Shorter 2008 Presidential Campaign

I been thinking about the presidential campaign and I think I can sum it like so:

Bush and the Republicans screwed up the country so badly that the we elected a black man named Barack Hussein Obama.

See also Tom Tomorrow.

Good Gracious

Brother Atrios points us to this:

The Bush team had worked assiduously to make the transition smooth for the incoming President Obama and stayed out of the way as he used the postelection period to take leadership of the economy even before being sworn in. And now, as far as some of them were concerned, the new president had used his inaugural lectern to give the back of the hand to a predecessor who had been nothing but gracious to him.

Peronally, I thought Obama was a little too gracious. If it were me, I would have had Bush and Cheney arrested right after the oath but before the address.

My Prediction

A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking that it looks pretty solid that Obama will hold the Kerry states and pickup Florida and Ohio which would give him 299 electoral votes. Now I think I will expand that and make my 2008 prediction. Obama will get 341 electoral votes: the Kerry states plus Ohio, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia and North Carolina

Update (1/31/08):
I meant the union of Gore and Kerry states, plus the ones I listed. I missed Nevada, Indiana (I still think, wow, Indiana) and, of course, the 2nd Congressional district of Nebraska. But that's 17 more, so I must have added wrong.

Standard Operating Procedure

Speaking of The New Yorker and continuing on with my obsession with superior orders...

A while back I read Errol Morris and Philip Gourevitch's article on their movie Standard Operating Procedure. The article was about the M.P. company at Abu Gharib and specifically about Specialist Sabrina Harman. She's the subject of the infamous thumbs up photos. The article was actually pretty sympathetic to Harman and the other M.P.'s, but that's not what set my radar off. Harman's unit, the 372nd M.P. company was a combat M.P. unit. They were trained to support front line units and earlier on their deployment they had trained Iraqi police. But they ended up as prison guards at Abu Gharib. Why? Gourevitch and Morris say:

The new assignment [...] bewildered the company. Combat units don’t run prisons. That is the province of another cadre of M.P.s, known as internment and resettlement M.P.s, who are trained according to the Army’s extensive doctrine on handling all manner of wartime captives and displaced persons. The 372nd M.P.s had no such specialized experience.

This is what we call a feature, not a bug. There lack of experience in handling prisoners and they ignorance of proper procedures, including the Geneva conventions, was just what the officers running Abu Gharib wanted. The brass deliberately staffed the prison with people they knew, or at least hoped, would be amenable to helping them torture the prisoners.

The The New Yorker Cover

Since it's now day 3 of the outrage, I guess it's time to weigh in.

To call the cover satire is incorrect. Wikipedia has a pretty good rundown on what satire is and isn't, and this isn't. It is, however, ironic. Here's what I think the Obamas' fist bump symbolizes:

We really are 60's era radicals and Muslim terrorists who burn the flag for fun. We fooled all those liberals and the MSM. Only the right wing lunatics, who everyone scorned, were right! Ha Ha Ha!!

Oh, I guess I should say I thought the cover was funny. And it's Wednesday I haven't got the issue in my mailbox yet.

Book Review: What's the Matter With Kansas

What's the Matter With Kansas, by Thomas Frank

Frank chose to look at Kansas for a number of reasons, not the least of which was it was where he grew up. Another is Kansas is often seen as authentically middle American. It has seen the economic damage done by Republican policies as much or more that any other area. The downtowns of the small towns are virtual ghost towns, while Mission Hills, has returned to the glory it was in the 1920's. In the early 1990's there was a grass roots revolt of socially conservative voters that transformed the state's politics. Finally, Frank claims that racism has virtually nothing to do with the economic inequality. He does say that race does have an effect elsewhere, but due to Kansas' history as a free state counterweight to slave state Missouri, it doesn't have much of an effect.

Before reading the book, my impression was that the fiscal conservative branch of the Republican party (or moneycons for short) were some how subverting the the social conservatives (or theocons) into voting against their own economic interests. But, it Kansas, it didn't turn out that way. It was the theocons, as a grass roots movement, that drove out the more socially liberal moderate Republicans out of the party. Kansas Republicans had a history of moderation and pragmatism. This was all kicked to the curb. The theocons pushed all sorts of religious kookery, which when you get down to it is basically ineffective. All along they kept the moneycon issues of taxation, breaks to corporations, etc, intact. This in contrast to a 100 years ago where you had William Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist Christian, but economically quite progressive. This is a political area (social conservative, fiscally liberal) that is empty now a days. This was all helped along by conservative pundits pushing the idea that these authentic Kansans were victimized by the liberal bogeyman. Frank doesn't really get to the root of the issue until the last chapter. Here he blames the New Democrat movement. The DLC's idea of triangulation on fiscal issues made the only way to differentiate between Democrats and Republicans was on social issues. So wedge issues were a successful way to capture potential Democratic voters. He does concede that with Democrats in charge you won't get screwed quite as badly as with Republicans.

I'd still like to see some explanation of why socially conservatives, buy in to the full moneycon party line. These are the issues that I don't see as having a particular Christian viewpoint: taxes, global warming, environmentalism, war in Iraq, socail spending. It's almost as if liberals are for it, then conservatives (of all stripes) have to be against it.

Superior Orders Revisited

In a previous post, I discussed my take on the superior orders defense, sometimes called the Nuremberg Defense. I had seen various discussions dismissing the "just following orders" defense since it was not accepted at Nuremberg. My point in the post was that the Nuremberg tribunals did not summarily reject the superior orders defense, but considered and rejected it on the merits. I thought that CIA operatives who had performed torture may have a plausible case in using the superior orders defense. Now I'm reconsidering that. The crux of the defense is that the person did not know that the actions were illegal, that is they were excusably ignorant. The Detainee Treatment Act states that "good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be a important factor" in deciding whether the person knew the acts were illegal. The phrases "advice of counsel," "Bush administration" and "good faith" don't exactly go together. I don't find it plausible that executive branch attorneys would exactly be acting in good faith in this situation. Again, experience shows to expect the worst in the Bush administration. And then ratchet it down a little.

Update (Apr. 2):
I wrote this post before I saw that the infamous John Yoo memo authorizing torture had been released. That's what I'm talking about: when a ideological hack like Yoo can say the president can order torture with no legal repercussions, that's not exactly good faith. Glenn Greenwald says it better that I ever could:

This incident provides yet more proof of how rancid and corrupt is the premise that as long as political appointees at the DOJ approve of certain conduct, then that conduct must be shielded from criminal prosecution.

Missing Manual

I saw this on O'Reilly's feed today, so I'm not sure if it's for real. I do like the idea, though.

Superior Orders

Over at TPM Muckraker, I was reading the comments to the post about Mukasey and waterboarding. On the subject of wether CIA operatives who actually performed water boarding would be in legal jeorpordy , a reader by the name of phred asked:

I was under the impression that the argument that one was "only following orders" did not fly at Nuremburg. Why is it tolerated here?

I referred him to the judgement in the Einsatzgruppen Case where the superior orders defense is dealt with. Briefly, the superior orders defense is an allowable defense, but the tribunal rejected it. In the judgement, the tribunal lays out that in order for a superior orders defense to succeed, the defendents must show that they had excusable ignorance that the acts were illegal, or that the act was committed under duress. That is, in failing to act the perpetrator will incur serious consequences that will be "immient, real and inevitable." The second is easier to dispose of: there was no evidence that any Einsatzkommandos would have been threatened with death if they failed to act. The first part, excusable ignorance, is a little more complicated. The tribunal allows for the fact that by the time the acts had occurred, there had been nearly 20 years of Nazi propaganda on how the Jews were sub-human and there elimination was necessary. After all that, would it be possible that rank and file Einsatazkommandos actually belive it was perfectly legal to kill Jews? The tribunal rejected that. The order to exterminate Jews was not absolute. Many German Jews were allowed to live out the war (see for example Viktor Klemperer, a WWI veteran and married to a non-Jew). Aryan looking Jewish children were adopted by German families. Thus the Einsatzkommandos should have know the order to exterminate was not absolute.

Would a defense of superior orders be available to CIA operatives who performed the water boarding? I find extremely unlikely they could say it was done under duress. There is no way the consequences of refusing to torture would be any thing like the torture itself. On the "excusalbe ignorance" part, I think they might have a possible defense. My belief is that water boarding is self evidently torture and thus illegal. But there is certainly enough chaff being thrown around, by the vice president and attroney general nominee among others, that a reasonable person may believe it's not. And I don't mean a reasonable person who reads liberal blogs, I mean a reasonable person who works for the CIA. For arguments sake, let's assume that such people exist. According to this post by Jack Balkin, the Detainee Treatment Act and Military Commissions Act effectively immunize operatives who perform torture. The actual text in the Detainee Treatment Act says:

[... I]t shall be a defense that such officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful. Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful.

So if the operatives acted in good faith based on Office of Legal Counsel's opinion that water boarding is not torture, they could use that as a defense. Although I find it highly unlikely that any operative will go on trial, I believe that this would give them enough reasonable doubt to escape conviction.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and have no legal training. Take my legal opinions for what they're worth.

Mukasey and Waterboarding

I heard this quote from Senator Specter the other day:

The facts are that an expression of an opinion by Judge Mukasey prior to becoming attorney general would put a lot of people at risk for what has happened.

The NPR reportor then helpfully explained it meant that CIA employees who have been using waterboarding would be liable for prosecution. That works for me.

Kennedy '80!

From an undisclosed location in upstate New York, I came across this classic:


We were at an inn that at one time passed itself off as a Catskill's resort. This was in the "barn" which was a long abandoned bar (one whole side was missing, I don't know if that was on purpose or just poor maintenance). Also, there was this:


I had completely forgotten about him. How many states would he have lost to Reagan?

L'Affaire Beauchamp

I'm late to the party on this, too, but here goes.

Let me get this straight

• The New Republic: Maybe when Michael Kinsley edited it, you could call it liberal, but that was a while ago. After Michael Kelly and Andrew Sullivan (who pushed The Bell Curve in its pages), not so much. Add in the publisher and new owners absolute backing of the Iraq war even less so. It's certainly independent, it's no administration apologist like so magazines I could name (see below).
• The Beachamp articles: He wrote two articles that no one seemed to notice. Then he writes one about young men acting like assholes and the whole right side of the blogosphere goes nuts.
  
• Whether or not some young men act like assholes has nothing to do with whether the Iraq war was a good idea. Or whether we are actually succeeded (whatever that means) in the war. Or whether Americans are committing war crimes (nothing in the article could be considered a war crime.)
• The New Republic's sad history of getting snookered: You'd think if you got snowed as badly as they did over the Stephen Glass affair, they'd be careful. TNR's first response was that they did fact check the article. Then they went back and fact checked again and found one discrepancy. I read some where a contrast between Glass and Beauchamp was that Glass wrote what people wanted to believe. He fed into there own prejudices. Not so with Beauchamp.
• The Army's response: The Army pretty much silences Beauchamp by taking away his intenet and telephone access. He's in the Army, so they do have a right to control his communication however they see fit.
  
• The Army's Alleged response: A report comes out saying that the Army's investigation proved everything to be false and Beauchamp recanted. And where to we read about this report? Why, in The Weekly Standard. When asked, an Army spokesman says he has no knowledge of a report. As Josh Marhall said: if "you've got the goods, you take it to a real press outlet. When you're blowing smoke, you take it to the Standard."

So, where's the beef in all this?

Scooter

I'm a little late on this, and too lazy to look it up, but why hasn't the press and in particular the White House gaggle picked up on this?

All through the Plame investigation and Libby trial, the White House has avoided saying much about it because they say they don't want to affect the wheels of justice. Well, fine. If I was less cynical and this was any other administration I'd give it a pass. If the White House thought they could get some sort of political advantage about talking about Plame or Libby, they would. Once the Libby trial was over, they still avoided talking about it since there was an appeal pending. There is a theoretical possibility that the appeals court could grant a new trial. But the commutation of the sentence lets Bush have it both ways: a loyal aide stays out of jail and the appeal is still pending so they have a paper thin excuse to not talk about it.

Here's my point: Bush said he wasn't questioning the jury's decision (with good reason, apparently), he merely thought the sentence was unfair. Does the president really think perjurers shouldn't do time? No, of course not. He just thinks people who commit crimes on his behalf shouldn't suffer the consequences. He has made a statement on the case and the press should hold him to it.

The Golden Ticket

I was just reminded of this the other day:

A couple of years ago, the now nine-year-old was bored, so I gave her a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. After some protest that it, too, was boring, she went away to read it. After about an hour she came running downstairs to say: "Mom, Dad, Charlie got the last golden ticket!" I don't think I actually said this to her at the time, but my thought was: "Well, yes, of course he got the last ticket. The book would be considerably shorter if he didn't." She gets a little worked up over the suspenseful parts of the Harry Potter. But I tell her Harry will make it through book 3, since J.K. Rowling wouldn't have bothered with books 4 through 6 if he didn't.

Death of Marat

On one of my favorite blogs, alicublog, the topic often comes up of how some people evaluate art only in terms of its political content. That is, they see all art as propaganda (either for their views or againts). The proprietor, Roy, believes, in which I'm in full agreement, that art should be evaluated in terms of its artistic merit. Art can be appreciated regardless of its propaganda value, if there even is any, and whether or not you agree with the view it's trying to push. For example, I think the Jim Fitzpatrick portrait of Che Guevara is both good art and good propaganda, although I find Guevara's politics and methods repellent.

On this day in 1793, "friend of the people" Jean-Paul Marat was murdered while soaking in his bathtub. It was captured in what I believe is one of the greatest combinations of art and propaganda: Jacques-Louis David's The Death of Marat. Again, Marat is no one I would have any sympathy for. He was associated with the Jacobins and the Reign of Terror and compiled death lists of enemies (and supposed enemies) of the revolution. Still, Death is a stunning piece of work. Nothing else David did compares, except perhaps Napoleon Crossing the Alps.

My Harry Potter Predictions

Here are two predictions for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

J.K. Rowling has said that major characters will die in the final book. I also read somewhere, I thought it was the Wikipedia page for Deathly Hallows, but I couldn't find it there today, someone unexpected will do something dramatic. So here's the prediction: Neville Longbottom will die. He's not exactly a major character, but he's had a prominent place in all six books so far. I also don't think Rowling will kill off one of the big three (but she did kill off Dumbledore, so that could be wrong). Neville's parents were powerful aurors and he has shown occasional flashes of brilliance and he has shown bravery. After all, the sorting hat did put him in Gryffindor. He's also initmately connected to Voldemort through the prophecy, although clearly it refers to Harry, since only Harry was able to retrieve it from the Department of Mysteries. To extend my prediction, Neville will be involved in the death of Voldemort, but he won't survive.

My second prediction is that Snape will turn out to be a good guy. I think Dumbledore's judgement is good, and he was right to trust in Snape.