Sotomayor, Too

Republicans in the Senate are moving in again, circling like Jack and the savages over another judicial nominee of color who has the temerity to notice he’s not white.  Senator Sessions and his ilk repeatedly berated the “wise Latina” who now sits on the Supreme Court of the United States for having the audacity to be vocally and intellectually Puerto Rican American.  Never mind that her judicial temperament was distinctly moderate.  Update:  Senator Jeff Sessions now says it’s okay to be a person of color.

And now Professor Liu’s liberal views about a “living Constitution” which should actually apply to the people living in two thousand ten is anathema.  He’s already being accused of being “vicious, and emotionally and racially charged, and intemperate,” for having a different interpretation of the Constitution, a different vision of the United States than Justice Alito, a more notably conservative legal scholar.

The federal judiciary is the third branch of the United States’ government precisely to weigh the present circumstances with the legal precedent and “secure the blessings of liberty to … “ all the citizens of the United States.  In the beginnings of the country, that meant white propertied men only.  Since then, the definition of citizenship has grown, with the fourteenth, fifteenth and twentieth amendments, and the laws of the country have struggled to keep up with these changes.  Professor Liu is an eminent legal scholar, and the vilification of his appointment to the federal bench is simply another attack, less racially charged than stemming from the fear of CHANGE that the Republican party has made their bailiwick since President Obama was elected.  But like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; like the appointment of Justice Sotomayor; like the Patients Protection and Affordable Care Act; like the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act; Professor Liu will become an appellate judge for the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals.  They’re just lucky the President didn’t put him up to fill Justice Stevens’ seat.

A Bad Taste In My Mouth

President Obama met today with the Dalai Lama, over the strenuous objections of the People’s Republic of China.  Then he put out a weak statement that said in part “The President stated his strong support for the preservation of Tibet’s unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity and the protection of human rights for Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China.”  At once, he asserted the United States’ moral standing by acknowledging the oppression in Tibet, and acquiesced to China’s emerging financial dominance and their role in global affairs on the UN Security Council and beyond.

How does crow taste?

There is no way to directly approach China’s human rights violations or its invasion of Tibet while Guantanamo Bay is still open and we still have armed forces in Iraq.  There isn’t a way to meet with the Dalai Lama and still play nice with the boot on his people’s neck.  This is another place where the moral high ground has been eroded, where the ideals that we espouse have become whispers, where the mountain of debt that we’ve created as a nation is crushing the values upon which we’re built.

Yes, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney left a nation confused and angered, bewildered and bedeviled.  But in these small moments are where Change is supposed to occur.  Acknowledging “Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China” is the have your cake and eat it too approach to diplomacy.  Unfortunately, that cake tastes like oppression, tastes like moral ambiguity, tastes like betrayal.

President Obama, it tastes like Bush.

Obama meets with Dalai Lama despite Chinese objections

Statement from the Press Secretary on the President’s Meeting with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama

The Death of Pollyanna, or the End of the Glad Game

During the presidential campaign of 2008, candidate Obama frustrated many of his supporters with his equanimity and balance, his apparent refusal to be aggressive, the tacit acceptance of slander and base attacks by his primary opponents, the general election competition, and the opposition to his political positions and personal character and caricature.  He was right, we were wrong.  It would have been impossible, given the nature of his candidacy (read: first black man actually in a position to win the office) for him to get anywhere near the stereotype of the angry black man.

Unfortunately, as we close on the first year of his presidency, the Democratic Party and the White House learned the wrong lessons from the success with which they campaigned.  The fifty-state strategy which attacked the election as a national referendum has been eschewed, and the huge majority party in Congress is acting as if the minority party is still in power.  Bipartisanship has become a policy end of itself, instead of closing Guantanamo, implementing the stimulus to create jobs, or reforming the healthcare industry which is bankrupting and killing citizens daily.  Getting the enemy to agree (yes, the Republican Party led by Michael Steele and Mitch McConnell has show itself to be the oppositional enemy) has become more important than CHANGING what went wrong between 2001-2009.

President Obama learned the wrong lesson from President Clinton’s failed attempt to reform healthcare, just as he learned the wrong lessons from President Bush’s exaggerated use of the Executive Order.  Rather than letting Congress make the sausage under his direction and leadership, he left it to Leaders Reid and Pelosi.  No disrespect, but they didn’t win in 2008 – he did.  Just as he stepped out immediately for Haiti, he should have (and still should) step out on healthcare.  The Democratic Party continues to be the adult in the relationship, accepting the ridiculously petulant whinings of the minority party as if they had substance, trying to cajole Republicans to get on board, to get mature, to grow up.

The Glad Game is the way that Pollyana created a fiction of her life, looking for the good in any and every situation to make it bearable.  At the end of the eleven books, she had created a wonderful situation by wishing it to be so.  The problems facing the citizens of the United States, and by extension, the world community, will not be solved by wishing them so.  Just as he made the calculated and difficult decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, President Obama must do two things in 2010:  1) he must determine which of his policies will have the most beneficial impact immediately and in the coming years, and 2) he must stop (and instruct his White House and his party) to stop wooing the recalcitrant party.  They are unnecessary.  Politically, they cannot in the House or the Senate stop the Democrats from passing Healthcare, a second stimulus, or anything else.

We must start working with the mandate earned in the 2008 election, and stop nursing the wounds that the losers have.  Elections have consequences.  David Plouffe is back on board because he is a tactician.  But the leadership from President Obama is where this must start.  From him, the Democrats down-ticket need to draw their resolve.  We’re not running for office anymore.  It’s time to govern.

Obama says focus is on major challenges, not boosting ratings

November doesn’t need to be a nightmare for Democrats

Obama can’t create change with words alone

DSCC urges dems to define opponents early

House and Senate discussing Reconciliation on healthcare

The Pessimism of Rationality

It seems that each article I read, whether they tout the President’s promises kept or broken, are starting from the pov that somehow he’s done something wrong. In his first inaugural address, President Obama said that the problems we face as a nation would not be solved “in a short span of time.”
Yet, forgetting President Reagan’s and President Clinton’s one-year ratings, the common wisdom is that Senator-elect Brown’s victory over a Democrat in Massachusetts somehow sounds a death-knell for the Obama Administration, or the change that they are affecting on a daily basis.
Under the cloak of objective rationality, “journalists” and pundits are questioning whether the man can do his job in order to get hits on the website, sells papers, get viewers, and increase their adshare.
In Taylor Branch’s new book, The Clinton Tapes, President Clinton muses whether the media reflects the insecurity which appears to have gripped the nation, or is affected by it as well. I think the same can be asked again.
With each of his 158 interviews this year, President Obama has outlined his pragmatic vision for establishing institutional change to guide the country in a positive direction. The pessimists have called this grandstanding, for being seen and heard too much, or naive, for “irrationally” believing and working toward the better nature of the United States.
It seems to me, though, that we’d be better off drinking the Kool Aid, because understanding as Confucius did, that people are good by nature is a much more successful approach to life and participation in our adolescent democratic experiment.

Obama’s First Year: Strong Foundation or house of cards?

Keeping Secrets

I met my wife because of the CIA.  They funneled money and guns to an egomaniacal dictatorial tyrant in a malicious attempt to “democratize” Latin America by force, overriding the actual democratic voice which elected Salvador Allende, and tortured her father before inviting them to live in the United States as political exiles.  But that debt to them being my own personal one, they are a danger not only to foreign governments but to our own.  And the shield that President Obama is attempting to throw over them now is a sad, naked hoarding of power that frankly I’d expect from Dick Cheney. (Update – Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to lie to Congress.)

The “oversight” of national security activities which various members of Congress are responsible for is toothless at the present time because even when they find something out of line, as Speaker Pelosi did in regards to the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, they are legally bound not to tell anyone.  WTF? They are overseeing in a vacuum.  The CIA is not responsible to act on their recommendations, objections, or questions.  The CIA doesn’t even have to tell them the truth, according to CIA Director Leon Panetta.

Tie this to the Patriot Act, which is still in force, and we have a group of independent operators doing what they think is good for the United States of America without any input from our elected (and therefore responsible to us) representatives.  President Obama has threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if Democratic Senators attempt to put teeth into the role of oversight.

Keeping secrets is the way that the United States operated in Chile, in Nicaragua, in Iran, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and the list continues.  The CIA has a director who appears honorable and at least willing to admit that his agency has lied to Congress (and the United States) in the past.  Why is President Obama trying to continue this practice, keeping secrets by keeping Congress bound and gagged?

the terror within

Listening to the President this morning, it became clear that he is fighting the war against terrorists on at least three fronts, all inherited from the Bush Administration.  The first is obviously in the biblically important country where some people believe lies the earthly location of the Garden of Eden, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Iraq.  The second is where many an empire, from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union have ground to a halt and been defeated by patriots wielding scythes and stones, Afghanistan.

The third is in Washington, D.C., against the proponents of terror and torture led by Colonel Jessup himself, former Vice-President Richard Cheney.  This crowd of malcontents is braying loudly in an attempt to cover its tracks, to avoid responsibility and prosecution, and working to make our country less safe by distracting the mechanisms and machinery of government with unfounded accusations and claims which have and continue to be proven false.

The former Vice-President, notorious for his silence during his time in office, has taken it upon himself to be the voice of unreason, calling for the release of memos that destroy his arguments and refute his claims; making speeches about keeping the country safe when his tenure saw the terrorists attacks of September 11th; and telling anyone who will listen (or give him a microphone) that he did a good job and he’d do it again.

This third front is almost more problematic than the first two.  As commander in chief, President Obama can do as he sees fit in order to wage those campaigns and has pledged to follow his understanding of our American ideals to do so.  This is neither easy nor simple, but it is clear.

On the third front, though, his opponents refuse to a) tell the truth, b) acknowledge their mistakes, c) provide relevant support for their positions, d) argue the fundamental issue of torture.  They don’t even like the word.  They prefer “enhanced interrogation techniques” to hide their actions.  As I said a couple of days ago, this is simply more lubrication for their violation of our national identity and ideals.

This third front is not true philosophical difference.  For those who feel that torture is okay, and that it is necessary to protect our country, that is a conversation.  This third front refuses to engage, acting more like al Qaeda and the guerillas firing on US troops in the hot zones than the loyal opposition.  This machiavellian manipulation of misinformation is how Guantanamo Bay became a torture cell, owned and operated by the United States.  It’s how we as citizens ended up with blood under our fingernails and towels jammed down our throats.

Waterboarding is torture and I feel like Dick Cheney is doing it to me with his speeches, the way he ordered it done to “the terrorists”, the way Jay Bybee covered with his lawyer-speak.

That’s the terror within.

Obama defends plan to close Gitmo

Cheney slams Obama in speech

Justice is not retribution

There is a false story being spun by the White House, being touted by the Republicans, that says if we take a look back, if we bring to justice those who tortured and who were the architects of torture in our name, that we are seeking retribution. This is like the false choice stated by Dick Cheney that says either we torture or the United States is not safe.

On the same team?

When someone breaks the law, the President does not have the authority to decide whether or not to prosecute. That person, if there is reasonable suspicion and probable cause, should be arrested, tried and found innocent or guilty based on the evidence. Nowhere in our criminal code does it have an asterisk, or a caveat, that allows for President Obama to interfere.

The role of the executive branch is to enforce and execute the laws. If we are a nation of laws, and the president is the chief law enforcement officer, then those laws should be enforced. As much as I like and support the President, he and his administration are wrong to be ostriches here.

There are still people fighting extradition for war crimes committed during World War II. The people responsible for torture at Abu Ghraib are in jail right now. Those responsible for the atrocities at Guantanamo Bay should be brought to justice.

It has nothing to do with retribution, Mr. President.

Two al Qaeda leaders waterboarded 266 times

Sunday Talking Heads

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times In One Month

The Torturer’s Manifesto

Bush Administration Terrorism Memos

Obama begins leading American in a new direction

President Obama’s Statement on the Memos

In Service To His Country

I’ve often contemplated, and Courtney Vance asked aloud in The Tuskegee Airmen, a very simple and profound question:  Why do men and women, whose country has explicitly and implicitly stated that they are not equal continue to serve their nation with all of their strengths, intellect, passion and dedication?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.  That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights,”

This basic premise, so simply mis-stated by Jefferson two hundred and thirty-four years ago (his language neglected women, specifically), is the difference between our nation, so conceived and so dedicated, and others which do not even purport to strive for it.  Yet, we also fall down constantly putting into practice those lofty ideals:  black people were enslaved for almost one hundred years,  and legislated against for another hundred plus; native American peoples were bargained with only to have those agreements broken at the whim of Anglo citizens and capricious presidential administrations, given false comfort with disease-ridden blankets, and herded into reservations;  Chinese immigrants were dangled over cliffs to place dynamite to build the railroads, but legislated against and forced to pay higher taxes than others; Japanese (and German) Americans were robbed of their livelihoods, forced from their homes, incarcerated and segregated out of paranoia and economic selfishness; homosexuals have been beaten, legislated against, told their emotional expression was unnatural, and seen their rights in the new millenium subjectively and exclusively thrown to the whim of the majority; women have been by turn legally disciplined with a branch no thicker than one’s thumb, excluded from the political process, discriminated against economically, and told to wait their turn, only to be physically abused when they stood up for their part of the American Dream.  These few examples give one pause, until you realize one thing: every one of these groups has fought physically, politically, economically, socially to serve this nation and participate in its lifeblood.

From segregated units to bomber assembly lines, from suffragettes to lunch counter sit-ins, from taking over Alcatraz to the “No-No Boys”, from Harvey Milk to the Lily Ledbetter Act, all of these people have demanded to be a part of the national conversation, to enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as every American citizen.  Regardless of the white hoods which stand like imposing mountains, or the dittoheads screaming into microphones, or “conservative family values” cloaking fear, hatred, disgust and insecurity, all of these minorities have struggled to attain their civil rights, and to put their lives on the line (even though we shouldn’t ask and they shouldn’t tell) to defend OUR country.

President Obama has stated time and again, “I truly believe that there’s nothing more noble than public service,” which he has shown by running for office.  And over the course of our two hundred and twenty years of existence as a nation, we have grown in fits and starts, as ordinary citizens find the strength to rage against the machine, to demand their seat at the table, to fight for the simple honor of being allowed to serve.

It seems that for people who actually believe in the ideals espoused by Jefferson in his letter, much as those who follow the Qur’an, there is the opportunity for equality, justice, peace and prosperity for more people.  And the battles they fight are not with enemies, but with those living and breathing under the same flag.  The notion of service is what will help us domestically and internationally, as we move from the self-inflicted, self-centered application of our values.

President Obama is leading by example, standing before the cameras and the crazies to explain how and why we should act in order to right out ship, to heal our planet, to fix our economy, to deal with international acquaintances and confront our enemies.  He has behind him a whole host of supporters and agents, some of whom have themselves been excluded from service because of the color of their skin, or the manner of their worship, or their chromosomes, or their sexual orientation.  But these are the true patriots, because they are fighting the revolution with each day that they serve, helping to perfect our union with every step they take.

Obama asked: Ever regret running for president?

Iowa high court strikes down same-sex marriage ban

I thought elephants never forget

The Republican playbook is in full swing on the hill.  Even though the stimulus bill has passed, they are trying to frame their obstruction as principled opposition.  The “Republican Strategists” are claiming that Republicans learned in the last election that they “had been irresponsible in terms of spending and borrowing.”  That lesson, then, is leading them to be “principled” in their objections to the stimulus bill that the President is going to sign into law later today.  Bushlit.

The Republican National Committee is “making political hay” with this bill, already running ads against House Democrats up for reelection in 2010, making music videos using Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle” bragging about the fact that zero House Republicans voted for the bill, still crying that the President was insincere at best and lying at worst about bipartisanship because while he listened to their ideas, he didn’t incorporate them all.

They are also, and this is the kicker, saying that “we’ll see VERY QUICKLY whether this bill stimulates the economy.”  Very quickly?  The President and his surrogates have said that, “this economy is going to continue getting worse before it gets better.”  The stimulus package will have some effect immediately, but it’s not going to solve the current crisis as soon as his pen hits the paper.  The White House has stated that a lot of this bill won’t fully hit the economy until 2010.

Again, false choices in order to promote partisan politics.  They’re definitely back in the saddle.  And here, I thought Michael Steele was going to be a different type of Republican.  It seems that, while they don’t remember that they lost the last election and that their economic philosophies have driven the United States into a landfill, they do remember how to doublespeak and obfuscate.

I guess elephants really don’t forget.

 

GOP Senators say Obama off to bad start

Stimulus bill a sorry spectacle

DC Journalists Love GOP Obstructionists, But Americans Don’t

Aerosmith? No Way.  Help the GOP Pick A Better Theme Song

Same Senators, Different Day

A little while ago, I told you the tale of two Senators. Roland Burris was being denied entry to the Capitol, and Al Franken was being let in. Then the world went topsy-turvy, or what my fraternity brother likes to call “a political hypocrisy.” They let Burris in, and now he’s being frank about the contacts he had with the impeached and ejected governor of Illinois, and Franken is still sitting on the sidelines, following the rules, waiting at the door.

Apparently having integrity is going to win the race, like the tortoise in the famous story.  But it sure is painful to watch the black equivalent of george bush wandering around the Senate and the state of Illinois with little idea of what to do or how to do it, but spouting platitudes and being defended by his lawyer, while the progressive Senator from Minnesota waits patiently for the four-month old recount and judicial process keeps him from voting on stimulus bills and helping to pass the President’s agenda to help the rest of us.