Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Stand Up

Ezra says:

Unfogged is right; barring a miracle of competence and media responsibility, opposing torture will end up making the Democrats look like we get the vapors whenever the menfolk whip out the cigars and talk terrorism. Our press flacks are are ineffective, our caucus can’t stick to a message, and we don’t have a party leader charged with articulating our position to the public.

Doesn’t matter. Torture just isn’t something you compromise on. I’m as coldly political as the next guy, but not torture. That’s not part of the country I grew up believing in.

But, you see, the mere act of finally drawing that line in the sand, of saying “No More” is the very thing that refutes the charge. It’s hemming and hawing and splitting the difference and “meeting halfway” and offering compromises on matters of principle that makes the charge of Democratic splinelessness believable. This isn’t about a special interest giving money or bending to the will of a powerful constituency. People can feel the difference. There is nothing weak about simply and forcefully standing up for what is right.

A number of the commenters to the post below are convinced that the American people actually approve of torture so this will not be a very salient issue for the Democrats. I disagree. I think it may just be a defining issue for Democrats.

It’s not that I believe that all Americans are horrified, or even a majority of Americans are horrified. Clearly, the dittoheads think it is just ducky. But that isn’t the point. Just because they aren’t horrified or even endorse it on some level doesn’t mean that they don’t know that it’s wrong. They do. And it is very uncomfortable to be put in the position of defending yourself when you know you are wrong. Even good people find ways, but it cuts a little piece out of their self respect every time they do it.

Every person alive in America today grew up with the belief that torture is wrong. Popular culture, religion, folklore and every other form of cultural instruction for decades in this country has taught that it is wrong, from sermons and lectures to films about slavery to photographs of Auschwitz to crime shows about serial killers. It is embedded in our consciousness. We teach our children that it is wrong to torture animals and other kids. We don’t say that there are exceptions for when the animals or kids are really, really bad. We have laws on the books that outright outlaw it. The words “cruel and unusual” are written into our constitution.

The problem is not that there isn’t a widely accepted admonition not to conduct torture, it’s that many people, as with all crimes, will choose to ignore the admonition under certain circumstances. However, that does not mean that they do not know that what they are doing is wrong. There is nothing surprising in that. It’s why we have laws.

The arguments for torture being raised by the right are rationalizations for what they know is immoral and illegal conduct. Their discomfort with the subject clearly indicates that they don’t really want to defend it. (Witness the pathetic dance that even that S&M freak Rush Limbaugh had to do after his comments were widely disseminated.) Will they admit that they know it’s wrong? Of course not. But when they take up their manly jihad and accuse the Democrats of being swooning schoolgirls they will also be forced to positively defend something that many of them know very well is indefensible. And every time they do that their credibility on values and morals is chipped away a little bit.

I don’t expect them to change their tune. Way too much of this comes from a defect in temperament and garden variety racism and that’s not going to go away. But Democrats have to thicken their skins and be prepared for the usual attacks and insist over and over again that it is against the values and principles of the United States to torture people, period. It is not only right, it is smart.

As I wrote below, the opposition will bluster and fidget and scream bloody murder. But listen to the tenor of their arguments. The WSJ article below rails against the “glib abuse of the word” as if they can run away from the issue by engaging in a game of semantics. They are reduced to claiming that unless we torture it will be unilateral disarmament. We, the most powerful military force the world has ever known, will be defeated by a bunch of third world religious misfits if we don’t engage in torturing suspects. Just who sounds weak?

Moral Quicksand

I see that right is fulminating about the Democrats’ objection to torture as an American value. Yeah, it’s tough, isn’t it?

The WSJ said today:

The White House appears to be dreading today’s confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzales now that Democrats seem ready to blame the Attorney General nominee for Abu Ghraib and other detainee mistreatment. But this is actually a great chance for the Administration to do itself, and the cause of fighting terror, some good by forcefully repudiating all the glib and dangerous abuse of the word “torture.”

For what’s at stake in this controversy is nothing less than the ability of U.S. forces to interrogate enemies who want to murder innocent civilians. And the Democratic position, Mr. Gonzales shouldn’t be afraid to say, amounts to a form of unilateral disarmament that is likely to do far more harm to civil liberties than anything even imagined so far.

Gonzales certainly wasn’t afraid to use the word torture. In fact, he personally asked for a definition and a legal finding as to whether the president had the authority in wartime to ignore the laws against it, both American and international. Why the squeamishness about the word now?

Perhaps because they have waded into quicksand on this issue and they know the only thing that will save them is if the Democrats throw them a lifeline by refusing to expose the shallow prurience of their “values.” We should not do it. We should turn the spotlight back on those who made a fetish of morals and show them for what they are.

The right is going to accuse us of not caring about winning the GWOT but we should stand tough and not flinch when we say that torture is immoral. They are now caught in the bind of having to defend it (indeed, some relish defending it) and it is indefensible on both moral and practical grounds. We should not be afraid of their bluster. It is the sign of their weakness. Let them bellow.

The American people know that torture is wrong. They know. That does not mean, of course, that some don’t think we should use it. Even so they know it’s wrong . And because the modern Republican party has sold themselves as the party of values this discussion leaves them uncomfortable, squirming and impatient. Their smugness has turned to waspishness. They want desperately to change the subject.

This is the dawning of a new values debate and one which is far more defining for a great nation than tendentious posturing about personal sexual morality. This goes to the very core of what we, as Americans, really are. It’s time for us to take that fight to those who constantly use their cramped definition of morality to bludgeon us into a corner.

Torture Debate

Human Rights First Blog is blogging the Gonzales confirmation hearings. There are also links to the audio in case you are tired of watching that Ken doll anchor on MSNBC commend the president for saying he doesn’t believe in torture.

L’etat C’est Moi

As long as I’m approvingly linking to myself, I might as well pat myself on the back for seeing this one coming.Atrios points to a Nelson Report that says Junior refuses to hear bad news and has personally directed that his staff not burden him with it.

Our sources are firm in that they conclude this “good news only” directive comes from Bush himself; that is, it is not a trap or cocoon thrown around the President by National Security Advisor Rice, Vice President Cheney, and DOD Secretary Rumsfeld. In any event, whether self-imposed, or due to manipulation by irresponsible subordinates, the information/intelligence vacuum at the highest levels of the White House increasingly frightens those officials interested in objective assessment, and not just selling a political message.

I am not surprised. In fact a couple of weeks ago I wrote:

This is the big story of the second term. Bush himself is now completely in charge. He did what his old man couldn’t do. He has been freed of all constraints, all humility and all sense of proportion. Nobody can run him, not Cheney, not Condi, not Card. He has a sense of his power that he didn’t have before. You can see it. From now on nobody can tell him nothin. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, doesn’t it?

They can’t control him.

Cat’s Out Of The Bag

OK, so I’m linking to Josh Marshall twice in one day, but that’s tough. Here he talks about the Wehner memo and points out something important:

In other words, this isn’t about the fiscal soundness of Social Security or the babyboomers moving toward retirement or anything else. As Wehner himself says, this is the best chance the opponents of Social Security have had in six decades of trying to phase-out the program.

And this allows us to see the whole matter clearly. Social Security has been around for seventy years. How many people do you know who really don’t like Social Security? Back when I was younger I’d go spend part of my summer at the subsidized retirement community where my grandparents lived. And I don’t remember many people who lived there bad-mouthing Social Security. And those folks had lived under the program for pretty much all of their adults lives.

Or, the more relevant question, how about people today? How many people think Social Security is a bad thing? A program that never should have existed? I’m not saying how many worry that the program may not be there when they retire. How many people don’t even like the whole concept?

I think they’re in a distinct minority.

So now you can see from memos emerging from the White House itself that this isn’t about ‘saving’ Social Security. If it were, what would that sentence mean — (“For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win”)? The first time in six decades they can save it?

Clearly, this isn’t about ‘saving’ Social Security. It is a battle to end Social Security and replace with something that Wehner clearly understands is very different, indeed the antithesis of Social Security.

This entire debate is about ideology — between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start

No kidding. The Republicans have always wanted to destroy Social Security:

Their motive for destroying social security is that it puts the lie to their contention that government can’t be trusted to do any positive social good. They are wrong and social security proves it. That’s why they must create the lie that it won’t work even while it’s clearly working. As the quotes above prove, they’ve been crying wolf for decades and yet the program continues to provide millions of old and disabled people a bare minimum of income when they are past their working years and it will continue to be funded, fairly painlessly, for at least another forty years. It’s very existence is a slap in the face to the Republican philosophy. That’s why they must destroy it.

And the fact that most people do not believe that social security is wrong means that they have to pull this dishonest scam.

“For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win — and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country.”

They can’t make it any plainer than that. They have always wanted to destroy Social Security.

Update: Here’s a letter Tamara Baker sent to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I don’t know if they printed it, but it gets to the point quite nicely:

Don’t let the crocodile tears of the Republicans fool you. They have

wanted to destroy Social Security from the time President Roosevelt started it nearly seventy years ago. And they’ve always been using trumped-up claims of imminent doom as a way to con Americans into letting them at the Social Security cookie jar.

[…]

Republicans hate Social Security because it proves them wrong. They and their big-business buddies have spent many decades and many hundreds of millions of dollars saturating the media with bogus horror stories about Social Security. But as with everything else they say they want to “reform”, their real goal is to kill it. Don’t

let them.

Sincerely,

Tamara Baker

Credit Where Credit Is Due

I’m with Josh Marshallon this (regarding the DLC and Third Way reportedly coming out publicly against privatization of SS.)

Before proceeding, a side note: Democrats have plenty of things more important to do right now than to fight amongst themselves. And I know a lot of readers of this site have strong suspicions or negative feelings about the DLC — in some cases because of very real policy differences. But members of a coalition party have to strive to celebrate moments of agreement at least a bit more than they rush to clamor over the inevitable disagreements. So maybe take a moment to give these guys (DLC and Third Way) some encouragement for doing the right thing.

Whether we like it or not, the centrist groups are key to winning the fight on SS and it looks as though they are going to come through. If we care more about being right than doing right then we will spit in their faces. If we really want to preserve Social Security, a successful program that affects the real lives of real people, and which serves as the economic centerpiece of everything we believe in, then we will be generous right now and be thankful that these guys have decided to help us hold the line. We need every single ally. This battle is deadly serious.

Also, one other note. I noticed that Somerby gave Kevin Drum a serious going over for his op-ed in the LA Times because he claimed that Clinton and Gore and other democrats had participated in giving the impression that SS needed “saving.” I’m not sure why Somerby got so hot under the collar, but Kevin was right. They did and for some good tactical reasons at the time.

But more importantly, I think, some of us have to realize that Clinton and Gore are not sacred icons to be protected at all costs. I love both of those guys, but they would be the first to tell you that sometimes you have to be tough in politics and right now Kevin’s argument is key to persuading people that SS is not in crisis. By putting some of the blame on Clinton and the Democrats you can get some people to listen who otherwise wouldn’t. It’s just good politics.

Clinton and Gore are big boys and will be around a long time to defend their legacy. They don’t need to be defended on every single issue. (The witch hunts will do quite well to illustrate the perfidy of the media.) On policy, it can be very useful to use them as foils if need be. I suspect they’d be the first to agree.

I Was Only Issuing Orders

The New York Times reveals that Alberto Gonzales circumvented established guidelines and personally requested the Justice Department to draft an opinion as to whether Commander Codpiece could order that detainees be given forced enemas and the like:

Until now, administration officials have been unwilling to provide details about the role Mr. Gonzales had in the production of the memorandum by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Gonzales has spoken of the memorandum as a response to questions, without saying that most of the questions were his.

[…]

Mr. Yoo said that Mr. Gonzales was merely seeking to ‘understand all available options’ in a perilous time, when the United States faced unprecedented threats.

But a senior administration official disagreed, saying that the memorandum’s conclusions appeared to closely align with the prevailing White House view of interrogation practices. The official said the memorandum raised questions about whether the Office of Legal Counsel had maintained its longstanding tradition of dispensing objective legal advice to its clients in executive-branch agencies.

What senior administration official do you suppose that is?

The last few days have seen a flood of off the record statements to the NY Times indicting Gonzales. Evidently, there are quite a few people even within the administration who want to see this guy bloodied up if not derailed. This is highly unusual in the Bush administration, to say the least.

Gonzales is one of Bush’s closest cronies and like Kerik, there’s probably no telling the King that his boy is a problem. It looks to me as if plenty of people know that Gonzales is pathologically loyal to Junior and enables his worst impulses. And they also know that he’s likely to do even more harm to this country than even they are willing to do. That really says something.

I’m beginning to wonder if there maybe isn’t a chance to offload this guy completely rather than just bloody him up. Yesterday, Jeffrey Dubner at TAPPED set forth the idea that rehashing the Bernie Kerik episode might be a wiser use of the committee’s time. My initial reaction was that it was better to concentrate on the torture (I can’t believe I’m even writing that) because this was really an opportunity for Democrats to use a losing battle to put the Republicans on the defensive in the values debate. Now, I’m not so sure. If there is any real chance of peeling off a few Republicans, the Bernie Kerik episode is the one that will get the press to pay attention. Sleaze and trivia is what they understand, and the story is quite recent and still unfolding. Torture is so last spring.

I still lead heavily toward the idea that the hearings must be used to highlight the extreme immorality of the Republican Party, but this has certainly made me wonder if maybe Gonzales isn’t a lot weaker than we think.

Welcome To The Evolutionary Elite

In the beginning . . . Adam walked with dinosaurs

The new multi-million-dollar Museum of Creation, which will open this spring in Kentucky, will, however, be aimed not at film buffs, but at the growing ranks of fundamentalist Christians in the United States.

It aims to promote the view that man was created in his present shape by God, as the Bible states, rather than by a Darwinian process of evolution, as scientists insist.

The centrepiece of the museum is a series of huge model dinosaurs, built by the former head of design at Universal Studios, which are portrayed as existing alongside man, contrary to received scientific opinion that they lived millions of years apart.

Other exhibits include images of Adam and Eve, a model of Noah’s Ark and a planetarium demonstrating how God made the Earth in six days.

The museum, which has cost a mighty $25 million (£13 million) will be the world’s first significant natural history collection devoted to creationist theory. It has been set up by Ken Ham, an Australian evangelist, who runs Answers in Genesis, one of America’s most prominent creationist organisations. He said that his aim was to use tourism, and the theme park’s striking exhibits, to convert more people to the view that the world and its creatures, including dinosaurs, were created by God 6,000 years ago.

“We want people to be confronted by the dinosaurs,” said Mr Ham. “It’s going to be a first class experience. Visitors are going to be hit by the professionalism of this place. It is not going to be done in an amateurish way. We are making a statement.”

Here’s the exhibit Bobo will just have to visit for his next anthropological expedition into the Real America:

More controversial exhibits deal with diseases and famine, which are portrayed not as random disasters, but as the result of mankind’s sin. Mr Ham’s Answers in Genesis movement blames the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, on evolutionist teaching, claiming that the perpetrators believed in Darwin’s survival of the fittest.

Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a “Bible Authority Room” visitors are warned: “Everyone who rejects his history – including six-day creation and Noah’s flood – is `wilfully’ ignorant.”

[…]

“Since President Bush’s re-election we have been getting more membership applications than we can handle,” said Mr Ham, who expects not just the devout, but also the curious, to flock through the turnstiles. “The evolutionary elite will be getting a wake-up call.”

I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.

Thanks to Doug for the tip.

Karenna’s Revenge

All I can do is quote The Poorman:

God love you, Al, but not only are you a fifty-something rich white guy in a suit with local-news hair, you are also the world’s very biggest nerd. There’s nothing wrong with it – it is an admirable quality if you want to be, for example, President of the US, it’s important to realize that it’s not a great starting point for making “youth” TV. I’m trying as hard as I can to believe this won’t be a total disaster, but I’m coming up short.

I don’t think we’re looking at the alternative to FOX News coming from this quarter.

Arrogant and Ashamed

Via Daou, I found this gem at The Rude Pundit:

“But, you know, there’s something interesting that happens whenever you engage anyone who believes these things in a conversation: they get really, really defensive about Bush. And not in a coherent way. And not even in the knee-jerk-‘I-support-my-President’ kind of way. No, it’s more of an ‘I don’t wanna talk about it – shutupshutupshutup’ kind of way, with ears covered and eyes clenched shut. In other words, they know. “

I have been trying to write something about my foray into the Heart of Darkness, but the Rude Pundit beat me to it. (In a way, I’m relieved. It’s actually kind of painful to think about.) This observation about their reaction to Bush is absolutely spot on. I found the exactly the same reaction — no comment, eyes glazing over, an immediate change of subject to Clinton (or “Fifi LaBourget” as my father dubbed Kerry.) Endless discussions of Kerry’s alleged cowardice in battle, Clinton draft dodging but a total unwillingness to address the similar deficiencies with Bush. You couldn’t joke about him or rail about him or even try to corner any of these people about him. They just refused to address him at all. It was as if he wasn’t even a part of their equation. In a weird sense the Republican party itself has become somewhat vague to them. Their entire political calculation was built around the continuum from McGovern to Carter to Clinton to Gore to Kerry and a general disgust with liberals. Their political worldview is completely shaped by their hatred of the Democratic party now.

It wasn’t always like this. Needless to say, they all watch FOX and listen to Rush.

I doubt that the Rude Pundit has this problem, but I find that Republicans are just much more willing to be complete assholes in public by loudly proclaiming their political beliefs and daring others to disagree. It’s a matter of temperament more than anything else. There was a time when I would go at it, but at this point I don’t have many Christmases with my father left so I just sit back and let it flow. (There are other members of my family, however, who need to watch their step.)

Read RP’s entire post. It is absolutely correct and he nails one very particular point that can’t be said often enough:

“…all the many pundits and prognosticators of the “future” of the Democratic party have it absolutely, exactly wrong when they think the Democrats can triangulate themselves back into consequence. That way lies irrelevance and madness.

The simple truth is that Democrats, moderates, liberals, anyone, won’t win by saying, “Lookeeme, I’m like you, Farmer Brown or Factory Worker Sally, look at me compromise on abortion rights and put on shit-stained boots to go out into the fields and talk about how much I hate queers.” No, winning comes by saying, “Look here, Farmer Brown and Factory Worker Sally, you are like me.” And that means on each and every coming battle – Social Security, judges, tax cuts, Iraq. The people don’t want leaders who identify with them. They want leaders who they identify with. It’s a fine, but important distinction.

That’s why they call them leaders.

lead:

1. To show the way to by going in advance.

2. To guide or direct in a course: lead a horse by the halter.

3.

1. To serve as a route for; take: The path led them to a cemetery.

2. To be a channel or conduit for (water or electricity, for example).

4. To guide the behavior or opinion of; induce: led us to believe otherwise.

5.

1. To direct the performance or activities of: lead an orchestra.

2. To inspire the conduct of: led the nation in its crisis.

6. To play a principal or guiding role in: lead a discussion; led the antiwar movement.

7.

1. To go or be at the head of: The queen led the procession. My name led the list.

2. To be ahead of: led the runner-up by three strides.

3. To be foremost in or among: led the field in nuclear research; led her teammates in free throws.

8. To pass or go through; live: lead an independent life.

9. To begin or open with, as in games: led an ace.

10. To guide (a partner) in dancing.