended consequences. The right, by the same token, often fails to recognize that there are other threats to liberty in modern life besides government, and that government at its best can be an affirmative check against those forces. What we as a people strive for is balance, and balance, if it comes at all, comes only by way of argument and the democratic process. In summary, political wisdom chooses its companions very selectively, and among these are Temperance, Humility, Generosity, Compassion, and if one is so inclined, faith in and hope for this great country.
God bless America.
However. To my friends on the left, let there be no doubt that true progressives got rogered here but good, in two ways. First, the liberal wing in Congress proved yet again that they'll never actually abandon the Democratic party agenda when the chips are down; not in the way the far right will ultimately hang the Republicans out to dry. Second, as Greenwald articulates the way no one else can, this bill represents a massive expansion of the same private insurance industry whose worst practices it purports to correct. Nothing that would have reined in the free-market-gaming at the heart of this matter and truly lowered prices over the long term (e.g. interstate competition, bulk price negotiation, re-importation, and most especially, a public option) was ever truly on the table, because Barack Obama didn't think he could get this done if he had to fight with the insurance companies and the Republicans at the same time. And so the price for near universal coverage is an individual insurance mandate, which, while probably economically and Constitutionally sound, is nevertheless offensive to personal liberty. We could have done better, and this victory represents a continuation of a lousy precedent that keeps the public sphere beholden to cloistered corporate interest.
Second, also to my friends on the left, let no one doubt that the estimated costs of this program are likely way, way lower than reality, absent a high level of vigilance over the long term. My friend Paul lays out some examples on his blog of analogous government projections which turned out to be short - there's no reason to think this is going to be any different. The CBO score that came out Friday got the Democrats over the top - but that was political cover, not true economic reality. The reform is gonna need some reform, and it will be required long after Barack Obama leaves office. This is our responsibility now.
Third - to my friends on the right, I don't begrudge you the differences in philosophy or economic projections. What I do feel compelled to challenge, what I feel is somewhat unworthy of you, is the constant accusation that in enacting this reform, the Democrats have ignored the will of the American people, betrayed their oaths of public service, or, less prosaically, rammed this sucker down our throats. To wit, a couple of links. First, a recent CNN poll, from before the vote, that shows 52% of the American people either supporting the bill or opposing it because it isn't liberal enough. Not passing anything would not have pleased anyone in that group, so it was the will of the American people all along that something be done rather than nothing. Second, an overnight Gallup poll from immediately after the bill passage that shows an almost immediate increase in support the Democrats' achievement - it polls at an even split now, after only one day, which indicates that support is on the rise in the same way that Barack Obama's approval ratings after his election exceeded the percentage of votes that he got. And finally, a poll from FiveThirtyEight showing the high favorability ratings for all the individual components of the bill, even while approval for the full bill lagged behind, indicating more dissatisfaction with the legislative process than with the substance. None of this is to say that public opinion won't continue to shift, or that those in opposition to reform are wrong on the merits - only that sustaining an accusation that the Democrats are subverting the "will of the people" is like nailing jello to a wall. It doesn't stick, and we would all be wise to simply ignore the Republicans saying otherwise. The plain fact of the matter is that Barack Obama won an election the same way Scott Brown did, and so did 219 House Democrats and 59 Senate Democrats (from states representing over 70% of the people, by the way), and a lot of them were elected to do stuff just like this. That was the will of the American people. I have no idea what's going to happen this November or in 2012, mind you - and neither does anyone else - but my humble guess is that it will have a lot more to do with the candidates themselves and the economy than with this health care bill.
And about all those projections of doom and gloom, creeping socialism, tyranny, and the loss of the American soul. The skyrocketing premiums, the loss of personal wealth, the insurmountable government debt, the stalled innovation, the dearth of doctors - all those possibilities are empirically testable, through careful and honest analysis, now that this bill has become law. Better than that, if they do start to occur, there are legislative remedies for all of them, and elections every two years that can make a difference. We aren't done here, and we haven't just started - we're in the middle of a long, circuitous process that doesn't live or die with one bill. Keep at entitlement reform, keep tearing down barriers to competition, keep fighting - above all, go win elections by espousing good policy for Pete's sake, and keep in mind that being the opposition isn't the same thing as being the enemy.
Because here's what I love about all this: hidden deep within all the screaming matches, the mathematical acrobatics, the obfuscations, the anecdotes and the generalizations, is a real honest-to-God conversation about what kind of country we are, and what our contract with one another really means. What is the central political challenge of Western democracy? Is it ensuring that those who come by their wealth honestly don't have it unfairly confiscated and redistributed? Or is it promoting the general welfare, setting the conditions that provide the most opportunity and do the most good for the most people? Both of these are moral imperatives in public life, and neither the proponents of one nor of the other can claim to be the only ones on the side of angels. The left too often indulges an overconfidence about what can be achieved by government, and too easily glosses over unintended consequences. The right, by the same token, often fails to recognize that there are other threats to liberty in modern life besides government, and that government at its best can be an affirmative check against those forces. What we as a people strive for is balance, and balance, if it comes at all, comes only by way of argument and the democratic process. In summary, political wisdom chooses its companions very selectively, and among these are Temperance, Humility, Generosity, Compassion, and if one is so inclined, faith in and hope for this great country.
God bless America.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Holder fumbles on bin Laden question
I can't decide whether it's a good thing or a bad thing how politically inept Eric Holder is starting to look. In response to Republican badgering about what would happen if we caught bin Laden (military vs. civilian courts, etc.), Holder says the question is moot, because either bin Laden's own people or the US military is just going to kill him if we ever find him. Then General McChrystal gets up and says, um, no, our stated objective is to bring bin Laden in alive. So we can bring him to, you know, Justice - however the Department of JUSTICE determines that should be done, Mr. Head of the Department of Justice.
On the one hand, I'd rather Holder be good at upholding the law than keeping his foot out of his mouth in front of Congress. And it certainly not his fault that Obama and Emmanuel continue to hang him out to dry. But geez, every time he goes up to the Hill...
On the one hand, I'd rather Holder be good at upholding the law than keeping his foot out of his mouth in front of Congress. And it certainly not his fault that Obama and Emmanuel continue to hang him out to dry. But geez, every time he goes up to the Hill...
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
To what purpose religion, and the DC/Catholic dispute
Douthat has a column this week bemoaning the democratization and dilution of mysticism in modern spirituality, which he views as an unfortunate but somewhat unavoidable side effect of religious tolerance and multiplicity. Paraphrasing Luke Timothy Johnson, he writes:
Douthat goes on to speculate that it's the fact of having so many choices in how to pursue faith, that ultimately blocks the kind of ascetic bliss that can come from total surrender to one particular, grounded, transcendent reality. In our search amongst all the options to find something that "works best for us", we give up the prospect of being truly surprised by God. Twas not always the case, he writes, and he wonders whether that possibility of transformation can be easily recovered in the modern age.
Douthat's work is eloquent, and it's truly a pleasure to read this kind of rumination on the op-ed page of the Times. I think he's right that transformative spirituality is tougher when you're in front of a smorgasbord. However, I think there's an extent to which Douthat has things backwards; he thinks that faith loses its power to transform because of the smorgasbord, but speaking as a Catholic, maybe the smorgasbord persists because the Church is losing it's power to transform, surrendering the personal Mission to serve in exchange for abstract statements of moral principle.
The District of Columbia's law permitting homosexual marriage went into effect last month. The Catholic Church asked for a number of exemptions so that they didn't have to recognize those marriages as part of their public operations - the District declined. In response, the Church is planning to discontinue its decades-old foster care program, on the grounds that they now won't be able to deny gay parents from fostering needy children. Also, they've decided to discontinue medical benefits for all spouses, gay and straight, that work for Catholic Charities, to avoid having to pay them for newly married gay couples. On balance, I suppose I wish DC had granted the exemption. But they didn't, which forced the Church into a choice between enforcement of the Magisterium's dictates and continuing service to the public and their employees. They chose the former.
Without delving too much into the merits of the Church's decision, I'm left to wonder why, exactly, they never thought to discriminate against couples where one of the parties had been divorced and remarried - a condition about which Church teaching is just as clear. With a supremely bad taste in my mouth, I find myself indulging a suspicion that partisan politics has infected the American Church in a fairly severe manner - which also explains why it's shown itself willing to scuttle universal health care to prevent poor women from accessing non-taxpayer-provided abortion funds, and why it's been virtually silent on the subject of torture (see here for an excellent analysis of why the Church's anti-consequentialist position on abortion should lead to a similar unambiguous and vociferous rejection of torture policy - even though it hasn't). But all of this is somewhat beside the point, which is that to my mind the Church doesn't exist to enshrine any particular set of moral principles. What we should be doing is finding every way we can to continue Jesus Christ's mission on earth. He abhorred ostentatious pronouncements of self-righteousness, and welcomed with open arms even those who the world perceived as sinners. His instructions regarding humility, and unfailing service to the needy, lacked any any all ambiguity. Accordingly, I believe He wouldn't have wanted this.
Mysticism is one way to be transformed by God. Another way - Jesus' way - is the total public surrender of the self, in service to fellow men and women. That's what the Church is supposed to be about, more than anything else. In DC, this cutting ourselves off from the masses because we don't want to be stained with what we perceive as their sins - it is not in keeping with our best traditions of faith and charity. No wonder the smorgasbord looks so enticing to so many.
For my part, I'm a Catholic, for better or for worse. I believe what Jesus said to Peter, and I believe in the value of the sacraments, and the communion of saints. I won't pretend not to partake from the buffet, for my own reasons, but to truly and finally leave the Church would be as disruptive and unthinkable to me as renouncing my American citizenship. Just like America, measuring the Church's fulfillment of its Great Promise requires constant vigilance, reflection, and patience - and that's ok. I'm no better, after all - what is this blog if not an ostentatious pronouncement of self-righteousness. But I don't mind saying I'm disappointed by the behavior in DC - I think we can do better.
As society has become steadily more materialistic...our churches have followed suit, giving up on the ascetic and ecstatic aspects of religion and emphasizing only the more worldly expressions of faith. Conservative believers fixate on the culture wars, religious liberals preach social justice, and neither leaves room for what should be a central focus of religion — the quest for the numinous, the pursuit of the unnameable, the tremor of bliss and the dark night of the soul.
Douthat goes on to speculate that it's the fact of having so many choices in how to pursue faith, that ultimately blocks the kind of ascetic bliss that can come from total surrender to one particular, grounded, transcendent reality. In our search amongst all the options to find something that "works best for us", we give up the prospect of being truly surprised by God. Twas not always the case, he writes, and he wonders whether that possibility of transformation can be easily recovered in the modern age.
Douthat's work is eloquent, and it's truly a pleasure to read this kind of rumination on the op-ed page of the Times. I think he's right that transformative spirituality is tougher when you're in front of a smorgasbord. However, I think there's an extent to which Douthat has things backwards; he thinks that faith loses its power to transform because of the smorgasbord, but speaking as a Catholic, maybe the smorgasbord persists because the Church is losing it's power to transform, surrendering the personal Mission to serve in exchange for abstract statements of moral principle.
The District of Columbia's law permitting homosexual marriage went into effect last month. The Catholic Church asked for a number of exemptions so that they didn't have to recognize those marriages as part of their public operations - the District declined. In response, the Church is planning to discontinue its decades-old foster care program, on the grounds that they now won't be able to deny gay parents from fostering needy children. Also, they've decided to discontinue medical benefits for all spouses, gay and straight, that work for Catholic Charities, to avoid having to pay them for newly married gay couples. On balance, I suppose I wish DC had granted the exemption. But they didn't, which forced the Church into a choice between enforcement of the Magisterium's dictates and continuing service to the public and their employees. They chose the former.
Without delving too much into the merits of the Church's decision, I'm left to wonder why, exactly, they never thought to discriminate against couples where one of the parties had been divorced and remarried - a condition about which Church teaching is just as clear. With a supremely bad taste in my mouth, I find myself indulging a suspicion that partisan politics has infected the American Church in a fairly severe manner - which also explains why it's shown itself willing to scuttle universal health care to prevent poor women from accessing non-taxpayer-provided abortion funds, and why it's been virtually silent on the subject of torture (see here for an excellent analysis of why the Church's anti-consequentialist position on abortion should lead to a similar unambiguous and vociferous rejection of torture policy - even though it hasn't). But all of this is somewhat beside the point, which is that to my mind the Church doesn't exist to enshrine any particular set of moral principles. What we should be doing is finding every way we can to continue Jesus Christ's mission on earth. He abhorred ostentatious pronouncements of self-righteousness, and welcomed with open arms even those who the world perceived as sinners. His instructions regarding humility, and unfailing service to the needy, lacked any any all ambiguity. Accordingly, I believe He wouldn't have wanted this.
Mysticism is one way to be transformed by God. Another way - Jesus' way - is the total public surrender of the self, in service to fellow men and women. That's what the Church is supposed to be about, more than anything else. In DC, this cutting ourselves off from the masses because we don't want to be stained with what we perceive as their sins - it is not in keeping with our best traditions of faith and charity. No wonder the smorgasbord looks so enticing to so many.
For my part, I'm a Catholic, for better or for worse. I believe what Jesus said to Peter, and I believe in the value of the sacraments, and the communion of saints. I won't pretend not to partake from the buffet, for my own reasons, but to truly and finally leave the Church would be as disruptive and unthinkable to me as renouncing my American citizenship. Just like America, measuring the Church's fulfillment of its Great Promise requires constant vigilance, reflection, and patience - and that's ok. I'm no better, after all - what is this blog if not an ostentatious pronouncement of self-righteousness. But I don't mind saying I'm disappointed by the behavior in DC - I think we can do better.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
John Yoo's latest affront to decency
For Lent this year, as in every year, I'm attempting to swear off french fries, and contempt for any and all other members of the human race. I'm doing much better with the french fries so far. John Yoo is not helping, what with his latest braying, narcissistic rant in the Wall Street Journal about how grateful Barack Obama should be to him for preserving his commander in chief powers.
I haven't the time this morning to deconstruct every self-pitying contrivance the Journal has seen fit to publish in this op-ed, but I can't help myself in pointing out two things.
One, Yoo is following the script that last week's release of the OPR report on his and Jay Bybee's misdeeds in the Office of Legal Counsel, and senior attorney David Margolis's refusal to adopt the recommendations of professional sanction, represent a full vindication of everything Yoo did. This is just absolutely wrong. Margolis agreed with every substantive claim the OPR made about Yoo and Bybee's biased, shoddy, inaccurate, and destructive work on behalf of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, to say nothing of the fact that said work was also rejected by his own Justice Department after years of damage. What saved Yoo from a disbarment recommendation was solely the fact that everyone knew he was an ideologue to begin with, and he actually believed in the president's policy objective independent of the law. What Yoo is saying now is simply a lie.
The second point I have to make is in reference to the last few paragraphs of today's op-ed, where Yoo characterizes the repudiation of his brand of unchecked presidential and military ruthlessness as unserious and manifestly dangerous, and far worse, co-opts the American military to do it:
This absolutely makes my blood boil with, yes, contempt, and it does me no good with God to hide it, even during Lent. This is how the story of the SEAL deaths is actually described, by the sole survivor who lived it, Marcus Luttrel:
I won't comment on the ultimate wisdom, or lack thereof, of Mr. Luttrel's decision not to murder the Afgahn civilians who ultimately betrayed him and his men, except to say God bless their memories and there but for the grace of Heaven go I. But no matter what, John Yoo's assertion, five years after the fact, that the SEAL team leader ordered those civilians released, not because he wasn't a stone cold killer and detaining them in the middle of a covert operation was impossible, but rather because he shared Yoo's irrational fear of an overactive civil liberties lobby and therefore suppressed his best military judgment, is a supremely detestable and self-serving distortion of the available facts.
I don't want to see John Yoo imprisoned, or disbarred, or flogged in the street. I only want him to shut the f**k up. He can rot away at Berkeley for the rest of his miserable life, for all I care - but make no mistake, he is absolute poison. That's ten dollars in the jar for me; I'm off to Penance.
I haven't the time this morning to deconstruct every self-pitying contrivance the Journal has seen fit to publish in this op-ed, but I can't help myself in pointing out two things.
One, Yoo is following the script that last week's release of the OPR report on his and Jay Bybee's misdeeds in the Office of Legal Counsel, and senior attorney David Margolis's refusal to adopt the recommendations of professional sanction, represent a full vindication of everything Yoo did. This is just absolutely wrong. Margolis agreed with every substantive claim the OPR made about Yoo and Bybee's biased, shoddy, inaccurate, and destructive work on behalf of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, to say nothing of the fact that said work was also rejected by his own Justice Department after years of damage. What saved Yoo from a disbarment recommendation was solely the fact that everyone knew he was an ideologue to begin with, and he actually believed in the president's policy objective independent of the law. What Yoo is saying now is simply a lie.
The second point I have to make is in reference to the last few paragraphs of today's op-ed, where Yoo characterizes the repudiation of his brand of unchecked presidential and military ruthlessness as unserious and manifestly dangerous, and far worse, co-opts the American military to do it:
This is no idle worry. In 2005, a Navy Seal team dropped into Afghanistan encountered goat herders who clearly intended to inform the Taliban of their whereabouts. The team leader ordered them released, against his better military judgment, because of his worries about the media and political attacks that would follow.
In less than an hour, more than 80 Taliban fighters attacked and killed all but one member of the Seal team and 16 Americans on a helicopter rescue mission. If a president cannot, or will not, protect the men and women who fight our nation's wars, they will follow the same risk-averse attitudes that invited the 9/11 attacks in the first place.
This absolutely makes my blood boil with, yes, contempt, and it does me no good with God to hide it, even during Lent. This is how the story of the SEAL deaths is actually described, by the sole survivor who lived it, Marcus Luttrel:
The four Seals zigzagged all night and through the morning until they reached a wooded slope. An Afghan man wearing a turban suddenly appeared, then a farmer and a teenage boy. Luttrell gave a PowerBar to the boy while the Seals debated whether the Afghans would live or die.
If the Seals killed the unarmed civilians, they would violate military rules of engagement; if they let them go, they risked alerting the Taliban. According to Luttrell, one Seal voted to kill them, one voted to spare them and one abstained. It was up to Luttrell.
Part of his calculus was practical. "I didn't want to go to jail." Ultimately, the core of his decision was moral. "A frogman has two personalities. The military guy in me wanted to kill them," he recalled. And yet: "They just seemed like -- people. I'm not a murderer."
Luttrell, by his account, voted to let the Afghans go. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about that decision," he said. "Not a second goes by."
At 1:20 p.m., about an hour after the Seals released the Afghans, dozens of Taliban members overwhelmed them. The civilians he had spared, Luttrell believed, had betrayed them. At the end of a two-hour firefight, only he remained alive.
I won't comment on the ultimate wisdom, or lack thereof, of Mr. Luttrel's decision not to murder the Afgahn civilians who ultimately betrayed him and his men, except to say God bless their memories and there but for the grace of Heaven go I. But no matter what, John Yoo's assertion, five years after the fact, that the SEAL team leader ordered those civilians released, not because he wasn't a stone cold killer and detaining them in the middle of a covert operation was impossible, but rather because he shared Yoo's irrational fear of an overactive civil liberties lobby and therefore suppressed his best military judgment, is a supremely detestable and self-serving distortion of the available facts.
I don't want to see John Yoo imprisoned, or disbarred, or flogged in the street. I only want him to shut the f**k up. He can rot away at Berkeley for the rest of his miserable life, for all I care - but make no mistake, he is absolute poison. That's ten dollars in the jar for me; I'm off to Penance.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Blistering, mind-numbing stupidity at Newsweek.
Decades from now, perhaps on a slow-news week during the Timberlake administration, historians will look at the first years of the 21st century and study how, in the United States, temporary erosions in government accountability and civil liberties were accompanied by a staggering reduction in the probative and intellectual standards of the Establishment press. Exhibit A could likely be yesterday's inexplicable posting of an internal discussion amongst the Newsweek editorial staff, regarding the use of the word "terrorist" in our common discourse in the light of last week's Texas suicide bombing/plane crash directed at the IRS. For reasons that surpass understanding, the leadership at Newsweek decided to make available for public consumption an exchange of ideas that would have any reasonably demanding tenth grade civics instructor throwing up her hands in disgust. Here are a few tastes, but by all means read the whole thing:
A managing editor at a national news magazine, thinking about whether Timothy McVeigh can still be called a terrorist, and proposing that the word only be used when scary foreign people do bad things. For Americans who maim and kill their fellow civilians, we'll just call those people radicals, separatists, protesters, and survivalists. (Funny, I had no idea those things were crimes.) Then, a helpful suggestion that if the perpetrator thinks he's only killing people who wronged him, then that's not really terrorism. Like if you're just trying to kill anyone happening to work at the IRS that day, as opposed to say, the people who worked at the Pentagon on 9/11, then that's not terrorism. But this one's my favorite:
Bombing the IRS, if you're an American, is just a crazy political statement, whereas true "terrorists" are easily identifiable because they have beards.
And it goes on and on like that. None of these august members of the Fourth Estate, oddly, have the idea to Google the federal statutes, which define terrorism thusly:
No mention of a rhetorical pass if the suspect is making a decent political point, or if he's a scary foreigner. But here we have journalists, partly responsible for guiding public opinion, actively proposing that terrorism, against which we are generally at war, should be defined solely as acts perpetrated by foreign madmen who just hate our freedom and couldn't possibly have a coherent political thought in their heads, whereas if an American takes it upon himself to kill his fellow citizens to make a political statement, that's different. We certainly shouldn't apply any terms that inspire our universal outrage and repudiation - that guy's just a protester, and since he's an American, maybe therefore we ought not to dismiss his point of view entirely. I suppose I should be happy on some level that we aren't going to war with everyone who hates the tax code in response to Texas - but is it any wonder how wars in Muslim countries get started and sustained when people think this way?
This double standard isn't limited to Newsweek. To wit, here's Rep. Steve King, R-IA, talking to ThinkProgress (what is it about Republican Congressmen names King):
"Sad the incident happened." Can you imagine a government official opportunistically using a terrorist attack (like the Christmas Day attempted bombing) to shore up his or her case against civilian deaths in Afghanistan? And here's Jed Babbin making a JOKE about the Texas suicide bombing and fellow tax protester Grover Norquist at CPAC:
Look, I can concede that there are close cases here when we try to apply the terrorist label. Nidal Hasan attacked what could be perceived as a military target at Fort Hood, although no one could ever claim he or anyone else was under a direct threat from unarmed troops that hadn't yet deployed to a battle zone. Scott Roeder's murder of George Tiller unquestionably had a political context, but his target was specifically Tiller, not just abortion policy in general. (For the record, they're both terrorists as well.) But for the love of Pete, Joseph Stack flew a plane into a building because he didn't like government policy, and he killed an innocent man in the process, and yet we have members of the press and the government unwilling or unable to treat his crime like the textbook definition of terrorism that it is. As long as that's because either his looks, his name, or his politics reminds us too much of ourselves, then we are truly lost.
It's worth pointing out that we could be having the same exact discussion about the word "torture". To most defenders, acts like waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, beatings, etc. are unquestionably torture when Someone Else does it to us. Of course John McCain was tortured, that's the perfect word to use. But when Americans do the exact same things, use the exact same tactics, to detainees in the war on terror, it couldn't possibly be torture - even when the victims turn out to be completely innocent - because we're the Good Guys, and our hearts are always in the right place even when we cross the line once in a while. Again, little wonder we can't seem to help ourselves.
Hat tip to Greenwald on this, with another great post.
Kathy Jones, Managing Editor (Multimedia)
Did the label terrorist ever successfully stick to McVeigh? Or the Unabomber? Or any of the IRS bombers in our violence list?
Here is my handy guide:
Lone wolfish American attacker who sees gov't as threat to personal freedom: bomber, tax protester, survivalist, separatist
Group of Americans bombing/kidnapping to protest U.S. policies on war/poverty/personal freedom/ - radical left-wing movement, right-wing separatists
All foreign groups or foreign individuals bombing/shooting to protest American gov't: terrorists
Patrick Enright, Senior Articles Editor
Yeah, maybe the distinction depends too on whom you're attacking — if it's the people you think wronged you (like the IRS), you're a protester/separatist/etc., and if it's indiscriminate killing of clearly innocent people, you're a terrorist.
A managing editor at a national news magazine, thinking about whether Timothy McVeigh can still be called a terrorist, and proposing that the word only be used when scary foreign people do bad things. For Americans who maim and kill their fellow civilians, we'll just call those people radicals, separatists, protesters, and survivalists. (Funny, I had no idea those things were crimes.) Then, a helpful suggestion that if the perpetrator thinks he's only killing people who wronged him, then that's not really terrorism. Like if you're just trying to kill anyone happening to work at the IRS that day, as opposed to say, the people who worked at the Pentagon on 9/11, then that's not terrorism. But this one's my favorite:
Dan Stone, Reporter
Yep, comes down to ID. This guy was a regular guy-next-door Joe Schmo. Terrorists have beards in live in caves [sic]. He was also an American, so targeting the IRS seems more a political statement – albeit a crazy one – whereas Abdulmutallab was an attack on our freedom. Kind of the idea that an American can talk smack about America, but when it comes from someone foreign, we rally together. Or in the case of the Christmas bomber, vie for self-righteousness.
Bombing the IRS, if you're an American, is just a crazy political statement, whereas true "terrorists" are easily identifiable because they have beards.
And it goes on and on like that. None of these august members of the Fourth Estate, oddly, have the idea to Google the federal statutes, which define terrorism thusly:
the term "Federal crime of terrorism" means an offense that
-
(A) is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of
government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against
government conduct
No mention of a rhetorical pass if the suspect is making a decent political point, or if he's a scary foreigner. But here we have journalists, partly responsible for guiding public opinion, actively proposing that terrorism, against which we are generally at war, should be defined solely as acts perpetrated by foreign madmen who just hate our freedom and couldn't possibly have a coherent political thought in their heads, whereas if an American takes it upon himself to kill his fellow citizens to make a political statement, that's different. We certainly shouldn't apply any terms that inspire our universal outrage and repudiation - that guy's just a protester, and since he's an American, maybe therefore we ought not to dismiss his point of view entirely. I suppose I should be happy on some level that we aren't going to war with everyone who hates the tax code in response to Texas - but is it any wonder how wars in Muslim countries get started and sustained when people think this way?
This double standard isn't limited to Newsweek. To wit, here's Rep. Steve King, R-IA, talking to ThinkProgress (what is it about Republican Congressmen names King):
KING: I think if we’d abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn’t have a target for his airplane. And I’m still for abolishing the IRS, I’ve been for it for thirty years and I’m for a national sales tax. [...] It’s sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it’s going to be a happy day for America.
"Sad the incident happened." Can you imagine a government official opportunistically using a terrorist attack (like the Christmas Day attempted bombing) to shore up his or her case against civilian deaths in Afghanistan? And here's Jed Babbin making a JOKE about the Texas suicide bombing and fellow tax protester Grover Norquist at CPAC:
"I'm really happy to see Grover today. He was getting a little testy in the past couple of weeks. And I was just really, really glad that it was not him identified as flying that airplane into the IRS building."
Look, I can concede that there are close cases here when we try to apply the terrorist label. Nidal Hasan attacked what could be perceived as a military target at Fort Hood, although no one could ever claim he or anyone else was under a direct threat from unarmed troops that hadn't yet deployed to a battle zone. Scott Roeder's murder of George Tiller unquestionably had a political context, but his target was specifically Tiller, not just abortion policy in general. (For the record, they're both terrorists as well.) But for the love of Pete, Joseph Stack flew a plane into a building because he didn't like government policy, and he killed an innocent man in the process, and yet we have members of the press and the government unwilling or unable to treat his crime like the textbook definition of terrorism that it is. As long as that's because either his looks, his name, or his politics reminds us too much of ourselves, then we are truly lost.
It's worth pointing out that we could be having the same exact discussion about the word "torture". To most defenders, acts like waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, beatings, etc. are unquestionably torture when Someone Else does it to us. Of course John McCain was tortured, that's the perfect word to use. But when Americans do the exact same things, use the exact same tactics, to detainees in the war on terror, it couldn't possibly be torture - even when the victims turn out to be completely innocent - because we're the Good Guys, and our hearts are always in the right place even when we cross the line once in a while. Again, little wonder we can't seem to help ourselves.
Hat tip to Greenwald on this, with another great post.
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