Hitchens in Hindsight

I can’t believe I’ve somehow missed this choice pre-war quote from dipshit warhawk Christopher Hitchens (via the Editors):
But I think we know enough. What will happen will be this: The president will give an order, there will then occur in Iraq a show of military force like nothing probably the world has ever seen. It will be rapid and accurate and overwhelming enough to deal with an army or a country many times the size of Iraq. That will be greeted by the majority of Iraqi and Kurdish people as a moment of emancipation, which will be a pleasure to see, and then the hard work of the reconstitution of Iraqi society and the repayment of our debt - some part of our debt to them - can begin, and I say bring it on.
With hindsight as our guide, that quote doesn’t even need a remark.  But I’m not here just to attack that quote, but to make a point.  This was not a difference of opinion.  This was a difference of facts, a difference of reality.  Because few people who could adopt Hitchens’ fantasy version of reality would not be pro-war.  And unfortunately for him, he was so wrapped up into that fantasy world that he couldn’t even see the problem.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with his fantasy.  It could have happened that way.  But the point isn’t what could have happened, but on how sure we were that it would happen.  And there were lots of things that could happen.  Maybe things would go as perfect as Hitchens believed, or maybe they’d go as badly as they have, or maybe they could have been significantly worse. And that was a major sticking point for many anti-war people, like myself.  The risk factor.  Sure, things could have worked out perfectly, but life lessons should have told Hitchens that things rarely do work out perfectly; and that the surest way to screw things up is to assume that things won’t get screwed up.

And that’s one of the first aspects in considering the war option: the risks involved.  And it’s obvious that Hitchens supported this war because he saw absolutely no risks, or was willing to quickly dismiss them all.  But that changes the entire equation.  He had thoroughly dived headfirst into this war, to the point that all those who disagreed looked like fools and enemies.  And he had to dive in headfirst, because that was the only way that the war looked so good.  Had he considered the risks, he could never have supported the war as he did.  But again, this wasn’t a difference of opinion.  Hitchens made himself willfully ignorant of reality in order to support the war.

And just to make a point of this, there’s a reason why Hitchens and others believed as they did.  Because this was the only way people could support the war.  The Bush Admin’s marketing campaign could never honestly mention the risks, as the risk factor ruined the whole sales pitch.  And so they bullshitted Hitchens and the rest of the media with stories of cakewalks and roses.  And that’s how they convinced themselves too.  And because of that, they weren’t prepared for the risks.  Again, the surest way to screw things up is to assume that things won’t get screwed up; and that’s exactly what we did in Iraq.  We couldn’t plan for risky contingencies, as those contingencies undermined the very case for war.  The war was only a good idea if those risks didn’t exist, so the warhawks unexisted them.

Up To Our Neck

Here’s another instance of that alternate reality, in the same debate.  Hitchens is asked to comment about whether we can handle nation-building in Iraq, if we’re still “up to our neck” in Afghanistan.  A very valid point, which requires Hitchens to engage in reality, if he plans to properly deal with this.  But Hitchens can’t do that, as he has no reality in his plan; so he engages in simple rhetorical tricks, in order to turn things into a debate he’d rather have.  But even that debate was bad for him.

He starts by suggesting that things are going well enough in Afghanistan while lamenting that we can’t do more for Afghanistan, because they can’t pay for more; as if building an Afghan “autobahn” was our sole concern there.  He then leads us into all the advantages that Iraq has, and how they can pay for more; before tossing in a quickie insult before trying to change the subject:

So to say that you cannot help both Afghans and the Iraqis at the same time is to use them against each other in quite a shameful way, and also to avoid what we're really talking about, which is how likely is it that we can simply disengage from Iraq at this point?

Shameful indeed.  His argument is essentially that because the issue of Afghanistan is bad to his argument, that it’s unfair to mention.  He’s suggesting that we’re acting shamefully by using reality against him.  Hindsight has shown us that Hitchens was totally wrong about that, and that resources necessary in Afghanistan were pulled out for the unnecessary Iraq endeavor.  But again, he’s engaging in the same rhetorical trick that Bullmoose pulled a few days ago, by using an implied insult to force his opponent to avoid an argument that undermines his own case.  In essence, using a threatened insult to force their opponents from mentioning that blasted reality thing.  But if the Iraq war hurts our cause in Afghanistan, then that is a factor against the war in Iraq.  And that’s a point that Hitchens refuses to address and wants us to not mention either.  

And to throw in irony, he implies that this entire Afghan issue is an attempt by us to avoid “what we’re really talking about”; rather than him using the “what we’re really talking about” to avoid the issues of reality he wants to avoid.  But what he really wants to talk about is that it’s impossible to not invade Iraq.  He never backs up that point or explains what it is.  But he clearly believes it to be such an overwhelming point that it overrides all other problems.  And again, this is the sign of someone in an alternate universe.  He says at the end of this section that “The option of not doing this does not exist.”  But again, this is more Bullmoose territory, as he too thought that a few fancy phrases were an appropriate substitute for an actual argument.  To Hitchens, his mere assertion that we must help Iraq overrides everything, including all risks and infeasibilities.  It just had to be done.

But again, we’re not arguing from hindsight directly, but rather using hindsight to show that things could have been different.  Maybe Hitchens could have been right, and Iraq’s tremendous resources could have smoothed the nation-building.  But maybe not.  There are no assurances in life.  Not if you engage in reality.  But if reality gets in the way of what you want, it’s damn easy to start believing that your fantasies are real.

Dissolving the Doubts

And finally, I’ll give Mr. Hitchens the embarrassing last word:
What do I think is going to happen? I've been in London and Washington a lot lately and I can tell you that the spokesmen for Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush walk around with a look of extraordinary confidence on their faces as if they know something that when disclosed, will dissolve the doubts, the informational doubts at any rate, of people who wonder if there is enough evidence.
That’s right.  The spokesmen for Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush walked around with extraordinary confidence, as if they knew something…  And Hitchens completely fell for it.  He totally got bullshitted and was throwing that bullshit out during a debate, as if confident faces constitute some kind of evidence.  Even if they did know something, Hitchens got bullshitted; and hindsight has shown us that they knew nothing.  But the problem was that, without hindsight, the Hitchens wouldn’t believe anything we said.  Because we couldn’t prove that these “extraordinary” faces were bullshitting him, he didn’t have to prove anything.

Oh, what the hell.  I’ll give him his follow-up line too:

I know perfectly well that there are many people who would not be persuaded by this evidence even if was dumped on their own doorstep…

Of course.  He knows perfectly well that many people would not be persuaded by the evidence that he’s never seen; but only gleaned from the faces of spokesmen.  Those cynical bastards!  And this is someone we’re still bothering with?  

But again, the point isn’t that history has shown that he was wrong.  The point is that he was wrong from the start.  Not that his version of reality couldn’t have happened, but that he was wrong for assuming that there was no other reality; for assuming that the risks were negligible.  Even if hindsight had bore out his argument, he’d still have been wrong for believing what he did.  He had no evidence or proof or valid arguments; merely belief.  An overriding belief that we had no other options and that war opponents were stupid or evil.   But these attacks weren’t a difference of opinion.  They were from an entirely different universe.  And the only thing that could convince Hitchens of that is hindsight.

A God Damned Creepy Thing

I just read this from the tempestuous James Wolcott:

“…it's clear that there's a homoerotic ardor for Bush by neonconservatives that bypasses reason and reduces them to hero-worshipping mush.”

Now, I don’t believe in aliens and I’m not a big believer in wacko conspiracies, but I’m not stupid enough to entirely disbelieve.  There’s a lot more in this world than I’ve ever seen, and while I only act upon what I know, I’m still willing to create theories that involve the unknown.  And if there are aliens and there are wacko conspiracies, then they are likely to be in play here.  Because Bush-Love really is just god damned creepy.  Digby’s got some of the goods here, but there’s really just too much of that crap.  They really love the guy.  

And hell, I think that to even label it as “homoerotic” only serves to undermine and belittle the strong feelings that these people have for Bush.  It is to somehow suggest that there are mere feelings of man-on-manliness going on here, and as if just any man could fill the part.  But if you were going to pick a man to focus your homo erotica on, Bush ain’t the guy you’d pick.  On the “Is he hot?” scale, Bush registers a big N/A.  So this isn’t simply the typical closet-crew scamming ass on the down low.  No, something much bigger is at work here.  And that means it’s Conspiracy Time.

The Conspiracy

Now, I may have said this before, but I’m too lazy to look it up, so I’ll say it again: It’s my guess that there was something put in the drinking water at some of those GOP events.  And maybe they slipped it into individuals’ drinks too.  Some kind of weird hormone or LSD-based sampler that affects the brain at a basic level and really fucks with these people.  Because there are a lot of people infected with it, and I just can’t figure out how else to explain it.  

I mean, Bush is a doof.  A big dangerous bullying doof who constantly says the wrong thing, does the wrong thing, thinks the wrong things, and looks like an idiot the whole time he’s doing it.  And this is readily apparent every time I look at the man.  Not once did I ever look at Bush and think “Wow!  What a man!”  Not once.  That’s not to suggest that I usually think “What a man!” when I see a manly man, as that’s a bit dorky; but you know what I mean.  He’s a little wienie who can’t even fill the jockstrap of the man he wants to pretend to be.

And yet these people seem to be looking at an entirely different guy.  Where they see “Bob Hope and John Wayne combined,” I see a dope that would play the bumbling dad on a cancelled sitcom.  Hell, I’d be happy to just get Bob Hope, and he’s been dead for a couple years.  But Bush is simply an embarrassment.  I can understand the attraction towards an Elvis, even Elvis Costello; but Bush?  There’s just nothing there to work with.  I could make a better man out of mashed potatoes and a meat strainer, and I wouldn’t even have to include the meat strainer in the final product.

Debating the Suit

Here’s more from Chris Matthews speaking of Bush in the flightsuit:
I want to see him debate somebody like John Kerry or Lieberman or somebody wearing that jumpsuit.

Uh, yeah.  That’d have gone over great.  Kerry wouldn’t even have needed to say anything.  He could just stand there with a big smirk on his face and occasionally let out a snicker or two.  Bush’s codpiece would have shrunk two sizes.  

And yet Matthews isn’t a dumb man.  Not too dumb, anyway.  So how else can we explain his weird obsession with Bush?  I could understand if Bush was a big hunk of man (like yours truly), but he’s not.  I could even understand if he had the Leonardo DiCaprio/Johnny Depp cute guy thing going on.  But he doesn’t.  He’s just a normal looking goofball who would never be cast to play a macho president in a million years.  Hell, he wouldn’t even be cast to play a goofball president, because he doesn’t seem “with it” enough to even be in a movie.  Beyond the name “George Bush” he didn’t have any attribute that would even remotely suggest that he could be president, and that name really didn’t do so well for his dad.  And yet he’s still considered macho by millions.  Even my biobrain is staggered by this.

And so that’s where I stand on all this: a Love Drug that convinced relatively normal, sane people to adore Bush.  Maybe it’s one of those mystery drugs they advertise on the talk radio shows, I don’t know.  I’m not saying I endorse this theory, but it’s the one that makes the most sense.  And if there are any aliens out there who can get me some of this love-inducing stuff, I’ll take it.  Not that I have any trouble getting adoring fans, I just like to fuck with people.

Fish in a Barrel

This is the first in a new series titled “Fish in a Barrel”, whereby I find some easily refuted columnist and easily refute them.  The point isn’t that these things necessarily need to be refuted.  The point is how much fun it is to do so.  This is to be contrasted with actually shooting fish in a barrel, which really doesn’t sound like very much fun at all; especially if you have to clean up afterwards.  Then again, I’m thinking about making Washington Post’s Richard Cohen the regular target of this series, but I think I need some sort of stupid pun for the series title, and “Shooting Cohen in a Barrel” might easily be misconstrued (though not the worst of ideas).  So if any of you can come up with some Cohen pun (the stupider, the better), I’ll thank you in some intimate and perhaps embarrassing way.

Needless to say, our first target is the easily refuted joke of a columnist, Richard Cohen.  I picked his most recent column (I started writing this last Thursday, but it got delayed) as I just wanted a random sample and didn’t want to look like I had selected his dumbest column.  This one is titled Loose Lips Sink…, and it was about Joe Biden talking too much during the Alito hearings, and how his “loose lips” are undermining his presidential aspirations; a fact that Cohen laments, as he strongly favors Biden (a knock against Biden if I’ve ever heard one).  

Reading this, I thought “Boring!”  That column would just write itself and even a dope like Cohen couldn’t screw it up.  But then I realized that I was talking about Richard Cohen, a man who couldn’t even comprehend the most basic of facts at the beginning of Fahrenheit 9/11, and admitted to stop taking notes after the first five minutes.  I mean, it’s bad enough that he felt like taking notes, but that he couldn’t even get passed the beginning…  And worst of all, he brags about it, like that was some knock against the movie.  And his basic point was entirely and utterly wrong, as evidenced by his own newspaper.  If anyone could screw-up a slam-dunk Biden column, it’d be Cohen.

The Fish

And sure enough, the dope didn’t disappoint.  It was a whiffer for awhile, until he came upon the reasons he likes Biden:

In his maturity, he has emerged, along with some appropriate gray hair, as one of his party's most important -- and knowledgeable -- voices on foreign policy. Even on Iraq, an area where too many Democrats forgot that there was any reason for war, Biden took a decidedly centrist -- and defensible -- position. He voted to authorize the president to go to war but has since characterized that vote as "a mistake."

Right.  Joe Biden is one of the most important and knowledgeable voices on foreign policy, the evidence of which is that he now admits that his position on the biggest foreign policy issue of the day was a mistake.  In fact, Cohen writes of Biden “if he were allotted a do-over, he’d vote no.”  And this is supposed to be the one of the most knowledgeable people?  This is a reason to vote for him, why he deserves to be president?   Because he now wants a “do-over”?  Of course.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking Biden.  I’ve always liked him whenever he’s on The Daily Show, and really don’t know much about him otherwise.  But Cohen’s insistence that Biden’s Iraq mistake is somehow a good qualification for the presidency is a bit a puzzling.  Or it would be, if we didn’t already know where this was going, which is to justify Cohen’s own Iraq mistake.  Cohen blew it big on Iraq and is still somehow holding tight to that mistake.  He’s like a toddler who happily walks around showing everyone the brand new dooky he just made.  But Cohen’s not a toddler and this ain’t dooky.  And the toddler would eventually learn why dooky’s not cool, whereas Cohen keeps shoving our noses in his shit every day.  He admits that he made a mistake, but just thinks that it was the right mistake to make.

And for the benefit of those sitting in the cheap seats, Cohen provides us with the context that some may have missed by writing: “Since this approximately reflects my own position, I am inclined to appreciate its wisdom.”  Wisdom.  I know a few different ways of thinking about wisdom, but this isn’t one of them.  What wisdom is he speaking of?  The wisdom of making a mistake and then publicly regretting it?  That’s not wisdom.  The wisdom was to have learned what a dope you were for making the mistake, and then by being wiser to not repeat it.  That’s wisdom.  Wisdom is admitting that the people you disagreed with were correct and that you’re now more willing to listen to them in the future.  That’s wisdom.  And for god’s sake, wisdom is to finally stop the fucking attacks on the people who turned out to be correct.  That’s wisdom.

But that’s not what he’s talking about.  What this really is about is Cohen continuing to hold onto his mistake.  He was wrong about Iraq.  Completely wrong.  And he’s still trying to attack those who opposed it.  Because he’s not saying that he should have opposed the war.  He’s saying that it was best to support the war, and then to regret it afterwards.  That’s what he’s defending.  But he’s still not willing to acknowledge that the Michael Moore’s and Howard Dean’s were right.  To him, they got it right, but for the wrong reasons.  As if they just lucked into it, and had no logical basis for their opposition to the war.  And a stubborn fool like Cohen would much rather be wrong, for the right reasons.  And what makes him a true fool is that all the “right reasons” were so obviously wrong.  We were lucky that Iraq hasn’t turned out far worse than it has, but to Cohen, Bush barely missed the mark.  

And his whole position is that we were supposed to trust Bush.  That’s what it was about.  That there were good reasons to attack Iraq and that we were supposed to trust Bush to do it right, and allow him to screw it up.  And after Bush screwed it all up and it became too obvious to deny that it was screwed up ONLY THEN were we allowed to suggest that it was a bad idea.  ONLY THEN are we allowed to say we’d have done it differently.  But the whole point of this isn’t that you’d actually do it differently, as you wouldn’t.  The whole point is to say that you’d do it differently in hindsight, though you’d have done it the same way.  And anything less than that is far-leftie extremist conspiracy-mongering Bush-hatred.

That’s the Richard Cohen position on Iraq.  That’s the way of “wisdom”.  That’s what he likes about Joe Biden.  Not that he was right, and not that he’s wise; but that he did it right, by giving George Bush enough rope to hang this country and then to make sure we all know that they don’t approve of what Bush did with the rope they gave him.  And for god’s sake, don’t forget to keep attacking the people who were right about it.  Sure, they were right.  But they were right for all the wrong reasons, while Biden and Cohen were wrong for all the right reasons; even if those reasons were wrong.  And that’s what it’s all about.

Anyway, that’s all for now.  I’m still not at my posting best right now, for reasons I’ll be giving shortly.  And remember, if anyone out there can come up with a good name for my Cohen blasting posts, I’ll make it a regular feature and will be sure to shower you with glory beyond your wildest dreams.  Or maybe I’ll just steal it and claim it as my own.

P.S. Would “Shooting Dick in a Barrel” be wrong?

Impeachably Omnipotent

Reading Josh Marshall’s fine essay on the Bush Administration’s abuse of the presidential “signing statements”; whereby Bush is somehow allowed to change the law that Congress wrote in order to make it his own law.  Or at the least, in order to suggest that the law he agreed to sign isn’t the law that we’re expecting him to follow.  And that’s just so far from how our shit works that it’s recklessly dangerous.  This is clearly and entirely unconstitutional, by what the most basic understanding of that term means.  Our constitution has a chief executive who is hired to enact the laws that Congress creates.    He is not allowed to create his own laws or quietly change their meaning.  What we’re seeing here is the equivalent of a company’s CEO taking over the company and ignoring what the owners want.  

But again we run into the problem that Republicans seem to have a distinctly different idea of what an impeachable offense is.  They seem to believe that actions the president takes in executing the powers of his office are not impeachable; especially during time of war, whether or not that war is real.  For them, it is only personal crimes that you impeach for.  And as I argue below, they consider the abuse of presidential powers for political gain as part of the official business.  Of course, it can be argued that Clinton perjured himself in order to prevent political attacks which would prevent him from executing his job; but it’s unlikely that a Republican would make that argument.  I suppose the difference is that the root cause of Clinton’s abuse was personal in nature, and not political or official.  But to me, it’s much more easily argued that this makes Clinton’s actions better, not worse.  In fact, I would prefer a president who stole money over one who steals our democracy.

As I mentioned last time, maybe this argument of theirs is simply the most political expedient for them in the situation given, but I don’t think so.  Because this is also the same argument they gave to protect Reagan’s encroachment onto Congress’s domain, regarding the Iran-Contra thing and the lies told about it.  And it’s the same argument they gave to protect Nixon.  Basically, they think the President can do whatever the hell he wants, as long as we can’t prove that he was doing it for the wrong reasons.  But whether this is empty rhetoric or true ideology, it shows why these people should not be in control of our government.

The Eternal Presidency

And hell, there is something to their argument.  It is disruptive to our foreign and national policy to have an impeachment.  But it’s not just the political ramifications or the accompanying circus.  It’s the same as if the president were simply replaced.  Overall, the presidency is a very important position, and you can’t just remove him without creating a lot of problems and possibly endangering our country.  And in that regard, there is some justification to presidents using their official power to aid themselves politically.  After all, what is a bigger detriment to a president performing his job than the political calculations required to keep it?  Imagine how differently the Clinton presidency would have been, had he had more control over the political landscape.

But that would also argue against the four-year terms and the two-term limit.  Because if it’s dangerous and bad to remove a president mid-term, it’s almost as bad to remove him at all.  In fact, isn’t it less disruptive to have the vice-president of the same party replace the president than to have a brand-new president from the opposing party take over?  The first requires few adjustments; while the second requires a complete overhaul of staff and policy.  And that is to argue that impeachment can be less disruptive than a scheduled election.  

Overall, this is clearly not a system that the founding fathers wanted.  There are downsides to both theories, but they clearly chose the replaceable chief executive over the eternal one.  The president is a hired-hand, not our boss, owner, or benevolent dictator.

Presidential Power Plays

Nixon argued and seemed to believe that he was an absolutely crucial linchpin in our foreign policy, particularly regarding Russia, China, Vietnam, and the middle-east.  For him, his knowledge and ability in handling these foreign hotspots was far more important than any impeachable offense could be.  And there is a strong argument that he purposefully picked Gerald Ford as VP, so as to make impeachment far more disastrous; and thus, less likely to happen.  And he may have been correct, as the Ford Admin helped usher in the Rumsfeld/Cheney nexus that haunts us to this very day.

In one of the funnier passages of Woodward and Bernstein’s The Final Days (a must-read, btw), is when Nixon visits the Soviets towards the end of his reign and was essentially giving veiled messages to the effect that the continued good relations between us and them was dependent on Nixon’s continued representation of America; in essence implying that it was to the Soviet’s advantage to help Nixon politically.  The Soviet leader (whose name escapes me at the moment) returned volley, giving veiled messages back to the effect that Soviet-American relations would run smoothly no matter who was leading America.  This was, of course, all part of the negotiating technique, as Nixon was desperate for a fancy peace treaty to take back with him, in order to take Watergate out of the headlines; and the Soviets were fully aware of that and were going to make him pay for such a treaty.  In the end, the Soviets got the best of Nixon, and thus America; and all because of our pesky democracy.

And so in that case, America paid a price for having the president under the threat of impeachment.  But…that price was solely paid to help aid Nixon politically, to help him fight Watergate; so that is to argue against Nixon’s legacy, not a defense of it.  By engaging in illegal actions, Nixon put his own interests before the nation’s.  To Nixon, America’s fate was tied-in to his own.  And unfortunately for both him and us, he perverted that idea by flipping it around and using it to justify all of his actions.  His argument is essentially a form of presidential blackmail.  He gambled that we would not risk the damage of an impeachment to punish him.

And the Bushies seem to be doing the same, but have taken things much further.  Rather than mere abuse of presidential powers, the Bushies have decided to effectively remove the legislative and judicial branches from the equation.  So if Nixon’s power-grab for merely political purposes was impeachable, then Bush’s more serious power-grab is most certainly more so.  Rather than abusing the democratic process, Bush is destroying it.

Overall, the Bushies have imagined that their eternal war against terror justifies their claims of omnipotence.  But Nixon had a war going on too, and that didn’t save him from jackshit.  We can only hope that Bush isn’t spared the same fate.  Not because we don’t like him, or political reasons, or because of his personal peccadilloes, but for the sake of our democracy.

Corrupt Ostriches

(Ed. Note: It’s late and I’m tired, but I haven’t posted in a few days, so I’m sending this out without a proper final editing.  If you think it’s too long, just skip every other word and it won’t take nearly as long to finish.)

A thought on Josh Marshall’s Reformapalooza, I just wanted to point out that this isn’t just that Republicans are taking the reformist stance as political cover.  That certainly is one aspect of this, but this also ties-in with overall conservative stance towards the proper place of government, and specifically the oversighty-regulatory kind of government that these people hate; much the same way that criminals hate cops.  

But the issue isn’t whether they’re earnest in this reform talk or if it’s just political ass-covering, because the Republicans look bad in either case.  Either they’re corrupt creeps lying to us about their own corruption, or they’re total dipshits who don’t understand the first thing about oversight.  They can pick whichever side they want, but in neither case is this something to brag about on election day.  In essence, their defense may be as bad as the accusation.

And this does fit with their anti-government stance.  For them, you first have to prove that lack of government oversight is a problem.  That’s because a true conservative (not to be confused with the social conservatives, who are very pro-government interference) believes that government itself is a problem.  As such, they assume that the government will screw it up and make any problems that may need to be solved worse (assuming you can even convince them that any problems exist).  And so their natural tendency goes towards waiting until a problem arises that non-governmental agencies can’t handle.  And only after that do they start to talk about what role government should play in process (which is always as little as they can reasonably get away with).  And maybe that’s just a rouse they use to defend their corrupt practices, but their rouse isn’t much better than a simple plea of incompetence.

And there’s more to this than the basic corruption or incompetence.  This really is how they think.  Bullmoose showed us that the other day, by suggesting that we first have to prove that Bush abused the illegal wiretaps before we should act like this might be a problem.  To him, we should assume that Bush acted solely to defend our nation, until we can prove otherwise.  The same goes for their ostrich routine regarding the environment.  Nobody is really “anti-environment”, but they use this philosophy to justify waiting for more results, or waiting for abuse or waiting until a magic fairy makes everything better.  And that’s what we saw for Katrina, and Iraq WMD’s, and Halliburton’s no-bid contract, and just about everything else.  For Republicans, it’s not enough that abuse could happen, you have to actually prove that it is happening and will continue to happen with government interference.

And yet do they take this approach with everything?  Of course not.  Most criminals are assumed guilty, unless they’re Republicans, in which case they are the mere victims of partisan Dems.  And Clinton couldn’t be trusted for jackshit, and even years after Clinton was exonerated for most everything, they still believe him to be guilty of everything.  And needless to say, government and liberals aren’t to be trusted, as both are doing what they do in order to increase their own power; which is exactly why they think everyone does everything.  And for them, they’d rather trust the people who are openly deceitful and greedy, over people who claim altruism or public service.  For conservatives, everyone’s a crook; they just prefer the ones who are honest about it…relatively speaking, I assume.

But this other stuff is different, because they already know these things to be true.  They know that a Republican president wouldn’t abuse wiretaps, and hurricanes can be dealt with by private organizations, and that God will protect them and everything will be alright; if they could only get those pesky libs and their rotten government out of the way.  They don’t need proof or evidence; they know these things to be self-evident.  And that’s one of the problems with dealing with Republicans, as trust their own instincts far more than they could ever trust anything outside of themselves.  So how could your feeble arguments and proof possibly influence them on anything?  

And so when Hastert says “Well, you know, a year ago most people around Congress couldn't tell you who Jack Abramoff was and didn't know who his associates were or what connections there are.  As this thing unrolls, people understand that we need to learn from what happened in the past and try to rectify that if we can.”  Maybe that’s not completely face-saving bullshit.  Maybe that’s really how they think it’s supposed to work.  Hastert says that we didn’t need these reforms until after the current system is undeniably being abused, and maybe we should assume that this really does reflect his beliefs.  

But if that’s the case, then that’s exactly why these people shouldn’t be given the reins of government.  They act as if their ostrich routine is supposed to demonstrate their great restraint and wisdom.  But all it does is demonstrate what corrupt numbskulls they are and why America needs to get rid of them.  Maybe they’re corrupt liars, and maybe they’re incompetent boobs, and maybe it’s a mix of both; but in no case are these the people we should trust with our precious government.

Justice of Brian

Roger Ailes was a bit confused by a lesser Cornerite named John J. Miller who suggested that it’s “probably a much bigger problem” that guilty people in prison claim to be innocent when they’re not; compared with innocent people who go to prison.  And I’ll admit that I was a bit confused at first myself.  Frankly, I couldn’t figure out how it was any problem at all what a guilty person was claiming, as long as they’re being punished.  Yet Miller is telling us that it might be a “much bigger problem”.  But then it came to me, and now I’m a believer.

You see, Miller is obviously expressing a preference for the Honor System of justice, whereby people simply proclaim their guilt or innocence, and we base our punishment or lack thereof on that proclamation.  I think the Romans used such a system, according to a Monty Python docudrama I once saw regarding a contemporary of Jesus, named Brian.  I'm sure that's where Miller got the idea.  So the "much bigger problem" is that we can't trust people to proclaim their guilt, as too many of them say they're innocent when they’re not.  And so we have these expensive trials just to separate the honest folks from the fibbers; and because of that, we sometimes get the good ones by accident.

And so it combines both the problem of innocents getting imprisoned, along with the expense of learning the difference.  But if the guilty would just fess-up to their crime to begin with, we could spare both problems.  So that’s why this is much bigger than the single problem of the innocents being imprisoned.  Could you honestly suggest that our current system is better than Miller’s Honor System?

Of course, this is only an issue if you’ve got that whole “justice” hang-up, and prefer to separate the guilty from the innocent.  For me, accusations should be good enough and we should just be sending them all up the river.  But I’ve yet to convince a majority of Americans of this, so I guess that Miller’s system is the next best thing.

On a side note, do you ever wonder if these lesser known Cornerites are simply trying to out-wingnut each other, in order to gain the notoriety of the Goldbergs and Tierneys?  Appealing to the lunatic fringe is often a good way to get a bigger audience, even if it is just an audience of lunatics.  It’s all about finding the right niche, and I suspect that this Miller guy is slowly stumbling onto his.

Pro-Choice States For the Pro-Life Crowd

I second Atrios’ amazement at those who imagine that an overturned Roe decision would leave abortion to a state-by-state thing.  As if the pro-life crowd would just pack up and go home once Alito casts that final vote.  The only way to believe that is to completely misunderstand what these people are about.  Sure, they use “State’s Rights” as their official argument (or at least the smarter ones do), but that’s an obvious fraud.  I’m sure some of them are for State’s Rights, but the rest of them just like the rhetoric of it.  How else to explain why they’re against State’s Rights for many other things?  Like medical marijuana and other such things.  They use State’s Rights when they need it, and abandon it when they don’t.  Just like everything else.  Because they don’t care about these overarching principles, they just want what they want and will say anything to get it.

And then there’s the issue of “Baby Killing”.  If they believe the pro-choice position to be evil and wicked, they’d be just as bad if they allowed abortions in NY and CA.  If you believed something was excessively wrong, would it rectify things if you knew that it was only happening in the “bad” states?  Were the abolitionists ok with slavery in only the slave states?  Of course not.  They won’t stop with Roe.  Roe is the beginning.  Abolition of all abortion is the end.  Not just in their state, but in all the states. That’s what this is about.  And as soon as Roe is overturned, they will start to work immediately with a national ban, and it will be everything all over again.  And we’d know this, if we were just willing to listen to what they’re saying.

And that’s the weirdest thing about the standard beliefs many liberals have towards conservatives.  They believe them when they shouldn’t, and don’t take them seriously when they should.  But it’s easy to know the difference.  Their rhetoric is always empty and shallow, and their beliefs are always solid and deep.  And to know that is to know them.

Bullshitting the Senators

In one of those freak occurrences, I’ve found a point of disagreement with the illustrious Carpetbagger.  He suggests that the Supreme Court nomination hearings serve no real purpose and perhaps should be scraped altogether.  Needless to say, I disagree.  While I do think these things are pretty awful, they don't have to be.  And the main purpose that they serve is to weed-out anyone who couldn't holdup to this process.  I'd do away with the grandstanding, but I kind of like the ultra-intense job interview aspect to this.  

While most job interviews almost entirely test your ability to bullshit, sometimes that’s exactly what you want to test.  If you ask a potential sales agent “What are your three weaknesses” (a bullshitty question I absolutely abhore), that is entirely a call to bullshit; and if someone can’t answer that question with the proper bullshit, then they probably are in the wrong profession.  And for a Supreme Court justice, I’d like someone smart enough to bullshit a bunch of Senators regarding matters of law.  And honestly, if someone can’t legally bullshit a Senator, do we really want them on the Supreme Court?  I don’t see what’s so wrong about that.

But bullshit isn’t the only thing on display.  How well can they hold up to pressure?  How well do they respond in front of cameras?  Will they freak out and start damning everyone to Hell?  Some might find these concerns beneath the High Court, but I certainly don’t.  The Supreme Court is a very stressful and important position and these are all qualities I want in a justice, and I think that this process works decently.

When does this process not work?  It doesn’t work if you want to weed-out a somewhat extremist nominee who’s intelligent enough to bullshit the Senators.  A real extremist won’t be that intelligent, but someone like Scalia or Alito can probably pass muster.  And so it’s not really good at weeding out ideology.  But should it be?  Is that really what this is about?  I don’t know.  But I do know that this will keep the complete freaks out, and that’s at least something.

Would Harriet Miers have been as likely to get stopped if they hadn't had to get her passed the televised hearings?  The accounts I heard said that her rehearsals were dreadful and that was one of the final straws that broke it all. I've gotten into enough constitutional discussions with legal-types to know that she really could have had her ass handed to her with even half-decent questioning by a half-ass politician.  Because the Senators don’t have to know the answer.  They just have to ask the question, and if Harriet didn’t know enough to bullshit the answer, she’d be humiliated.  And had the questioning not got her, the ultra-long speech-questions certainly would have.  

But imagine how different it would be had she been allowed to submit only written answers.  Written answers that could have been given a little “help” by conservative-types.  Would she still have been stopped?  Maybe, but I’m not so certain.  Miers was awfully unqualified in a lot of ways, but one of the most obvious would have arisen from the hearings that everyone derides.  And really, wasn’t the biggest fear of the Bushies that she’d just implode in front of the cameras, getting carted away as a broken mess who couldn’t answer the most basic of constitutional questions?  Of course.  Above all else, these people are appearance-oriented, and the idea that Bush’s pick could have blown-it bigtime on live TV must have scared the bejezzus out of them.

So I think that's the kind of thing that this stops.  Will it stop an extremist ideologue from getting on the court?  Not necessarily, but it might just stop the incompetent ones, or the ones who can't take a few days of intense pressure.  And I think that’s better than nothing.  

And the one thing that we can all agree to is to do away with the grandstanding and speechifying.  It’s almost like the Senators are just wanting to burn out the clock, or wait for a miracle, or something.  I’m sure it’s hard for a politician to resist giving a speech in front of such a large audience, especially one who has aspirations to do so on a full-time basis for four to eight years.  But that stuff has no place during these hearings.  And to me, I don’t want a president who feels the need to make speeches all the damn time; particularly at the wrong time.  And these speeches have no place in the hearings.  Nobody likes a long-winded interviewer, and these guys even tire out the wind.   So I say Yes with the hearings, but a big NO to the speeches.

Mitt's Got Moxie

Via Atrios, we find an AP article about Mitt Romney and the Republican Governors Association he chairs giving $500,000 received from Jack Abramoff’s tribe sources to charity (though they’re only giving up half this year).

Glen Johnson, AP Political Writer writes:
The move allows Romney and the RGA to avoid questions about the contributions while they are trying to help Republican governors win elections in 36 states this fall.

There was no indication that he was joking.

Of receiving free air travel and other gifts from corporations, Romney says:
"It's not a form of corporate largesse," he said. "It's a form of corporate contribution."

Either I’m missing a subtle distinction, or Mitt’s just fucking with us.

And Romney provides our final laugh of the night:
Romney urged his party to emerge from what he termed its "ethical scandal" by seeking resignations of top leaders associated with Abramoff, and by pushing for the line-item budget veto. He said that would allow the president to eliminate special-interest spending supported by lobbyists.

You gotta appreciate someone suggesting that we get rid of “top leaders” while suggesting a useful reform would be to give President Bush the ability to stop such lobbying.  I guess sometimes the “top” doesn’t quite go all the way up.  Then again, Mitt is getting ready for a 2008 Presidential run, so maybe he’s just wanting the reins to be a little stronger.  He may be a Mormon, but Mitt’s got moxie.

The Big Gamble Theory

Regarding the idea that SCOTUS nominees can’t “prejudge” a case by telling us what their opinions are, I agree completely.  This makes perfect sense and things can be no other way.  In fact, I really think we need to take this one step further and forbid judges from announcing their decisions even after they've decided.  Heaven knows if a similar case might come up again, and we wouldn't want that prejudged either.  I think that's due to the preferential bias that some people have towards positions that they've already held.  

But even that’s not enough.  It’s a fine policy for nominees and judges who have a good shot at being on the short list.  But what of the rest of us?  Can you honestly say that nobody would ever nominate you to the big court?  I mean, if Harriet Miers could get as close as she did, any one of us could be next.  So what else can we do than to completely forbid anyone from stating their opinion on anything, lest they somehow end up on the big court with their biases already known.  And anyone who has already made their opinions known on anything can never be allowed to serve on the court.  It’s that simple and is clearly as the Founding Fathers intended.

Just imagine if we had some bizarro court system in which we knew what to expect before we went to trial, or if we knew what the judges believed before we gave them their lifetime appointments.  Just crazy.  Our Founding Fathers believed in the Big Gamble theory of justice, in which you just had no idea of what was going to happen, or which law might apply in what case.  And that’s why Marbury v. Madison was so important, as it established the Flipping Coin precedent for determining judicial decisions.  This decision was upheld until the Dreaded Scott case of 1812, which ruled that even that level of precedent went too far towards prejudgment and was ruled unconstitutional (a controversial decision many coin hobbyists dispute to this day).  And that brings us to our current state of affairs, in which no man is allowed to know the outcome of his court case until the end of the world.  Hence the name “Judgment Day”.

So when Roberts, Alito, and others refuse to state their opinions on anything, this isn’t some form of deception used to hide their real beliefs, in order to give their political consenters cover against any unpopular positions the nominee might hold.  No, this is simply them fulfilling our Founding Fathers’ desire for a completely arbitrary judicial system based upon uncertainty and singularities.  And in this context, the idea of prejudging decisions through the use of “precedents” and “knowledge” are clearly antiquated and have no business in the modern courtroom.

So all we need do to have a perfect court system is for people to keep their mouths shut about everything, especially regarding decisions they’ve already made or are likely to make, or whether they even make any decisions at all.  Luckily for me, I'm not included in that, as all of the positions I've given thus far in my life are complete lies and in no way represent my real opinion.  I was just trying to impress you people, and I think it worked.  So that makes me perfectly capable to serve on the high court.  And the higher the better, I always say.  

Bush and the Moose

Why does anyone read Bullmoose Marshall Wittman?  I haven’t read much from this wanker, but I really haven’t liked what I’ve seen.  But it’s not that I disagree with him necessarily; it’s that he’s wrong on a fundamental level and doesn’t play fair.  He uses the pretense and attitude of a reasonable opponent, but all this bi-partisan talk really seems to mask a straight-up Bushie underneath.  And he doesn’t want an honest debate, but one in which he’s the judge; determining all the terms and what is acceptable or not.  In particular, in determining whose motives can be impugned (not Bush’s), and when it’s ok to insult people (when they’re partisans impugning Bush’s motives).

We see here from Matt Yglesias at Tapped that the Moose is up to his wrongness again.  But lest I just take Matt’s word for it, I made the mistake of reading Moose’s words directly; and have now been forced into a very long response.  Get this bullcrap:

Checks and balances are important but so is the separation of powers in the conduct of war. The Moose is open to a modification of FISA. However, it is not exactly clear what changes could be made without making it merely a rubber stamp for executive action. And we can have a reasoned debate about this issue without impugning the motives of a Commander in Chief who was attempting to defend the nation.

Each one of these sentences is wrong (though his wrongness is far from limited to this paragraph).  And his rhetorical tricks are as apparent as they are weak.  He gives lip service to the liberal position, before again asserting that his position is correct.  No explanation, no argument.  Just an assertion that his position is still correct.  As if phrases like “separation of powers in the conduct of war” are magical incantations that defeat our argument.  And they are magical incantations if you already agree with his position.  But if you don’t already agree, then he has provided no further argument.  And that’s not the work of someone dealing fairly; that’s the work of a “partisan” who doesn’t think he has to explain anything.

Overall, we see someone with the rhetoric and decency of a moderate compromiser; but without any of the substance.  Because I see no point for his post.  If you’re trying to debate in good faith, you present arguments.  You present valid points.  But Bullmoose does not.  He’s in the middle of a debate, but can’t bother to further explain his position.  He simply provides empty rhetoric and hopes that this is good enough.  And maybe he can fully explain his position, and maybe he has already done so; but this post did not do that.  It has the appearance of an argument, without the substance of one.  And so there was no point to this other than to provide a sham debate.

Don’t get me wrong.  His post would have been perfectly fine if he was only writing it to people who already agreed with him.  He’d still be wrong, but there is no reason to restate every argument when you’re dealing with your own side (unless your point is to explain it to your side).  But debates are completely different, and you have to explain things.  You can’t just reference “separation of powers” and close the case; you have to explain why that’s correct.  

Yet his entire post is just a reassertion that Bush is acting honestly because we can’t prove otherwise, that Bush already has these powers and did nothing illegal, and that Bush’s critics are being “unreasoned” “partisans” who “want to have it both ways” (though he was much too “moderate” to state that so explicitly).  Oh, and don’t forget about 9/11.  Bush and the Moose haven’t, and that’s the only reason they’re doing this to us.  But don’t worry, he’s convinced that it’s only Al Qaeda and their terrorists friends who’ve been affected by this, so no worries.

This is someone who liberal bloggers link to?  Again, were his post written solely to people who already agreed with him, I’d think he was wrong, but I wouldn’t think he was necessarily dishonest.  But as far as “honest debate” goes, the Moose’s was just a sham.  You can read the post he was responding to by New Donkey Ed Kilgore, and you’ll see a decent argument.  Not Biobrain decent, but respectable by mortal standards.  That Bullmoose pretends to be rebutting that was an insult to Kilgore and to readers from both sites.  Rather than addressing the Donkey’s points, the Moose merely recited them before dismissing them.  That is not an honest debate.  That is crap.

The Play-by-Play

Due to the rhetorical deceit in the paragraph I cited above, I’ll give a sentence-by-sentence takedown:

Checks and balances are important but so is the separation of powers in the conduct of war.

Here we see the old trick of pretending to address his opponent’s position before stating that his own position beats it.  As if rebuttals need only consist of repeating your opponent’s point followed by your own.  But he hasn’t made any argument at all.  He’s just said, “here’s my opponent’s phrase but my phrase is more important”.  And his point is just wrong, at least regarding the broadness of his statement.  Despite his assertion, Congress can limit the powers of the president.  It’s that simple.  And even in the context of this loosely defined eternal war that Bullmoose references, Congress is allowed to set limits.  It’s been that way for kings, going back before the Magna Carta; and I see no reason why our democracy should have anything less than that.  

And maybe he’s right and that the Prez already has these powers, or that Congress can’t limit these; but a blanket statement that “separation of powers in war” trumps “checks and balances” is just an insult to everyone and a complete absurdity.  To believe Bullmoose, a president must merely obtain a generic declaration of war from Congress before an effective dictatorship is obtained.  The Moose would not agree with this, so why is he giving us this argument?

The Moose is open to a modification of FISA.

Well bully for him, but the issue isn’t whether we’re open to FISA modification, but whether FISA allowed Bush’s actions.  It did not.  I agree that maybe FISA could use modification, but that doesn’t dispute the fact that Bush acted without such a modification.  

And of course Bullmoose would be open to this modification, as he clearly thinks that the Prez should have these powers and already does.  Yet he’s pretending as if he’s conceding a point, rather than stating what he thinks needed to happen.  This is the equivalent of me saying “Doctor Biobrain is open to impeachment of Bush.”  Well duh, but that’s not a concession; it’s my own position.  This is yet another empty rhetorical device to make him seem willing to compromise.

And he leads from this into his next point, which is intended to be the follow-through defeat of the supposed concession of the previous sentence.

However, it is not exactly clear what changes could be made without making it merely a rubber stamp for executive action.

He’s not sure what changes could be made to FISA without making it a rubber stamp??  And this is an argument against FISA??  Uh, he believes that the President already has these powers; rubber stamp or not.  So how is it a problem that we add a “rubber stamp” to the procedure?  If anything, that’s an argument for denying a modification to FISA and to denying the powers to Bush otherwise.  Because we need oversight over the presidential use of wiretaps and other government surveillance.  It’s an absolute requirement.  But hell, I’d take the rubberstamp over the Moose’s idea of no oversight at all.  Even if they didn’t stop any wiretaps, I’d like for the government to have to submit these to another branch of government.  It would be insane to do otherwise.  

And just as explanation: The whole point of opposing rubberstamps is that they give someone full authority with a symbolic pretext that the stamper has some authority, when they don’t.  And so “rubberstamps” are bad, as they don’t provide a check against the person that’s getting the stamp.  Instead, we prefer for the stamper to not have a rubberstamp, but a real ability to stop the person getting the stamp.  But somehow Bullmoose got this backwards and acts as if we need to avoid the rubberstamp in exchange for no stamp.  And as I argued, the rubberstamp is better than no stamp.

But I suspect that the Moose is one of those afflicted with a weakness for key phrases.  And in this case, the phrase “rubberstamp” is an automatic problem that casts the whole plan into doubt.  He doesn’t need to make an argument; he just says the phrase and moves on.  I’m not sure if we have such an affliction on our side, but the righties are quite obsessed with certain words and phrases which can effectively shut off all debate.  And “rubberstamp” is one of those, along with “quagmire” and “socialism”.  The rightwing thinkers train their monkeys well.

And we can have a reasoned debate about this issue without impugning the motives of a Commander in Chief who was attempting to defend the nation.

That’s right.  If I don’t completely trust Bush to wiretap with impunity, I’m not having a reasoned debate.  After all, Bush was just trying to defend the nation, or so he’s told us without providing evidence.  Why shouldn’t we trust him?  We know that the Founding Father’s assumed that the presidency was an entirely trustworthy position that didn’t need oversight, so how can such an unreasonable person think otherwise?  Or not.

So, why is it that I have to assume the best of Bush?  I never assume the best of anyone I don’t know personally, and even then I usually have reservations.  I wouldn’t even give my Blogger password to my own brother, and I’m supposed to trust the president with everything??  Right.

And Bush has proven himself to be less than trustworthy.  Maybe the Moose doesn’t agree with that proof, but he has no right to deny us our opinion.  Just because he trusts Bush doesn’t mean that we are required to do so.  And he has no right to impugn our motives on this.  He’s insisting that there is no proof that Bush did anything wrong, but we also have no proof that he had entirely good motives.  And there are reasons to suspect bad-motives.  So why is our mistrust so obviously wrong, while Moose’s trust completely appropriate?  God if I know.  The Moose assumes it to be true and we’re supposed to succumb to that undeniable proof.

Beyond that, the best way to get someone to act in good faith is to assume that they won’t, and to treat them as such.  And the best way to get someone to act in bad faith is to trust them, and to give them leeway to act badly.  And in this case, if we always work by the assumption that a president will act in good faith when handed unchecked powers, we will most surely be mistreated.  Maybe this president won’t, and maybe the next won’t either.  But we most surely will have a president who abuses these powers.  The Moose would prefer that we wait for that to happen, and then change the law back afterwards; and I say that I’ve got some Power of Attorney forms for the Moose to sign, and I’ll give him my foreign address once I get settled.

But overall, the idea that these powers can be abused entirely undermines his argument.  If the president could always be trusted to act in good faith, there is no problem with what Bullmoose wants.  But if these powers can be abused, and they will be abused, then we cannot do what Bullmoose wants.  It’s that simple.  And so that’s why he’s trying to force that discussion off the table.  And he’s using taunts and insults as a rhetorical device to keep us away from using that argument; by flinging insults at anyone who adopts those arguments.  I suspect that he won’t even debate with someone who makes that point.  And while he’d clearly find them too “partisan” for doing so, the truth is that it’s also devastating to his argument.  

Unfortunately for us, abuse of power is the best argument we have; as a totally honest president should be trusted with these powers.  Unfortunately for him, we can’t totally trust any president.  And that undercuts his entire argument.  So let’s just bury our heads in the sand and pretend that presidents are always honest and pure.

Remember the Alamo!!

Overall, I just don’t understand the appeal of Bullmoose.  As I said, I don’t read him often, but if this post of his is any indication, he’s a crooked man who won’t deal fairly.  He uses cheap rhetoric to act moderate and compromising, when he’s clearly debating in bad faith.  He labels anyone who won’t play by his rules as “partisans”, while insisting that we put full faith in his political leader.  He is not a moderate.  He is not a compromiser.  He is not acknowledging our arguments.  He is only giving lip service and backhanded insults at those who use the wrong kind of arguments.  I might look around his site when I have more time, to see if that holds true for other posts, but that is what is obviously on display here.  

I suspect that the main reason that libs give him any acknowledgement at all is so that they appear moderate and willing to listen to moderate Republicans; but that’s not a game we should play.  I’m sure there are Republicans out there who act in good faith and who don’t rely upon cheap rhetoric and implied insults to win debates, but who actually engage their opponents arguments; but I have yet to see one (not that I’m looking).  And if there are no Republicans willing to engage in fair and honest debate; so fucking be it.  I have no problem with that.  If you can’t compromise, you can’t compromise; and we shouldn’t grant moderate labels to people simply because they’re not entirely rude to all liberals.  

If anything, guys like Moose are training house Dems to act properly and censor themselves from all the arguments which undermine the Republicans.   Just like the house Dems in the media have learned to do already.  Trained pets who debate fairly and always make sure they lose at the end.

And now that I’m at the end, I’ll get to my point: Give me Bullmoose’s spot on your blogroll.  Come on.  No matter how smart you might think he is, he’s no match for me and my all-powerful biobrain.  I’ve got the shit that you just can’t fuck with, plus I’m a liberal.  But more importantly, I deal honestly with people, rather than resorting to cheap rhetorical devices; and I’m a helleva lot funnier.  I might not post as regularly as I’d like, but what you get is damn solid.  And if you count each of my subheadings as new posts, I post as regularly as most bloggers.  So give me a chance and get my name out there.  You won’t regret it.  I thank you in advance.

Post Script:
Sorry, I forgot about 9/11.  Everything I just wrote is now inoperative.  I apologize for wasting your time.  Long live Bush!

Patronizing the Patrons

You wanna know what pisses me off?  Those stupid warnings they’ve put all over our products everywhere.  But not because they’re warning me, but because they’re so damn patronizing about it.  You’ve seen the ones at McDonald’s, when you go through the drive-thru and the sign says “Caution: Coffee is hot”.  Now that’s just stupid.  That whole old-lady-spills-coffee thing was always misstated anyway, but it wasn’t just that the coffee was hot.  It was that their coffee was excessively hot, so as to burn the coffee and give out a coffee smell that would entice breakfasters to buy coffee.  It was a marketing gimmick that injured an old woman.  And McD’s had quietly settled many such cases.  But I don’t want to get into all that.

The main thing is that it wasn’t just hot coffee.  And I strongly suspect that those stupid signs aren’t really there to warn anyone, or to limit McDonalds’ liability for coffee injuries.  I suspect that they put them up so that all the blowhards who complained about that court case see the sign and immediately think of that court case and get a little glow of satisfaction at how stupid that sign is and how stupid that old lady was; and thusly they like McDonald’s a little bit more, and maybe even buy some of that hot coffee.  Maybe that’s just paranoid, but that’s what I think it’s about.  I think they turned that lawsuit into yet another marketing gimmick.

And I’m thinking about this now as I’m eating an Uncle Ben’s Sweet & Sour Chicken Bowl, which doesn’t look nearly as nice in person as it does on the box (duh).  And I’m reading the instructions and it says “Carefully peel back cover (steam is hot)…”  Steam is hot??  No fucking shit.  Who doesn’t know that?  Oh, everyone knows that, or at least everyone who can read the instructions.  So what the hell is that idiotic message about?  Sure, maybe it’s to limit their liability, and maybe it serves that purpose.  But I think there’s more to it than that.  I think they’re insulting our intelligences.  I think that they’re implying that we’re morons.  And maybe we are, but I really don’t like the insinduations of that.

And I’m not sure where this is coming from.  Maybe the top management sits around thinking up this stuff, though I think it’s some annoyed lawyer or similar such person who thinks the whole thing is stupid; so they’re intentionally insulting our intelligence, as a joke.  Making fun of us rubes for not knowing that steam is hot.  Or when they tell us to not sleep with the hairdryer on.  That’s not a warning, that’s an insult.  Nobody thinks it’s ok to spill hot coffee on their lap, or to have steam burn their hands, or to sleep with the hairdryer running.  Nobody.  And these messages aren’t going to prevent anyone from getting hurt.  

And maybe some company got sued because they hadn’t warned people from sleeping with the hairdryer on; and maybe this warning will prevent another lawsuit.  But I just don’t think that’s what this is about.  I think that Corporate America has decided that we’re all fools and dopes who don’t even know when we’re being mocked.  And maybe they’re right.  But that’s not going to stop me from complaining about it.  Nor will it stop me from issuing my own warning: The Uncle Ben’s Sweet & Sour Chicken Bowl sucks.  It’s better than starving, but not by much.  Considered yourselves warned.

2006 Dream Year Prediction

Holy turdball!  I was over at Roger Ailes doing my typical blog-comment shtick last night, when I suddenly realized that I had riffed onto a great 2006 Dream Year Prediction.  Here goes, with a little more elaboration:

Due to Bush’s indefensible illegalities (many of which we have yet to uncover) and (more importantly) his ever-flagging poll numbers, Congressional Republicans deliver us a delightful mid-year Chimpeachment; in a desperate bid to save their dying re-election campaigns, which already look hopeless by July.  Included in this takedown is Secret Mastermind President Dick Cheney (his official title) who, on top of his involvement in Bush’s multiple high crimes, has a few of his own involving some funny Iraq-Halliburton business, which also deals a long-term blow both to the idea of neo-conservatism and the no-bid contracts that inspired it.  By December, most legal experts assume that both men will be serving time with co-conspirators Tom Delay and Karl Rove, as well as John Bolton (for unrelated sex crimes).

But this effort by the GOP is too-little-too-late, as voters blame them for their lack of oversight of the president; as well as for their own growing corruption scandals, which has now encompassed almost two hundred Republican Congressman, as well as many more Congressional aides.  Additionally, being unable to run on their much beloved “We’re With Bush” ticket, Republicans are forced to campaign on their closest semblance of an actual platform; mostly consisting of gays, abortion, fiscal responsibility, and their distrust of all three. And finally, to show their anger at the traitorous abandonment of Dear Leader, Bush diehards actively campaign against the incumbents, nominating the worst of the worst to run in the general election (think Jean Schmidt on fundie-steroids).  These events combine into the Perfect Storm, knocking the GOP bums out of office and making the biggest political switcheroo in Congress’ history; giving Dems a veto-proof majority for years to come. As a bonus, with Republicans at such a low-point, Dem politicians finally cast-off the need for both corporate whoring and stronger-than-thou warhawkery.

And thus we’re left with dimwit Hastert in charge for two more years, who quickly submits to the obvious tide against him and effectively becomes a rubber-stamp for the Democratic Party (much like his current GOP rubber-stamp position).  And with this power, the Dems straighten-up Iraq, return our tax rates to their Clinton-era levels, and tweak many minor foreign and domestic issues; and thus return America back to its premier status on top of the world.  Oh, and I win the lottery and become the most influential third-tier blogger on the internet.

A man can dream, can’t he?  Hell, that second section is likely to happen in any case.

Annoyance Avoidance

Regarding Atrios’ reference to our new cyber-annoyance-avoidance law against anonymous stalkers; does anyone know if that applies to pseudonymous bloggers/commenters/etc?  Not that this applies to someone like myself, as I’d never use a fake name.  But does it apply to someone who always uses the same fake name?  That’s not the same as being anonymous, but I’m not sure if it’s considered different enough.  And I know people who go by different names than their birth name (like someone named “James”, who inexplicably goes by “Brian”), but who have never officially changed it.  Is that considered to be on the same level as someone like Digby?  If not, why?

I’m sure I could easily look this up myself, but what’d be the point of being a blogger if I actually had to do research.

The Lobbyist Vanishes

Time, via Josh Marshall:
Bracing for the worst, Administration officials obtained from the Secret Service a list of all the times Abramoff entered the White House complex, and they scrambled to determine the reason for each visit. Bush aides are also trying to identify all the photos that may exist of the two men together.
(emphasis added)

Honestly, if they could get away with it, do you even doubt that the Bushies wouldn’t “retouch” any of these photos; ala Soviet Russia?  (that’s an interesting link, btw)  I’m not at all comparing them to Soviets (as the Nazi link was always far more fitting); but the propagandic instinct is the same.  

NY Times Traitorism Explained

Guest Post by Doctor Snedley, Personal Assistant to Doctor Biobrain
Written in response to a traitorous post by liberal Glenn Greenwald

Come off it, Glenn (if that is your real name).  The terrorists we're dealing with are as cunningly brilliant and mind-bogglingly stupid as we need them to be at any given moment.  That's exactly what makes them so damn dangerous and why Bush needs the illegal powers he's grabbed to protect us.  They’re cowering in caves at one minute, and scouring CNN and internet message-boards for pro-terror encouragement the next.  They’re everywhere and nowhere at once, and might even be right behind you at this very moment.  That’s who we’re up against, and the only way to defeat them is by using the most extreme measures known to man.  And George Bush is the man willing to take us there.

Sure, these FISA courts of yours could provide the exact same protection that Bush has claimed his less-than-legal options have garnered; but what kind of message does that send the terrorists?  When their chief opponent isn't even willing to break a few laws to defeat them?  These people blow up buildings for entertainment; and our President can't even violate a lousy statute or two?  They're laughing at us already.  And if the terrorists are laughing, the terrorists have already won.

So rather than trying to stifle Bush with an America-hating impeachment or some other “legal” option, I say that we have to take this to the next level.  As has been argued before, rather than just a violating a little illegal search action; I say that we have Bush get busy violating some real laws.  Like say we film him doing a little drive-by action on the streets of DC.  Nothing like a little gunplay to get a terrorist’s attention.  And if we really want to shake them up, Bush could go Dahmer and just start eating people and raping their detached skulls; perhaps even on a reality TV show or something.  They’d take one look at his crazy ass and just turn themselves in; knowing that our president was an ornery cuss they just didn’t want to mess with.

And so that’s what this is all about.  Not about listening in on a few phone calls; but about showing those terrorist bastards exactly how far we’ll go to defeat them.  I mean, let’s face it: Al Qaeda as a coherent terrorist organization is on its last legs and has been effectively shattered; leaving it only symbolic status as a loose-knit group of terrorist cells with no effective connection or identity.  So anything we might listen in on from known-terrorists would have little or no strategic value; while the new terrorist cells work completely undetected, and under our very noses.  But…the strategic value of terrorist scum everywhere knowing how far our president is willing to push the limits of democracy is utterly priceless.  If they know that we’re willing to destroy this democracy ourselves, they’ll be much less likely to try any of their America-hating hi-jinks, and are much more likely to focus their strength on countries like Iraq, who are trying to work on some kind of respectable democracy.  A strategy that has clearly paid off already.

And that’s exactly how the NY Times leak has damaged our security.  Because Bush wasn’t planning to keep this secret forever.  Hell no.  That would defeat the whole purpose.  Rather, he was planning to announce this on his schedule and at the appropriate time to have the most stunning psychological effect on our terrorist foes; like right after the first episode of “George Bush: Man of Meat” airs on Fox.  That’d be like a double-loaded shotgun blast to the face.  But now, the traitorous Times has effectively eliminated that stunning twofer blast; relegating Bush to the single whammy of presidential cannibalism.  So rather than seeing Bush announce these double-secret-surprise wiretaps with human entrails dripping for his fevered lips; the terrorists will just be left with the dripping entrails.  Color me unimpressed.

And so that’s how the NY Times and the rest of you liberal scum damaged America’s security by hurriedly blurting out Bush’s surprise.  The wiretaps were a done deal in either case, and any damage they may have caused to democracy and freedom was already done.  But…the surprise of announcing it at the right time?  Lost forever.  Oh, and the same goes for the whole Abu Ghraib thing.  All part of Bush’s new “We’ll Do Anything” national security initiative; which is slowly being undermined by freedom-haters in the media and abroad.  Sometimes, you’ve got to act like your enemy, to defeat them.  And sometimes, you just gotta get freaky.

Oh, and one final note to this “Glenn Greenwald” person: drop the damn pseudonym.  Only cowards hide behind invented names and silly monikers.  Always be honest with your readers; or don’t be honest at all.

UNPRECEDENTED SECOND WIN

I would be remiss in not mentioning my UNPRECEDENTED SECOND WIN in the third Carnival of the Liberals, for my stupendous post on imperial powers, Against the Imperial Presidency.  I had planned to write a stunning critique on uber-putz Jonah Goldberg for my CotL submission, but all his recent output was beyond boring and offered little to sink my teeth into.  So instead, I went with the unpolished Imperial post, which would have been delayed a few more days, if not for the Jan 3 submission deadline.  In fact, I’m in the process of moving and hadn’t intended to post anything, but realized that my plans to pull a THREE-PEAT later this month would be a bit more difficult if I didn’t win a second time.  And now that I see that the next judge is JR Kinnard from Don’t Floss With Tinsel (a brilliant brilliant person with more wisdom than Solomon himself) I feel confident that said three-peat should not be a problem.

Needless to say, that third victory is now all but assured, but don’t let that stop you from gunning for one of the other nine victory slots.  Not everyone’s a winner, but if you’re a reader of this site, you’ve already got a natural brain-up on the competition.  Here’s the submission form.  It’s open to all liberal bloggers, so give it a go, and remember, even if you lose, you’ll probably lose to me and there’s no indignity in that.  And if I don’t win, then you’ll know that the fix is in, and that we’ll just have to boycott the contest until the end of time; and there is no indignity in that either.  Good luck.

Reporting Terrorists

And speaking of “Is it sham or is it ignorance”, what about the idea of the Bush Admin spying on journalists?  We’re talking about people who insist that the MSM aids terrorists and America’s enemies.  Doesn’t it just make sense that we should wiretap such people, if the accusations were true?  Hell, I’d support wiretapping journalists if they really were aiding our enemies (though I’d still want them to be legal wiretaps).  Not necessarily that this “aid to terrorists” is intentional, but wouldn’t it make sense to bug their phones, just to make sure that it’s not intentional?  I’m not saying I agree with that, but if you take their arguments seriously, that is a natural conclusion.  Sure, the Bush Admin never directly said these things against journalists, but they do quietly imply it and many rightwing sources explicitly state it.  

Again, I’ve always thought the rightwing talk of traitorous reporters was part of a sham to keep them from reporting negative things about the GOP; but what if they really believe that crap to be true?  And if we take them seriously, should we have any doubts that they’d bug the press?  Or that they’d bomb Al Jazeera?  And again, which is worse, that they’d attempt to manipulate and potentially destroy American journalism and dissenting speech, for political gain; or that they’d really believe that nonsense?  Either we take them seriously or we don’t; but it’s scary in either case.  

Shammy Insanity

Via Carpetbagger (click on the link for more context), we read this from the Indy Star:
Republican House leaders made it clear Wednesday they don't agree with a judge's ban on prayers that invoke the name of Jesus Christ during their proceedings. But, led by House Speaker Brian C. Bosma, they decided to forgo the 189-year tradition of invocations — at least for now — and opted instead to have a free-spirited prayer huddle in the back of the House chamber minutes before the opening gavel.
"We're taking a stand. We're making a statement," Bosma said. "But within the bounds of the court order."
Taking a stand...yet obeying the court order?  Either this is a sham protest, in order to save face; or they really just don't understand what this is about and really do believe that their religion is under assault.  As if they think we're trying to stop them from praying.  Even now, these types insist that we've forbidden all prayer in school, rather than school-endorsed prayer.  I always assumed that that was a sham argument, used for the rhetorical value; but perhaps they really don't understand.

And frankly, I don’t know which is worse: That they’d use such shammy religious-war tactics for political gain, or that they’re so clueless as to believe that we really want to outlaw their religion.  In either case, they’re wrong; but one points to extremely unethical behavior and the other borders on insanity.  Or perhaps it’s a touch of both.

Against the Imperial Presidency

We’re not robots.  Or at least I’m not, and I’m assuming that the rest of you aren’t either (though that might explain a few things).  We are all under our own control and are expected to police ourselves and follow certain rules.  That’s why they bother telling us the laws, so that we know what is expected of us and can enforce them on ourselves.  Because no one else can do that for us.  They can’t make sure that everyone is driving the right speed or not murdering people.  That would be impossible.  That’s how I explain this shit to my kids, and the same applies to the rest of society.  We’re all responsible for our own actions, and have no excuses for the bad ones.

But people can’t necessarily be trusted to police themselves, so we have the Police who assist us in that effort.  But they don’t catch everything, nor are they expected to.  Rather, we have police in certain locations, performing a sort of legal audit on us, to insure that people are following the rules.  And just as an accounting auditor doesn’t look at every transaction (which would be impossible); the police are basically performing random samples of the population, to make sure that we’re in compliance.  And that’s what punishment is for too.  To give us a reason to enforce these laws upon ourselves.  You should obey the laws because you might be punished for it.  And that system works pretty well.

Tied into that is our judicial system.  But it also doesn’t serve the function that people believe it does, not quite anyway.  Because it does not provide justice to all.  Sometimes, the wrong-doers will get away.  And sometimes, an innocent man will be punished (and no, there are no innocent women).  But the point isn’t that the system is flawless.  The point is that we have a judicial system, and that it works by certain rules.  Because the point isn’t to catch everyone, or to turn people into mindless robots.  The point is for there to be expectations of punishment if we violate the rules.  We’re expected to enforce the rules, and the police, judges, and juries are supposed to audit our enforcement.  

But the key is that we’re responsible for own actions.  We can do whatever the hell we want, but we shouldn’t be surprised when we get in trouble for it.  You can run every red light in your town, and you’re more likely to cause an accident than to be ticketed for it; but you know that you might be ticketed, so you try not to do it.  And this isn’t just some weird way of looking at things.  This is reality.  We are the police.  We are the enforcers.  We can do anything, but we might get caught by the auditors; the reinforcers, if you will.  And that’s how it all works.

Self-Defense

And we see some important points in this regard.  For example, if your life is threatened, you can kill the person threatening it.  And that just makes sense.  The laws are not a suicide pact.  They are for our protection, but if our ultimate protection is threatened, then we are allowed to violate the laws.  But it’s not really a violation, as that contingency was accounted for within the laws.  There is a law against killing people, but there are exceptions to this; and your life is considered to be one of them.  

And there are other exceptions built into the system.  Self-defense is legally allowed idea, but what if you violate a law that doesn’t have a legal exception built-in; but that it was better for you to violate it?  Well that’s taken care of too.  If you convince the police, or the DA, or (most likely) a jury that you were justified in breaking the law, you will get away with it.  Or perhaps you’ll get a very light punishment.   You couldn’t consult with them beforehand, but now that it’s all over, they gave you retroactive permission to break the law.  

Or maybe they didn’t.  Maybe in hindsight, they didn’t think that your case allowed law breaking.  That was the chance you took, and you knew that going into it.  And if you weren’t willing to suffer the consequences, maybe it wasn’t worth breaking the law.  If you killed in self-defense, then it’s better to go to jail than to allow yourself to be killed.  And a speeding ticket is better than allowing your kid to die in your car (as that really hurts the resale value).  And that’s how our whole system works.  

But…if that happens, do they give you an automatic out for it?  Is your decision the end of the discussion?  Would it be sensible to allow anyone to claim self-defense; which would then automatically prevent the police from investigating?  Which would prevent the court system from taking action?  Of course not.  That’d be utterly foolish.  Everyone would claim self-defense all the time, and always circumvent the rules.  No, what we do is allow such an exception to the No Killing rules; but still allow the legal auditors (police) do their job and see if your claims are true.  And maybe they’ll agree with you, and maybe they won’t.  But the main thing is that there is a process for all of this, and that everyone must follow the process.

Rule of Law

But here’s one of the tricks of the Rule of Law.  You have to follow it.  You have to.  What if it means a murderer gets off?  Too fucking bad.  What if that would make an innocent man go to jail?  Go home and cry to your wife about it.  Because this isn’t about a murderer or an innocent man or any individual case.  This isn’t about justice being served or good beating evil.  This is about a process.  A process that works the same for everyone, all the time.  Because that’s what’s important.  Not that justice is always served; but that we have a system for handling justice.  We can try to work within the system to make it more fair, but we still have to work within the system.

And maybe this isn’t the best system; but it’s the one we’ve got.  Maybe some day we’ll have a computer arbitrating justice with lie detectors and electro-shocks.  But with the justice system we have now, it’s all about the appearance of justice.  If you have a public defender, you’re probably screwed.  And if you have Johnny Cochran, well, you’re still probably screwed because he’s dead.  And sometimes that public defender gets you off, and sometimes Johnny Cochran won’t (especially as he’s dead).  But the point is that we all have the same laws and that we all submit to the same process.  

That’s what it’s about.  We have a process by which certain people write laws, other people enforce laws, and still other people make sure that the laws were enforced properly.  We’re ultimately responsible for making sure that we follow the laws; but we are never allowed to be the final judge of whether we followed the laws properly.  That’s the constitutional process that we have, and we must stick to it.  And even the constitutional process is amendable; but again, it must be done within the system.

King George

And in case you didn’t get it yet, I’m not here to talk about justice or crime.  Hell no, this is all about George Bush and the theory of the Imperial Presidency.  Yesterday, I was reading the irrepressible John Dean at Findlaw who was discussing Bush as the New Nixon, regarding warrantless wiretaps.  In this, Dean gives a quickie presentation of Nixon’s wiretap argument, which explained why it was ok for the President to break the law.  I quote Dean:

Nixon rather presciently anticipated - and provided a rationalization for - Bush: He wrote, "there have been -- and will be in the future -- circumstances in which presidents may lawfully authorize actions in the interest of security of this country, which if undertaken by other persons, even by the president under different circumstances, would be illegal."

And that’s fine.  I agree completely.  Sometimes, there are certain circumstances in which presidents have to break the law.  Similarly, there are certain circumstances in which you might have to break the law.  For example, if you’re driving to a hospital with a dying child and you drive over the speed limit or run a red light.  That’s certainly justified (assuming that you couldn’t get an ambulance).  Or there’s the example above of killing someone in self-defense.  Sometimes, you have to violate the law to serve a higher purpose.

But…does it end there?  You’ve got a dying kid in the car, and you don’t have to pull over for the cops, and the normal rules don’t apply?  The cops can’t even check to see if the blood isn’t just catsup?  Or if you claim self-defense, the cops can’t investigate?  Of course not.  Not only are they allowed to investigate, they’re expected to.  And the more serious the crime, the more they have to investigate.

The Imperial Flaw

And that’s the flaw that the Imperial President people make.  Because, yes, the President might need to violate the constitution to preserve it.  Just as we might need to kill someone in order to save lives.  There can be no doubt of that, and only a stubborn fool would argue against it.  But that’s not where it ends.  When a president acts in violation of the law, that’s where the argument begins.  Sure, maybe he didn’t have time to ask Congress to write a new law that he needs.  But that’s not an excuse to let him off the hook.   That’s when we need to start discussing it.  And if Congress thinks it’s necessary to discuss it during an impeachment hearing, that’s fine too.  That’s the constitutional process.  That’s the law.

But it never ends with the President’s decision.  And the more crucial a decision is, the more we need to discuss it.  And the more obvious his choice was, the more he should be glad to discuss it.  And in terms of Bush, had he a terrorism conviction based on these illegal doings, then he should be glad to discuss it.  He’d rub it in our faces.  Except…the circumstances don’t favor him.  He doesn’t have any convictions to trumpet.  And he hasn’t tried to get new laws passed.  And it’s likely that he was, in effect, denied them.  And the current laws were pretty damn good about this stuff.  The main thing that they went up against was abuse, and that’s no defense at all.  And most likely of all, these wiretappings were broad fishing expeditions that no court would approve; and that’s exactly the kind of thing that we need to prevent.  Again, we have a process for these things, and no one can act outside of the process.  The process must allow temporary exemptions, but under no case do we allow these exemptions an automatic approval.

And so where does it all end?  If the system works, it ends up with impeachment and removal from office.  Or at the least, an impeachment hearing that supports his position.  But it doesn’t end with his statement of National Security.  He can give his justification, but it must be subject to the system’s approval.  He can insist that it was necessary to take the actions he did, but his insistence is no better than any other persons.  The president is not above the law, ever.  He can break the law, just as we all can; but eventually, he must submit to the system; or the system will be destroyed.  That’s the rule of law and the basis for all modern government.