Torturing the law

Indeed

These lawyers who write excuse letters for Bush are Corporate lawyers. In fact, they are the worst sort of corporate lawyers.

The good type of corporate lawyer advises their client (the company that hires them) on whether any action the company wants to take is allowed within the law. If it isn't then the client doesn't do it.

The bad type of corporate lawyer advises their client on the best way to make what they want to do look legal. If they are good enough at torturing the law the client can get away with whatever they want.

Gonzalez tortured the law so that Bush could torture everyone else.

It's good to have standards

Shorter Michael Goldfarb : What we do is okay since we're not as bad as the people who take powerdrills to kneecaps.

Let It Slide

I said earlier that it wouldn't surprise me if, post Bush, there was a concerted push by the usual suspects to halt any and all investigations into the Bush administration because of the desire to "put all that ugliness behind us". I offer the following as evidence of what I am talking about:

TPMmuckraker | U.S. Attorneys Investigation Waits on House Leadership: "More than two months after the House Judiciary Committee passed contempt resolutions against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers for ignoring committee subpoenas, it's still unclear when, or if, Democrats will hold a vote on the full floor.

The leadership has indefinitely delayed taking up the issue. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) told The Politico last month, “I don’t think anything is going to happen on that for a while,” and couldn't offer a range. Three weeks later, that hasn't changed."

Hey! Alberto Gonzalez is gone! Nothing left to do here. Why not just let it go and get on with the important business?

The Giggle

Besides, Jon Stewart has been making fun of Bush's "giggle" for years. Yet none of the media establishment considered that to be grounds to question whether "The Giggle" indicated something negative about his character.

The media establishment's laugh track

What's amazing is how many national journalists take their queues from comedy shows. Stewart's skewering of Clinton was funny, but it was meant to be funny. It wasn't meant to be a serious analysis of Clinton's character. Just an example of, "wasn't that a bit odd?" poking of fun.

I expect Stewart would be dismayed as anyone that people would take a joke about Clinton's laugh as being the foundation of a serious political analysis.

But of course, we must remember that this is the same media establishment that tooks it cues for criticizing Al Gore's 2000 debate performance from a sketch on Saturday Night Live!

Investigating Bush in the post-Bush era

Open Left:: Wes Clark Interview, Part Three: The Military Budget and Post-Bush Investigations of Bush:

Matt Stoller: What do we do about the, I ugh, as someone who has seen a rogue administration that has engaged in multiples acts that are beyond the bounds of American legitimacy in the political system and the international system, this country's done some very bad things over the last seven years, what do we do after the Bush administration is out of office to root out the networks of people who have engaged in these kinds of behaviors?

Wes Clark: Hold them accountable. We've got to hold them accountable under law and do the investigations and have the heart and fortitude to stay with the investigations against the partisan cry of the right-wingers who say 'oh it's over now let's move on and let's look to the future'. No, it's not over, because the people who did it are still there.

Matt Stoller: So you think Senator Clinton as President will do those investigations?

Wes Clark: Yes.

Matt Stoller: And you think Congress should continue those investigations once Bush is out of office?

Wes Clark: Absolutely.

Not so fast General. If and when a Democratic President wins in 2008 with an increased majority in both houses of congress, there will be an almost immediate call by the Washington establishment to "put all the bad things behind us" and move on (heh). It happened after Nixon resigned when the establishment praised Ford for the pardon. It happened when Bill Clinton came into office and immediately announced that there would be no further push to investigate malfeasance during the Reagan/Bush years. Can there be any doubt that it will happen again?

Some of the calls for comity will come from a serious desire to "put it all behind us". Some of it will come from a serious desire to "get out of jail free". But whatever the reason, the pull for "let's let bygones be bygones" will be overwhelming.

In fact, I'd lay even money that the Democrat elected President in 2008 will eventually issue a blanket pardon of Bush and Cheney.

And then the whole sick cycle will start all over again.

Still not making a persuasive argument

I've recently made the point that making an argument is easy, it's making a persuasive argument that requires real work.

Just complaining that Congress isn't doing what you want them to do won't accomplish anything unless you can make a persuasive argument that they should follow your advice. That requires learning the levers that move them and using them.

Armando is right that the netroots has, for the most, failed to make a persuasive argument.

Ironically, I fear that Armando is making the same mistake with his own criticism of the netroots. Simply pointing out their failures won't persuade them to behave differently. A different, more persuasive approach is needed.

What is it? Hell if I know!

Republicans attack harder when you show weakness

War Room: "But even Democrats who joined Republicans in condemning the MoveOn ad are finding themselves subject to the continuing attack. Consider the plight of Illinois Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean. When the MoveOn ad first appeared, the National Republican Congressional Committee put out a press release in which it asked whether Bean would 'denounce the group's despicable behavior,' then sneered, 'Don't count on it.' Bean proceeded to vote with Republicans in condemning the MoveOn ad. The thanks she gets? One of Bean's prospective Republican opponents in 2008 puts out a press release accusing her of 'blatant hypocrisy' for voting to condemn the MoveOn ad even as she 'accepts huge sums of money from liberal groups like MoveOn.org, which advocates surrendering to al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorist organizations in Iraq, and launches vicious personal attacks against well-respected four star generals.' As the Swamp notes, Bean hasn't received any MoveOn money since 2004."

This is a point that should be obvious to any Democratic politician but which many of them repeatedly fail to understand: going along with an outbreak of Republican Outrage Syndrome will not protect you from being the subject of said outrage.

Undoubtedly there were some (foolish) Democrats who agreed with the outrage about the BetrayUs ad and thus cast an honest (but still foolish) vote in favor of the measure (Sen. Webb being a good example). But there were also, undoubtedly, many Democrats who vote for it out of a naive (as well as foolish) belief that it would somehow protect them from subsequent attack. The story above demonstrates just how naive that belief was.

If there is one guarantee about Republican political strategy it is that the minute you retreat in any battle is the moment they will double-up the attacks against you. They may hate it when groups like MoveOn exhibit any kind of gumption by questioning the credibility of their chosen spokesperson. But they hate it even more when their opponents demonstrate weakness. It just compounds their hate with disgust.

Hype or Real

The Daily Dish: "I don't think Hersh is making this stuff up."

Was Y2K real? Were all the panic articles written about it just hype? Or did they lead to changes that prevented real disaster from happening?

Is a Bush attack on Iran real? Were all the Hersh articles about Bush wanting to attack Iran just hype? Or did they lead to changes that prevented the attacks from happening?

The world may never know.

An Uneasy Quiet

Here's a disturbing thought.

There have been reports that attacks on Americans are dropping and the casualty rates amongst our soldiers have fallen. This may be a sign that increased American forces (the surge) may be having a positive impact.

But maybe it's also a sign that the enemy in Iraq has made a strategic decision to cut back on the attacks in order to stockpile munitions for a latter time. Like, say, after a U.S. attack on Iran.

It wouldn't be the first time an escalation in the violence in Iraq was preceded by a lull.