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Justice Dept. Releases Bush Administration Memos on Torture, Rendition, & Wiretapping

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Posts

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    edited April 2009
    In fact, I can see the GOP seizing upon the, "Well, they waited and sat on their hands because they have no evidence, and now they're going on a witch hunt?" line if Holder doesn't jump on this and start investigating things ASAP.

    joshofalltrades on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    shryke wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Your still doing the same thing though. Acting as if we don't have time.

    To go with the "pithy sayings" theme from before:

    Fools Rush In

    And your a fool.

    Oh hey, more platitudes!

    Your point is understood -- we should wait until we have all the information. Well, EnlightenedBum isn't saying we shouldn't gather more information. He's saying we should appoint a prosecutor and investigate this now.

    Because, you know, even if we appointed a prosecutor tomorrow it isn't as if trials would begin on Wednesday.

    As soon as the process begins, so do the politics.

    The GOP isn't gonna wait for the trials to start calling this a witch-hunt.

    The politics have already begun. Haven't you noticed all the spinning going on by Cheney, Rove, Hayden, etc?

    Exactly. And their waiting for "Obama appoints a Special Prosecutor" to unleash their next set of talking points on how the Dems "Don't care about the economy and just want to pursue a witch-hunt against the brave men and women trying to protect America".

    shryke on
  • SpeakerSpeaker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Anyway, my basic argument is that Holder needs to appoint a special prosecutor before say, July, and then the entire administration washes their hands of it and says we're just following the law. If that's politically inconvenient, then too damn bad, this is more important than anything else.

    It's not like I disagree with you.

    My addendum to that is that when this is argued about in the press and on message boards it's going to be easier to cite the U.S. legal code rather than the U.N. convention.

    Speaker on
  • MedopineMedopine __BANNED USERS regular
    edited April 2009
    let's speculate some more about stuff we don't really know that much about, like what Cheney and Rove are thinking and planning

    Medopine on
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    edited April 2009
    And if we wait until next year to appoint a prosecutor, they'll be dumbfounded and do nothing. Brilliant!

    Even if Holder found some mountain of decisive evidence in the meantime, the spin machines will still spin.

    Yeah yeah, I know, they can "gum up the works", whatever. That will just make them more unpopular.

    joshofalltrades on
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    shryke wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Your still doing the same thing though. Acting as if we don't have time.

    To go with the "pithy sayings" theme from before:

    Fools Rush In

    And your a fool.

    Oh hey, more platitudes!

    Your point is understood -- we should wait until we have all the information. Well, EnlightenedBum isn't saying we shouldn't gather more information. He's saying we should appoint a prosecutor and investigate this now.

    Because, you know, even if we appointed a prosecutor tomorrow it isn't as if trials would begin on Wednesday.

    As soon as the process begins, so do the politics.

    The GOP isn't gonna wait for the trials to start calling this a witch-hunt.

    The politics of this began on January 20th, it's just a matter of how do you approach and handle it. Having Holder make the decision, or just appointing Patrick 'Elliot Fucking Ness' Fitzgerald to it and then washing your hands does not remove the politics from the picture, it just makes things move faster.

    moniker on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    The insane people aren't going to get less insane this December.

    Do you honestly think the GOP isn't going to violently oppose this if the Democrats wait to appoint a prosecutor?

    No, but the Democrats will be more prepared. They have the opportunity here to control the time table, so they should (and probably will) use it. Bring the public slowly around to their side, then start the prosecutions when it's going to be most effective.

    shryke on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    shryke wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Your still doing the same thing though. Acting as if we don't have time.

    To go with the "pithy sayings" theme from before:

    Fools Rush In

    And your a fool.

    Oh hey, more platitudes!

    Your point is understood -- we should wait until we have all the information. Well, EnlightenedBum isn't saying we shouldn't gather more information. He's saying we should appoint a prosecutor and investigate this now.

    Because, you know, even if we appointed a prosecutor tomorrow it isn't as if trials would begin on Wednesday.

    As soon as the process begins, so do the politics.

    The GOP isn't gonna wait for the trials to start calling this a witch-hunt.

    The politics have already begun. Haven't you noticed all the spinning going on by Cheney, Rove, Hayden, etc?

    Exactly. And their waiting for "Obama appoints a Special Prosecutor" to unleash their next set of talking points on how the Dems "Don't care about the economy and just want to pursue a witch-hunt against the brave men and women trying to protect America".

    Oh no! I'm so afraid of the scary Republican Noise Machine!

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • werehippywerehippy Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    We have a pretty good idea of where people stand on the following figures:

    Barack Obama
    The Democratic Party
    George Bush
    The Republican Party

    We have a less clear, but decidedly leaning in one direction, idea that the American people would like to see these programs investigated further.

    Furthermore, we know that the Republicans are going to be obstructionists on the entire Democratic agenda that Americans just voted for. What's more, Americans know they voted for that agenda and would like to see it passed (see: Democrats in Congress approval has been going up, Republicans in Congress have managed to go down).

    Now my point is this: justice demands that Attorney General Holder appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute the Bush war crimes.

    I think there's pretty universal agreement up to here (with the caveat that some are ok with a Truth and Reconciliation style inquery), but either we haven't explained our disagreement on the rest properly or you've misunderstood the thrust of our concern.
    In response to this, you have apparently decided that the Republican obstructionism that will result will not be noticed by the American people and they will instead blame the President and his party. Note that they kind of adore the President and the Democratic Party's favorability ratings generally are approaching 50%. Logic dictates that the people will blame the party they hate if the Democrats can make any decent kind of messaging effort against them. As we've seen, this President doesn't lose long term messaging wars very often.

    I think your argument is stupid, which is why I dismissed it and said that you were a coward. Because you're politically afraid of a rump, powerless, hated minority that has no idea where the American people are.

    So there's the political consideration. Of course, the political consideration doesn't fucking matter, because there's the larger issue of our former President is a god damn war criminal.

    There is broad based support and approval of Dems vs Republicans on the vast bulk of our agenda, but how to deal with torture in the past administration is a distinctly different. There's somewhere a bit north of a majority supporting some sort of investigation, with only a third to a quarter favoring outright prosecution proceedings. Much worse, is that there may or may not be majority support against the idea of torture as a valid tactic.

    If we push too hard and too fast on punishing torture, without preparing the ground properly, the unfortunate fact is there may well be a popular backlash, and without question the republicans will take it as license to ramp up their opposition. Not just what we've seen before, or a bit worse, but outright shut down the government obstructionism. And if we don't have popular support against the idea of torture, there is a non-negligible chance that the republican frame, that this is a partisan witchhunt, will take hold. That not only secures torture as a valid foreign policy position that we will see used again, it will cost us in the next election and guarantee whatever shot at a progressive agenda and absolutely critical fixes to healthcare, global warming, education, and on down the line (propositions that are tenuous at best until and unless we gain seats in 2010) is dead.

    The people don't like the republicans, because they've bulled ahead with their ideology against popular opinion. If the democrats are seen to be doing the same, they will turn on us just as quickly as they turned on the former "permanent majority" republicans.

    And, more to the point, there are a lot of people who are guilty who you can not touch without overwhelming popular support and political will. Bybee will never leave the federal bunch unless the popular pressure is overwhelming or he is impeached by two thirds majority vote in the Senate, which one of those exactly do you think is likely to happen if we push ahead right now without the public firmly against torture? You think fucking Rice or Rove are going to testify if the Senate can't even compel them to honor a Congressional subpoena.

    As right as we may be, we aren't going to win this fight right this very second, not everywhere and as thoroughly as this needs to be won. So you push, you agitate, you keep showing how vile, pointless, and simply evil what they did was until the public moves with us and the people who are willing to drive this forward at the levels this needs to be fought at have the juice to bend the reticent members of government into line. We get one shot at this, and I'm not willing to blow our load now in sacrifice to our righteousness, when we can be more sure of finishing the job further down the line.

    werehippy on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    shryke wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Your still doing the same thing though. Acting as if we don't have time.

    To go with the "pithy sayings" theme from before:

    Fools Rush In

    And your a fool.

    Oh hey, more platitudes!

    Your point is understood -- we should wait until we have all the information. Well, EnlightenedBum isn't saying we shouldn't gather more information. He's saying we should appoint a prosecutor and investigate this now.

    Because, you know, even if we appointed a prosecutor tomorrow it isn't as if trials would begin on Wednesday.

    As soon as the process begins, so do the politics.

    The GOP isn't gonna wait for the trials to start calling this a witch-hunt.

    The politics have already begun. Haven't you noticed all the spinning going on by Cheney, Rove, Hayden, etc?

    Exactly. And their waiting for "Obama appoints a Special Prosecutor" to unleash their next set of talking points on how the Dems "Don't care about the economy and just want to pursue a witch-hunt against the brave men and women trying to protect America".

    Oh no! I'm so afraid of the scary Republican Noise Machine!

    You should at least take them into consideration. 8 years of President Bush and his politics was not an accident.

    And, again, you continue to confuse "moving with care" with "cowardice". It's pathetic.

    shryke on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    No, I'm saying that being afraid of the broken Republican Noise Machine at this point is cowardice. They lost. Twice. In a row. By landslide margins. Everyone hates them. It's a broken movement.

    Hippy's argument is much more interesting, I'll get to it in a second.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Mine and werehippy's arguments are the exact same...

    shryke on
  • SpeakerSpeaker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    We've had this argument before a bunch of times, but fundamentally it boils down to this:

    There is a belief that I think a growing number of people subscribe to that had Nixon actually faced jail time instead of being given a blanket pardon, the staffers of that administration would not have been quite so cavalier about breaking the law when they were the heads of a subsequent presidency.

    I don't think that is the lesson the young Dick Cheney would have taken away from a prosecution of Nixon.

    It assumes, for instance, that the people who most disagree with you (unitary executive law breakers) will suddenly agree with your worldview (that a just punishment has been inflicted) and come to the conclusion that such actions should be avoided in the future.

    But as you are fond of pointing out, the rump will not be reasoned with. From their point of view you are simply taking what they see as valid policies and throwing their leaders into jail for them. The message they take away is "go after the other party's leaders and imprison them - that's how the game is played" and perhaps also "subvert the system to avoid losing power in any way possible because it is the only way to avoid dying in prison, even though we haven't done anything wrong."

    I'm in favor of prosecution, but the idea that some valuable deterent is going to be created is based on the fundamental error that the people you least agree with will magically somehow accept your worldview, or that in their moment of maximum public support they will conceive of the time when they are unpopular and out of power, vulnerable to prosecution. I think those are both rather shaky.

    I don't want to deal with attempts to put Democratic politicians in prison for the rest of my life, and I don't want to leave my daughter a country where politics has become so-all-or-nothing that the cost of losing is unthinkably high and peaceful transfers of power become less likely.

    So prosecute, but by all means reason as effectively as possible and win as broad an acceptance of the prosecution as possible, so that the negative side effects are minimized.

    Speaker on
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    I think that's a workable system. I was trying to decide if I wanted it to be an elected position and I tend to think it shouldn't be. While we're at it, let's change the Supreme Court to single 18 year terms.

    The problem with that is you run the risk of political and philosophical orthodoxy due almost solely to blind luck in how elections turn out. Obama is going to be replacing 2, maybe 3 Associate Justices. He is going to be keeping the balance of the Court in doing so, and it's going to stay that way for a good bit with Bush's replacements sticking around for awhile. Scalia has at least 8 years left in him, and Thomas will likely outlast 3 Presidents if he wants. (He did not age well.) But what if that was reversed? Bush replaced Ginsburg and Stevens instead of Rehnquist and O'Connor, and Obama would be replacing the remaining liberal wing? If the VP wins the Presidency after a 2 term Presidency you have a brand new majority appointed by what is basically the same administration. And one that would last.

    Yeah, I was just throwing out an idea, I hadn't thought about it too much. The problem with the Court as it is currently structured is that it promotes finding young ideologues instead of the best jurists. I find that troubling. Thomas in particular is a joke but gets to serve forever. Maybe shorter terms than that even with a possibility for re-appointment? Problem there is it might get too swingy based on elections, though I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

    I'd say longer terms would be more amenable since it would mean that a single administration can only appoint 1 or 2 Justices, barring illness or injury, rather than stacking half the Court. However this raises a different issue with regards to the Chief Justice. Is that a position that regularly gets appointed now, meaning that every 3, or 7, General Elections become that much more important? Do we change it out so that the Justices themselves elect the Chief ala PM's in parliamentary systems? &c.

    Reforming SCOTUS like this opens a can of worms far different from trying to make DOJ more independent and technocratic.

    moniker on
  • werehippywerehippy Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    shryke wrote: »
    Mine and werehippy's arguments are the exact same...

    I agree, I think mine's just being delivered a bit more thoroughly and dispassionately. It also doesn't help that you keep using the word care versus cowardice, which you mean as go a bit more slowly and build support before you do so, but which comes across as you think bum wants you to either agree with him or thinks you're a coward.

    werehippy on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    werehippy wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Mine and werehippy's arguments are the exact same...

    I agree, I think mine's just being delivered a bit more thoroughly and dispassionately. It also doesn't help that you keep using the word care versus cowardice, which you mean as go a bit more slowly and build support before you do so, but which comes across as you think bum wants you to either agree with him or thinks you're a coward.

    Well, since you'd already done the work of posting the position in length, I didn't think it needed repetition.

    And since he's twice now accused me of cowardice for holding said position, I don't see how my perception of him is all that off.

    shryke on
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Medopine wrote: »
    let's speculate some more about stuff we don't really know that much about, like what Cheney and Rove are thinking and planning

    Karl Rove is going to eat a bag of pistachios. Within that bag will be one whose shell does not want to open. He will bite it in an attempt to force it open, but to no avail. This will leave a poor taste in his mouth for the rest of the day.

    moniker on
  • SpeakerSpeaker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    Medopine wrote: »
    let's speculate some more about stuff we don't really know that much about, like what Cheney and Rove are thinking and planning

    Karl Rove is going to eat a bag of pistachios. Within that bag will be one whose shell does not want to open. He will bite it in an attempt to force it open, but to no avail. This will leave a poor taste in his mouth for the rest of the day.

    In a trailer in west Texas the next day, a Mexican immigrant will be waterboarded until he confesses to what Rove knows to be true: that Nancy Pelosi planted that pistachio in his bag.

    Speaker on
  • Clint EastwoodClint Eastwood My baby's in there someplace She crawled right inRegistered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    Medopine wrote: »
    let's speculate some more about stuff we don't really know that much about, like what Cheney and Rove are thinking and planning

    Karl Rove is going to eat a bag of pistachios. Within that bag will be one whose shell does not want to open. He will bite it in an attempt to force it open, but to no avail. This will leave a poor taste in his mouth for the rest of the day.
    Teabagging joke goes right...

    here.

    Clint Eastwood on
  • werehippywerehippy Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Speaker wrote: »
    We've had this argument before a bunch of times, but fundamentally it boils down to this:

    There is a belief that I think a growing number of people subscribe to that had Nixon actually faced jail time instead of being given a blanket pardon, the staffers of that administration would not have been quite so cavalier about breaking the law when they were the heads of a subsequent presidency.

    I don't think that is the lesson the young Dick Cheney would have taken away from a prosecution of Nixon.

    It assumes, for instance, that the people who most disagree with you (unitary executive law breakers) will suddenly agree with your worldview (that a just punishment has been inflicted) and come to the conclusion that such actions should be avoided in the future.

    But as you are fond of pointing out, the rump will not be reasoned with. From their point of view you are simply taking what they see as valid policies and throwing their leaders into jail for them. The message they take away is "go after the other party's leaders and imprison them - that's how the game is played" and perhaps also "subvert the system to avoid losing power in any way possible because it is the only way to avoid dying in prison, even though we haven't done anything wrong."

    I'm in favor of prosecution, but the idea that some valuable deterent is going to be created is based on the fundamental error that the people you least agree with will magically somehow accept your worldview, or that in their moment of maximum public support they will conceive of the time when they are unpopular and out of power, vulnerable to prosecution. I think those are both rather shaky.

    I don't want to deal with attempts to put Democratic politicians in prison for the rest of my life, and I don't want to leave my daughter a country where politics has become so-all-or-nothing that the cost of losing is unthinkably high and peaceful transfers of power become less likely.

    So prosecute, but by all means reason as effectively as possible and win as broad an acceptance of the prosecution as possible, so that the negative side effects are minimized.

    This is a fair point, though I think it misses a bit.

    I don't think people hyper-rationalize quite as much as your scenario suggests, though I do think the behavior modification on already established neocons would have been less than a total conversion. Just because you disagree with how a legal case went doesn't mean you whipsaw past it, for example the Dem reaction to losing Bush v Gore wasn't to try and rig elections even better than the republicans. Cheney et al probably wouldn't have given up on super-hawkishness, but I think they would have been much more leery of bald faced defiance of the rule of law.

    The real deterrent would have been in the up and comers, because if you saw Nixon and two or three levels of advisers still rotting in jail you'd be somewhat more hesitant to think that the law was a "when convenient" proposition.

    werehippy on
  • SpeakerSpeaker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    moniker wrote: »
    I think that's a workable system. I was trying to decide if I wanted it to be an elected position and I tend to think it shouldn't be. While we're at it, let's change the Supreme Court to single 18 year terms.

    The problem with that is you run the risk of political and philosophical orthodoxy due almost solely to blind luck in how elections turn out. Obama is going to be replacing 2, maybe 3 Associate Justices. He is going to be keeping the balance of the Court in doing so, and it's going to stay that way for a good bit with Bush's replacements sticking around for awhile. Scalia has at least 8 years left in him, and Thomas will likely outlast 3 Presidents if he wants. (He did not age well.) But what if that was reversed? Bush replaced Ginsburg and Stevens instead of Rehnquist and O'Connor, and Obama would be replacing the remaining liberal wing? If the VP wins the Presidency after a 2 term Presidency you have a brand new majority appointed by what is basically the same administration. And one that would last.

    Yeah, I was just throwing out an idea, I hadn't thought about it too much. The problem with the Court as it is currently structured is that it promotes finding young ideologues instead of the best jurists. I find that troubling. Thomas in particular is a joke but gets to serve forever. Maybe shorter terms than that even with a possibility for re-appointment? Problem there is it might get too swingy based on elections, though I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

    I'd say longer terms would be more amenable since it would mean that a single administration can only appoint 1 or 2 Justices, barring illness or injury, rather than stacking half the Court. However this raises a different issue with regards to the Chief Justice. Is that a position that regularly gets appointed now, meaning that every 3, or 7, General Elections become that much more important? Do we change it out so that the Justices themselves elect the Chief ala PM's in parliamentary systems? &c.

    Reforming SCOTUS like this opens a can of worms far different from trying to make DOJ more independent and technocratic.

    I think a set term wouldn't be a bad idea. It should be long though. Like twenty or twenty five years.

    To me it seems like the main problem is a SCOTUS judge gaming things by deciding when to step down.

    Speaker on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    werehippy wrote:
    In response to this, you have apparently decided that the Republican obstructionism that will result will not be noticed by the American people and they will instead blame the President and his party. Note that they kind of adore the President and the Democratic Party's favorability ratings generally are approaching 50%. Logic dictates that the people will blame the party they hate if the Democrats can make any decent kind of messaging effort against them. As we've seen, this President doesn't lose long term messaging wars very often.

    I think your argument is stupid, which is why I dismissed it and said that you were a coward. Because you're politically afraid of a rump, powerless, hated minority that has no idea where the American people are.

    So there's the political consideration. Of course, the political consideration doesn't fucking matter, because there's the larger issue of our former President is a god damn war criminal.

    There is broad based support and approval of Dems vs Republicans on the vast bulk of our agenda, but how to deal with torture in the past administration is a distinctly different. There's somewhere a bit north of a majority supporting some sort of investigation, with only a third to a quarter favoring outright prosecution proceedings. Much worse, is that there may or may not be majority support against the idea of torture as a valid tactic.

    If we push too hard and too fast on punishing torture, without preparing the ground properly, the unfortunate fact is there may well be a popular backlash, and without question the republicans will take it as license to ramp up their opposition. Not just what we've seen before, or a bit worse, but outright shut down the government obstructionism. And if we don't have popular support against the idea of torture, there is a non-negligible chance that the republican frame, that this is a partisan witchhunt, will take hold. That not only secures torture as a valid foreign policy position that we will see used again, it will cost us in the next election and guarantee whatever shot at a progressive agenda and absolutely critical fixes to healthcare, global warming, education, and on down the line (propositions that are tenuous at best until and unless we gain seats in 2010) is dead.

    OK, so a couple points here. First, I'm curious to see what that Gallup poll says tomorrow, but most of the polls were taken before the memos were released and all of them, including this next one, were before we get the photos the administration is planning on releasing. Remember that it was the photos that turned the public on Abu Ghraib, I suspect something similar will happen with these photos. That's a supposition on my part, but I think it's got some solid evidence to support it.

    Second, I don't think the average American seriously cares that much about it. They'll vote with their pocketbook. Which means the key is providing the messaging on the economy packages. Worst case if they use the torture investigations as an excuse to sabotage health care as best they can, the Democratic message can be: the Republicans in the Senate have decided to stop legislation that would save you thousands of dollars on your medical bill to defend this, and flash Bush's photo with Abu Ghraib photos. Good luck defending against that attack.
    The people don't like the republicans, because they've bulled ahead with their ideology against popular opinion. If the democrats are seen to be doing the same, they will turn on us just as quickly as they turned on the former "permanent majority" republicans.

    And, more to the point, there are a lot of people who are guilty who you can not touch without overwhelming popular support and political will. Bybee will never leave the federal bunch unless the popular pressure is overwhelming or he is impeached by two thirds majority vote in the Senate, which one of those exactly do you think is likely to happen if we push ahead right now without the public firmly against torture? You think fucking Rice or Rove are going to testify if the Senate can't even compel them to honor a Congressional subpoena.

    And this is why you appoint a Special Prosecutor. Ideally someone who had previously been appointed by a Republican. Bush 1 appointees would be good, but there are some from the previous President that would work. Fitzgerald is an obvious choice, for one. You can't do this through Congress because you either end up having to have Justice prosecute contempt of Congress charges which would look pretty political, or you get nothing because as stated, Rove won't testify. Fitzgerald, on the other hand...

    And he has the bonus aspects of having nailed Blago to the wall, a prominent Democrat from the President's home state who the President supported for Governor. His reputation is hard to question from the right.
    As right as we may be, we aren't going to win this fight right this very second, not everywhere and as thoroughly as this needs to be won. So you push, you agitate, you keep showing how vile, pointless, and simply evil what they did was until the public moves with us and the people who are willing to drive this forward at the levels this needs to be fought at have the juice to bend the reticent members of government into line. We get one shot at this, and I'm not willing to blow our load now in sacrifice to our righteousness, when we can be more sure of finishing the job further down the line.

    Again, this is not fundamentally a political question. It really doesn't matter if the public is with us when we decide to prosecute. It's the guilty verdict we have to have broad public consensus behind once it's handed down. And to do that you need two simple things: to educate the American public that torture is illegal and to prove we tortured. Neither of those things is particularly difficult, the braying of the gasbags to the contrary.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Speaker wrote: »
    Anyway, my basic argument is that Holder needs to appoint a special prosecutor before say, July, and then the entire administration washes their hands of it and says we're just following the law. If that's politically inconvenient, then too damn bad, this is more important than anything else.

    It's not like I disagree with you.

    My addendum to that is that when this is argued about in the press and on message boards it's going to be easier to cite the U.S. legal code rather than the U.N. convention.

    Sullivan has a number of other citations that you might find useful in whatever other places you go to, to cheat on this forum with your debating and/or discoursing there.

    You adulterous whore.

    moniker on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    shryke wrote: »
    werehippy wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Mine and werehippy's arguments are the exact same...

    I agree, I think mine's just being delivered a bit more thoroughly and dispassionately. It also doesn't help that you keep using the word care versus cowardice, which you mean as go a bit more slowly and build support before you do so, but which comes across as you think bum wants you to either agree with him or thinks you're a coward.

    Well, since you'd already done the work of posting the position in length, I didn't think it needed repetition.

    And since he's twice now accused me of cowardice for holding said position, I don't see how my perception of him is all that off.

    It's because of how you kept phrasing it in that somehow if we did it now the Republicans would go batshit and they would be somehow persuasive. They're going to go batshit, and they won't be persuasive.

    It's a remnant of my anger over the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA reform bill, the AUMF, and every other thing the Democratic establishment rolled over on because the Republicans threatened to throw a hissy fit and accuse them of hating America. Because the Republicans did, and are going to, do that anyway. And so the Democrats were cowards.

    Sorry if that wasn't your intention, but that's how you've been phrasing things and it pissed me off.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • SpeakerSpeaker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    werehippy wrote: »
    The real deterrent would have been in the up and comers, because if you saw Nixon and two or three levels of advisers still rotting in jail you'd be somewhat more hesitant to think that the law was a "when convenient" proposition.

    Assumes that our young fellow blamed Nixon rotting in prison on Nixon's attitude that the law was a "when convenient" proposition, and not say, on Democratic majorities or Republican traitors or social subversives.

    I mean, let's say Bill Clinton was successfully removed from office. The message I would have taken from that would not have been "wow, I need to be careful not to perjure myself in civil suits" so much as "fuck those Republicans, I am going to start investigating their private lives and knocking them out of office and see how they like it."

    Speaker on
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    OK, so a couple points here. First, I'm curious to see what that Gallup poll says tomorrow, but most of the polls were taken before the memos were released and all of them, including this next one, were before we get the photos the administration is planning on releasing. Remember that it was the photos that turned the public on Abu Ghraib, I suspect something similar will happen with these photos. That's a supposition on my part, but I think it's got some solid evidence to support it.

    So it would probably be a good deal easier for Obama and Holder to push for whatever specific kind(s) of investigation(s) they intend to push for after this sort of thing breaks rather than a month ago?

    moniker on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    werehippy wrote: »
    Speaker wrote: »
    We've had this argument before a bunch of times, but fundamentally it boils down to this:

    There is a belief that I think a growing number of people subscribe to that had Nixon actually faced jail time instead of being given a blanket pardon, the staffers of that administration would not have been quite so cavalier about breaking the law when they were the heads of a subsequent presidency.

    I don't think that is the lesson the young Dick Cheney would have taken away from a prosecution of Nixon.

    It assumes, for instance, that the people who most disagree with you (unitary executive law breakers) will suddenly agree with your worldview (that a just punishment has been inflicted) and come to the conclusion that such actions should be avoided in the future.

    But as you are fond of pointing out, the rump will not be reasoned with. From their point of view you are simply taking what they see as valid policies and throwing their leaders into jail for them. The message they take away is "go after the other party's leaders and imprison them - that's how the game is played" and perhaps also "subvert the system to avoid losing power in any way possible because it is the only way to avoid dying in prison, even though we haven't done anything wrong."

    I'm in favor of prosecution, but the idea that some valuable deterent is going to be created is based on the fundamental error that the people you least agree with will magically somehow accept your worldview, or that in their moment of maximum public support they will conceive of the time when they are unpopular and out of power, vulnerable to prosecution. I think those are both rather shaky.

    I don't want to deal with attempts to put Democratic politicians in prison for the rest of my life, and I don't want to leave my daughter a country where politics has become so-all-or-nothing that the cost of losing is unthinkably high and peaceful transfers of power become less likely.

    So prosecute, but by all means reason as effectively as possible and win as broad an acceptance of the prosecution as possible, so that the negative side effects are minimized.

    This is a fair point, though I think it misses a bit.

    I don't think people hyper-rationalize quite as much as your scenario suggests, though I do think the behavior modification on already established neocons would have been less than a total conversion. Just because you disagree with how a legal case went doesn't mean you whipsaw past it, for example the Dem reaction to losing Bush v Gore wasn't to try and rig elections even better than the republicans. Cheney et al probably wouldn't have given up on super-hawkishness, but I think they would have been much more leery of bald faced defiance of the rule of law.

    The real deterrent would have been in the up and comers, because if you saw Nixon and two or three levels of advisers still rotting in jail you'd be somewhat more hesitant to think that the law was a "when convenient" proposition.

    This bit I agree with.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • SpeakerSpeaker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    Speaker wrote: »
    Anyway, my basic argument is that Holder needs to appoint a special prosecutor before say, July, and then the entire administration washes their hands of it and says we're just following the law. If that's politically inconvenient, then too damn bad, this is more important than anything else.

    It's not like I disagree with you.

    My addendum to that is that when this is argued about in the press and on message boards it's going to be easier to cite the U.S. legal code rather than the U.N. convention.

    Sullivan has a number of other citations that you might find useful in whatever other places you go to, to cheat on this forum with your debating and/or discoursing there.

    You adulterous whore.

    I assure you sir, I did not have intellectual relations with those other forums.

    Actually I mostly just wanted to be able to write better letters to the editor/articles.

    Speaker on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    OK, so a couple points here. First, I'm curious to see what that Gallup poll says tomorrow, but most of the polls were taken before the memos were released and all of them, including this next one, were before we get the photos the administration is planning on releasing. Remember that it was the photos that turned the public on Abu Ghraib, I suspect something similar will happen with these photos. That's a supposition on my part, but I think it's got some solid evidence to support it.

    So it would probably be a good deal easier for Obama and Holder to push for whatever specific kind(s) of investigation(s) they intend to push for after this sort of thing breaks rather than a month ago?

    Politically or legally?

    Politically, sure. But as I've said, I don't think it's a political question, really.

    Legally, no. This is a slam dunk case. We've known we tortured since at least 2004. We've known the higher ups in the Bush Administration ordered it since I believe early 2007.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    OK, so a couple points here. First, I'm curious to see what that Gallup poll says tomorrow, but most of the polls were taken before the memos were released and all of them, including this next one, were before we get the photos the administration is planning on releasing. Remember that it was the photos that turned the public on Abu Ghraib, I suspect something similar will happen with these photos. That's a supposition on my part, but I think it's got some solid evidence to support it.

    So it would probably be a good deal easier for Obama and Holder to push for whatever specific kind(s) of investigation(s) they intend to push for after this sort of thing breaks rather than a month ago?

    Politically or legally?

    Politically, sure. But as I've said, I don't think it's a political question, really.

    Legally, no. This is a slam dunk case. We've known we tortured since at least 2004. We've known the higher ups in the Bush Administration ordered it since I believe early 2007.

    Meaning that the only factor which is in play, and that has ever been in play, is the political one. It is also the most difficult one to handle.

    moniker on
  • werehippywerehippy Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    @ monkier (not directly quoting because we're hitting wall of text here)

    While the pictures could very well prove important, I think they're will be a more muted effect that Abu Ghraib both because of indignation fatigue and because they just aren't as dramatic (if they really are shocking, I'll revise my opinion here). A person forced to stand in an awkward position or being waterboarded, despite being excruciating does not look as shocking as a woman sicking a dog on a cowering, naked man or the like.

    The other point of disagreement I would have is I think you have too much faith in what a special prosecutor can do. What happens when Rove finally deigns to answer a subpoena and simply claims executive privilege on everything? We saw how much Gonzales managed to stall, and you'd note he got of scott free on legal grounds and was only forced out by overwhelming public condemnation. There needs to be public support, or at best you'll scope up a few sacrificial lambs and the real movers will slide out from under trouble.

    I do think the best solution is independent prosecution (though you know the MSM is going to give republican cries of hypocracy tons of mileage). I'm just unconvinced that a prosecutor can bring down anyone higher than the lawyers who wrote the memos at best or that an investigation in and of itself will do enough to discredit torture as viable tactic.

    And as far as people not really caring about this, the dead ender republican base is just about as passionate as we are on the topic, and they definitely will be once the republican leadership has something concrete and not universally popular to rile them up with. I've already mentioned a couple time I got in a yelling match with a coworker over this; it wasn't because I couldn't control myself but because he heard me talking about the released memos with a couple of liberal coworkers and tore into me, just as angry on the topic as I was. Fuck-everyone-else as a national defense strategy is a strong undercurrent in the US and this cuts directly into that.

    werehippy on
  • werehippywerehippy Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Speaker wrote: »
    werehippy wrote: »
    The real deterrent would have been in the up and comers, because if you saw Nixon and two or three levels of advisers still rotting in jail you'd be somewhat more hesitant to think that the law was a "when convenient" proposition.

    Assumes that our young fellow blamed Nixon rotting in prison on Nixon's attitude that the law was a "when convenient" proposition, and not say, on Democratic majorities or Republican traitors or social subversives.

    I mean, let's say Bill Clinton was successfully removed from office. The message I would have taken from that would not have been "wow, I need to be careful not to perjure myself in civil suits" so much as "fuck those Republicans, I am going to start investigating their private lives and knocking them out of office and see how they like it."

    You assume it's an either or. Even our "let's see how you like it" neocon would be damn sure he stayed squeaky clean while trying to fuck the other guy as hard as he could, and at the end of the day that's a status quo I could live with. If government officials knew that their actions would be gone over with a strong eye towards punishing them if they broke the law, despite the fact it would ratchet up the partisanship I think we'd be much better off for it.

    werehippy on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I meant people whose votes might be in question. I don't think independents will be voting on this.

    As for the legal stuff:

    Thing 1 is obviously that Gonzales/Mukasey aren't running Justice anymore, which has to at least scare them a little in their contempt of Congress propensities.

    Thing 2 is that this country badly needs a Supreme Court ruling on the extent of executive privilege. I'd like to think even this Court wouldn't believe it extends in perpetuity for any conversations you had with the President.

    What I'd really like is for some copy of the waterboarding tapes to have been missed by the Adminsitration when they destroyed them all.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    werehippy wrote: »
    Speaker wrote: »
    werehippy wrote: »
    The real deterrent would have been in the up and comers, because if you saw Nixon and two or three levels of advisers still rotting in jail you'd be somewhat more hesitant to think that the law was a "when convenient" proposition.

    Assumes that our young fellow blamed Nixon rotting in prison on Nixon's attitude that the law was a "when convenient" proposition, and not say, on Democratic majorities or Republican traitors or social subversives.

    I mean, let's say Bill Clinton was successfully removed from office. The message I would have taken from that would not have been "wow, I need to be careful not to perjure myself in civil suits" so much as "fuck those Republicans, I am going to start investigating their private lives and knocking them out of office and see how they like it."

    You assume it's an either or. Even our "let's see how you like it" neocon would be damn sure he stayed squeaky clean while trying to fuck the other guy as hard as he could, and at the end of the day that's a status quo I could live with. If government officials knew that their actions would be gone over with a strong eye towards punishing them if they broke the law, despite the fact it would ratchet up the partisanship I think we'd be much better off for it.

    I wouldn't mind at all if powerful people who break the law are treated as if they broke the law.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Speaker wrote: »
    moniker wrote: »
    moniker wrote: »
    I think that's a workable system. I was trying to decide if I wanted it to be an elected position and I tend to think it shouldn't be. While we're at it, let's change the Supreme Court to single 18 year terms.

    The problem with that is you run the risk of political and philosophical orthodoxy due almost solely to blind luck in how elections turn out. Obama is going to be replacing 2, maybe 3 Associate Justices. He is going to be keeping the balance of the Court in doing so, and it's going to stay that way for a good bit with Bush's replacements sticking around for awhile. Scalia has at least 8 years left in him, and Thomas will likely outlast 3 Presidents if he wants. (He did not age well.) But what if that was reversed? Bush replaced Ginsburg and Stevens instead of Rehnquist and O'Connor, and Obama would be replacing the remaining liberal wing? If the VP wins the Presidency after a 2 term Presidency you have a brand new majority appointed by what is basically the same administration. And one that would last.

    Yeah, I was just throwing out an idea, I hadn't thought about it too much. The problem with the Court as it is currently structured is that it promotes finding young ideologues instead of the best jurists. I find that troubling. Thomas in particular is a joke but gets to serve forever. Maybe shorter terms than that even with a possibility for re-appointment? Problem there is it might get too swingy based on elections, though I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

    I'd say longer terms would be more amenable since it would mean that a single administration can only appoint 1 or 2 Justices, barring illness or injury, rather than stacking half the Court. However this raises a different issue with regards to the Chief Justice. Is that a position that regularly gets appointed now, meaning that every 3, or 7, General Elections become that much more important? Do we change it out so that the Justices themselves elect the Chief ala PM's in parliamentary systems? &c.

    Reforming SCOTUS like this opens a can of worms far different from trying to make DOJ more independent and technocratic.

    I think a set term wouldn't be a bad idea. It should be long though. Like twenty or twenty five years.

    To me it seems like the main problem is a SCOTUS judge gaming things by deciding when to step down.

    I was thinking 27, since there are 9 of them; so you stagger it that every 3 years a new Associate. Every so often 1 President gets an extra appointment, but that beats the macabre system we have now. It still leaves the question of what to do about the Chief Justice, though. Having the Court pick among its own members seems like a potential solution, but it might lead to internal politics and drama that is more or less lacking under the current regime.

    moniker on
  • werehippywerehippy Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    I was thinking 27, since there are 9 of them; so you stagger it that every 3 years a new Associate. Every so often 1 President gets an extra appointment, but that beats the macabre system we have now. It still leaves the question of what to do about the Chief Justice, though. Having the Court pick among its own members seems like a potential solution, but it might lead to internal politics and drama that is more or less lacking under the current regime.

    I personally never understood why the chief justice was appointed. Since it's supposed to be a group of equals, just make who ever happens to be the senior on the court hold the spot until they rotate out.

    werehippy on
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    werehippy wrote: »
    Speaker wrote: »
    werehippy wrote: »
    The real deterrent would have been in the up and comers, because if you saw Nixon and two or three levels of advisers still rotting in jail you'd be somewhat more hesitant to think that the law was a "when convenient" proposition.

    Assumes that our young fellow blamed Nixon rotting in prison on Nixon's attitude that the law was a "when convenient" proposition, and not say, on Democratic majorities or Republican traitors or social subversives.

    I mean, let's say Bill Clinton was successfully removed from office. The message I would have taken from that would not have been "wow, I need to be careful not to perjure myself in civil suits" so much as "fuck those Republicans, I am going to start investigating their private lives and knocking them out of office and see how they like it."

    You assume it's an either or. Even our "let's see how you like it" neocon would be damn sure he stayed squeaky clean while trying to fuck the other guy as hard as he could, and at the end of the day that's a status quo I could live with. If government officials knew that their actions would be gone over with a strong eye towards punishing them if they broke the law, despite the fact it would ratchet up the partisanship I think we'd be much better off for it.

    I wouldn't mind at all if powerful people who break the law are treated as if they broke the law.

    Every law? How about specific, arguable interpretations of the law?

    moniker on
  • SpeakerSpeaker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    werehippy wrote: »
    Speaker wrote: »
    werehippy wrote: »
    The real deterrent would have been in the up and comers, because if you saw Nixon and two or three levels of advisers still rotting in jail you'd be somewhat more hesitant to think that the law was a "when convenient" proposition.

    Assumes that our young fellow blamed Nixon rotting in prison on Nixon's attitude that the law was a "when convenient" proposition, and not say, on Democratic majorities or Republican traitors or social subversives.

    I mean, let's say Bill Clinton was successfully removed from office. The message I would have taken from that would not have been "wow, I need to be careful not to perjure myself in civil suits" so much as "fuck those Republicans, I am going to start investigating their private lives and knocking them out of office and see how they like it."

    You assume it's an either or. Even our "let's see how you like it" neocon would be damn sure he stayed squeaky clean while trying to fuck the other guy as hard as he could, and at the end of the day that's a status quo I could live with. If government officials knew that their actions would be gone over with a strong eye towards punishing them if they broke the law, despite the fact it would ratchet up the partisanship I think we'd be much better off for it.

    At the end of the day, it's not really an either/or discussion we are having, since every poster in this thread favors the appointment of an independent investigator leading to prosecution.

    Speaker on
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    werehippy wrote: »
    moniker wrote: »
    I was thinking 27, since there are 9 of them; so you stagger it that every 3 years a new Associate. Every so often 1 President gets an extra appointment, but that beats the macabre system we have now. It still leaves the question of what to do about the Chief Justice, though. Having the Court pick among its own members seems like a potential solution, but it might lead to internal politics and drama that is more or less lacking under the current regime.

    I personally never understood why the chief justice was appointed. Since it's supposed to be a group of equals, just make who ever happens to be the senior on the court hold the spot until they rotate out.

    That would mean that you get a new Chief every 3 years. Granted they don't have exceptional powers, but they do have a good bit of influence over what occurs during their reign. Would all of the accomplishments of the Warren Court have occurred if he was just an Associate for most of that time?

    *edit*
    You know, we should probably split this.

    moniker on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    moniker wrote: »
    werehippy wrote: »
    Speaker wrote: »
    werehippy wrote: »
    The real deterrent would have been in the up and comers, because if you saw Nixon and two or three levels of advisers still rotting in jail you'd be somewhat more hesitant to think that the law was a "when convenient" proposition.

    Assumes that our young fellow blamed Nixon rotting in prison on Nixon's attitude that the law was a "when convenient" proposition, and not say, on Democratic majorities or Republican traitors or social subversives.

    I mean, let's say Bill Clinton was successfully removed from office. The message I would have taken from that would not have been "wow, I need to be careful not to perjure myself in civil suits" so much as "fuck those Republicans, I am going to start investigating their private lives and knocking them out of office and see how they like it."

    You assume it's an either or. Even our "let's see how you like it" neocon would be damn sure he stayed squeaky clean while trying to fuck the other guy as hard as he could, and at the end of the day that's a status quo I could live with. If government officials knew that their actions would be gone over with a strong eye towards punishing them if they broke the law, despite the fact it would ratchet up the partisanship I think we'd be much better off for it.

    I wouldn't mind at all if powerful people who break the law are treated as if they broke the law.

    Every law? How about specific, arguable interpretations of the law?

    I can settle for obvious felonies.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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