We all know that Maureen Dowd has been writing one story over and over again for the last decade – Democrats are feminized losers – so I suppose that her blatant plagiarism of Josh Marshall represents an attempt at being original.
“More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
“More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
I welcome her efforts to branch out (she actually calls for a full investigation of the torture regime in this op-ed). If she wrote it, we’d actually have a decent column here, aside from the Dowd-esque characterization of Nancy Pelosi as a “stammering child.” Anyway, if you’re going to steal, you could do worse than Josh Marshall. It would be fun to see Dowd behind a phalanx of flags answering questions about this incident, surely in the manner of a stammering child herself. But of course that would assume a certain level of media accountability.
…OK, so MoDo admitted this, but in the typical journalist “I don’t even read blogs” kind of way. She claims that a friend told her the line, somehow with exactly the same 42 words. Can I call her stories not credible and her pathetic attempts to explain herself akin to a “stammering child,” now?
This is one of the bravest articles I’ve ever read. But it’s important to read how an intelligent, successful person could get themselves caught in the maw of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. It wasn’t just a bunch of illegals lying on their mortgage applications. There was a whole industry devoted to seducing people into believing they could easily have things they couldn’t afford. After all, our whole society was screaming at the time that you were a sucker for not getting in on the game. And everyone has some capacity for believing what they want to believe. It was a perfect American scam.
I’m sure the right wing will go after this fellow with everything they have, screeching with shrill self-righteousness about “personal responsibility.” But I would have to guess that just as many people who voted for George W. Bush are in this pickle as voted for Gore or Kerry. Wanting things you can’t afford is as non-partisan as apple pie.
I admire him for having the guts to tell his personal story.
Marcy Wheeler unpacks the absurd notion that Leon Panetta made a slam dunk with his statement on Friday, so thoroughly rebutting Nancy Pelosi that she might as well slink back to San Francisco and start selling Grateful Dead memorabilia online, she’s so over.
Here’s what Panetta said:
Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.
No, I don’t doubt that it is not the policy or practice to mislead Congress. I would imagine they have all kinds of rules against that, including the law of the United States which makes it a crime. That doesn’t mean that they’ve never done it.
Panetta is playing with language here in the same way that Bush and Obama both use the awkward locution “America doesn’t torture” when asked if anyone was ever tortured. There was a time when such things (“it depends on what the meaning of is, is”) made reporters and gasbags spend days parsing this language to prove that a politician was a slimy liar. But that was back when it really mattered.Now nobody wants to play the blame game.
I’ll let Marcy take the rest of this and get to the substance of Panetta’s statement:
Panetta is stating two things:
1. The contemporaneous records (that is, the CIA briefer’s own notes on the briefing) show that the briefers “briefed truthfully … describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed'” on Zubaydah. 2. It is up to Congress to evaluate this evidence and “reach its own conclusions about what happened.”
Now, first of all, Panetta is not saying (nor has anyone said, not even Porter Goss) that the briefers briefed Congress that these techniques had been used. I know this sounds weasely, but until someone says, in plain language, that the CIA told Congress those techniques had already been used on Abu Zubaydah, we should assume that’s not what the notes reflect, because if they did, you can be sure both the briefing list and the public statements would say so. But no one is saying that. And against that background, Panetta is reiterating the statement that Congress should determine what happened–a reiteration of the admission that CIA’s own briefing records are not the totality of the story.
The CIA briefing list records that the following people participated in the briefing: Nancy Pelosi, her staffer Michael Sheehy, Porter Goss, his staffer Tim Sample, briefers from the CounterTerrorism Center (CTC), and the Office of Congressional Affairs (OCA; elsewhere, we’ve been told four people, total, from CIA attended).
While CIA doesn’t say it, the chances are very good that the head of CTC was among the four CIA officials who attended that briefing–he probably led the briefing. On September 4, 2002, the head of CTC was Jose Rodriguez.
Jose Rodriguez, you’ll recall, is one of the key suspects in the torture tape destruction.
Read on, to get the full picture.
I will take the simple route here and just point out that if Panetta’s statement “ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened” isn’t weaselly, CYA language then nothing is. He doesn’t know what happened in those briefings and he knows very well that those notes aren’t reliable. After all, the most anal retentive politician in Senate history has already disputed these briefing memos by going back to his own infamously detailed notes.
My rule of thumb on this stuff is when politicians use awkward tenses and odd phrases instead of a simple declarative answer in response to a simple question, they are playing lawyer games. Sometimes it’s a legal necessity — they are trying to protect themselves. I would say that Bush and Clinton, as presidents defending their actions, probably fall into that category. Clinton was trying to explain lying in a civil case that had subsequently been dismissed. Bush was trying to explain that he didn’t commit war crimes. I’m sure both of them had lawyers telling them to use these awkward phrases to legally protect themselves. Panetta and Obama, on the other hand, are trying to cover up crimes of the previous administration, which is political rather than legal.
Whatever the motivations, when you have presidents and high government officials speaking as if English is their second language, it’s usually a fairly good sign that they aren’t being straightforward. (Granted, with Bush it was pretty much all the time…) We can’t expect the press to pursue this unless sex involved, but it’s something to keep in mind for your own understanding of events.
It’s not bigotry or homophobia, but the cost to small businesses as a result of putting a new set of spouses on the health plan, says Michael Steele. That’s why Republicans oppose gay marriage.
Let’s set aside the multiple efforts during the Bush Administration to encourage marriage, which would place the exact same burden on those small businesses, only not with the ickiness of teh ghey.
But if we really want to talk about the high cost of spousal benefits for businesses, um, Michael? I’ve got a way around it for you. Stay with me on this one.
Yesterday I posted a Villager discussion between Mark Shields and David Brooks in which Brooks stated that every Democrat he talks to on the hill just wants this torture issue to just go away. David Gregory said the same thing:
GREGORY: I think — this is another example of why the administration doesn’t want to go down this road. Doesn’t want to get this debate. I spoke to somebody yesterday that said the problem is that nobody comes away cleanly from this debate. Not a Republican and not a Democrat. And now the House Speaker is ensnared in these questions about why she didn’t push back harder and when she actually knew about the techniques. So here we are in a position where Pelosi is blaming the CIA, accusing the CIA, misleading her. and you have other Republicans who are in these briefings saying wait a minute. We were all told what was going on. We all knew what was going on. Now calls for the release of the briefing in full. And this is not where the White House wants to be. This is not the debate that it wants to have. And it just goes back to a more fundamental point which is that the more you debate this, the more you realize the politics of the time are incredibly difficult. And as many people who oppose these techniques now have to acknowledge that in 2002, there were not Democrats who were willing to stand up to the White House and say no. We are not going down this road. This is wrong for America. That debate came later. A lot of the beliefs came later because of the time nobody really wanted to get in the middle or stand in the way of techniques that might prevent another terror attack.
Gregory himself agrees, of course. Why would any self respecting journalist want to waste his time covering a massive government scandal with epic moral and political implications? After all, he’s busy. (Plus it makes all the important people really nervous and that’s just icky.)
Carlos Watson asks David Gregory, “What in your mind would be one or several tipping points that would move this towards a full investigation?”
Gregory’s answer is this: “How about nothing?”
This morning Jim Webb went on ABC and verified Gregory and Brooks’ take on the state of play:
ON TRUTH COMMISSION
STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s the irony here , Senator Webb, as Speaker Gingrich says, investigate. He wants a separate House investigation. Speaker Pelosi says, fine, let’s have a truth commission, the one that Senator Kyl doesn’t want. Where do you stand on this?
WEBB: I just don’t think it’s that big a deal. […]
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, no truth commission?
WEBB: I think this will resolve itself without something like that.
ON RELEASING NON-DANGEROUS UIGHURS
STEPHANOPOULOS: I know there are about 17, I believe, Chinese Uighurs, they are called, who have been ordered released by a federal court, they’ve determined not to be a threat to the United States. And the administration has been working on plans to bring them to Virginia. Can you accept them in your state?
WEBB: Well, let me back up for a minute. The answer is no. No.
ON CLOSING GUANTANAMO
WEBB: We spend hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in Guantanamo to try these cases. … I do not believe they should be tried in the United States. … We should, at the right time, close Guantanamo. But I don’t think that it should be closed, and in terms of transferring people here.
Webb had previously been for closing Guantanamo within the year.
A consensus is forming among the villagers.
The saddest thing to me is that the Democrats are taking this position because they are afraid of Republicans on national security, despite the fact that the last two elections were a thorough repudiation of braindead right wing foreign policy. Sometimes I think they just don’t want the responsibility.
OK, so now I have an excuse to tell you my Star Trek story. Actually, it’s not really that much of a story, but hey, I have some (virtual) column inches to fill-so here goes.
First off, I am not a diehard Trekker (more of a Dwarfer-if you must pry). I enjoyed the original 60s TV series, and if I’m channel surfing and happen upon, say, “The City on the Edge of Forever”, or “Space Seed”…They Pull Me Back In (sorry, Mr. Pacino). I never bothered with any of the spinoff series, but have seen the theatrical films. I tend to agree with the “even-numbered Trek films are the best” theory (I’m playing with fire, aren’t I?). But I’ve never felt the urge to buy collectibles, attend a convention, or don a pair of Spock ears for a Halloween party. However, as fate would have it, in my life I have had close encounters (of the 3rd kind) with two iconic cast members from the original show; encounters that (I imagine) would make a hardcore fan wet themselves and act like the helplessly star-struck celebrity interviewer that Chris Farley used to portray on SNL.
In the mid 80s, I was working as a morning personality at an FM station in Fairbanks, Alaska. Our station co-promoted a personal appearance by Walter Koenig at (wait for it) the Tanana Valley State Fair, so I had a chance to meet him. The thing that has always stuck with me, however, was not any particular thrill in meeting “Chekov”, but rather the 1000-yard stare he possessed. It was a look that spoke volumes. It was a look that said, “I can’t believe I’m onstage in a drafty barn in Fairbanks Alaska, fielding the same geeky questions yet again about the goddamn Russian accent. This is why I got into show business?!” To me, it was like watching a sad, real-life version of Laurence Olivier’s Archie in The Entertainer. And as a radio personality (lowest rung of the show biz ladder) and fledgling stand-up comic (next rung up), I wondered if this was A Warning.
Flash-forward to the mid 1990s. I had moved to Seattle, and found myself “between” radio jobs, supporting myself with sporadic stand-up comedy gigs and working through a temp agency. Through the temp agency, I ended up working for a spell at…at… (okay, I’ll just blurt it out) a Honeybaked Ham store in Redmond (I’m sure that there is a special place in Hell for Jews who sell pork; on the other hand, one of my co-workers was a Muslim woman from Kenya, so at least there will be someone there that I already know).
So I’m wiping down the counter one rather slow day, thinking to myself “After 20 years in radio, and 10 in stand-up comedy, I can’t believe I’m working at a Honeybaked Ham in Redmond, Washington. This is why I got into show business?!” Suddenly, a limo pulls up, and in strolls a casually dressed, ruddy-faced, mustachioed gentleman, getting on in years (hearing aids in both ears). If you’ve ever worked retail, you know that after a while, all the customers sort of look the same; you look at them, but you don’t really SEE them. As I was fetching the gentleman his ham and exchanging pleasantries, I caught a couple co-workers in my peripheral, quietly buzzing about something. I put two and two together with the limo and began to surreptitiously scrutinize the customer’s face a little more closely. Wait…is that…? Nah! Twice in one lifetime? What are the odds? He paid with a check. Name on the check? James Doohan. I kept my cool and closed the sale. As I watched him walk out the door, with a delicious, honey-glazed ham tucked under his arm, an old Moody Blues song began to play in my head: “Isn’t life stray-ay-ay-hange?”
I can’t name all of the Doobie Brothers, either…but I recognize the music.
You can only recycle a movie brand so many times before there is no where left to go but back to the beginning. The James Bond series reached that point with Casino Royale in 2006, 44 years after Dr. No. It now appears that the Star Trek franchise (blowing out 43 candles this year) has taken a cue from 007, and gone back to unearth its “first” mission.
Gene Roddenberry’s universally beloved creation has become so ingrained into our pop culture and the collective subconscious of Boomers (as well as the, um, next generation) that the producers of the latest installment didn’t have to entitle it with a qualifier. It’s not Star Trek: Origins, or Star Trek: 2009. It’s just Star Trek. They could have just as well called it Free Beer, judging from the $80,000,000 it has rung up at the box office already.
The filmmakers seem to be shrewd enough to realize that while it may not matter to the casual moviegoer that the principal characters are being played by relative unknowns, and are being somewhat re-invented, they still have to take steps to ensure that they will not end up on the receiving end of a fanboy jihad. And the best way to tap dance your way into their little pointy-eared hearts? Sprinkle on a bit of the original Roddenberry ethos. As the box office numbers would appear to attest, they have the “live long and prosper” part down, but-how does the film hold up in the ethos department, you may ask?
Rather nicely, actually. Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is suitably bold, charismatic, cocky and uh, hormonal. And he is much younger than usual. Spock (Zachary Quinto) is suitably hyper-intelligent, stalwart and coolly logical. He’s also much younger than usual. And he is much older than usual; but I won’t go into that (it’s no secret that Leonard Nimoy makes an appearance-so I’m sure you can figure it out from there). Not that the plot really matters. Suffice it to say that it involves a time-traveling Romulan (Eric Bana, heavily disguised by the prosthetics and oddly resembling Anthony Zerbe in The Omega Man) who is stalking Spock throughout the continuum for his own nefarious reasons.
The reason I say that the plot doesn’t matter is because the best Star Trek stories have always been character-driven; specifically concerning the interplay between the principal crew members of the U.S.S. Enterprise. And it is here that director J.J. Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have delivered in spades. The actors are given just enough signature lines to establish a reassuring nod and a wink to those in the audience who are familiar with the original characterizations; yet thankfully they have been directed to make the roles very much their own, never sinking into self-conscious parody or merely “doing an impression” of their respective original cast member. Pine and Quinto are quite adept at capturing the core dynamic of the relationship between Kirk and Spock as it was originally (and so indelibly) established by Shatner and Nimoy. Karl Urban steals all his scenes as Dr. McCoy, and in the film’s most inspired bit of casting, Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) proves a perfect choice as Chief Engineer Scott. Zoe Saldana, John Cho and Anton Yelchin (as Uhura, Sulu and Chekov, respectively) round off the principal crewmembers, tackling their relatively minor roles with much aplomb.
The film is not wholly without its flaws (a lackluster villain, so-so special effects) but the tight direction, sharply written dialog and energetic young cast outweigh any negatives. Hell, this one might even shatter my “even numbers rule” (it’s the eleventh film, if you’re counting). I know this isn’t 100% kosher, but I’m rating Star Trek 4 out of 5 possible Honeybaked Hams. And it was a pleasure serving you, Mr. Doohan. Wherever you are.
In case you were wondering how the Villagers see the past week’s events, here’s a clue:
JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.
David, what do you make of the — of Speaker Pelosi’s news conference about the CIA and waterboarding?
DAVID BROOKS, columnist, New York Times: I thought it was pathetic.
JIM LEHRER: Pathetic?
DAVID BROOKS: That’s the other word I would choose. Listen, I think, in 2002-2003, she was caught up in a climate a lot of people were caught up in where either they didn’t object or they thought it was the right thing to do, it was something we needed to do, because of the sense of an imminent threat.
The climate has changed. A lot of people’s opinions have changed. And so she was told — and we now know for sure — in 2003, early 2003, about some of this stuff. A colleague of hers, Jane Harman from California, a representative, wrote a letter in protest. Nancy Pelosi didn’t.
And I think if she had said, “Now, you know, times change. It was wrong. I should have been against it,” in my view, that would have been the honest response. Instead, she’s chosen a whole series of explanations with decreasing credibility. And the last one was the worst.
To say the CIA was lying, to attack President Bush was just either a partisanship, and it was dishonorable, because you’re attacking the people in the CIA. And I’m glad to see Leon Panetta struck back at her. So I thought it was — it’s just been one bad and very, I mean, dishonorable course that she’s taken all the way down.
JIM LEHRER: Dishonorable course, Mark?
MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: No, I agree that the press conference was certainly something that she never would have done, should have done. It was really…
JIM LEHRER: You mean have the news conference or the way she conducted it…
MARK SHIELDS: The way she conducted it.
JIM LEHRER: … or what she said? Yes, OK.
MARK SHIELDS: … I agree with David that it was a miserable performance yesterday. I don’t think her criticism of the CIA — the jury is very much out on that. I mean, the CIA’s response was that, “We never mislead the Congress.”
That was at the very same time that the director of the CIA was saying it’s a slam-dunk that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and the capacity to deliver them on the continental United States. So, I mean, let’s forget that about deceiving or misleading the American people or the Congress.
But that said and that acknowledged, I do think that the mistake that is made right now for the Democrats — this is not where they want the debate to be. I mean, Dick Cheney has done a service to his party. He’s a lousy messenger, because he’s 5-to-1 negative…
JIM LEHRER: Speaking of messengers, huh?
MARK SHIELDS: Messengers, but his message is where the Republicans want to be. That’s the one place where voters really gave George Bush credit, was for keeping the country safe.
And the Democrats don’t want to be arguing about the past, six, seven, eight years ago. And, obviously, the administration doesn’t. What they want to be arguing about and debating is the economy, jobs, health care. So I think, in that sense, it was an enormous political disservice.
JIM LEHRER: Do you agree?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, it certainly…
JIM LEHRER: Political disservice?
DAVID BROOKS: It’s going to keep this story on. She basically lit a fire. I mean, it was sort of burning, burning, burning, and she just poured oxygen or blew oxygen, whatever you do with oxygen, so it will go on for weeks and weeks.
JIM LEHRER: That’s what you do. Yes.
DAVID BROOKS: And it’s funny. When you talk to people in the Obama administration, Democrats on Capitol Hill, and you talk about any other subject, they’re happy to talk to you. When you talk to them about torture and all this stuff, they just cave in. They just do not want to talk about it, because they want to move on to all this other stuff they’re trying to deal with, health care, things like that. And so she did that.
The one other thing I’d say about Nancy Pelosi — I agree she’s very tough, and I agree she’s a very effective speaker, but she is super-partisan, like Tom DeLay, though she’s more honest than Tom DeLay was. And her reaction in this time of crisis was to blame George Bush.
And that was the partisan reaction, I guess, designed to stir up the base in her moment of need, but it was not an honest reaction. It was not the right reaction.
MARK SHIELDS: Well, let me just say one thing.
JIM LEHRER: Sure.
MARK SHIELDS: I mean, Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, and whatever…
JIM LEHRER: The senator from Florida.
MARK SHIELDS: Senator from Florida. What everyone says about Bob Graham, he is not somebody who is indifferent to details. He’s a man who probably…
JIM LEHRER: He was the original Twitterer.
MARK SHIELDS: That’s right. He…
JIM LEHRER: He writes down everything.
MARK SHIELDS: It probably cost him the vice presidential nomination in 2000 and cost the Democrats the White House, because if he’d been on the ticket, the Democrats would have carried Florida and George W. Bush would be pleasantly back in Texas permanently.
But he was chairman. He said the four dates that they gave, that the CIA told them they had meetings where he was briefed, he came back and he said three of them, there was no such meeting, so that their recollections are not necessarily infallible. I don’t think that’s the case.
I mean, and I do think that, you know, Nancy Pelosi made a bad case for herself publicly. I don’t think it’s a subject that she wants to be discussing or the Democrats want to be discussing. But I don’t think that it’s immolation politically.
Well, that’s a relief. But, like all the villagers and the Democrats on Capitol Hill, I just want this whole icky torture thing to go away. Besides the last thing the Democrats need is for people to be talking about national security because well … you know. The Republicans are just so invulnerable on that issue. (Imagine if they run a certified war hero, former prisoner of war against Obama next time and almost the whole race is about war and national security! OMG!)
The good news is that behind the scenes everyone is working hard to make this thing go away:
JIM LEHRER: Is it over? Or does this keep going on and on and on? Is there any way to make it go over, if anybody wanted to make it go over?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, it will lead eventually to some sort of truth commission, I suppose. It won’t go over until she settles on a story. I mean, the problem — I wasn’t that upset about her until she had six different stories and then chose this one, which I think was the worst, as her most desperate story. But she just has to settle on one story.
JIM LEHRER: You mean that the CIA lied to me about the…
DAVID BROOKS: The CIA lied to me. So, you know, she settles on a story. But the thing which will hit both parties — I think this makes it more likely we’ll get some sort of outside truth commission, which hopefully will settle this in a more academic…
MARK SHIELDS: That is her…
JIM LEHRER: You think it should be settled — you think it needs to be…
MARK SHIELDS: Well, I’m for a truth commission, have been. And I think Nancy Pelosi has been, as well, maybe, you know, that was before all this. But I think it’s her only hope for redemption.
But the question is now, does it go before the Senate Intelligence Committee, where it’s going to be quite partisan back and forth on this now, or do you try and do a Lee Hamilton, Jim Baker, kind of insulate it with statesmen presiding?
JIM LEHRER: But you think it’s important enough that it should be done, that it should be cleared up once and for all?
MARK SHIELDS: I do.
JIM LEHRER: Do you?
DAVID BROOKS: I do. Many people in this town with more powerful positions just want it to go away.
MARK SHIELDS: That’s right.
DAVID BROOKS: And that’s what Harry Reid was saying a couple weeks ago. And that may still happen.
MARK SHIELDS: And the administration, too, this one.
From his lips …
Meanwhile, the really good news for the villagers is that Obama is breaking all the right campaign promises, which proves just how upright and manly he really is:
JIM LEHRER: Mark, speaking of commissions, President Obama’s decision today to stay with, in different form, but the military commission for the detainees. What do you think of that?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, it’s the difference between being a candidate and being commander-in-chief. When you’re a candidate, you know, you can campaign in prose — poetry, rather, and you govern in prose.
I mean, this was a national security — one thing he’s found out is the closing of Guantanamo is, what are you going to do with the prisoners? And now…
JIM LEHRER: Nobody will take them.
MARK SHIELDS: Nobody will take them. I mean, the only place you could send them are places that you couldn’t in good conscience send them. I mean, there are some countries, “Yes, we’ll take them, sure.” And you know exactly that the fingernails are being pulled out before they even get off the plane there.
So I think that it’s going to irritate and anger people on his left, and especially among Democrats, not a few of whom, including probably myself from time to time, like to have a certain sense of moral superiority.
JIM LEHRER: Oh, Mark…
MARK SHIELDS: And this compromises my sense of moral superiority, not that Republicans or conservatives don’t like moral superiority, but this does. This kind of brings back to real politics.
JIM LEHRER: You can take this anywhere you want to.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I’ll talk about Mark’s moral superiority.
JIM LEHRER: You can go moral superiority. You can go politics, whatever you want.
MARK SHIELDS: Alleged.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, this will be a short segment here. Well, first, I just would say, it’s government versus campaign.
JIM LEHRER: You agree?
DAVID BROOKS: Campaigning, I would say, black and white; governing is gray. And the one thing we learned about Obama’s character is he knew from his political people, for himself, I made these statements. And it’s about this, it’s about the photographs, and it’s about Gitmo.
It’s the same issue. I made these statements during the campaign. They were very clear. People applauded. It was great at the rallies. Somebody walks into my office in the Oval Office and says, “Well, it’s not really going to work that way. Can we change it?”
And so he has a choice. Do I go with my campaign, which is the politically easy way, or do I take a little — a few days of political embarrassment and go with these guys who are the professional executers of policy?
And to his credit, he went with the executers of policy. And I will just say, there are soldiers in Wardak province in Afghanistan who will say, “He took one for us. It makes our life a little easier that this can happen.”
And so they, many of whom may not have voted for him, I think, because of this kind of decision, will look at him with a little more respect.
It’s always nice to see the president not take the easy way out. Bravo.
The good news is that Obama isn’t influenced by Dick Cheney is still willing to make ugly decisions:
JIM LEHRER: Vice President Cheney, former Vice President Cheney, what do you think of — some people have suggested that this is — he is influencing the White House on all of this, because he’s raised all these issues and he’s keeping the heat on and all of that, and President Obama and his folks are reacting to that.
I asked David Axelrod that last night. He said, “No way.” You got any reading on the influence of former Vice President Cheney?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, just on that narrow issue, I agree with David Axelrod. I don’t think he’s influencing.
I think the president is surrounded by people like Bob Gates. That’s who influences him on these issues, and the military people are influencing him…
JIM LEHRER: What’s your Cheney reading, Mark?
MARK SHIELDS: As George W. Bush said in another context, bring him on. I mean, it’s a godsend for the administration in many respects that Dick Cheney…
JIM LEHRER: For the Obama administration?
MARK SHIELDS: … the Obama administration — becomes the face of the party. It’s backward-looking. It’s a reminder of what people did not like about the last eight years.
But I do think, while he is a flawed and failed messenger, I do think his message is disturbing to Democrats to the degree that they’re talking about keeping the country safe and, you know, whether, in fact, President Obama is keeping it safe and all of that. That isn’t where you want the debate to be, if you’re Barack Obama.
DAVID BROOKS: To his credit, all throughout the campaign — and especially in France, you remember he held a town meeting in France — he said, we’re at war. And he’s kept that uppermost on his mind. And if you go in with that attitude, we’re at war, you know there are some ugly decisions you have to make.
JIM LEHRER: You mean Obama, President Obama?
DAVID BROOKS: Obama.
MARK SHIELDS: But he just hasn’t established his credentials yet as commander-in-chief. That’s all. And I think that’s what is a problem, I mean, not that he hasn’t — I agree with you, but the commander-in-chief credentials are important to establish.
Thank God Obama has David Brooks out there standing up for his manhood. Left up to Shields and all these other nervous nellie Democrats, I’m afraid Obama’s going to have to personally waterboard some kittens or invade Lithuania or something to reassure the village that he isn’t going to capitulate to all these DFHs who are making a big fuss about that icky torture stuff.
I am skeptical of all politicians, so it doesn’t surprise me all that much that someone who’s central rationale for running was his opposition to the war would become hawkish and protective of the war making bureaucracies once he became president. It’s certainly not the first time.
But I am going to have an aneurysm if I have to listen to one more lecture from a villager about “authenticity” and “honor and integrity” after listening to them defend torture and tell us that politicians don’t mean a thing they say on the campaign trail. Fine, it’s all bullshit. But they can just can the sanctimony about politics being a higher calling and how “their town” really stands for something meaningful to the Republic from now on.
*Oh wait, I forgot. There was another event that did get the villagers all lathered up this week, an egregious betrayal of moral values: John Edwards’ affair. That’s where these moral giants draw the line.
I made a modest proposal yesterday that we should start waterboarding politicians to determine the “truth” about the torture regime. I forgot someone. Not that we have any need to get information from him, mind you, or even because we want to elicit a false confession. Nothing he says or knows is useful to human beings. But I think Rush needs a little enhanced interrogation so he can share in the fun. Here he is yesterday:
Rush began the segment expressing what seemed like genuine outrage over the reported detainee photos released by the UK Telegraph and posted on the front page of Drudge. However, later, Rush couldn’t hold it in anymore — his producer Snerdly told him the subjects in the photos looked like “some pervert” in a nude exercise video, to which Rush added: “If that’s torture, I weigh 102 pounds.
According to Rush, torture isn’t torture unless you think of it as torture. So stripping him naked, putting a hood over his head and strapping him to a bed upside down in a stress position won’t be torture, it will be “blowing off steam.”
Batoccio has written a superb overview of the torture debate, which includes dozens of links to important blog posts, articles and academic papers on the subject. Read it and bookmark it if you are closely following this story, and especially if you are writing about it. It is as close to an comprehensive resource on the current state of the debate, both political and historical, that I’ve seen. It’s excellent work.
. And as a radio personality (lowest rung of the show biz ladder) and fledgling stand-up comic (next rung up), I wondered if this was A Warning.
) who is stalking Spock throughout the continuum for his own nefarious reasons.
) proves a perfect choice as Chief Engineer Scott. Zoe Saldana, John Cho and Anton Yelchin (as Uhura, Sulu and Chekov, respectively) round off the principal crewmembers, tackling their relatively minor roles with much aplomb.
