Holder to investigate bush administration on interrogation?

Newsweek is reporting that "four knowledgeable sources" have told them that Attorney General Eric Holder is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate "the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices." He reportedly has asked for a list of 10 possible prosecutors: 5 from within the DoJ and 5 from outside.

The article carefully lays out Holder's dilemma:

Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed. At one extreme looms Alberto Gonzales, who allowed the Justice Department to be run like Tammany Hall. At the other is Janet Reno, whose righteousness and folksy eccentricities marginalized her within the Clinton administration. Lean too far one way and you corrupt the office, too far the other way and you render yourself impotent. Mindful of history, Holder is trying to get the balance right. "You have the responsibility of enforcing the nation's laws, and you have to be seen as neutral, detached, and nonpartisan in that effort," Holder says. "But the reality of being A.G. is that I'm also part of the president's team. I want the president to succeed; I campaigned for him. I share his world view and values." . . .

Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. "I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda," he says. "But that can't be a part of my decision." . . .

Holder well knew how politicized things could get. He worried about the impact on the CIA, whose operatives would be at the center of any probe. And he could clearly read the signals coming out of the White House. President Obama had already deflected the left wing of his party and human-rights organizations by saying, "We should be looking forward and not backwards" when it came to Bush-era abuses. . . .

But in late June Holder asked an aide for a copy of the CIA inspector general's thick classified report on interrogation abuses. He cleared his schedule and, over two days, holed up alone in his Justice Department office, immersed himself in what Dick Cheney once referred to as "the dark side." He read the report twice, the first time as a lawyer, looking for evidence and instances of transgressions that might call for prosecution. The second time, he started to absorb what he was reading at a more emotional level. He was "shocked and saddened," he told a friend, by what government servants were alleged to have done in America's name. When he was done he stood at his window for a long time, staring at Constitution Avenue.

It is a momentous decision that means going against Obama's stated preference and the fierce opposition of those like Rahm Emanuel.

In favor of his ultimate decision to appoint an investigator is the fact that in the internal debate on whether to release the torture memos, Holder was in favor of releasing them -- and ultimately that was the decision. One of his arguments was: "If you don't release the memos, you'll own the policy."

That understanding is augmented by the increasing furor aroused by the new revelation of the CIA withholding information from Congress. Republicans have less and less grounds for protesting an investigation. I also believe that Holder does strive to run an independent DoJ and is ideologically motivated to do the right thing, both legally and morally. All of this, I think, is in favor of a decision to appoint a prosecutor.

Besides, it's my guess that Newsweek's sources really were sending up a trial balloon, and I don't think Holder would have done that if he weren't ready to go ahead.

And what better way for Holder to prove that he is truly an independent AG and that he has rescued the DoJ from the bush era politicization?

Ralph

"Refuse to Sign" movement

A nationwide movement, called Refuse-to-Sign, headed by some United Church of Christ clergy but not limited to that denomination, is calling on clergy to refuse to sign the legal documents for anyone's marriage, at least until the right to marry is granted to all.

I think it was as far back as the 2004 election, when the anti-gay-marriage amendment was on the GA ballot, that a Unitarian-Universalist minister in Atlanta made a similar announcement: he would perform no more weddings for anyone until he could do so for same-sex couples as well.

Their aim is not just to secure the right for same-sex couples to marry but to clarify the distinction between the state's obligation to grant equal rights to all and marriage as a religious sacrament.

This seems very much in line with what is advocated by Bishop Gene Robinson, the gay Episcopal priest whose consecration as bishop has led to backlash schisms in the worldwide Anglican communion. When he spoke in Atlanta earlier this year at a conference at Emory Law School, he described what he advises churches.

Separate the civil union ceremony from the religious blessing of the union. When he and his partner got married, they went first to the back of the church where they were joined in civil union by a justice of the peace; and then they went to the front of the church, the altar, and had a religious ceremony.

Bishop Robinson is advising churches to set up this two-step process for those who want it. Let the church provide a civil officer -- not the minister -- who will perform the legal procedure and then have the clergy perform a religious rite.

His point is that clergy should not be doing the state's work, especially when they do not agree with its laws on the matter.

I think our society is gradually moving that way; and it's what I have long concluded as the preferable way: civil unions for both heterosexual and homosexual couples performed by the state, with equality for all; then marriage can solely be a religious rite, with various churches free to define their own criteria for whom they will marry.

Because you can always go find another church that will marry you; but you don't have the freedom to choose another government to ensure your equal rights -- unless you move to another country.

Ralph

Health care reform

As Paul Krugman said yesterday in his column about the economy and the insufficiency of the stimulus plan, "It's time to talk to the people as adults."

The same is true for health care reform.

If we really want a health care system that improves the health of our nation, we have to put the health of our people ahead of the profitability of insurance companies.

Those, who oppose a public option and say it will lead to a single-payer plan and drive the private insurance companies out of business, may be right. To quote our X-VP, I say, "So?"

Actually, they would not be put out of business, but they would have to downsize or adapt to another kind of insurance. That idea is denounced as anti-business, socialized medicine, and un-American, and it is likely to ruin chances for the tepid public-option plan. And the insurance industry has millions of dollars in lobbying money to back it up.


But "Un-American"? What about the scandal that a nation as prosperous as ours has 47,000,000 of its citizens without health care insurance, which could easily be reversed with a single-payer plan? Which is more un-American?

Now there is some news from the numbers-crunchers in the Congressional Budget Office that suggest that the public plan (even far short of the single-payer plan) may also save a lot of money. We knew this intuitively and by common sense, but the CBO has leaked a preliminary estimate that a strong public plan option could save $150 billion over 10 years.

Do we have the political will to do it? Only if the administration talks to us like adults, as Obama has done on some other issues like race.

The public already supports the idea of a public plan. Now we must exert the pressure that the administration needs from us to "make" them do it.

Ralph

Peggy and Sarah

Peggy Noonan, Bush I's speech writer (1000 points of light) and conservative pundit, does not share some of her fellow conservatives' view of Sarah Palin (eg, Bill Krystol). During the campaign, she made a comment unknowingly picked up by an open mike: she referred to McCain's choice of Palin for VP running mate as "political bullshit." She later tried to spin it into something not quite so bad.

But now she apparently feels no such constraints. In a current editorial in The Wall Street Journal, Noonan recently wrote this about Palin:

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.

I've not liked some of the things Noonan has said, but she's got it just right here -- even with a memorable line: "out of her depth in a shallow pool."

That's both searingly true and aesthetically pleasing.

Ralph

Cheney's assassination ring?

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein is reporting on the big bombshell that CIA Director Leon Panetta supposedly laid on the members of the Congress Intelligence Committees on June 24th.

It is highly classified, and no one can talk about what it was, because of top secret classification. Speculation at first was about waterboarding, but that was stopped during Bush's term. Piecing bits together suggests it's something much much bigger and heretofore unknown.

A committee member, Rep. Anna Eschoo (D-CA) told Stein that when Panetta told the committee what the program was that had been withheld from their oversight committee for years, since 2001, that "the whole committee was stunned, even Republicans."

And it is something that Panetta himself did not know about until June 23. He immediately put a stop to it and the next day informed the Intel Committees, which rules out waterboarding.

Now speculation is that the big bombshell is Dick Cheney's "executive assassination ring" that Seymore Hersche hinted at back in March. Supposedly a secret wing of special forces, it was an assassination hit squad that operated completely outside even the usual special forces and secret channels. Here's what Hersch said:

"It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," Hersh said. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it," he added. "It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths. Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That's been going on, in the name of all of us."

So -- this could so big that even Republicans will agree an investigation must be done.

Ralph

Infighting

Nancy Pelosi is owed an apology.

She was trashed and smeared by Republicans in Congress -- some even suggested she should resign, and her patriotism was questioned -- simply because she claimed that she had not been briefed about torture as claimed by our intelligence agencies. And, pushed, she said they lied when they claimed they had. And we now know that dick cheney was an unacknowledged presence in some of those briefings of the Gang of 8 -- presumably to prevent some things from being told to these constitutionally empowered congressional leaders to provide oversight for the intelligence activities.

Now, current CIA Director Leon Panetta has acknowledged that the CIA in the past had misled lawmakers on significant actions taken by the CIA for "a number of years."

Further, he has had to admit that the statement he made earlier -- "It is not the policy of the CIA to mislead Congress" -- was also not true.

The apology for Pelosi is a minor thing -- but I suspect it's important to her. The crucial thing is that -- along with the other rogue activities of the bush administration -- we can now count lying to Congress and avoiding the constitutionally required oversight to the crimes and misdemeanors of the bush administration. How many impeachable offenses are there now?

It gets darker and darker -- in there in dick cheney's world.

Ralph

Perfect !!!

Obama has been taking a lot of heat for dragging his feet about repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell and for not ending the discharges prior to the law being changed. He insists it will happen, but he wants to do it carefully and deliberately; and he wants Congress to take the lead in changing the law.

Now we have a new voice taking charge of the bill in Congress that will overturn DADT, and he seems to the perfect choice.

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) sent out this email to his supporters this morning:

In less than an hour [10:00 AM], we will officially announce that I am taking over as the chief sponsor for The Military Readiness Enhancement Act -- the bill that will finally repeal the policy known as "Don't Ask,Don't Tell." I have been speaking out against for many years against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" -- first as an ROTC cadet, then as a professor at West Point, and later as a candidate and a congressman. To now take the lead on such an important piece of legislation is an honor and a privilege beyond words.

This is going to be a busy day full of meetings and interviews. We'll even be launching a new website dedicated to this issue: LetThemServe.com. But before it all got started I wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to stand up and fight for the values we all believe in. I couldn't do this without you, and I'll never forget that.

Although there are three openly gay members of the House, Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Jared Polis (D-CO), Murphy is not one of them. Here's why he seems to be the perfect Congressman to take the lead on this: a heterosexual, Iraq war vet and former West Point professor -- it robs the opponents of being able to use their old, tired rants against "the homosexual agenda."

It also is a courageous stance for Murphy to take. He won his seat in Congress in 2006 by just 1521 votes, and he knows that this could lose him some votes. But he's saying that we need congressmen who will do what's right and stop worrying about the effect on their re-election.

Ralph

PS: A related good news issue: last month the District of Columbia city council approved a resolution that D.C. will recognize same-sex marriages that are performed in other states where it is legal. In the peculiar governance of D.C., Congress has oversight and has 30 days to challenge any law before it goes into effect. The 30 days have passed on this one, and there was no challenge from Congress. So couples married in Massachusetts or Iowa, say, will be considered legally married if they move to D.C. It also is considered a first step toward legalizing marriage itself in D.C.

The WH's Israel-Iran message

On Sunday's "This Week," VP Biden made what some are calling another of his candid gaffes when he repeatedly said that Israel is a sovereign state and can make its own decisions about Iran.

I watched the show, and to me is was very clear that Biden was not being a loose cannon. He spoke very deliberately and chose his words carefully. Several times, he said some variation of this quote:

"We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they're existentially threatened." Other comments were variations on the statement that the US "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do".

Others thought that this was a signal to Israel, giving it license to attack Iran.

I didn't think that was right either. And Obama later clarified the administration's position, which doesn't at all contradict what Biden said; it just emphasizes the other side of the statement. Obama said

"We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East." And then on CNN he said "absolutely not" about our giving Israel the green light to attack Iran.

So what was Biden's message, assuming it was carefully thought out ahead of time?

Some are saying that it was a message for the Iranians -- because we still want to have talks with them in spite of their controversial election and its aftermath, and this was a signal to them that clearly differentiates our policy from that of Israel -- and that probably has to do not only with attacking Iran but the whole Israel-Palestinian issue -- so that we are seen by the Muslim world as less closely allied with Israel than we have been in the past.

Ralph

Sotomayor's critics

It's time to get Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings underway and cut the hysteria swirling around the false charges stirred up by hyper-partisan critics.

The American Bar Association gave her its unanimous rating of "well qualified," it's highest mark. Senator Lindsey Graham, once quite critical of her, now says that he can probably vote for her, and the only way she will not be confirmed is if she performs poorly in her hearings.

But the partisan snipers are still at it. Senator Sessions, ranking Repub on the Judiciary Committee, is still ranting about her basing decisions on personal feelings, about "empathy," and about racial bias. All of which are silly and willful misunderstandings.

Regarding the New Haven firefighters' case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Appeals Court decision (with Sotomayor as one of judges who had decided it): critics cling to this as a rebuke to her judicial wisdom -- seemingly ignoring the fact that four of the nine sitting Supreme Court Justices who heard the appeal agreed with her.

If one judge had changed his vote, it would have upheld the decision. So, if this was a rebuke to Sotomayor, it was also a rebuke to Justices Ginsberg, Breyer, Stevens, and Souter.

That dog just won't hunt, as they say in the South, so Alabamian Sessions should certainly understand it.

Come on, let's get this over with. She is going to be confirmed. She's more than qualified. She is less of an activist judge than many might be. And she seems admirably restrained and not easily swayed by feelings.

If fact, some have argued that the conservatives in the majority were more activists than Sotomayor and the minority, because their decision was a departure from precedent on racial bias cases.

Ralph

Journalism shifts from newspapers to blogs

Emblematic of the disturbing trend in print journalism -- away from courageous and serious reporting that seeks the truth and toward a tepid presentation of "both sides" of a story -- is the fact that The Washington Post has terminated Dan Froomkin, who for six years has written its most popular political blog.

It's true, he wrote for online readers rather than print readers, but it was a service of a newspaper company and thus subject to the same editorial/publishing constraints and concern for the company's bottom line.

Post management will not even explain to its own ombudsman why, except to trot out some tired boilerplate about change and new direction. Of course, we know that newspapers are in survival economic mode with declining readership and ad revenue. Nevertheless, it smacks of silencing a "dangerous" voice, rather than saving money.

Both The New York Times and The Washington Post have seemed in journalistic decline for years. Some are suggesting that it's the lack of real journalistic courage and forthright reporting that helps explain the decline.

The sad state of "the fourth estate" -- the necessity of an informed public for democracy to work -- is ameliorated by the rise of online journalism. That's where the exciting reporting is happening. Instead of The Times' Judy Miller and The Post's David Broder, we get Marcy Wheeler at Empty Wheel and Arianna Huffington's increasingly quoted clearing house for news.

So, what's to become of Dan Froomkin? Not to worry. Arianna has hired him. He will be The Huffington Post Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist, overseeing a staff of four reporters devoted to covering news out of Washington.

That suggests that Arianna is moving into real journalism instead of just a compiler of news stories and opinion bloggers. She's establishing real journalism, including the resources to do some investigating reporting. That's very good news.

Greg Greenwald (writing in his online blog, of course) quotes Huffington and Froomkin:

Huffington says that it is Froomkin's views on the media that, for her, is his primary appeal. The key to vibrant, successful journalism, she said, is "getting away from the notion that truth is found by splitting the difference between the two sides, that there is always truth to both sides." Huffington argues that establishment journalism is failing due to "the idea that good journalism is about presenting both sides without a voice -- without any passion." The outlets that continue to adhere to that "obsolete" model "are paying a price." Froomkin -- who has written extensively about how passion-free, "both-sides-are-right" journalism is the primary affliction of the profession -- echoes that view: "The key challenge is to present an alternative to the 'splitting the difference' culture that has infested traditional media."

Of course, the internet has more than its share of garbage and disinformation, but it also has become the best daily source of real reporting. This may just be the center of real journalism of the future.

Ralph

One more, and then . . . enough on Palin

Maybe I've been too cynical and dismissive of Sarah Palin's sincerity in trying to explain her resignation. But, honestly, it is hard to take her seriously and I sometimes overdo the scorn.

One thing caught my eye today -- I think it was from the Lt. Governor who will succeed her: The fact that it has cost the state of Alaska over $1,000,000 just in staff time and expense to deal with the ethics charges brought against her. I understood that this did not include lawyer's fees -- just the time to answer all the requests for records and information, which they are required to supply.

And most of those charges -- she says "all" -- have been dismissed as without merit or unprovable.

On top of this, she has become a very polarizing figure in state government and has lost the support she once had to get legislation passed.

So her effectiveness has been compromised, and her continued presence in office will cost the taxpayers lots of money and distraction without much benefit.

Maybe it really is in the best interests of Alaska for her to step down now.

It's also true that she has brought a lot of this on. Many say she has seemed disinterested in her job since returning from the campaign, that she has not been engaged in state business as before. In addition, she has been under intense media scrutiny; and her family has been the subject of harsh and crude attacks.

So, without negating my previous thoughts about her explanations, I'm willing to admit that maybe her stated reasons have some truth of their own.

Now, enough about Sarah Palin. It will play itself out as it will.

Ralph

Rethinking Palin

A spokesman for the FBI office in Alaska said, unequivocally, that there is no investigation of the Palins underway or under consideration; and he further said that there is "no wiggle room" in that statement. It is the FBI that has very actively investigated corruption charges against Alaska politicians, including the case against Senator Stephens. So this sounds pretty solid.

So, perhaps Palin's abdication is a political move. Resigning as governor with 18 months to go in your first term and with no real accomplishments to your credit would not be a wise maneuver toward running for president -- except perhaps if you are Sarah Palin.

For the Republican establishment and for independents, it sounds sort of wacky and unstable.

But for Palin supporters, it may be just the right thing. She will play it up as another instance of her being the maverick that they love, just-saying-no to the establishment and going outside to the people (conservative people, that is).

As I think more about it, it is a typical Palin move. She can't really compete in the usual way of politics. She doesn't have the command of facts or the rhetoric to appeal to real thinkers, so she shuns it as "inside the beltway stuff" and appeals to all the others who feel left out, who fear that government will take their money and their guns.

Her anti-intellectual stance plays well in the small towns and redneck working areas -- the "real" America, as she likes to call it.

So -- I can see Palin doing this as a calculated move toward running for President. She's not going to have much of a record to run on as governor, even if she continued, so she's cutting that loss and moving out to build up her national constituency.

I still wonder about the abruptness and the frazzled-seeming delivery of her decision.

We'll see. This is one that we will know the answer to, in time.

Ralph

New support in Iran

Just when it was beginning to look as if the Iranian protest movement had been effectively silenced, this development is reported in The New York Times by Michael Slackman and Nazila Fathi.

The most important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult — if not impossible.

“This crack in the clerical establishment, and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi, in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember, they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.” . . . .

The announcement came on a day when Mr. Moussavi released documents detailing a campaign of fraud by the current president’s supporters, . . . The documents, published on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site, accused supporters of the president of printing more than 20 million extra ballots before the vote and handing out cash bonuses to voters. . . .

With its statement Saturday, the association of clerics — formed under the leadership of the revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — came down squarely on the side of the reform movement. . . .

The clerics’ decision to speak up again is not itself a turning point and could fizzle under pressure from the state, which has continued to threaten its critics. . . .

While the government could continue vilifying the three opposition leaders, analysts say it was highly unlikely that the leadership would use the same tactic against the clerical establishment in Qum. . . .

The clerics’ statement chastised the leadership for failing to adequately study complaints of vote rigging and lashed out at the use of force in crushing huge public protests.

It even directly criticized the Guardian Council, the powerful group of clerics charged with certifying elections. . . .

Perhaps more threatening to the supreme leader, the committee called on other clerics to join the fight against the government’s refusal to adequately reconsider the charges of voter fraud. The committee invoked powerful imagery, comparing the 20 protesters killed during demonstrations with the martyrs who died in the early days of the revolution and the war with Iraq, asking other clerics to save what it called “the dignity that was earned with the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs.”

The statement was posted on the association’s Web site late Saturday and carried on many other sites, including the Persian BBC, but it was impossible to reach senior clerics in the group to independently confirm its veracity.

Perhaps, instead of being silenced, the movement has entered a second, more serious phase that could still produce the changes the people want.

Again, praise be to Obama for not injecting the U.S. into this internal fight. It could only have made things worse and given Khamenei ammunition to discredit the uprising as a U.S. backed insurrection.

Ralph