I’m surprised that I have seen absolutely nothing in the blogosphere about Jack Goldsmith’s piece in today’s WaPo, which argues that the Obama Administration should forgive and forget when it comes to the Bush Administration’s torture policies:

[Both prosecution and a bipartisan commission are] bad ideas. They would bring little benefit, and they would further weaken the Justice Department and the CIA in ways that would compromise our security. . . .

Second-guessing lawyers’ wartime decisions under threat of criminal and ethical sanctions may sound like a good idea to those who believe those lawyers went too far in the fearful days after Sept. 11, 2001. But the greater danger now is that lawyers will become excessively cautious in giving advice and will substitute predictions of political palatability for careful legal judgment. . . .

When the CIA was asked to engage in aggressive tactics early in the Bush administration, it knew from bitter experience that the political winds would change and that it might be subject to “retroactive discipline.” And so it sought approval from the president and his Cabinet, informed congressional leadership many times about what it was doing and got what it thought were airtight legal opinions from the Justice Department.

But these safeguards failed, and the CIA is once again mired in investigation and controversy. The lesson learned by many at the agency is that politically sensitive counterterrorism actions should be avoided, even if they are deemed legal and even if they have the express approval of political officials. We are going to be living with this skittishness for a long time, to the detriment of our security.

Yet another round of investigations during the Obama administration, even by a bipartisan commission, would exacerbate this problem. It would also bring little benefit. The people in government who made mistakes or who acted in ways that seemed reasonable at the time but now seem inappropriate have been held publicly accountable by severe criticism, suffering enormous reputational and, in some instances, financial losses. Little will be achieved by further retribution.

Jack Goldsmith emerged as a hero among critics of the current Administration’s torture policies, largely as a result of his tenure as head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department.  During his brief time there, Goldsmith stood up to David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and Dick Cheney by withdrawing John Yoo’s infamous 2002 memo, which had redefined torture as physical suffering “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury” or mental suffering that had to “result in signifcant psychological harm. . .lasting for months and years.”  Goldsmith deserves significant credit for his courage, and for writing The Terror Presidency, which described in detail his efforts to rein in Addington, Gonzales, and, ultimately, Cheney and Bush.

But he’s dead wrong to suggest that an Obama Administration should forget the past.

The first thing that struck me about Goldsmith’s piece is that, other than the headline (which most likely was written by someone at WaPo, not Goldsmith himself), he bends over backwards not to use the word “torture”: Instead, he uses a number of increasingly ridiculous euphemisms:  “what many view as the Bush administration’s harsh, abusive and illegal interrogation program,” “interrogation and related programs,” “wartime decisions,” “aggressive tactics,” “politically sensitive counterterrorism actions,” “mistakes” and “ways that seemed reasonable at the time but now seem inappropriate.”

Goldsmith apparently can’t bring himself to admit that the Bush Administration actually tortured people.  It’s not hard to recognize the reason for his reluctance:  prior to becoming Assistant Attorney General, Goldsmith held other posts, including in the Office of the General Counsel in the Pentagon.  Despite his decision to withdraw the Yoo memo, he could face legal jeopardy should any future investigation recommend prosecution.  So, as he himself acknowledges, it is in his interest to argue against any investigation.

But there are greater problems with Goldsmith’s arguments than merely self-interest.  The first is his suggestion that “Second-guessing lawyers’ wartime decisions under threat of criminal and ethical sanctions may sound like a good idea to those who believe those lawyers went too far in the fearful days after Sept. 11, 2001.”  The irony, of course, is that it was Goldsmith himself who was one of the first to second-guess Addington and Yoo.  His June 14, 2004 decision to withdraw Yoo’s memo was the beginning of the end of the Bush Administration’s unfettered license to do as it saw fit with those it detained.  For Goldsmith now to suggest that others should not do what he already did is at best inconsistent and at worst, smacks of a cover up of other memos or actions that have not yet seen the light of day.

The second is Goldsmith’s attempt to further muddy the waters by suggesting that current investigations by Congress, Justice, and the CIA should also look at Congress’s role and potential illegalities approved under the Clinton Administration.  Although I agree with Goldsmith that Clinton-era officials must be held accountable for approving the rendition of drug offenders, it is a bit disingenuous to suggest that the policies of the Clinton Administration should be put on the same footing as those of its successor.  To assign equal weight to Clinton- and Bush-era policies is not unlike suggesting that someone who smokes pot occasionally should be subjected to the same level of accountability as a drug kingpin.

The third and by far most significant problem with Goldsmith’s piece is his suggestion that any investigation and/or prosecution would lead “many government lawyers to be more risk averse and politically sensitive than ever. . . .The lesson learned by many at the [CIA] is that politically sensitive counterterrorism actions should be avoided, even if they are deemed legal and even if they have the express approval of political officials. We are going to be living with this skittishness for a long time, to the detriment of our security.”

To begin with, Goldsmith’s argument that government lawyers might be more “risk averse” and “politically sensitive” in the future ignores the fact that Bush-era lawyers (with the exception of Alberto Mora and Goldsmith himself) did what they did because they didn’t want the wrath of Cheney, Addington, and Gonzales brought down on their heads.  They understood that challenging the Administration’s stated determination to shred existing laws prohibiting torture and war crimes would quickly end their careers as government lawyers.

Such fears weren’t unfounded.  In some cases, such as that of Jesselyn Radack, who challenged the some of Administration’s actions during the detention of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, the Administration not only pushed people out of government, but tried to blackball them with potential future employers.  In Radack’s case, they even put her on the no-fly list.

To put it another way, part of the problem with what happened over the past eight years is that so many lawyers were exactly what Goldsmith suggests they shouldn’t be: utterly risk averse and politically sensitive.  They didn’t speak out because they feared the consequences.  It’s not like Goldsmith didn’t understand this — he submitted his letter of resignation two days after he decided to withdraw Yoo’s memo and, in all likelihood, before he could be fired.

Goldsmith’s concern about limiting the ability of the CIA to conduct “politically sensitive counterterrorism operations” is equally supect.  Since Nuremberg, “legality” has never been a sufficent defense for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.  The reality is that senior CIA officials were just as unwilling to stand up to the Administration’s desire to torture those in its custody.  In fact, some in the Agency, including Cofer Black, were eager to “take the gloves off” long before Yoo started drafting memoranda.

And as the recent controversy over the possible appointment of John Brennan to serve as CIA Director demonstrates, even those not directly involved in policy decisions are now viewed as accountable merely for being in the room when some of these decisions were discussed.

In the end, Goldsmith’s arguments simply don’t stand up to closer scrutiny.  They represent little more than a weak apologia for policies that he may slowed but nonetheless did not stop.  In fact, had Goldsmith stayed (and, in fairness, had he not been fired), he would have had to draft a replacement for the memo he withdrew.  Chances are that he would have drafted something not unlike that put forward by Dan Levin, his successor, which stated that the CIA could not be held criminally responsible for actions authorized by the Yoo memo.

It really is a shame that Goldsmith has chosen to tarnish his reputation by trying to protect the very people whom he once so courageously opposed.

Note:  As is usually the case when it comes to questions of the Bush Administration’s torture policies, Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side was indespensible in helping me reconstruct time lines and roles.

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There’s word today from numerous sources that Colin Powell will go on Meet the Press this Sunday and endorse Barack Obama. The Obama campaign certainly isn’t doing anything to discourage the speculation:

Today Obama spokesperson Linda Douglas said she has no news on the Powell front, but the campaign would obviously love an endorsement.  ”We would welcome the support of somebody with such a distinguished and honorable career as General Powell,” she told me this morning, as Obama’s plane flew to Virginia for a rally.  Obama has previously cited Powell as a potential member of his administration, and the two have been in touch before. “I know they talk from time to time about foreign policy matters,” Douglas said, though she did not know the last time they spoke.  Powell is widely viewed as a thoughtful public servant who carries credibility (and experience) in both parties.

Quite a few folks in the progosphere think Powell endorsing Obama would be a great thing.  I’m not so sure.

Like many others, I had a great deal of respect for Powell before he joined the Bush Administration.  His story was a compelling one and his service was largely distinguished.  In 1996, Powell chose, for a variety of reasons, not to run for President.  Had he done so, he very well might have defeated Clinton.  Instead, he remained on the sidelines until Dubya asked him to serve as Secretary of State.

These days, Powell is often viewed as a tragic figure, largely because of his 2003 presentation at the UN Security Council during the Administration’s push for war with Iraq.  According to Powell, he was duped by the CIA, who convinced Powell that the intelligence behind his presentation was unimpeachable.  Powell then went out and made the case for war.

Thirty months later, Powell told Tim Russert that the CIA had misled him, using intelligence based on discredited sources.   Since then, conventional wisdom has given Powell the benefit of the doubt.  Many commentators regard his statement that he had been misled as the same thing as an apology:

Private warnings cannot cancel out Powell’s hawkish presentation to the U.N., but unlike so many war cheerleaders in politics and the media, he owned up to his mistakes. On national television, Powell called the U.N. address a “blot” on his record.

Fair enough — everyone makes mistakes, and to his credit, Powell has acknowledged (or at least gave the appearance of acknowledging) that he was wrong.  Second chances are the American way, and certainly a Powell endorsement of Obama would represent an open repudiation not only of his friend John McCain, but also of the Administration for whom he worked.

There’s just one small problem.  Powell’s testimony before the UNSC was only the second biggest “blot” on his record.

The biggest was, and is, his tacit support for torture.  If, as the Nuremberg tribunals established, knowledge is complicity, then Colin Powell is guilty of war crimes.  And unlike Iraq, he’s never apologized for his role in helping to shred the Constitution, ignore the Convention against Torture, and trash the Geneva Conventions.

Think I’m exaggerating?  Here’s what Jane Mayer has to say in The Dark Side:

Bush also knew about, and approved of, White House meetings in which his top cabinet members were briefed by the CIA on its plan to use specific “enhanced” interrogation techniques on various high-value detainees.  The meetings were chaired by Rice. . . . The participants were members of the Principals Committee, the five Bush cabinet members  who handled national security matters:  Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, CIA Director Tenet, and Attorney General Ashcroft.

Knowing how the Agency had been blamed for ostensible “rogue” actions in the past, Tenet was eager to spread the political risk of undertaking “enhanced interrogations.” However, some members of the group became irritated with Tenet’s insistence upon airing the grim details.  “The CIA already had legal clearance to do these things,” a knowledgable source said, “and so it was pointless for them to keep sharing the details.  No one was going to question their decisions. . . . It’s not as if any of the principals were debating the policy — that was already set.  They wanted to go to the limit that the law required. . . .”

There is no indication. . .that any Bush cabinet members objected to the policy. [emphasis added]

As Mayer acknowledges, Powell did object quite strongly to Bush’s decision to suspend the Geneva Conventions.  But he did not make those concerns public or threaten to resign.  He merely accepted the outcome and soldiered on.  It is only at the time of Abu Ghraib (and the first media reports of John Yoo’s infamous August 2002 “torture memo”), Mayer notes that Powell (along with Rice) began to express qualms:

After reading the torture memo  itself for the first time in the newspapers, Rice and Powell confronted Gonzales together and furiously insisted that there be “no more secret opinions on international and national security law.”  Their righteous anger seemed somewhat undercut by reports that Tenet had provided graphic details of specific coercive interrogations during the Principals Committee meetings while both were present.  And while they directed their frustration at Gonzales, neither had the temerity to confront Cheney, who clearly was the true source of these policies. [emphasis added]

Colin Powell passively assented to torture.  Although he occasionally raised concerns, there is no evidence that he threatened to resign — as Ashcroft and others did over the issue of domestic wiretapping.  He sat in meetings and listened as George Tenet offered graphic descriptions of torture committed by U.S. government officials — and never once objected, other than to complain that Tenet’s statements were unnecessary, given the fact that the President already had authorized torture.

As was the case with his presentation at the United Nations, he accepted what he heard and did as he was told.  Only later, after the Yoo memo and the Abu Ghraib scandal became public, did he begin to object — and then only to ask if there were any other memos he should know about.  At no time did he confront Cheney or Bush, threaten to go public, or quit in protest.

Later on, after he was once again a private citizen, Powell did raise concerns about the Administration’s policies, writing in 2006 to John McCain to express his opposition to proposed rules on Military Commissions:

In his letter to McCain, Powell said the effort to “redefine” the article was “inconsistent” with his previous opposition to the use of torture. “The world,” he wrote, “is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” . . .

Powell declined yesterday to address Bush’s comments. “To say that we want to modify, clarify or redefine Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Conventions], which has not been modified for the 57 years of its history, I think adds to the doubt” about U.S. morality, he said. “Plus I believe that the legitimate concerns that the administration has can be dealt with in other ways.”

The problem, of course, is that there is no public record during Powell’s tenure as Secretary of State of his “previous opposition to the use of torture.”  In his letter to McCain, Powell makes it clear that his objection is not with the underlying policy, but rather the tactics around the military commission.  That is not exactly taking a stand in the face of evil or speaking truth to power.

Silence in the face of evil is assent.  In the eyes of the law, it’s called conspiracy.   At best, Powell’s  actions — both in regard to Iraq and to torture — show a lack of critical thinking.  At worst, they demonstrate profound moral cowardice.

So pardon me if I’m not thrilled at the notion of Powell endorsing Barack Obama.

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Over at TPM Cafe, Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side, asks the same question that I’ve been asking:

While both McCain and Obama have spoken out against torture, neither has spelled out what he plans to do about holding Bush Administration officials accountable who may have committed or authorized crimes. Understandably, this is a toxic subject, reeking of political payback. But I have personally interviewed CIA officers who have said they refused to partake in the “enhanced interrogation” program because they feared that eventually it would lead to criminal charges. They had seen this happen before, and wanted nothing to do with it, even if it meant in some instances, leaving the CIA. The threat of prosecution clearly acted as a deterrent.

My question is what happens if there is no accountability for America’s first program of state-authorized torture? Does it send a green light to torture again when the next attack takes place? Is it an invitation to other forms of lawlessness by the U.S. Government? But, if top officials of the Bush Administration who were acting in what they believed to be the best interests of the country’s security, are now prosecuted, is that just? Will the public support it? Particularly if Obama is elected, wont this become exhibit A that the Democrats are soft on terrorism, and members of the “Blame-America-First” Club?

. . . [O]n a morning when accountability seems to have evaporated in the financial world - I’d like to know what we do about accountability at the top of our government for authorizing the abuse- and in some cases the killing of U.S.-held prisoners, all of which were criminal until the day before 9/11.

My answer is that we need to prosecute everyone responsible, from Bush down to the CIA agents, military interrogators, and even translators and medical personnel who participated.  It is not political payback, but justice — let us not forget the fundamental principle that came out of Nuremberg:  “I was just following orders” is no excuse for participation in heinous acts.

I suspect that the American people are going to want the Bushies held accountable for everything they’ve done, and that Republicans, who have spent so much time and effort lately running away from their President, will not be in a position to defend him or any of those responsible.

But let’s start from the top, not at the bottom as was done in Abu Ghraib.  We need to take down the twelve individuals who designed and implemented America’s first-ever Presidentially sanctioned torture regime:  Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Flanigan, Haynes, Chertoff, Tenet, and Rice.  All of them knew what was happening.  All of them signed off on these policies.  All of them should go to jail.

As Mayer notes, accountability has evaporated under this disastrous regime.  We must do everything we can to ensure that it returns, not merely in financial matters, but across the board.

Image via Wikipedia, in the public domain.

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Two of my least favorite people in the world got together yesterday to have some laughs and share some good times.

No, I’m not talking about Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson.  In case you didn’t hear, Sarah Palin met with Henry Kissinger yesterday.  I wonder if Henry tried to pick her up?  “Vell Sarah, you are very pretty.  Have you ever done it with a war criminal?”

Ewwwwwww.

In any case, I happened to have an inside source at the U.S. mission to the U.N..  S/he was kind enough to make a list of all the questions the Sarahnator asked Hank the K:

1. What’s the difference is between a hockey mom and a Secretary of State?
2. Why can’t I see Afghanistan from my house?
3. Is a foreign minister kinda like a community organizer?
4. Do I have to read foreigners their rights before I talk to them?
5. Do I get to torture people personally the way Cheney does?
6. Are there foreigners I might mistake for moose?
7. Have you met John Bolton?  Is he as cute as everyone says he is?
8. Why does this Karzai guy wear those funny dresses?  Is he gay or something?
9. Why am I meeting with the President of Columbia University?  I never went to that college.
10. Why does the President of the United Nations go by the name Binky Moon?

Here’s the scary part.  Apparently a CNN sound tech picked up a small part of the conversation:

Kissinger: (something about a speech, not sure to whom he was referring) “And I’m going to give him a lot of credit for what he did in Georgia.”

Palin: “Good, good. And you’ll give me more insight on that, also, huh? Good.”

As I said yesterday, sometimes reality transcends satire.

Today, the fun continues.  Palin is meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, new Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Word is that she spent at least two hours last night just learning how to say their names.

Photo illustration:  New York Magazine

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When the history of the Bush Administration is written, few individuals will be held as responsible for its excesses as David Addington.  He is the G. Gordon Liddy of attorneys, a one man dirty tricks squad — except in his case, he wasn’t working outside the law, he was rewriting the law.

In an excerpt from Angler that ran in yesterday’s Washington Post, author Barton Gellman describes what happened when the Justice Department ruled that the warrantless surveillance program was illegal.  Cheney determined that the program should nonetheless be reauthorized and ordered Addington to get it done.

Addington opened the code-word-classified file on his computer. He had a presidential directive to rewrite.

It has been widely reported that Bush executed the March 11 order with a blank space over the attorney general’s signature line. That is not correct. For reasons both symbolic and practical, the vice president’s lawyer could not tolerate an empty spot where a mutinous subordinate should have signed. Addington typed a substitute signature line: “Alberto R. Gonzales.”

What Addington wrote for Bush that day was more transcendent than that. He drew up new language in which the president relied on his own authority to certify the program as lawful. Bush expressly overrode the Justice Department and any act of Congress or judicial decision that purported to constrain his power as commander in chief. Only Richard M. Nixon, in an interview after leaving the White House in disgrace, claimed authority so nearly unlimited.

The specter of future prosecutions hung over the program, now that Justice had ruled it illegal.  “Pardon was in the air,” said one of the lawyers involved.

It was possible to construct a case, he said, in which those who planned and carried out the program were engaged in a criminal conspiracy. That would be tendentious, this lawyer believed, but with a change of government it could not be ruled out.  “I’m sure when we leave office we’re all going to be hauled up before congressional committees and grand juries,” Addington told one colleague in disgust.

Addington may only be a minion, but particularly effective henchmen often can be as dangerous and destructive as their dark lords.  Cheney made the decisions that led to torture, rendition, indefinite detention, and other such abominations, but Addington gave Cheney the legal cover to justify his actions as within the law.

As Jane Mayer notes in The Dark Side, Addington’s interpretation of the law was, in essence, that there was no law, only executive authority:

The Bush legal team, as former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis observed, spent an extraordinary amount of effort figuring out how to steer top administration officials around criminal conduct.  Their “memos,” Lewis wrote, “read like the advice of a mob lawyer to a Mafia don on how to skirt the law and stay out of prison.  Avoiding prosecution is literally a theory of the memoranda.”  Behind these contortions was the reality that the White House lawyers, like crminial litigators, were using their skills to provide rationales for a path their clients had already taken.

Let’s not mince words here.  What Addington, John Yoo, and other Administration lawyers did was nothing less than criminal behavior.  If a private organization were to act in this way, federal authorities would not hesitate to prosecute it under the Racketeering in Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO):

Under RICO, a person who is a member of an enterprise that has committed any two of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering. Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and/or sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. . . . Under the law, racketeering activity means:

• Any violation of state statutes against gambling, murder, kidnapping, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical (as defined in the Controlled Substances Act);
• Any act of bribery, counterfeiting, theft, embezzlement, fraud, dealing in obscene matter, obstruction of justice, slavery, racketeering, gambling, money laundering, commission of murder-for-hire, and several other offenses covered under the Federal criminal code (Title 18);
• Embezzlement of union funds;
• Bankruptcy or securities fraud;
• Drug trafficking;
• Money laundering and related offenses;
• Bringing in, aiding or assisting aliens in illegally entering the country (if the action was for financial gain);
• Acts of terrorism.

Pattern of racketeering activity requires at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years (excluding any period of imprisonment) after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.

I’m not a lawyer, but I would argue that Cheney and Addington (and others in the Administration) committed at least four such acts:  conspiracy to murder (CIA personnel may have, as a result of their use of “vigorous” interrogations promoted by Cheney and Addington, been responsible for the death of at least six detainees); kidnapping (the rendition program was essentially a federally sanctioned kidnap operation); fraud (inserting the signature of Alberto Gonzales instead of John Ashcroft); and obstruction of justice (as Gellman notes above, Addington, at Cheney’s instruction, attempted to override a Justice Department determination that the warrantless surveillance program was illegal).  That means they’re eligible.

Before you start arguing that the RICO statute cannot be used against government officials, know this:

In June 1984, the Key West Police Department in Monroe County, FL was declared a criminal Enterprise under the Federal RICO statutes after a lengthy United States Department of Justice investigation. Several high-ranking officers of the department, including Deputy Police Chief Raymond Cassamayor, were arrested on federal charges of running a protection racket for illegal cocaine smugglers.  At trial, a witness testified he routinely delivered bags of cocaine to the Deputy Chief’s office at City Hall.

To paraphrase Pogo, we have met the government and it is the mob.

Photo:  Getty Images via Daylife

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One of the tragedies of the current campaign is that the two candidates have not yet had a serious debate about America’s role in the world.  Both McCain and Obama have laid out very different visions — to oversimplify, McCain’s robust nationalism versus Obama’s effective internationalism.  But instead of debating the future of American foreign policy, the campaign has degenerated into discussions about such salient topics as lipstick, pigs, celebrities, and bridges.

Jeffrey Goldberg over at The Atlantic suggests that this isn’t a coincidence — McCain is pursuing a vicious campaign because he knows his worldview won’t get him elected.

Like many people who have covered John McCain, I think of him as a deeply serious man, preoccupied with America’s defense and its position in the world. So I’ve been confused for the past few days, trying to figure out why he’s allowing his campaign to make a circus of this election, leveling unserious and dishonest accusations about Barack Obama’s positions on sex education and Sarah Palin.

Then it came to me: The answer can be found in. . .John McCain’s philosophy of war, and in particular with the doctrine of preemption, which McCain still endorses. . . . McCain knows that preemption isn’t the easiest sell these days: “It’s very hard to run for president on this idea right now,” he told me.

So, what do you do when one of your core ideas is out of sync with the predispositions of the American public? You spend your days talking about lipstick on pigs. This might win him the election, but I’d rather see him debate preemption.

I think this is largely true.  Thanks to the Bush Administration, preemption isn’t exactly a popular concept right now.  It’s not merely intellectually bankrupt, it’s also despised by the rest of the world.  What McCain, Bush, Cheney, and I presume, Palin (once they explain everything to her) view as America asserting its interests is viewed in the rest of the world as exceptionalism and even imperialism.

Four more years of such a policy may destroy what’s left of American power and credibility in the world.  Right now, Russia is asserting itself, and they’re doing it by using the Bush playbook.  While no one is paying attention, Venezuela is quite effectively building a new anti-American bloc in Latin America (more on this in a future post).  Erstwhile American allies are beginning to reevaluate whether it makes sense to continue to make friendship with a weakened, angry, and often bellicose United States a priority in their foreign policy.  And perhaps most troubling of all, a strong and assertive China is confidently asserting itself — not merely by hosting the Olympics, but in a number of other ways, most notably through massive foreign assistance projects that just happen to give China access to the natural resources it needs to continue to grow.

Let’s be blunt:  nobody is really that impressed with us anymore.  We’ve become the annoying guest who insists on dominating the conversation but who has little of value to contribute to the conversation.  We’re on the verge of becoming the kid who was a star athlete in high school but who never reaches similar heights in adulthood.

It’s not only that we’re despised.  It’s that we’re increasingly a laughingstock.  If McCain is elected, it could be a tipping point.  Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and a number of lesser states will see no reason not to organize in opposition to our interests.  We will find it harder to assert ourselves, or even to be heard.

To be clear, I’m not interested in appeasing or even appealing to such states.  But I’m also not interested in poking all of them in the eye with a sharp stick, especially when we do it constantly and frequently simultaneously.  McCain doesn’t seem to understand that there are a finite number of states you can anger before people start seeing you as the problem — even when you’re in the right.

It’s almost as if McCain wants to go it alone.  After all, that’s what has worked for him in campaigns.  Why not turn it into a foreign policy?

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So about six weeks ago, right at the peak of The Dark Knight’s popularity, an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal argued that Bush was Batman.  Not as in the old Snickers “I’m Batman” commercial, but rather as in “he is a superhero fighting evil.” Whatever.

Bush isn’t Batman.  Cheney is Batman.   After all, they both live in an underground bunker in an undisclosed location.  And both have been known to claim that fighting evil requires stomping on a few civil liberties.

I know this is a fairly old story, but I thought of it again when I saw this panel from All Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder # 10, written by Frank Miller (of Dark Knight and Sin City fame) and drawn by Jim Lee:

That’s not Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne; it’s George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

It’s also the past eight years of U.S. foreign policy summed up in a single comic book panel.

Dick Cheney thinks he is the Goddamn Batman.

Hat tip:  Slog

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Take a moment to watch this clip.  It’s from an Obama town hall appearance yesterday in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

At first glance, it seems pretty good.  He says that “there should be no contradiction between keeping America safe and secure and respecting our Constitution.”  He gets in a good shot in about the need to catch the terrorists before you worry about what to do with them.  And he has a great line at the end:  “Don’t mock the constitution.  Don’t make fun of it!  Don’t suggest that it’s un-American to abide by what the founding fathers set up.”

Those are all good points.  The problem is that along the way, he violates two fundamental rules of messaging:

1.  Don’t use your opponent’s talking points to frame your arguments.  Obama did that on three occasions:

“Senator Obama is less interested in protecting people from terrorism than he is in reading them their rights.”

“You may think it’s Barack the bomb thrower, when in fact it might be Barack, the guy running for president.”

“The reason you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism.”

When you do this, you reinforce people’s preconceptions about you.  If folks are already inclined to worry about whether you’re the right guy, then what they’re going to hear is that Obama is soft on terrorism, has a Muslim name, and is interested in protecting the bad guys.

2.  Don’t try to convince people with facts.  Obama spends over a minute explaining the concept of habeas corpus.  He sounded like a professor.  Most people don’t have any idea what the words “habeus corpus” mean.  But they do understand the underlying principle:  that sometimes, our government makes mistakes, and we need rules to protect innocent people from being thrown in jail indefinitely.  They’ll understand that much more readily than talking about how this right goes back to before we were a country.

So what should have Obama said?  How about something like this:

You know, all of us want to be treated fairly.  You could say that’s the basic idea behind the Constitution and the Bill of Rights:  do unto others as you would have them do onto you.  In this country, we give people the chance to be heard. We promise them that they won’t be tortured.  We say to them that they have the right to prove that they are innocent of the charges against them, and that they don’t have to incriminate themselves.

These are our core values.  These are incredible gifts that the founding fathers gave to us.  And these are the very things that our opponents are now mocking.  How dare John McCain and Sarah Palin suggest that what was good enough for Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and Benjamin Franklin isn’t good enough for us.

Other than our familes, our freedoms are the most precious thing we have .  They are what made this country great.  They are the promise that all men and women are created equal, that we are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and, as you said so beautifully, ma’am, that we are the sweet land of liberty.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, just like George Bush and Dick Cheney, want you to believe that our security is more important than our freedoms.  What you know and what I know — and what McCain and Palin and Bush and Cheney certainly should know is that we cannot have security without freedom.  We cannot have justice without freedom.  We cannot be America without our freedoms.

Those who suggest otherwise should be ashamed of themselves.

They should be ashamed for resorting to torture, for doing the very same things that John McCain himself suffered in Vietnam.  They should be ashamed for letting places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, instead of places like Farmington Hills and Peoria define who we are.  They should be ashamed for allowing waterboarding, beatings, sleep deprivation, and other techniques that we used to think only happened in places like Zimbabwe and Burma and Cuba.  They should be ashamed of themselves for believing that it’s all okay because the President can do anything he wants anytime he wants.

That’s not my America.  That’s not your America.  That’s not George Washington’s or Abraham Lincoln’s or Teddy Roosevelt’s or FDR’s or JFK’s or Ronald Reagan’s America.  Nowhere in our Constitution does it say the President can do anything he or she wants.  Nowhere.  That’s not Martin Luther King’s or Susan B. Anthony’s or Bobby Kennedy’s America.  That’s George Bush’s America.

It’s time we reclaim our heritage of freedom, our role as that shining city on the hill.  It’s time we say “not on our watch,” not here, not in Guantanamo, not anywhere.

It’s time that we say to Bush and Cheney and McCain and Palin and anyone else who supports them, we’re taking America back.  We’re taking America back to what it stands for.  We’re going to make America great again.  We’re going to be the America that respects people’s rights, that honors our core values, that draws so many people around the world to our shores.

Let’s start showing the world why we’re better than our enemies.  Let’s honor our founding fathers by returning to the values that make America America.

That would knock McCain and Palin on their butts.  It would force them to explain why they support the very torture techniques that  John McCain himself endured.  It would make them explain why they aren’t un-American.  It would require them to argue that they don’t want to destroy the Constitution or shred the Bill of Rights.  Tar them with every sin of the Bush Administration, and do it in a way that will leave them no space to reply except by repeating your arguments.

That, after all, is exactly what they’re doing to the Democrats.

So for crying out loud, Senator Obama, stop defending yourself and start attacking them.  It’s the only way you win.

P.S.  To my colleagues in the blogosphere and the mainstream media, this goes double for you.  Stop caring about how many times Sarah Palin lied about the bridge to nowhere and start talking about why Obama and Biden are the right choice. Stop parsing every lie that McCain and Palin tell and start talking about what their Administration would do to the country.  And if you can’t, then shut the hell up.

It’s the Dean Wormer Theory of Politics.  In Animal House, Dean Vernon Wormer tells Flounder, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

In politics, defensive, bitter, and angry is no way to win an election. 

Related posts

• What’s Missing at DNC: Torture, Guantanamo. . .and Cheney
• Powell, Obama, and Torture
• The Manchurian President
• Prosecuting Those Responsible for War Crimes
• More on McCain, Torture, and the Bush Administration

Over the weekend, CNN asked Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, scratch golfer, and yet-to-be-indicted war criminal, whether she thought Sarah Palin had the experience to be Vice President.  Watch:

Time for the Diplospeak Translator™!

QUESTION:  [Do you think Governor Palin has the experience to be Vice President?]

THE CONDI:  I thought that Sarah Palin gave a terrific speech, and not to get into the politics of it.  She’s a governor of a state here in the United States and she spoke very well.

DIPLOSPEAK TRANSLATOR:  Nope. Not even close.  Even I can’t lie that convincingly, and I’m the freaking liar-in-chief.

QUESTION:  Does she have the kind of experience to handle the things you need to handle?

THE CONDI:  These are decisions that Senator McCain has made.  I have great confidence in him.  I’m not going to get involved in this political campaign. As the Secretary of State, I don’t do that.  But I thought her speech was wonderful.

DIPLOSPEAK TRANSLATOR:  Are you kidding me?  I have more experience in my big toe than she has.  Nope, nada, nyet. Give me a minute and I’ll come up with “no” in ten other languages, none of which Sarah Palin has freaking even heard of.

QUESTION:  But a lot of Republicans are also saying that she just lacks the experience.  I mean you can dispatch Vice President Cheney to deal with Ukraine and Georgia but Sarah Palin just won’t be able to handle it.

THE CONDI:  There are different kinds of experiences in life that help one to deal with matters of foreign policy.

DIPLOSPEAK TRANSLATOR:  I can’t believe that McCain has made He Whose Name Must Not Be Uttered look good in comparison.  And I can’t believe that most people think that dealing with the PTA is the same as going face-to-face with Gadhafi, Hu Jintao, or Putin.

At least we now know why The Condi got sent to Libya in the middle of the Republican National Convention.

Related posts

• While You Were Away: Hot for Condi
• State Department Watch: Fed up with Bush?
• Prosecuting Those Responsible for War Crimes
• Wonk’d: The ALDAC “Controversy”
• Why McCain’s Attacks Won’t Work

Thanks to everyone who voted that Dick Cheney should prevent the Rebel Alliance from destroying the Death Star last week.  We’ve passed your recommendation on to the Vice President — you should expect your invitations to the Guantanamo Country Club any day now.

This week, we have a very special poll.  As you may have heard, the band Heart has sent a cease and desist letter to the McCain campaign for its unauthorized use of “Barracuda” as Sarah Palin’s theme song.

Here at Undip, we feel bad for the Sarahnator, so we’re conducting a Hillary Clinton-style song contest!  You can see the finalists below.

Don’t forget to vote early and vote often!  And if you have other suggestions, please don’t hesitate to share them in the comments below.

Related posts

• The True Experience Test
• The Hillary and Sarah Show
• Sarah Palin and Henry Kissinger: Blech.
• Quote of the Day
• Palin: Think Twice PUMAs

You may have missed it, what with Sarahpalooza and everything, but Dick Cheney wasn’t the only Bush Administration official exiled sent overseas during the Republican National Convention.

For some reason, Condoleezza Rice, perhaps second only to the Vice President on the list of people George Bush actually listens to, was sent to Libya to meet with raving nutjob new ally Moammar Gadhafi (or however the hell he’s spelling it this week).

Libya was never major-league caliber evil, but they did make it to the high minors a couple of times, particularly during the Reagan Administration.  There are some who still think they have the stuff to be Axis-caliber, but the Bushies have decided to make nice.

Not everyone — particularly the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 — shares that sentiment, so apparently the Administration thought that sending The Condi to Tripoli in the middle of the Republican National Convention might mean that most Americans would be too distracted by McCainia to realize she was meeting with the Gadster (or is it Qaddster?  Khadster? GQKaaadster?  I can never keep it straight):

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi - once reviled as a “mad dog” by a U.S. president - on Friday on a historic visit that she said proved that Washington had no permanent enemies.

Rice’s trip, the first by a U.S. secretary of state to the North African country in 55 years, is intended to end decades of enmity, five years after Libya gave up its weapons of mass destruction program.

“I think we are off to a good start. It is only a start but after many, many years, I think it is a very good thing that the United States and Libya are establishing a way forward,” Rice told a news conference after talks with Gaddafi at a compound bombed by U.S. warplanes in 1986.

For a couple of years now, the Bush Administration has bragged about how it forced the Libyans to give up its nucular nuclear ambitions and return to the community of nations.  But what we didn’t know was that Gadhafi had a secret motive for improving U.S.-Libyan relations:  love.

From a 2007 Al-Jazeera interview with the Lucky Gadhafella himself:

Qadhafi:  I support my darling black African woman. I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders. She beckons to the Arab foreign ministers, and they come to her, either in groups or individually.

Interviewer:  You are referring to the American secretary of state, right?

Qadhafi: Yes, Leezza, Leezza, Leezza… I love her very much. I admire her, and I’m proud of her, because she’s a black woman of African origin. I congratulate her on reaching this global status. When she beckons to the heads of the Arab security agencies, they come running. She’s the secretary of state, yet she heads the Arab security agencies.

I think we’ve just established a new gold standard in the category of creepy stalker boyfriend wannabes.

Dipnote, the State Department’s little blog that could (if it only had the proper clearances!), either didn’t see this little tidbit or has a much more twisted sense of humor than I thought.  This is the headline to their story about The Condi’s visit:

What Lessons Can Be Learned from the U.S.-Libyan Relationship?

Nudge nudge, wink wink.  Say no more!

But what do you do with a problem like Moammar?  I have a suggestion.  The Condi should invite him to play a round of golf.  And now that Dubya has set a timetable for withdrawal of our troops in an aspirational horizon for success in Iraq, he could give up giving up golf and join them.  Add Dick Cheney and you have a war criminal foursome!  Be careful:  if you don’t let them play through, you might be taking lessons from the golf pro at Guantanamo Country Club.

Better yet, Moammar could tour with Van Halen.  They need a new lead singer (again), and “Hot for Condi” has a nice ring to it.

Hat tip:  Somewhere in Africa

Photos:  Wikipedia

Related posts

• While You Were Away: Russia-Georgia
• What’s Missing at DNC: Torture, Guantanamo. . .and Cheney
• State Department Watch: Fed up with Bush?
• Prosecuting Those Responsible for War Crimes
• Five to Watch: McCain, Bush, and Gustav

Interesting bubble graph showing which words the candidates used during the Conventions:

What I found most interesting is that the Republicans never uttered Dick Cheney’s name once, nor did they ever talk about “four more years.”  The Democrats mentioned Bush nearly seven times as often as the Republicans did.

I knew the Republicans would run away from Bush.  They have to.  But I didn’t expect them to do it to the degree they have.

The last thing I would note is how infrequently foreign policy was mentioned (unless you count energy, but most of the time candidates were talking about American energy independence).  Only four topics made the cut — Iran, Iraq, “war,” and “terror(ism)/terrorist(s).”  The Democrats spoke of these issues 64 times, the Republicans 46 times (although the numbers may have been more even had Russia-Georgia been included — Obama mentioned it at least once, and virtually every Republican speaker highlighted it).

What’s striking is what’s not on the list:  torture (which I believe only Bill Richardson and Rudy Giuliani mentioned, and in the case of Giuliani, it was in reference to John McCain), Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan, democracy, human rights, climate change/global warming.

That’s not to say that some of these issues were not covered — they just didn’t make the cut for the graph.  It’s therefore hard to say whether the speakers did not discuss foreign policy or the graph has a built in bias against those issues.

Hat tip:  Switchblog

Related posts

• Was McCain Tortured? Ask Dick Cheney
• The Manchurian President
• State Department Watch: Fed up with Bush?
• Sarah Palin and Henry Kissinger: Blech.
• Prosecuting Those Responsible for War Crimes

The last two weeks have been nuts, what with the Clinton and Obama speeches, Hurricane Sarah, and all other things political.  And things are unlikely to slow down anytime soon, given the fact that the election is only sixty days away.

While Americans focused on the conventions (and Hurricane Gustav), world events didn’t just grind to a halt.  Over the past two weeks, there have been a number of important developments that are not only important in their own right but also may have a significant impact on the next President’s ability to govern.

Over the next few days, I’m going to try to highlight someJ of them.  Let’s start with Russia-Georgia.

In the past two weeks, the Russia-Georgia conflict has increasingly turned into a proxy (cold) war between the United States and the Russian Federation.  Russian President Medvedev has demonstrated a particular affection for Bushian bluster, making grandiose nationalistic statements about reestablishing a Russian sphere of influence that were meant as much for internal consumption as for global politics.  Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has taken several steps to bind the United States even more closely to the fate of Georgia — including a pledge of more than $1 billion in new (non-military) foreign assistance and a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney.

John McCain’s protestations notwithstanding, most Americans still do not understand what is going on or why the conflict is relevant to their lives.

For all the jokes about Cheney being sent out of the country during the Convention, the reality is that his trip was deadly serious, designed to show the Russians that the United States would not be cowed in the face of its aggression.  But it also showed Cheney’s unbelievably blinkered view of the world:  in the end, the reason the U.S. is backing Georgia is because of the latter’s decision to send troops to Iraq.

The Administration’s actions are going to make it much harder for the next President to pursue a more rational, interests-based policy while at the same time defending Georgian sovereignty.  Of course, if McCain is President, that will not be a problem.

The bottom line:  this has become a game of low-intensity chicken, with both sides acting like 12-year-old boys.  And neither side really cares to behave like adults.  Georgia, which is largely (though not entirely) the victim here, is stuck in the middle, with little hope of serious support from the West or complete withdrawal of Russian forces.  The real fear is that some further incident will cause one side or the other to ratchet up the rhetoric in a way that we’re suddenly looking at Bosnia 1914 all over again — except this time, it will be with thousands upon thousands of nukes on both sides.

For those interested in the specifics, you can find a straightforward report on the events of the past two weeks after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Related posts

• Russia: Anything You Can Do I Can Make Worse
• Russia-Georgia: The Other Shoe Drops
• One of These Things is Exactly Like the Other
• Diplospeak Translator: The Condi in Crawford
• So Much for Mars

Image via Wikipedia

Time for a new poll, boys and girls!  Thanks to all of those who volunteered to staple-gun their toenails to their foreheads in our last poll.

The topic this time is. . . Dick Cheney.

With