Flotsam and Jetsam
By Jennifer Rubin on Contentions
Former Vice President Dick Cheney tells Stephen Hayes he observed those who "left the little guys out to dry" during the Iran Contra scandal: "And this time around I'll do my damndest to defend anybody out there–be they in the agency carrying out the orders or the lawyers who wrote the opinions. I don't know whether anybody else will, but I sure as hell will."
You want truth? Noemie Emery will give you truth. Perhaps Democrats might want to reconsider show trials if potential witnesses come prepared with testimony like this.
Stuart Taylor has more: "The fashionable assumption that coercive interrogation (up to and including torture) never saved a single life makes it easy to resolve what otherwise would be an agonizing moral quandary.The same assumption makes it even easier for congressional Democrats, human-rights activists, and George W. Bush-hating avengers to call for prosecuting and imprisoning the former president and his entire national security team, including their lawyers. . . .But there is a body of evidence suggesting that brutal interrogation methods may indeed have saved lives, perhaps a great many lives — and that renouncing those methods may someday end up costing many, many more."
Michael Barone nails it: "It's tough trying to please people who crave vengeance almost as much as Madame Defarge, the unsparing French revolutionary in Dickens' 'Tale of Two Cities.' That's what Barack Obama found out last week — and will find out next week and for weeks to come unless he settles once and for all that he will follow the practice of all his predecessors and not prosecute decision-makers in the previous administration."
But the public may have more sense than Nancy Pelosi: "President Obama and Senate Democratic leaders are opposed to more investigations of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects, and 58% of U.S. voters agree with them. A number of congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are pushing for a wider probe. Just 28% think the Obama administration should do further investigating of how suspected terrorists were questioned during the Bush years, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure."
The White House press corps gives (at least publicly) "mixed grades" to Robert Gibbs, mostly quibbling with the extent of (non)transparency. These people must be grading on the Scott McClellan curve. (Or maybe they don't want to imperil the job of a highly mockable press secretary who makes them look brilliant by comparison.)
Time may be running out on Jack Murtha: "Democracy 21 and other good-government groups are expected to ask the House ethics committee next week for an investigation into lawmakers with close ties to defunct lobbying firm PMA Group, Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said on Friday. The request will seek a probe into whether the millions of dollars in campaign contributions the firm generated for favored Members of Congress influenced the tens of millions of dollars in earmarks those lawmakers secured for PMA clients. . . .Democratic leaders have remained in a defensive crouch in the wake of reports that federal investigators are probing the earmark empire of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the defense-spending chief in the House and a close confidant of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)."
And the stories keep piling up telling us that "a string of federal criminal investigations of contractors or lobbyists close to Mr. Murtha, the top Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee, are threatening to undermine his backroom clout." I keep waiting for the most ethical Congress ever to do something about him.
More evidence the public likes the president personally a lot more than his fiscal policies.
Obama: The Reality Show
By Linda Chavez on Contentions
President Obama may be wearing out his welcome in prime time television, or so hinted the Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes yesterday. Obama's decision to hold a news conference marking his 100th day in office Wednesday will cost networks around $10 million in lost ad revenue-right in the middle of the May sweeps. Noted de Moraes:
In fact, this makes the fourth time in three months Obama has preempted prime time to take his message directly to the people. Obama took over the 8 o'clock hour for a news conference Monday, Feb. 9; he gave his Not Quite State of the Union Address at 9 on Feb. 24. And he staged another news conference in the 8 o'clock hour on March 24.
So, here's a thought. Why not just let Obama and family have its own reality TV show. That way we could follow Bo's housebreaking, Michelle's gardening, and the girls' lemonade stand in real time, rather than have to wait until the morning papers filled us in on the latest doings of the First Family. And the president's adoring fans could watch him minute by minute as he flip-flopped on whether to prosecute former Bush administration officials who sanctioned rough treatment of terrorists. Maybe Frank Luntz could hook up viewers to weigh in with those gadgets that chart audience approval or disapproval as the president wrestles with the economy or what to do about Iranian nukes.
Think of what Obamadrama would mean: millions in ad revenues for the networks, unparalleled transparency in government, and maybe even a respite for those who are getting tired of seeing President Obama constantly on camera. After all, if he had his own show, the president might quit running around the country giving meaningless speeches and holding press conferences every few days. And the reporters who accompany him now could stay home and do some real reporting for a change.
What He Thinks and Why
By Jennifer Rubin on Contentions
Reuel Marc Gerecht writes about the release of interrogation memos:
Morally and legally, President Obama's position makes little sense. If U.S. officials are guilty of serious crimes, they should be prosecuted. The notion that CIA officers should escape criminal prosecution because they thought they were following legal orders flies in the face of the historic understanding that soldiers must not obey illegal commands. It will be outrageous cowardice if a Democratic Congress, or the administration, decides to seek the heads of Yoo and Bybee and not seek the prosecution of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, and others higher up.
It makes even less sense to exempt CIA operatives "in the room" while leaving it to Attorney General Eric Holder to decide the fate of the lawyers and "middle management" officials who devised our policies. The dividing lines between those whose fate is presumably in Holder's hands and those who either have been promised protection (sort of) by the president or those who occupied the highest levels of office are utterly artificial. This suggests a political methodology is at work: how much revenge can the administration enact without risking a backlash?
There is no logic by which the president and his spinners declare that the central concern is whether "laws were broken," but then rule out prosecution (for good and legitimate national security reasons) for a select group of those suspected of law-breaking. Moreover, it is the role of the president not the attorney general to determine whether, for reasons of national security and political sobriety, we wish to go down this road. There is a slipperiness and fundamental lack of political courage in repeatedly dodging critical questions that go to the heart of controversial matters.
Perhaps the president needs an address to the nation to make clear what he thinks on these and other issues:
Are all the methods described in the memos (slapping on the face included) "torture" in his mind?
Does he think lives were saved by these techniques? If not, did Admiral Blair, General Hayden, and others get it wrong?
What is the rationale for exempting some but not all officials from the prospect of a witchhunt?
Does he fear those in his administration might face retribution in the future?
How can Leon Panetta credibly face the intelligence community after the administration disregarded his advice about revealing interrogation methods?
The list goes on. This is one issue on which Obama cannot satisfy everyone, even in his own party. But the country deserves to know what he thinks and why. commentarymagazine.com |
