Watching at the debate party we had with friends in our building, this exchange caused our collective jaws to hit the floor. Looking at what McCain said in the cold light of day shows it to be even more revealing than I originally thought :
SCHIEFFER: But even if it was someone — even someone who had a history of being for abortion rights, you would consider them?
MCCAIN: I would consider anyone in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test.
Think you understand that? Chances are you only think you do, ’cause when you examine what McCain actually said, it really doesn’t make much sense. But its incoherence has a strange property, especially when spoken: You hear in it what you want to hear.
If you’re a member of the reality-based community, your mind boggles, as ours did: In the space of two sentences, McCain flatly contradicted himself – he would impose an abortion litmus test then claimed he wouldn’t – and he doesn’t even know it! If you’re undecided or a McCain fan who supports abortion rights, you’d give him the benefit of a doubt: a President McCain (perish the thought) would not weigh a nominee’s opinion on Roe in determining whether s/he was qualified.
But if you’re a pro-coathanger nut, however, McCain just sent you a clear message. He said that anyone who supports Roe v. Wade doesn’t have the “qualifications” to be on the Supreme Court.
Now, who else speaks this way, often seeming to be befuddled and incoherent when he’s actually sending dog whistles to the far right? I know, that was an easy trick question.
McCain claimed he was not Bush – a line I’m sure his campaign thinks made the perfect zinger.
But, considering the way he talks and the way he votes, the main difference between Commander Codpiece and St. John of Scottsdale is, as some brilliant wag once noted , that Bush may have been the better pilot.
UPDATED with a link to the “brilliant wag.” Thanks to our commenters for tracking that down!
The snap polls are coming in for Barack Obama in much the same numbers that they did in the first two debates. CNN has it 58-31 for Obama. CBS’ poll is similar. That’s because Obama came out, in the same way as the other debates, with the same even keel. And also, the fundamentals of the race have crashed on McCain and Republicans. All Obama has to say is that McCain supports the same policies as George Bush and everyone gets knocked over as if with a feather. McCain can make ideological arguments about big government and higher taxes and liberal ideas all he wants, but the public has thoroughly rejected them. Just completely. Obama’s specifics are pretty cautious and circumscribed and nuanced and I don’t agree with all of them. But he doesn’t have the weight of party identification against him. Given the Bush/Republican known they are more than willing to grasp the unknown.
People know one thing that can’t be dislodged from their minds – Republican governance has been a total failure. A 90-minute debate isn’t going to change any of that.
And staying focused like a laser on the issues about which Americans clearly care the most helped as well. This is the anti-smear campaign no matter how much the fever swamps want it. The Ayers question in this debate – which I rightly called as Bob Schieffer’s wet kiss to McCain – was a microcosm of the campaign. McCain wanted to simultaneously take the high road and the low road. He tried some ju-jitsu by forcing Obama to distance himself from John Lewis’ remarks. No sale, Obama rightly brought up the impetus for the remarks – the hateful rhetoric coming from McCain/Palin rallies. Then McCain shifted into a backlash-type defense of his supporters. Obama flicked it off, and was finishing up the question, and McCain sensed he was losing his moment, and cut off Obama mid-sentence to get in his licks about Bill Ayers and ACORN, in kind of an erratic way. It was a meandering exchange, was highly negative and misleading, and it ended with Obama saying that making Bill Ayers the centerpiece of his campaign says a lot more about McCain than anyone else.
John McCain is a terrible candidate and that is the perfect example. But even if he was a stellar, superior candidate, I just don’t think it would matter. People have rendered their verdict on conservatism.
I saw this when it first aired but forgot the details. In any event, it would take a Republican, and only a Republican, to realize that it could serve as the entire strategy for a presidential campaign in 2008. After all, these are the folks who thought Murphy Brown was a real woman.
I’m sure if search the Bat Archives further, I’ll find out that The Joker was a neoconservative.
The Open Debate Coalition has three primary objectives: (1) Make raw footage of the debates part of the public domain, so that journalists, bloggers, and citizens can access it without concerns about a major network slamming them with a copyright suit. (2) Allow citizens to vote for questions in advance using the internet, so that town halls aren’t conducted at the whim of a moderator. And (3) reform or replace the Commission on Presidential Debates, a group which declines to make information on its funders public and has not released the debate rules to which both presidential campaigns have reportedly agreed.
This is not a commission that holds itself to iron-clad ethics rules. Anheuser-Busch has sponsored the presidential debates in every cycle since 1996 — as a result, its hometown, St. Louis, has hosted at least one debate in all but one of the last five presidential elections. Reports the Center for Public Integrity, “For its $550,000 contribution in 2000, the beer company was permitted to distribute pamphlets against taxes on beer at the event.”
While seeking sunlight is never easy, the Open Debate Coalition would be excused for thinking they have an ace up their sleeve: the support of presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain. Both candidates have written letters (here’s Obama’s; here’s McCain’s) expressing support for the coalition’s ideals.
So far, no luck. But the members of the coalition aren’t giving up — they see a future where debates bear no resemblance to the ones we have today, which, should anyone need reminding, are essentially identical to the ones held between presidential candidates 25 years ago. “2008 will likely be the last year that the Commission on Presidential Debates will exist as we know it,” Adam Green, Director of Strategic Campaigns for MoveOn.org Political Action, told me. “In the future, voters will demand interactions with the candidates that are democratic, transparent, and accountable to the public.”
These debates have become a media entertainment event along the lines of American Idol finals where who “won” is determined by spin and bullshit marketing devices. They are not helping our democratic processes.
One thing I would demand of the new debate sponsors (whoever they end up being) — refuse to allow the networks to feature this ridiculous “spin room,” “expert commentary” that colors the reaction to the debates before people even have a chance to absorb what happened. I don’t know what mechanism they can use, but without that I’m not sure what purpose debates even serve except as backdrop for conventional wisdom.
Debate drinking game tonight:
One shot for the word “bipartisan.”
A whole bottle for the words “Ayres” or “Wright.”
Update:
Oh Jesus.
ACORN is destroying the fabric of democracy.
I just cracked the tequila. And that’s not going to be pretty.
You can have my steaming hot latte when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers:
“I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told me. “If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?
Obviously, no one in their right minds.
*Disclaimer: I get why Obama is saying this and I’m not knocking him for it. It’s SOP. Still, someday it would be nice if Democrats didn’t feel the need to define their base as liberal freaks. One tends to lose interest in helping those who wipe their feet on your face after a while.
Update: I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being a liberal. I am proud to call myself one. I’m whining a bit about being called a freak who no one would ever want to vote for. So shoot me …
Sacramento County Republican leaders Tuesday took down offensive material on their official party Web site that sought to link Sen. Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden and encouraged people to “Waterboard Barack Obama” – material that offended even state GOP leaders.Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has pushed the party to try to broaden its appeal, took issue with the site. “In the governor’s view, it’s completely and totally inappropriate,” said Julie Soderlund, a Schwarzenegger spokeswoman.Hector Barajas, a California Republican Party spokesman, said Democrats have been playing the race card, but that the local party went too far in this instance. He said the campaign should be about who is ready to be the nation’s commander-in-chief, that Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has never questioned Obama’s patriotism, and that he’d ask local leaders to take down the offensive content.Taking credit for the site (sacramentorepublicans.org) and its content was county party chairman Craig MacGlashan – husband of Sacramento County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan.The Bee asked MacGlashan about the content after seeking his reaction to hate-filled graffiti that was spray-painted over an Obama display on a fence at Fair Oaks Boulevard and Garfield Avenue.In recent weeks, MacGlashan, an attorney, joined local Democratic party officials in condemning vandalism to political displays.The vandalism to the Obama display appeared to have been done overnight Monday. A racial epithet, profanity, “KKK” and the words “white power” were clearly visible from the roadway. Six of the nine fence panels were defaced.”What you are describing to me is not free speech, it’s vandalism. We don’t condone it,” MacGlashan said.But he defended his Web site. “I’m aware of the content,” he said. “Some people find it offensive, others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things.”
This is here in California. Limbaugh said it yesterday.
I think people are misreading this. John McCain did NOT vow to raise Ayers in the debate. Listen to the audio. He passive-aggressively leaned on Bob Schieffer to bring it up. He feigns astonishment at Obama saying that he wasn’t man enough to talk about McCain to his face, and explains that “it wasn’t a topic” that came up in the Brokaw debate. Then he says that “I think that guarantees it will be a topic” tonight.
If McCain answers a health care question with “Bill Ayers bombed the Pentagon,” he loses. But if Schieffer raises it, he isn’t dinged for bringing it up. They want Schieffer to raise it, and considering Bob’s brother is the current US Ambassador to Japan, I think they may get their wish.
McCain wants to take the high road and the low road at the same time. He will not bring up Bill Ayers unprompted. He will wait for the question to be fed to him by Bob Schieffer. And Schieffer is subtly giving away his punch.
The veteran “Face the Nation” host won’t telegraph what he will ask. But he said he will be seeking more details about their potential presidencies than have been evident so far.
I say he goes for it.
Schieffer, you recall, is the guy who couldn’t fathom how being shot down in a plane over Vietnam wasn’t a qualification for the Presidency. If there’s anyone who’s willing to save McCain’s honor, it’s Schieffer.
In case you’re wondering what the right wing bloggers are obsessing about these days, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that they have an ACORN in their bonnets:
“ACORN – An ever cooperative organization with standards so lofty they struggle to meet them. They are merely providing a public service.”
A convenient loop when your very defense is your offensive strategy: Overwhelm the local systems and staffs, thereby increasing the likelihood of fraudulently inflating vote totals with multiple-instance voters completing multiple ballots. But rest assured, ACORN is cooperating fully and eager to assist in investigations. With so much to cross-check and verify, they should have internal findings for investigators in a timely manner. Sometime around, say, January 30th.”
Back in the day I used to get criticized by certain people for not talking more about the black box voting and touch screen systems. I always replied that I thought it would take a whistleblower of epic gravitas to prove such a thing, but in the meantime we were developing a theme of stolen elections that the right wing would gleefully appropriate the minute they were in danger of losing an election. And I knew this would gall me beyond belief since the one consistent thing conservatives of both parties have done since the beginning of popular voting was to try to keep the riff raff from casting a vote. When the Democrats were the southern party, they certainly did their best to keep blacks from voting. But ever since the Southern Strategy, it’s been the Republicans who made a fetish of it.
The “vote fraud” fantasies are tinged by deeply right-wing racial and anti-urban panics. I’ve talked to many conservative who seem to consider the idea of mass non-white participation in the duties of citizenship is inherently suspicious. It’s an idea all decent Americans should consider abhorrent. It is also, however, a very old conservative obsession–one that goes back to the beginnings of the right-wing takeover of the Republican Party itself. Let me show you. Read this report from 1964, running down all the ways how Barry Goldwater’s Republican Party was working overtime to keep minorities from voting. The document can be found in the LBJ Library, where I researched my book Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus:
John M Baley, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, charged today that “under the guise of setting up an apparatus to protect the sanctity of the ballot, the Republicans are actually creating the machinery for a carefully organized campaign to intimidate voters and to frighten members of minority groups from casing their ballots on November 3rd. “‘Let’s get this straight,’ Bailey added, ‘the Democratic Party is just as much opposed to vote frauds as is the Republican party. We will settle for giving all legally registered voters an opportunity to make their choice on November 3rd. We have enough faith in our Party to be confident that the outcome will be a vote of confience in President Johnson and a mandate for the President and his running mate, Hubert Humphrey, to continue the programs of the Johnson-Kennedy Administration. “‘But we have evidence that the Republican program is not really what it purports to be. It is an organized effort to prevent the foreign born, to prevent Negroes, to prevent members of ethnic minorities from casting their votes by frightening and intimidating them at the polling place. “‘We intend to see to it that the rights of these people are protected. We will have our people at the polling places–not to frighten or threaten anyone–but to protect the right of any eligible voter to cast a secret ballot without threats or intimidation.’ Bailey said the Republican program, called “Operation Eagle Eye,” is really “a program to cut down the vote in predominantly Democratic areas by harassing, frightening, and confusing the voters.” He continued: “‘The strategy is to help Senator Goldwater by cutting down the vote in large cities in states with many electoral votes. “‘As such, it is an admission to the American people that if all Americans were free to vote they would overwhelmingly elect Lyndon B. Johnson, but if millions of Americans could be prevented from voting, Senator Goldwater might succeed.’ “‘Operation Eagle Eye’ was publicly established by the Republican National Committee on October 13. To make the program nation-wide a ‘ballot security’ official–the very name suggests that voting is illegal or at least dangerous–was named in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. “‘In one state, Minnesota, ‘Operation Ballot Security’ issued a seven-page single-space private memorandum detailing a variety of methods for challenging voters at the polls, with instructions to discourage helpful judges in Democratic precincts, to cut off waiting lines in Democratic precincts but not in Republican precincts, and to encourage stalling in Democratic precincts while preventing stalling in Republican precincts. “‘The Minnesota document goes so far as to state its purpose, not as encouraging each American to exercise his right to vote freely but ‘to safeguard the investment of time, money, and effort that the Republican Party, its volunteers, its candidates, and their volunteers have made in this election.’ “As for specific instructions, the Republican memorandum says: “‘If any questions or dispute arises, refer to the pertinent authority cited below and (when it is to your party’s interest) insist that the law be followed.’ (Emphasis added). “‘Stalling in booths is a common trick when lines are long in order to discourage those waiting. In GOP precincts, keep lines moving.’ “Memorandum like this leave no doubt in my mind that the Republican strategy for November 3 is the excessive, indiscriminate and unnecessary challenge of every voter. “How else will ‘Operation Eagle Eye’ work? A Wall Street Journal article of October 22 by Stanley Penn told how. “Penn quoted one ‘ballot security’ official as saying he planned to equip his poll watchers with cameras to frighten people into believing that voting irregularities can be photographed. He wrote: ‘The official notes that even if poll watchers don’t now how to use the cameras, potential Democratic wrong-doers may be frightened off.’ Here is an example of using a camera to intimidate a voter. “‘Another example used by Penn was a booklet written by Louisiana Republican ‘ballot security’ chief James A. Reeder, who urged his party to make all efforts to enlist the help of sheriffs and local police on eleciton day. The booklet explained why: ‘We are advised that all sheriffs in the State of Louisiana, except one, are sympathetic with Senator Goldwater’s election. We should take full advantage of this situation.’ “This booklet is one of the most damning aspects of this so-called ‘Operation Eagle Eye.’ When a political party publicly aligns itself with law enforcement officers in behalf of its candidate, this is certainly not the best way of promoting freedom of choice among the voters. this is the worst sort of intimidation. “‘Operation Eagle Eye’ is not the only Republican group that is working along these divisive lines. “In Chicago, the Republican ‘Operation Double Check’ was responsible for the charge by Elroy C. Sanquist Jr., GOP candidate for attorney general, that more than 4,000 voters on the city’s Democratic rolls were ineligible. “Then there is the ‘Honest Ballot Association,’ which Journal reporter Penn unknowingly described as ‘nonpartisan’ in its plans to send 500 lawyers and volunteers to New York precincts alone. “But the ‘Honest Ballot Association’ was the prime force in a voter intimidation campaign conducted in Detroit two years ago, a campaign that now appears to have been a dry run for the Republicans nation-wide effort this year. “In Detroit, less than a month before election day in 1962, an organization called ‘The Committee for Honest Elections’ was established and immediately proceeded to: “–Mail 159,000 copies of a letter misrepresenting the Michigan election law to ‘high mobility’ areas that were predominantly Democratic. The letter created the impression that anyone who had moved 30 days before the election could not vote. It also appealed for informers to come forward and report suspected cases of voter fraud. “–Plan to flood these Democratic areas with fliers that said: ‘WANTED–FOR VOTER FRAUD.’ “–Recruit 600 ‘challengers’ who would use ‘Honest Ballot Association’ credentials to indiscriminately challenge voters on election day. “‘Fortunately, sufficient publicity and court action blocked these measures for the most part and the planned voter harassment and intimidation was rendered ineffective. “I deeply resent ‘Operation Eagle Eye’ and these other programs that seek to deprive our citizens of their Constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. “‘Operation Eagle Eye’ is not even founded on the principles of freedom of choice and freedom to vote. It speaks only of alleged frauds, alleged wrongdoings. Even the press release announcing its formation did not seek to encourage voters. It sought to frighten them with this headline: ‘GOP Launches Nation Wide Campaign To Prevent “Any Repetition of 1960 Voting Fraud Scandals.”‘ “I believe the only way to have a fair election in this country is to encourage voters of both parties–not just of one party–to come forward, along with independent voters. This has been the basis on which the Democratic National Committee has conducted the entire 1964 campaign. “We want Americans to exercise their right of freedom of choice.”
plus ça change…
It’s not like this ACORN bs is unprecedented, is it? They do this stuff over and over and over again and they’re doing it again. After Jesse Jackson’s 1980s registration drives, they totally professionalized Operation Eagle Eye and now it’s a national program. The right wing bloggers can pretend that vote suppression is a phantom all they want, but the evidence is clear. (On the other hand, the evidence of systematic voter fraud is simply non-existent.)
It appears that Obama is on course to win big enough that this won’t work. And although the wingnuts have learned a thing or two about how to extend these themes beyond election day and keep their base riled up to obstruct and delegitimize the new president, the country is facing an economic crisis which tends to focus people’s minds a bit. So, I’m hopeful that this won’t have salience beyond a few cranks.
Still, we’ve never been in this particular place before. Obama is black and that seems to make the lizard brains on the right start foaming at the mouth even more than usual. And even if that weren’t so, they have developed a conceit ever since Reagan that they are entitled to the presidency and a Democrat simply cannot legitimately win the White House. They will be tested this time out, but I doubt they’ll give it up.
Is there anything at all going well for the Right this year? The whole edifice appears to be crumbling faster than one can celebrate its demise.
It’s nice to think so, but don’t kid yourself. When the American Enterprise Institute folds, when Limbaugh loses his show due to poor listenership, then let’s break out the brie, red wine, and skim lattes to celebrate the imminent marginalization of the extreme right.
Moreover, it’s far from clear which version of Barack Obama will end up governing…
There are no chickens to count yet, my dear friend, only some eggs. At this stage in the campaign, I’ll take any version of Barack Obama as president over McCain/Bush/Palin.
However, I will gladly have this second discussion with you 1 second after – we should be so lucky – Barack Obama is sworn in.
Yesterday I drove in to work listening to Democracy Now and drove home listening to Fresh Air. Both had James Bamford on as a guest. He’s the investigative reporter who has covered the National Security Agency for the past 30 years and just finished his third in a trilogy about them, called The Shadow Factory. It is from Bamford’s book that we learned last week about the two whistleblowers, intercept operators at a facility in Georgia who were told to listen to, record and transcribe personal conservations of all the phone calls innocent Americans, members of the US military, journalists and members of aid organizations and NGOs. They would listen to them and pass around the more salacious bits, intimate conservations between spouses or lovers, for their own amusement. And that’s really just the beginning.
On Democracy Now (which had those two whistleblowers on the show back in MAY) Bamford described the enormity of the effort:
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Well, let’s talk about Adrienne Kinne’s allegations, spying on Americans and international aid workers in Iraq. What’s wrong with this?
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, there’s a lot of things wrong with it. First of all, they’re wasting their time, when they should be spying on or trying to intercept communications to and from terrorists. That was one of the complaints that Adrienne had and also Murfee Faulk had, that they didn’t join the military to listen to Americans doing pillow talk, because a lot of this was intimate conversations between Americans and their spouses back in the United States. They’ve been separated a long time, and you can imagine what a lot of those conversations dealt with. They were very personal matters dealing with finance, affection, and so forth. So they felt that they were morally wrong by eavesdropping on these people and then just wasting government money and wasting their time by listening to things that had nothing to do with the war on terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. One of the things Adrienne Kinne told us was that she was spying on journalists at the Palestine Hotel. She knew they were journalists. She heard what they were saying over time. Here she was in Georgia, but spying on those people, those journalists, in Iraq. And she said she saw a document, she saw an email that put the Palestine Hotel on a—as a bombing target, and she immediately went to her superiors, because she was spying on them, she knew that they were journalists. She said, “But there are journalists in that hotel.”
Yes, we’re talking about finding journalists and directly targeting them. In fact, this small facility in Georgia, where all of the communications for the Middle East were swept up, was charged with making determinations on bombing targets. And they are making snap decisions on whether or not a communication is code. There weren’t any speakers in the many Arabic dialects spoken in Iraq at the facility. There were NO Pashto speakers, the main language of Afghanistan, at the facility. And this was the “intelligence” center for the Middle East.
This was going on for SIX YEARS and is still going on. The two whistleblowers, Adrienne Kline and David Murfee Faulk, did not work for the NSA at the same time, never met, but had the same exact story to tell.
And there’s more to make you sick:
AMY GOODMAN: Jim Bamford, can you talk about how the NSA picked up the very first clues about the 9/11 attacks well before the 9/11 attacks?
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, the very first clue to the 9/11 attack occurred in late December 1999, when the NSA picked up a message from a house in Yemen. The house was being used by bin Laden as his operations center. He didn’t have much capability to operate out of Afghanistan, so all the phone calls, all the messages, email and all that would go to this house in the city of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. NSA had been eavesdropping on that house for a number of years, and in late December 1999, it picked up a particular intercept, picked up a particular phone conversation.
And the phone conversation said that—send Khalid and Nawaf to Kuala Lumpur for a meeting. So, NSA picked that up, and they—first of all, they figured that Nawaf and Khalid had to be very important potential terrorists, because they were being assigned by bin Laden out in Afghanistan to go to a meeting in Kuala Lumpur. That seemed like a terrorist summit meeting. NSA gave that information to the other intelligence agencies, and the CIA set up a surveillance in Kuala Lumpur, and then they lost them in Kuala Lumpur.
After they lost them, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi went to California. They got in without any problem. NSA, even though they had the last name of Nawaf al-Hazmi in their computers, they never bothered to check, so they both got in without any problem into the United States. They went down, and they lived in San Diego. And they began calling back and forth to that house in Yemen, the house that NSA was eavesdropping on. So NSA is picking up their conversations to the house in Yemen, translating them and then sending out the conversations to—or summaries of the conversations to the CIA without ever telling anybody that they were in the United States. And they were in the United States for almost two years. Al-Hazmi was there from January 2000 to September 2001. And again, they’re communicating back and forth; NSA is picking up but not telling anybody that they’re in the US.
AMY GOODMAN: You say that they set up their final base of operations almost next door to the NSA headquarters in Laurel, Maryland?
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, that’s the ultimate irony, was they eventually travel across country from San Diego, and they set up their final base of operations—these are the—this is the crew that was about to attack the Pentagon—about a month before, they set up their base of operations in Laurel, Maryland, of all places, that happens to be the same city that NSA is headquartered. So they set up their base of operations in this Valencia Motel, and almost across the Baltimore-Washington Parkway is NSA headquarters. The director’s office is on the eighth floor, and, except for some trees, he could almost see the motel where they’re staying. So, NSA is over there trying to find terrorists, and here is the 9/11 terrorists sitting right opposite the NSA on the other side of the parkway making their final plans.
And after 9/11, in the wake of this massive failure, they started sweeping up everything. Everything in the entire world. They are recording everything, building a giant facility in Texas the size of the Alamodome to store all the data. The warrantless eavesdropping was authorized at the very top be Justice Department legal opinions so secret that the NSA’s OWN LAWYERS were not allowed to look at them. They are getting this information by setting up big rooms at telecommunications facilities to tap the major switchers of the top companies (they have outsourced the tapping to a group of tiny companies, many from Israel), and they even built a large submarine to directly feed into the undersea cables which house overseas communications.
It is an unbelievable and infuriating story. What I am writing right now, what all of you are writing, every word you say on the phone, every text message, every email – the government has it. Locked up in a room in Texas. And the legality is so murky that it’s basically indemnified.
An Obama Administration faces challenges in the economy at home and with failing occupations abroad. But there’s the very real question of whether there’s a functioning Constitution to begin with. If the government can sweep up the communications of every man, woman and child on the planet, if the government can sign off on torture and indefinite detention, and if the Congress can essentially indemnify the government for doing so, what is this state that Obama would inherit?
If this isn’t discussed openly before the election, it becomes that much harder to actually reverse these policies, which have been growing through inertia for at least six years, if not longer, and which Congress has basically rubber-stamped. Obama has agreed to look at every executive order and throw out the ones that are unconstitutional. That is not a specific enough answer. Signals intelligence and the NSA needs to be addressed. Torture and rendition need to be addressed. We practically don’t have a country to lead anymore, or at least one worth leading. The Constitution, the founding document, has become a non-issue in this election or really any election. No President has tarnished it as much as this one, and yet we continue on, muddling through, talking about tax cuts or who has the more comfortable demeanor. This election may repudiate conservatism but it’s necessary to define terms. Is it a rollback of torture? A rollback of the surveillance state? A rollback of official secrecy and lost civil liberties? I don’t think we know. And I think we need to have that conversation out in the open.
Are we ever going to talk about our loss of honor as a nation?
