Defense briefings manipulated Pres. Bush

Leading off last night's Countdown, Keith Olbermann reveals that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made cover pages for his presidential briefings that combined scripture with pictures of military personnel in Iraq. The full story can be viewed here:

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The pages revealed such pairings as:

"Whom shall I send, and who will go for us."
A picture of soldiers praying--the day before the invasion.

"It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men." -1 Peter 2:13
A picture of Saddam Hussein.

"Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, The nation that keeps faith." --Isaiah 26:2
A picture of the crossed swords, the entrance to the ceremonial parade route.

These cover pages are pretty sick.

Olbermann's discussion and conversation with Richard Wolffe were quite good and covered the purpose and repercussions of their use. But there is one thing that they failed to mention. In their attempt to describe how brazen and manipulative this was on the part of Rumsfeld, they missed one specific opportunity: Bush is famous for not reading what's handed to him.

Rumsfeld isn't simply using Biblical quotes to manipulate a devoutely religious president, but giving a visual "summary" for a leader that wouldn't read the interior pages.

The pages themselves are constructed in a highly visual manner. They contain a photograph taken on the previous day, and a quote from the Bible that is made relavent to the photograph to tell a story of righteousness on the part of the United States. This is, in itself, a disturbing thing. But paired with Bush's tendency to rely on the good intentions of his subbordinates, reveals an incredibly dangerous opportunity for manipulation and deceit.

As governor, Bush famously suggested that he could decide death penalty cases in 15 minutes (despite dozens of pages of documents per case), and then part-way through the term, he reduced the time to 10 minutes. When setting foot in the Oval Office, Bush changed the protocol to include single-page summaries so that he would not be responsible for reading the entire document. Conscious of this tendency on the part of the then-president, Rumsfeld was able to color the summary he was giving the president to fit the schema that they had developed: The United States is acting righteously, boldly, and with God's support in its attempt to bring down the forces of evil.

What we do with this evidence, I don't really know. It does continue to reinforce our fears that their was a shadow-government in the White House, run by the Vice President and assisted by the Secretary of Defense to convince the president to start a phony war. Or it could be a disturbingly crass misuse of Scripture. But does it really matter? The damage is still done.

More on the fallacy of "the moderate"

In the U.S., we have an infantile view of political ideology. Perhaps it is born out of a two-party system (more vibrant democracies have more than two parties--we're actually the only highly industrialized nation that has only two parties of consequence) and its inherent bifurcating of issues into yes/no or good/bad or mine/yours. It is a truly immature form of governing.

Note: I say immature, which is ironic, since young voters are most likely to vote for third party candidates, thereby exercising their belief in a more vibrant democracy. Our older (and ostensibly more mature) voters become increasingly less likely to do so. Perhaps this should help us reorient our understanding of maturity?

At the same time, instead of operating in a non-dualistic system, we create a false paradigm of linear relationship. Such as can be seen in this diagram:

At the one end is liberalism and at the other is conservatism--as if there is no way in which they can have matching ideologies--implying that they are, indeed, polar opposites--and in the place of unity must certainly be in the mythical midpoint: moderatism.

I bring this up because of the new 'working group' forming in the Democratic Party, led by Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. A long-time Clinton associate and supporter of Sen. Clinton's campaign until he switched to then Sen. Obama. Bayh, given speaking time at the Democratic Convention, given access to the president, has now decided to make himself a kingmaker.

Bayh's op-ed in the Washington Post argues against this, while actually demonstrating that he is intending to do just that. His prime argument is this:

The stakes are too high for Democrats to fear a policy debate. Such debates produce better legislation. On nearly all important votes, a supermajority of 60 senators will be needed to pass legislation. Without Democratic moderates working to find common ground with reasonable Republicans, the president's agenda could well be filibustered into oblivion.

What is interesting is that he didn't suggest such a thing under the previous president, a time in which (arguably), his ideology was most needed and concensus building were most important. Instead, he stood on the sidelines. At the same time, he is making a bold, and fundamentally flawed (in the Shakespearean sense) argument if he actually believes that "moderates working to find common ground with reasonable Republicans" is an appropriate task for him and his group, "praised" by the White House and Senate Leadership. Friedmann would remind us to stay away from triangulation and attempts to intercede on behalf of someone else. I would say, Who gives you the right to decide policy for the entire Democratic Party? How can this be seen as anything but a power play? If he were truly post-partisan, he would be using many more carrots than sticks in this conversation.

He then makes the foolish argument that the country is "moderate". And conservative. Just not liberal. Moderate with more conservativism than liberalism. Or something.

What Bayh seems to be doing is to actually create a new party within the Democratic Party. Perhaps we should look at a different graph:
In this graph, you can see that the horizontal access demonstrates the spectrum of liberalism to conservatism. The vertical access shows the differing parties.

Bayh's idea is that Democrats have to allign themselves appropriately with the ideologically similar groups: liberal Democrats with conservative Democrats and that conservative Democrats are most like liberal (or his word: reasonable) Republicans, so they should hash out some compromises on the part of the party.

But look at the graph as I've composed it. Since we have already thrown out the previous understanding, Bayh's rationale doesn't seem to make sense. If you are a "left-leaning" Republican, why should we assume that the point of contact is with a "right-leaning" Democrat? What makes us so sure that they have more in common than the liberal Democrats? Isn't it possible that the so-called moderates (or liberal Republicans) are socially liberal and fiscally conservative and that conservative Democrats might be socially conservative and fiscally liberal?

Ah! But there's Bayh's argument! We're fiscally conservative like they are! Remind me again why we should have you speaking for the entire party?

We plan to be a positive force in our caucus, exemplified by the constructive role a number of us played in making reasonable adjustments to garner the GOP votes needed to pass the president's economic recovery package.

A package that ended with less money than both sides started with ($900 billion vs. $820 billion finished at $780 billion).

In 1993, the three of us, as much younger politicians, stood with great expectations as the last Democratic president was sworn in with big plans, a head of steam and a Democratic Congress ready to begin a new progressive era. In less than two years, it all came crashing down, with disillusioned moderate voters handing the GOP broad congressional victories in 1994.

Yes, but again, was it a lack of moderates in the Democratic Party and in the senate, running their own operation, and cutting their own deals? Shouldn't we suggest that Bill Clinton, a southern Democrat and neoliberal, is much different than Barack Obama, a midwestern Democrat and traditional liberal? Doesn't the Clinton agenda have more to say in its own failure (and impact on the Senate) than the Senate had in impacting the Clinton years? And don't we have something to learn from a 1976 election in which a conservative president (Carter) was compromised in the Senate by a liberal Democratic leader (Ted Kennedy)?

And if our problem is the confrontational mode of liberal/conservative (and the ensuing need to be moderate), how is the creation of a shadow, deal-making group of Senators going to bring about a different paradigm? Back in 2007, I made this post about the fallacy of "the moderate". What it means for us is that the operating principle of the moderate is to radically eliminate conflict, working at odds with some competing agendas while reinforcing other ones. In the other post, I use the example of Supreme Court confirmations and the filibuster rule. The moderates give away the confirmations to preserve the filibuster. In this way, the fundamental argument (confirmations) is given a lower priority than the side argument (filibuster rule). Compromise between moderates then cannot be seen as a reliable means of doing business, as the primary function of the compromise was to deal directly with the confirmations--not the filibuster. Secondly, its interest in preserving the law and minimizing perceptual damage is actually the classic definition of conservatism. Conservatives make bad compromisers since they are ideologically opposed to disrupting the status quo.

Now look again at the second graph. Why would we want conservative Democrats to speak for the President of the United States?

Also, look at Rachel Maddow's take. It is perfect.

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"They're both doing it"

Let me start by saying this: I hate this statement. It is a pernicious and deceptive non-argument that operates with something I might call "fudged facts".

Fudged Fact - to misrepresent an otherwise accurate assessment by messing with its context.

Let me describe the issue and its problems.

You have no doubt been in the middle of a conversation/debate with someone when the other person suddenly makes the claim that "they're both doing it." The phrase, at its base, is used to suggest that two opposing parties are both guilty of the same problem. It is also most commonly used to refer to politicians in the Republican and Democratic Parties specifically.

The phrase is also commonly uttered on TV yakfests, such as The View or cable news shows. Some talking heads (pundits) employ it during real news broadcasts, and even some self-described Moderate politicians will use it to condemn both parties. I have complete faith that you've heard the phrase at some point--if not ad nauseam.

But here is why I consider it pernicious:

1. It implies equality. The suggestion of the phrase is that since two opposing parties are doing something, then they are of equal guilt. This does not take into account the possibility that one may be far more likely to do it or has already participated in it to a far greater extent.
2. It is an act of misdirection. It redirects the conversation away from what is currently being discussed. It is often the associations or experiences that are the center of the problem, but in misdirecting our focus, our attention is turned toward this presumed equality.
3. It actually cuts off debate. It eliminates the very center of the argument and pulls us to the lowest common denominator. If two parties receive money from an energy company, but only one seems to re-write regulation to curry favor with the company, the act of bringing up the perceived equality in receiving funds keeps us from debating the actual problem, which is the legislation that produces the favor.
4. It is an act of derision. It makes the claim that because persons A and B have this same association, they are both bad. This (again) brings up the lowest common denominator: A is actually perceived as less of a pariah if A and B are both pariahs!

The last implication brings up the prospect of 'taint'. This is a variation of poisoning the well. It brings equality among the unequal. Like the old stereotype that "one drop" of African American blood makes you African American (and therefore not white), the suggestion is that it doesn't matter how bad you are; if you have done something bad, then you are bad. Bernie Maddoff is equal to a shoplifter.

This may also imply that all crimes are equally bad--which could be the real reason why we can't seem to punish the Bush White House or Wall Street--we know better. We know that these crimes aren't equal.

When we paint with the same broad brush, we miss the actual differences--just as when we focus on the differences, we actually ignore the similarities. But in the case of the non-argument "They're both doing it," we are laying equal guilt and directing the conversation elsewhere, when the central concern must be what the one is doing. Let's use the above example:
Throughout the 1990s, one energy company (Enron) gave millions in campaign contributions to Republicans and Democrats. The ratio was something like 5-to-1 or 10-to-1 (favoring Republicans). They helped rewrite legislation in Texas under a Republican governor (who himself received many millions in contributions), reciprocating deals for the company, and even getting them exclusive access when he became President of the United States. The same company used the energy crisis in California to force its governor (a Democrat) to sign a reprehensible contract to save his state. Enron held millions of people hostage through a shady, quasi-legal contract. Further, under the Texan, the Enron contract was upheld and not investigated, even though there was clear evidence of extortion. In the late 1990s, legislation was passed by a Republican-controlled congress (and they overrode Clinton's veto) that allowed a company like Arthur Anderson to both audit and advise a company like Enron. These rules allowed Enron to exploit the consumers, make a killing on Wall Street, and make a fortune off of the backs of people that would later to the brunt of the abuse when Enron collapsed. So here's the checklist:

• Enron greatly favors Republican candidates
• Republicans grant access to Enron
• Republicans re-write laws allowing Enron (and Arthur Anderson) to cheat
• A Democrat is extorted and a state is held hostage
• Enron's collapse generates millions for the board and CEOs
• Investors lose everything.

The result: anytime this was brought up in the 2000, '02, and '04 elections, it was received with that great misdirection: but you just pointed out that "they're both doing it"! Yeah. Sure.

Don't frighten the economy!

If we are to believe the current knocks on Pres. Obama, it is that he dares to talk responsibly about the economy.  Rachel Maddow called it "talking like a grownup."  If he keeps talking about the current mess with such (gasp!) honesty, then he might frighten it into a recession.  So we should he needs to sweet talk it.  He should have sent flowers and chocolates to it for Valentine's Day.  Maybe take it out for a dinner and a movie once in a while.  Poor neglected economy!

Even former Pres. Clinton got in the act.  Stupid Bill.  Don't you know that you're not supposed to be talking right now?

Not only is this line of reason pretty laughable, the truth of what they are saying seems to be lost on them.  The fact that Wall Street (you know--legalized corporate gambling) runs on fear--that it rises and falls based on people's irrational responses to good and bad news--has been a recurring theme since the first stock market dip in 2001 and 2002.  That fear-based selling and pack mentalities tend to cripple our economy when more stable-minded investing encourages long-term growth is well known, but seemingly unpracticed on Wall Street.  Extending this idea to broader economic conditions seems logical.

Except for one thing: the president isn't the one doing the selling.  He isn't even the one feeding information to stock-holders or CEOs.  They are the ones acting immaturely and without regard to our economic future.  You don't blame the victim of a crime for the perpetration of the crime any more than you blame the official that points out that a crime has taken place!

This is the "more of the same" has to change.  This is the behavior that needs an overhaul.

The public (unsolicited and inappropriately open) "suggestion" that Clinton gave Obama was to express more confidence.  A commentator compared this with FDR's "nothing to fear but fear itself", but they are missing the forest for the trees.  The nature of addressing fear is not calling the president a cheerleader-in-chief, but the actual standing up to the fear.  Confidence is great, but if it isn't used to stand up against the fear, it is misused.

I can't help but think of all of the abuse perpetrated on others because we don't want to rock the boat or make hay over things.  Allowing criminals to go unpunished and victims to go without justice.  It sanctions violence: physical, political, economic, psychological, and karmic.  The only sollution to this kind of violence is to clear the air.  This requires honesty and openness.

Perhaps its time the people entrusted with our economy, who demand an unregulated market, actually acted as if they could be trusted to spend five dollars on anything but candy.

Prosecuting Torture, Part 3

Our rule of law is based on two spheres of influence: personal and public. We are free to do as we please in our personal sphere as long as it stays in the personal sphere and doesn't impinge on my freedom over here in my sphere (the public sphere being the space between our personal spheres). The famous interpretation of liberty comes to mind: your right to swing your fist ends at its contact with my nose.

It seems, therefore, that the rule of law is based on the interactions of people. Our primary laws are about violence enacted by Person A against Person B. Violence can be defined broadly: such as murder and intent to murder, rape, fistfights, and sexual assault, for starters. It also implies the psychic violence of oppression, theft, torment, kidnapping, and so on. In most criminal activity there is a transgressor and a victim of some form of violence.

We also have laws with less widespread support, and more vocal opposition, because the primary 'victim' of the crime is actually the perpetrator. Most common examples of this are drinking laws, possession and use of drugs, and some traffic violations (seat belt and helmet laws). In each of these cases, the primary execution of the law is based on the individual (and his/her rights within his/her own sphere of influence), while they each possess a secondary public sphere component--underage drinking may lead to drunk driving which may lead to harming others and/or property; accidents in which drivers are not wearing seat belts put a greater strain on the medical system; etc..

In this case, our understanding of criminal activity is inseparably related to violence of one to another. This has also extended to groups of people--both separately and corporately--as well as corporations being arraigned for their collective violence against other people. Each of these is consistent with our rule of law.

So here's the kicker: it really doesn't matter how we define torture, because the world's definition holds greater sway.

As I've spoken before, first on the inconsistency of the opposition to prosecution here and then in the political ramifications of prosecuting torture here, it is clear that something has to be done. What I am doing here is dealing with the very nature of crime (as opposed to the nature of prosecution, or giving reasons for why the Bush Administration has actually committed a crime: both of these have been well described elsewhere) and the nature of relationship.

And back to my supposition. As crime is about relationship and the disabling of relationship through violence, there are times when the "facts" are compromised by the perpetrators. For us, that means the U.S. government, the President of the United States, the greater U.S. military and its officers, the C.I.A. and N.S.A., and even Congress are compromised in their ability to deal with the crime of torture as perpetrated by agents of the United States. This makes the prosecution no less necessary on the part of the Attorney General, and I still strongly encourage this to happen. At the same time, the very nature of the crime of torture is that there are several acts of violence that are actionable: the individual acts of torture are each subject to prosecution (numbering in the thousands) and those military and intelligence officials that perpetrated those acts are subject to prosecution. Next are the officers that either condoned the action or ignored the action; for the officers, either case is prosecutable. What is most likely, however, is that they will be targeted for a third option: promotion of these actions. Of course, this is likely to go up the chain of command until it reaches the former Vice President and President, who not only admitted to knowing about torture, but admitted to endorsing its use. All of this is actionable on the part of prosecutors.

The amazing thing, however, is that, just as a crime can be both a violation of state and federal law, a crime can be a violation of federal and international law. This means that the legal protections written by John Yoo and interpreted by the Bush Attorneys General are entirely irrelevant. It may be possible for the courts, or even the Supreme Court, to come up in support of Bush's torture policy (though obviously unlikely) and still be tried and convicted in the international court.

This is what I find so strange about this line of argument on the part of the Bush Administration, which suggested, as former President Nixon suggested: if the president does it, it isn't illegal: and yet it is. It is illegal. Truly and sincerely so. If you get a bunch of people in a room, hold up an apple and shout at the top of your lungs: this is not an apple!: who is going to suggest that the piece of fruit stopped being an apple? You might convince a couple of idiots that it is something else, especially if you give it a fancy new name like "juicy fruit plucked from a tree" and refuse to honor its apple identity. You might get a couple more people to start using the new name Juicy Fruit Plucked From a Tree in place of apple because they fear the suggestion that they are operating from a position of bias; and yet it is still an apple!

Don't mistake this existential example as refuting postmodernism--because its understanding as apple is not dependent on those within the system, but in the entire system. In other words, it doesn't matter how the Bush Administration and its apologists defined torture, the definition of torture by the broad community and its institutions still set that definition. For as long as there is Amnesty International or legal institutions like the International Criminal Court, the definition of torture will be broad. Just because news agencies put quotes around the word torture or parrot the phrase "enhanced interegation" doesn't mean it isn't torture.

The apple's identity is dependent not on the individual that stops calling it an apple, but on the wider community that still knows and refers to such a fruit as apple.

Erroneous pundits

This was a nice find. The blogger gives a full accounting of how wrong pundits were a year ago about President Barack Obama. Plus, look at who got it right and who got it completely wrong--worth a strange thought.

The Speech

It's interesting, really, to listen to the talking heads blather on about things. Its a lot like a blog--only on television and without the chance of reflection or proper consideration due the subject matter.

If you saw the inaugural speech yesterday, you no doubt recognized something different. Unlike his predecessors, President Barack Obama didn't outline the next 100 days. He didn't flatter us with praise about how great we are. He didn't pretend that his campaign promises are no longer relevant since he won the election. No, Obama's speech was clever, subtle, demanding, challenging, eloquent, and showed a deft touch with the English language hinted at throughout the campaign. It wasn't just a homerun, but a ninth inning grand slam.

But those talking heads sure felt blase about the speech. I heard one say that Obama chose to speak "in prose" when he should have been speaking "in poetry". They were disappointed. They expected more. It seems appropriate to point out that the early returns on Bush's first inaugural were "he's greatly improved". Hmmm...

Here we are. One of the historians on Jim Leherer News Hour did suggest that the gravity of the day may have led people to expect too much--something adroitly suggested in advance on The Daily Show Monday night.

Or it could be that we aren't use to responsibility--true responsibility. The responsibilities encouraged of us over the recent decades have not only been personal, but were ones deffered by the government. Consumer protection, healthcare, financial planning for retirement--you know, the kinds of things that rich people hire other people to worry about (itself seen as a personal responsibility). Mr. Obama called on individual responsibility to respond to the crises before us. To make ourselves involved in the system and be involved in the way our government operates. To be full and active citizens in our own country. To reach for higher ideals than we have ever been challenged to do.

And this is the real issue. The part that threw all of the pundits and talking heads off. The real part of the thing, which is the part they still don't get about Mr. Obama. The speech was a simultaneously a clear divorce from recent history and an embrace of our historic traditions. His speech evoked references to Washington, Lincoln, and Kennedy (not Bush, Clinton, Bush, or Reagan) while saying the needs of today do not match the leadership we have had. In this way, the speech isn't just a stick in the eye of the Bush Administration (which it clearly was), but a stick in the eye of those Washington insiders that have grown fat off of the culture wars and politics of the Reagan and post-Reagan eras.

Even more than this, we are condemned. It isn't just Bush and Cheney; Clinton, Bush I, Reagan. It is us. We have been misguided and wrong. We have failed to make the hard decisions ourselves. We have kicked the can down the street. This is the real reason talking heads didn't like the speech. They don't want absolution for their sins, they don't want their sins exposed!

The true genius of Mr. Obama's speech is the way in which he covered each of these elements. Yes, we are at fault. Yes, truth hurts. But the light of day can clean us. And working together, as we have in the past, can absolve us. In Obama's America, there is no your and my problems; only our problems. In Obama's America, we can solve those problems together. Has a speech ever been more relevant than that?