Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Innoculation

by digby

Washington Whispers:

As President-elect Barack Obama continues to build his national security staff, now focused on intelligence, it is possible that he might ask CIA Director Mike Hayden to stay on for a while, intelligence sources say. Much of the speculation about the CIA job has been that Obama wants a change, in part because he disagreed with the CIA’s detention policies. But officials are pushing back a little on that issue, suggesting that Hayden has been carrying out the policies backed by Congress and the president before he arrived at Langley, not freelancing on his own. “It’s unfair to blame Hayden for things that occurred long before he took the job. But he deserves credit for standing up for the folks over there at CIA, even though a lot of the stuff he has dealt with didn’t happen on his watch,” said an intelligence official. “Administration policy and American law shape what the CIA does. If the president says he doesn’t want something done, that’s it. These are his programs,” added the official.

February 2008:

“The circumstances under which we are operating … are frankly, different than they were in late 2001 and early 2002,” Hayden said. “Very critical to those circumstances was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were imminent. In addition to that, my agency … had limited knowledge about al Qaeda and its workings. Those two realities have changed.”

Hayden told reporters later that the interrogations of Mohammed and Zubaydah were particularly fruitful.

From the time of their capture in 2002 and 2003 until they were delivered to Guantanamo Bay prison in 2006, the two suspects accounted for one-fourth of the human intelligence reports on al Qaeda, Hayden said.

Some analysts have questioned Mohammed’s credibility under interrogation. But Hayden said most of the information was reliable and helped lead to other al Qaeda suspects.

He told the committee he opposed limiting the CIA to using interrogation techniques permitted in the U.S. Army Field Manual, which bans waterboarding. CIA interrogators are better trained, and the agency works with a narrower range of suspects in its interrogations, he said.

Hayden said fewer than 100 people had been held in the CIA’s terrorism detention and interrogation program launched after the Sept. 11 attacks, with fewer than one-third of them subjected to any harsh interrogation techniques.

But applying the field manual’s limitations to the CIA, he said, “would substantially increase the danger to America.”

It’s hard for me to see how he reconciles those statements with a new policy. It seems to me that if he honestly believed that the danger to the country would be “substantially” increased if the CIA were not allowed to torture, he cannot in good conscience work for someone who disagrees. Or he was lying.

The politics of this are getting really interesting. Last week there was a lot of fretting about the left being hostile to the CIA and holding it to a ridiculous standard by insisting that members of the torture regime not be elevated or retained in high level jobs in the new administration. I mentioned a couple of times that I thought it was a bit of a stretch to believe that the Obama transition team was so cowed by some blog posts that they asked Brennan to remove his name. Certainly, these unnamed, unhappy CIA sources seemed awfully gullible if they believed that liberal bloggers had such power.

Greenwald gives the full treatment today to the way the Brennan backlash story was coordinated through the media. It’s quite astonishing. But this leak to Washington Whispers makes me think there might be some method to the madness if the real point was to inoculate Hayden (or a similar company man.) After all this complaining over Brennan, Obama can’t be seen to have “succumbed” to another blogger witchhunt at this point or risk have the village roar that he’s being held hostage by the left on national security.

Obama certainly doesn’t have to nominate a company man just because they want him to. But it’s the kind of thing the bureaucracies do to protect their turf and show who’s boss when a new president comes to town, particularly among the police and national security state apparatus. (They may be particularly inclined to do it this time after the humiliation routinely meted out by Dick Cheney over the past eight years.)

It’s just a theory, of course, and this floating of Hayden could just be wishful thinking. But if the CIA is seeking to pressure the new administration to hire one of their own, this would be a clever way to frame it: if Obama doesn’t pick one of theirs, he will be portrayed as captive to the Left on national security. And naturally, the press runs with it because it fits their favorite storyline as well.

Whatever is happening, this notion that liberal bloggers vetoed a choice to run the CIA just doesn’t scan. Whether my speculation above is correct or not, there’s definitely something else going on.

In God We Trust

by digby

Ferchristsake. And I mean that literally:

A group of atheists filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to remove part of a state anti-terrorism law that requires Kentucky’s Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge it can’t keep the state safe without God’s help.

American Atheists Inc. sued in state court over a 2002 law that stresses God’s role in Kentucky’s homeland security alongside the military, police agencies and health departments.

Of particular concern is a 2006 clause requiring the Office of Homeland Security to post a plaque that says the safety and security of the state “cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon almighty God” and to stress that fact through training and educational materials.

The plaque, posted at the Kentucky Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort, includes the Bible verse: “Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

“It is one of the most egregiously and breathtakingly unconstitutional actions by a state legislature that I’ve ever seen,” said Edwin F. Kagin, national legal director of Parsippany, N.J.-based American Atheists Inc. The group claims the law violates both the state and U.S. constitutions.

But Democratic state Rep. Tom Riner, a Baptist minister from Louisville, said he considers it vitally important to acknowledge God’s role in protecting Kentucky and the nation.

“No government by itself can guarantee perfect security,” Riner said. “There will always be this opposition to the acknowledgment of divine providence, but this is a foundational understanding of what America is.”

Maybe atheists should just declare atheism a religion. Then they could sue for the right to have the statute also say that there is no proof that God exists and that people had better use their minds and free will to keep themselves safe (and stress that fact through training and educational materials.)

I’ve written before that I don’t think there’s any way to end this unconstitutional insistence on religion in government unless they are forced to share the public space with those they abhor.

Americans of the past were not being primitive and stupid when they put religion firmly into the private sector. They understood that it’s the only way to keep religion truly free as well as keep the church from dominating public life as it had done in Europe for centuries.

To a lot of these religious zealots, those were the best of times, I guess. Bring on the inquisition.

Hippie Punch Of The Day

by dday

I am gobsmacked by this HuffPo piece by Steve Hildebrand, punching the hippies on the left for… having opinions. Hilbebrand begins by outlining the challenges President-elect Obama faces – on the economy, on Iraq and foreign policy, on repairing the nation’s reputation around the world, on the crisis of the uninsured, on global warming – all problems that this amorphous “left” knows all about and has been describing in detail for several years, and then he says this:

I could go on and on. The point I’m making here is that our new president, the Congress and all Americans must come together to solve these problems. This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren’t progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn’t the way he thinks and it’s not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn’t, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people – not just those on the left.

As a liberal member of our Party, I hope and expect our new president to address those issues that will benefit the vast majority of Americans first and foremost. That’s his job. Over time, there will be many, many issues that come before him. But first let’s get our economy moving, bring our troops home safely, fix health care, end climate change and restore our place in the world. What a great president Barack Obama will be if he can work with Congress and the American people to make great strides in these very difficult times.

First, note the “some people say” technique, marginalizing critics by disembodying them. Then, note the frame, that only the very serious people are thinking about these challenges, while “the left” is screaming about ideology, because they want the world to go to hell, I guess. It’s also “not a time” to draw conclusions about Cabinet and White House appointments. In other words, you should just STFU and enjoy the new dawn with your dear leader.

That’s not really how America works. And this lashing out from a senior Obama aide at a really small group of critics, who aren’t really displaying much more than concern, and who for the most part have offered support for the policy pronouncements coming out of the transition, is extremely depressing. I don’t think he’s serving his former boss very well by seeking to silence dissent and building straw men on “the left,” lying about their interests and concerns.

David Sirota dispatches with this pretty easily. But I’m really frustrated by it. Instead of writing a letter to, say, the actual people that are going to obstruct Obama’s agenda, like the ones who will filibuster the auto industry rescue, Hildebrand finds it important to break up all gatherings of five hippies in a field. That’s important to the survival of the nation. That’s worth the effort.

.

Until He Turns Blue

by digby

This is how responsible, conservative grown-ups react to a crisis:

With job losses mounting and Detroit’s Big Three automakers facing a battle on Capitol Hill over emergency federal aid, President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday predicted more hard times for the U.S. economy before it starts to turn around, and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) threatened a potential filibuster of any attempt to bail out the automakers.

[…]

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a staunch ally of the U.S. carmakers, and Shelby, who has emerged as the leading opponent of any aid package for the Big Three, sparred over the whether the American government should rescue U.S. automakers during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

Levin said he was “confident” that Congress would consider a bailout bill for the auto industry, but stopped short of predicting whether it would pass. Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are considering a $15 billion “bridge loan” to help out the automakers.

“I think they’re very close to a deal, I think there will be a deal and that will happen in 24 hours,” Levin told host Chris Wallace. “Obviously, that’s a much more complicated question of whether the votes are there. What I’m confident of is that a bill will be introduced.”

But Shelby, who also voted against the $700 bailout bill for the financial industry, called it a “bridge loan to nowhere,” and said General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have to undergo a fundamental restructuring of their operations rather than look for federal help.

[…]

Shelby also threatened a filibuster of any auto aid agreement, but was unsure whether he had the votes to sustain it.

Shelby is a traditional conservative — in the mode of Herbert Hoover. That tradition is one that’s been out of fashion for about 80 years now and there’s little reason to bring it back. If you want to relive the Hoover years, take Charleston lessons. Or read some F.Scott Fitzgerald and leave the economy to more modern thinkers.

Deadly Force

by digby

Here’s a lovely story about a man who allegedly grabbed a policeman’s taser in a scuffle and used it on one of the officers.

They shot him.

A Day Which Will Live In Infamy

by digby

I haven’t seen a lot of discussion about Pearl Harbor day today. But considering the crossroads at which we find ourselves at the end of the Bush era, this piece about the Japanese attacks and doctrine of preventive war (aka the Bush Doctrine)gives an important historical overview of why (until the neocon fanatics took over) the US did not assert that doctrine.

That is not to say we didn’t invade other countries on trumped up rationales or thin evidence. We certainly did. But it was a given among western democracies after the two horrifying wars of the 20th century that wars of aggression were a no-no. But just as Bush and Cheney decided that 9/11 changed everything such that even the civilized taboos against torture were out of fashion, they openly flouted and then discarded the world’s consensus on this issues after WWII. We became what we had once abhorred.

Defending The Company

by digby

There’s been quite a bit of chatter about the Brennan withdrawal suggesting that CIA veterans and long time professionals are really angry with “the left” for saying that someone who was a high echelon member of the agency and who had knowledge of the torture regime should not get the job of agency head. Apparently, they don’t think the rest of the world cares if Obama fails to deliver on his promise to end that practice once and for all and can’t see the foreign policy necessity of starting with a clean slate at the top. They would be wrong.

But more irritating is this complaining that’s evidently bubbling up from Langley that the left is hostile to the CIA and are trying to tie their hands, etc. The fact is that the left has been the CIAs staunchest defender during the Bush years, never blaming them for the bad decisions of the political bosses and standing behind them when the right tried to crucify them for the failure of 9/11 and WMD. Once again, no good deed goes unpunished. Meanwhile, for the past 30 years, the right has consistently characterized the CIA as a bunch of hapless, if not unpatriotic, fools, writing things like like this, as recently as a year ago, and yet is never seen as an enemy.

Back when we were embroiled in the Valerie Plame scandal, and “the left” was defending her and other analysts at the CIA who were being used as punching bags by the Bush defenders, I wrote a post about the CIA’s relationship with both the left and the right over the years that I think is worth reprising at this moment:

I’ve been thinking a lot about how the Plame affair has brought up an interesting political contradiction: the right is openly contemptuous of the CIA while the left is a vocal supporter. I think it’s probably a good idea to clarify that bit so we don’t get confused. The fact is that both sides have always been simultaneously vocal supporters and openly contemptuous of the CIA, but for entirely different reasons.

(I usually don’t speak for “the left” but for the purpose of this discussion I will use my views as a proxy for the lefty argument.) I’m not generally a big fan of secretive government departments with no accountability. I always worry that they are up to things not sanctioned by the people and it has often turned out that they are. I have long been skeptical of the CIA because of the CIA’s history of bad acts around the world that were not sanctioned or even known by more than a few people and were often, in hindsight, wrong — like rendition, for instance. I don’t believe that we should have a secret foreign policy operation that doesn’t answer to the people. They tend to do bad shit that leaves the people holding the bag.

But I didn’t just fall out of the back of Arnold’s hummer, so I understand that a nation needs intelligence to protect itself and understand the world. I also understand that the way we obtain that information must be kept secret in order to protect the lives of those who are involved in getting it. I have never objected to the idea that we have spies around the world gathering information about what our enemies are up to. I also think that intelligence should, as much as possible, be objective and apolitical. Otherwise, we cannot accurately assess real threats. If the CIA (and the other intelligence agencies) only make objective analyses, the buck will stop at the president, where it always properly should.

Therefore, I see this Plame affair — and the larger matter of the pre-war WMD threat assessment — as a matter of compromised intelligence and an extension of the 30 year war the right has waged against what it thinks is the CIA’s tepid threat analysis. Never mind that the right’s hysterical analyses have always turned out to have been completely wrong.

But then accuracy was never the point because the right takes the opposite approach to the CIA’s proper role. They have always been entirely in favor of the CIA working on behalf of any president who wanted to topple a left wing dictator or stage a coup without congressional knowledge. This is, in their view, the proper role of the CIA — to covertly advance foreign policy on behalf of an executive (of whom they approve) and basically do illegal and immoral dirty work. But they have never valued the intelligence and analysis the CIA produced since it often challenged their preconceived beliefs and as a result didn’t validate their knee jerk impulse to invade, bomb, obliterate, topple somebody for reasons of ideology or geopolitical power. The CIA’s intelligence often backed up the success of the containment policy that kept us from a major bloody hot war with the commies — and for that they will never be trusted.(See Team B, and the Committee on the Present Danger parts I and II.)

Therefore, the right sees the Plame affair as another example of an inappropriately “independent” CIA refusing to accede to its boss’s wishes. They believe that the CIA exists to provide the president with the documentation he needs to advance his foreign policy goals — and if that includes lying to precipitate a war he feels is needed, then their job is to acquiesce. When you cut away the verbiage, what the right really believes is that the US is justified in invading and occupying any country it likes — it’s just some sissified, cowardly rule ‘o law that prevents us from doing it. The CIA’s job is to smooth the way for the president to do what he wants by keeping the citizen rubes and the allies in line with phony proof that we are following international and domestic laws. (This would be the Straussian method of governance — too bad the wise ones who are running the world while keeping the rest of us entertained with religion and bread and circuses are so fucking lame.)

Back in the day, they used to just admit that they were engaging in Realpolitik, and as disgusting as that is, at least it was more honest than the current crop of neocons who insist that they are righteous and good by advancing democracy and vanquishing evil using undemocratic, illegal means. It makes me miss Kissinger. At least he didn’t sing kumbaya while he was fucking over the wogs.

I have no idea where people who don’t pay much attention to the political scene would come down on this. It may be that they think the government should have a branch that does illegal dirty work. But I suspect they would also think that the president should not be allowed to run a secret foreign policy or stage wars for inscrutable reasons. Indeed, I think most people would find it repugnant if they knew that there are people in government who think the president of the United States has a right to lie to them in order to commit their blood and treasure to a cause or plan that has nothing to do with the one that is stated.

Of course, that’s exactly what happened with Iraq. The right’s greatest challenge now is to get the public to believe that they were lied to for their own good.

They obviously didn’t meet that challenge.

The larger point is this. Brennan’s pals at CIA are bellyaching about “ill-informed liberal bloggers” and in doing so are obviously trying to create solidarity with the right wing and are doing so during a period of liberal ascension. It’s perverse. The right loathes them far more passionately than the left, and would prefer that the whole agency be replaced with something far more political and quasi military than it already is. The left just wants them not to perpetrate illegal acts that inevitably make America less safe when they are found out — as is more and more likely in this globally sophisticated media world. This isn’t all about morality, although it’s certainly the foundation of the argument. It’s also practical: torture, rendition, toppling foreign governments with secret coups, all that dirty work, has ended up hurting America’s standing in the world.

The left and right obviously have different reasons for both mistrusting and supporting the CIA. But the rationale for those differences is stark and I find it very telling that the CIA tends to keep quiet when they are being publicly brutalized by the right but go into high dudgeon when the left rather mildly suggests that someone closely associated with the Bush torture regime (who failed to speak out forcefully, by all accounts) would be an inappropriate choice to head the agency. According to the practices of the village, this is how they expect to get back in the good graces of the “center-right” political establishment. You just can’t go wrong by disparaging the left — even when they defended you against character assassination and derision for eight long years. Indeed, beating them up is all the more impressive because of it.

Absolutist Liars

by digby

BTD at Talk Left takes Ross Douthat to task for his disingenuous ramblings asserting that “Pro-Life” advocates are allegedly willing to compromise while the pro-choice advocates are absolutists. As he points out, the abortion laws are hardly sweeping as it is. Third trimester abortions are nearly unheard of and second trimester abortions are difficult and arduous to obtain. We have states making it nearly impossible for women to exercise their constitutional rights by failing to provide any low cost reproductive services and the anti-choice zealots forcing doctors who provide them out of the state. It’s not like women haven’t made many compromises already on this one. But the anti-choicers will not settle for anything less than making a pregnant woman basically give up all rights to her autonomy.

Here’s the bottom line: in the phrase “pro-choice” is the word choice, which means:

This Is Great

by digby

I may not be happy with Bob Gates at the pentagon, but this guy is a great choice. There should be at least one big screw you to Bush and this is a good one. It says to the world that the crazy Codpiece and Rumsfeld years are well and truly behind us.

Saturday Night At The Movies

Milk: Castro revolutionary

By Dennis Hartley

“The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it.” -Harvey Milk

This past Thanksgiving quietly marked the 30th anniversary of one of the more shocking American political assassinations to take place in the latter half of the 20th century. On November 27th, 1978, San Francisco mayor George Moscone and District Supervisor Harvey Milk were murdered in cold blood in their respective offices at City Hall; both men were shot repeatedly at point blank range. Even more shocking (and bordering on the downright bizarre) was the fact that their killer was a fellow San Francisco politician-former District Supervisor Dan White. It’s an anniversary that is traditionally and puzzlingly ignored by the MSM, who apparently have decided, for whatever reason, that its significance lacks the social impact and historical gravitas of the JFK, RFK and MLK killings, which each receive the requisite nod once a year from an appropriately “solemn” news anchor. I would hope we could rule out the fact that Moscone was a socially progressive city leader and that Milk was America’s first openly gay politician of significant influence as a decisive factor in this continual oversight? I mean, this is 2008, fergawdsake-we’ve advanced farther than that in this country, right? (Don’t answer that, and whatever you do, don’t mention Proposition 8). Well, I’m here to tell you that if enough people see it (and “get” it), there’s an inspiring new film about the life of Harvey Milk from director Gus Van Sant that just might be the first “baby step” in rectifying that.

Milk (in limited release at the time of this writing but hopefully opening wider by the time you read this review) is one of the most straightforward efforts from the frequently abstract and self-consciously arty filmmaker since his surprise mainstream hit Good Will Hunting back in 1997, yet arguably stands as his most significant work to date. The key word here, as a matter of fact, is “restraint”. Van Sant has wisely restrained from allowing his usual overdose of style to overpower the substance of his subject. The excellent script (by Dustin Lance Black, one of the primary writers for HBO’s Big Love ) is richly engaging, yet never strays too far from Milk’s own words and deeds. And most crucial to the success of this film is the powerhouse performance that lies at its heart from Oscar shoo-in Sean Penn, who never falls into exaggerated caricature, opting instead to ostensibly channel the wit, passion and genuine humanity of this remarkable individual.

The film joins Milk’s life story at age 40, which was when he experienced the epiphany which led to him to dedicate the rest of his life to public service. Using his dingy little camera shop in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood as his HQ, Milk quickly garnered a reputation as the city’s leading gay activist, thanks to his relentless drive and a natural gift for community organizing (hmm…he started his political career as a ”community organizer”- now does that remind you of any president-elects that you know of?).

Beginning in 1973, Milk began the first of three unsuccessful runs for a San Francisco District Supervisor position. His perseverance finally paid off in 1977, when he won his seat. Although he wasn’t going to wield the political clout of a mayor, governor or senator, his victory was still a symbolically empowering milestone in the history of the gay movement in America. His agenda was not strictly limited to gay issues; he also became an important advocate for other groups who traditionally suffered from phobia-induced oppression, like the elderly, poor and the handicapped. He entered the national spotlight when he helped spearhead the successful anti-Proposition 6 campaign in 1978. Also known as the “Briggs initiative”, the proposed legislation would have essentially given California school districts the right to identify and fire gay and lesbian teachers and administrators, and ban any future applicants as well. Milk also became the symbolic counterpoint (i.e., voice of reason) to singer Anita Bryant, whose very public and strident anti-gay stance became the prototype for the type of right wing, crypto-fascist fundamentalist Christian lobbying that we are still saddled with to this day. Milk accomplished a lot during his all-too-brief 11 month tenure; from a historical perspective you could say it was the gay community’s rendition of JFK’s figurative “Camelot”.

Van Sant and company actually had a rather tough act to follow, in the form of one of the most riveting and emotionally resonant documentaries (about any subject) that I have ever seen, Times of Harvey Milk. Released in 1984 and directed by Rob Epstein, the film deservedly picked up a Best Documentary Oscar. It recounted an incredible real-life tale that was equal parts Greek tragedy, black comedy, political potboiler and film noir. One of the most compelling elements of Epstein’s film were the snippets of audio from a tape recording Milk had made shortly before his death, which he directed to be released to the public only in the event of his assassination. The sad, funny and insightful auto-biographical musings on that tape resonate beyond a morbid premonition of fate; they crystallize as the dedicated vision of someone who was determined to make a profound difference, and to inspire others to tap into those resources within themselves.

Black transcribes verbatim excerpts from the tape as the framing device for his screenplay. It’s a wise creative choice, because it gives Milk a tragicomic Sunset Boulevard sensibility; even though we know from the get-go how horribly the story will end, it is somehow comforting to have the wryly self-aware “post-mortem” narration of the doomed protagonist to accompany us on his journey.

The film abounds with wonderful supporting performances, particularly from Diego Luna, Emile Hirsch and the ubiquitous Josh Brolin (as Supervisor White). Van Sant captures the period flavor of late 70s San Francisco to a ‘T’; I can attest to that because I lived there from 1979 to 1981. My girlfriend and I lived in the Sunset district (Irving Street, for you curious locals) but we would head over to the Castro district now and then to catch a matinee at that neighborhood’s iconic architectural landmark, the Castro Theater. At any rate, having observed the milieu firsthand, I have to say that Milk really brought me back to that era (and really made me miss San Francisco-what a great town!).

It doesn’t matter if you are gay or straight, this film will inspire you, and the continued relevance of the issues it addresses certainly does not need to be spelled out to Digby’s astute readers. The year isn’t quite over yet, but this looks like a definite contender for one of my picks for the “top ten” of 2008. In the meantime-run (don’t walk) to see Milk.

Update: dday also reviewed the film, from the political standpoint, here.