Mind your headlines

Enough !! Enough of those headlines saying "Obama Overruled Lawyers on Libya" -- as though he is some rogue president going his own way and against all legal advice.

What this is about is whether the War Powers Resolution concerns what we are doing in Libya and whether it requires the president to get the approval of Congress for what we're doing.

John Boehner and Republicans say it is covered and he must come to Congress. President Obama says no, it is not covered -- because we do not have troops on the ground or in harm's way. Our continuing participation seems to be limited to surveillance and attacks by unmanned drones -- as we're doing in Pakistan.

Yes, the lawyers of the Pentagon's General Counsel and the acting head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel said he does need to consult with Congress. So, it's true that he made his decision against their advice.

But he got the opposite opinion from the White House Counsel and from the State Department's Legal adviser. And remember . . . Obama himself is a constitutional expert and has taught constitutional law at one of the nation's top law schools.

So . . . enough with implying that President Obama is grabbing power and "over-ruling" all legal advice. This is a matter in great dispute about which good legal minds obviously disagree. It might require the Supreme Court to settle it.

Ralph

A promising career ends #2

Rachel Maddow vented her fury Thursday at Democrats who forced Anthony Weiner to resign. She highlighted the unequal way he is being treated compared to those noted Republican "sinners," David Vitter and John Ensign, who kept their senate jobs despite actually breaking laws in their sex scandals. Vitter turned up on prostitutes' lists, while Ensign was involved in big payments to keep the husband of his mistress quiet, and maybe used campaign funds to do it.

And then there's John Edwards, who is not in office, so the Dems can't make him resign; but he certainly cheapened the Dem brand by having the now-known notorious affair/love child while running for the nomination for president. Lucky for us all, he didn't get it -- but he put the party and the nation at great risk. If he had been nominated, and this had been revealed two weeks before the election, we would be talking about President McCain and Vice President Palin.

So -- Weiner's offense seems in some ways really miniscule in comparison. But the political fall out was devastating. Maybe because of the viciousness with which Repubs would exploit it, as compared to what Dems did with Vitter and Ensign. Maybe it was partly the timing and how it undermined a critical moment when Dems had just seized control of the message of the day and were beginning to take advantage of Repub's heartless budget cutting and plan to privatize Medicare. And maybe it's that Weiner's details were so out there (explicit emails and pictures) and made everyone cringe, as opposed to just reading about another generic "affair" of another politician.

Rachel is right. Weiner's ouster was incommensurate with the non-crime; but it was not an over-reaction to the political fall-out, I'm afraid.

Rachel disagrees. She says Dems have damaged themselves probably for generations by this action and by refusing to hold Republicans accountable for the double standard. She concluded, as report by Huffington Post:

"Anthony Weiner, who was not accused of corruption, who does not appear to have done anything illegal, who does not even appear to have had sex with any of the women with any of the people with whom he had scandalous talk and picture-taking, for him a line was drawn," Maddow concluded, her voice bristling with anger. She then turned her focus on the media, saying that the story was actually "the media covering the media ending a man's career."

Maddow ended by addressing Democrats. She issued a dire warning.

"Congratulations, Democrats," she said. "In an era of unhinged, ideological, big money conservative media that is wholly and admittedly divorced from the precepts of journalism, in hounding Anthony Weiner into resigning ... you have just fed and unleashed this beast onto yourselves, probably for a generation."

Yes, she's right. And it's probably another example of Republicans' aggression met by Democrats' accommodation and backing down rather than boldly confronting. On the other hand, Dems had a choice: this, on top of John Edwards' indictment, would have given Repubs ammunition to exploit their claim of lax moral atmosphere condoned by Dems. It's a dilemma.

Ralph

June 18, 2011 12:06 PM

The end of a promising political career

Anthony Weiner has been the loudest liberal voice in the House during this time of Republican control. He didn't shrink from shrillness in criticizing Republican policies and behaviors. He was a protege of Senator Charles Schumer and was widely expected to be the next mayor of New York City.

And now he is a disgraced ex-congressman whose political career is probably over for good. And all because of that dangerous "Send" button.

Yes, when aired in the full daylight of 24/7 media coverage, it looks awful -- despite the fact that no crime was committed (as far as we know). And not even a single instance of "carnal knowledge" or actually touching any of the women he exchanged sexy messages and photos with. But in many ways it seems more shameful than knowing a political figure has had an affair. Maybe it's the details, the pictures.

Mostly he comes off looking juvenile, rapacious, and stupid. And, contrite as he appears to be now that he's been caught, he was also using a significant amount of denial of how damaging this would be politically -- not only to himself, but to the Democratic party and the liberal causes in which he had poured his life.

And all because of "Send." There's something about the ease of making contacts and having intimate conversations online, something that leads people to say things they might never say to a person's face. It may seem risk-free, until you hear something like this. If Weiner weren't who he is, it would be a non-story. People do this all the time, especially late at night when they're alone and often lubricated by alcohol.

But for a public figure to take suck risks, there has to be a level of denial about the risk. So is it sexual addiction? Maybe, whatever that means. Self-sabotage? Maybe, although that doesn't seem his pattern otherwise.

Whatever the internal conflicts that led to this, it's sad for Weiner, his family, his mentors and political allies, and his political party.

But he had to go. His scandal almost totally wiped out a week's worth of advantage the Dems had just gained from the upset victory in New York State to attack the Ryan budget/Medicare privatization plan and to gain control of the political message.

But Barney Frank survived something even more personally damaging: gay and guilty of allowing a gay hustler who lived with him to use his apartment for business trysts. And now Barney is the top ranking banking/finance person in the House.

Is it just different times? Were the Dems in control back then? I don't remember.

How many times have you hit "send" and immediately wished you hadn't?

Ralph

Poor choices of words

Reading through the news of the day, I was struck by some particularly insensitive or badly worded comments.

1. "I'm also unemployed." Mitt Romney. This was on the campaign trail in Tampa in a meeting with unemployed people. After listening to their stories about being out of work and what they were doing to try to find jobs. Romney responded by saying, "I should tell you my story. I'm also unemployed." Then he joked about networking and having his eye on a particular job. In a rapid response press release, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz shot back: "Being unemployed, Mr. Romney, is not a joke."

2. "Give war a chance." Michael Chertoff and Michael Hayden, former Bush war on terror officials, responding to the growing tide in Washington for ending the war in Afghanistan. This is the longest war that the U.S. have ever been involved in. Hasn't war already had its chance?

3. "I believe NBC owes Callista an apology." Newt Gingrich, defending his wife against the rumors and allegations of former staffers that her interference and demands in the campaign were the main reason for their mass defection. NBC "owes Callista an apology" for airing these rumors. Criticizing the media won't help, Nut -- but then nothing could possibly help at this point.

Ralph

Mis-underestimating Michele

One of the few good things George W. Bush left for us was the term "misunderestimate." Now it looks there is a new wearer of the mantle. Michele Bachmann.

As she has made headlines over the past two years, I thought I had her accurately pegged as a dingbat, and a loud-mouthed, right wing, genuine dingbat at that.

When she began talking about running for president, I dismissed it as a joke from the same bag of tricks as Donald Trump. But then she began to remake her image by actually being different. She stopped making such outrageous claims, gradually toned it down.

And the difference in her at the debate Monday night was a stark contrast. Although her policies are still somewhat to the right of the GOP fringe, and she has become the darling of the Tea Party crowd, she actually showed herself to be something akin to a credible candidate -- at least in the crowd she was with onstage in New Hampshire Monday night. Which is not too big a challenge as long as you can say "tax cuts" and bad things about ObamaCare.

From Wikipedia, I learned that she was in the first graduating class from Oral Roberts Law School. She later got a master's degree in tax law from William and Mary Law School and worked for some years as a tax attorney for the IRS. Although her family were Norwegian Lutherans, she spend time working on a kibbutz in Israel after high school. She has been elected and re-elected to represent her Minnesota district in Congress where she sits on the Joint Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and where she also founded and heads the Tea Party Caucus. She has had five children of her own and been foster parent to another 23 kids.

In the debate, she seemed to be taking some of her cues from Tim Pawlenty (he's the one she's probably concentrating on taking votes from -- and he doesn't have many to spare) and she did seem to reverse herself on states' rights (depending on whether it helped or hurt the cause of prohibiting gay marriage*). But she made no major gaffes, and she seemed far more knowledgeable than Sarah Palin.

So, inevitably, there were morning-after comparisons. The consensus seems to be that she has moved out of Palin's shadow. She actually seemed to be much better informed and able to handle questions far more adeptly than Palin, whether it was about domestic policies or about foreign affairs. You may vehemently disagree with her positions, but you don't cringe in vicarious embarrassment as I did with Palin's pathetic lack of knowledge.

She can raise formidable amounts of money -- in fact she already has. And she has hired some highly experienced, GOP establishment people to run her campaign -- starting with Ed Rollins as her campaign manager.

Is my negative opinion about Michele softening? No. But she has proved that she can shed the dingbat image and discuss policies and issues much better than Palin. And she still knows how to hit the hot buttons to fire up the right-wing crowd. That makes her more dangerous now. Move her from the dingbat column into the contender column.

Look for her to do well in Iowa -- a neighboring state and where she was actually born. So she's making a big fuss about being a native. Remember, this is the GOP primary, not the general election; and the GOP in Iowa is very conservative, especially on social issues. That's where they recently recalled the judges who had voted to allow gay marriage.

Ralph

* See, she believes in states' right to pass laws that forbid gay marriage or abortion; but she also thinks federal law she supercede, when it suits her purpose: like DOMA and like the amendment to the Constitution she favors that would define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Prop8 - theater of the absurd #2

Oh !! The illogic of the ill logic !!

In the hearing yesterday on the defense petition to invalidate Judge Walker's ruling that Prop8 violated the U.S Constitution, the lawyers staked their claim of bias on their alleged fact that Judge Walker might want to marry the man he's been in a relationship with for ten years.

First, the Appeals Court judge holding the hearing sharply questioned the defense on whether they had any evidence that the judge wants to marry. They had none. So their whole case is based on a conjecture that might or might not be true.

Then -- to my ears -- this is really incriminating:

According to the New York Times article today:

Lawyers for supporters of the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, said the decision by Vaughan Walker . . . should be vacated. They maintain that he should have removed himself or disclosed his position on gay marriage in his own relationship because he and his partner stood to personally benefit from the verdict.

Yes . . . that is true.

Anyone who has been denied rights and who suddenly gains them . . . is likely to benefit. As is the nation's soul and sense of fairness, as well as millions of children who can grow up in families with that stabilizing bond and all the tangible privileges and tax benefits that come with marriage.

It is also true that they are admitting that there IS a benefit to being able to marry.

I guess this proves once and for all that the old argument is dead -- the one that says that gay men and lesbians should be satisfied with civil unions because they provide the same benefits as marriage.

Yes, that one . . . is dead.

When your logic is screwy to start with, it's awfully hard to have it all come out making sense.

Ralph

Nut #15 - to the bitter end

This is my Nut post for the week of June 13. Post #14 was an extra with the big news of the en masse defection of almost all of his campaign staff, plus his entire operation in Iowa.

I only tuned in for a few moments here and there to last night's CNN sponsored GOP debate in New Hampshire. An online HuffPost review summarized it. After detailing others' responses, the blogger said: "Newt Gingrich also was there."

So it sounds like he neither distinguished himself nor found another foot in which to shoot himself. I guess that's good news for the Nut, and he seems determined to keep on going. Probably until the financial reports come in -- which will undoubtedly be horrible for him.

A few more nails for the coffin:

1. In all the flurry of defections from his campaign staff last week, it was hardly noticed that Georgia's former governor Sonny Purdue also deserted him to go over to Tim Pawlenty's campaign.

2. It was pointed out that his big show of centering his headquarters in Georgia is really another one of Nut's shams. Yes, he rented office space in Buckhead and made his announcement from here -- but reports are that Nut has not visited Atlanta since the announcement, that the office is closed, and that the rental furniture has been returned. And that was even before the campaign staff all resigned.

Good riddance. Nut was never a Georgian, and I resent his claiming otherwise. He had a job teaching history here for a while and was elected to Congress. But he is not "from" Georgia. He's not even a southerner of any sort. He grew up, as I understand it, as an army brat and lived hither and yon.

3. Now it looks like Nut may be in trouble again from crossing over funds from his charities to his political interests. This is part of what brought ethics charges against him when he had to resign as Speaker of the House. He has created parallel empires of foundations to collect tax-exempt money and business enterprises to produce and market videos, books, etc. of his ideas. And sometimes the lines cross, as when the charitable foundations purchase bulk quantities of his books, films, and DVDs, or when they pay for charter jets to whisk him across country for speaking engagements -- promoting his ideas. But then where does that end and building his political career begin. It's murky -- and deliberately so.

Bah humbug.

Ralph

Prop 8 - theater of the absurd #1

It's been some time since I last wrote about California's Proposition 8 and where it stand in the courts. Prop8 was a 2008 ballot initiative to nullify a CA Supreme Court decision that allowed gay marriage, and it was passed after outside anti-gay organizations flooded CA with a multi-million dollar campaign of lies and distortions. Prop8 was then challenged in the CA courts and was upheld by the same CA Supreme Court that had previously instated gay marriage, but now based on what they considered the higher principle of the right of the people to change their laws by ballot initiative.

The next step was that a group brought suit in the federal district court system, charging that Prop8 violates the U.S. Constitution on grounds of unequal protection of rights. An historical trial was held, with lawyers Ted Olsen and Dan Boies presenting the definitive case for gay rights and same-sex marriage.

The CA governor and attorney general refused to put up a defense of a law they both opposed, so anti-gay groups, chiefly Maggie Gallagher's "Defense of Marriage" group, defended Prop8 before a federal judge. It was a pathetic, embarrassing failure to even make a half-way adequate case. Their main argument was essentially the outworn "because it's always been this way" and "it will destroy the institution of marriage." There was no credible evidence presented that anyone would be harmed or even that the instution of marriage would suffer.

In August 2010, the U.S. District Judge Vaughan Walker ruled that Prop8 violated the U.S. Constitution.

Now the defense has appealed that decision to the U. S. Court of Appeals on the grounds that Judge Walker is gay and should have recused himself. Their reasoning: he would obviously be biased, not because he is gay but because he is in a long-term relationship with a man.

As I understand it, they were smart enough to know that just saying he's biased because he's gay wouldn't wash, because wouldn't the same apply to a heterosexual judge -- who would be biased by his own (hetero)sexual orientation? So they claimed it's because he might want to get married -- well, a heterosexual judge wouldn't need to overturn the law in order to get married. See? Whew -- that's stretching it pretty thin, isn't it?

They have also moved to suppress the court video recording of the hearings and have it permanently sealed. It was an open trial, fer cryin' out loud !!!! The only reason for sealing the record is to prevent it from being distributed widely and viewed by large numbers of people, who wouldn't bother to read through the court record all on their own. They don't want to have such a pathetic, inadequate performance broadcast to the public -- even though it was an open trial.

Today, a U. S. Appeals court judge heard arguments for throwing out the district court judge's decision, based on his alleged bias. He has promised a ruling within a few days.

Stay tuned. I'm trying to imagine this as a latter-day Gilbert & Sullivan opera -- full of ridicule and scorn and comic absurdity.

Ralph

The Patriot Act would exonerate Nixon

In the 1960s, Daniel Ellsberg worked in the Pentagon as a high level official and had access to secret documents. He came to realize that our government had lied to Congress about the progress of the war, so he copied 7000 pages and gave them to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then two years later leaked the documents to 18 newspapers including the New York Times, which published them.

Ellsberg then surrendered to the FBI and was charged as a spy. The charges were eventually dropped because of governmental misconduct, and it was revealed that Nixon, then president, had ordered his "plumbers" to break into Ellsberg's psychoanalyst's office to try to get information to make him appear crazy. It was for this and other acts, such as illegal (at the time) wiretaps that Nixon then resigned in disgrace in order to avoid impeachment.

Ellsberg was recently interviewed about our current situation. He has been outspoken in opposition to Obama's ordering military action against Libya without Congressional authorization, saying this is an unconstitutional misuse of presidential power and an impeachable offense. In March 2011, at age 79, he was arrested along with others in front of the White House for protesting the imprisonment of Bradley Manning, the serviceman who is charged with the leaks of secret documents that became "WikiLeaks."

Ellsberg states that, under the Patriot Act and other laws since 9/11, everything that Nixon did would be legal today.

INTERVIEWER: These days, when you find yourself thinking about Richard Nixon, what comes to mind?

ELLSBERG: Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life. (And his aide Henry Kissinger was not the last American official to win an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize.)

He would probably also feel vindicated (and envious) that ALL the crimes he committed against me–which forced his resignation facing impeachment–are now legal.

That includes burglarizing my former psychoanalyst's office (for material to blackmail me into silence), warrantless wiretapping, using the CIA against an American citizen in the US, and authorizing a White House hit squad to "incapacitate me totally" (on the steps of the Capitol on May 3, 1971). All the above were to prevent me from exposing guilty secrets of his own administration that went beyond the Pentagon Papers. But under George W. Bush and Barack Obama,with the PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendment Act, and (for the hit squad) President Obama's executive orders. they have all become legal.

There is no further need for present or future presidents to commit obstructions of justice (like Nixon's bribes to potential witnesses) to conceal such acts. Under the new laws, Nixon would have stayed in office, and the Vietnam War would have continued at least several more years.

The Patriot Act has always struck me as over-reacting to the post-9/11 fear and hysteria. I have been dismayed when Obama has supported continuing some policies -- but then there are just too many bad things going on to worry about, and this one hasn't deprived me of my rights directly, so . . .

But, still . . .

Ralph