Media finally starting to report the President's systematic lawbreaking

(updated below)

On March 24, 2006, The Boston Globe published an article by Charlie Savage reporting that the President, after signing into law the bill which renewed the Patriot Act, issued a "signing statement" making clear that "he did not consider himself bound" to comply with various reporting provisions in the law and therefore reserved the right to violate them. The article was extraordinary because it noted that the Patriot Act signing statement was merely "the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law" -- and the article tied that ideology of lawlessness to, among other things, the President's deliberate violations of FISA when ordering warrantless eavesdropping on Americans.

I discussed that Globe article in my book and described it as "an important milestone," because "it is one of the first truly comprehensive articles by an establishment media outlet to recognize the fact that the president has expressly seized the power to break the law, and is exercising that power enthusiastically and aggressively, in numerous ways." Once the reality of the president's claimed lawbreaking powers starts to be truly discussed in our national political dialogue, I believe there will finally be accountability for what this administration has done.

The Globe has today published an even more sweeping and significant article, this one also by Savage, reporting as clearly and unambiguously as I have seen on the fact that the President not only believes that he has the right to break the law but has been exercising that right with staggering frequency, in almost every area of significance (h/t Jill):

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed" . . .

As has been clear from the beginning, and as Savage notes, the significance of the NSA scandal was never about eavesdropping. Its significance lay in the fact that the President got caught red-handed violating the law on purpose, because he believes he has the power to do so. To defend his conduct, the administration has been forced to parade those theories around out in the open, and as a result, it is only a matter of time before the public starts to realize how severe the crisis is that we have in our country:

But with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override. . . .

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more governmental power into the White House.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

For the first five years of Bush's presidency, his legal claims attracted little attention in Congress or the media. Then, twice in recent months, Bush drew scrutiny after challenging new laws: a torture ban and a requirement that he give detailed reports to Congress about how he is using the Patriot Act.

It is not hyperbole to say that these actions and theories are as antithetical to democracy as can be. The country intensely debates all sorts of controversial issues (torture, Patriot Act renewal, eavesdropping powers); legislative compromises are reached by the American people through their Congress, often over the objections of the President; the President signs those bills into law -- and then he simply decrees that those laws are irrelevant because he has the power to violate them at will:

Bush administration spokesmen declined to make White House or Justice Department attorneys available to discuss any of Bush's challenges to the laws he has signed.

Instead, they referred a Globe reporter to their response to questions about Bush's position that he could ignore provisions of the Patriot Act. They said at the time that Bush was following a practice that has ''been used for several administrations" and that ''the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution."

But the words ''in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution" are the catch, legal scholars say, because Bush is according himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution. And he is quietly exercising that authority to a degree that is unprecedented in US history.

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ''signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

''He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises -- and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

The entire article -- which I highly recommending reading -- details the numerous instances in which Congress has passed laws banning certain conduct, the President has signed those bills into law, only for the President not only to reserve the right to violate those laws but to then order that those laws by violated, systematically and repeatedly. As the Globe article reports with startling clarity, to describe the state of affairs we have in our country is to describe, by definition, a state of authoritarian lawlessness. We literally have a President who has been saying for years, right out in the open, that he can act without regard to the law whenever he wants, and we need to repeat that fact - and prove it - over and over until that debate is finally had. The Globe article advances that objective significantly.

It is not uncommon for a President to refrain from executing a law which he believes, and states, is unconstitutional. Other Presidents have invoked that doctrine, although Bush has done so far more aggressively and frequently. But what is uncommon - what is entirely unprecedented - is that the administration's theories of its own power arrogate unto itself not just the right to refrain from enforcing such laws, but to act in violation of those laws, to engage in the very conduct which those laws criminalize, and they do so secretly and deceitfully, after signing the law and pretending that they are engaged in the democratic process. That is why the President has never bothered to veto a law -- why bother to veto laws when you have the power to violate them at will?

I have pointed out many times before that scandals which harm or bring down a presidency do not develop overnight. Americans have to really be persuaded that there is serious and deliberate wrongdoing in order to demand that meaningful action be taken. But that is clearly starting to happen, and the Globe and Charlie Savage should be congratulated for that rarest of acts -- journalists who are fulfilling their journalistic purpose by informing Americans as to what this government really is doing.

UPDATE: One of the principal tactics used over the last five years by Bush defenders to transform the president, our public servant, into some sort of monarchical figure is the endless, craven effort to refer to him as "The Comamnder-in-Chief," in order to implicitly bestow upon him an aura of elevated, militaristic glory which renders not only disrespect towards the President, but also mere criticism of him, somehow inappropriate, even unpatriotic. In that regard, it was extremely refreshing to see Stephen Colbert's stand-up routine last night (video here - transcript here) at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Pam Spaulding provides an excellent discussion of that event, as does Joe Gandelman.

As Pam notes, a commenter at the site of Jonah's mom, Lucianne Goldberg, said that "Steve Colbert was utterly disgusting. . . He was rude, snarky and unpatriotic toward the President and First Lady." One can be unpatriotic towards one's country, but not to the Leader, and certainly not by expresing criticism of the Leader, even to his face. The efforts to shield the President from criticisms of any sort has been one of the most significant factors enabling the lawbreaking pathology of this president, who clearly has come to see himself as a shielded king. The belief that an American citizen is unpatriotic by virtue of criticizing and opposing the president is one of the most pernicious ideas to take hold in some time. What Colbert did took real courage and - like Savage - he should be commended for reminding us of the kind of country we are supposed to have, and the kind of country we aren't supposed to have and, until this administration, never had.

Building the Secrecy Wall higher and higher

There are multiple investigative efforts underway -- Congressional, judicial, journalistic -- seeking to uncover the Bush administration's illegal warrantless eavesdropping activities aimed at Americans, and the administration, in order to keep its conduct concealed, has doggedly sought to impede each of these investigations. The administration's cover up of its behavior has become so severe that the usually meek Arlen Specter actually threatened this week to introduce legislation to cut off funding for the NSA program unless the administration ceased its stonewalling of the Judiciary Committee's investigation.

The latest such obstruction is the administration's invocation of what, prior to the Bush administration, was the rarely invoked "State Secrets Privilege" in order to demand that a federal judge dismiss the lawsuit brought by the libertarian privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T. That lawsuit alleges that AT&T secretly diverts electronic communications to the NSA in order to allow the NSA to monitor those communications without warrants, i.e., in violation of the law. From this morning's The New York Times:

The lawsuit, accusing the company of illegally collaborating with the National Security Agency in a vast surveillance program, was filed in February by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.

The class-action suit, which seeks an end to the collaboration it alleges, is based in part on the testimony of Mark Klein, a retired technician for the company who says Internet data passing through an AT&T switching center in San Francisco is being diverted to a secret room. There, Mr. Klein says, the security agency has installed powerful computers to eavesdrop without warrants on the digital data and forward the information to an undisclosed place.

The foundation has filed documents obtained by Mr. Klein that ostensibly show detailed technical information on N.S.A. technology used to divert Internet data. He has also said in a deposition that employees of the agency went to the switching center to oversee special projects.

The judicially created "State Secrets Privilege" was first recognized by the Supreme Court in United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953), a suit brought under the Tort Claims Act by the widows of 3 civilians who died when an Air Force plane crashed. The widows sought to obtain military reports regarding the crash in order to prove that the Air Force was negligent, but the Supreme Court upheld the Government's refusal to produce the documents on the ground that doing so would divulge military secrets and harm national security:

It may be possible to satisfy the court, from all the circumstances of the case, that there is a reasonable danger that compulsion of the evidence will expose military matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged. When this is the case, the occasion for the privilege is appropriate, and the court should not jeopardize the security which the privilege is meant to protect by insisting upon an examination of the evidence, even by the judge alone, in chambers.

As it turns out, those Air Force reports were finally released 47 years later -- in 2000 -- and they contained no military secrets at all, but were suffuse with information showing that there had been gross negligence with regard to the maintenance of the plane's engines, facts which would have likely been fatal to the Air Force's defense had it not been able to successfully conceal those documents by falsely claiming that national security would be harmed by disclosure:

But in early 2000, one of the daughters of the deceased crew members acquired newly declassified copies of the documents that the Air Force had withheld and was astonished to find nothing corresponding to what the Air Force affidavits had portrayed.

"Contrary to the statements in the Affidavits, on which the Supreme Court expressly relied, not one of the documents... contain any secret or privileged information," according to a new complaint, filed last October. "The documents consist, instead, of admissions of negligence on the part of the Air Force."

One of the odd - and dangerous - features of this privilege doctrine is that, in many cases, courts allow the Government to assert the privilege without even submitting the documents in question to a judge for the judge to review in secrecy, a process known as in camera review. That process is typically used to enable a judge to review documents over which there is a disputed privilege claim (such as attorney-client privilege) without the other side being able to see the documents before there is a ruling on whether the documents are really privileged. But unlike other privileges, once the Executive asserts the "State Secrets Privilege," courts frequently accept the government's claim without even reviewing the documents. As the Reynolds Court explained:

Regardless of how it is articulated, some like formula of compromise must be applied here. Judicial control over the evidence in a case cannot be abdicated to the [345 U.S. 1, 10] caprice of executive officers. Yet we will not go so far as to say that the court may automatically require a complete disclosure to the judge before the claim of privilege will be accepted in any case.

In other words, the doctrine is notable because the Executive Branch can decree that the documents should not be disclosed because disclosure will harm national security, and that decree is, in practice, often blindly accepted without anyone reviewing its truthfulness or propriety. For that exact reason, and quite unsurprisingly, the Bush administration loves this doctrine, as it is so consistent with its monarchical view of presidential infallibility, and the administration has become the most aggressive and enthusiastic user of this doctrine as a means of preventing disclosure of government documents:

"This comparison highlights the risk of permitting the executive branch to determine, without close judicial scrutiny, whether relevant government information may be withheld from discovery," according to D. Churchill and E. Goldenberg in a paper entitled "Who Will Guard the Guardians? Revisiting the State Secrets Privilege of United States v. Reynolds," published in Federal Contracts Report, vol. 80, no. 11, September 30, 2003. . . .

And "recent cases indicate that Bush administration lawyers are using the privilege with offhanded abandon," they write in a comprehensive study to be published this year in Political Science Quarterly.

Unsatisfied with the mere power to unilaterally block courts from obtaining relevant documents while he is in office, President Bush, while the rubble from the World Trade Center was still sitting in lower Manhattan and everyone was distracted by that, had the presence of mind to extend this power to assert the State Secrets Privilege to both his father and to himself for life and even thereafter:

In November 2001 President Bush issued executive order 13233 that would permit former presidents to independently assert the state secrets privilege to bar disclosure of records generated during their tenure.

More than that, the Bush order would make the state secrets privilege hereditary, like some divine right of kings, enabling the heirs of deceased presidents to assert the privilege after their death.

"This is a power heretofore unrecognized either in courts or politics," Weaver and Pallitto observe.

As the Chicago Tribune detailed last year, the administration has also used this doctrine repeatedly to obstruct any judicial proceedings designed to investigate its torture and rendition policies, among others:

The Bush administration is aggressively wielding a rarely used executive power known as the state-secrets privilege in an attempt to squash hard-hitting court challenges to its anti-terrorism campaign.

How the White House is using this privilege, not a law but a series of legal precedents built on national security, disturbs some civil libertarians and open-government advocates because of its sweeping power. Judges almost never challenge the government's assertion of the privilege, and it can be fatal to a plaintiff's case.

The government is invoking the privilege in an attempt to wipe out the heart of a lawsuit that seeks to examine rendition, the secretive and controversial practice of sending terrorism suspects to foreign countries where they might be tortured.

Use of the secrets privilege could also eliminate a suit by a former FBI contract linguist who charges that the bureau bungled translations of terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Bush administration is also using the secrets privilege to seek dismissal of a third case not related directly to terrorism. And the administration has invoked the privilege in less sweeping ways on several other occasions.

The use of state-secrets privilege, critics say, is part of President Bush's forceful expansion of presidential secrecy, including a more restrictive approach to releasing documents under the Freedom of Information Act; limitations on the dissemination of presidential papers; and curtailment of information on people rounded up in the war on terrorism.

And so it goes, over and over, with seemingly no end. This administration endlessly searches out obscure legal doctrines or new legal theories which have one purpose -- to eradicate limits on presidential power and to increase the President's ability to prevent disclosure of all but the most innocuous and meaningless information.

A chilling Washington Post op-ed this morning from former investigative journalist Mark Feldstein regarding the FBI's unprecedentedly aggressive attempt to use the Espionage Act of 1917 -- a law which, prior to this administration, was reserved for very narrowly defined cases of true espionage but which is now being converted into an all-purpose Official States Secret Act -- makes clear just how systematic is this effort to erect an impenetrable and unprecedented (at least for our country) wall of secrecy around this administration's conduct.

This administration has been caught in one abuse of power scandal after the next. A majority of Americans no longer trust the administration's honesty or competence. The absolute last thing that they ought to be doing is engaging in a full-fledged campaign to create unprecedented shields of secrecy around what they are doing, so that they can operate with more secrecy and less transparency than any government we have previously had. And yet that, of course, is just what they are doing.

When the NSA scandal began, the administration boastfully insisted that it had nothing to hide and welcomed as many investigations as could be brought, while their defenders claimed that such investigations would be wonderfully helpful to the President politically. Six months later, we still don't know who was eavesdropped on, whether those eavesdropped on had anything to do with terrorism, what was done with the information, and whether there are other warrantless eavesdropping programs besides the one the New York Times discovered. And the reason we don't know any of that is because the administration, consistent with their extremist love of government secrecy, has done everything possible to prevent the very investigations they claimed that they welcomed.

UPDATE: Christy at FDL has more on this case.

UPDATE II: This article in The Oregonian reports on what might turn out to be the most significant, currently pending challenge to the legality of the administration's warrantless eavesdropping program. The lawsuit was brought by various plaintiffs and their attorneys alleging that their conversations were illegally eavesdropped on by the administration as part of the NSA program (something they discovered when the administration accidentally and incompetently produced transcripts of the recorded conversations to the lawyers). The Govenrment requested permission to file their response to the lawsuit in secret -- without even the plaintiffs being able to see the response -- but the judge denied the request, concluding that the Government failed -- at least thus far -- to provide convincing rationale to justify that level of secrecy.

There are far too many of these investigative branches for the administration to permanently conceal their conduct in the NSA scandal. It is only a matter of time before it is exposed.

Addressing Byron York's confusion

(updated below)

When I was on Air America last night with the excellent interviewer Sam Seder, he asked me why I thought my book had gone to #1 on the Amazon Best Seller List and stayed there for what has become virtually the entire week (it first went there Monday night and hasn't moved) -- even though the marketing campaign for the book hasn't begun and it's not even released yet. I didn't have a good answer -- in fact, I really didn't have much of an answer at all, and so I just spat out a few cliches about its being a "testament to the power of the blogosphere," which, while true, is now clearly only part of the story (albeit a big part). I thought about it more afterwards and this morning and developed some thoughts about it, but I don't want this blog to become some annoying, neverending promotional venue for the book, so I decided not to blog about those ideas.

But this morning, Byron York published a rather odd (and strangely amusing) article in National Review Online about How Would a Patriot Act?, in which, with great bewilderment, York asked the same question -- why has the book gone to #1 and stayed there:

There's something interesting happening on the best-seller list these days. A new book, How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok, by the left-wing blogger (sic) Glenn Greenwald, is number one on Amazon.com's top sellers list. It has been there for several days after having shot from somewhere in the 50,000 range to number one earlier this week — all in less than 24 hours and without the benefit of any high-profile radio and television publicity campaign. And it hasn't even been released yet — the official publication date for How Would a Patriot Act? is May 15, 2006.

The promotional material for the book suggests that it is an indictment of George W. Bush of the sort that has become commonplace on the Left in the last
few years . . . Indeed, Greenwald's blog is filled with such stuff. Nevertheless, How Would a Patriot Act? appears to have become something of a (quiet) publishing phenomenon, outperforming — at least in the early stages — other, higher-profile anti-Bush books, not to mention all the other best-sellers on the list these days. Why? No one seems to know. "We're often caught by surprise by these," says Tom Nissley, senior books editor for Amazon.com.

Originally, I thought that one reason for the book's initial surge might be that many regular readers of this blog bought multiple copies of the book, due to a desire for the book to do well so that the administration's expressly claimed lawbreaking powers would finally be discussed in a clear and prominent way in our national political dialogue. But multiple-book purchases apparently isn't a factor:

Nissley says a book's Amazon ranking is based on "a running 24-hour total" computed by a complex algorithm that also factors in past sales. He says he does not believe it is possible to game the system to highlight a particular book. Specifically, he says that the Amazon system is designed to overlook bulk orders for books, in which a person might order, say, 1,000 copies of a single work. "We rank by orders, not by sales," Nissley says. "We only count orders — we count an order of 1,000 copies the same as an order of one."

And, while it is definitely true that the book was prominently talked about by many bloggers, including some of the blogosphere's largest and most influential, that would explain the initial ascent but not its stay at #1. And, as York notes, this is not the first book to be heavily promoted in the blogosphere:

In the case of How Would a Patriot Act?, sales appear to be the result of word-of-mouth in the blogosphere, although the book has soared higher than books written by other, more prominent, bloggers.

The day after the book rose in the Amazon rankings, I wrote a post explaining how that ascent reflected the very under-appreciated power of the blogosphere generally, and the liberal and/or anti-Bush component of the blogosphere in particular. The influence which the blogosphere has developed was clearly the prime and original cause of the book's surge, and that should be -- and, I am sure, will be -- noticed by all sorts of publishers and others.

But blogger promotion alone does not explain why the book went to #1 (as opposed to, say, #50), nor does it explain why it has stayed there. What I have come to believe is the book's principal appeal is its subject matter and its approach to that subject matter. Contrary to York's somewhat sloppy claim that the book "is an indictment of George W. Bush of the sort that has become commonplace on the Left in the last few years," the reason I wrote the book is precisely because the issues it discusses have been largely (and inexcusably) ignored in our national political discussions.

Over the last five years, our country has been gradually though incessantly changing in fundamental and radical ways. The things we see and hear our government doing are squarely at odds with how we perceive of ourselves as a nation and the values which Americans, by definition, universally embrace. We have watched while this administration imprisoned U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and claimed the right to keep them there indefinitely with no trial, no charges and no access to lawyers; routinely used torture as an interrogation tool; created secret gulags in former Soviet Eastern European prisons in order to detain people beyond the reach of the law or monitoring; and eavesdropped on American citizens, on U.S. soil, without warrants or oversight of any kind in patent violation of a 28-year-old law which makes warrantless eavesdropping on Americans a criminal offense.

Those scandals have received their fair share of attention, but this critical point has not: all of those scandals stem from the fact that we have a president who, expressly and out in the open, claims that he has the power to act in the broadly defined area of national security (which includes measures taken against American citizens on U.S. soil) without any "interference" from anyone -- including Congress, the courts, and even the law. In sum, we are radically changing our system of government, and, in the process, have transformed ourselves from a country that, for decades, was widely respected as a restrained and principled superpower into an amoral, highly militaristic and aggressive state which is widely feared and despised. As Digby, who has read the book, recently said when discussing its themes:

I'm not naive about American history. I know that the last two hundred plus years are rife with examples of our government failing to live up to its ideals. But for many of us who have grown up in the post World War II world of American dominance, watching our country casually discard its hard-won moral authority in favor of a childish insistence on "might makes right" is beyond disturbing. It hurts.

I genuinely believe there is a hunger to talk about what is happening to our country and why it is happening. The media is capable, at best, of talking about scandals and issues in day-to-day isolation. The fact that this administration has expressly embraced theories of presidential power which are entirely unprecedented and plainly alien to our most basic political values and traditions is something of unparalleled significance and yet also something that we have barely discussed as a country. I think Americans know there is something deeply amiss and are receptive to attempts to talk about what that is.

Moreover, the conditions are ideal to have a real discussion about the abuses and excesses of this administration. One thing which administration supporters such as York have failed to sufficiently appreciate is just how many people who previously supported this administration have now turned on it and have irrevocably abandoned it. The president's approval rating didn't plummet from 60% to 33% because "liberals" changed their minds. That has happened because people who were open to standing behind the president -- and who, for several years, did support him and his policies -- have changed their minds about his competence, his likability, his trustworthiness, and the overall wisdom of his world-view. That is an extraordinary shift. The group of people who believe that the Bush presidency is a failure extends far beyond "the Left" and includes virtually every group on every point on the political spectrum.

George Bush isn't just an unpopular president. He is close to reaching historic levels of disapproval. Richard Nixon's approval rating at the time he resigned his office after two years of the Watergate scandal was 25% -- only 8 points below the lowly level to which Bush has tumbled. As is clear, the vast majority of Americans believe that the Bush presidency has taken us down a very ill-advised and destructive path and attempts to explore how and why that happened -- and what can be done about it -- are naturally going to find a receptive audience.

York's main source of bewilderment seems to be that this book is simply a garden-variety "left-wing" attack on Bush -- hence, I'm a "left-wing blogger," the book contains arguments that have "become commonplace on the Left," and - as York said in a Corner item today -- the book (which he hasn't read) contains "little more than the standard anti-Bush boilerplate." For years, that's been the standard dismissive tactic for any criticisms waged against the "Commander-in-Chief" -- that such criticisms, by definition, are merely the by-product of left-wing hatred of the President and can therefore be ignored.

That tactic simply isn't working any more and that, more than anything else, is why people like York are so confused about what's going on. As indicated, most of the people who have turned against Bush - and the war in Iraq - are not "on the Left." It no longer works to equate anti-war opposition or anti-Bush sentiments with radical left-wing derangement because most Americans now share those sentiments.

More to the point, people know intuitively that objecting to the specific extremist policies of this administration is not a by-product of a liberal or conservative political ideology. The book's subtitle refers to a defense of "American values" because the principles which it defends and which this administration has been eroding and assaulting -- the rule of law, the guarantee of due process for Americans, the need for checks and balances, prohibitions on the use of torture and other lawless tactics which are the hallmarks of the lowest authoritarian regimes -- are not a function of liberal or conservative ideological beliefs. They have nothing to do with partisan allegiance. Instead, these values comprise the core, defining principles of who we are as a nation and the ideals that have guided us for 220 years.

The values under attack by this administration are the values which Americans believe in almost by definition. Defending them and opposing the attacks on them has nothing to do with liberalism and everything to do with an impassioned belief in the principles which have made our country strong and free and great since its founding. Again from Digby:

This is an issue with which every American, regardless of party, should be concerned. The founders knew that relying on the good will of men in power is stupid and we are seeing their predictions come true before our very eyes. The modern Republican leadership may currently have a monopoly on authoritarian impulses, but they are by no means the only people in this country who could be seduced by this Republican notion of executive authority.

The constitution is what protects all Americans from the dark side of human nature when it has power over others, regardless of party or political philosophy. Those of us who worry about this usurpation of the constitution and degradation of the Bill of Rights know that this is not a passing fashion that will easily be tucked back into its former shape. Once you allow powerful men to seize power it's awfully hard to persuade their successors to give it back.

The sources on which I rely in my book are primarily news accounts demonstrating what the administration has done and the theories it has embraced, along with the words of the founders regarding what our country was supposed to be and what it was designed to prevent. But to the extent the book relies upon contemporary political sources to make its arguments, those sources are Bob Barr, Bruce Fein, George Will, Antonin Scalia and others like them -- all of whom have eloquently argued that the administration's conduct is contrary to the most basic American values and poses a direct threat to the fundamental liberties which our constitutional republic was created to preserve. Attempts to dismiss these critiques away as "left-wing boilerplate" is as false as they will be ineffective.

Since I started this blog, I have said over and over and over that Americans may not pay close attention to political developments on a daily basis, but we all have instilled within us the belief that our country is great because of these core political values and principles of government that were created at its founding. And when those values are threatened with sufficient gravity, Americans will notice and will take a stand in defense of them.

That is why I wrote the book, and although this book would never have received the attention it has received without the energetic promotion from liberal bloggers, I believe it is having resonance because it condemns the extremist and un-American conduct of the Bush administration based on facts that have been virtually ignored by an attention-deficit media. It also resonates, I believe, because the book's objections to the administration's conduct transcend partisan allegiance and the liberal/conservative dichotomy, and are grounded purely in the values and political traditions that have long defined what America is.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum thinks he has a clever answer for York:

This is what passes for a mystery these days? On Tuesday, big liberal blogs started pushing their readers to pre-order Greenwald's book on Amazon, with the specific goal of driving up its Amazon ranking. And it worked. Mystery solved.

I will be the first to acknowledge - and, actually, was the first to acknowledge - that the discussion of the book by liberal blogs caused its initial surge. But -- as York pointed out -- in the last several months alone, bloggers with a much larger daily readership than my blog has have published books, accompanied by an equally large, if not larger, blog push for those books -- including books by Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt, National Review's Kate O'Beirne and Ramesh Ponnuru. None of that resulted in this level of ordering activity. Blogosphere promotion will definitely boost a book's sales, but there is obviously something else going on here.

I don't want to be in the weird position of arguing that there is something unique about my book that accounts for its initial success rather than just blogospheric promotion, but I also don't want what I think is the substantive significance of the the book's initial appeal to be obscured by incomplete explanations.

I really believe that its significance lays in the fact that the extremist and dangerous theories of lawlessness expressly adopted by the administration have received virtually no attention, and the fact that our national character and fundamental values are being radically changed -- through fear-mongering, exploitation of the terrorist threat, efforts to quash dissent, and plainly lawless and un-American policies -- is a discussion people want to have. And, the way in which that discussion has been conducted here over the past few months is, I believe, also a factor in why the book is being ordered.

There are also, I'm sure, more pedestrian factors influencing the ordering (the price, its paperback format, the connection of the book's themes to today's headlines). But trying to explain away the entire event by simply noting that the book was heavily promoted by blogs, aside from being illogical, also insults the intellegence of the people ordering the book. Lots of things are heavily promoted which people don't want. The reason I wrote the book is because I believe these issues are uniquely important and yet are not being discussed anywhere; that's the same reason I believe the book is finding an audience.

Using generalizations to describe political groups

Whenever I write a post about the tactics and behaviors of Bush defenders, some pro-Bush bloggers invariably write responses accusing me of unfairly generalizing, trafficking in stereotypes and prejudices, and exhibiting anti-Bush fanticism. There were a few such accusations yesterday in response to my post describing how the pro-Bush bloggers' mindless embrace of the erroneous Matt Drudge item illustrates their practice of choosing which "facts" to believe based upon which ones bolster their desired beliefs.

First, some credit where it's due. In response to the tidal wave of data and arguments conclusively demonstrating how wrong Drudge was (and, therefore, how wrong those were who rushed to embrace his assertions), Roger L. Simon -- who led the pro-Bush blogger embrace of Drudge -- posted a very straightforward, undiluted, and commendable apology and retraction: "I will do the right thing . . . and apologize to Markos Zuniga (sic) for my snotty comments about his book sales." Simon explained why his comments were made without reliable information. Everyone -- especially bloggers who post every day, in good moods and bad, with no editors -- is going to make mistakes in fact and judgment sometimes. What matters isn't if someone errs but how they respond when they do. I have nothing but good things to say about Simon's apology.

Similarly, Instapundit, who originally linked to the Drudge item while expressing some mild doubt about its accuracy, last night repudiated the Drudge claim rather aggressively: "Drudge should know better than to report a decently selling book as stalled. As it stands, he’s misreporting the situation." At least with regard to the deceitful Drudge claims which had been spreading like wildfire, it's hard to ask for more than that.

Finally, Captain Ed wrote an unusually gracious post the other day congratulating me for the book and John Aravosis for the cell phone privacy legislation which Aravosis' blog reporting engendered, concluding: "Both men show that the blogosphere's influence and power continue to increase and therefore make the market better for all of us. Congratulations on your successes." Ed would likely disagree with most of my book and most of Aravosis' postings but found the common ground -- that bloggers with vasty different views still have a common interest: namely, establishing the credibility and influence of the blogosphere and defending it against both rhetorical and regulatory assaults. It's commendable for someone to be that gracious with people with whom they disagree politically with regard to just about everything.

I say all of that not in order to create a moment of blogospheric peace and harmony, but instead, to lay the foundation for what I want to say about the use of generalizations when discussing political movements.

It is impossible to avoid generalizations when discussing political groups and the rhetoric and tactics those groups use. Everyone who talks about political conflicts by necessity resorts to generalizations at some point. We organize ourselves, sometimes loosely and other times formally, by groups -- Democrats/Republicans, conservatives/liberals, Right/Left, Bush supporters/opponents, war supporters/opponents, etc. Those group adopt tactics collectively, take on general behavioral attributes, are motivated by common objectives or needs, and come to be governed by distinct and dominant group forces.

It is critical and unavoidable to talk about, and defend or criticize, the behavior and attributes of these groups as groups. These political groupings win or lose, persuade or alienate, create or destroy, all as a result of the tactics and attributes which come to predominate and define what the group is. If we avoided talking about groups as groups -- which necessarily includes all sorts of generalizations -- it would mean that we would avoid talking about some of the most significant influences on political events. It's impossible and completely undesirable to avoid the use of generalizations when talking about political matters.

As necessary as they are, generalizations are fraught with risks and dangers. In any group of any size, the generalized statements which accurately describe the group's behavior will be inapplicable to various individuals who compose the group. That's just the nature of generalizations, and while that means one should exert caution when using generalizations, it does not mean that they ought to be avoided. They shouldn't be and can't be.

When I talk about Bush defenders and Bush followers and the Bush movement, I am referring to the tactics and behaviors exhibited by those who lead that movement and to those who most prominently, influentially and loyally defend it. As is true with all generalizations, none of it is absolute. Some Bush defenders deviate now and then from those strategies. Some of the individuals who lead or defend the movement may be uncomfortable with some of the defining rhetorical tactics and even repudiate them. But none of that undermines the validity and accuracy of the generalizations, which, by definition, describe what a group does generally, not every moment, in every instance, without exception.

Individuals themselves are complex and can act with conflicting motives. The most vicious and amoral tyrant can engage in a periodic act of kindness and generosity. Highly dishonest people can have moments of unusual candor, while the most magnanimous and selfless person can engage in isolated acts of cruelty and deceit. But most individuals, like most groups, end up with attributes which predominate, and it is entirely legitimate -- and necessary -- to talk about those attributes even if there are deviations and exceptions.

Many of the criticisms made against Bush followers are not unique to them. Individuals on the Left, in the center and everywhere else can also be vulnerable to group think, the selective disregarding of facts which conflict with their beliefs, and the temptations to abuse power. That ought to go without saying. But the combination of factors and circumstances which have defined the Bush presidency -- an extreme event (the 9/11 attacks), extreme imbalance in our government (accounted for by pro-Bush domination of all three branches of government), and extremists at the highest levels of the executive branch -- have made the Bush movement uniquely radical and extreme.

The idea that one can't talk about those things because some people who support George Bush may be nice, good, honest people -- or because some Bush supporters are complex people with mixed motives that aren't susceptible to generalized descriptions -- is just absurd. The Bush movement is identifiable by overriding attributes, tactics and behaviors which have had an extraordinary impact in fundamentally changing our country. Of course that movement is going to be talked about as a movement, and it ought to be.

What determines the accuracy of these observations isn't whether they exist on the level of generality but whether they are supported by documentation, evidence, credible sources, etc. Those who make generalizations about groups based on nothing but emotion and prejudice are acting irresponsibly, but those who describe group behavior supported with data and documentation are engaged in necessary and valuable analysis.

Our country is not governed by the Left or by liberals at the moment, and hasn't been for some time. Almost every government institution -- including the entire Executive Branch, both houses of Congress, and large swaths of the federal judiciary, particularly at the highest levels -- is dominated almost entirely by individuals who are loyal to the Bush presidency, its worldview, and the defining and predominant items on its agenda. The "Left," or any other group, controls virtually nothing. Our country is governed with virtually no opposition by the Bush movement and its defenders, and as a result, the corruption, dishonesty and abuses of power which one finds among them are the ones which, in my view, are the ones most worth talking about and battling against.

I read numerous pro-Bush blogs and other sources on a regular basis -- The Corner, Powerline, Michelle Malkin, Instapundit, Weekly Standard, the New York Sun, and scores of others, big and small. When someone blogs every day, they necessarily reveal far more about themselves than is usually revealed by people you don't actually know. Reading someone's blog on a daily basis is almost like sitting with them at the breakfast table every day -- with them in a whole array of moods -- while they sit and read the newspaper and talk aloud in an unmediated, unedited way about their views on pretty much everything. If you have that level of raw exposure to someone's thought processes, you come to learn how they think and reason, what their level of intellectual honesty is, and what motivates them.

Much of what I have come to believe about how Bush defenders think, how they behave, what motivates them, what tactics they use, is based upon the insight one develops as a result of having that level of exposure to their thought processes. With almost everyone opining so regularly and continuously on the Internet, how Bush defenders think and what they believe is all right there to look at -- it's all out in the open -- and, as a result, it can be amply documented. Almost every post I write about Bush defenders is usually stuffed full of links to pro-Bush bloggers or other Bush-defending advocates because I try to ensure that any such generalizations are supported by ample documentation and are accompanied by abundant (and meaningful) examples (i.e., from influential and representative Bush followers rather than obscure and unrepresentative ones). That is what I think distinguishes responsible generalizations from irresponsible ones.

The Bush movement generates such intense responses on both sides precisely because it is unusual, extreme, and radical. Those who defend it think that its radical departures are justifiable and beneficial and those who oppose it think they are destructive and amoral, but most people work with the premise that this administration has forged its own new path.

For that reason, it is to be expected that the Bush movement is discussed as an entity unto itself. Arguments of that nature are not inherently invalid because they are comprised of generalizations. To say "oh, he's talking in generalizations" is not an indictment of someone's argument. Whether the arguments are valid is simply determined by whether there is rational and evidentiary support for those generalizations. When I describe the behavior of Bush defenders, I never simply assert the description but always provide what I believe is ample support for it. One can dispute the persuasiveness of the claims or the support, but one cannot, in my view, claim that those descriptions are somehow inherently invalid because they are made in the form of generalizations.

Various matters

(updated below - updated again)

Here are a few short items which I will likely add to a little bit later today:

(1) I'm going to be on Air America's Majority Report tonight at 8:35 pm. You can find your local AAR station here or listen to the live audio feed here.

(2) As is their practice, Amazon has unilaterally reduced the price for How Would a Patriot Act? by 40%. The book continues to occupy the #1 position on the Amazon Top Sellers List. The tour, interviews, appearances, etc. are being planned now and will be scheduled around the date of the book's release (May 15). I will post those here as they are confirmed.

(3) This is what Michelle Malkin said about Ramesh Ponnuru's new Ben Domenech-edited book Party of Death:

Party of Death is the most important book of the year, if not the decade. Ramesh Ponnuru, one of the nation’s most penetrating and lucid young conservative thinkers, makes a thorough, reasoned case for respecting life. The good news is that the death cult of Planned Parenthood, Howard Dean, and the New York Times is on the way to ultimate defeat.--Michelle Malkin

What is "ultimate defeat"? Isn't death ultimate defeat? Why does everything which Michelle Malkin says always have such deranged and angry undercurrents, and isn't it particularly ironic to wish "ultimate defeat" on people while praising a book supposedly devoted to the decrying of death values?

(4) In other Corner news, Kathryn Jean Lopez finally comes clean and admits: "I credit Lucianne Goldberg with getting him the job" -- only she wasn't talking about all of Jonah's employers, but instead about Tony Snow's hiring as Press Secretary.

(5) Speaking of Michelle Malkin and the Corner, Michelle is (as always) enraged; today it's about some vandalism at UNC-Chapel Hill's ROTC armory, reflected by this picture which she posts:

Although Michelle blames left-wing anti-war protestors for the vandalism, couldn't that message have been expressed just as easily - and just as accurately - by people like Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney, John Hinderaker, Michael Ledeen, or Jonah Goldberg?

(6) The news from Iraq today:

A sister of Iraq’s new Sunni Arab vice president was killed Thursday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated insurgency to be crushed by force.

In southern Iraq, a bomb hit an Italian military convoy, killing four soldiers — three Italians and a Romanian — and seriously injuring another passenger, officials in Rome said. The bomb struck the convoy near an Italian military base in Nasiriyah, a heavily Shiite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, said local Iraqi government spokesman Haidr Radhi.

Elsewhere, a U.S. jet fired two missiles at insurgent positions in Ramadi, U.S. officers said. Fighting also broke out northeast of Baghdad between Iraqi forces and insurgents.

Just the sheer quantity of killing on a daily basis makes it morally reprehensible for politically motivated individuals to minimize the violence and to suggest that it's really just all overblown.

(7) Arlen Specter today threatened to introduce legislation to cut off funding for the illegal NSA program if the White House does not cease stonewalling the investigation he is trying to conduct:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday he is considering legislation to cut off funding for the Bush administration's secret domestic wiretapping program until he gets satisfactory answers about it from theWhite House.

"Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress at the moment," Specter, R-Pa., told the panel. "If we are to maintain our institutional prerogative, that may be the only way we can do it." Specter said he had informed President Bush about his intention and that he has attracted several potential co-sponsors. He said he's become increasingly frustrated in trying to elicit information about the program from senior White House officials at several public hearings.

According to a copy of the amendment obtained by The Associated Press, it would enact a "prohibition on use of funds for domestic electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes unless Congress is kept fully and currently informed."

Specter also agreed with Democrats who say that any of the bills to tighten guidelines for National Security Agency program and increase congressional oversight could be flatly ignored by an administration with a long history of acting alone in security matters.

"It is true that we have no assurance that the president would follow any statute that we enact," Specter said. He said he's considering adding an amendment to stop funding of the program to an Iraq war- hurricane relief bill being debated by the Senate this week and next.

I can't count how many times I have criticized Specter for exhibiting pretenses of independence and dignity only to back down and obediently fall into line behind the White House. It's his defining charateristic. And the realization that the President preserves the right to break the law and that the White House is "walking all over Congress" is a few years late.

But still, it is encouraging to hear a Republican Senator in his position (Judicary Committee Chair) clearly state that the President believes he can break the law and threaten to cut off funds unless the White House cooperates with the Senate's investigation into the NSA scandal (h/t John Stephenson of Stop the ACLU, who says about Specter and others who think that the President shouldn't break the law: "If we are attacked again, and it could have been prevented by this program, you know who to point the finger at").

Stephenson, like so many Bush defenders, apparently thinks that the United States is so weak that we can only defend ourselves by allowing the President to break the law when he wants to. Ronald Reagan managed to comply with FISA while waging war against the Soviet Empire, but George Bush can't defend the country against some jihadists unless he eavesdrops on us without warrants.

(8) A video featuring Al Qaeda leader/Iraq branch Abu Musab al-Zarqawi surfaced the other day, and a U.S. military official is saying that it's "an act of desperation . . . that is indeed Zarqawi in his final hours." The official said: "He knows the people of Iraq are on the verge of foming a national unity government and democracy equals failure for Zarqawi. So he's pulling out all stops."

It's so interesting how this works. Whenever we don't hear from Al Qaeda leaders for awhile, it means that we're winning, because their absence that shows how they have to hide in caves and are probably really hurt or even dead. But then when we do hear from them, that also shows we're winning, because it shows that they're desperate and they know they're in their final hours.

It's the same formula that's used to assess increases and decreases in insurgent violence in Iraq. When the violence decreases for awhile, it means that we're winning because the insurgency is dying. When it increases, that means we're winning because it shows how desperate they're getting; they know they're dying and increased outbursts of violence are their last chance.

That's so lucky for us. Every event -- even opposite ones -- means we're winning. How come, then, we don't seem to be any closer to leaving, or achieving anything that would have made the incalculably costly invasion even remotely worth the costs?

Anatomy of the "thought" process of Bush defenders

(updated below with Glenn Reynolds & Hugh Hewitt book figures - updated again)

As much as anything else, Bush defenders are characterized by an increasingly absolutist refusal to recognize any facts which conflict with their political desires, and conversely, by a borderline-religious embrace of any assertions which bolster those desires. It's a world-view which conflates desire with reality, disregards all facts and evidence that conflict with the decreed beliefs, and faithfully embraces any assertions and fantasies, no matter how baseless and flagrantly false, provided that they bolster the mythology.

Thus, things are going really great in Iraq - just as we predicted they would. When we invaded, Saddam had WMD's and he was funding Al Qaeda. Oil revenues will pay for the whole thing, we will be welcomed as liberators, the whole war will be won quickly and easily. A large military presence is unnecessary because there is no insurgency. Bush is a popular and beloved President. All but a handful of radical fringe subversives in America support the war and believe terrorism is the overarching problem. Americans want to militarily confront Iran, want illegal warrantless eavesdropping, and are happy with how the country is being governed.

It never matters how much evidence arises demonstrating the falsity of these beliefs. They are not susceptible to challenge or reconsideration because they are the by-product of faith and desire and not a critical or rational assessment. They believe these things because they want to believe them, they have to believe them, because the whole world-view on which their identity and purpose has come to be based -- the brave, heroic President leading the great conservative nation in glorious, epic war-triumph over the evil Muslim enemy -- depends upon believing these myths. No facts can shake these beliefs because they aren't grounded in facts and aren't the by-product of rationality.

Yesterday, a relatively unimportant -- though particularly stark and instructive -- example arose which, to me, vividly illustrates how this fantasy-based "thought" process works. It began when Matt Drudge, probably the single least credible and most demonstrably dishonest source for information on the planet, wrote an undocumented, typically error-filled item claiming that the new book by Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong, Crashing the Gate (which Drudge referred to as "DAILY KOS"), was a huge flop because, according to Drudge, the book "has sold only 3,630 copies since its release last month." Drudge claims that his source was "Nielsen's Bookscan," whose "figures do (sic) include online sales from AMAZON.COM, and others." Since Nielsen's Bookscan does not include online sales, I assume Drudge meant to say "do not include online sales."

There are so many data holes and misleading omissions in this item that it is literally and wholly useless in determining whether the book is a success. I want to emphasize that what matters here is not whether the book really is a success (I have no idea if it is or isn't), but how the baseless Drudge assertion became gospel fact among Bush followers, a distorted and corrupt process which generally governs how they come to think about the world with regard to virtually every issue.

The uselessness of the Drudge item is self-evident. The most glaring and gaping hole is that the figures do not include online sales. Markos and Jerome are known almost exclusively for their work online. People who know them -- and who would therefore buy their book -- are almost certainly people who spend a lot of time online, and who therefore likely buy their books online. Given that their most noteworthy accomplishments are as bloggers, I would guess that the vast, vast bulk of people who buy Markos and Jerome's book order it online, not in brick-and-mortar bookstores. To try to analyze the success of their book by excluding online sales is blatantly and staggeringly dumb. It would be like trying to determine the success of the next Ann Coulter book by only looking at sales in Berkeley and Madison, Wisconsin.

Beyond that towering omission, one would need to know an array of facts that the Drudge item ignores in order to even make an educated guess about whether the book is a success. How many books were purchased during the lengthy pre-ordering process, when Kos readers were encouraged to order? What is the budget for the book, and how many units were expected to be purchased by now? And how does it compare to other comparable political books -- such as those recently published by Hugh Hewitt and Glenn Reynolds? Drudge (as well as Hewitt and Reynolds) are, revealingly, deafeningly silent about those comparisons.

In short, based upon the very partial slice of data Drudge provided (assuming it's even accurate), there is simply no way to know -- or even rationally speculate about -- whether the book is doing well or not. The item does not provide any rational person with the ability to make that assessment. And, as Markos pointed out, there is plenty of data Drudge left out which suggests the opposite conclusion.

Despite all of that, Drudge's baseless and deceitful proclamation -- that Crashing the Gate is a flop -- was immediately and mindlessly ingested as unchallengable fact by those whose mental processes are centrally guided by fantasy and desire, and it will forever remain as unshakable, conventional wisdom among them that the book failed, no matter how many facts in the future undermine their faith that it's true. Believing this provides emotional satisfaction for them, confirms the myths to which they desperately cling (Bush is popular, liberals are hated), and they therefore adopt it is a belief even though it does not correspond to reality. That really is a snapshot of what one, without hyperbole, could describe as the psychological imbalance that has driven the policies and actions of our government for several years.

The Drudge claim spread like wildfire among Bush followers yesteday. The delusional anchor was Roger L. Simon, who dribbled out some observations about what he called the "pathetic sales figures" for CTG, linking only to Drudge's inane item. Simon also asserted, literally without a single citation to anything, that the book by Glenn Reynolds -- whom Simon reverently describes as having "remarkable respect in the blogosphere for his integrity and intelligence" -- "is selling much better." He says this even though the only publicly available data that relates to that comparative assessment -- the Amazon rankings -- shows that CTG is at #33 (#24 yesterday), while Reynolds' book is at #1,006 (#1,157 yesterday). What rational person could possibly claim that Reynolds' book "is selling much better" than CTG?

These twin items by Drudge and Simon -- equally baseless, fact-free and misleading on their face -- were mindlessly recited as fact by countless Bush followers all day yesterday. The always fact-free Powerline John dutifully recited the claim that CTG "has sold an astonishingly low 3,630 copies," and even repeats Simon's fantasy-driven fiction "that Glenn Reynolds' book is selling well." Right Wing News drools: "it's really nice to see Kos's book nosedive into the pavement." The Bush zombie at BlogsFor Bush echoes the script: "I've stopped laughing long enough" to note that "there is no mention of the pathetic book sales of Kos's book on the site's front page." And PunditGuy, after celebrating the "failure" of CTG, says this:

Kos claims that Drudge’s numbers aren’t on the up and up. What-ev-eh.

Doesn't that pretty much capture the whole sickness? "There are facts that suggest that what I am saying is not actually true. What is my response do that? 'What-ev-eh.'" As in: "Some people claim there are facts that show that things in Iraq are not going really great. Something about civil war, sectarian hatred, anarchy, widespread violence, a total lack of security. What-ev-eh."

Don't they have somewhere lurking in their brain any critical faculties at all? For the sake of one's own integrity and reputation if nothing else, who would read an undocumented assertion on Drudge -- no matter how much of an emotional need they feel for it to be true -- and then run around reflexively reciting it as truth, writing whole posts celebrating it and analyzing it, without bothering to spend a second of time or a molecule of mental energy trying to figure out if it's really true?

This intellectually corrupt syndrome goes back a long way and has been festering for a long time. Nuggets of deceitful, fact-free fantasy get planted in some cesspool like Drudge and then mindless followers who want to believe it start repeating it as fact, and then it gets ossified forever as conventional wisdom and can never be dislodged from their minds. That's how Al Gore came to "claim that he invented the Internet," how Howard Dean became a far left radical pacifist, how Jessica Lynch had a heroic shoot-out with Al Qaeda and was then rescued by gun-blazing Marines, how Moveon.org produced commercials saying that Bush was Hitler, how Saddam funded Al Qaeda and personally participated in the planning of 9/11. It's even how the lesbian, Hillary, killed Vince Foster in order to ensure that their affair (or whitewater crimes or drug-running landing strip) would be kept quiet and, to this day, it's how Bill Clinton was a wildly unpopular president.

Soon after 9/11, the Bush movement became driven by much more than a set of political beliefs. It provides its adherents with much more than just a vehicle for political activism. It gives them purpose and a feeling of strength and power that they otherwise lack. In that sense, it is not dissimilar to a religion, and it is therefore unsurprising -- but nontheless ugly and destructive -- that their beliefs and convictions are not grounded in facts and reality but in a resolute faith that cannot be shaken by facts. Every event is interpreted so as to bolster the faith, facts are disregarded which undermine the faith and fact-free assertions are embraced which confirm the faith.

The way in which it became an instantaneous certainty that CTG is a failure (and Glenn Reynolds's book is a grand success) -- a "fact" that will endure in those circles forever, literally -- reflects a process that repeats itself over and over, with a whole range of issues. That is the process that led us into Iraq and not only kept us there, but ensured that we remained immoveably wedded to policies which were so plainly producing nothing but horrendous failure. Being able to pick and choose what facts you want to believe based upon which ones feel good or vindicate your desires can be emotionally satisfying, but there is no more destructive and dangerous mental approach than this for determing how the world's sole superpower will be governed.

UPDATE: Like Drudge, Patrick at Making Light has access to the Bookscan sales data. Unlike Drudge, Patrick not only published the sales figures for Crashing the Gate but also for Glenn Reynolds' book Army of Davids:

As of this morning, for Reynolds’ An Army of Davids (February 2006), Bookscan reports 1716 retail sales and 2609 “discount” sales, for a total of 4325.

As of this morning, for Armstrong and Kos’s Crashing the Gate (March 2006), Bookscan reports 2598 retail sales and 1804 “discount” sales, for a total of 4402.

In other words, despite the fact that it’s been available for four fewer weeks, Kos and Armstrong’s book has now clocked Bookscan sales in excess of Reynolds’. Notably, several hundred more full-price sales. This is leaving aside the fact that Kos and Armstrong’s book is currently at #40 on Amazon, whereas Reynolds’ is at #801.

So not only is CTG outselling Reynolds' book -- by far -- on Amazon (as well as on B&N), it has also sold more copies according to Bookscan -- Drudge's chosen source -- even though Reynolds' book was released before CTG. Patrick clearly understands the publishing world and his whole post is worth reading.

All of the available evidence shows that CTG is selling better then Reynolds' book, and yet, in the mind of the Bush follower, Reynolds' book is a grand success while CTG is an embarrassing failure. What else can that be called other than delusional?

UPDATE II: According to a source I cannot reveal but whose credibility is sky-high with me, these are the Bookscan figures for Hugh Hewitt's Painting the Map Red:

1712 - retail
931 - discount
2643 - total

How come Roger Simon, Powerline and Drudge aren't talking about what grotesque flops the books are by Reynolds and Hewitt? At least according to the Bookscan data they were venerating yesterday, those books make Crashing the Gate look like The DaVinci Code.

UPDATE III: In this post, I identifed multiple reasons why no rational person could form a conclusion about the success of CTG based on the information provided by Drudge, one of which -- and only one of which -- was that the Bookscan data does not include online sales from Amazon. Thereafter, I listed the specific sales figures showing that contrary to the central point made by the likes of Roger Simon and Powerline yesterday, Crashing the Gate, by every available measure, is significantly out-selling Glenn Reynolds' book (not to mention Hugh Hewitt's book, which is lagging even further behind).

According to Pat at Brainster's Blog, who also left comments here to the same effect, the sales data from Bookscan does include Amazon sales, and Pat posted a chart sent by Bookscan. In the posts I linked to above, both Markos and Patrick at Making Light said Bookscan does not include Amazon sales, a point Patrick bolstered here. That the Bookscan data really does include all or most of the Amazon sales is something I highly doubt, and whether it does is not indicated by the chart or by Pat's claims about the statements from Bookscan.

Nonetheless, if Bookscan includes all or most of the online sales from Amazon - and that is far from proven - that would mean that that specific criticism of Drudge's statement was in error. All the others are accurate, and more importantly, the central claim made by Bush followers -- that CTG is a failure and that Reynolds' book is doing much better -- is demonstrably false. If Pat were really as interested in securing apologies for misleading statements, there would be several e-mails from Pat in the in-boxes of Roger Simon, Powerline John and Drudge -- all of whom made patently false statements yesterday -- demanding such apologies. Why is it that I know that there aren't any such emails?

The power of the blogosphere

(updated below)

In just one day, before it has been released, and with literally nothing more in the way of marketing and publicity than a handful of bloggers discussing it and a very committed and passionate blog readership here, How Would a Patriot Act? went to #1 on the Amazon Top Sellers List last night, and it sits there currently. Both thank you and congratulations are in order for everyone who helped make that happen, especially the regular readers of this blog and the other bloggers who have supported both this blog and the book, and I want to make a few observations about why I think this is so potentially significant:

(1) This book is a pure blogosphere book. The book's ideas and arguments were developed almost exclusively as a result of writing this blog. The research was done primarily by blog readers who worked with me on the book, and I discovered many of the arguments and much of the evidence that comprise the book as a result of reading comments here as well as the posts of other bloggers.

The publisher, Working Assets, approached me about writing the book as a result of their reading this blog. They were willing to commit to the book, first and foremost, because they were committed to publicizing the ideas and arguments in it. But the fact that the liberal blogosphere along with more independent and centrist bloggers would likely discuss and support the book enabled them to feel comfortable that the book -- just from blogs alone -- had a viable marketing base. They were obviously right about that.

There have been a few other recent blog-based books, including Markos and Jerome's highly successful Crashing the Gate, Get This Party Started by Chris Bowers, and Tom Tomorrow's recently released Hell in a Handbasket. Publishing books by bloggers, the ideas for which largely emerge from the blogosphere, is clearly a model that works and will only grow.

(2) That matters not simply because bloggers are new faces, but because so many of the ideas, so much of the analysis, and the underlying approach to political change which characterize the blogosphere is just different in nature than most everything else that comprises the standard national media discussions of the political issues facing our country. That isn't to say that the blogosphere is perfect (it definitely is not) or that it doesn't have disadvantages as compared to the national media (it does). But very generally speaking, the blogosphere is a fundamentally different way of talking about, thinking about, and being engaged in political matters, and all of that means that the content it produces, the ideas it generates, are substantively different than what gets produced elsewhere.

Whole books could be (and, I believe, have been) written on how and why the blogosphere is different. The collaborative nature of it is definitely one of the principal factors -- unlike some paid media pundit who talks only to a handful of like-minded and similarly situated pundits and others in the isolated elite political class, the blogosphere is nothing more than the aggregate by-product of mass, undiluted conversations taking place among thousands of highly motivated, engaged and well-informed citizens every day.

But beyond being just collaborative, the blogosphere is characterized by an independence and autonomy which is glaringly absent in the conventional national media venues. As Jane Hamsher eloquently observed the other day, there has to be some significant motivation for someone to go to their computer every day and do the work to maintain a blog, just as something has to motivate people to spend time at their computers every day reading and participating in intense, detailed political discussions.

Bloggers, their readers and commenters are mostly just citizens who are highly dissatisfied with the conventional media outlets and dominant political institutions, all of which have failed in so many ways. What is most significant about the blogosphere, in my view, is that it enables direct and immediate communication -- and coordination -- among huge numbers of dissatisfied citizens who want to force new ideas and arguments into what was previously a closed and highly controlled media and political dialogue. And, gradually and incrementally, it's working. I think we are at the very beginning of that process and the impact on our country's political processes will only grow, vastly.

Reading other blogs is what made me become much more attentive to the political crises we face, and is what then motivated me to start this blog. That happens over and over again, to thousands and thousand of people. That is just inevitably going to have a significant impact.

Given how broken and rotted our media and government institutions are (with some noble exceptions), fundamentally new ideas and different voices, no matter their imperfections, can only be an improvement. Our media and government are, on the whole, staid, depleted, corrupted, broken down china shops that could use some good, irreverent, aggressive bulls running through them.

(3) Specifically with regard to How Would a Patriot Act?, I can't think of anything that would be more gratifying and, in my view, more beneficial for our country than for the issues it raises to enter the public discourse, and I know that most everyone who reads this blog shares that view.

Whatever else one might want to say about this administration, it is simply indisputable that the theories of executive power it has adopted are radical, extremist and extraordinary; the policies adopted pursuant to those theories -- including the efforts to intimidate the media, stifle dissent, and prevent disclosure of its conduct -- are wholly alien to our most basic political values and traditions; and the entire approach to governing the country is unlike anything we have seen for a very long time, if ever.

Regardless of whether one thinks those theories and policies are justifiable, there is simply no question that allowing them to fester and become legitimized and institutionalized -- and we are well on our way to that destination -- will change our country in fundamental and likely irreversible ways. The changes will be not just to our laws and system of government but to our national character.

The absolute worst and most inexcusable thing is for that to happen without Americans even having a debate about those issues, really without even being aware that these things are occurring. But outside of the blogosphere, we haven't had that discussion -- at all -- because the media, for multiple reasons, just doesn't report it, pundits don't discuss it, very few people with any real public voice outside of the blogosphere have explained and opined about the fact that all of these scandals stem from a common source: the President's expressly stated belief that he has the power to act without restraints and outside of the law, literally.

I believe that so many people ordered the book yesterday, including many who ordered multiple copies, because there are huge numbers of Americans who want to find ways to force these self-evidently critical issues into the public discourse and will enthusiastically support any effective project designed to do that. I know it sounds borderline trite and naive, but I really do believe that Americans are not going to just sit idly by and let the government continue to assault our political values and radically undermine the political system that has made our country great, strong and free for more than two centuries.

Americans are instilled from an early age with a commitment to our political values and liberties, even if it buried by other distractions and life concerns, but that deeply felt commitment has been triggered and galvanized to great effect many times before in our history, and can be again. If the media fails to perform its central function to serve as a watchdog over the government and to ensure that citizens are informed about what the government is really doing -- and it has been failing in that function, dreadfully -- citizens who are committed to defending the principles of our country will find other ways -- will create other ways -- for that to happen.

That is what I think largely fuels the blogosphere, and I think it's also what explains why there is such impassioned and truly awe-inspiring support for things like How Would a Patriot Act? There are many, many people who see that this administration has created a genuine and profound crisis for our country; that the safeguards which are supposed to exist against those abuses have been co-opted, eroded away, and are largely useless; and that it is therefore incumbent upon them to take matters into their own hands and find and create ways to force these facts into the light.

UPDATE: In a post about the unique virtues of the blogosphere, I would be remiss, as several commenters pointed out, if I did not mention the truly pernicious threats to the neutrality and independence of the blogosphere posed by various proposed regulations which would vest telecommunications companies with greater power to control access to Internet sites. Matt Stoller has been leading the effort to ward off these threats, and Digby adds some insights regarding the havoc which some of these proposals would wreak on the blogosphere.

The need for a political soul

(updated below)

Brad Friedman of BradBlog informally interviewed Russ Feingold several days ago at a dinner at which Feingold spoke, and Freidman recounted Feingold's answers on various topics of interest. The most revealing was Feingold's answer as to why he did not consult with the Democratic Senate caucas before announcing his intention to introduce his Censure Resolution:

First, he made clear that, contrary to the general impression out there, there is no rule or requirement for a Senator to confer with anybody before proposing something on the floor of the Senate. Thus, he simply proposed the Censure Resolution having decided that "it was the right thing to do."

That decision came, he said, after the end of the year. He had been encouraged by the tough stance the Democrats had taken concerning renewal of the Patriot Act before the session ended, but found that during the break their resolve seemed to have disappeared and they returned to their "foxholes"."Foxholes?" I interrupted..."Yes, I said, foxholes," he answered back quickly, with a clear inference that he had chosen the words quite deliberately.

Once he'd felt the Dems had again lost their resolve to fight, and once the information concerning the warrantless NSA spying had come to light, he'd decided the right thing to do was to simply take action. And he did."Yes," I followed up, "and don't get me wrong, I strongly support your effort there, but might you have gotten more support from your Democratic colleagues had you consulted with them first before announcing the Resolution publicly?"

He explained that had he done that, the matter would have then been vetted by "Democratic consultants" who would have decided to kill the idea entirely before it could even be proposed on the floor. "Our party," he said, "is too beholden to Democratic consultants."

Initially, it should be noted that I have been waiting for some time to hear Feingold explain: (a) whether he did provide any advance warning to other Senators before announcing his Censure Resolution and (b) if not, as seemed to be the case, what the reasons were for not doing so. This is the first time I have seen anyone ask him this. That the truly probing questions are being asked by bloggers rather than by national journalists is becoming increasingly commonplace.

As for Feingold's explanation, it is easy to see exatly what he is describing. Democratic consultants attacked and tried to kill his resolution even after it was announced and had been widely publicized. Is there any doubt at all that had he consulted in advance with Democrats, all that he would have confronted would be efforts to dissuade him from doing anything?

As Crashing the Gate chronicles, and as Feingold implied, the Democratic Party has all but turned itself over to highly risk-adverse, overly calculating political consultants who have drained the party of ideals, passion, energy and life. Almost all of them inspire nobody, because they so transparently lack any governing principles or passion about anything. They embrace only those ideas which are guaranteed in advance to be popular, and they run from ideas they believe in and that are right whenever they are told -- by the bookish, soul-less consultants who dominate them -- that those ideas are risky or unpopular. And everyone sees this and knows this.

Say what you will about the Bush movement, but it is difficult to accuse it of lacking passion and conviction. Indeed, the deep emotional fulfillment it provides to its adherents is one of its greatest strengths. Democrats never throw caution to the wind or take a real stand -- one that might be unpopular or risky -- for anything, including their core convictions, to the extent such a thing exists any more. The Swift Boat attacks in the 2004 election were so effective mostly because they provoked no reaction from Kerry -- no fury, no aggression, no unrestrained human conviction. When a response finally did come, it was pre-scripted, contrived and transparently empty, and that became the hallmark of the campaign.

Feingold's Censure Resolution had such resonance because it was something which came -- finally -- from conviction, from principle, from a political soul. Here is how Feingold described it, as summarized by Friedman:

Whether supported or passed or not, Feingold said, it's important for the history books. When people look back to see what happened here, and wonder if anybody stood up for our Constitution in the face of unprecedented disregard for it, via the illegal practice of spying without a warrant on American citizens on U.S. soil, it'll be right there that at least he and about five others in the Senate had the courage to stand up and say, "No, this is wrong."

Jane Hamsher wrote yesterday about an American Prospect article by John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira on closing the "identity gap" for Democrats, and as Jane argued, the central problem for the Democrats is not that independent and swing voters think that Democrats stand for nothing, but that core Democrats like Jane think that, too.

The desire, by itself, to put a stop to an administration that is plainly out of control will carry a political party only so far. At the moment, this Presidency is collapsing so fast and furiously that it is probably unnecessary, from a strategic perspective, for Democrats to articulate some overarching "vision." And even if they wanted to, their long-standing stagnation and belief in nothing would render them unable to formulate such a vision by November. Political principles aren't just cooked up overnight by some consultants, which is the point.

But what is critically important is that Democrats stand for something. It almost matters less what that "something" is than that they demonstrate they are capable of taking a stand even in the face of whiny, fearful warnings from their consultants. The Censure Resolution is still pending. The administration's blatant lawlessness -- exacerbated greatly by their recently intensified efforts to quash dissent, intimidate investigative journalists, and prevent disclosure of their wrongdoing -- is a serious threat to our country, and it is very difficult to see what possible justification exists for having Democrats continue to stand by, quiet and invisible, while all of this unfolds. More than anything else, that's what Democrats have become -- quiet and invisible.

UPDATE: The conservative group, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances -- along with the libertarian group Liberty Coalition and the ACLU -- is sponsoring a press briefing tomorrow demanding that Congress take seriously the president's lawbreaking as part of the NSA scandal. According to the e-mail I received:

Is the NSA Spying Program Constitutional?

The National Security Agency’s program of warrantless wiretapping deserves a full and thorough inquiry by Congress. Please join the Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances and the Liberty Coalition in a conversation about the warrantless NSA spying program as well as current legislative proposals.

The speakers include:

Bob Barr
Former Republican Member of Congress Chairman of Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances

Bruce Fein
Constitutional Scholar- Former Associate Deputy Attorney General for President Reagan

Michael Ostrolenk
Co-Founder/National Director of the Liberty Coalition

Lisa Graves
ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel for Legislative Strategy
Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy under Attorneys General Ashcroft and Reno

When: Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Where: Rayburn 2226
Time: 2:15-3:15pm

If you have any questions please call Tsoghig Marieann Hekimian at 202-675-2337

As the President's approval ratings plummet towards truly embarrassing depths, and as the scandals mount, the administration is experiencing difficulty in sweeping the NSA scandal under the rug. Many predicted it would all be wrapped up and disposed of long ago. The fact that opposition continues to come from ideologically diverse groups reflects that what is at stake are not any ideological precepts or partisan interests, but the most basic American principles of government.

How Would a Patriot Act? -- the release

(updated below - and again)

The release date for my book -- How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok -- is still a little more than two weeks away (May 15), but the book is now available for pre-ordering on Amazon. Robust pre-orders can apparently be quite critical in generating attention and visibility for the book. For that reason, we are beginning this week to encourage anyone who intends to buy the book to pre-order as many copies as you intend to obtain from Amazon.

I am genuinely very happy with the content of the book. Writing a book is a much more collaborative process (in both the good and bad senses) than I had realized -- there are disputes with the editor, conflicts with the publisher, and all sorts of struggles to figure out whose input should be listened to and whose should be disregarded. But ultimately, both the creative editing and the line editing processes made the book much more compelling and much better-written than it would have been without all of that.

John Dean -- who made a point of refusing to say anything about the book until he had read the manuscript in its entirety -- provided this blurb:

Glenn Greenwald has assembled a devastating bill of particulars against the Bush and Cheney administration's insistence on operating outside the rule of law. He has gathered solid information and marshaled a litany of abuses of power that make Richard Nixon's imperial presidency look timid. All thinking Americans must answer How Would A Patriot Act? this coming election, and those who ignore what Greenwald has to say act at our collective peril.

- John W. Dean
Former Nixon White House Counsel and
author of Conservatives Without Conscience

There are many other recommendations like that for the book -- including from Arianna Huffington, Joe Wilson, Simon Rosenberg, Markos Moulitsas, Atrios, and many others.

What I hope will be the book's principal impact is to cast a very bright light on the fact that all of these Bush administration scandals which are always discussed in isolation -- lawless detentions, secret prisons, the use of torture, illegal eavesdropping, etc. -- are merely symptoms of a profound political crisis which our country faces, brought about by the fact that this administration has adopted radical theories of power whereby the President literally and expressly claims the right to act without restraint, including those imposed by law. The powers seized by this president are exactly those powers about which the founders most urgently and explicitly warned, and which they sought, first and foremost, to prevent.

A substantial portion of the book is devoted to highlighting the ways in which the administration has used rank fear-mongering and an endless exploitation of the terrorist threat to attempt to obscure and justify these abuses. Those manipulative tactics have not only enabled them to embrace these most un-American powers right out in the open, but they are also threatening to alter, perhaps irreversibly, our national character.

Perhaps most importantly, the book documents the fact that even when all other intended checks on government excesses fail -- when the media, the Congress and the courts are co-opted or are otherwise neutralized -- Americans always have the ability, inherent in our system of government, to put a stop to abuses and excesses, provided they choose to exercise that power. But to do so, it is necessary that it first be understood just how radical and dangerous our government has become under this administration, and making the case that we have arrived at exactly that point is the primary purpose of the book.

Because the book does not have behind it the huge publicity-generating machines used by corporate publishers, we are relying on more creative ways to generate attention for the book. One of the book's most potent assets is that there are so many people, including regular readers of this blog and other blogs, passionately committed to its ideas and objectives.

When I asked several months ago if anyone would be interested in volunteering to help with research for the book, the response was really overwhelming -- I received hundreds of e-mails offering to help from physicians, lawyers, graduate school professors, teachers, military professionals, police officers, retired people, students and scores of others. Unbeknownst to the media and (seemingly) to the Democratic Party, this administration has created an urgent desire to take a stand in a huge number of people who have not been previously inclined towards political activism. But there are very few vehicles which provide an outlet for that energy.

A blog reader/marketing expert has volunteered to develop and coordinate blog-based efforts to create attention for the book, and if you are interested in helping with that -- and the more, the better -- please e-mail me and I will forward the e-mail to the publisher and to the blog reader. If you have marketing expertise or knowledge and want to help with that, please also e-mail me.

Many books which are independently published find large audiences, even making it onto national best-seller lists, as a result of individuals who publicize the book on their own -- by recommending it on their individual e-mail lists, online groups, etc. Those efforts can be more potent than the conventional publishing world publicity campaigns, so efforts of that sort are definitely encouraged.

Writing posts of this type -- about the blog, about projects like this -- are always the most difficult for me. Marketing and publicity campaigns are not my passion, to put it mildly, and having to promote one's own work can be particularly unpleasant and uncomfortable. But finding ways to put a stop to this administration and its truly threatening excesses has become my passion, along with many other people, and engaging in efforts to ensure that the book finds as large an audience as possible is as important in achieving that goal as was writing the book itself.

I have said many times here -- long before the idea for this book even existed -- that the only thing which I believe can truly derail the administration and preserve the core political values on which our country was founded is for Americans to be informed about what this administration is really doing. I believe that if they realize just how extremist and undemocratic the administration has become, they will not tolerate it. I think anyone who participates in the blogosphere believes that, too, since that is ultimately the defining attribute of blogs -- the belief that citizens can change the lowly state of our political system by circumventing the media and governmental institutions and communicating directly to other people.

Demonstrating to Americans how radical and lawless this administration has become is not difficult -- the undisputed facts make the case by themselves. But the national media barely discusses these issues at all, let alone highlights them. For that reason, I've been arguing that there is no more important objective than persuading Americans of the profound crisis our country faces as a result of this administration's radical theories of its own power. That is the objective that motivated this book, but that can happen only if the book finds as large of an audience as possible beyond the blog world.

UPDATE: Regarding the motivations for undertaking the extensive work involved with daily blogging, pursuing projects like this book, etc., Jane Hamsher last night -- in a very impassioned post regarding the always-staggering fact that the United States government under this administration has systematically and deliberately tortured people -- perfectly described the dynamic that motivates people to act:

I don’t know many in the liberal blogosphere whose advertising revenues generated in the free market (as opposed to the wingnut welfare system) even pay for the maintenance of their sites, and those very few whose sites cover their costs could inarguably be making much more money doing something else.

But there is something so deeply wrong and at such dissonance between the country we grew up to believe in and what this government is now engaged in that its unspoken presence informs every post, every word, even the decision to get up every morning and turn on the computer. To sit back and do nothing while this happens is unthinkable for anyone who genuinely believes in this country and the principles upon which it was founded.

Most of the people from whom I received e-mails offering to help with the book, and most people from whom I receive e-mails about this blog generally, are not partisan or intensely political people. Quite the contrary; most of them have been relatively apolitical or non-ideological for a long time, and have become galvanized only by the purely genuine and deeply felt horror over what our country is becoming under the lawless and morally limitless movement that has governed our country for the last five years. Those reactions are driven by pure passion and they provide ample motivation to act.

UPDATE II: Just from today alone, the book has moved up to #40 on Amazon's best seller list -- annoyingly enough, right below Fox News' Andrew Napolitano's book "The Constitution in Exile," but (at least) right above "Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss". It is the top-selling not-yet-released book on the list. The list of books #26-50 are here. My book may move from that page if it moves up or down; its current number is always reflected on the book page itself, which is here. (UPDATE: It is now at #30 #24 #16 #12 #5 #3). The list of # 1-25 is here.

That is exactly the kind of push that can create a lot of opportunities for visibility for this book -- so thank you to those who ordered it, and for those who are considering doing so, your pre-ordering it can really help maximize the impact which this book can have on our ongoing political debates.

UPDATE III: The inimitable Digby, who read the manuscript for the book shortly before it was finalized, has written a review of the book, which -- as one would expect -- is a review highly worth reading on its own.

Administration accusations are not the same as guilt

If one circumstance could be identified as the most destructive for our country right now, it might be that so many people have purposely ignored this most basic and fundamental principle: just because the Bush administration accuses someone of being guilty of something does not mean that they are actually guilty.

After witnessing a weekend in which countless Bush followers fitted Mary McCarthy for her noose, it turns out, according to Newsweek, that she vehemently denies the charges, and not even the administration claims that she was the principal source for Dana Priest's story about the administration's secret Eastern European torture gulags:

A former CIA officer who was sacked last week after allegedly confessing to leaking secrets has denied she was the source of a controversial Washington Post story about alleged CIA secret detention operations in Eastern Europe, a friend of the operative told NEWSWEEK.

The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, “categorically denies being the source of the leak,” one of McCarthy’s friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy. . . .

A counter-terrorism official acknowledged to NEWSWEEK today that in firing McCarthy, the CIA was not necessarily accusing her of being the principal, original, or sole leaker of any particular story. Intelligence officials privately acknowledge that key news stories about secret agency prison and “rendition” operations have been based, at least in part, upon information available from unclassified sources.

While acknowledging that information about the CIA operations was indeed available from unclassified sources, intelligence officials maintain that revelations like those made in the Post story about Eastern Europe could not have been put together without input from people who had access to classified information. These informants could confirm the stories and add detail to them.

But the fact that McCarthy evidently is denying leaking the CIA prison story to the Post—and that other key information for stories revealing CIA detention and rendition operations originated with unclassified sources—does raise questions about how far the Bush administration will be able to press its crackdown on suspected leakers.

Priest's original story itself made clear said that her reporting was based upon "current and former U.S. intelligence officials and foreign sources."

In response to several posts over the weekend I wrote regarding the administration's complete denial of due process, its use of torture, its detention of individuals in secret gulags, etc., virtually every Bush defender here said -- as they always do -- that none of this matters because it's only being done to enemy combatants and guilty terrorists, who have no rights. What they actually mean is that it's being done only to people who the Bush administration claims are enemy combatants and terrorists, but to them, that's the same thing. Once George Bush decrees someone's guilt, it is final, and they are stripped of any and every right -- whether a U.S. citizen or foreign national, whether on U.S. soil or abroad. That is the country we have become.

If you say to a Bush follower - "we shouldn't be imprisoning people without trials and charges" or "we shouldn't be torturing people in secret gulags" or "the government shouldn't be eavesdropping on people without warrants" -- their answer will always be the same: these are very bad people to whom these things are being done -- they are "enemy combatants" -- and so none of it matters. In their mind, an accusation from the administration is tantamount to proof of guilt, a claim from George Bush of someone's status as a Terrorist equal to a conviction in a court of law. We place blind faith in our government and need no safeguards because what the Leader says is true and what he does is right. The minute he labels someone an "enemy combatant" -- without any review of any kind -- that person relinquishes all legal rights and anything is fair game.

Not only was Mary McCarthy branded a traitor all weekend -- complete with angry protests that she was not yet imprisoned -- but anyone associated with her was all but branded a traitor as well. They don't need to wait for evidence or know any facts. The administration has branded her An Enemy, so now it's time for the punishment. That is just a microcosm of the same distorted, indescribably undemocratic and plainly un-American dynamic that hss guided most of the radical policies of this administration for the last five years.

UPDATE: C&L has more on this story, including the way in which McCarthy's guilt and those of her associates was casually tossed about on television this wekeend.

A political movement built on rage

The most striking and disturbing aspect of the reaction by Bush followers to the Mary McCarthy story is that it reveals, yet again, how much intense anger, hatred, and an insatiable desire for destruction lies at the heart of this movement. So many of them - including many of their most prominent spokesmen and pundits - desperately seek out, and usually find, new enemies on an almost daily basis who are decreed to be deserving of scorn, hatred, imprisonment or worse. They routinely advocate new policies and government action devoted towards the destruction of their political opponents on the ground that the targeted individuals are not just political opponents, but enemies of the United States.

More often than not, the chosen new enemies are not terrorists or foreign threats, but Americans who are perceived to have politically damaged the Commander-in-Chief in some way -- which makes them traitorous and worthy of punishment with no limits. They casually toss around charges of treason at anyone who acts against The President, knowing exactly what the punishment for treason is. Enraged demands for the arrest and imprisonment of their political enemies are a staple of their political dialogue, and there is no measure which can be undertaken by the government in the name of attacking and punishing The Enemies - both foreign and domestic - which are too extreme for them. If anything, their criticisms of the administration are typically confined to charges that its attacks on The Enemies are not aggressive or extreme enough.

This weekend, not only Mary McCarthy -- but anyone connected to her -- happened to be the ones subjected to this deranged lynch mob rage, but almost anyone who has done anything to politically embarrass the President has triggered the same emotional tidal waves. If you can stomach it, listen to the permanently enraged warrior Mark Levin explain in National Review how John Kerry's comments this weekend in defense of McCarthy show that he is on the side of Al Qaeda, and -- unlike the brave Levin -- that Kerry is "unfit for command":

Once again John Kerry sides with the enemy. Did I say enemy? Yes. Anyone, like Mary McCarthy, who uses her public trust to undermine the war on terrorism is the enemy. The Washington Post can wrap itself and its source in civil liberties, but the public rightly won't buy it. These prisons in Europe reportedly exist to interrogate and house al Qaeda terrorists. While people may disagree over the war in Iraq, almost nobody disagrees that al-Qaeda must be destroyed. . . . Kerry has demonstrated, once again, why he’s unfit for command.

Meanwhile, Levin's colleague, Andrew McCarthy, who knows nothing about what McCarthy actually did or whether it caused the slightest national security harm (as opposed to political harm to the President), is outraged that she's not in prison:

There are countless questions that arise out of the CIA's dismissal of a prominent intelligence officer, Mary O. McCarthy (no relation), for leaking classified information to the media. But one in particular springs to mind right now: Why isn't she in handcuffs?

McCarthy is also furious that Sandy Berger is not in prison:

Sandy Berger, the former national-security adviser who filched classified information from the national archives and then lied about it to investigators was, appallingly, given the sweetheart deal of the century: a guilty plea to a mere misdemeanor, no jail time, and even the prospect of getting his security clearance back after three years.

And this morning, McCarthy emphasized -- just as he did on Saturday -- that Mary McCarthy's criminal conduct seems to have been aided and abetted by significant portions of the Democratic Party.

Like most Bush followers, leaks are only infuriating to McCarthy when done by Democrats or when they result in political harm to the President. Leaks committed by Bush allies or with the intent to promote the President's political agenda prompt nothing but silence from him, and sometimes even a defense of the leakers, as Andy McCarthy offered for the Franklin/AIPAC leakers. That is because they see even the most extreme and illegal actions by the Bush administration as tantamount to America's interests, such that anyone who opposes those actions is, by definition, acting treasonously, impeding the War on Terror, and deserving of punishment. Those who act in support of those actions -- with leaks, illegality or anything else -- are motivated by the right intentions and their conduct should therefore be overlooked, or defended.

All of this causes Kathryn Jean Lopez to point to McCarthy's article and giddily and cutely observe, as though she were talking about some nighttime soap opera: "Andy looks for handcuffs." Calling for the arrest of their domestic political opponents on grounds of treason is so routine for Bush followers that there is nothing extraordinary to them when they do it. And they don't just routinely call for imprisonment of people who politically harm the President, but they do so with palpable glee; they revel in it.

Here is Powerline on the reporters who broke the NSA story: "Throw 'em in the slammer." Townhall columnist Ben Shapiro: Howard Dean, John Kerry and Al Gore all belong in prison for "sedition." Powerline: Jimmy Carter is "on the other side." Karl Rove says Dick Durbin is on the side of terrorists. Michael Reagan thinks Howard Dean should be hanged. Charles Johnson of LGF said this weekend: the media is helping Iran get the bomb by weakening our country (by reporting on what is going on in Iraq), and are therefore "becoming a major liability in the clash of civilizations," a post which led his readers, needless to say, to spew sentiments about McCarthy and the media such as this:

Law-and order, red-state, non-nuanced, thinking Americans would expect the law to be enforced, the sentence to reflect the treasonous actions of the convicted, and the execution to be public.

The daily rage from Michelle Malkin is almost too deranged, ugly and intense even to chronicle, and the fact that her recent posting of the telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of college student military protestors prompted a slew of extremely disturbed death threats from her readers should surprise exactly nobody. Those sentiments are pervasive and are always lurking near the surface among many Bush followers, which is why calls for imprisonment and execution have become a routine part of their political dialogue. If a political movement is based upon the routine labelling of one's political opponents as traitors and deserving of imprisonment and even death, this is the natural by-product of what is being sown.

And it just goes on and on like this. And the more pronounced their political failures become, the more their frustration and feelings of impotence grow, and the more frequent these sorts of rage-fueled, intensely hateful outbursts become. The fact that their bile seems to be getting progressively more intense and unburdened by limits raises a couple of important points:

(1) When the administration assures everyone that its most extreme and illegal measures -- warrantless eavesdropping, secret torture gulags, lawless detentions, etc. -- are being applied only to the enemies of the U.S. -- i.e., only to al Qaeda and its allies -- isn't there a fairly significant danger that they are using, or will use, the sweeping, broad definitions which are now routinely used for these terms by Bush followers, a definition that encompass not only actual allies of Al Qaeda but those domestic political opponents deemed to give aid and comfort to Al Qaeda by virtue of their political views, to the point of deserving prison?

All of this accumulated rhetoric has to have an effect. The excesses and extremist conduct in which our government now engages has become so commonplace as to be mind-numbing. We detain U.S. citizens and stick them in military prisons with no trial, charges or even access to lawyers. We use torture as an interrogation tool. We use secret, off-the-book Soviet-era gulags that are beyond the reach of the law. We send people to the most repugnant governments to be tortured. And the President has expressly embraced the theory that he has the power to break the law.

There certainly appears to be no limits on what Bush followers will endorse in the name of fighting The Enemies, domestic ones included, sometimes most prominently. And what is so significant about this is that the institutions which previously existed as a safeguard against arbitrary punishment and abuse of power -- things like due process guarantees, Congressional oversight, an adversarial media, whistleblowers -- have all been steadily eroded. The administration has seized the power to arrest people without charges, hold them in secret prisons, use torture to interrogate them, etc. That is all out in the open and prompts defenses of these practices from its followers. That makes the attempt to equate political opposition with criminality and even treason -- one of the most common tactics of the administration and its followers -- all the more dangerous.

(2) How will all of this bubbling rage and hatred and desire to punish political opponents manifest in the event of another terrorist attack? If the foundation is laid now for equating political opposition with treason, and if a single terrorist attack has already led to the panoply of extremist policies (including, likely, some which have not yet been revealed), just fathom what sorts of measures will be considered and advocated in the event of another attack, particularly one with a greater impact than the 9/11 attack.

The people who roll around in this sort of hateful bile on a daily basis, and who endorse truly limitless presidential power, will be in the position to make decisions as to what our country does, what internal and external measures we adopt, what new theories of presidential power we embrace in order to more effectively fight against Our Enemies. That is why it is so pernicious to allow this type of rhetoric to take root and to leave it unchallenged, as well as to permit these radical theories of power to become legitimized -- not so much because of what they have already led to (although that is certainly disturbing enough), but because of what they can lead to, quite realistically, in the near-term future.

With all of the "crimes against America" that they single out, what is always missing is any identification of any actual harm to our national security. What is harmed by these crimes is always the political popularity of the President. But to them, that is the same thing. A weak George Bush means a weak America, so anyone who harms George Bush is harming America and hurting our efforts to fight The Terrorists.

During their glory years of 2002 and 2003, Bush followers became convinced that they were part of a movement that was going to lead America to renewed and profound glory under the heroic leadership of George W. Bush. They become so personally invested in the triumph of that dream. It gave them a feeling of strength and purpose. And now it has all crumbled. It's all been exposed as a sham and fraud. The President is one of the most unpopular and failed presidents we have had in some time, and their views have been rejected, discredited, and are increasingly reviled. And they are extremely angry about this and want vengeance on those they perceive as responsible.

The ever dwindling group of Bush followers has become a highly emotional group, having far more to do with psychological and emotional needs than political beliefs. Anger, hatred, rage and a desire for punishment are what fuels them, and they recognize no limits on what ought to be done to satisfy those cravings.

UPDATE: Digby posted yesterday on the fact that Bush followers are "agitating to criminalize dissent" and compiled additional examples and documentation. As I have pointed out before, there is conventional wisdom that a weakened and unpopular president becames less powerful and less able to pursue extremist policies, but I actually think that in the case of this president, the more weakened and unpopular he becomes, the more desperate he will be to lash out -- in bitterness, with a desire for retribution, and to display strength.

Purging CIA leakers, prosecuting whistle-blowers, imprisoning journalists who publish politically embarrassing revelations -- we are seeing only the incipient symptoms of those efforts.

Treason by association

Almost every Bush follower screeching about the Mary McCarthy story thinks it is extremely significant that (a) she donated money to John Kerry's campaign; (b) Dana Priest's husband knows Joe Wilson, as does McCarthy herself; and (c) McCarthy has professional ties to Sandy Berger. While many of them are content to insinuate darkly about the nefarious Plot against America which has likely been revealed by exposure of this web, others are more bold, explicitly speculating that this is but the tip of an iceberg of a traitorous conspiracy.

But if one's political and professional connections to a leaker cast aspersions on the person's integrity and patriotism, there are plenty of aspersions to be cast. Larry Franklin, for instance, is a former Department of Defense official who -- unlike McCarthy -- has actually been convicted of the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, to which he had access as a result of his Pentagon job, and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Franklin was a top aide to Douglas Feith, the No. 3 official in Bush Defense Department, and had long-standing and very close ties to Paul Wolfowitz, deputy to Don Rumsfeld. He did not merely pass classified information to the American media, but to AIPAC, a group with close ties to a foreign government. Franklin has all kinds of friends in the pro-Bush media who defended him and insisted that he could not possibly be guilty, and had close ties to the highest and most powerful Bush officials.

Recently, close Bush ally, Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, was found by investigators to have leaked highly sensitive, classified information to Fox News' Carl Cameron and CNN's Dana Bash while Shelby served on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- an unauthorized and serious leak which, for some odd reason, the Bush Justice Department refused to prosecute. No Bush followers, at least that I know of, objected to the decision to allow Sen. Shelby to leak with impunity.

Equally close Bush ally, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, leaked some of the most classified information our government had in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks:

A senior senator's disclosure of highly classified information about the U.S. terrorism investigation has infuriated Bush administration officials and led to a clampdown on how much the White House will share with lawmakers.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters hours after terrorists crashed hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that U.S. intelligence had intercepted a telephone call from a suspect reporting to his handler that the targets in New York City and near Washington had been hit.

"They have an intercept of some information that includes people associated with[Osama] bin Laden who acknowledged a couple of targets were hit," Hatch told The Associated Press. He made similar comments to ABC News and said the information had come from officials at the CIA and FBI.

Electronic intercepts represent some of the most sensitive intelligence possessed by the government. U.S. officials rarely discuss their content because to do so would reveal to adversaries, including foreign governments, that American intelligence had penetrated their sensitive communications.

Hatch's disclosure, with the possibility it would tip off terrorists that their communications had been compromised, left senior officials of the administration dumbfounded and angry.

For some weird reason, the Justice Department did not prosecute Hatch's leak either, and Bush followers did not express any objections to that decision.

And, as I detailed yesterday, there is a slew of leaks of classified information from the Bush White House -- not decisions by the President to declassify information and then release it to the public, but anonymous pro-Bush disclosures by executive branch officials of information which is still classified, and which is released selectively and for plainly political ends. Leaking classified information is one of the principal tactics of the Bush White House and -- as demonstrated -- its closets political allies. Thus, if we are going to embrace a framework where not only the leaker but the leaker's political comrades and professional associates are considered suspect, there aren't many people in the Bush-loving world who will be free of suspicion.

UPDATE: Mark Coffey of Decision 08 says that he is opposed to Howard Dean's plan to inspect all of the cargo that enters the United States. Why are so many Bush supporters against programs to prevent Al Qaeda from shipping bombs and other dangerous materials into our country? In a Time of War, they want to leave our ports unprotected and help Al Qaeda smuggle bombs -- perhaps even dirty bombs -- into the U.S. They have a lot to answer for with their actions that impede the War on Terror.

Eliminating all checks against lawbreaking

Deliberately obscured in the furor over the CIA's firing of Mary McCarthy is that she was fired for disclosing conduct on the part of our government which is plainly illegal, highly disturbing, and further reflective of the lowly and authoritarian levels to which the U.S. has descended under the Bush administration. What the story by Dana Priest revealed is that our government maintains secret prisons beyond the reach of the law, inspections by human rights organizations, and the knowledge of Congress or any other oversight body. Anyone who is kept in them is, by definition, disappeared and almost certainly tortured. How could it be anything but legitimate to reveal that our government is engaged in this behavior?

As Priest's original article reported:

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe . . . .

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long. . . .

Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. . . .

It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.

Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning. . . .

Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

Who could possibly argue that if the U.S. is going to become a country which disappears people -- based purely on suspected guilt -- into secret gulags and torture chambers, indefinitely, beyond the reach of the law or any oversight, that we should not at least have a democratic debate about whether we really want to become that kind of a country? The Congress passed a law overwhelmingly at the end of 2005 banning all forms of torture -- a law which was enacted only in response to unauthorized leaks which revealed the scope, frequency and magnitude of our torture practices. Just fathom all of the secret, illegal policies which would be ongoing and unknown had leakers not existed.

That is what the Bush administration is so angry about -- that leaks of this sort constitute the last remaining check on their power to act without constraints of any kind, including those imposed by law, and it is why they are waging war on it. This is nothing more than the latest effort to vest in the Bush administration the power to act without legal or moral limits of any kind, in total secrecy, in violation of laws and treaties, and in contravention of the values and mores that have long defined who we are as a nation.

That is why the CIA Director installed by the White House does not have as his top priority combating terrorism or finding Osama bin Laden, but instead, is focused first and foremost on stopping leaks. They are the one thing left that provides any meaningful check on this government.

Always missing from any of the outrage over these great breaches of our national security is any specific explanation as to how national security has been harmed. When the CIA attempted to dissuade the Post from publishing the story, the rationale they invoked was not that the disclosure would harm national security -- how could it? -- but that the disclosure would subject them to political embarrassment and force them to operate within the law:

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad. . . .

Note as well how vigilant Priest was to keep concealed all information which might actually harm national security:

The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.

Just as they did with the NSA eavesdropping program -- where the Times, after a year-long delay, disclosed only the existence of the program but not its operational details -- the media goes out of its way to avoid disclosure of any operational details or other information would could result in national security harm. They disclose only the minimum information necessary to inform Americans of the highly controversial and likely illegal behavior on the part of our government. And yet Bush followers still swarm with demands that those responsible for these disclosures be imprisoned.

Holding people in secret, unknown prisons with no legal recourse or monitoring of any kind is what the most evil totalitarian regimes do. That is not something, historically at least, which the United States does. But if it is going to be something we do, then we should at least have a debate about that. But that is exactly what the Bush administration and its followers want to eliminate -- debate, oversight over their actions, limitations of any kind. They want to be able not only to disappear people, torture people, eavesdrop on us illegally, and break every law and treaty they can find -- but they want to be able to do it all in secret, without it being known that they are doing it.

That is why they are spending so more time and energy fortifying the wall of secrecy around what they are doing -- waging war on every last check and restraint on their conduct. They believe that they ought to have the power to operate in total secrecy and without any restraints, and it is not hyperbole to say that leaks of this sort are one of the very last things that stand in their way.

Selectively punishing politically damaging leaks

The CIA's firing of the official who allegedly leaked the existence of Eastern European black prisons to Dana Priest of The Washington Post has prompted an orgy of celebration among Bush followers, who apparently believe that the dreams they harbor -- whereby anyone who discloses information which results in political harm to the leader will be imprisoned -- are about to be realized. The NSA leakers are next, they gleefully proclaim, followed by the whole parade of nefarious, traitorous "cockroaches" -- including reporters -- who have leaked and/or published information that resulted in embarrassment to The Commander-in-Chief in this Time of War.

As a general proposition, a government has the right to keep sensitive information classified and to fire employees who disclose it. But that is a power that also can be abused. The mere fact that information is classified does not mean that it ought to remain concealed. It has been extremely common for our government to attempt to conceal its wrongdoing by classifying information because it would reveal that wrongdoing. Whether the power to maintain the secrecy of classified information is being used properly or abusively is typically reflected by which type of unauthorized disclosures prompt strong action.

The Bush administration is extremely and transparently selective about the leaks it seeks to investigate and punish. The only leaks which they dislike are the ones which bring the President political embarrassment, not which generate harm to our national security. They exhibit anger and concern about leaks only when the leaks expose conduct by them which is highly controversial and where even its legality is dubious, at best.

A substantial part of the case for the invasion of Iraq was made by the administration through selective leaks of classified information to The New York Times. Almost every front page Judy Miller story was based upon leaks from anonymous "senior administration officials" designed to plant evidence of Saddam's massive WMD arsenal. None of those leaks has been decried by the administration or investigated, because they were employed in the service of the administration's political goals. Here is how Miller herself described what she did:

My job was not to collect information and analyze it independently as an intelligence agency; my job was to tell readers of the New York Times as best as I could figure out, what people inside the governments who had very high security clearances, who were not supposed to talk to me, were saying to one another about what they thought Iraq had and did not have in the area of weapons of mass destruction.

The very process which the administration and their followers claim to despise -- feeding classified information to the press -- is the primary tactic the administration used in order to convince Americans that Saddam was a danger and that we needed to go to war. Needless to say, none of those helpful-to-the-administration leaks to Miller has ever been the subject of an internal CIA investigation, polygraph tests to uncover the leaker, or criminal prosecutions by the Justice Department.

The administration does not dislike leaks of classified information. To the contrary, it is one of the most enthusiastic practitioners of such leaking. How many times over the past five years were we subjected to "leaked" information revealing supposed terrorist plots which were disrupted by the heroic administration or which revealed its super-intense anti-terrorist efforts?

When the NSA scandal first emerged, an extremely pro-administration leak suddenly appeared designed to vividly underscore (a) how dangerous and potentially destructive Muslims in this country are and (b) how heroic and vigilant is the administration in combating those threats. We thus learned from an anonymous government leaker that the administration had a super-top-secret program in place to detect unusual radioactivity in the nation's mosques and the detection is even conducted without warrants (!) -- a leak which suddenly depicted, at the height of the NSA controversy, that Muslims in this country may radiate your children but that the administration is using super-sophisticated and stealth means even if they are a little bit illegal (just like warrantless eavesdropping) to protect and save us all:

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. . . .

News of the program comes in the wake of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of U.S. targets by the National Security Agency without court orders. These and other developments suggest that the federal government's domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously thought.

The source even helpfully tied the very uncontroversial radiation detection program into the highly controversial NSA warrantless eavesdropping program, in order to make the point, as I noted at the time:

Is it really necessary to comply with all of that paperwork – all of those bureaucratic warrant procedures which the subversive hippy losers are always yapping about – in order to stop terrorists from using nuclear weapons against us?

No investigation of that leak was ever announced. No cries of protest were heard from the administration over disclosure of this program. Why is that? Because that leak brought no political embarrassment to the administration; very few people would object to the use of such instruments to detect high levels of radiation in the country's neighborhood mosques. Indeed, this reflected well on the administraton, and it is hard to imagine who would have an incentive to "blow the cover" of this classified program other than those friendly to the administration. Where was the furor over that leak? Why aren't we investigating to find out who anonymously disclosed this program?

And then, of course, there is the indisputable leak by the administration of the indisputably classified information that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, along with the leak by the President of various NIE statements to the press, and the frequent game-playing engaged in for years by the administration of selectively declassifying national security documents in order to achieve political aims.

All of the leaks about which Bush followers are so upset have a common attribute - they all reveal conduct by the government which is highly controversial and, in many cases, opposed by most citizens. None of the leaks falls into the category of the clear-cut case where national security is harmed without any public interest being served (the classic example being the advanced disclosure of troop movements, which is designed only to help the enemy without sparking any serious debate over a legitimately controversial issue). All of the leaks which are targeted by Bush followers for outrage and criminal prosecution all exposed government misconduct while avoiding any genuine national security harm. Their most significant impact, by far, was on the political front, not the security or military front.

There is virtually no significant government scandal in our country's history which did not rely upon disclosure of classified information to the press in order to expose the government's misconduct. The illegality of the Nixon administration was exposed almost exclusively through leaks by government employees of classified information, and virtually every Clinton scandal was achieved via leaks of classified and other secret information by sources hostile to the administration. Leaks of classified information are a critical part of how we check abuses on government secrecy; both sides have always used them and still do; and the government's power to punish leakers -- when used selectively and aggressively -- becomes the power to conceal one's wrongdoing.

If we had the society which Bush followers are seeking to impose -- where anyone is imprisoned who discloses, or writes about, any information marked "classified" by the government -- Watergate misconduct would never have been exposed. We would not know that the administration was eavesdropping on us without warrants in violation of the law. We would not know that our government systematically used torture as a routine interrogation device nor that it disappeared terrorist suspects to black prisons. And we would not have learned of the substantial doubts which existed, and the evidence bolstering those doubts, regarding Saddam's weapons capability prior to our invasion. Nor, for that matter, would we have recently learned about the administration's apparently advanced plans to wage war on Iran.

These types of unauthorized disclosures, more than anything else, are what accounts for the fact that Americans finally realized what type of government we really have, and caused literally millions of Americans to abandon this President and his administration. Is it really any wonder why the president's followers are so eager to imprison the people responsible for these types of leaks, while insistently ignoring the leaks designed to help the president? This has nothing to do with national security or with safeguarding classified information. It is about punishment, vengeance, and deterrence -- all focused on those who have exposed, or who could expose, government misconduct that results in political harm to George Bush.

UPDATE: For a summary of the current state of the law governing disclosure of classified information -- including the prohibition against classifying information in order to "(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; [and] (2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency" -- see here.

Proven wisdom

One of the most bizarre aspects of our current political debates is that the very people who were most glaringly and incessantly wrong about virtually everything prior to the invasion of Iraq are still held out as some sort of wise foreign policy experts. The converse of that distorted principle is that those who were most right about Iraq-related issues are still treated as subversive lepers who are unfit for decent company, as well as unfit to be heard in mainstream media outlets and television talk shows.

Few people, if any, were as right about the critical pre-invasion issues as Scott Ritter was. Back in September, 2002, Ritter was trying to tell anyone who would listen that Iraq had no WMD's, and accordingly said:

My country seems on the verge of making an historic mistake…. My government is making a case for war against Iraq that is built upon fear and ignorance, as opposed to the reality of truth and fact.

Ritter was not just some newspaper columnist like Charles Krauthammer or free floating pundit like Michael Ledeen. He was a former Marine officer, top aide to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during the first Gulf War, and a tenacious weapons inspector working inside Iraq for the U.N. It is difficult to imagine someone with greater credentials and credibility who ought to have been listened on those issues.

But in a vivid reminder of just how ugly and corrupt were the tactics used by Bush followers at the time to crush any dissent, Ritter was virtually excluded from any mainstream setting. He was branded a subversive, a traitor, and the "new Jane Fonda." The media -- while it venerated the Krauthammers and Bill Kristols and Fred Barnes's and the slew of other know-nothings who paraded forth to spew fictitious pro-war talking points -- cooperated enthusiastically with the smears on Ritter, all but treating him like some sort of untouchable traitor, notwithstanding the fact that, until 2004, he had voted only for Republicans, not to mention that he been an outstanding Marine officer. Nothing shielded those who dissented from the Bush agenda from charges of treason and subversion.

And by virtue of this now-familiar Bush worshipping tactic, one of the very few individuals who was actually voicing accurate and truthful observations about Iraq prior to the invasion was shut out of the debate, other than to be held up for universal mockery.

Ritter has just given an interview (h/t Taylor Marsh) to San Diego Citybeat (the national media, with a payroll full of people who were completely misinformed and wrong about Iraq, still treats Ritter like a crank). The interview is well worth reading. It seems obvious that if there was a great debate over whether X was true, and most people insisted that X was true while a handful of knowledgeable people insisted that X was untrue, and it turned out that, all along, X was, in fact, untrue, a rational person -- the next time a similar debate arose -- would be more inclined to listen to those who were right, and less inclined to listen to those who were wrong. For that reason alone, I think it's worth listening to what Ritter has to say (and not all that worth listening to anything Bill Kristol, The New Republic, Victor Davis Hanson, et al. have to say).

Initially, here is what Ritter has to say about the manipulation of Americans by the administration with fearmongering and constant invocations of war:

QUESTION: What is it about Americans that allows them to get so bent out of shape when you start questioning the government in a time of war?

RITTER: I’ll say ignorance. How many Americans have read the Constitution and know the Constitution, live the Constitution, breathe the Constitution, define their existence as Americans by the Constitution? Very few. And so what happens is, Americans have no concept of what citizenship is, what it is they’re supposed to serve. Many Americans have become so addicted to a lifestyle that I say they’re better consumers than they are citizens. And it’s these consumers who have wrapped themselves in a cocoon of comfort and who have basically abrogated their responsibilities of citizenship to the government, and as long as the government keeps them waddling down the path to prosperity, they don’t want to rock the boat. And they will go out and attack those who do rock the boat—those who challenge authority.

If you read the Constitution, you’ll be struck by the first words: “We the people of the United States.” And yet it sickens me where Americans will say, in the name of security, they will give up their constitutional rights. Warrantless wiretapping—it’s against the law! This is the sort of issue that should bring Americans streaming into the streets, saying, “Not on my watch.” If your definition of patriotism is blind subservience to governmental authority, then you’ve just defined those Germans who supported Hitler, the Italians who supported Mussolini.

Ritter also believes that the essence of the administration's conflict with Iran has nothing to do with whether Iran ceases its enrichment efforts and everything to do with the fact that the administration is resolved to change the ruling regime in Iran:

That’s why when I speak of Iran, I say be careful of falling into the trap of nonproliferation, disarmament, weapons of mass destruction; this is a smokescreen. The Bush administration does not have policy of disarmament vis-à-vis Iran. They do have a policy of regime change. If we had a policy of disarmament, we would have engaged in unilateral or bilateral discussions with the Iranians a long time ago. But we put that off the table because we have no desire to resolve the situation we use to facilitate the military intervention necessary to achieve regime change.

It’s the exact replay of the game plan used for Iraq, where we didn’t care what Saddam did, what he said, what the weapons inspectors found. We created the perception of a noncompliant Iraq, and we stuck with that perception, selling that perception until we achieved our ultimate objective, which was invasion that got rid of Saddam. With Iran, we are creating the perception of a noncompliant Iran, a threatening Iran. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Now that we have successfully created that perception, the Bush administration will move forward aggressively until it achieves its ultimate objective, which is regime change.

It is difficult to dismiss that view -- very difficult. It was readily apparent even as early as mid-2002 that we were going to invade Iraq no matter what Saddam did, no matter what happened with the inspections process, etc. The goal was not to rid Iraq of weapons but to change the government regardless of what weapons it had.

Ritter thinks that the same dynamic is applicable to Iran. And given that everything else seems exactly the same between the two run-ups to the war -- from the fact that it's an election year to the transparent use of the same exact pro-war rationale spewed from the same exact sources to the administration's glaring lack of interest in finding non-war means to achieve our ostensible disarmament goals -- a strong case can certainly be made that our objective in threatening war with Iran is war with Iran, rather than any form of disarmament.

Ritter also has a lot to say about the current state of Iran's alleged efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and the ability of the military to wage war against Iran notwithstanding our being tied down in Iraq. Ritter isn't entitled to a presumption that he's right about everything, but it seems beyond dispute that he's earned the right to be heard and listened to - certainly a lot more than the standard roster of pundits and blowhards who led us into Iraq and who, with the help of an adoring and glorifying media, are attempting to do the same with Iran.

The difference between Iran and China

China is a country in which no political dissent is allowed, there is no free expression of religion, no free press, and political dissidents are arbitrarily and indefinitely imprisoned, tortured and often executed. According to Amnesty International:

Tens of thousands of people continued to be detained or imprisoned in violation of their fundamental human rights and were at high risk of torture or ill-treatment. Thousands of people were sentenced to death or executed, many after unfair trials. Public protests increased against forcible evictions and land requisition without adequate compensation. . . .

Torture and ill-treatment continued to be reported in a wide variety of state institutions despite the introduction of several new regulations aimed at curbing the practice. Common methods included kicking, beating, electric shocks, suspension by the arms, shackling in painful positions, and sleep and food deprivation.

The U.S. is currently holding two Chinese nationals who are ethnic Uighurs at Guantanamo. The U.S. Government has been holding them for several years even though our own military tribunal long ago ruled that the men were not enemy combatants against the U.S. The reason we are still holding them? Because we can't send them back to China, because they will be almost certainly tortured and killed by the Chinese Government, and no other country will take them.

Beyond their horrendous record of human rights abuses and a complete suppression of democracy, China has weapons of mass destruction - lots and lots of them. And they routinely threaten their neighbors, particularly a free and democratic Taiwan, one of our closest allies. This is the kind of thing they have been saying for years:

The Taiwan leaders have before them two roads: one is to pull back immediately from their dangerous lurch towards independence ... The other is to keep following their separatist agenda to cut Taiwan from the rest of China, and in the end, meet their own destruction by playing with fire.

Moreover, not only is China not working with us to prevent Iranian proliferation, they have made clear that they will veto any U.N. sanctions regardless of what Iran does. All of this leads directly to the stirring proclamation in the Bush administration's new national security strategy:

Governments that brutalize their people also threaten the peace and stability of other nations.

Clearly, China has a government "that brutalize(s) their people," yet we aren't threatening them with preemptive attacks or putting them on the lists we keep of evil nations. Instead, we are meeting with them in an attempt to improve our relationship with them, even knowing that we have no influence whatsoever over their domestic policies or the liberties they extend to their citizens. We have extensive economic relations with them, and today President Bush met with Chinese President Hu Jintao, and even accommodated his request to ban reporters from asking questions:

The White House's acquiescence to a Chinese demand that Mr. Hu not be subjected to possibly embarrassing queries about political prisoners, religious freedom or censorship of the Internet symbolizes a major element of Mr. Bush's policy -- his willingness to relegate China's worsening performance on political freedom and human rights to a back burner.

The President's opening remarks included some cursory and half-hearted references to Iran and some vague allusions to China's human rights abuses, both of which Hu effortlessly ignored when he spoke.

So what accounts for the fundamentally different treatment we give to China and Iran -- two countries which themselves have a fairly close relationship, tolerate little dissent, offer little democratic freedom or liberty to their citizens, and issue threats of militarism and aggression against some of their neighbors? If anything, one could make a quite reasonable argument that an Iranian citizen has more liberty and more democratic participation in their government than does a Chinese citizen -- supposedly one of the primary, if not the primary, criteria for how we measure the threat-level posed by another country.

So why are we heaping praise on China and developing increasingly productive relations with them, while threatening Iran with invasion and even preemptive nuclear attack? One obvious answer -- that China has nuclear weapons and Iran does not -- surely cannot be the explanation, since to embrace that framework is to send the most dangerous and counterproductive message possible to the nations of the world: obtain nuclear weapons and we will treat you with great respect and civility; fail to obtain such weapons and we will threaten you with invasion and attack you at will.

We make common cause with all sorts of countries that issue crazy, hostile statements and which abuse human rights at least as much as the Iranians do, and in many cases more. And we ought to. That's what smart nations have always done. There is simply nothing that distinguishes Iran from scores of other countries, including China, with whom we maintain friendly or at least neutral relations, at least nothing that even remotely justifies attacking them militarily.

Someone please teach Instapundit what a "war declaration" is

(updated below)

Law Professor Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds responded yesterday to a post by Reason's Jesse Walker which pointed out the "evolution" of some of Reynolds' views, and in doing so, Instapundit stated, falsely (and twice), that Congress issued "declarations of war" on Al Qaeda and Iraq:

Er, except that war on Al Qaeda, and the invasion of Iraq, were explicitly authorized by Congress, in declarations of war and everything. After, you know, an actual attack on the United States. . . .

Walker responds that I have so changed my views. Er, no. He also says that the Congressional declarations were not declarations of war. Actually, they were.

Who might be able to explain to Law Professor Reynolds why it is plainly false to assert, as he did, that Congress has declared war -- either against Al Qaeda or Iraq? Let's see . . . who would volunteer for this job . . . how about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

GONZALES: There was not a war declaration, either in connection with Al Qaida or in Iraq. It was an authorization to use military force.

I only want to clarify that, because there are implications. Obviously, when you talk about a war declaration, you're possibly talking about affecting treaties, diplomatic relations. And so there is a distinction in law and in practice. And we're not talking about a war declaration. This is an authorization only to use military force.

Or how about the Justice Department's 42-page memorandum from January 19, 2006, defending the President's right to eavesdrop on Americans in violation of the law:

The contrary interpretation of section 111 also ignores the important differences between a formal declaration of war and a resolution such as the AUMF. . . .The last declared war was World War II.

There are all kinds of issues surrounding the Bush administration's terrorism arguments which are subject to debate. Whether we are a country "at war" is not one of them, as Bush's own Attorney General, and as his administration's Justice Department, have made quite clear.

Even they have expressly acknowledged that there is no declaration of war from Congress with regard to either Iraq or al Qaeda, and to state otherwise -- as Instapundit did twice, including once after it was pointed out to him that there has been no declaration of war -- requires either great confusion or outright ignorance with regard to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifically, and to declarations of war generally.

The notion that we are in "a time of war" is used to "justify" a whole array of extremist and even illegal policies, and much attention is often paid to the fact that such conduct, as the Founders stressed, does not become any more acceptable because we are at war. But it's not just the causal relationship that is false, but the premise as well. In no legal or constitutional sense are we at "war." One could reasonably argue, I suppose, that we are at war in some metaphorical or poetic sense, but to state, as Instapundit did and many others routinely do, that we are legally or constitutionally "at war" is just false.

UPDATE: I highly recommend this thorough and well-deserved decimation by Gregory Djerejian of Instapundit's snide and dismissive attitude towards the war critic Generals -- including Instadpunit's favorable citation of a post which actually calls the Generals "gutless," even though one of them, as Djerejian points out, led many of the most dangerous and strategically important missions in Iraq (in reply to which Reynolds says, in the most self-praising way possible: "as JFK noted in Profiles in Courage, physical courage is far more common than political courage").

Djerejian is a former war supporter who has changed his mind as he has seen the disaster this war has become under the Administration's complete mismanagement of it, and in the process, has become one of the most intellectually honest and insightful commentators on the war. The one thing for which he has particularly little tolerance is the deceitful fantasyland insistence that everything is going very nicely in Iraq and it's just the Bush-hating media which is covering this up -- one of Instapundit's specialities (h/t Hypatia).

Academic freedom NOW! . . . for right-wing scholars

(updated below)

One of the most annoying victim movements around is the petulant and growing group, led by the odious David Horowitz, which incessantly whines that pro-Bush students on college campuses are treated very, very unfairly because their views are not praised by all that many people and sometimes are even harshly criticized.

As I've written about many times before, the examples of supposed victimhood almost never entail any actual repression of, or institutional punishment for, the expression of unpopular conservative views, but rather, are composed only of disagreement by other students and faculty members which make the right-wing students feel uncomfortable and unloved. In that regard, this whiny movement is nothing more than the mirror image of the worst elements of the PC movement of the 1990s -- while deceitfully parading under the banner of free expression, its true aim is to render impermissible the expression of political views which the conservative students dislike.

A vivid example illustrating their true agenda can be found in the blossoming "controversy" over what appears to be the imminent offer of a tenured professorship by Yale University to liberal Professor of Mideast Studies (and well-read blogger) Juan Cole, to teach at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and in the Yale History Department. Many Bush supporters are arguing that Professor Cole espouses political views which apparently ought to be off-limits on college campuses, and there is thus a burgeoning movement to induce Yale to reconsider its decision. These efforts, of course, are coming from many of the same circles of sermoniziers who hold themselves out as defenders of academic freedom when they decry the oh-so-terrible reception which greets right-wing views on some campuses.

A lengthy smear piece by two students -- one an undergraduate at Yale (who happens to be Powerline Big Trunk's daughter, whom he calls "Little Trunk") and the other at Harvard Law -- was published yesterday in the New York Sun. The article selects multiple half-sentence snippets of Cole's writing in order to "demonstrate" that he harbors a "deep and abiding hatred of Israel"; that "if it were up to Mr. Cole, the country wouldn't exist at all"; and that he is "best known for disparaging the participation of prominent American Jews in government."

The usual suspects -- some of whom themselves have decried the (largely non-existent) suppression of right-wing views on college campuses -- have jumped onto the bandwagon, urging that Cole not be hired. Sharing the same McCarthyite talking points, they each suggest -- with zero basis -- that Cole even shares the same views as the Taliban; hence: "Taliban Man at Yale may soon have congenial company" and "A Teacher for Taliban Man."

According to the Sun, the indictment of Professor Cole for thought crimes include these accusations:

* His "most frequent public statements and writing - many of which appear on his blog, Informed Comment - have deviated considerably from his areas of expertise";

* He "rarely misses an opportunity to inveigh against Israel";

* He "contends [that] Israel is 'the most dangerous regime in the Middle East' and the primary instigator of the terrorist threat against America";

* "He believes that American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American pro-Israel lobby group that is one of the targets of the Mearsheimer/Walt paper, has Congress in its back pocket";

* "Only last month, Mr. Cole made headlines for effusively praising the Walt/Mearsheimer paper."

Whether those claims accurately describe Professor Cole's views is something I am going to leave to the side. Even if it does accurately describe his views, shouldn't a professor be permitted to express those views on a college campus?

But the attempt here, of course, is not to claim that Professor Cole's scholarship is lacking, but to insinuate, and at times even outright state, that he is a rabid anti-Semite because of his views on Israel. But the column's attempt to depict Professor Cole as some sort of Jew-despising hatemonger is completely negated by the acknowledgement which it is forced to make, at the end, in passing:

Mr. Cole takes pains to demonstrate that he harbors no ill will against Jews per se. It's "Likudniks" (or as Mr. Cole says, "Jewish American Likudniks," or simply, "the American Likud") that he despises. For example, Mr. Cole writes that the "real roots" of the Likud party lie in a "kind of fascism" and that Likud "isn't morally superior in most respects to the Syrian Baath ... it treats at least 3 million people no better than and possibly worse than the Syrian Baath treats its 17 million."

Anyone who has ever read anything written by Professor Cole -- and I have, and I have disagreed with much of it -- knows that the claim that he is anti-Semitic is a baseless and defamatory myth. It is a smear that is achieved only by the depressingly common attempt to equate hostility towards the political agenda of Likud with hostility towards Jews generally, a tactic that is nothing short of disgusting.

This false equivalence is intended to stifle all debate on any matters relating to the Middle East by positing an equivalence between anti-Semitism and a criticism of a specific, minority strain of political ideology. One either must refrain from criticisms of the actions of Israel, and refrain from commenting on the influence asserted by its government over American policy, or else one will be publicly branded an anti-Semite. One is perfectly free to criticize other countries, and even criticize the level of influence their governments exert on American policy (to name but a few, condemning the influence on American policy of China, or Mexico, or Saudi Arabia, is all the rage, including among many of these same people). But the same arguments applied to Israel makes one an untouchable anti-Semite.

The intellectual bankruptcy of the argument is self-evident. It is no different than accusing someone who opposes the French Socialist Party of hating the French, or accusing someone who opposes some South American right-wing party of hating Latinos. Or accusing someone of opposing President Bush of hating America and loving Al Qaeda. This tactic is an inane but destructive character smear that has been allowed to fester for way too long. But it festers because anyone who complains about it guarantees that they, too, will be similarly branded as an anti-Semite or terrorist-lover, and so most people prefer to avoid the issue.

The same people agitating to block Professor Cole's appointment to Yale frequently argue that countries like Iran or Iraq or Islamic extremism generally are the greatest threats to American interests and world peace. They vigorously defend the Israeli government's views with regard to its dispute with the Palestinians, insist that Israeli interests are virtually identical to American interests with regard to the "war" against Islamic extremism, and argue that Israelis are essentially blameless for the general climate of hatred and conflict in the Middle East. And, needless to say, they ought to be allowed to espouse those views, on college campuses and outside of them.

We have seen this repressive tactic applied repeatedly to American political debates over the last five years, and this is merely a specific strain of that tactic which uses the lowly art of character smear in order to exclude opposing views from college campuses.

But many of these same true believers seek simultaneously to render any opposing views prohibited, off-limits at any mainstream institution or college campus. The list of prohibited ideas includes the view that Israel is the principal antagonist of conflict in the Middle East generally, that American interests are harmed when the U.S. defends Israel too reflexively or blindly, and that Israel bears principal culpability with regard to the Palestinian issue. As the reaction to Professor Cole conclusively demonstrates, they want anyone who advocates those views to be blacklisted (and again, I am simply assuming, but not accepting, that those descriptions accurately describe Professor Cole's views).

It does not matter what one thinks about any of those views. Particularly at academic institutions, those issues ought to be debated. And the debates ought not to be one-sided. As I said, I disagree with many of Professor Cole's views. But the very idea that the views he expresses not only places him outside of the mainstream, but outside of the realm of what can be tolerated by a decent society or college campus, is, on its face, completely frivolous. This is not about anything other than trying to impose one's own views as academic orthodoxy and to ensure that one's political views on highly controversial political matters enjoys the status of unquestionable piety.

We have seen this same tactic applied to American political debates over the last five years, and these attempts to prevent Yale from appointing Professor Cole to its faculty are just a specific strain of that tactic, which employs the lowly art of character smear in order to prevent opposing views.

UPDATE: As a random through illustrative example of some of these dynamics, one can look at this post from today by McQ, entitled: " Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Mexico." In the post, McQ aggressively criticizes a statement issued by the Mexican Government opposing a new immigration law enacted by the state of Georgia. McQ objects not only to the content of the specific statement issued by Mexico, but also to the mere expression of an opinion at all by Mexico. McQ thus argues: "frankly, coming from Mexico, I'd suggest they clean up their own house before they begin criticizing others," and he tells them: "Sorry Mexico ... not interested in your opinion of how we handle our business. Especially in light of how you handle yours."

McQ's views are caustic, but I don't think any reasonable person could say, at least based on this post, that he is a racist, that he hates Mexicans or Latinos, or that he harbors a "deep and abiding hatred" for Mexico. He is criticizing the Mexican government specifically and objecting to its attempts to influence American laws. And that's all he is doing.

But imagine if this same post were written about Israel -- that it were entitled "Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Israel" and said things like "Sorry Israel . . . not interested in your opinion of how we handle our business." How many minutes would elapse before hordes of anti-semitism accusations were heaped upon that person, including from many who would likely cheer the same sentiments expressed in McQ's post towards Mexico? That is the rancid double standard on which these smears and blacklists directed at people like Professor Cole have long been predicated. Every country and government is fair game for criticism and expression of concern over its influence except one.

A "Pulitzer Prize for Treason"

(updated below with transcript of Bill Bennett's comments)

Several weeks ago, The Washington Post published an Op-Ed jointly written by Bill Bennett and his neoconservative comrade Alan Dershowitz, in which Bennett -- of all people -- pretended to be an advocate of a free press by decrying the media's "capitulat[ion] to Islamists." Bennett was upset that only a handful of American newspapers had published the Mohammed cartoons, arguing that by failing to publish the cartoons, "the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities."

As I noted at the time and on several other occasions, Bush supporters like Bennett are the last people who ought to be parading around under the banner of a free press, given their lengthy and intensifying efforts to destroy investigative journalism in this country by criminalizing its defining functions and threatening reporters with imprisonment who expose dubious, or worse, conduct on the part of the Bush administration. That is a very real and disturbing trend which has received far less attention than it deserves -- particularly from, ironically and revealingly enough, the press itself.

Yesterday, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau received well-deserved Pulitzer Prizes for "national reporting" based on their (year-long-delayed) disclosure of the President's illegal NSA eavesdropping program. That award has set off a new slew of bitter commentary from Bush supporters, including Bennett, proclaiming that Risen and Lichtblau belong in prison. On his radio show this morning, the great free press crusader Bennett said: "I think what they did is worthy of jail."

Powerline, as always, helpfully expounds on this definitively American principle of throwing reporters in jail who publish stories which damage the political interests of the Commander-in-Chief during a Time of War. In an item entitled "Pulitzer Prize for Treason," Scott "Big Trunk" Johnson says that Risen and Lichtblau won the Pulitzer "for their treasonous contribution to the undermining of the highly classified National Security Agency surveillance program of al Qaeda-related terrorists," which -- according to Johnson, "is a particularly serious crime insofar as it lends assistance to the enemy" -- all together, now -- "in a time of war."

According to Big Trunk, the Times reporters are even worse than Stalin apologist Walter Duranty, who wrote for the Times and won a Pulitzer in the 1930s. This is how he explains his sequencing of journalistic villains:

What about the Pulitzer Prize committee? When Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for the Times in connection with his mendacious coverage of Stalin's Soviet Union, he performed valuable public relations work for a mass murderer. He nevertheless did no direct harm to the United States. Today's Pulitzer Prize award to the Times brings a new shame to the Pulitzer Prize committee that builds on its disgrace last year via the award to the AP.

Remember - these are the people who think that they are elevated and pure enough to invade other countries in order to teach the repressed masses about democracy and freedom. They endlessly tout their own patriotism and crusades for freedom while agitating for the imprisonment of journalists who publish stories which reflect poorly on their leader. On countless fronts, they are on the precipice of dismantling every defining value and principle of liberty we have.

In his Washington Post Op-Ed where he pretended to believe in a free press, Bennett said this:

[O]ur general agreement and understanding of the First Amendment and a free press is informed by the fact -- not opinion but fact -- that without broad freedom, without responsibility for the right to know carried out by courageous writers, editors, political cartoonists and publishers, our democracy would be weaker, if not nonexistent.

Today, Bennett said that the reporters who sparked one of the most important investigative stories in the last five years should be arrested, tried and convicted -- presumably for treason (I wonder whether Bennett and Johnson believe that a couple of decades in prison is a sufficient punishment for these reporters; after all, we hang, not imprison, traitors).

It is difficult, and I think foolish, to ignore these ugly impulses which are always pulsating immediately beneath the veneer of so many Bush followers. These are not random, fringe commentators whose extremist views are being held up to make a point. Rather, these are among the most representative and, in Bennett's case, influential Bush followers who have been incessantly and indignantly calling for the imprisonment of journalists. And as the drumbeat for war against Iran grows more intense, so, too, will the perceived justification for these types of distinctly un-American measures. The more "times of war" we have, the less room we have for marginal liberties, such as the luxury of a free press.

UPDATE: Bill Bennett's radio rant, an audio clip of which is here, is highly worth listening to in order to smell the destination to which our country has descended in five short years. Does this sound anything like the United States to you? Speaking of Risen and Lichtblau (and Dana Priest), Bennett said that they:

took classified information, secret information, published it in their newspapers, against the wishes of the president, against the request of the president and others, that they not release it - they not only released it, they publicized it -- they put it on the front page, and it damaged us, it hurt us.

How do we know it damaged us? Well, it revealed the existence of the surveillance program - so people are going to stop making calls - since they are now aware of this - they're going to adjust their behavior . . . .

Are they punished, are they in shame, are they embarrassed, are they arrested? No, they win pulitzer prizes - they win pulitzer prizes - I don't think what they did was worthy of an award - I think what they did was worthy of jail, and I think this investigation needs to go forward. . . . .

But these people who reveal our secrets, who hurt our war efforts . . . who hurt the efforts of the President's people . . . they shouldn't be given prizes and awards for this, they shouldn't be given prizes and awards for this, they should be looked into . . . the Espionage Act, investigation of these leaks, I'm telling you, I'm hot. . . .

They published this story "against the wishes of the president, against the request of the president." What journalists would dare defy the wishes of the president? And in America, no less. And now, The Terrorists know that we are trying to eavesdrop on them, because they never knew that before. And these reporters therefore belong in prison.

Iran -- A good friend of our good friend

Remember the United Arab Emirites, the country which --- according to President Bush -- is our great "committed ally in the war on terror," our "valued and strategic partner," the Middle Eastern country that is so moderate and responsible that we can even trust them to control our ports? One of the UAE's closest and most important allies is Iran, the Nazi Germany of the Middle East. How can that be? How can our "committed ally in the war on terror" possibly maintain such close relations with the crazed, homicidal, genocidal Islamofascist Terrorists of the Middle East?

Yesterday, according to an Iranian news agency, Iran's Deputy Minister and the UAE's Prime Minister met and celebrated the two countries' great relations, which they both said they were committed to expanding "in all areas":

Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi and Deputy Emir and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sheikh Mohammad ben Rashid al-Maktoum stressed Monday expansion of relations between Iran and UAE in all areas.

Mostafavi lauded al-Maktoum on his efforts in strengthening bilateral ties and invited him for a state visit to Tehran.

Mostafavi also briefed the Dubai's ruler on the Iranians positions on Iraq and Palestinians developments, and described the trend of Iran-Russia talks on Tehran resolve in acquiring peaceful nuclear technology. . . .

And Iran's Deputy Minister even arrived bearing an official greeting and invitation from the deranged, murderous, bloodthirsty Muslim Adolf Hitler:

The official started his regional tour by traveling to Qatar, where he submitted a written message from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani on Friday, inviting him to pay a visit to Tehran.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi in a meeting with the Ruler of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan on Monday submitted the written message of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to him.

None of this is really new. Our good friend, the UAE, has long had great relations with Nazi Germany Iran, and that relationship is only blossoming:

According to Al-Bayan newspaper, statistics issued by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry show that the value of the total non-oil exchanges between the UAE and Iran hit $3.3 billion last year.

Meanwhile, an official at Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) called for enhancement of bilateral relations between the two sides. In his visit with a trade delegation from the Iranian province of Mazandaran, director of public relations and events of the DCCI Sultan Majid Lootah noted, the non-oil trade between the two states has hit $3.300 billion. Also, Hamid Reza Qadi deputy chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Mazandaran Province referred to the province’s good trade and commercial relations with the Emirates and said Dubai was one of Iran’s most important trade partners.

It's not only their government leaders who meet, but their business leaders frequently do as well, forging all sorts of new commercial interaction. Of course, the countries have many things in common, including their virtually identical policy towards Israel. Neither recognizes its right to exist, neither allows Israeli citizens to enter their country, and both of them boycott all Israeli companies.

If Iran were really the Ultimate Terrorist Evil, the new Nazi Germany, would one of our "most committed allies in the war on terror" maintain such friendly relations with them? For a reasonable, moderate, responsible anti-terrorist country like the UAE to maintain such a close alliance with Iran, mustn't there be some rationality and stability in the Iranian government?

And why is the UAE's extreme hostility to Israel -- to the point where it denies Israel's right to exist and bans its citizens from entering the country -- consistent with our close alliance with the UAE, but Iran's extreme hostility towards Israel (admittedly with more inflammatory rhetoric) compels us to view Iran as the new Nazi Germany?

It is clearly not in the interests of the U.S. for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, and there are an array of measures which are being pursued, and should be, to prevent that. But we can't and don't have a policy of waging war on every country that is trying to proliferate. The only way to justify a war on Iran is by trying to depict them as some great evil, and more so, a completely irrational and deranged world actor beyond the standard constraints of rationality and self-interest. But there is no evidence that they are guided in their actions by anything other than rationality and self-interest, and we need only talk to our good friends (and the Iranians' good friends) -- the UAE -- in order to know this.

Lucy, Charlie Brown & the Football

As amazing as it is, there is no question that exactly the same political segment which led us into the Iraq disaster really is in full-on, coordinated war-mongering mode with regard to Iran. What's most startling about it is that they are not even attempting to do anything differently. It's all exactly the same.

Thus, we have Weekly Standard and National Review prattling on about all sorts of scary stories showing that Iran is an uncontainable danger (invariably as a result of hostile overtures towards Israel, but that doesn't seem to matter, just like it didn't last time); we have New Republic publishing a cover story, complete with all-too-familiar cartoons showing demonic Iranian leaders, which enable people like Jonah Goldberg, on simplistic script, to recite: "Don't let anyone tell you that it's the American right which is trying to "demonize" Ahmadinejad" (yes, what a revealing shock it is that even The New Republic has jumped on the War-Against-Iran craze); and all of the tough-guy bloggers are beating their chest in manly unison, proclaiming their bravery and strength to the world as they stand tall against the Hitlerian-Persian Threat.

But what is really most alarming -- although, I know, it shouldn't be surprising at all -- is that the American media seems not just willing, but tongue-waggingly pleased, to be exploited and used again, in the best tradition of Pravda, as the principal mechanism for venerating governmental claims as though they constitute "news," without even pretending to subject those claims to the slightest bit of skepticism or scrutiny. This Washington Post article by John Pomfret, entitled "Iran Has Raised Efforts to Obtain U.S. Arms Illegally, Official Says," is really a museum-worthy model for the type of mindlessly trustworthy "journalism"which convinced most Americans that Saddam had WMDs (and even that he personally participated in the planning of the 9/11 attacks), which, in turn, led us right into the invasion of Iraq.

The article is long and gives the appearance of being detailed and substantive, but in reality, it does nothing but slavishly print the uncorroborated statements of Bush officials claiming that Iran is engaged in all sorts of nefarious weapons-procuring activities, and has intensified (!) these activities of late. Thus, we "learn":

The Iranian government has intensified efforts to illegally obtain weapons technology from the United States, contracting with dealers across the country for spare parts to maintain its aging American-made air force planes, its missile forces and its alleged nuclear weapons program, according to federal law enforcement authorities.

Over the past two years, arms dealers have exported or attempted to export to Iran experimental aircraft; machines used for measuring the strength of steel, which is critical in the development of nuclear weapons; assembly kits for F-14 Tomcat fighter jets; and a range of components used in missile systems and fighter-jet engines.

"Iran's weapons acquisition program is becoming more organized," said Stephen Bogni, acting chief of the Arms and Strategic Technology Investigations Unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "They are looking for more varied and sophisticated technology. Night-vision equipment, unmanned aircraft, missile technology" and weapons of mass destruction.

I love the "and weapons of mass destruction" oh-so-inconspicuously tacked onto the quote at the end. The next two paragraphs begin, respectively, with these two phrases: "Federal agents say" and "The Bush administration says," and the rest of the article is composed of nothing more than uncorroborated information and statements fed to the reporter by the government.

The reporter's sole effort to "investigate" the claims? "Calls for comment to the Iranian Mission to the United Nations were not returned." Gosh, that's hard-hitting; I hope he didn't strain himself.

Of all the dysfunctional aspects of our governmental system, this is, by far, the most dangerous. This is how most journalism works now. The Government wants to implant certain claims as "facts" into the public discourse. It then contacts the most slavish reporters, promises them exclusivity, and then feeds them a bunch of highly dubious claims which the reporter then dutifully and mindlessly publishes as though it is fact, without any corroboration, investigation, or anything else that distinguishes journalism from other fields such as, say, government propaganda, public relations, or stenography.

There are no critical faculties exercised, no investigation, no skepticism of any kind. In short, there is nothing adversarial between the government and the media -- which was supposed to characterize how this watchdog relationship was to function. The founders didn't guarantee a free press in order to ensure that it could publish government claims without interference. The idea was that the press would be adversarial to the Government, serve as a Fourth Estate when other checks on government power failed. The press has, of course, become the opposite -- it now exists only to amplify and lend credence to even the most suspect and manipulative government claims.

The press simply does not perform its central function. In 2002 and 2003, that core failure led us into an invasion of another country based on pretenses which turned out, in almost every respect, to be false, and clearly they have learned no lessons from that humiliating exploitation. Why did we need this Post article? What is the difference between it and a Bush administration press release? Nothing. It is difficult to be optimistic about much of anything when the longest articles in our nation's largest newspapers about the most pressing public affairs are indistinguishable -- literally -- from government press releases.

As for the geniuses at New Republic, Weekly Standard, National Review, etc., who were wrong about basically everything when it came to Iraq -- how is it possible to be rational and do anything other than disregard everything which this exact crowd says about everything? But more importantly, the media was fed all sorts of fictitious garbage from the Bush administration in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion which they gullibly published, to their eternal embarrassment. How can they possibly not be exercising more caution with regard to statements of this type?

Fighting all the Hitlers

(updated below)

(cross-posted at C&L -- will post more later this afternoon)

As Bush followers gear up for another election year campaign to start a war, they are using exactly the same rhetorical tactics and are revealing precisely the same mindset to which we were subjected during the 2002 campaign for the Iraq War. What is starkly apparent from this repetition is that their awareness of history and knowledge of the world is sadly confined to one singular event, which is all they know and which, rather bizarrely, they have a need to live over and over and over again.

To pro-Bush war supporters, the world is forever stuck in the 1930s. Every leader we don't like is Adolf Hitler, a crazed and irrational lunatic who wants to dominate the world. Every country opposed to our interests is Nazi Germany.

From this it follows that every warmonger is the glorious reincarnation of the brave and resolute Winston Churchill. And one who opposes or even questions any proposed war becomes the lowly and cowardly appeaser, Neville Chamberlain. For any and every conflict that arises, the U.S. is in the identical position of France and England in 1937 – faced with an aggressive and militaristic Nazi Germany, will we shrink from our grand fighting duties in appeasement and fear, or will we stand tall and strong and wage glorious war?

With that cartoonish framework in place, war is always the best option. It is the only option for those who are noble, strong, and fearless. Conversely, the sole reason for opposing a war is that one is a weak-minded and weak-willed appeaser who harbors dangerous fantasies of negotiating with madmen. Diplomacy and containment are simply elevated, PC terms for “appeasement.” War is the only option that works.

Bill Kristol, the pundit and Weekly Standard editor who likely exerted the greatest influence in persuading Americans to support an invasion of Iraq, is not the slightest bit deterred, or ashamed, by the fact that virtually every bit of pre-war wisdom he offered led to disaster and every prognostication he made was dead wrong. To the contrary, he is once again parading around with pretenses of great warrior nobility and military wisdom, this time leading the war dance against all of the new Hitlers in Iran.

His latest column is his most overt call yet to war against Iran, and he cannot even wait one paragraph to dredge up the only historical event that he knows:

IN THE SPRING OF 1936--seventy years ago--Hitler's Germany occupied the Rhineland. France's Léon Blum denounced this as "unacceptable." But France did nothing. As did the British. And the United States.

To Kristol, being serious and avoiding the mistakes of France “would mean serious preparation for possible military action [against Iran]--including real and urgent operational planning for bombing strikes and for the consequences of such strikes.” And not only do we need to go to war against Iran, we need to do it very quickly:

It is not "moral progress" to put off serious planning for military action to a later date, probably in less favorable circumstances, when the Iranian regime has been further emboldened, our friends in the region more disheartened, and allies more confused by years of fruitless diplomacy than they would be by greater clarity and resolution now.

Anyone who opposes this mindlessly militaristic approach simply seeks, of course, to “appease the mullahs.”

This sort of cheap equivalence between Hitler and the tyrant de jour is rather disorienting. One minute, Hitler is a singular manifestation of unique and unparalleled evil to which nothing should ever be compared, lest the uniqueness of his atrocities be minimized. The next minute, though, there are nothing but Hitler spawns running around everywhere, and we need to constantly wage war against each of them in order to avoid suffering the fate of 1938 Czechoslovakia and Neville Chamberlain.

This rhetorical stunt is not new. The current President's father insisted (.pdf) that Saddam was the equivalent of Adolf Hitler back in 1990 when it was time to launch the Persian Gulf War:

The most significant aspect of Bush's personal demonization of Saddam Hussein was his comparison of the Iraqi leader to Adolph Hitler. Sometimes this comparison was implicit rather than explicit: “In World War II, the world paid dearly for appeasing an aggressor who could have been stopped.” . . . . .

On one occasion, he even implied that the Iraqi leader was worse than Hitler: “This morning, right now, over three hundred innocent Americans – civilians – are held against their will in Iraq. Many of them are reportedly staked out as human shields near possible military targets, something even Adolph Hitler didn't do.”

And prior to the latest Iraq war, claiming that we had to fight Hitler again was the favorite tactic of the neoconservatives:

Appearing on the "Meet the Press" on February 23, Bush administration official Richard Perle compared the charade of visits by United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq with the infamous 1944 visit by Red Cross officials to the Nazis' Theresienstadt ghetto, where the performance of the prisoners' orchestra helped lull the visitors into believing that Nazi treatment of the Jews was not so terrible after all. Perle was referring to Saddam Hussein's systematic effort to hide Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. . . .

Perle's remark was the latest in a series of statements by U.S. officials drawing analogies between current events and those of the Nazi era. President Bush, in his speech after the September 11 attacks, said that Muslim terrorists "follow in the path of Nazism." Other U.S. officials have compared European reluctance to confront
Saddam with Europe's reluctance to confront Hitler in the 1930s.

And now, of course, we have yet another set of Hitlers – this time, a whole governing council of them – ruling over a new Nazi German, in Iran, and we therefore must march to war. As Digby recently pointed out:

Iran is a member of the axis 'o evil. It is, therefore, already presumed to be batshit crazy and the new president has certainly helped with his holocaust denial and loony rhetoric. It will not be that difficult for Bush and his minions to transfer their earlier madman images to Iran.

That, of course, is the central strategy, and it is best accomplished through the never tired Hitler imagery. But this sort of mindset is as simplistic as it is manipulative and, as intended, is a rock-solid recipe for eternal war. Not every dictator is irrational and suicidal. Most are not, including the most brutal. Throughout the 20th Century, the U.S. was able quite successfully to contain, negotiate with, and even form discrete common alliances with a whole array of dictators, thugs, murderous cretins and even militaristic madmen.

And the U.S. is not unique in that regard. No country is pure, and every country, driven by rational self-interest, finds ways to achieve co-existence even with the most amoral regimes. The notion that we have to wage war or even threaten war against every hostile, tyrannical government is itself sheer lunacy, and yet that is the premise driving this crusade for more war.

To be sure, Saddam Hussein was a brutal thug who murdered and oppressed his citizens with virtually no limits, etc. etc., but the notion that he was ever in a league with Adolph Hitler in terms of the threats he posed, the capabilities he possessed, or even the ambitions he harbored, was always transparent myth. This equivalence is even more fictitious with regard to Iran, which -- although saddled with a highly unpopular president who is clearly malignant and who uses nationalistic rhetoric to boost the morale of his base – is a country that is, in fact, ruled by a council of mullahs which has exhibited nothing but rationality and appears to be guided by nothing other than self-interest.

We were led into invading Iraq by a group of people who are as bloodthirsty as they are historically ignorant. They are stuck in a childish and stunted mental prison where every event, every conflict, every choice is to be seen exclusively through the prism of a single historical event, an event which – for a variety of reasons, some intellectual, some cultural, some psychological – is the only one that has any resonance for them. Even as we are still mired in their last failed war, they are attempting to impose these stunted historical distortions to lead us into a new one.

The now well-known principle, Godwin's Law, holds: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler" increases and that once such a comparison is made, "the thread in which the comment was posted is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress." That principle should be applied 100-fold to foreign policy choices, especially decisions about whether to start new wars.

UPDATE: Gregory Djerejian at The Belgravia Dispatch has compiled a series of pre-Iraq war denials from the president and top military and civilian officials which are strikingly, and alarmingly, similar to those being issued now with regard to Iran. As Djerejian documents, many of the denials with regard to Iraq -- including those made to our ex-closest European allies -- are, if not outright false, highly misleading.

Is there anyone who doubts that the administration's denials that they have intentions to engage in a military assault on Iran are equally misleading? Either way, the array of unreliable and misleading statements made with regard to many matters prior to the invasion of Iraq have completely destroyed this government's credibility, making its word automatically subject to serious doubt by any rational person -- including, most destructively, its own citizens, in a way that is almost certainly unprecedented in our nation's history (h/t Hypatia).

Posting today

I will be posting today at Crooks & Liars and will post the links here when they are ready. The first post concerns this rather typical column from Bill Kristol in The Weekly Standard, his most overt call yet to wage war on Iran -- and quickly.

Iran, of course, is Nazi Germany. Its leaders are Adolph Hitler. And we are France & England in 1936, faced with the only historical choice people like Kristol are capable of understanding -- we either wage glorious battle and take our rightful place beside the noble Winston Churchill, or we shrink away from our grand historical calling and are instantaneously transformed into the lowly coward, Neville Chamberlain.

They see every event and every conflict through this one single historical event, and it's truly amazing that our country has been led for the last five years by this most simplistic and stunted understanding of the world.

Mistaking caricature and generalization for journalism

(updated below)

The Washington Post published yet another article today -- this one entitled The Left, Online and Outraged, by David Finkel -- seeking to depict the liberal blogosphere as being nothing more than the venting ground for the crazed and hateful rantings of what it calls "the Angry Left." To accomplish this goal, the article features a single blogger, Maryscott O'Connor of My Left Wing, examines her posts, finds the most extreme and outrageous, throws in some deliberately selected inflammatory comments buried in various blogs, and then attributes all of that to the liberal blogosphere generally. Based upon these isolated comments, The Post tells its readers that the liberal blogosphere is a place reserved for the furious and the profane -- "Loud, crass and instantaneous."

The article's principal tactic -- really, its sole tactic -- is to search through hundreds of comments on O'Connor's site and sites like Eschaton, pick out the most extreme ones, and then feature them as representative of the blogosphere generally. Thus, we are subjected to sweeping conclusions like this one:

Not that long ago, it was the right that was angry and the left that was, at least comparatively, polite. But after years of being the targets of inflammatory rhetoric, not only from fringe groups but also from such mainstream conservative politicians as Newt Gingrich, the left has gone on the attack. And with Republicans in control of Washington, they have much more to be angry about.

The words and attitudes of Maryscott O'Connor and the handful of comments which the reporter searched out and found aren't representative only of them. Rather, they demonstrate what "the left" in this country -- a term never defined but seemingly inclusive of all opponents of the Bush administration -- has become.

The tactics in the article are as intellectually lazy and empty as they are transparently deceitful and trite. There is no cheaper or emptier form of argumentation than to isolate a specific individual, describe her, and then, without any basis, ascribe those attributes generally to some larger group -- in this case, a much, much larger and more diverse group -- of which she is ostensibly a part. Anyone who has even minimal exposure to "the blogosphere" knows that it is insusceptible to the sort of sweeping generalization oozing from every misleading paragraph in this article.

The blogosphere -- including the "Left blogosphere" -- offers infinite space for any and every person who wants to opine, report, analyze, or rant. Hundreds of thousands do so. As a result, the blogosphere has every possible activity, tenor, and approach that exists, in abundance, and Maryscott O'Connor is no more symbolic of it than is Josh Marshall, or Steve Clemons, or Digby or Steve Benen -- or any other blogger, big, small or in between -- that one could purposely select based on one's goal. Finkel's pre-ordained goal here is to depict the blogosphere as a content-free venting ground where death wishes are heaped upon George Bush, so he simply searches those comments out and then holds them up as illustrative of the blogosphere.

The crude tactics employed by this article are easily dismissed, but the objective of this article -- to destroy the credibility of the blogosphere and what we do here, mostly because it is so threatening to the establishment media's dying monopoly over the flow of information, news, opinion and analysis -- should be taken very seriously. This is not some isolated hit piece. The Washington Post alone has published several articles in the last couple months which suggest, imply or outright state that the blogosphere generally, and the liberal blogosphere in particular, is irresponsible and filled with raged-driven radicals who are as extreme as they are irrelevant. Thus, one can and should ignore what it produces, because it is nothing more elevated than bitter, reckless, and hate-filled rants.

Needless to say, the most simplistic and intellectually corrupt Bush followers have seized on this most simplistic and corrupt journalistic stunt, pointing to it as some sort of vindication for every cheap stereotype in which they routinely traffic. Here, for instance, is how Hugh Hewitt sees and interprets the "evidence" offered up by the Post:

Chapter 5 of Painting the Map Red is titled: "The Democratic Left Is Addicted to Venom, and That Venom Is Poisoning the Political Process."

Today's Washington Post story, "The Left, Online and Outraged," confirms my thesis. Read the whole thing, including the absurd attempt to blame the descent of the left on conservatives:

But after years of being the targets of inflammatory rhetoric, not only from fringe groups but also from such mainstream conservative politicians as Newt Gingrich, the left has gone on the attack.

The left has become disfigured because the excess that dominates the lefty blogs is absorbed by rank-and-file activists and encouraged by the Democratic Party leadership, which embraces, posts at and praises the blogs that are among the angriest and most vulgar/profane/hate-filled.

There is no question that there is anger and even some extremist rhetoric on the Left. But no sane person could deny that one finds the same type of mindset on the Right, but to a magnitude that is incalculable. The real difference is that, to find rank hatemongering on the Right, one need not go digging into the 300th Comment on a blog or the most extreme postings of a relatively obscure blogger, because this type of limitless rhetorical attack has been a staple of the mainstream Right for more or less two decades now.

The Right's best-selling author calls liberals traitors and urges that they be beaten with baseball bats and attacked with bombs. Its most popular radio talk show host -- with his 20 million daily followers -- has spent the last 20 years urging that liberals be deported and praising the kidnappings of his political opponents, while other favorites on Right-wing radio routinely call for the imprisonment of leading Democrats. Similarly, some of the Right's favorite commentators have urged that those who espouse liberalism be tried for sedition, or worse.

One favorite right-wing commentator has written two books - one devoted to showing that liberals are mentally ill, and the other defending the internment of innocent American citizens in prison camps. The Right's leading elected officials and pundits just in the last couple of years have repeatedly taken to threatening federal judges who issue opinions they dislike.

And how fondly I recall these sentiments from Sen. Jesse Helms during the Clinton years:

In an effort to dampen the furor over his Commander-in-Chief remarks, on November 22 Helms told a newspaper reporter from his home state of North Carolina that the President should be careful about visiting military bases in that state. "Mr. Clinton better watch out of he comes down here," Helms said. "He better have a bodyguard."

Can one even contemplate the reaction if a Democratic Senator today warned George Bush to avoid military bases becasue he would likely be physically attacked by a military that hated him? Granted, those threats against the President were merely from a leading Republican Senator, not from an anonymous commenter on a blog, but they do nonetheless demonstrate that the Right, including its most powerful figures, long ago relinquished any limits when it comes to rhetorical attacks. The only difficult part of compiling this list is deciding what the worst offenders are and which examples should be left out. And that is to say nothing of the daily doses of hatred and bile that spew forth from the Right blogosphere, which I have no doubt someone else will be compiling shortly -- again.

It is just astonishing to have to read an endless article from the Post about the supposed rage and anger on the "Left" -- all based on the sought-out, most extreme sentiments of people with little or no real influence -- while the eliminationist and traitor rhetoric that has been a central rhetorical tool of the Right's primary power centers for decades is mentioned only in passing, only by way of explaining how the Right used to engage in this sort of rage-driven politics until the Left took over. But anyone who listens on any given day to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly, or who reads the hate-mongering and treason-accusing screeds of Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Powerline, know how fundamentally false that picture is.

Any time old, crusted, failing, dying institutions launch attcks on new and innovative competitors, it is an unmistakable sign that the attacking dinasour feels threatened and feels its power slipping away. That dynamic, more than any ideological goal, is what is motivating the steadily increasing appearance of these types of hostile blogosphere caricatures masquerading as news articles. The reality is that the blogosphere need not be a hostile competitor of journalists, but can be a uniquely valuable research and analysis tool to supplement the governmental adversary role which journalists are supposed to perform.

But until they realize that, and as long as they continue to perceive that their stranglehold on conventional wisdom is being abolished as a result of the irreverent and increasingly substantive blogosphere, these types of "articles," devoted to the destruction of the blogosphere's credibility, are going to become more and more common - and more and more desperate. Today's exercise by Finkel in the lowly art of absurd caricature and sloppy generalization advances that process, ambitiously and enthusiastically.

UPDATE: O'Connor has posted on her blog an account of the experience she had with Finkel, and it contains two revealing though unsurprising facts. First, before writing this article, Finkel "had never been to a blog before." Gee, what a surprise -- more journalists who have no idea what blogs are writing articles on the blogosphere like they are experts. Second, before writing the article, Finkel hilariously said that he "didn't have in mind any angle." But "[h]e did have a phrase weaving in and out of his mind: 'The Angry Left.'" To recap: Finkel had no angle in mind for the article beforehand - merely a phrase floating around in his mind (where, I suspect, there is plenty of room for phrases to float comfortably): "The Angry Left." How to respond to a proposition that negates itself?

The scariest part: none of this is unusual. It is not an unrepresentative picture of how much of our "journalism" is produced.

A Resolute Fantasy World

One virtually never sees any disagreement among Bush supporters with regard to Iraq or terrorism policies, but Powerline has a very brave and surprising post -- to which all three of its luminaries contributed -- which expresses disagreement with yesterday's essay from world-renowned and esteemed military historian Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, who smeared the motives of the retired American Generals who are criticizing the administration's war effort, by claiming that the Generals are only saying these things to sell books and enrich themselves. Powerline is having none of it.

According to Powerline, Dr. Hanson is wildly off-base. From them we learn that "those griping ex-Generals" are not motivated by a desire to sell books. Rather, they are voicing these criticisms because they are "mostly, in effect, Clinton appointees," because they are simply "'old school' generals who object to Rumsfeld's pet theories" of military transformation, and because these are the rejects who got forced out of their jobs because they "didn't fit with the new program." Hanson was right, of course, that these Generals were operating from base and venal motives; he just got the specific smear wrong.

What is so notable (but unsurprising) here is the reaction of Bush followers to the extremely unusual and extraordinary event of seeing retired Generals criticize not just specific strategic decisions, but the overall mismanagement of the war, and in some cases, the wisdom of the war itself. As I pointed out yesterday, the fact that a bunch of generals hold a certain view does not, by itself, mean that the view is correct, including on military matters. But contrary to the deceitful attempt of Bush followers to pretend that this is some sort of commonplace event ("Generals are always griping about something"), it is remarkable, and significant on at least some level, for this many Generals to make these types of overarching and very public criticisms while a war is still ongoing.

In response, Bush followers have publicly speculated about every defamatory motive which could be fueling these Generals -- they have embraced every possible explanation except for the possibility that these Generals might actually hold these views sincerely. This behavior really illustrates, more than anything else, exactly how we were led into a war that has been a disaster on every front, and how we have stubbornly remained on the same course well past the time it became objectively apparent that this course was leading to nothing but abject failure.

The first objective -- which worked very well for a good couple of years -- was to prevent all dissenting views by labeling those who questioned the war or who opposed it as subversives, traitors, Friends of the Terrorists, America-haters, and crazed radicals. That took care of dissenting views for awhile, ensuring an echo chamber where the President's views on the war were basically unchallenged. But the profound error of their judgments and the rank falseness of their claims could not be obscured forever, because the reality of the war slowly exposed the truth. But amazingly, facts do not deter them either.

Every fact that contradicts their initial premises is discarded as fiction or the by-product of malice. Every opinion that undermines their position can be explained only by venal and corrupt motives. Every event that transpires which deviates from what they predicted ends up being the fault of others. And any individual who questions their grand plan for epic and glorious triumph in a never-ending, all-consuming War of Civilizations is someone who is either weak-willed, weak-minded, or just plain subversive -- whether that be life-long public servants like Richard Clarke and Joe Wilson (both of whom were smeared by Powerline in a separate post yesterday, which quoted RealClearPolitics calling them "Political hacks" and "fools" who "espouse positions publicly that they know to be untrue"); life-long conservatives like William Buckley or George Will, and even American military generals, including those who actually led ground troops in Iraq as recently as 2004.

The number of people left who are sufficiently noble and brave to wage this Great and Glorious Battle is dwindling every day. There is no fact which can't be dismissed away, no source whose motives are beyond reproach, no event which can't be blamed on others. I wrote a post on C&L a couple months ago about this dynamic, when - in that one week alone -- there were multiple independent polls, events, and facts that all contradicted their world view, and each was just casually waved away as biased, fictitious lies. The war in Iraq was the Good and Right thing to do, and nothing will or can ever change that fact -- not the non-existence of the WMDs that primarily justified it, nor the emergence of a civil war, nor the installation of an Iran-controlled Shiite theocracy, nor the opinion of military generals. Their beliefs are in place forever and are to be defended against any fact.

Every possibility is in play except for an acknowledgment that they might have been wrong about something. It is a resolute fantasy world that they cling to for dear life, because everything that matters to them resides in that world. And the most significant aspect of all is that the person most afflicted with this fact-immune syndrome is the person who resides in the White House and controls our Government, and will for the next 2 1/2 years. There are few situations more destructive and dangerous than for a volatile situation to be controlled by people for whom faith in one's own rightness is infinitely more persuasive, and more sacred, than facts and reality.

Note from A.L.

By Anonymous Liberal


Now that Glenn has been freed from his book-writing prison and can resume his normal blogging duties, I'm going to return to blogging at my own site. But before I go, I wanted to take a moment to thank Glenn for giving me the opportunity to fill in for him for the last few weeks. In a relatively short amount of time, Glenn has managed to build this site into something pretty amazing, a real standout in the blogosphere, and it was an honor to be able to contribute to it. I also want to thank all the regular commenters here who took the time to address my posts and to share their thoughts. I assure you that I read every last comment. I hope you'll stop by my blog from time to time and continue to share your thoughts. Again, many thanks.


From Glenn: At the risk of subjecting you to gooey mutual admiration, I want to say that the thanks is due to A.L. It was not easy to force myself to stay away from my blog these last few weeks in order to finish the manuscript, but what enabled me to do so was knowing that there was such high-level content being provided by A.L. -- along with the line-up of guest posters, including Hypatia, Hume's Ghost, Film Diva, and Pete Guither. I asked A.L. to post in my absence because I was a regular reader and fan of his blog, and now that you see why that is, I hope you'll continue to read his posts over at his blog if you're not already doing that.

Sinking to new lows - attacking the motives of the war critic Generals

A remarkable parade of retired generals has come forward in the last couple of weeks to denounce Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, blame the disaster in Iraq on his incompetence, and demand his resignation. These Generals join people like William Buckley, George Will, and even Newt Gingrich in publicly declaring that the Bush administration's incompetence and hubris is to blame for the strategic disaster in Iraq, which at least some of them say is a war which, due to this incompetence, has been lost.

If you are a true believer neocon who was one of the leading advocates of this war, and you are petrified that the blame for this disaster will justifiably be pinned to your head forever, what to do about these Generals? Easy - attack their motives and patriotism and insist that nobody should listen to them on matters such as military strategy, but instead should continue to follow the armchair general pundits like Victor Davis Hanson who led us into this debacle. Here's Hanson today on what is truly motivating those Generals:

Currently, there are many retired generals appearing in frenetic fashion on television. Sometimes they hype their recent books, or, as during the three-week war, offer sharp interviews about our supposed strategic and operational blunders in Iraq — imperial hubris, too few troops, wrong war, wrong place, and other assorted lapses.

Apart from the ethical questions involved in promoting a book or showcasing a media appearance during a time of war by offering an "inside" view unknown to others of the supposedly culpable administration of the military, what is striking is the empty nature of these controversies rehashed ad nauseam.

These Generals -- to whom Hanson refers contemptuously as "Pensioned Army and Marine generals" (those freeloading socialists) -- aren't speaking out because they love their country, are concerned for its well-being under this administration or because they believe anything they are saying. Nope - they're just trying to hawk books and make money, and are acting unethically while they do it. These Generals who are criticizing the administration are just dishonest hacks who ought to be ignored and shunned. As always, Hanson plays around with military glory from the past and wonders why nobody except him and a few others are as noble or brave as those men were:

Imagine that, as we crossed the Rhine, retired World War II officers were still harping, in March, 1945, about who was responsible months during Operation Cobra for the accidental B-17 bombing, killing, and wounding of hundreds of American soldiers and the death of Lt. Gen. Leslie McNair; or, in the midst of Matthew Ridgeway's Korean counteroffensives, we were still bickering over MacArthur's disastrous intelligence lapses about Chinese intervention that caused thousands of casualties. Did the opponents of daylight bombing over Europe in 1943 still damn the theories of old Billy Mitchell, or press on to find a way to hit Nazi Germany hard by late 1944?

These Generals are not only money-driven and unethical. They are downright treasonous -- "harping" on criticisms of our military strategy while we try to Win The War. Don't they know their patriotic duty, these Generals? And it's not just Generals who are selling out their country for book profits, as Hanson reminds us:

So we know the nature of these weary debates. Both sides offer reasonable arguments. Fine. But let us not fool ourselves any longer that each subsequent "exposé" and leak by some retired general, CIA agent, or State Department official — inevitably right around publication date — offers anything newer, smarter, or much more ethical in this dark era that began on September 11.

Criticisms of the Administration come "right around publication date." That's because nobody really finds genuine fault with the Administration. They're just all trying to sell books. Anyone who criticizes the Administration has bad motives, places their own interest over their country, and is undermining our war effort for selfish reasons. Including these "Generals." The great war hero Hanson sees right through them.

These Generals need to just shut up because people like them are the reason that we are losing:

What we need, then, are not more self-appointed ethicists, but far more humility and recognition that in this war nothing is easy. Choices have been made, and remain to be made, between the not very good and the very, very bad. Most importantly, so far, none of our mistakes has been unprecedented, fatal to our cause or impossible to correct.

So let us have far less self-serving second-guessing, and far more national confidence that we are winning — and that radical Islamists and their fascist supporters in the Middle East are soon going to lament the day that they ever began this war.

We need "far more humility" -- just like the Bush administration and its warmonger supporters like Hanson have been trying to tell us for years. And after that, all we need is "far more national confidence that we are winning" -- we just click our heels three times and recite over and over that things are great. And then they will be. Why can't these wishy-washy, defeatist Generals see that?

Attacking the motives -- not the arguments or judgments, but the motives -- of a bunch of retired Generals, all because they expressed criticism of the administration's war efforts, gives you a pretty good idea of how these Bush supporters are feeling. Desperate and scared. That must be the feeling inside the White House, too -- everyone is abandoning them, criticizing them, blaming them. They look and feel weak, impotent, and small. And they definitely are going to do something about that.

Hanson's lashing out at these Generals is just a minute though illustrative symptom of what is likely to come. When people like George Bush and Dick Cheney feel weak and impotent, they seek out conflict to show their toughness. Their supporters said as much as the reason they supported the Iraq War. That's where all of that "we-need-to-kick-some-Arab-ass" came from to justify the invasion. We felt weak and impotent after the 9/11 attacks and needed a good war to compensate. No need to speculate about that. Many of them, not realizing what it reveals about them, came right out and said it. Jonah Goldberg's explanation for why we should send other people to invade Iraq remains the Gold Standard for illuminating this tough-guy war-mongering stance:

Q: If you're a kid and you've had enough of the school bullies pants-ing you in the cafeteria, what's one of the smartest things you can do?

A: Punch one of them in the nose as hard as you can and then stand your ground.

When people like this feel weak and small, they need to lash out, to re-establish their warrior credentials. Attacking the motives of these Generals is so utterly irrational and vile, but they aren't operating from a rational platform. They are wounded and humiliated by their failures, and are desperate to find some way to compensate for that. I've read in many places that Bush will be hard-pressed to commit to an attack on Iran if his popularity remains so low and there is not broad popular support for the attack, but the opposite could quite easily be true as well. I think that's the more likely relationship between his popularity and the probability of an attack - the more unpopular he is, the more likely is an attack.

The weaker and more stigmatized Bush becomes, the greater could be the likelihood of some spiteful, bitter, strength-seeking military offensive. Few things seem more unstable and dangerous than an isolated, unpopular, bitter, failed, frustrated President, sitting in the White House recalling the glory days when war and military might caused him to feel so good and strong.

Does the debate over Iran matter?

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post about the death of shame in our pundit class, which observed that those who were most spectacularly and disastrously wrong in virtually all of their prognostications regarding Iraq not only refuse to accept any responsibility for their errors, but continue to parade around with the pretense of great wisdom and authority, seeking to dictate to us what our foreign policy choices ought to be, as though they are entitled to ongoing credibility.

Anonymous Liberal has a post up detailing that many of these pundits -- Bill Kristol, Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, Mark Steyn, etc. etc. -- are now in full-on war-monger mode -- again, this time with regard to the latest new Nazi Germany, Iran. The truly pathological passage which A.L. cites from Steyn -- where he urges "swift, massive, devastating force that decapitates the regime" (with no follow-up "touchy-feely nation-building") -- mocks itself. A.L. concludes that we need "some new hawkish pundits," because the current crop is so discredited and lame.

But does it really matter what any of us, pundits included, have to say about Iran? We are all running around engaged in a debate about how best to approach this situation, presumably laboring under the assumption that we are going to collectively decide this democratically, as a nation. But if the war-mongering radicals in the Bush administration convince The President that some sort of surgical strike, military attack or, decapitation assault against Iran is something we ought to do, will the Administration think that it needs any sort of Congressional authorization to engage in whatever war actions it desires? Very doubtful.

What prompted a focus on this issue is an e-mail I received from a reader, Wendell Bell, who asked this: "Will the Bush administration feel it necessary to go to Congress for a new AUMF to start the coming Iran war--or will the existing authorizations, as in so many other respects, be stretched to fit?"

There is simply no question that -- assorted Congressional authorizations to use military force to the side -- the administration believes that the President has the inherent power under Article II to order any military action which can be linked, however broadly or loosely, to a defense of the country against terrorism. To know this, one need only look to the September 25, 2001 Yoo Memorandum, still the official position of the entire executive branch. That memorandum is noted (at least here) most frequently for its concluding proclamation of generally unlimited presidential power, but the bulk of the memorandum is devoted to a discussion of the President's authority to order military force even in the absence of Congressional authorization. Here are some of its preliminary decrees:

Further, the President has the constitutional power not only to retaliate against any person, organization, or State suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks on the United States, but also against foreign States suspected of harboring or supporting such organizations. Finally, the President may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations or the States that harbor or support them, whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of September 11. . . .

We conclude that the Constitution vests the President with the plenary authority, as Commander in Chief and the sole organ of the Nation in its foreign relations, to use military force abroad - especially in response to grave national emergencies created by sudden, unforeseen attacks on the people and territory of the United States. . . .

These powers give the President broad constitutional authority to use military force in response to threats to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.

The administration, of course, sees its powers as being tantamount to those exercised by Abraham Lincoln during the incomparable crisis of the civil war. Hence:

By their terms, these provisions vest full control of the military forces of the United States in the President. The power of the President is at its zenith under the Constitution when the President is directing military operations of the armed forces, because the power of Commander in Chief is assigned solely to the President. It has long been the view of this Office that the Commander-in-Chief Clause is a substantive grant of authority to the President and that the scope of the President's authority to commit the armed forces to combat is very broad. See, e.g., Memorandum for Honorable Charles W. Colson, Special Counsel to the President, from William H. Rehnquist, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Re: The President and the War Power: South Vietnam and the Cambodian Sanctuaries (May 22, 1970) (the "Rehnquist Memo").

The President's complete discretion in exercising the Commander-in-Chief power has also been recognized by the courts. In the Prize Cases, 67 U.S. (2 Black) 635, 670 (1862), for example, the Court explained that, whether the President "in fulfilling his duties as Commander in Chief" had met with a situation justifying treating the southern States as belligerents and instituting a blockade, was a question "to be decided by him" and which the Court could not question, but must leave to "the political department of the Government to which this power was entrusted."

And anyone who thinks that Congressional authorization is required just because the Constitution vests in Congress the authority to declare war is very confused:

If the Framers had wanted to require congressional consent before the initiation of military hostilities, they knew how to write such provisions. . . .

Given this context, it is clear that Congress's power to declare war does not constrain the President's independent and plenary constitutional authority over the use of military force. . . . .

The centralization of authority in the President alone is particularly crucial in matters of national defense, war, and foreign policy, where a unitary executive can evaluate threats, consider policy choices, and mobilize national resources with a speed and energy that is far superior to any other branch.

It goes on and on like that - touting "the centralization of authority in the President alone" in all matters relating to national security.

Just in case anyone is entertaining the idea that the Yoo Memorandum is a quaint and obsolete relic from a time past, the Department of Justice, in defending the President's authority to break our nation's eavesdropping laws, issued a 42-page single-spaced document on January 19, 2006 making clear that the Yoo Memorandum is still the prevailing view in the administration of the President's powers. In it, we learned that nothing can "interfere" with the President's decisions regarding national security:

Because the President has determined that the NSA activities are necessary to the defense of the United States from a subsequent terrorist attack in the armed conflict with al Qaeda, FISA would impermissibly interfere with the President’s most solemn constitutional obligation – to defend the United States against foreign attack.

Anything which "the President determine[s is] . . . necessary to the defense of the United States" -- including war on Iran -- is something that cannot be interfered with. Any residual doubts should be nicely dispelled by this:

* The DoJ Letter favorably cites an argument made by Attorney General Black during the Civil War that statutes restricting the President’s actions relating to war "could probably be read as simply providing ‘a recommendation’ that the President could decline to follow at his discretion." (p. 32; emphasis added);

* "[T]he President’s role as sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs has long been recognized as carrying with it preeminent authority in the field of national security and foreign intelligence." (p. 30);

* The President is the "sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs" (p. 1);

* "The President has independent authority to repel aggressive acts by third parties even without specific congressional authorization, and courts may not review the level of force selected"), quoting a concurring opinion from radical Executive Branch fanatic Judge Laurence Silberman) (p. 10; emphasis added);

* "[I]t is clear that some presidential authorities in this context are beyond Congress’s ability to regulate" (p. 30);

* "Indeed, ‘in virtue of his rank as head of the forces, [the President] has certain powers and duties with which Congress cannot interfere’") (quoting Attorney General Robert H. Jackson) (p. 10);

* "Among the President’s most basic constitutional duties is the duty to protect the Nation from armed attack" and the "Constitution gives him all necessary authority to fulfill that responsibility." (p. 9);

* the President’s war powers "includes all that is necessary and proper for carrying these powers into execution" (p. 7; citation omitted, emphasis added) -- even in conflicts where no war has been declared by Congress (p. 26).

So we can have all the lofty and vigorous debates we want over whether a military offensive against Iran is desirable, prudent, disastrous, crazy, etc. But ultimately, nothing we think - or our representatives in Congress think - really matters, because these decisions, under this administration, are "for the President alone to make." We could refuse to authorize this military offensive, or even enact legislation banning it, and none of that would matter in the slightest. It's worth remembering that in our country today, the President is the "sole organ" in all such matters, and he has full, limitless, and un-limitable authority to do whatever he wants.

If the administration really resolves internally - whether for political reasons or bloodlust or some crazed Steyn-like beliefs or any combination of those or other motives - to attack Iran, is there any doubt that they will do that no matter how much opposition there is? One thing is clear - they believe they have the power and authority to do that unilaterally, and that they need no further authorization of any kind beyond the President's will.

Gingrich criticizes Bush's eavesdropping, helps the enemy

Newt Gingrich's sudden criticism of the Administration's actions in Iraq received a fair amount of attention, but as part of that speech, he also criticized Bush's illegal NSA eavesdropping. As the NY Sun reported (subs. req'd):

Mr. Gingrich, who led the House from 1995 to 1999, also took a swipe at Mr. Bush's decision not to seek congressional approval before implementing a wiretapping program aimed at uncovering communications involving possible Al Qaeda operatives.

"Where I fault the administration is, sometimes it would be so easy to just be simple and straight, okay? All they had to do is go to the American people and say, we want to make sure that if the National Security Agency picks up a foreign terrorist calling someone in the U.S., that they can listen to the call," Mr. Gingrich said in a video clip posted on the South Dakota newspaper's Web site. He said more than 90% of Americans would have quickly endorsed such a program.

There is a lot of this going on. As Bush apologists realize that their leader is presiding over a rotting, dying presidency, they are straining to distance themselves as strenuously as possible from their failed Commander. Stalwart GOP filth-peddler George Conway yesterday in his National Review column remarkably proclaimed -- with troops still in harm's way -- that "this Administration is the most politically and substantively inept that the nation has had in over a quarter of a century"; made the accusation that "folks on this web site don't want to hear it, but deep down they know it's true"; sadly announced that he doesn't "consider [him]self a Republican any longer"; and rudely and disrespectfully said about the Commander-in-Chief's reign that the best thing about it "is that it's almost over."

These same would-be Bush critics have spent the last four years creating a paradigm where this type of criticism of the Commander is not permitted because such criticism constitutes aid to Al Qaeda and it is therefore tantamount to treason. Compare the criticisms made by Gingrich of the President's illegal eavesdropping and his Iraq policies to this truly disgusting declaration made by him just a few months ago on Hannity & Colmes:

I think it's quite clear as you point out, Sean, that from this tape, that bin Laden and his lieutenants are monitoring the American news media, they're monitoring public opinion polling, and I suspect they take a great deal of comfort when they see people attacking United States policies.

There are few people left willing to defend the President on much of anything, including the NSA scandal. Several days ago, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner publicly upbraided Alberto Gonzales for "stonewalling" -- i.e. engaging in a cover-up -- for concealing virtually all relevant information sought by the Committee as it pretends to investigate the Administration's eavesdropping conduct.

There is clearly a sea change going on. The self-interested rats who propped up this Administration with blind loyalty for the least five years are now jumping ship as it sinks, desperately trying to save themselves by showing some extremely belated autonomy and independence. But where were Gingrich, Conway and Sensenebrenner for the last five years while "the most politically and substantively inept (administration) that the nation has had in over a quarter of a century" inflicted unquantifiable, arguably irreversible damage on our nation? They were accusing Administration critics of lacking patriotism and being on the side of terrorists, and they cannot be allowed to distance themselves now from the Administration to which they tied themselves.

Beyond the unsurprising fact that Bush followers are revealing themselves to be soul-less and disloyal now that their hero has fallen, the more important revelation is that they have built a framework in our country ever since 9/11 where dissent from the Commander was all but prohibited by the noxious equation of criticism with treason. All of the far-too-late criticisms which people like Gingrich, Conway and so many others are suddenly so eager to voice, have been off-limits for years now as a result of the precept -- spread by people like them -- that the President is not our public servant, but instead, is our Commander-in-Chief fighting a war in which our very survival is at stake, and to criticize him or oppose his efforts is, to use Gingrich's formulation, to give "a great deal of comfort" to the terrorists.

Indeed, responding to criticisms of his policies in Iraq, the President himself "demand[ed] a debate that brings credit to our democracy -- not comfort to our adversaries." Debates over what we should do now in order to win are acceptable; but condemnations of the President for things done in the past or which call into question the value of the troops' efforts (Gingrich: ""It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003") are treasonous. Following that logic, Zell Miller angrily stood before the nation at the Republican National Convention and described the 2004 presidential election this way: "our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief. " The same logic led Michael Reagan to demand when Howard Dean questioned whether we can win in Iraq that Dean "should be hung." This is the dissent-prohibiting climate in which our country has been wallowing essentially since 9/11.

Presidents have pursued misguided policies before, and surely will again. But one of the self-corrective features of a democracy is that open, aggressive criticism of our leaders enables those mistakes to be exposed, realized and corrected. We have been without that self-corrective capacity for the last five years thanks to Bush followers who insisted that not only is the President right, but that truly patriotic Americans will refrain from criticizing his policies in any way, because the criticism itself is tantamount to helping the enemy. And so we have collectively pursued disastrous policies, and tolerated patently illegal conduct, because the conventional wisdom emerged that it was preferable, and more patriotic, to keep quiet about our Government's actions than to speak out and point out what was obvious for quite some time now -- namely, all of the criticisms which long-time Bush supporters are suddenly voicing as though they believed them all along.

The greatest evil of the last five years isn't that our Government pursued disastrous and illegal policies. It's that the Administration and its supporters attempted to immunize themselves from criticism for those actions and thus deprived our democracy of its greatest strength. To now watch the people responsible for that dissent-quashing stand up and voice the very criticisms that they have long equated with treason is far too infuriating to celebrate. It is important to ensure that the people responsible for the indescribable mess our country is in on so many levels not be allowed to extricate themselves from responsibility. There has been one political faction which has run every part of our country for the last five years and they are responsible for everything that has happened. We know who they are and it is critically important that they not be permitted to play-act as being the opposition.

The Endless War

I have now finished the manuscript for my book, returned home from a week-long death session with the book's editors, and am ready/eager to resume full blogging duties beginning tomorrow morning. The book will be released on May 15, but is available for pre-sale on Amazon until then.

As a side note, I have a somewhat lengthy article in the current edition of The American Conservative magazine (only the Table of Contents is online). The article explores the differences between rational thought and partisan allegiance, and in particular examines the complete abandonment of conservative political principles by supporters of George Bush, for whom allegiance to the leader and the party have assumed absolute paramounce.

Finally, someone at The Washington Post appears to be an admirer of Us Magazine, or People Teen, or something, and they are offering a new (?) feature entitled "Off Hours" which, as they put it, "featur(es)Washington's top decision makers in their off hours -- outside the office and inside their lives."

Today's version contains vapid and oh-so-humanizing details about Attorney General Alberto Gonzaels' not-at-all-contrived-or-self-conscious interactions with his son and wife, but it also contains this significant revelation:

But as Gonzales pumped up a hill, he said he wasn't troubled by critics. He was troubled by terrorists. "I stay up at night," he said, rounding a corner near the water. "I read the reports. Sometimes I ask myself, when will it end?"

The river rippled away from the shore. "The answer is -- it probably never will."

That is an extremely important yet virtually never acknowledged truth revealed by the selfless Gonzales (who doesn't care at all about criticism of him, only about the dangers posed by terrorists). The "war" on terrorism -- which justifies everything from lawbreaking to expanded presidential powers across the board, and which means that we should be muted in our criticisms of the Commander-in-Chief (when we are allowed to voice them at all) -- is expected to end . . . right around never.

All of those Bush defenders who are constantly justifying radical changes to our country based on this "war" are not advocating short-term, temporary or finite changes. They seek fundamental and permanent changes to our system of government, and to transform the United States into a country that is in a state of war that literally has no end. That is not news to many people, but it is still striking to see it acknowledged so nakedly and starkly as Gonazles, likely unguarded by the family puff piece, admitted to it here.

Bush's Catch-22

By Anonymous Liberal

It's taken three days, but the official White House spin regarding Libby's testimony is starting to emerge. David Sanger and David Johnston of the New York Times have the official line:

A senior administration official confirmed for the first time on Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

But the official said that Mr. Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., or anyone else, to release the information to reporters.

Sanger and Johnston provide this bit of analysis:

The disclosure appeared intended to bolster the White House argument that Mr. Bush was acting well within his legal authority when he ordered that key conclusions of the classified National Intelligence Estimate, which was completed in the fall of 2002, should be revealed to make clear that intelligence agencies believed Mr. Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa.

Moreover, the disclosure seemed intended to suggest that Mr. Bush may have played only a peripheral role in the release of the classified material and was uninformed about the specifics — like the effort to dispatch Mr. Libby to discuss the estimate with reporters.

The White House is trying to walk a fine line here. On the one hand, in order to characterize everything as being above board, they are forced to confirm Libby's claim that the President personally authorized the release of information from the NIE, a decision which amounted to de facto "declassification." On the other hand, they are hoping to distance the President as much as possible from Libby's subsequent actions, i.e., misrepresenting the NIE, asking that the information be attributed to a "former Hill staffer," and outing an undercover CIA agent in the process.

So, after three days, they've settled on their spin: the President authorized discussion of the NIE but left all the details to Cheney and his aides.

The problem with this strategy is that Libby was quite specific in his testimony about what he was authorized to say. According to Fitzgerald, Libby testified that he was "specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller." Later Fitzgerald notes:

Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium.

So, according to Libby, he was authorized to discuss the key judgments section of the NIE, specifically the part that said Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium.

But here's the problem for the White House. There is no such section. As Walter Pincus points out in today's Washington Post:

Some of Libby's comments about the NIE that he made to reporter Judith Miller, then of the New York Times, on July 8, 2003, were inaccurate. Libby said one "key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium." That was not an NIE key judgment, and the CIA officials who wrote the document disputed that statement.

Moreover, according to Judy Miller's account of the conversation, Libby told her that the NIE "firmly concluded that Iraq was seeking uranium" and that "the assessments of the classified estimate were even stronger than those in the unclassified version." This is, of course, entirely untrue.

In other words, Libby badly misrepresented the portion of the NIE he claims he was authorized to divulge--the key judgments section--and actually cites language buried in the text of the NIE. Because the entire NIE has never been declassified, it very much matters which portions of the document the President claims to have authorized Libby to discuss. Did the President only "declassify" the key judgments section, or did he also "declassify" the portion of the text that Libby misrepresented to Miller? Did Bush or Cheney instruct Libby to describe that section, falsely, as a "key judgment"?

This is not just a minor semantic point either. There is an important difference between the key judgments and the less credible data points found elsewhere in the NIE. And this distinction was not lost on reporters at the time. When portions of the NIE were "officially" declassified on July 18, 2003, the White House held a background briefing. At that briefing, the following exchange took place between the briefer and (I believe) Wendell Goler of Fox News (emphasis is mine):

Q. Second question. The information about Africa did not rise to the level of a key judgment, it is not listed as one. The NIE is not meant to come out of the President's mouth -- at best, key judgments are. So why was the information, if it did not rise to the level of a key judgment, why was the information put in the President's speech?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, you made an assertion inside your question, where you're saying that the President is not supposed to cite the NIE. There are ways in which the President can assert the NIE if it's cleared through the process.

Q. But the other things the President asserts are key judgments. The Africa stuff, the uranium stuff did not rise to that level.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The NIE is a 90-page document. All those documents provide facts. The key judgments are not -- do not include everything in the 90 pages, or it wouldn't be key judgments, it would be the report, itself. And in this case, there were very specific data points provided in writing in the NIE that were included. That's why it was included in the speech by the speechwriters. There was not anybody specifically saying, put this in there; it was included based on a body of information that was provided. And then is the fact-checking progress that clears whether information like that could be used or not.

There are many points, there are central points to the reconstitution of the nuclear program -- those are outlined in the key points. But that doesn't mean that other elements of the case of why they believe it was reconstituting were not accurate.

Q. I don't think you've addressed the question -- let me try a different way. Name me another assertion the President made that failed to rise to the level of a key judgment.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I can't do that here today. I will be happy to look for that, but I'm not here -- I don't have the NIE and every speech the President has given memorized.

Q. I'm just talking about in this specific case. In the case of the State of the Union address from the '02 NIE, can you show me another assertion the President made that didn't rise to the level of a key judgment?

[snip]

Q. Isn't the reason this didn't rise to the level of a key judgment because there was so much disagreement --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know.

Q -- and the sources were so weak?

Because Libby so badly misrepresented the content of the NIE, it is very difficult for the White House to claim that the President authorized the disclosure without also implicating the President in a rather egregious bit of deception. That's why it's important that reporters press the White House on the specifics of Bush's "declassification" order. Which portions of the NIE did the President want reporters to know about and how did he want those portions to be represented? These are important questions, not just politically but legally. Only the portions of the NIE Bush actually mentioned can even arguably be described as having been declassified.

If reporters do their jobs and press the White House for answers to these questions, they may end up driving a wedge between the White House, on one side, and Libby and Cheney on the other. Up until now, the White House has been very careful not to say anything bad about Libby or to do anything to add to his legal troubles. Their worst fear is that Libby will flip and begin cooperating with Fitzgerald, a move that would spell disaster for the Vice President. But if Libby's testimony continues to cause political headaches for the White House--and it will if reporters continue to connect the dots--we will start to see a noticeable rift development between the White House and the Vice President's Office. Today's White House spin is the first sign of it.

Illicit Postcard from prison

I am still locked away in my undisclosed prison cell, forcibly denied all contact with the outside world (other than my editor, but one's oppressor does not count as "outside world") until the manuscript for my book is complete. I have always been an ardent supporter of Jose Padilla but I have now, harrowingly, developed a personal empathy for his situation. The real, final, never-to-be-moved-again deadline is this Monday, so I expect to be emancipated and able to return to regular blogging early next week.

I am genuinely very happy with how this book has developed and believe that it can make a meaningful contribution to (what ought to be) the public debate over the fact that we have a President who has seized powers which are, in every sense, the antithesis of the principles on which this country was founded. The book, which will be released on May 15, is now available for pre-sale on Amazon, although the Publisher is planning some sort of grand announcement early this upcoming week and so I probably just lost my evening food ration by mentioning that.

This week, the Bush Administration essentially ensured that it will retain the power to abduct and imprison U.S. citizens based on nothing more than Presidential decree as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 decision refusing to hear Padilla's challenge to his lawless imprisonment. The majority denied review on the ground that criminal charges against Padilla - after a mere 3 1/2 years -- have now been filed against him, thus rendering "moot" the question of whether it is constitutional to imprison U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without charges being brought.

Three of the six Justices who voted to deny the hearing, including Chief Justice Roberts, issued an Opinion which seemed to indicate that they would be watching closely and would bring the case back if Padilla is not given a speedy trial. But no matter. The Administration got what it wanted -- the ongoing ability to detain and consign to a military prison whomever the President desires, just like the Founders intended. It was particularly odd that Justice Stevens voted against review, given that he had previously observed - correctly: "at stake in this case is nothing less than the essence of a free society." One would think that concepts of "mootness" would give way to a case in which the essence of free society is at stake.

I wish I had more time to comment on several other significant events this week, both in the NSA scandal and elsewhere (many of which are detailed in this Times article), but I hear the guards coming, and I can't risk any more infractions, or any more broken bones.

Using the Drug "War" to Expand Government Power

GUEST POST - By Pete Guither and Hypatia

"[The Patriot Act] allowed the Department of Justice to use the same tools from the criminal process on terrorists that we use to combat mobsters or drug dealers."
- John Ashcroft

"The law allows our intelligence and law enforcement officials to continue to share information. It allows them to continue to use tools against terrorists that they used against -- that they use against drug dealers and other criminals. ... And the bill gives law enforcement new tools to combat threats to our citizens from international terrorists to local drug dealers."
- George W. Bush, March 9, 2006

Whether it's terrorism or drugs, declaring war is an opportunity for the state to demand more tools, more weapons, more power. All the Department of Justice needs to do is utter the words "terror" or "drugs," and Congress starts writing blank checks. These days they utter both, and the sky's the legislative limit.

We discussed what is arguably the most vicious drug war weapon – prison – at this site in our guest post Prison & the War on Drugs: Just Say No. But the drug warriors have long employed many other dangerous and/or inhuman additional weapons, and these are now growing more numerous. Most recently that is thanks to The Patriot Act (“TPA”), sold as an essential tool in fighting terrorists, but one that it also being used with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism, especially the investigation of suspected drug traffickers. (And, as will be seen, no one understands and objects to this state of affairs more strongly than Senator Russ Feingold.)

About 110 million Americans age 12 or older (46% of the population) have reported using illegal drugs at some time in their lives. Further, many if not most users also qualify as “dealers” in the eyes of the law. With close to half of our country constituting "the enemy,” the government must have a heavy and varied armory, if it is to effectively wage battles on this massive domestic horde of drug belligerents. Let us consider what, then, in addition to prison, comprises the drug warriors' arsenal that it trains on nearly half of us.

Drug War Weapon: Asset Forfeiture


Forfeiture -- the seizure of the personal property of traitors or certain felons -- has its roots in English common law and was used to a limited degree in the American colonies. Our Founders, however, despised it, and in 1790 the very first Congress abolished forfeiture. That repeal held for 180 years, until 1970 and Richard Nixon's drug war push.

The new federal asset forfeiture law is civil, not criminal, and unlike the English common law, which required conviction prior to seizure, American forfeiture dispenses with the need for proving the property owner guilty of anything. All that is necessary is for the state to claim a connection between the thing seized and drugs, whereupon the government may confiscate the property. It is then up to the owner to prove (at their own expense, hiring a lawyer & etc.) that the property is "innocent." Critically, the proceeds from the seizures go into the budget of the state or federal law enforcement agencies and prosecutors offices, creating a horrible incentive for officers to go after seizures solely for the purpose of enriching their units with a swell new fleet of fully loaded police cruisers, or lovely new desks for the DAs.

Forfeiture Endangers American Rights documents some of the myriad, rampant abuses of civil asset forfeiture:

• Willie Jones, the black owner of a Nashville nursery business. Jones aroused the suspicions of a ticketing agent by purchasing an airline ticket with cash. He was traveling to Houston to buy nursery inventory with cash. Jones was not arrested or charged with a crime, but the $9,600 so essential to his family business was seized. Law enforcement assumes that sanyone carrying that much cash, especially to a city where drug trafficking occurs, must be a drug dealer. While there was no evidence to charge Jones, lack of evidence wasn't necessary to charge his cash (the concept, again being, that since objects aren't people, they aren't entitled to the presumption of innocence.)

• Donald P. Scott was a reclusive millionaire in California with a 200 acre ranch in Malibu. His home was raided by 30 law enforcement officers hoping to find marijuana plants, with a plan to seize the property. In the course of the raid, Scott was shot to death by two sheriffs deputies. No drugs were found. According to District Attorney Michael Bradbury:"It is the District Attorney's opinion that the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government... Based in part upon the possibility of forfeiture, Spencer obtained a search warrant that was not supported by probable cause. This search warrant became Donald Scott's death warrant."
  

• Last fall, 56-year-old Cynthia Warren of Boulder City, Colorado pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of growing 6 marijuana plants in her home and was fined $500. But that wasn't the end of it. City Attorney Dave Olsen attempted to seize her $400,000 home.

And yes, this is all constitutional; thus has held our Supreme Court. The state may seize your “guilty property” even if you are an “innocent owner,” unaware of or uninvolved in any illicit activity. Further, asset forfeiture having been brought back to us for the drug war, it may now apply to other vice crimes, according to our Highest Court; even if you are an innocent wife who co-owns a vehicle with your husband, and in that car the cad avails himself of the services of an, um, “sex worker.” You lose your "guilty" vehicle to the state.

The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (pdf) made some minor corrections to the federal law, but the program is still a major law enforcement agency budget enhancer, and is rife with corruption. Abuse of state asset forfeiture laws is rampant. Since 1997, less than half of the law enforcement agencies in Ohio have filed reports listing money and property seized, despite a state law that mandates reporting. Utah tried to reform the laws by requiring seized assets to go to education rather than law enforcement, but were stymied by their own law enforcement agencies who refused to comply as well as the federal government. Getting around state law often merely requires involving a federal agent in the bust. That renders it a federal case, and the feds automatically kick back a percentage to local law enforcement. Federal seized assets totalled $500 million in 2005 -- not a bad little petty cash fund.

Drug War Weapon: Criminal and Paid Informants

The informant is an essential tool in the war on drugs, most commonly sent out to buy drugs and then law enforcement arrests the sellers. Informants did not used to be heavily employed by the police, but they are “necessary” in vice crimes, and especially so in the drug war. That is because unlike in the instance of, say, rape or robbery, there is no complaining witness; drug transactions do not normally involve an aggrieved party -- "Officer, that man sold me some weed, help me!" And since drug dealers are also generally unwilling to conveniently conduct transactions in front of law enforcement officers, the drug warriors simply “must” make extensive use of informants. These are either paid (sometimes by the bust or according to the amount of drugs involved), or s/he is working for a reduced sentence. Either way, the incentive is to deliver the arrest and conviction of other citizens, any way they can.

The results are predictable:

• In 1999, a drug sting operation in the small town of Tulia, Texas resulted in the arrest of 46 people, 40 of whom were black. The remaining six individuals were either Latinos or whites dating blacks. This drug bust resulted in the incarceration of almost 15% of the black population of Tulia. All were charged based on the word of Tom Coleman, a paid operative who worked alone, did not wear a wire, and did not record the locations of any of the supposed drug transactions. Despite a paucity of evidence other than Coleman's claims, several of the accused were convicted (including one who received a 99 year sentence). But then things began to fall apart. Some of the suspects had proof they were elsewhere at the time of the supposed drug buys. Information surfaced that Coleman had a criminal past and a history of lying. Eventually the case got some visibility and public pressure. A special prosecutor dropped the charges for those being held, and the Governor signed a bill in 2003 freeing those who had already been sent to prison.
  

• In 2001, narcotics informants on the Dallas police payroll planted packages of billiards chalk on dozens off innocent Mexican immigrants, who were then arrested and imprisoned for cocaine trafficking. The bigger the "buy," the more the police would pay their informants. This travesty came to light when several Dallas police officers were prosecuted for corruption.

Drug War Weapon: No-knock Searches


The most dangerous tool used in the War on Drugs is the no-knock drug raid. It's 4 a.m. and dozens of officers dressed in black prepare to storm a house. They come with battering rams to smash down the door, flash grenades are employed, and before the residents can fully wake up and figure out what's going on, armed men are swarming through the house and into the bedrooms. Anything can happen. And it does.


Federal constitutional law generally requires "knock and announce" before entering a residence with a search warrant. However, there is an "exigent circumstances exception" -- generally held to include situations threatening physical safety, or the imminent destruction of evidence. And we cannot have drug dealers flushing evidence down the toilet, so officers crash into homes without first knocking and announcing themselves.


Prior to the drug war, no-knock searches and SWAT teams were generally reserved for hostage situations and extremely rare cases where lives were in danger. And for good reason -- storming into a house is incredibly dangerous for both officers and residents. These are military tactics and should only be used on civilians as a last resort. But, of course, this is a “war,” hence the commando raids. (See this excellent post at QandO about a case currently being reviewed in the Supreme Court pertaining to the constitutionality of no-knock searches.)

Indeed, with the advent of the war on plants, pills and powders, there has been an explosion in SWAT teams and no- knock drug raids around the country (why does Mount Orab, Ohio -- population 2,701 -- need its own 12-man SWAT team?). In the 1980s, there were about 3,000 annual SWAT team deployments each. Today, courtesy of the drug war, there are at least 40,000 a year.

These raids entail high risk of two serious dangers: officers understandably on edge ready to fire at the slightest provocation, and confused residents who may think their home is being invaded (some of whom may be legally or illegally armed). With the increase in the use of these tactics, therefore, comes an increase in the frequency of these kinds of stories:

• 8-year-old Xavier Bennett was accidentally shot to death by officers in a pre-dawn drug raid during a gunfight with one of Xavier's relatives.

• 11-year-old Alberto Sepulveda was killed by a shotgun blast to the back while following police orders and lying face down on the floor during a SWAT raid.

• 84-year-old, bed-ridden Annie Rae Dixon was in her room at the time of a drug raid. An officer kicked open her bedroom door and accidentally shot and killed her.

• 56 year-old Alberta Spruill died of a heart attack during a wrong- address drug raid. The same thing happened to the elderely, Reverend Accelyne Williams in a separate wrong-address raid.

• 23-year-old Anthon Diotaiuto was working two jobs to pay for the house he lived in with his mother. He died after he was shot 10 times during a raid on his house that yielded 2 ounces of marijuana.

• 46-year-old Willie Heard thought his home was being invaded and he grabbed his unloaded rifle to protect his wife and daughter. He was shot to death in front of them. The police had gone to the wrong address.

• During a drug raid, smoke grenades started the house on fire. 21- year-old John Hirko was shot to death in the back trying to escape the burning building. (The city of Bethlehem, PA is paying an $8 million settlement to his family.)

• 20 year-old Jose Colon made the mistake of visiting a house targeted for a raid. He was standing outside when SWAT shot him in the head.

• 45 year-old Ismael Mena was killed in his home by police. They were at the wrong address.

• 65 year-old Mario Paz died when he was shot twice in the back in his bedroom during a drug raid.

Well, but we are war. During war, collateral damage and friendly fire are to be expected in harsh battle zones. But is this the America we want? A country where we engage in military-style invasions of citizens’ homes to prevent dried weeds and powders from being flushed?


Do we want more drug war weaponry, and escalation of the tactical offensives, sanctioned in the name of the war on terror via TPA? No, thinks the estimable Russ Feingold, who has been much maligned for his vote against it, but who approves of most of TPA. Among his objections, however, is opposition to enhancing the use of an un-American weapon in the drug warriors' armory, namely expanded use of “sneak and peek” searches (our emphasis):

Notice of [a] search is part of the standard Fourth Amendment protection. It’s what gives meaning, or maybe we should say “teeth,” to the Constitution’s requirement of a warrant and a particular description of the place to be searched and the persons or items to be seized. Over the years, the courts have had to deal with government claims that the circumstances of a particular investigation require a search without notifying the target prior to carrying out the search. In some cases, giving notice would compromise the success of the search by leading to the flight of the suspect or the destruction of evidence. The two leading cases on so-called surreptitious entry, or what have come to be known as “sneak and peek” searches, came to very similar conclusions….

Let me make one final point about sneak and peek warrants. Don’t be fooled for a minute into believing that this power is needed to investigate terrorism or espionage. It’s not. Section 213 is a criminal provision that could apply in whatever kind of criminal investigation the government has undertaken. In fact, most sneak and peek warrants are issued for drug investigations. So why do I say that they aren’t needed in terrorism investigations? Because FISA also can apply to those investigations. And FISA search warrants are always executed in secret, and never require notice. If you really don’t want to give notice of a search in a terrorism investigation, you can get a FISA warrant. So any argument that limiting the sneak and peek power as we have proposed will interfere with sensitive terrorism investigations is a red herring.

The drug war and its odious arsenal are a danger to our society. They result in lost lives, police corruption, and a severe erosions of citizens' rights -- and familes destroyed by loved ones going to prison. Even if the drug war were considered a success (a truly absurd belief), it is surpassingly clear that the tools of prohibition are worse than the drugs prohibited. The Bush Administration’s expansion of the types and occasions for use of these weapons, while invoking and piggy-backing on terrorism as an excuse, is wholly unjustified; it is right for Feingold, and all of us, to just say no.

Something Doesn't Add Up Here

By Anonymous Liberal

Today's revelation--which comes straight from court papers filed by Patrick Fitzgerald--is that Scooter Libby has testified that President Bush specifically authorized him (via Dick Cheney) to release selected portions of the classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to New York Times reporter Judy Miller in their now infamous July 8, 2003 rendezvous at the St. Regis Hotel. (Thanks to Tom Maguire for posting the court papers on his site). Here's the key passage from Fitzgerald's court filing:

As to the meeting on July 8, defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was "pretty definitive" against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the Vice President thought it was "very important" for the key judgments of the NIE to come out. Defendant further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE.

Defendant testified that the Vice President later advised him that the President had
authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE. Defendant testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington
opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to
declassification of the document.

At another point in the court filing, Fitzgerald writes:

Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller--getting approval from the President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval--were unique in his recollection.

There are a number of puzzling aspects of this story. First, consider this paragraph from Murray Waas:

Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was
directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.

Were these pre-war leaks authorized by the President as well, or just Cheney? If by the President, why did Libby describe the NIE incident as "unique in his recollection"? If these leaks were authorized by Cheney alone, did Cheney break the law? And if Libby acted solely on the Vice President's authority for these pre-war leaks, why was he suddenly unwilling to do so with respect the NIE? What changed?

According to Libby's testimony, he advised Cheney that he could not discuss the NIE with reporters because it was classified. Then, even after Cheney got specific authorization from the President, Libby felt compelled to seek legal advice from David Addington before leaking the information. Does that make any sense? Waas' sources (and common sense) tell us that this was not the first time Libby had been asked to leak classified information. So is this just an elaborate cover-your-ass story on Libby's part? What's going on here?

Another bizarre aspect of this story is highlighted by Eriposte at the Left Coaster (who has done incredible work on various aspects of this story). Fitzgerald writes in the court filing:

Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium.

But as Eriposte points out, the passage Libby is referring to was NOT one of the key judgments contained in the NIE. Indeed, it was buried in the text of the document precisely because it was not thought to be particularly credible. And of course Libby neglected to tell Miller about the portions of the NIE that cast doubt on the uranium claim. In other words, not only does Libby claim that he was authorized to release cherry-picked portions of the NIE to Miller, but he claims he was told to misrepresent to Miller that those portions were "key judgments."

So let's assume, for the moment, that Libby's testimony is accurate. That would mean that the President, instead of following normal declassification procedures and publicly releasing a redacted version of the NIE, authorized an aide to present a cherry-picked and manipulated version of that document to a friendly New York Times reporter on deep background. That aide then passed along the highly misleading information and asked that it be attributed to a "former Hill staffer." That may not be illegal, but it is sure as hell unethical. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that during this same conversation, Libby revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

Meanwhile, National Security Counsel staff, unaware of this secret declassification, continued to go through the steps of formally declassifying portions of the document, and finally succeeded ten days later, on July 18, 2003.

I honestly don't know what to make of all this, but any way you slice it, it seems pretty dodgy. Hopefully our esteemed Washington press corps will now start asking some questions.

NSA endgame

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By Anonymous Liberal
______________________________

As I've said said before, I think Senator Feingold's censure resolution is an entirely reasonable and justified response to the flouting of a criminal statute by a sitting president. I also think that if Democratic politicians could muster the courage to stand together on this, the resolution could be good politics as well. That said, I've come to the same conclusion as Marty Lederman: "The only way for Congress to prevail in this important was powers standoff is if the Supreme Court declares the President's conduct unlawful."

In theory, Congress could re-assert its powers by making life very difficult for the president. It could threaten impeachment. It could hold the executive branch hostage by withholding funding for key initiatives. But there's simply no way that Congress is going to take these measures, even if by some miracle the Democrats manage to take back both chambers of Congress in November. Such extreme measures are simply too politically risky. The potential for blowback is too large, particularly when it comes to national security related issues.

Realistically, only a major judicial ruling--a modern day Youngstown--can restore the proper constitutional balance. For that reason, opponents of Bush's warrantless surveillance (and his Article II theories generally) must pursue a political and legal strategy designed to maximize the odds of the Court weighing in on this issue.

There are already several legal challenges underway. The lawsuit filed by the ACLU (on behalf of such plaintiffs as Christopher Hitchens and Larry Diamond) has some potential, but the plaintiffs must first establish that they have standing to sue, which will not be easy. Another legal challenge has been filed by lawyers for the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation claiming that the director of the organization was a target of the NSA's warrantless surveillance. This challenge has a better claim to legal standing, at least in theory, but its success will largely depend on the factual details of whatever surveillance actually took place.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of legal standing, the "case or controversy" clause of Article III of the Constitution has been interpreted to bar federal courts from issuing "advisory opinions." The courts will only hear genuine disputes between litigants with a personal stake in the outcome. This has come to be known as Article III standing. In order to proceed to the merits of a case, a plaintiff must first establish, as a threshold matter, that he has 1) suffered an "injury in fact," 2) that this injury is fairly traceable to the defendant's conduct, and 3) that a favorable decision by the court would redress this injury (for a primer on standing doctrine, see this). Standing doctrine is notoriously convoluted, and as a practical matter, judges tend to find standing exists when they want to address the merits of a case and find it lacking when they don't. Nevertheless, standing poses a major obstacle for any would-be challengers of the NSA program.

There are, however, a few proposals on the table that are potentially helpful in this regard. The first is a piece of proposed legislation by Chuck Schumer that would attempt to provide statutory standing for litigants (like Hitchens, Diamond, etc.) who claim that the NSA program has had a chilling effect on the exercise of their professional and constitutional rights. For a discussion of this bill, see this excellent post by Marty Lederman. The goal of Schumer's bill is to facilitate adjudication of the merits of suits like the one filed by the ACLU. While such a law would not guarantee that a court would find standing to exist, it would make such a ruling much more likely.

The problem, as Marty concedes, is that Schumer's bill stands virtually zero chance of becoming law. Even if Schumer could get enough Republicans to join him--which is unlikely to begin with--the bill would likely be vetoed. As a political matter, though, the bill would at least call the administration's bluff and make it crystal clear that they have no confidence whatsoever in the strength of their legal arguments. But then again, that's pretty clear already.

The other interesting avenue of legal challenge is the one proposed by Sean Patrick Maloney, a candidate for Attorney General in New York. Maloney, with the assistance of some other good lawyers, has actually drafted a complaint that could be used by any number of state Attorneys General to challenge the legality of the NSA program. The complaint alleges--among other things--that the NSA program violates a New York state law that forbids eavesdropping except as authorized by relevant state and federal laws. Many other states have similar laws. Determining whether the NSA program violates these laws would require a judge to determine whether or not the President acted within his constitutional power in authorizing the program. This sort of lawsuit may be less vulnerable to standing challenges than one filed by a private party.

Looming over all these legal challenges, however, is the possibility that new legislation will render the issues moot. If either the DeWine or the Specter bill passes, it will bring the NSA program within the letter of the law. At that point, the ACLU's standing argument--even if buttressed by the Schumer bill--would be seriously undermined. There would no longer be any illegal program causing a "chilling effect" on communications. And the declaratory and injunctive relief sought in that action would no longer make sense. The same is true of Maloney's Attorney General complaint, at least as it is currently drafted.

The passage of the DeWine or Specter bills would not retroactively legalize the surveillance that has already occurred, but it would make it very difficult to construct a viable legal vehicle for challenging the President's Article II theories.

For this reason, I've come to the conclusion that the best strategy for Democrats to pursue is to vigorously oppose any further amendments to FISA, at least until the courts have had a chance to weigh in on this issue. So long as the President claims the inherent authority to disregard FISA, amending FISA is not only a pointless exercise, but it will actually serve to delay or preclude judicial resolution of this constitutional impasse. The Democrats need to give this issue the time to work its way through the courts.

In the meantime, they should be prepared to filibuster any proposed FISA amendments should it be necessary. If the Republicans try to paint them as being obstructionist or opposed to legislation necessary to fight the war on terror, Democrats can simply point to statements like this one:

JIM LEHRER: Is the president willing to work with Congress to settle some of the legal disputes about the NSA surveillance program?

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We believe, Jim, that we have all the legal authority we need.

Similar statements have been made on numerous occasions by Scott McClellan and even the President himself. It will be pretty hard to paint the Democrats as opposing necessary legislation when the administration itself concedes that it is unnecessary. If the administration changes its tune and argues that authorizing legislation is necessary, that in and of itself, will be a significant victory.

What we need to do now, at least in my humble opinion, is buy time. We need to give these legal challenges a chance to proceed without being mooted by new legislation. Schumer's bill should be supported vigorously, even if its prospects for passage are slim. Attorneys General in solidly blue states should be encouraged to consider filing legal challenges similar to the one proposed by Sean Maloney. The more challenges that are filed, the better the chance that at least one of them will reach the merits. And when the administration is finally forced to make its frivolous legal arguments in front of federal judge, it's not going to be pretty.

Mark Steyn: Adventures in Idiocy

By Anonymous Liberal


As the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate and public support for the war effort dwindles, the chief cheerleaders of the Iraq invasion are desperately looking for someone else to blame. Bill Kristol has already pointed his finger squarely at Donald Rumsfeld and has accused the Bush administration of not waging the war with sufficient "moral seriousness." GOP shills like Brit Hume, Fred Barnes, and Laura Ingraham are busy pointing their fingers at the media, accusing news organizations of poisoning public opinion with a constant barrage of bad news.

But the award for pure chutzpah has to go to Mark Steyn. His column in the Chicago Sun Times is so astoundingly dumb that it sets the new gold standard for conservative idiocy on Iraq (which is no small feat!).

Before I get to the heart of Steyn's argument, I want to take one paragraph from his column totally out of context (for reasons which will become apparent). Toward the middle of the column, Steyn writes:

To win a war, you don't spin a war. Millions of ordinary citizens are not going to stick with a "long war" (as the administration now calls it) if they feel they're being dissembled to about its nature. One reason we regard Churchill as a great man is that his speeches about the nature of the enemy don't require unspinning or detriangulating.

That sounds like something I might write. After all, this war has been "spun" from the very beginning. The American people were told that Saddam posed a grave and gathering threat; that he was in league with Al Qaeda and six months away from getting his hands on nuclear weapons. They were told the war would be quick and easy and would pay for itself. They've been treated to a string of premature declarations of victory and assured repeatedly that everything is going swimmingly when their own eyes tell them that it's not. It's no wonder they're a little disillusioned at this point.

Sadly, however, Steyn wasn't referring to any of these things I just mentioned. No, Steyn thinks the problem is that President Bush and Tony Blair have not made it sufficiently clear to the American and British people that this is really a war against Islam. Yes, you read that correctly. Steyn attributes the plummeting support for the Iraq War to, of all things, political correctness gone awry. He writes:

The line here is "respect." Everybody's busy professing their "respect": We all "respect" Islam; presidents and prime ministers and foreign ministers, lapsing so routinely into the deep-respect-for-the-religion-of-peace routine they forget that cumulatively it begins to sound less like "Let's roll!" and too often like "Let's roll over!"

Referring to a respectful statement about Islam by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Steyn writes:

At a basic level the foreign secretary's rhetoric does not match reality. Government leaders are essentially telling their citizens: Who ya gonna believe -- my platitudinous speechwriters or your lyin' eyes?

Steyn concludes his column with this:

My worry is that the official platitudes in this new war are the equivalent of the Cold War chit-chat in its 1970s detente phase --when Willy Brandt and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter pretended the enemy was not what it was. Then came Ronald Reagan: It wasn't just the evil-empire stuff, his jokes were on the money, too. In their own depraved way, the Islamists are a lot goofier than the commies and a few gags wouldn't come amiss. If this is a "long war," it needs a rhetoric that can go the
distance. And the present line fails that test.

For Steyn, the problem is simple: our rhetoric is not sufficiently inflammatory and jingoistic. The key to winning the war in Iraq and the overall war on terror is, apparently, to declare ourselves at war with Islam, and to make fun of Muslims.

Cluelessness of this magnitude is staggering to behold. Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong believer in free speech and will defend anyone's right to express an opinion, even an inflammatory one. But to suggest, as a normative proposition, that the way to win this war of ideas is to attack and ridicule Islam itself is pure insanity. That approach will do wonders for our effort to win over hearts and minds.

And it's even more ridiculous to suggest--as Steyn does--that the current dwindling support for the Iraq War is due to the overly-respectful way in which our leaders discuss Islam. Yeah, if only Bush would start framing this conflict as a holy war against Islam, everyone would suddenly be back onboard.

Does Steyn really think that the American people don't know the nature of the enemy we face, that they're unaware that the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 were militant Islamists? That's ridiculous. If anything, one of the reasons people have soured on the war in Iraq is because an increasing number of them have realized that Saddam's regime had little, if anything, to do with the enemy that attacked us on 9/11 and that this ill-advised and disastrously-executed war appears to have made the situation infinitely worse.

Or perhaps people have grown a little disillusioned because columnists like Steyn told them things like this almost three years ago:

This war is over. The only question now is whether a new provisional government is installed before the BBC and The New York Times have finished running their exhaustive series on What Went Wrong with the Pentagon's Failed War Plan. . . .

[T]hese are the death throes: the regime was decapitated two weeks ago, and what we've witnessed is the last random thrashing of the snake's body. . . .

[F]or everyone other than media naysayers, it's the Anglo-Aussie-American side who are the geniuses. Rumsfeld's view that one shouldn't do it with once-a-decade force, but with a lighter, faster touch has been vindicated, with interesting implications for other members of the axis of evil and its reserve league.

You would think that someone who was so massively wrong about Iraq might be humbled by the experience and opt for a less condescending and cocksure tone when discussing the war. Not Steyn. His train of idiocy rolls onward, undetered. And remarkably, his influence among conservatives continues to grow. Steyn's Sunday column was quoted at length (and approvingly) by Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds who encouraged his readers to "[r]ead the whole thing, especially the last paragraph." Peter Robinson at The Corner also quotes the column at length, noting that "Mark Steyn is at his zestful, gorgeous, truthful best."

Sigh.

Orrin Hatch: Laws become unconstitutional once Bush violates them

Digby has a post detailing how Orrin Hatch opined at Friday's censure hearing that censure was unconstitutional, even though he said precisely the opposite during the Clinton impeachment hearings.

In that same point, Digby cites a quote from Hatch where he claims -- as he has done several times since the NSA scandal began -- that FISA is clearly unconstitutional because Congress has no right to limit the President's eavesdropping activities:

"It would be unconstitutional for the Congress to say, 'You have to go through the FISA court.' We could pass a law that says, 'We want you to go through the FISA court,' and I think the president would probably try to live with that. The problem is, you cannot do what they've been doing to protect us through the current FISA statute."

That FISA is an unconstitutional encroachment on the President's authority is an interesting opinion for Hatch to voice. When FISA was enacted in 1978, the Senate approved that legislation by a vote of 95-1. Although the roll call vote appears not to be online, someone working with me on my book telephoned Hatch's office this week to confirm that he voted for FISA. He did. (He also voted to amend FISA and modify the criminal restrictions imposed by Congress on the President's eavesdropping activities in 2001, when the Senate voted to enact the PATRIOT Act).

Hatch thus voted to enact criminal restrictions on the President's eavesdropping activities. Once it turned out that the President was breaking that law, Hatch suddenly claimed that the very law he voted to enact and repeatedly amend was unconstitutional.

This seems to be an accurate summary of the evolution of Sen. Hatch's views of constitutional law:

(1) The Congress has the right to restrict the President's eavesdropping activities, and to make certain eavesdropping activities a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.

(2) Therefore, Hatch votes several times for FISA.

(3) Every President since then complies with the law -- including President Reagan and Bush 41 during the height of the Cold War - and no Administration or member of Congress challenge its constitutionality.

(4) George Bush gets caught violating FISA by engaging in the precise eavesdropping which FISA criminalizes.

(5) Hatch says that the Leader did nothing wrong because the law which the Leader violated -- the same one Hatch voted to enact and to amend repeatedly -- is unconstitutional.

Hatch has been in the Congress for more than 30 years. He was in Congress when FISA was enacted 28 years ago. He never once claimed that it was unconstitutional in any way -- until it was revealed that George Bush has been deliberately violating the law. Then he suddenly said that Congress had no right to pass that law, so after 28 years, the whole thing is all just totally invalid.

Congress may have the right to request (respectfully and politely) that the Commander-in-Chief go to the FISA court before eavesdropping on American citizens, but Congress has no right to require that the Commander do so (even though the law which Hatch repeatedly voted for purports to do just that).

I realize that intellectual honesty isn't exactly in great abundance among career politicians like Hatch, and that naked, amoral inconsistencies of this sort are run-of-the-mill for the Beltway sophisticates. But isn't this a bit too transparent and rancid even for that circle?

The President's "good faith" defense

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By Anonymous Liberal
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In its article covering Friday's censure hearing, the New York Times reports:

Several Republicans argued that whatever the legal status of the spying program, it did not deserve punishment because, unlike Nixon, Mr. Bush had acted in good faith.

"This is apples and oranges," Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told Mr. Dean. "Anybody who believes that Richard Nixon was relying on some inherent-authority argument is recreating history."

Oh really. Here's a passage from the same 1969 TIME Magazine article Glenn highlighted yesterday:

If anything, the Nixon Administration has been less than apologetic about the practice. Last month, in a memorandum filed during the Chicago trial of eight men charged with conspiring to incite acts of violence during the Democratic National Convention, the Justice Department claimed the inherent right to bug or wiretap-without court orders-any time it felt that the "national security" was in jeopardy.

As authority for this broad power, the Government cited the President's oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" from domestic subversion as well as foreign enemies. Contending that every President since Franklin Roosevelt had permitted such wiretaps, the Government went on to imply that they were even more important now because of the growing violence and rioting in the nation's cities and on its campuses.

Not only did Nixon rely on an inherent authority argument, but he had an infinitely stronger case because Congress had not yet passed FISA. Nice try, though, Senator Graham.

I also want to take a moment to address the emerging "good faith" defense of the President, which is being advanced by Republicans like Senators Graham and Specter who are clearly skeptical of the NSA program's legality. The argument seems to be that while Bush may have acted illegally, he did so based on a good faith belief that his actions were legal, and therefore he does not deserve harsh criticism or Congressional sanction.

I can see why Republicans like Graham and Specter have gravitated toward this argument. It allows them to express their genuine skepticism about the legality of the program without having to criticize the President for authorizing it.

But there's a major problem. Everything the administration has done for the past four and a half years indicates that it does NOT have a good faith belief in its own legal arguments. If Bush administration officials had any confidence whatsoever in their legal theories, they could at any point seek judicial blessing of the NSA program. All they would have to do is try to introduce evidence obtained via warrantless surveillance in court, either in a criminal prosecution or in an application for a FISA warrant. Either move would force the court to address the legality of the NSA program. In the latter context, the administration would have the benefit of being able to present its case ex parte and in secret.

But they are unwilling to do this, and for one simple reason: they are pretty certain they will lose. This paragraph from a U.S. News & World Report story last week is particularly revealing:

White House lawyers, in particular, Vice President Cheney's counsel David Addington (who is now Cheney's chief of staff), pressed Mueller to use information from the NSA program in court cases, without disclosing the origin of the information, and told Mueller to be prepared to drop prosecutions if judges demanded to know the sourcing, according to several government officials.

So they were willing to deceive judges and to drop entire prosecutions rather than test their legal theories in court. If that's not good faith, what is? The article goes on to make the obvious point:

[John] Martin, who has handled more intelligence-oriented criminal cases than anyone else at the Justice Department, puts the issue in stark terms: "The failure to allow it [information obtained from warrantless surveillance] to be used in court is a concession that it is an illegal surveillance."

But that's not the only evidence that the administration doesn't have much confidence in its own legal theories. The administration has worked feverishly to scuttle any further investigation into its activities and to challenge the standing of litigants (like the ACLU) who have sought to have the legality of the NSA program adjudicated in court.

And, perhaps most glaringly of all, there's the fact that the administration's primary legal argument was apparently conceived years after the program was first authorized. It's pretty hard to have a good faith belief in the merits of an argument you haven't even thought up yet. The administration is so confident in the merits of its legal theories that it won't even release the relevant OLC legal opinions, despite repeated requests.

No, despite what "several Republicans" argue, this administration does not and has never had a good faith belief that its legal theories will prevail in court.

But, you may protest, perhaps Bush did have a good faith believe that his actions would help prevent terrorism, even if he knew they were probably illegal. Isn't this a mitigating factor? Sure, if it's true. And for all I know it is. But there are two points we must not lose sight of.

First, because this surveillance is taking place in secret and without judicial review, we have no way of knowing who is actually being spied upon and why. We must simply take the administration's word. But history has shown that a president's word isn't worth a whole lot in this area. Surveillance authority was abused not only by the Nixon administration, but by his Democratic predecessors. The whole point of FISA was so we wouldn't have to take the president's word anymore. Even if you trust Bush to use this power only on terrorists and never on anyone else, can you really say the same about all future presidents?

Second, even if Bush's motives are as pure as the driven snow, it doesn't justify knowingly violating the law, at least outside of very extreme and short-term emergency scenarios. The viability of our system of constitutional government depends on the willingness of our leaders, particularly the president, to take seriously the concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances embodied in our Constitution. Subverting these concepts is dangerous. As John Dean said at Friday's hearing:

I must add that never before have I felt the slightest reason to fear our government. Nor do I frighten easily. But I do fear the Bush/Cheney government (and the precedents they are creating) because this administration is caught up in the rectitude of its own self-righteousness, and for all practical purposes this presidency has remained largely unchecked by its constitutional coequals.

Amen to that.