Author: Greg Saunders

At the end of the day, I don’t care much about where someone falls on the arbitrary liberal/conservative spectrum as long as they speak their heart, but Joe Lieberman is that rare breed of politician that’s so inept at governing that he sides with his supposed political opposition at the exact wrong times. It’s quite an accomplishment that in a party as insecure and lost in the woods as the Democrats, Lieberman stands out as the most politically tone-deaf person in Washington D.C. The latest evidence for Joe’s incompetence is this description he gave NPR’s Day to Day of the “lobbying reform” bill he co-sponsored with John McCain :

“This is a full disclosure bill. It requires the kind of disclosure that if Abramoff had been forced to do he might well have been indicted in the court of public opinion before he was indicted in a court of law and pled guilty.”

That’s right. Joementum is so damned stupid that his idea of tough reform is a law that would embarrass Jack Abramoff. Hey Joe, tell me exactly how the “court of public opinion” is supposed to matter to a guy who doesn’t answer to the general public?

Now, the two or three of you left who want to play devil’s advocate might point out that this public shame might have electoral consequences for anyone associated with someone found guilty in the “court of public opinion”, but that overlooks the fact that voters are incapable of connecting dots and have a hard time remembering anything that happened over a month ago. When Dick Cheney is giving exclusive interviews to racist talk show hosts and the President is getting pre-war counseling from the faux-Reverend who blamed 9/11 on gay people, it’s pretty obvious that this court of public opinion has a real problem with repeat offenders.

More importantly, however, is if you want to follow Joementum’s thinking to its logical conclusion, it just emphasizes the fact that this scandal isn’t the fault of lobbyists, but the criminal public servants who are selling their services to the highest bidder. I’m sure John McCain and Joe Lieberman like to pat themselves on the back for being mavericks who are willing to reach across the aisle to do the right thing, but if they can’t see a problem this obvious and have the guts to point the finger at their crooked colleagues, then they’re just as cowardly as the bribe-takers whose crimes they’re helping cover up.

The fact that Sam Alito spent all week stonewalling was to be expected, but I think some of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee deserve equal blame for treating this more like political theater than a job interview. I understand getting a soundbite is part of the shallow hell that our political climate has become, but a lot of the exchanges makes it clear that most of the Democrats think they’re a tough question away from getting Alito to blurt out some incriminating remark like “Abortion is worse than the holocaust” or “the President should be considered a monarch”. But I fear that the hunt for a smoking gun is coming at the expense of helping the American people figure out who the hell this Alito guy is.

Here’s the thing the American people (and most of the Senate) don’t seem to understand about confirmation hearings. It’s not about finding out what Alito thinks, but how he thinks. The conclusions that Alito has reached on a litany of issues are ultimately less important that the thought process that led to those conclusions. Since we can’t predict the future and it would be highly inappropriate to demand promises from a potential Supreme Court justice, the best we can do is try to figure out how this guy’s brain is wired. What sort of arguments is Alito open to? What roles to emotion, religious belief, or intellectual curiosity play in Alito’s judgment? Is he more motivated to side with experts or laymen? Interpreting the law isn’t a mechanical process, it’s an art. We just want to see what kind of artist Alito would be.

Of course, that just leads us back to the original problem, that Alito isn’t man enough to publicly stand by his own words. Even when we look at these hearings in the proper light and don’t just consider them a laundry list of litmus tests, the best way to get familiar with the way Alito evaluates arguments is to ask him about controversial issues. Not because it’s a cheap way to get him to pick sides, but because high-profile, controversial issues have a wealth of commentary on which to refer, are easier for the American people to understand than obscure constitutional provisions, and serve as a pretty good introduction to what sorts of things are likely to sway a Justice Alito.

For example, taking aside every potential court case, what sorts of conclusions could you draw from a revelation that Alito supports the teaching of intelligent design in science classes? For me, I’d conclude that he’s unable tell the difference between science and pseudoscience, that he’s willing to stretch the idea of presenting “all sides of an issue” to ridiculous extremes, that he’s willing to make broad decisions without being fully informed about the issue(s) involved, and that he might be the kind of judge who would let his religious beliefs get in the way of making logical decisions. Since these would be ample subjects for followup questions, I wouldn’t just settle on those impressions of Alito, but I’m only speaking hypothetically at this point. In reality, Alito would have avoided answered the first question completely through the sort of dissembling Alito’s biggest defenders used to call “Clintonian”.

That, to me, is the most paradoxical thing about this whole judicial confirmation kabuki dance. On the one hand, we’re supposed to believe that Alito is a top-notch intellectual giant, but he’s so uninformed about the most controversial issues of our time that he can’t be bothered to form an opinion. Alito’s a neutral “referee” who’s willing to listen to both sides before making up his mind, but he’s so weak-willed that taking any stand at all would limit his ability to be even-handed in future cases. I don’t know which is worse : Republicans insulting our intelligence by playing dumb, or taking them at their word that and accepting the notion that their best pick for the high court is a habitual liar who’s too stupid to remember things he did and said 20 years ago.

Jeez. Is there anything GOP stalwarts wouldn’t do to help out Jack Abramoff and his tribal gaming buddies? First we have Ralph Reed stabbing the entire evangelical community in the back by exploiting their anti-gambling views in order to favor Indian casinos :

Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Reed worked together to urge Christians and evangelical leaders to oppose casino openings and pro-gambling legislation in Louisiana. Behind the scenes, the pair’s campaign succeeded, bolstering the Coushatta Tribe’s casino business by eliminating competition.
. . .
Mr. Abramoff first hired Mr. Reed, a prominent evangelical who once called gambling “a cancer,” to leverage his evangelical contacts to defeat pro-gambling legislation in Alabama in 1999. Mr. Abramoff hatched the campaign to protect the gaming interests of one of his clients, the Choctaw Tribe of Mississippi. While Mr. Reed worked to rally Christians for campaigns that benefited Mr. Abramoff’s clients, Mr. Abramoff’s partner, Michael Scanlon, wrote an e-mail to Kathryn Van Hoof, a former lawyer for the Coushatta Tribe, describing the plan to use Christians: “Simply put we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them. The wackos get their information [from] the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet, and telephone.”
. . .
Mr. Reed has admitted funneling $1.15 million from the Choctaw Tribe to two anti-gambling groups in Alabama, including the Christian Coalition of Alabama (CCA), in 2000. In 2001, Mr. Abramoff hired Mr. Reed to rally evangelicals to oppose casino openings and pro-gambling legislation in Louisiana to protect the interests of the Coushatta Tribe. E-mails released by a Senate committee late last year show that Mr. Reed knew the Coushatta Tribe was Mr. Abramoff’s client. (In his plea agreement, Mr. Abramoff has admitted charging the Coushattas $30 million for his work, and pocketing nearly $11.5 million without the tribe’s knowledge.)

Other e-mails and faxes released by the Senate show that Mr. Reed organized TV and radio ads, as well as a letter-writing campaign, enlisting prominent evangelicals to help in the Abramoff-orchestrated campaign, including Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and Tom Minnery, former presidential candidate and family-values guru Gary Bauer, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, and American Family Association head Don Wildmon.

A veritable Who’s Who of Republican religious stooges. Far be it from me to point out that they’ve been getting used by the big business wing of the GOP for decades now. A few choice words about “values” and they can get those guys to do anything.

Also on the “selling the government to the highest bidder” tip, now we’ve got word that Tom Delay was pestering the Justice Department to shut down rival casinos :

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay tried to pressure the Bush administration into shutting down an Indian-owned casino that lobbyist Jack Abramoff wanted closed — shortly after a tribal client of Abramoff’s donated to a DeLay political action committee, The Associated Press has learned.

The Texas Republican demanded closure of the casino, owned by the Alabama-Coushatta tribe of Texas, in a Dec. 11, 2001 letter to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. The Associated Press obtained the letter from a source who did not want to be identified because of an ongoing federal investigation of Abramoff and members of Congress.

“We feel that the Department of Justice needs to step in and investigate the inappropriate and illegal actions by the tribe, its financial backers, if any, and the casino equipment vendors,” said the letter, which was also signed by Texas Republican Reps. Pete Sessions, John Culberson and Kevin Brady.
. . .
The letter also was sent to Interior Secretary Gale Norton; the U.S. attorney for Texas’ eastern district; the chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who took over when Bush was elected president.

Its author appears to have been unfamiliar with the Alabama-Coushatta. It said the tribe was based in “Livingstone,” and that the tribe had opened a casino “against the wishes of the citizens of Alabama.” The tribe’s reservation is in Livingston, Texas.

Cue the GOP talking points in 3…2….1….

“I’m sorry, who was that you’re referring to? Tim D. Laye? There are over 400 members of Congress, so forgive me if I’ve never heard of him.”

In the wake of the tragedy in West Virginia, I’d love to see the press take a step back and try to examine how hearsay gets transformed into fact. (Sounds like a good assignment for Judy Miller.)

Looking through the front pages on Newseum, I’m struck with how often the exact same photograph is used to convey opposite meanings. With a simle change of headline, relief turns into frustration and tears of joy become tears of grief.

Also, I can’t let the Boston Herald’s awful (and in retrospect, horribly inappropriate) headline go without comment. Now that we know the twelve miners were killed, does this mean America’s prayers weren’t answered? Just like gambling addicts remember their big wins but not their losses, the fate of the twelve miners has transformed from a faith-inspiring act of God to another horrible tragedy in which it’s impolite to mention religion at all. Cute little sayings like “the Lord works in mysterious ways” are cop-outs for the logical conclusions that many of us draw from experiences like this. If something fantastic and improbable can be used as proof that there’s a benevolent god, doesn’t the reverse point toward the conclusion that a higher power is indifferent at best? If you believe in a god that could have saved these men’s lives (which I don’t, btw), why didn’t he? People are quick to throw around the word “miracle” when something wonderful happens, so what the hell do we call this?

Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is defying a gag-order and publishing torture memos on his blog relating to the coordination between the Uzbek, British, and American governments. As Kos says, it’s brutal :

Last year the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov as a friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seven thousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of speech, without freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of assembly, without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous with medieval serfdom.

Uzbekistan’s geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the population of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all the other states in a region which is important to future Western oil and gas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here, and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years.

Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the contrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduce any meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid – more than US aid to all of West Africa – is related to comparative developmental need as opposed to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov’s vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He – and they – are in fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?
. . .
The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely known. Plainly there are, at the very least, reasonable grounds for believing the material is obtained under torture. There is helpful guidance at Article 3 of the UN Convention;
“The competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the state concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.” While this article forbids extradition or deportation to Uzbekistan, it is the right test for the present question also.

On the usefulness of the material obtained, this is irrelevant. Article 2 of the Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer:

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

Nonetheless, I repeat that this material is useless – we are selling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful. It is designed to give the message the Uzbeks want the West to hear. It exaggerates the role, size, organisation and activity of the IMU and its links with Al Qaida. The aim is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe, that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.

Here’s what that partnership looks like in action :

At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family’s links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.

And this is the standard that we’re living under with a President who looks the other way while children are being tortured.

To the fools out there who routinely praise the President for having the “moral clarity” to call terrorists evil, how can you reconcile that with the chummy relationship he’s made with tyrants? The lesser of two evils argument doesn’t really work when you chide anyone whose view of fighting terrorism is more nuanced than “smoke them out of their holes” and you verbally fellate the President for being “right on the only issue that matters”. You’re either in favor of moral relativism or you’re not.

Of course, coming up with a worldview that’s logically consistent has it’s troubles, since it would naturally lead to having an open, honest debate about whether or not the United States should be torturing people. Which is why the Administration (and their sycophantic toadies) ignore the substance of the seemingly-neverending stream of torture memos in the hopes of running out the clock (ie. news cycle) with their vehement denials to misstated questioning.

But to take things back to square one, it should be repeated again and again that this would all stop if the President wanted it to. With a phonecall to the Uzbek government, he could threated to eliminate foreign aid until human rights abuses ceased. With a stroke of his pen, he could fire Donald Rumsfeld and replace him with a Defense Secretary serious about curbing detainee abuse. Working with Congressional leaders, he could cooperate with stymied investigations into torture. For the most powerful man in the world, the torture of innocent people could be eliminated tomorrow if he cared enough.

Why he hasn’t done any of these things leads us back to the eternal debate about the presidency of George W. Bush. Is he so isolated from bad news that he has no idea about the abuses that are happening on his watch? Is he a callous monster who thinks the torture of innocents is justified by the “greater good” of whatever the hell he’s trying to accomplish? Or is it a combination of the two? Either way, I don’t know how much longer we can afford to have the reputation of the United States tarnished while we ponder the endless “idiot or asshole?” debate.