David Biespiel, Poet and writer, Attic Writers Workshop:
A public inquiry can provide our country catharsis as a house once divided reuniting itself with faith in our shared constitutional values.
North Korea has confounded every American government as far back as the Eisenhower Administration
May 26, 2009
I won’t pretend any expertise on North Korea beyond a more than passing interest in the peninsula since my father served in the U.S. navy during the Korean War, and it’s probably no time for pessimism, but how do you avoid it? North Korea has confounded every American government as far back as the Eisenhower administration. As long as it acts like an animal with its paw caught in a trap–a trap of its own making even–it’s hard to imagine any new direction to lure North Korea, a country with one of the world’s largest militaries, out of the cold. Our 40,000-plus American troops in the Korean peninsula haven’t helped, nor have sanctions, threats about missile defense shields, the Agreed Framework, or Chinese half-hearted pressure. None of it has done much–and just saying build missile defenses, to point to one emerging meme, is just throwing good money after bad.
Seldom is the question asked, what does North Korea truly want by pursuing nuclear weapons? Political relevancy, surely, getting other nations, especially China, to cough up foreign aid, and maintain a saber-rattling stance toward South Korea and by extension the U.S. Without nuclear weapons–or even just nuclear testing–North Korea is just another crumbling dictatorship. To do? Direct talks, six party talks, U.N. talks, cultural exchange. What else is there to do? Until North Korea embraces whatever the Korean words for “glasnost” and “perestroika” are, we’re going to have our hands in that animal trap for the duration of this administration, too. As a coda: Meanwhile, Iran will watch whatever the U.N. does this week with particular interest.
My poetry column for Sunday, May 24, 2009
May 25, 2009
Arriving in my mail this month is the latest issue of the Northwest Review, freshly re-designed and under the direction of new editors who serve on the faculty of the University of Oregon, where the magazine has been published for more than 50 years.
With newspapers and magazines in economic freefall, it’s as good a time as any to ask, what’s the future of America’s thousands of brick-and-mortar literary journals?
From mimeographed, off-the-radar staple jobs like Samizdat to granddaddies such as The Paris Review, little magazines in the United States have served not just an incubatory role for essayists, short story writers, novelists, poets, playwrights and critics but have existed as America’s creative and intellectual publishing foundation for literary endeavors, movements, polemics and selected works — whether the writing has been seminal or atrocious, the writer famous, emerging or unknown.
Ever since America’s first literary journals were founded in the early 19th century, including The North American Review, which is still in existence, every American writer of any note has had his or her work published in the seedbed periodicals of that era’s contemporary literature.
In the Northwest, one of the oldest and most venerable literary periodicals devoted exclusively to poetry in the United States is Poetry Northwest, founded in 1959. In the spirit of disclosure, I should say I’m the current editor of this storied publication.
Poetry Northwest holds a special place in my literary career. Twenty years ago it was one of the first important little magazines to publish a poem of mine. My payment was two copies — same as today, though until recently we added two bottles of wine as well.
Here’s the thing about this story: At the time I first published in Poetry Northwest, I was living in Washington, D.C., so you could well ask what did publication in a magazine a continent away do for my writing? Probably nothing. But it was wind in the sails. It was confirmation that my writing existed in the world outside of my private notebook, existed as literary art and a singular poetic piece in a long line of poetic pieces that stretched back, in this country at least, to Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.
At the time, Poetry Northwest probably had 400 subscribers, if that. More people go into my neighborhood coffee shop each day, I know, but these were 400 readers who knew something about — and more important, cared deeply about — contemporary American literature. Over the years, in fact, I have even met some of them, and they have reminded me that they first encountered my poems in Poetry Northwest.
With postage and paper cheap for most of the 20th century, the number of literary journals multiplied, especially during the ’60s and ’70s. Today literary magazines are financially pressed, even those with institutional support from a college or university. Long-standing literary journals and newly created ones are finding a rebirth in the publishing zeitgeist of the Internet. Today, in fact, there is no cultural difference for a writer between publishing a story, poem or essay in print or online.
What’s to be found in a literary magazine? Every kind of writing you can imagine — from the most traditional to the most experimental. Either way, only a literary magazine would equate a six-line poem like the one this month by Charles Wright, a sestet of a poem, as holding equal weight with an enormous essay, a story or a philosophical inquiry.
As always, literary experience in America both begins and fits in the hand.
Autumn Thoughts on the East Fork
Daytime is boredom after awhile, I’ve come to find, and nighttime, too.
But in between,
when the evening starts to drain the seen world into the unseen,
And the mare’s tail clouds swish slowly across the mountains,
Contentment embraces me
With its spidery arms and its spade-tipped, engendering tail.
There must be a Chinese character for this, a simple one,
but we’ve never seen it up here.
– Charles Wright
“Autumn Thoughts on the East Fork” from The Northwest Review, Volume 47, Number 2
Paul Gauguin in Beantown
May 25, 2009
Gauguin’s Last Testament by John Richardson
The author analyzes Paul Gauguin’s breakthrough masterpiece, the heart of a “Gauguin Tahiti” show at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
from Vanity Fair
No perfect solution
Guantanamo might be the greatest, cleanest, best run prison facility since Robbin Island in the eyes of its defenders, but it remains a fresh black 21st century stain on America’s reputation as a country that values due process and human rights, and no amount of nativist panic in Congress will change that fact. As I wrote yesterday on this topic, of the 240 prisoners there, “a third of these have been cleared some time ago to be sent home without charges.
Another third are being kept because the military believes there is evidence to try them– whether in military or in federal courts, where, by the way, there is precedent for shielding the public from classified evidence–though only two dozen have actually been charged and of these only three have been brought to trial. Finally, of the other third, there lacks evidence to charge these individuals with anything–although intelligence officials insist these prisoners are too risky to set free.
They’re the ones who have to be dealt with, and they were going to have to be dealt with whether Guantanomo is kept open or not.” It’s a difficult decision. President Bush struggled with it too and passed it on to the next administration.
There will be no perfect solution. To answer the question then: Continue with plans to close Guantanamo. Reaffirm to the letter our trust in the Geneva Conventions. Afford detainees the right of habeas corpus and due process. Transfer some detainees to super-maximum security prisons in the U.S. and others–who are in fact prisoners of war–to the NATO detention system in Afghanistan. And, finally, develop a repatriation program with international partners to return non-convicted detainees to their home countries.
On the credit card bill: The next person who tells me that corporations have a good track record regulating their worst consumer practices and impulses, I’ll need to do no more than point to the necessity of this bill as my reply. My own experience is instructive: On the eve of this bill’s passage, in fact exactly two days ago, I received a poorly mimeographed notification from Bank of America, with whom I’ve been banking for decades, that the bank was making changes to my credit card accounts–and that these changes would apply even to accounts that might already be closed. This, after I recently paid off the very small balance on one card and now only carry a tinier balance on another card, and after the bank recently rescinded a card that I had not yet even used.
What are these changes? Increased fees for ATM advances, cash transfers, balance transfers, minimum payments, and other new changes that affect additional sections of the agreement in–and I quote–”Sections 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 30, and 33.” I’m not making this up; naturally, descriptions of these sections were not provided with the letter. That it took a stick-it-to-the-banks karma in Congress to achieve passage of credit card reform only illustrates how comatose bipartisanship is in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, looking ahead: Banks would win approval from the public if they treat the new disclosure requirements the way food companies label nutrition information as pull-quoted and uniform.
On the gun amendment: I’ve camped in countless National Parks. Never once faced a threatening situation in which I’d wished I had a pistol. I didn’t realize there was such a crises in Yosemite or Shenandoah. We regulate gun ownership all the time, Americans have plenty of routes and access to purchase guns and get them permitted, that the National Parks provision hardly seems a constitutional infringement. I’m sure that the good folks on family vacations, Deadhead backpackers, Miller High Life partiers, and quiet poets can all pack heat and feel safer. Knowing that there will be more guns in National Parks, however, makes me feel less safe in fact.
Compared to the urgency of the credit card bill, this provision is like a parasite attached to a host. It hardly seems urgent. But, really, it does no harm. Come on, Yogi Bear, let’s lock and load.
This left-over Bush administration problem needs to be resolved.
First, we should stop holding enemy combatants indefinitely and get on with charging them with a crime. In general, we should imprison enemy combatants in federal corrections institutions where today we have already some 200,000 offenders behind bars.
The “Escape of the Giant Jihadist” hysteria is absurd. Anyone who knows anything about the real life of federal prisons knows that there is more than an adequate amount of prisoner-led self-policing going on inside those walls, in addition to professional guards. In fact, given how many prisons we have in this country of all kinds, it’s shocking how little the American public knows about the actual experiences of those whom we incarcerate. Gitmo has been a failure. I know it can’t be done by lunch, but we need to put that unfortunate chapter in American “justice” behind us.
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Rory Cooper of the Heritage Foundation responds
David, excuse me if it feels like I’m targeting you this week, but I would like to address a couple of your points. First, you have correctly identified a major difference between conservatives and liberals, and the liberal belief that the enemy combatants at Gitmo are part of the “justice” system. They are not. They are terrorists who declared war on the United States who do not represent a flag nation, as we became accustomed to in previous wars.
It is absurd to think that the only concern is that the terrorist might break out, which trivializes the issue. The question is, if you put them in Colorado’s SuperMax, is Colorado now a target for terrorism by men we have not caught yet? Or are they automatically entered into the U.S. judicial system? Since that would be highly inappropriate given that evidence against them was gathered in classified military processes, where would you prosecute them? In a military tribunal as Presidents Bush and Obama both supported.
So if they’re being tried in a military tribunal, why not keep them imprisoned on a military base. Where is the most secure facility for this? Guantanamo Bay. The men and women who serve our country at Gitmo are amazing soldiers who watch over these murderous thugs with integrity and responsibility and to move them out of that facility to improve the window dressing of this issue is naïve. I recommend you watch the National Geographic Channel’s (super non-partisan) documentary “Inside Gitmo” for a look at this facility that is hailed as exemplary from both sides of the aisle. Most agree it was unfortunate that President Obama chose to sign an executive order closing Gitmo on his second day in office before knowing the facts, or having a plan. And as America regains its senses, I hope we can now all agree that fighting terrorism is priority #1, not fighting a public relations battle from 2003.
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Fred Barbash, Politico’s Arena moderator responds
Pardon my interruption…but if they were all terrorists we wouldn’t be having this problem, which is the more-than-semantic problem with the discussion of this issue generally. The Bush and Obama administrations have been struggling to come up with a process-acceptable to the Supreme Court–precisely to determine which of those in custody are, in fact, terrorists.
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My response
Rory, no offense taken. Call me a liberal or, hey, like yesterday, call me poetic, but I do in fact support due process for Guantanamo prisoners, as well as closing the prison camp there. If recent polling is to be believed, so too does a majority of the American public.
For some time now military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials have been investigating public, private, or military prisons to take Guantanomo prisoners (and struggling in the effort because of a U.S. law preventing mixing Guantanomo detainees with domestic inmates). This process, of course, was begun during the Bush administration. There is a precedent, meanwhile, for terrorist detentions in American jails: The shoe bomber, Richard Reid, is in the SuperMax in Colorado; Zarcarias Moussaoui is incarcerated there also.
As of February of this year, 500 enemy combatants, including some alleged to be the so-called “worst of the worst,” have actually been released already from Guantanomo. So it’s unclear who is a terrorist thug and who isn’t–that’s why we should be charging them and trying them. And, then, we can call them murderous thugs if that’s, in fact, what they are. Also, it’s from this lot (of the 500, I mean) that the allegations that several dozen of them are back in the field come from–including Abdullah Zakir, a militant whom the Bush administration released from Guantanamo two years ago and who is now a leader among the Afghan Taliban.
About 200-some prisoners remain. A third of these have been cleared some time ago to be sent home without charges. Another third are being kept because the military believes there is evidence to try them–whether in military or in federal courts, where, by the way, there is precedent for shielding the public from classified evidence–though only two dozen have actually been charged and of these only three have been brought to trial. Finally, of the other third, there lacks evidence to charge these individuals with anything–although intelligence officials insist these prisoners are too risky to set free. They’re the ones who have to be dealt with, and they were going to have to be dealt with whether Guantanomo is kept open or not.
Re: Colorado SuperMax as a potential site of terrorist attacks. Rory, we might be able to agree on this point: It makes no difference who is president or who controls the U.S. Congress or how well or poorly we treat enemy combatants, or even what policies of defense, what uses of hard or soft power get employed for us to be realists about the following fact. Jihadists don’t need motivation to attack civilians. So let’s not ascribe to them any special care for the our national drama about domestic security.
I’ll check out your movie. Re: yesterday’s debate. By now you surely know that “excessivement sensible” means overly sensitive.
…Unlike the Bush administration, the Obama administration is not tagged with seven years of legal disarray and perhaps illegal conduct
This detainee decision is flawed and troublesome. Our courts are well-equipped to try the 200-plus detainees we have in Cuba and others who are arrested in the future. Our super-max prisons are well-equipped to hold any prisoner, foreign or domestic.
By arguing that we can try some detainees in U.S. courts but not others, the decision is an admission that there are in fact a few dozen detainees, long considered extraordinarily dangerous, for whom we lack sufficient evidence to try or even convict. Thus, the government continues to trap itself into a quasi-legal vice. But creating a layered system of trying detainees in military tribunals and also in American courts, as well as expanding their legal rights, is significantly different from the Bush administration’s policy of holding combatants without charge or trial indefinitely. Or claiming a legal right to do so.
Some, especially on the right, are chastising President Obama for reversing his campaign pledge–he has–or that this new policy resembles the Bush administration’s policy–it does, though it differs significantly in affording combatants more legal rights of defense. But the complaint that Obama is now doing what Bush did is utterly hollow because context matters. The Bush and Obama decisions about detainees may resemble each other–and the do–but the two administrations are not developing tribunal and court policies from the same place of public faith and trust.
This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.
Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop
On Notre Dame: Working in the garden yesterday I remembered that it was almost a year ago that then-candidate Obama spoke to a crowd of 70,000 across the river in downtown Portland during the primaries. I didn’t attend that day, but I could hear the cheers from my back yard rise like a wind of desire–a few miles away, as I say, and across the river. President Obama is the most eloquent president we’ve had–I mean, consistently eloquent–in many a president. No one would claim that either President Bush was an orator–though they had their moments. President Clinton was inconsistent–in the wonkish weeds sometimes, other times, in particular after Oklahoma City, aspiring to be better. Reagan and Kennedy could inspire but Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter not so much. All this shorthand oratory background to say that President Obama could have phoned in a commencement speech and history would have paid no mind. He didn’t. It’s not that the president isn’t a liberal or won’t throw a a partisan elbow or even resist shipping a future adversary off to a Chinese ambassadorship. He is, and he has. But the speech in Indiana was both public and personal in unexpected ways, and in reading it this morning I see it as characteristic of the tone the president hopes to govern by. Unflinchingly respectful. Is it any wonder that, even among those who disagree with his policies, many Americans simply like the man.
As a coda: The truly electrifying speech was given across the country in Merced, California, to a group of graduates mostly immigrants’ children and mostly the first in the families to go to college…by Michele Obama.
On Netanyahu: If something important comes of this meeting we’ll discover it later. Prime Minister Netanyahu will certainly spend time trying to size up President Obama. The president has been underestimated often in his political career, so the prime minister would be wise not to be misread the cues–especially where military action is concerned. Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister was ineffective; he may hope to improve his legacy. If so, they could bode well for Palestinian-Israeli peace efforts. Then again, it may simply be beyond his political imagination to broker a change in the Middle East.
Read more from Politico’s Arena
The Arena – POLITICO’s daily debate with policymakers and opinion shapers POLITICO.com
Take 2 now focuses on politics and policy–with daily answers to political questions from David posted on Politico’s Arena.
Plus, additional posts on various topics from culture to cuisine, from sexuality to faith. And more.
Is the Rocket Flaming Out?
May 13, 2009
Not Playboy, Too
May 12, 2009
Now the recession really is taking a toll
$13.7 million 1st quarter loss...
from Poynter
Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop
What’s Google Up To?
May 7, 2009
Sex on the Brain
May 4, 2009
The Sun Will Come Out Today…Not Tomorrow
May 1, 2009
“Disney’s First Black Princess” by Keith Josef Adkins
from The Root
Catching Up with California Camelot
April 29, 2009
Maria Shriver, First Lady of California
“In the Twilight” by Deborah Solomon
from The New York Times
Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop
You Say Bi-Partisanship, I say Go Screw Yourself
April 28, 2009
Rory Cooper, Dir., Strategic Communications, Heritage Foundation:
Conservatives get an A
Some of our friends here would like to ignore the fact that conservatives did in fact offer viable alternatives that were largely ignored by the mainstream media, and some would even still love to debate Bush’s first 100 days. I think conservatives get an A for providing real alternatives that would save Americans their hard earned money, for offering budget and stimulus proposals that wouldn’t bankrupt our nation like the ones that were passed, for saying yes to American leadership as opposed to American apologies and finally for saying no to new Energy Taxes and nationalized health care.
While Senator DeMint’s stimulus plan, and Congressman Ryan’s budget alternative weren’t the choices of the media elite, that does not mean they did not exist. Conservatives are offering real Health Care alternatives that give Americans real choice and control of their health care, as opposed to a government run façade. And yes, in some cases, saying “no” to an out-of-control government dedicated to taxing every ounce of energy that Americans use is the only alternative available. I would give President Obama a D for not listening to these alternatives and expecting an occasional cocktail party to count as bipartisan outreach.
- David Biespiel, Poet and writer, Attic Writers Workshop:
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Rory is right to grade Republicans so well. If “offering alternatives” is the standard by which we judge legislative success, then “offering alternatives” of any kind, including saying “no,” ought to earn Republicans their A. I think this is the same sort of grading scale that rewards mere “effort.” Traditionally, however, the measurement for judging congressional members is passing legislation.
Given that Republicans in the House (less so in the Senate) don’t have the party-line votes within their own caucus to pass legislation without any Democrats beyond a Resolution for Boy Scouts of America Day, it’s difficult to give the party a high legislative grade. I don’t say this to hammer at you, Rory, because I think, given your standard, you’ve graded fairly. I’d give an A, too, based on that standard.
However, thinking about the standard by which we measure legislative success–that is, passing legislation–raises an interesting issue about bipartisanship. I’m less interested in the for-the-common-good variety of bipartisanship and more in common ground bipartisanship.
- That is, specific members working with specific members to pass legislation based on mutual concerns, common political ground…across the partisan aisle. Perhaps we’ve gerrymandered ourselves out of such possibilities, and the goal of the minority party is only to wrest power from the majority party. I mean, is it possible that not one Republican can find common ground with Democrats on an major issue?
Not one? And is it also possible that we praise that failure–”offering alternatives” (and yes, I’ve no problem laying a share of blame on Democrats, too…Democrats are just as united, in their fashion, as Republicans, this is true)? Because if the United States House of Representatives is that polarized, then grades of success or failure are disconnected from governing and legislating.
And therefore: Irrelevant, too, because we’re grading political theatrics in place of political action. I understand that the President of the United States has a unique platform and megaphone to reach the public, as does a party that controls both houses of Congress. That, Rory, is the biggest impediment to an out-of-power party that is left “offering alternatives.” Not the “media elite,” not “apology,” not the specter of “nationalized” anything. Republicans don’t have the votes, the other party has the real power, and naturally all that can be done is to “offer” alternatives. Working to influence legislation–that’s “influence” alternatives not “offer” them–takes a unique sort of legislator. In the last election campaign, that sort of legislator was hailed as a maverick.
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- Rory Cooper, Dir., Strategic Communications, Heritage Foundation:
Thanks David. I do wish some of what you said were even possible. It would be great if the President, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid moved towards the center where they could work with conservatives, and really find common ground. I believe Health Care is one of those areas, as you can see from my earlier response to our trusted moderator today. I also think Blue Dog Democrats will help oppose the new Energy Taxes. But I don’t think you can mark down conservatives for not becoming more liberal and voting for bills they fundamentally don’t agree with. You can’t dislike a party of “no” and a party of “alternatives”. What else do we have left? There is reality and there is utopia and I’m trying to make my grade based on reality. I do wish Pelosi had even let Republican members sit in on the meetings during the stimulus debate, or given them more than 12 hours to read the 1,000 page bill. But she didn’t. I agree, both sides need to figure this out and ultimately find common ground but it might not happen with Obama, Pelosi and Reid pushing a wish-list agenda in 100 days while pegging the GOP as the party of “no”.
- David Biespiel, Poet and writer, Attic Writers Workshop:
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Thanks for responding, Rory. I appreciate it. Good to hear from you. When the issue is framed in a macro-political sense–what Obama does, what Pelosi does, what Gingrich does, what Senate Democrats do, conservatives this, liberals that–there is no room for compromise. Fellow Arena contributor Norman Ornstein was quoted the other day in the Los Angeles Times in an article by Mark Z. Barabak saying that the political environment in the capital is far removed from a former period of creatively political/social alliances among members of Congress. Now, Ornstein says, adversaries are “enemies, someone you want to crush and make disappear from the face of the Earth.” How’s that been working lately?
Yes, Rory, I agree with you: Would that expecting legislators to convene around common agendas–even for purely selfish political reasons–weren’t so Utopian. I know it’s dicey–not the least of the problem is the grief one gets from one’s own caucus (see Specter, Arlen, PA). Surely we can agree that the Democratic congressman from the rural Oregon 4th has to deal with social and business interests that are not dissimilar from the Republican congressman from the Virginia 6th–from inequities in school funding, hospital care, depleted natural resource industries, dwindling farming communities, assistance for seniors and veterans, and anything to do with livestock, dairy, and poultry. Said Congressman Defazio and said Congressman Goodlatte, respectively, might never agree on abortion, but they might find creative common ground on immigration reform for temporary farm workers. I think when we speak of bipartisanship–when I do, at least–and what the electorate expects of its representatives is just this sort of cooperation. Not to “become more liberal” or vice versa, in a macro-political context of red values and blue values, but to make legislation and to advance solutions to common problems in a micro-political context. That is, Democratic Congressman A and Democratic Congressman B have a mutual interest. At least that’s what I would think the good people of the Oregon 4th and the Virginia 6th expect–and those fine, salt of the Earth folks are nobody’s idea of Utopians.
- Rory Cooper, Dir., Strategic Communications, Heritage Foundation:
David, thanks for your insight. I think the fundamental question that you are seeking an answer to is whether or not Republicans and Democrats can agree on anything these days. And the answer, unfortunately, may be hard to hear. Right now there is a line in the sand drawn between conservatives and liberals on the role of government. Conservatives don’t deny this slippery slope began in ‘08, and many are complicit, but the time to say enough was ushered in by the trillion dollar stimulus bill. Yes, your two Congressmen face similar problems, and have similar constituencies, but their voters have different ideas on the way to fix these problems. One solution is to give power to the people, and the other solution is to give power to Washington. I just don’t know if we’ll ever come to a day when giving power to Washington is something we can broker on the social circuit. But I do hope that you are correct, that passions cool, reason prevails and Washington starts focusing on solutions and not spending.
- David Biespiel, Poet and writer, Attic Writers Workshop:
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Rory, I agree that passions might cool, and they might cool faster and more deeply if we critics on the left and the right don’t bandy a phrase like “power to the people” as if it’s an actual government program called the John Lennon Stay Off My Property Act or the Yoko Ono Card Check Act. Neither Republicans nor Democrats, during the contemporary era of government, say two generations of leadership since Richard M. Nixon, are deserving of laurels for shifting power away from Washington–whether it’s increasing funding for SCHIP or touting the philosophy of a unitary executive–to use two recent illustrations. The point your striving for–as I see it–is that power may emanate from the people in our republic form of government, but the people select the representatives to wield that power in Washington, DC. 50 plus 1 is as good as a mandate. I had to smile at your nifty formulation between “solutions” and “spending.” Some solutions, my good friend, cost money. Removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, which I supported, cost money–and, yes, lives, too. So does building jails. So does creating empowerment zones. So does keeping our elderly housed and fed. So does establishing a system of courts, homeland security, and head start schools. And so does a federal investment in local economies to catalyze business, entrepreneurship, and commerce, including in economies represented by a Republican or a Democrat. A coda: In most rural counties in this country, by the way, the largest employer is…government. Have a good night, Rory in hot, hot Washington, DC.
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Hey, Governor Perry, Don’t Mess with Texas
April 28, 2009
How To Succeed and Start a Business During a Recession
April 24, 2009
Tortured, Part 3
April 23, 2009
Cesar Conda, Republican strategist, former Romney and Cheney advisor:
On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, my domestic policy staff and I were preparing for our weekly 9:00 a.m. policy briefing with Vice President Cheney. It was a brilliant and crisp fall morning. I hardly ever opened the window in my office in the Old Executive Office Building, but I did that day to get some of the fresh fall air circulating, instead of breathing the air being pumped out of the old Carrier window air conditioning unit.
As we were discussing the Social Security “lock-box” and other “important” issues of the day we were going raise with the Vice President, the television in my office was beaming in pictures of what we thought at the time was an unfortunate commuter plane crash somewhere in New York City. It looked like it had accidently crashed on top of one of the World Trade Center buildings.
We continued our meeting, while at the same time keeping a close eye on the television. Minutes later, to our utter shock, we saw the jetliner careen into other tower. We knew that America was under attack. We never met with the Vice President that morning.
Outside my office, there was a lot of commotion, with the Secret Service agents scurrying up and down the marbled hallway of the OEOB. I then heard a low-level rumble or boom in the distance outside my window, which sent chills up my spine. I didn’t know it at the time, but this boom was the sound of the airplane slamming into the Pentagon just across the Potomac river.
I then went out into the hallway of my office, where an OVP staffer told me that one of the Secret Service agents had told him that another airplane was headed toward the White House, and that we should keep away from the windows facing the West Wing. Minutes later, the guards were screaming to everyone to “move” and “run” out of the White House complex.
As staffers were streaming out of the building, I noticed that everyone was looking skyward. It was utter chaos in the streets surrounding the White House, as people were scrambling to leave Washington. As I crossed the Roosevelt Bridge, I saw the thick black column of smoke rising above the Pentagon. I could even smell it. I thought to myself, “How could this happen in America?”
Early the very next morning, September 12, I went back to the White House, this time having to cross two – maybe three – security perimeter check points, instead of the normal one. From what I could tell, every single person in the OVP and the EOP, from secretaries to senior staffers, went back to work that day. We weren’t told to come back. Many people were scared to come back. But we did anyway, because we wanted to be there to do everything we could to help the President and the Vice President help our country in its hour of need.
I tell this story to give others a sense of what it felt like to be in the White House that horrible day, and to give some context of what a dangerous time it was. I’m sure my colleague Brad Blakeman also remembers every single minute of that day, and could tell a similar story. From that day forward, President Bush and his Administration were almost singularly focused on protecting the America from another attack.
The Bush Administration officials directly involved in creating the intelligence and homeland security infrastructure that kept America safe were selfless, dedicated public servants, who did their best to serve the President and their country. They performed their duties with the best of intentions and not for personal gain or self-aggrandizement.
President Barack Obama has now opened the door to prosecuting these former officials for their role in developing the enhanced interrogation techniques. These public servants could be subject to lawsuits, fines, and possible jail time. And to what end? Will this make America safer? Will this convince CIA, DOJ and other officials involved in protecting America to do everything in their power to stop terrorism? Will it this convince the terrorists not to attack America again? Will this really improve America’s image abroad?
Cesar, this is one of the most poignant posts on the Arena that I’ve read, and I appreciate your sharing your story. The pathos it reveals is raw and convincing, and it illustrates your calm, internalized sense of patriotism, which I respect, as you know. I’m responding to your post based on the deliberate generosity of the debates we’ve had on this page in the past.
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But I am not writing to debate any nuance of your personal story, your experience, sacrifice, and values. Not just in D.C, but all across America, we looked skyward, disoriented and perplexed by the pandemonium and turmoil, wrenched from the everyday, and amazed, frightened, shocked, and then, finally, vigilant against what fell out of the sky that September morning eight years ago.
The next day, too, not just in D.C. but all across America, the good citizens went back to work and life with new vigilance. Even for supporters of rough interrogation methods, the history of post-9/11 interrogation practices has left many Americans anguished, troubled, and disquieted. While some are viscerally supportive of such “harsh tactics,” others are viscerally opposed to the “torture.”
But the debate is not only semantic. For many Americans, the issue is personal, even intimate. In response to your private story, one of my own: In my home this week, my father–U.S. Navy (retired), who served as an underwater diver in Korea–and I have been discussing the reports in the news about the interrogation procedures.
My father, a Texan, twice voted for George W. Bush, admires but didn’t vote for President Obama, really doesn’t trust Vice President Biden, and is an enormous admirer of your former boss, Vice President Cheney. You know my politics; the political debates my father and I have had over the decades have been intense, vehement, and impassioned, as you can imagine, but always punctuated with the lighthearted (he says, “Are you sure you’re my son? or I say, “We’re going to have put you out to pasture sooner than planned…”).
I adore my father; I’m not throwing him under the bus. As often as not, during a one of our political conversations, one of us will notice that it’s 5:30. “Cocktail hour,” says the other, then we repair for drink and move on to talk about dinner. This week, talking together quietly about the difficult interrogation news, I made many of the same points I’ve made on the Arena about the importance of transparency and the rule of law in relation to national safety.
My father has taken the position that it’s a dangerous world; we have to do what we have to do. “I don’t like it, but these are bad people,” he says. My 16-year-old–a young leftie, I’m sorry to tell you–weighed in by reading Wikipedia’s entry on waterboarding. “Well, that’s not good,” my father said. “But we have to protect ourselves.” When we saw the headline about one “enhanced technique” being used on two suspects 266 times, my father said, “I don’t like that.”
But, of course, it didn’t change his position. It made him see that his position was related to actual events. It troubled him. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, looking down. Adding, “these are bad people.” He is opposed to torture; he is in favor of protecting the country; he is in favor of rough interrogation practices; and he is opposed to the excessive use of it. As I say, for a patriot like my father, it’s a very complicated and personal issue. I think we’d all benefit–that’s the public’s interest–in learning what is to be learned and doing so now while we’re still directly engaged with the enemy.
We should define for the future the rules of engagement for interrogating enemy combatants within the framework of the rule of law. We should provide immunity from prosecution all witnesses to any commission examining the post-9/11 interrogation practices (I’ve said more about this in my normal post today). You’ve asked several questions about the efficacy of such a public study. My answers: Will this make America safer? No. We live in dangerous times. Will this convince CIA, DOJ and other officials involved in protecting America to do everything in their power to stop terrorism?
No. The debate about the usefulness of harsh techniques is ongoing and complex. Will this convince the terrorists not to attack America again? No. Will this really improve America’s image abroad? Yes. We’re a nation of laws and when we have a crisis about those laws, we investigate and re-establish the parameters of the law.
But may I ask the questions inside out? Will this make America less safe? No. We live in a dangerous world whether we air our domestic battles in public or not.
Will this convince CIA, DOJ, and other officials involved in protecting America to do nothing in their power to stop terrorism? No. These are professionals who go to work everyday to protect and defend the nation.
Will this convince terrorists to attack America again? No. Even the death penalty doesn’t prevent aggravated murders.
Will this impair America’s image abroad? No. It’ll enhance it, be a beacon for other nations, protect our men and women captured in combat, and restore our credibility as a nation that does not torture.
I won’t soon forget your post today, Cesar. I respect your service. I was just about to send this in when I noticed Brad Blakeman sent in his account. I can’t help but notice the cathartic nature of these two posts, yours and his. They illustrate, for me at least, that an airing of post-9/11 activities will have a similarly cathartic quality for the nation. First an accounting, followed by understanding, then reconciliation. That’s what a public inquiry can provide our country–a house once divided reuniting itself with faith in our shared constitutional values.
- from Politico
- Tortured, Part 2
- Tortured
Omit Needless Words
April 22, 2009
2009 Pulitzer Prizes Awarded
April 20, 2009
Tortured, Round 2
April 19, 2009
The 9/11 National Commission report concluded that both Presidents Clinton and Bush were not well served by the FBI and the CIA
David, there is a big difference between the 3,000 innocent civilians who were going about their daily lives when they were slaughtered on 9/11 and the 4,924 American military men and women who bravely gave their lives to fight for our country.
Your assertion that President George W. Bush’s “pre 9/11 policies made us unsafe” and that he “is responsible for the failure before on 9/10 and prior” doesn’t square with the bipartisan 9/11 National Commission report, which concluded that both Presidents Clinton and Bush were not well served by the FBI and the CIA. According to the Commission: “What we can say with confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot. Across the government, there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management.”
On the question of whether America is safer, the 9/11 Commission concluded: “Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe we are safer today. But we are not safe.”
President George W. Bush prevented another 9/11-type of attack, and made America safer today. We are not safe because our enemies with al Qaeda are plotting every single day to kill us. I believe dismantling the Bush anti-terror policies will make us less safe. You, Maria Cardona and others do not. If you get your way, let’s hope and pray that you are right, and I am wrong.
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Poet and writer, Attic Writer’s Workshop
The 9/11 Commissioners did not know what we now know
Cesar, I don’t think we’re that far apart in fact, but perhaps so in nuance and certainly emphasis.
Our domestic actions to prevent terrorists and our military excursion in Iraq are part of the same strategic cloth. My point about success/failure characterizations of the Bush administration did not excuse the Clinton administration but I can see how you might see it that way by my not saying so. I’ll be clear: Officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations bear responsibility for the failures that led to 9/11. Richard Clarke, who served in both administrations, has detailed these lapses.
The 9/11 Commissioners did not know what we now know. The 9/11 Commissioners went to lengths not to report on the relationship between American safety and the war in Iraq–and the terrorist-related consequences that the war has engendered.
The 9/11 Commission Report was published in July 2004, even prior to President Bush’s re-election. It wasn’t until December 2005 that the New York Times reported that the Bush administration had conducted numerous illegal–for the sake of friendly debate, allegedly illegal–warrantless searches as part of its counterterrorism initiatives.
The 9/11 Commissioners did not know that, in 2007, the United Nations Commission on Torture would admonish the U.S. for our “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the use of secret prisons.
The 9/11 Commissioners did not know about the CIA’s destruction of video tape showing prisoners being interrogated by CIA agents–though I suspect they would have excused the destruction of videotape on the grounds that the U.S. does not want other nations to prosecute our agents for potential violations of international law.
To the deaths of Americans, both innocent and uniformed military, I would add the 10s of thousands (some estimates have it at 90,000) Iraqis who have died as a result of violent conflict since the start of the war in 2003. Do I ascribe all of those deaths to President Bush, absolutely not. Though the shopkeeper who was killed by a hand-grenade in Faisaliyah, Mosul on March 26, 2009, did not start a preventative war–or even a preventable one. His death does not make Americans safer, at home or abroad.
Tortured
April 18, 2009
Bush’s polices made us safe
In her response to yesterday’s Arena question about the Bush Administration’s interrogation policies, Maria Cardona asserted that “these misguided and dreadful policies have not made us safer…” and they have only provided “fodder” to our enemies. On 9/11, our enemies killed almost 3,000 of our fellow Americans before “these misguided and dreadful policies” were ever put into place. Our enemies in Al-Qaeda don’t need additional “fodder” or motivation; their hatred for America and the freedoms America stands for is absolute.
Interestingly, when lawmakers were briefed about these tougher interrogation policies, there was bipartisan approval and encouragement for them. Apparently, the Democrats who were briefed on these interrogation policies did not view them as “misguided and dreadful.”
Cardona’s assertion that the intelligence infrastructure created after 9/11 has “not made us safer” doesn’t square with the fact that there has not been another terrorist attack on American soil. Weakening that infrastructure will make America more vulnerable.
Finally, there is another line from “conservative hero” Ronald Reagan that we should borrow and use to guide us in today’s War on Terror: “We must have the will to meet the challenges of an adversary who is constantly testing our resolve to defend our vital national interests.”
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Poet and writer, Attic Writer’s Workshop
More Americans have died since 9/11 than on 9/11
Cesar, you’re right to point out the culpability that Congressional Democrats share in approving the Bush administration’s dubious interrogation policies. These Democrats may not have viewed the interrogation policies, including torture, as “misguided and dreadful,” to use Marina Cordona’s words from the other day on the Arena, but that does not mean that the Democrats’ approval wasn’t itself misguided and dreadful.
Both the Bush administration and its supporters overt or tacit approval of torture as an interrogation method was misguided and dreadful.
Be that as it may, if supporters of President Bush’s post-9/11 polices can assert that his administration made us safer, then supporters must also affirm the corollary: President Bush’s pre-9/11 policies made us unsafe. If the Bush administration is responsible for the success that’s claimed after 9/11, then it’s responsible for the failure before on 9/10 and prior. While I believe that is the case–that culpability, I do not think it is absolutely so; except for a few spectacular occasions, it’s not like the American homeland has been under attack all that much from 1812 to 2001 anyway.
Conservatives and Republicans assert that, after 9/11, President Bush’s interrogation policies and actions generally have made us safer because, as you write, “there has not been another terrorist attack on American soil.” I’m disappointed that you make this argument because, for one thing, it’s just the mother of all debate stoppers, to borrow an expression. Why? Because no one can prove a negative.
Just because there’s been no attack on American soil, doesn’t confirm that we’re more safe. As you say, terrorists don’t need “fodder.” Meanwhile, Americans have not actually been safer. The 4,924 American service men and women who have been casualties in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom were not safer. (In the spirit of disclosure, I was a supporter of Operation Enduring Freedom and the creation of the Homeland Security Department; I opposed Operation Iraqi Freedom; and as I have written on the Arena and elsewhere I am willing to admit that President Bush was right to conquer Iraq when I see an Iraqi and Iranian embassy in Jerusalem and an Israeli embassy in Baghdad and Tehran.) As far as the issue of American safety is concerned, more Americans have died since 9/11 than died on 9/11.
Finally, to assert that Americans are safer because of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies is to assert that the rule of law is less important than American safety. That’s a debate that must be had again and again, now and in the future, about the relationship between the importance of American security and the importance of abiding by American laws. It is Machiavellian to assert that torture is justifiable because it prevents further attacks against Americans or because “there has not been another terrorist attack on American soil.”
I should like to add something to that fine quote by President Reagan you supplied this morning. Thank you, Cesar, for posting it; I hadn’t read it before. “We must have the will to meet the challenges of an adversary who is constantly testing our resolve to defend our national interests” and we must have the resolve to make sure that those challenges do not cause us to abandon our values about the relationship between freedom and the rule of law.
from Politico
Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop
Who Stole the Mona Lisa?
April 16, 2009
Coming Home
April 16, 2009
“Document the Return of U.S. War Dead”
“In 1991, President George H. W. Bush implemented a ban on media coverage of returning war dead and their dignified transfer process at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. Shortly after he assumed office, President Barack Obama asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to review this policy, and Gates later reversed it, giving family members of the fallen the right to allow or disallow media coverage. On April 5th, 2009, the repatriation of the remains of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Meyers became the first such event to be covered by the press in 18 years. This process has taken place, undocumented, over 5,000 times since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. Collected here are photographs documenting the transfers of nine soldiers that have taken place since April 5th, 2009.”
from The Big Picture
Two Duckies: Mr. & Mrs. William F. Buckley
April 14, 2009
Arch conservatives, true, but damned fun ones.
“Mr. and Mrs. Right” by By Colacello
from Vanity Fair
Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop
Bedtime Tonic for Adults: Reading Poetry
April 13, 2009
“Childhood’s Bedtime Ritual of Poetry Reading Overdue for Adulthood Revival”
From my poetry column in last Sunday’s Oregonian.
Just for Trekkies
April 9, 2009
Samuel Beckett’s Letters
April 8, 2009
Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen
April 7, 2009
Remembering Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939
“Voice of the Century” by Alex Ross
from The New Yorker
Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop
Opening Day!
April 6, 2009
“For the Love of the Game: What I’ve Learned”
From Ted Williams and Yogi Berra to George Steinbrenner and the San Diego Chicken, eight baseball headliners reflect back on the challenges, the indignities, the triumphs, and the thrills that define America’s Pastime.
from Esquire
It’s a Depression
April 3, 2009
Robert Reich on today’s economy:
The March employment numbers, out this morning, are bleak: 8.5 percent of Americans officially unemployed, 663,000 more jobs lost. But if you include people who are out of work and have given up trying to find a job, the real unemployment rate is 9 percent. And if you include people working part time who’d rather be working full time, it’s now up to 15.6 percent. One in every six workers in America is now either unemployed or underemployed.
Every lost job has a multiplier effect throughout the economy. For every person who no longer has a job and can’t find another, or is trying to enter the job market and can’t find one, there are at least three job holders who become more anxious that they may lose their job. Almost every American right now is within two degrees of separation of someone who is out of work. This broader anxiety expresses itself as less willingness to spend money on anything other than necessities. And this reluctance to spend further contracts the economy, leading to more job losses.
Capital markets may or may not unfreeze under the combined heat of the Treasury and the Fed, but what happens to Wall Street is becoming less and less relevant to Main Street. Anxious Americans will not borrow even if credit is available to them. And ever fewer Americans are good credit risks anyway.
All this means that the real economy will need a larger stimulus than the $787 billion already enacted. To be sure, only a small fraction of the $787 billion has been turned into new jobs so far. The money is still moving out the door. But today’s bleak jobs report shows that the economy is so far below its productive capacity that much more money will be needed.
This is still not the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it is a Depression. And the only way out is government spending on a very large scale. We should stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about American workers. Use money to build up Main Street, and the future capacities of our workforce.
from The Arena
Doesn’t Anyone Want To Be Britain’s Next Poet Laureate?
April 2, 2009
And the Lord said, “Let There Be Globalization”
April 1, 2009
“One World, Under God” written by Robert Wright
“For all the advances and wonders of our global era, Christians, Jews, and Muslims seem ever more locked in mortal combat. But history suggests a happier outcome for the Peoples of the Book. As technological evolution has brought communities, nations, and faiths into closer contact, it is the prophets of tolerance and love that have prospered, along with the religions they represent. Is globalization, in fact, God’s will?”
from The Atlantic
Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop
U.S. Is Now Pro-Human Rights…Again
March 31, 2009
News from the Planet Mars
March 31, 2009
Spring Breaking to Oregon Shakespeare Festival
March 22, 2009
Take 2 to take four days off as I go to catch the latest plays with the full catastrophe in tow at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I’ll be live-twittering all week from Ashland, Oregon. Check updates on twitter or on the running tweetlog in the right hand column.
Anon!
Argh! Pirates!
March 22, 2009
Leonard Cohen, Pop Poet, Has a New Live Album
March 18, 2009
Mar. 23: Hear His New Live Album, In Its Entirety, On NPR Music
Exclusive First Listen: Leonard Cohen
Listen: Leonard Cohen on YouTube
What’s the Book on the Future of the Book?
March 16, 2009
Final Frontier Nearly Finally Finished
March 16, 2009
“After 10 Years, Space Station Finally Nears Completion” by Peter N. Spotts
from the Christian Science Monitor
A Cautionary Tale: LBJ, Guns, & Butter
March 14, 2009
“Not Rilke, Not Yeats, Nor Anyone Else”
March 13, 2009
Paul Valery is very cool again.
“The ultimate French intellectual?” by Paul Gifford
from the Times Literary Supplement
Are the Kids in Those Videos Really Eating Worms, Jeff?
March 11, 2009
Boston artist (& FOD) Jeff Smith’s homepage. Safety & advertising videos from the other side.
