Summer Break~~~

Taking a breather for the summer. Whew! Woot!

Need me? db@atticwritersworkshop.com.

Ciao…

D

It’s at best a myth and a worst a lie to say that the public option would ration care

For serious health care reform to gain passage, every advocate and supporter must remain vigilant against the rising tide of misinformation and mischaracterization coming from opponents. It’s at best a myth and a worst a lie to say that the public option would ration care — or ration it any more than exists in the current system where non-insured Americans have had their care rationed to no care at all and premium-insured Americans have more care and options than they could ever possibly use. Every health care plan from HMOs to private insurers ration care. One pays for the plan one wants, can afford, or that is offered through one’s employer. One never gets total, endless care without a bloated cost for it — whether it’s out of pocket expense for care or increased rates for insurance, and both applied to everyone including the healthy. 

One of the more macabre lines of argument against health care reform these days is about the “Case of Senator Kennedy,” long admired as an advocate of universal health care. Using his incurable brain cancer against his forty-year public advocacy is in poor taste at the very least and all but bridges on the obscene when you hear from health reform opponents that Sen. Kennedy would never get the cancer treatment he’s getting if he were on the public option. 

The argument is hardly convincing besides. Sen. Kennedy, like many Americans who currently have health care insurance and like the plan they have, wouldn’t need to join the public option. He has private insurance through his job as a United States government employee — plus, given his wealth, he can and likely has bought supplementary insurance. In addition, the public option is not, as it were, a permanent condition for any one; Americans would be able to join the public option or leave for it for a private option, and return again, depending on a host of factors including price, personal wealth, and employment. But if we’re not going to create a single-payer system, the least we can do is devise a system where some Americans can purchase all the health insurance and care they want and others can have a public option to buy an affordable minimum range of insurance and care. The non-universal health-rationing system we have now rations away care entirely for 40 million Americans. Universalization is essential from both a cost and public health standpoint. The status quo has died on the operating table.

Are “supposedly respectable news organizations and political figures…giving aid and comfort to dangerous extremism,” as Paul Krugman (among others) writes.

David Biespiel, Poet and writer, Attic Writers Workshop:

Rush Limbaugh isn’t right wing enough for the likes of Mr. von Brunn

As I’ve written here multiple times, violent extremists don’t care  about the left-right debate in America, and same holds for American- homeland extremists, too. Rush Limbaugh isn’t right wing enough for  the likes of Mr. von Brunn. Keith Olberman isn’t left wing enough for  an al Qaeda foot soldier tuned into MSNBC from some cave in Pakistan.  And, yes, that last image is absurd but I’ve heard it cited on  Limbaugh’s show. 

The worst of all this isn’t the fringes but the mainstream–to watch  legitimate political leaders cow-tow, pussyfoot, and genuflect at the  feet of the broadcast extremists, whether they are from the left or  the right. But some balance is needed in discussing the whole issue  because let’s not forget that when non-conservatives opposed the  invasion of Iraq, conservatives from President Bush himself on down  intimated that we were being unpatriotic. When non- conservatives  criticized the post-war quagmire in Iraq, conservatives from President  Bush on down accused us explicitly of giving aid and comfort to the  enemy. That line of political rhetoric and logic was as shallowly  constructed and offensive as the left’s analysis of right wing broadcasts are today. The culture of “aid and comfort” isn’t left wing radical or marginalized political culture or right wing radical or marginalized political culture, it’s old- fashioned corporate culture that recognizes that a WWF political entertainment media is profitable. And such profit considerations surely date back to the popular 1930s rants of Father Coughlin. 

Believe it or not I often tune into Rush Limbaugh or whatever conservative rabble-rouser I can get a signal for when driving. They’re entertaining as can be, there’s no doubt. But about every five minutes I find myself muttering, “I can’t believe he just said that!” The mockery is incessant. The devaluing of motives is duplicitous. Name calling Hillary Clinton. Saying President Obama’s middle name like up-chucking a gob of spit. Standard railings against Jimmy Carter. I mean, Jimmy Carter! That’s just so 70s. All balanced with a mantra of “Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan.”

The modes of thinking on those shows go as follows: mischaracterize the opponent’s points and motives, then decimate that mischaracterization with character assassination and polemic. Trouble is, Air America-styled liberal broadcasters use the exact same ugly tropes and polemical rants. Just as entertaining. Just as shallow. 

I reject them both as unserious. But giving aid and comfort? Hardly. Those shows are all about the soothing teddy bear of comfort for the converts. It’s the advertising that’s matters. Want to put a dint in their influence, boycott Onstar, Avacor, and the Swap Shop.

Steve Steckler, Chairman and founder, Infrastructure Management Group (IMG):

 

David, I commend you for your even-handedness on this issue and for reminding readers that Republicans made the same specious claims against liberal assailants who called Bush a war criminal. Like you, I sometimes listen to Rush Limbaugh on long intercity drives (he’s as ubiquitous as road kill) for the entertainment, but I really must object to your lumping him together with the crude, vicious likes of Mike Savage and the less-than-entertaining Glenn Beck. Limbaugh may be as relentless as you say, but he is generally fresh, jovial and wonderfully mischievous. Radio would be boring without him. Reagan gets a lot of mention on the show because he remains an icon not so much to Limbaugh but to the middle-aged working class who constitute his core audience. That honest, hard-working “leave us alone!” crowd is very real, very large and deserving of far more respect than accorded it by the academics, consultants and media reps occupying The Arena.

David Biespiel, Poet and writer, Attic Writers Workshop:

Thanks, Steve. Good to hear from you. One small additional point to add to yours. Perhaps some credit for consistency at least is due the more vociferous of the pacifists among the left wing in this country. They pinned the “war criminal” tag onto conservative Republican George W. Bush just as easily as the they–or their forebears–did a generation earlier to liberal Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson. Despite their support for Johnson’s domestic social agenda from Medicaid, Medicare, social security reforms, anti-poverty, environment, early and secondary education programs, as well as his landmark voting and civil rights reforms, leftists despised Johnson’s Viet Nam policies, especially the draft. In fact, “hey, hey, LBJ, / how many kids have you killed today” remains one of the iconic political rhymes of the Sixties. I fully expect that if President Obama doesn’t conclude the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with some reasonable dispatch, pacifist leftists will trot out their “war criminal,” demonstration chants for him, too. It may already be happening. Two weekends ago, during a trip to Seattle, my morning breakfast was interrupted by a small street demonstration and the clear-throated chant by a dozen or so marchers, “War Criminal, War Criminal,” made its way downtown along 4th Street Pike’s Market. From my window, lo

Obama wants a healthcare bill with a public option by October. His chances are: A) good B) slim C) non-existent

If the Obama Administration is not thinking that health care reform, politically speaking, is not the equivalent of where they were just before the Iowa caucus, then health care reform with a public option is already dead. As with Iowa then, if you don’t win that one, you can’t go on to do anything else. But it’s at precisely this point in 2009 in the development of competing Congressional health care bills that a prediction is almost impossible to make especially, as the American philosopher Yogi Berra has said, if it has to do with the future. So, to rephrase the question, what does President Obama need to do politically to enact health care reform that includes a public option? Answer: Go back to Iowa. 

The Republican position on television and in Congress is essentially akin to waving their arms wildly saying “Stop!” to a herd of donkeys. Surely Republicans know or at least can imagine how many millions of people still miss the text messages and e-mail updates they used to get almost hourly from the Obama campaign and during the transition. 

Surely Republicans know that President Obama’s supporters are waiting to be called to action on health reform. Surely Republicans know not to under-estimate the president’s connection with the public and in particular his connection with his supporters and they are waiting to mobilize.. And surely Republicans know that not since Ronald Reagan have we had a president who holds as much personal connection with his supporters–or they feel such personal connection to him, that is.

When President Reagan asked his supporters to contact their Congressional representatives and let them hear their–meaning, his– views on a political issue, they did, and switchboards in Washington, DC lit up then broke down they were so overloaded. That’s what Republicans know is possible if they don’t get an anti-public option zeitgeist set into place right now. 

But only President Obama can mobilize his supporters, to re-inspire them to become, right now, this year, “the change you seek” on the public option for health care. The debate is not a policy one entirely; it’s substantively a political one, too. As for the White House political staff, if they’re not strategizing the political campaign side of the health bill like it’s November 10, 2007 and not June 10, 2009 they’re less vaunted than they are said to be. Because it was on November 2007 that then-Senator Obama upturned the stakes in the Iowa caucuses with his defining speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Des Moines–in which he asked “What’s next for America?” 

One thing that’s next for America today is health care reform. The Republican party is determined to be the party of status quo. Go for it. How’s that been working for you? That leaves room and lots of daylight for the Democratic party (not that you can fully trust the Democratic party to be united on anything) to be the party of “What’s next for America?” Message to the White House: The health care debate is not going to be won in halls of the Cannon House Office Building. 

It’s going to be won in the American heartland. Get the president out of town.

On another topic: Unemployment

Cesar Conda, Republican strategist, former Romney and Cheney advisor:

Another topic: Unemployment

Today, the Labor Department reported that the nation’s unemployment rate increased to 9.4 percent in May from 8.9 percent in April, which is the highest rate in 26 years. Although the pace of job loss has slowed, the economy has now lost 2.2 million jobs since the beginning of Janaury. 

Last week, President Obama claimed that 150,000 jobs had been “created” or “saved” by the stimulus package. It’s yet another case of the President’s use of fuzzy math which miraculously turns a 2.2 milion job loss into a 150,000 job gain. Reduce…

And just a few minutes ago on CNBC, Arena Contributor and White House economic advisor Jared Bernstein said that the Administration predicts another 600,000 jobs would be “created” or “saved” in the next hundred days. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, unemployment will continue to rise and peak above 10 percent in the second half of next year. 

How does this Administration continue to get away with producing these kinds of job creation estimates in the face of hard evidence from its own Department of Labor showing job losses, and economic forecasts from the CBO and other private sector sources predicting unemployment rising to 10 percent next year?

 

Rick Beyer, Documentary filmmaker, author, history guy:

The job loss for May was dramatically less than expected, and is widely viewed as good news. If you pass a big stimulus bill and the loss of jobs is suddenly much less than expected, it seems perfectly logical to me to conclude you’ve created jobs. It’s only fuzzy math when viewed through the distorted GOP prism that colors everything Obama does (even going out to dinner with his wife) as evil, deceptive, or un-American.

 

David Biespiel, Poet and writer, Attic Writers Workshop:

Rick, I’ve been involved in more left/right debates with Cesar than just about anyone on the Arena. I can assure you that Cesar Conda is anything but a distorter. He’s always informed, detailed, insightful, and yes, certainly partisan, but cogently and rationally so. I’m sure he’s pro-dinner-with-your-wife, too. His sweetly tweaking the Obama Administration today about the unemployment numbers is also mathematically accurate. Jobs have been lost and jobs have been gained. 

But, Cesar, you know that the Obama Administration didn’t invent selective use of numbers as a method of self-congratulation. For instance, President Obama’s job approval hovers around 60 % (according to RCP), but you never hear the administration also say that the president’s job performance is disapproved by 40%. And you never will.

According to Recovery.org, as of May 22nd, only $36 billion of the $787 billion stimulus package had been spent. It is highly unlikely that $36 billion in increased government spending or tax relief could impact the $13 trillion U.S. economy enough to “suddenly” reduce job losses in one month. Yes, the lower-than-expected 345,000 job loss in May is good news. But the President’s stimulus package had little, if anything, to do with this improvement, and there is absolutely no evidence showing that it created 150,000 new jobs. 

 

Cesar Conda, Republican strategist, former Romney and Cheney advisor:

The economy is more likely being “stimulated” by a breathtaking increase in the money supply by the Federal Reserve, and $12 trillion in federal loan guarantees over the past 6 months, which unfortunately will cause significantly higher inflation and interest rates in the near future. The President’s stimulus package and budget plan — which produces annual deficits averaging $600 billion and doubles the national debt — will make matters worse and cause interest rates to surge even further.

 

David Biespiel, Poet and writer, Attic Writers Workshop:

Cesar’s point about claiming job gains when it’s actually estimates of job gains is a valid one. Had the president simply said, “We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over an estimated 150,000 jobs,” he’d have avoided this tiny dust up. At the same time, chastising the Obama Administration for using prediction economics as factual analysis followed by one’s own prediction about the future of interest rates and inflation isn’t convincing either. Since the Fed cut interest rates practically into the negatives, the percentages were destined to go up no matter what happened.

Isn’t “judicial activism” a phony issue? Don’t both sides care more about the result than how it is reached?

Because the Constitution doesn’t explicitly define the exact approach for the Judicial branch to interpret the law, judicial activism’s definition, as others have said today, on the Arena, depends on which branch of government is applying the term. And its been that way every since Marbury v. Madison. From the executive and legislative branches’ viewpoints, when the judgment is counter to one’s political position, the judge is activist; when the judgment supports one’s political position, the judge is restrained 

On the other hand, from the Judicial branch, activism is merely one point on a continuum of approaches to interpreting law. Restraint, then, is simply another point. I must leave it to Arena’s legal experts, which I am not, to define the various many other points on this judicial-interpretive continuum, from originalism to structuralism and beyond, but both activism and restraint are surely connected to an individual judge’s subjective belief about the roles of judges. 

Which brings up Chief Justice Roberts’ oft-quoted definition that judges are like umpires: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them.” This statement has always seemed incomplete to me because, as everyone knows, no two umpires have the same strike zone. The strike zone, that is, was different in Dred Scot v. Sandford from what it was in Brown v. Board of Education. There’s a case to be made that Justice Roberts’ umpiring uses a smaller strike zone, if you will, for liberal pitchers and a wider one for conservative ones. Does that mean he’s not applying the law or that he’s sometimes activist and sometimes restrained? Hard to say. But it does mean that the liberal side knows that it has to throw an indisputable strike for Justice Roberts to call it a strike, while conservatives know that the judge is predisposed to calling anything near the plate and positioned below the chin and above the ankles a strike–especially late in the game.

This post originally appeared on Politico

Grade Obama’s Cairo Speech

Today’s speech by an American president in an Arab capital was different from all previous ones in one particular fashion. To alter Marshall McLuhan’s famous dictum, the man is the message. Many have mocked Barack Obama’s considerable self-regard, but his private history–much documented and bizarrely twisted, if not debated, during the campaign–clearly embodies the opportunity for Arab leaders and citizens to listen. Perhaps not to trust. Perhaps not to act. But, surely, to listen. That, for me, might constitute the “new beginning.”

The forthright, scrupulous, and candid presentation of his argument was remarkably fresh. That, more than anything else, defines the president’s evolving moral authority, namely, the equitable discussion of reality. As in the Philadelphia race speech and the Notre Dame commencement speech, Obama makes a full accounting of grievances from many sides and shows a sensitivity to the many interpretations of the roots of those grievances. He acknowledges what few have in the past, that what is said in private is seldom expressed in public. That holds true in backyards in Haifa, in Gaza, and in Riyadh as much as it does in the backyards in Birmingham, Charlestown, or the four neighborhood quadrants of Washington, DC. Perhaps until now.

Whether it’ll lead to less war or even more peace in the Middle East remains to be seen, but speaking truth from power as well as to power…that’s leadership. In a region in which intransigent issue after intransigent issue has long been stalemated and mired, that leadership coupled with the president’s unique private history could create a climate for renewed dialogue at least. At least, perhaps, that. And if the president has engendered an openness to listen in the Middle East, that could prove the great breakthrough of today’s speech.

And yet in the Middle East, the “and yets” pile up.

Not for doubting the president’s oratorical capacity, however, nor for expecting that his own mind and frames of argumentation wouldn’t have a large imprint over the speech–it’s been reported that he wrote much of it–my anticipation for the speech was pessimistic. I feared he’d essentially say what every American president in recent memory has said, and that’s exactly what he did: that the U.S. is not embattled with Islam, that America respects Islam, that only a small band of extremists impede peace, that democracy must be earned and not forced, that Israel must exist, and that Palestinians must be freed from occupation. He said all of this–so did President Bush, as well as Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, and so on as far back as anyone can recall.

As I’ve been writing here recently, this is not surprising given how the Middle East community essentially sees one American foreign policy no matter who is president and from either party. That foreign view is not surprising because most of the time that’s actually the case. Today’s speech changes little in that respect and is little different. But President Obama might himself be the catalyst for new respect and an actual difference.

This post originally appeared on Politico

Does the killing of Dr. George Tiller change the dynamics of the abortion debate?

The abortion debate is one conflict on a continuum of difficult cultural and national dilemmas. The political crime against Dr. Tiller will likely do little to altar the parameters of that continuum which covers multiple points of debate about sexuality, sex education, contraception, the sanctification of motherhood, the shifting role of fatherhood, pregnancy, prenatal care, reproduction, abortion, adoption, immunization, and infant care.

The terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life” so reduce the public dialogue to the level of a advertising brand that violence gets construed as a viable means of political action. It isn’t, of course. In the case of Dr. Tiller, it’s not political, it’s murder. But the debate itself is fairly static and will likely remain so.

The majority of the electorate favors legal abortion with reasonable restrictions. Depending on whether conservatives or liberals are in power in Washington, DC, the restrictions are either lessened or tightened. And, then, only a little. It’s a form of trench warfare. A foot or two gained at one point on the line is matched by a foot or two lost on the other point of the line. The line is the precedent of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right of abortion. What’s needed to resolve the debate is not political crimes like the killing of Dr. Tiller but a national dialogue that includes all the difficult cultural, religious, medical, political, and legal complexities surrounding the delicate issues of human sex, reproduction, and child-rearing. Dialogue is needed, not debate.

On another topic: Yesterday I wrote on this page that “that most nations do not see a dime’s worth of difference between a Republican president or a Democratic president–despite our great, private, national narrative and debates. Between Bush and Obama, I mean, it’s six to one, half a dozen to the other as far as many people throughout the world, including the Middle East, are concerned.” Today’s recorded message, allegedly from Osama bin Laden, saying, according to The Washington Post, that President Obama “was planting seeds for ‘revenge and hatred’ toward the United States in the Muslim world” and that “Obama was following Bush’s policy of ‘antagonizing Muslims’ and warned Americans to be prepared for the ‘consequences’” is a case in point. The producers of political entertainment shows for FOX and MSNBC may be surprised to see it, but for many people in the world, and for al-Qaeda at least, for sure, Bush and Obama are one and the same.

Too often our domestic debate about security turns on what the terrorists feel about our debate, or how decision A bolsters the terrorists and decision B frightens them. Time and time again, this debating points concern of ours has no basis in reality and no affect on what terrorists do or don’t do. Whether it’s Islamic terrorists or reproductive rights terrorists, they don’t care about the public debate. They don’t care about the Guantanomo post-9/11 political prison or our discussion about the relationship between our national security and our constitutional values or what the constitutional precedent about individual rights exists for pregnant women. Whether they’re bombing the World Trade Center or a private health clinic, the polite parameters of debate don’t seem, in the end, to be much concern to people who use violence to advocate a political status.

This post previously appeared on Politico

Obama in Egypt: What should he say and not say?

Can a country as sophisticated and advanced as ours… at last give up mocking thoughtfulness

Given the strange history of American anti-education, anti-science, anti-literature, anti-oratory, anti-art, anti-government, and above all anti-intellectualism, I don’t know why I find myself this afternoon so stunned to hear the tones of mockery toward Barack Obama for his admired ability to communicate ideas, allusions, and emotions and to inspire large audiences throughout the world. Surely those who are mocking the president for being oratorically gifted actually prefer that our presidents speak to world audiences in a manner that is eloquent, expressive, meaningful, and potent and not in a manner that is inarticulate, faltering, and incoherent. Say you don’t like his ideas about freedom and democracy or his specific rhetorical and religious allusions to illustrate these values, or you disagree with his proposals for peace and prosperity in the Middle East, but can a country as sophisticated and advanced as ours in education, science, literature, oratory, art, government, and ideas at last give up mocking thoughtfulness? Mocking the president because he can give a memorable speech. I mean, who wants him to give a forgettable one? Because whether you are a person of religious or secular faith, whether you are highly or negligibly educated, systematic ideas and rhetorical allusion–and the metaphors, narratives, and arguments to convey them–are essential to human discourse and political persuasion. 

Meanwhile, much of the more serious commentary today on the president’s speech in Cairo as a catalyst for regional peace in the Middle East is a blend of the hopeful and the hard-headed. One wants to be hopeful. But I’m not. Mostly I’m hopeful for less war, less poverty, less conflict. Peace? Community? Democracy? For now, just less war, tribalism, and tyranny would be a huge leap forward. 

Also, in this country, we need to realize that most nations do not see a dime’s worth of difference between a Republican president or a Democratic president–despite our great, private, national narrative and debates. Between Bush and Obama, I mean, it’s six to one, half a dozen to the other as far as many people throughout the world, including the Middle East, are concerned. Short-handed: Bush’s wars and now Obama’s wars. That is, they are America’s wars. 

So the president has the difficult task of re-framing the historically strained conversation between Islam and the West. His message should be simply this: “less killing, more jobs.” He framed it as follows in his Inaugural Address: “To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you can destroy.” The tenor and the spirit of the upcoming speech are what matter more than the policy proposals because the details that lead toward less killing and more jobs must take place in conference rooms and private offices, with individuals under actual political pressures, where parties locked into their intransigent political positions (like “death to Israel,” for instance, or “no Palestinian state”) can be peeled away in sweaty, face-saving negotiations. Unlike those who mock the president’s oratorical talent, I hope that whatever the president says or doesn’t say in Cairo will inspire the hell out of those who listen to him to recommit to community, peace, and justice in that region. And then what’s needed is not an oratorical display but something else often mocked: a community organizer to get the stakeholders to the table to negotiate and instigate an era of regional prosperity.

This post originally appeared on Politico

Is it good for General Motors or the country, or what?

To have done nothing about the auto industry… was never an option

A paycheck is better than a handout, and had the government done nothing at all and let GM fold, the U.S. taxpayers would be spending as much or more than has been spent already as a safety net to the decimated economies in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and other border state and southern regions that depend on the auto industry. My standing position on the Arena on GM and the other struggling auto makers has been two-fold: They should have entered bankruptcy before receiving government bailout or loan guarantees and, second, it’s essential that the United States have a thriving private transportation industry and every effort must be made to ensure its existence. The government has already spent $80 billion on GM, though I point out to bean counters of the partisan variety that this is far less than the $700 billion bath American taxpayers have taken in Iraq. 

To have done nothing about the auto industry, however, was never an option, and that fact is not debatable. Both Republican and Democratic administrations acted under that very assumption–that the U.S. auto industry must come through the current crises in some form. A lot of good a prediction from will do for workers and investor who lose out in this restructuring, but I predict that the government will be all but entirely out of New General Motors’s hair before Labor Day in 2010 when the midterm campaign season shifts into full swing.

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

Would you advise Republicans, as Krauthammer and others do, to make their case on the issues and then vote to confirm?

In many ways, this nomination is a free pass for President Obama.

I’m beginning to feel like I’ve been asked to give Republicans so much advice recently, I should send them a bill. With District of Columbia conservatives throwing in the towel essentially on hysterically combating the Sotomayor nomination in order to fight another day and on other issues, I expect a new round of bloodshed from the conservative circling fire squad. Surely Rush Limbaugh’s show today is required listening. Conservatives do have a greater respect for authority and hierarchy than liberals, so my advise to Republicans is don’t take the latitude inherent in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution that gives the Senate authority to “advise and consent” too lightly.

In many ways, this nomination is a free pass for President Obama. The real battle will come should the president suddenly and unexpectedly have the opportunity to replace one of the more conservative justices, especially Justice Kennedy.

The future for Republicans however is connected to the outskirts of this nomination: developing electoral support among Hispanics. As others have observed, it’s no so much that Judge Sotomayor’s Hispanic heritage would help Democrats in the long run or even Presdient Obama in 2012, as much as opposing her nomination could hurt individual Republican senators up for reelection in the next two cycles. One other note, if I may, to those who still feel the sting of the Bork nomination. That nomination battle was brutal. But as Justice Scalia might say, get over it. I mean, even George Washington had a nominee for the Supreme Court rejected by the Senate–because that nominee supported better ties with Britain, if you can believe it.

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

The “wise Latina woman” speech: Big deal or a big nothing?

It is a big deal but not for the reason many have suggested

In several recent Supreme Court nomination hearings, Democrats have intimated the same and worse of Republican appointees to the Court. Judge Sotomayor is just going to have to run through the racist charge meat grinder. Not the finest hour in the nomination process as we’ve come to know it, but de rigeur.

But my friends on the left are badly mistaken to believe that her comment is nothing. It’s huge. Even if everyone can understand the context in which it was made and appreciate the pride inherent in it, it makes people anxious. Liberals wish she’d spoken less bluntly. And yet, bluntness seems to be one of the judge’s qualities. More, what unnerves people is that it represents an imminent reality in American life, that is: the shifting demographics to a white minority. My view is, so what. That’s America. But it makes people nervous. Change of that sort is unique. 

As for my friends on the right, your objections are just contorted. Your view that juridical decisions are or should be made only via some abstract consideration of law, that juridical decisions be made devoid of human experience, human emotion, and simple God-given humanity is absurd and untethered to reality. It’s an idealized version of law, but not a reflection of how laws are interpreted by judges of every racial and political stripe. And we all know that. People are who they are; judges are who they are. And in this country we have long embraced the tapestry of diversity in our neighborhoods and institutions, in our sports and entertainment, in our schools and in our laws. Judges, too, are made up of the human stuff.

So: We want both wise white men and wise Latina women for our judges. If they want to compete to see who is wiser, by all means, be wiser.

On Gitmo, again

Cesar Conda frets about post-9/11 prisoners, while I question the heart of the fretting

 

Cesar Conda: Buried by yesterday’s news coverage of the Sotomayor nomination was the official report released by the Pentagon showing that one of every seven — or 14 percent — of suspected terrorists formerly held at Gitmo are either confirmed or suspected of having returned to terrorism.  

No wonder Democrats — even staunch liberals like Senator Barbara Boxer — are worried about transferring Gitmo detainees to their States. “We only have one max security prison in California and it’s, right now, overbooked, that’s the case,” Boxer told CNN. “In all, we are worried and we want to to see what the plan is.” http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/24/boxer-worried-about-transferring-gitmo-detainees/

Senate Democrats shouldn’t be worried at all. This politically brilliant Administration is likely to propose transferring the Gitmo terrorism suspects to States represented by Senate Republicans, whose votes they would lose anyway on the bill to fund the closing of Gitmo. 

You heard it here first.

 

My response: 

Cesar, I appreciate the tone of your notice and others of yours on this subject, even the giddier of them (re: Yucca Mountain Home for Terrorists), and I appreciate the understanding you have for the political difficulties (I second your Republican district incarceration hunch) and enormous legal complexities. In that spirit, I want to respond to a couple of things. 14% recidivism is not a number in a vacuum. It’s a much lower percentage than the recidivism for our home-grown non-political prison population which is around 60%–higher or lower depending on the amount a time served and the crime committed. But comparatively, 14% recidivism is not just measurably but significantly lower than the recidivism for this country’s non-political prisoners. 

My question–and at the risk of refighting the last war–given that the last administration assured the public that all the post-9/11 prisoners were the worst of the worst terrorists captured in the field, and given the last administration’s public fears about releasing post-9/11 prisoners because they might return to the field of battle, why did the last administration release so many at-risk recidivists? I mean, released them without charge? Released them without trial? My point is: Perhaps 14% was considered an acceptable risk. And perhaps 86% of the released post-9/11 prisoners that have not returned to terrorists activities was an acceptable reward.

Former Vice President Cheney joked the other day that perhaps we were too lenient. But if we’re going to discuss the 14% we must discuss the 86% and honestly debate the rewards and risks. I don’t mean necessarily to question the decision to release these post-9/11 prisoners but to question the way in which the post-9/11 prisoners were characterized to the public–again, last war stuff, no doubt. I’ll get to the remaining post-9/11 prisoners below. For now, I also don’t mean to diminish the risk of 14% recidivism but ask that we consider that percentage in the context of both post-9/11 prisoner populations in U.S. custody and non-political prisoners in U.S. custody. Naturally, the post-9/11 prisoners remaining in Guantanomo pose a higher recidivist risk–otherwise they’d have been released already– though a third have already been cleared for release.

But because of the recidivist risks, all the remaining post-9/11 prisoners should be charged with civilian or military crimes, put on trial in civilian or military courts, and if or when found guilty, sentenced to civilian or military super-maximum prisons. I won’t touch on the fate of Guantanomo or the prison debate per se; you and I are too far apart on that one, my good friend. Another day. But capture/conviction or capture/release of political and non-political prisoners contains risks and rewards. That’s one of the difficult and complex consequences of fighting and capturing Jihadist mercenaries in today’s world. We should have a serious debate about that and not delude ourselves with political en garde-ism.

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

What question would you most like to ask Judge Sotomayor?

Define your own sense of a justice’s capacity in juridical decision making

Judge, much cartoonish coloring outside the lines has already taken place over the president’s characterization of looking for a justice for the Supreme Court who possesses empathy as a subset characteristic to the justice’s respect for law, precedent, and the Constitution. Would you define your own sense of a justice’s capacity in juridical decision making in light of the following characterizations: 

1) President Obama’s statement about empathy just mentioned,

2) President George H.W. Bush’s characterization of your potential future colleague, Clarence Thomas, as a jurist who is an “intelligent person who has great empathy,”

3) former Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri’s further articulation of that point, that then-Judge Thomas’s “empathy is with the disadvantaged people of this country, [that he] would bring a perspective to the Supreme Court which nobody else brings,”

4) Justice Thomas’s implication, during his nomination hearings, that because he was born into poverty in Georgia he would look out for the underdog, even a convicted one with fewer rights, 

5) Justice Alito’s point of self-definition in his nomination hearing that ” I have been shaped by the experiences of the people who are closest to me, by the things I’ve learned from Martha, by my hopes and my concerns for my children, Philip and Laura, by the experiences of members of my family, who are getting older, by my sister’s experiences as a trial lawyer in a profession that has traditionally been dominated by men. And, of course, I have been shaped for the last 15 years by my experiences as a judge of the court of appeals,” 

6) Justice Alito’s additional point about empathizing with women on the issue of abortion, “Like many, I have thought about this issue of abortion time and again. It is not an easy issue for most people. I thought about the law, the impact of my personal religious beliefs and feelings, I thought about the real lives of people and the tragic experiences of the women I have met,” 

7) And, finally, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous maxim, “the life of the law is not logic but experience.” 

In light of these characterizations of the importance of empathy in a jurist’s intellectual makeup, would you please tell us your view of the relationship between compassion and justice? 

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

No doubt this is too late to temper anything among the loudest-mouthed pundits of the punditocracy, but…

While commentators from both the left and the right have expressed strong opinions about Judge Sotomayor, few have begun to discuss Judge Sotomayor’s actual judicial work. As a result, already, the opinions of opinion-makers are ossifying into unyielding stances based on preference, prejudice, and posturing. I fully expect the judge to be put the ringer by Republican senators as Bush appointees were run through it by Democrats. The process has deteriorated, for certain.

In the meantime, Judge Sotomayor’s record (an analysis here: http://xr.com/drt) appears to be fairly moderate, leaning liberal, certainly, and much in the Souter mold. Conservatives have latched onto two of her public statements on Latina womanhood and the relationship between appellate courts and public policy. These will be easily explained in Senate confirmation hearings because they were expressed in an actual context and that context is necessary to understanding her intent. I’m in favor of her being given the opportunity to make that explanation. Meanwhile, conservatives will find things to admire in the judge’s record (in Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush, for example, she wrote that the government “is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position” ). Liberals won’t appreciate that position.

So if we could have a debate about her published legal opinions and lectures and not about whether or not, as some on this page have already asserted, that she single-handedly represents a packed court of activist judges, a rogue (or is it rouged) judge who rules by girly emotions and reflexive left wing prejudice, and that she’s the newest threat to that historically powerless and disenfranchised population of white men (as in “Viva Latina!”), the sinew of discourse in American democracy and the debate over her appointment will be much improved.

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

North Korea has confounded every American government as far back as the Eisenhower Administration

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.

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

My poetry column for Sunday, May 24, 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

Originally appeared in The Oregonian

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

Paul Gauguin in Beantown

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

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

Obama defends Obama, while Cheney defends Cheney

The president affirmed today the American view that we are at war with al Qaida and that all means of counter-terrorist actions are in play

Symbols: President Obama speaks in a building that houses the United States Constitution, a document that is built on the ideal and dedication “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare,” while former Vice President Cheney addresses the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank dedicated to “strengthening the foundations of freedom–limited government, private enterprise.”

Law: The president sees the Constitution as a window through which to view reality, while the vice president sees the Constitution as a mirror to conform to an ideology. The interpretor is open to compromise; the ideologist is not. That’s one thing that irks both liberals and conservatives about President Obama. To put it politely, he adapts.

Frames of mind: The president calls the terrorists a “nimble enemy,” while the vice president characterizes them as “killers.” Both are judgments. One conceives of political evolution, the other does not.

Weaknesses: The president keeps saying none of this was his fault. He’s the president now. He needs to move beyond that point. But the vice president keeps saying he’s not at fault, that “the interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed.” Cheney’s description is in dispute–and by my analysis, inaccurate and misleading–and there exists public testimony from military interrogators that refutes his claim.

Is there a difference between the two positions on terrorists or Guantanomo? Actually, not much.

The vice president disapproves of the Obama decision to close Guantanamo, but the Bush administration also made it quite clear that its intention was to close Guantanomo. Perhaps the vice president’s viewpoint on this action was rejected during the last administration, but now he’s free to articulate it in public.

The Obama administration is dismantling very little of the Bush anti-terrorist polices, in fact. The vice president says the Obama administration views the conflict with terrorists only as a criminal matter. Not true.

The president affirmed today the American view that we are at war with al Qaida and that all means of counter-terrorist actions are in play, including military and civilian criminal avenues and approaches. In fact, the president and the vice president aren’t the only ones who view the conflict as a state of war. So too do the other branches of government.

The vice president supports holding enemy combatants without trial indefinitely and implies that the president is opposed to this action. Not true.

Two months ago the Obama Justice Department reaffirmed the following power of the president to hold enemy combatants without trial: “The President has the authority to detain persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks. The President also has the authority to detain person who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners….”

The vice president says we only tortured a few prisoners. This could be true but we don’t know. We do know that, for the sake of argument, the few prisoners the vice president describes us torturing were tortured hundreds of times. A rose by any other name…

But the interrogation community today rejects that approach to interrogations, in particular at Guantanomo. Today, nearly half of the prisoners at Guantanomo have voluntarily entered into interrogation. That’s the only way in which an interrogation can occur, in fact. The authorities no longer force interrogations. Why? According to one official, why haul someone into questioning against his will if he’s just going to stare at the floor in silence the whole time?

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

Should Obama change course on GITMO? If not, where should detainees be sent?

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.

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

The credit card (and concealed weapons) bill of 2009: Yea or Nay? Bonus: Are some long-powerful Washington powers no longer so powerful?

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 post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

On a separate issue, denying funding to close Guantanamo

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.

~ ~ ~

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.

~ ~ ~

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.

~ ~ ~

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.

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

Multiple choice: An RNC resolution to rebrand the Democratic Party as “socialist” is: A) Smart politics B) Dumb politics C) A joke

Sometimes in politics… you got to control what you can control

Sometimes in politics when you don’t control power in a major branch of government or even in a legislative body in one branch of government, when you can’t control the agenda anywhere except in the televised political entertainment media, when you can’t win even a parliamentary vote to take a ten-minute potty break, when you can’t set the timelines for debate even in subcommittees, you got to control what you can control. Pretending to rename the majority party, the party of Thomas Jefferson, that is, could be all that you got.

Could be, because whats good for the goose . . . How about the Republican Do Nothing Party, the Republican Know Nothing Party, the Shrinking Republican Party, the Republican Fascist Party, the Republican Nationalist Party, the Provincial Republican Party, the Republican Southern Party, the Republican Anti-Immigrant Party, the Republican Really Darn Frustrated Party . . . ? No. These won’t do either.

Look, for as long as Republicans have held power in the various branches of government in the recent past, our health care has worsened, our energy dependancy has increased, our national security has been threatened, and our economy has sunk into a once-in-a- generation crises. Call Democrat’s policy’s socialism if you want, and that may be what it is. So what? The majority of the electorate wants government to act. To lead.

So, for me at least, the terms “Democratic” and “Republican” or “Liberal” or “Conservative” embody all the meanings that have accrued to them. Special nah-nah-nah adjectives…well, who could be opposed to that?

~ ~ ~

Response from Rory Cooper of the Heritage Foundation

David, this is name-calling disguised as poetic cadence. Now, I know liberals survive in today’s political world purely by poetic cadence, but I expect more here in the Arena. It is acceptable to study policy areas that bear some, but not complete, resemblance to socialist values, i.e. close ties to labor unions, collective ownership, re-distributed wealth and centralized planning. To say someone is socialist in turn may be an academic leap of faith however, I agree. But it is irresponsible for you to in turn throw words like fascism around, since there is no underlying policy debate to tie conservatism to Mussolini or the creation of a single-party anti-capitalist state. In fact, it is intellectually bankrupt.

You mention how national security weakened under Bush. How? How is dismantling the War on Terror in favor of a “contingency operation,” cutting missile defense, and cutting the Pentagon’s overall budget helping our national security? You say the right is anti-immigrant, but fail to mention that we are pro-legal-immigrant. Some people did wait to get here honestly. Or using “Southern” in a negative connotation, as if attacking the hard-working Americans in the South proves some political point? Or that the right is nationalist, as Obama heads to his corner office at GM. Please answer any question with a defense of current policy and not an attack on the last eight years; because there is breaking news, we have a new President.

~ ~ ~

My response

Hi, Rory. The high hackles of your response confirm what I’ve long suspected. You have quite the excessivement sensible side. Welcome to the poet’s ilk. When I mention Republican leadership in “the recent past,” I mean a generation’s worth dating back to Ronald Reagan, not merely the last administration which was just one version of that past.

Rory, it’s a myth to repeat that Republicans create smaller government. The size of government grew during President Reagan’s two terms (something like 7%) and experienced explosive, some might say socialist-like growth, under President George W. Bush’s. That’s the beginning and ending points of some 20 out of 28 years of Republican control of the White House. The 14 years of Republican control of one or both houses of Congress yielded similar growth.

But when I speak of Republicans in relation to today’s question, I speak explicitly of today’s Republicans, not conservatives as a movement, and I wrote just that—a distinction made by political rancantour Rush Limbaugh and others, from William F. Buckley to Grover Norquist (who bandies the fascist label you fret about on today’s Arena even). The point is, I didn’t say conservatives were fascists, nor did I say Republicans are. The catalogue I made was to provoke, to point out the insipid gesture of the Republican National Committee’s “Democrat Socialist” prank. That’s why I self-dismiss the enterprise with the poetic trope of antithesis, writing “No. These won’t do either.”

How did national security weaken under President Bush? We attacked a country that posed no imminent threat to us on the basis of incorrect intelligence and re-seeded anti-Americanism across the globe at the very point in history when the world was empathetic and sympathetic to us on account of 9/11—the very day the Bush administration failed to protect America. Since then, every tortured enemy combatant is an inspiration to jihadists to kill Americans. Is national security stronger under President Obama? To use the conservative talking point: President Obama has kept us safe every day he’s been president.

I don’t fail to mention the obvious about “pro-legal immigrant,” because there’s no one who is not pro-legal immigrant in this country. We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country—many keeping what’s left of our farm economies in operation. You want to personally drive the bus to take them all back across the border along with their children? A comprehensive immigration reform package that includes amnesty provisions is essential to start afresh. Senator McCain’s plan is an acceptable beginning.

I’m attacking Southerners? Now that smarts! I am a Southerner and proud of it. Or more to the point, I’m a Texan. There is a difference. I suppose I had that coming for questioning your faith in government workers the other day. Touche. But the point I make is electoral: the Republican party’s national electoral base predominates in the South. Any electoral gains at the presidential level are going to have to be achieved in other regions of the country, beyond the prairies and into the Rust Belt, and the Southwest—where increasing Hispanic populations are currently trending Democratic.

As for socialism and fascism, the right’s use of the term socialism is in every way intended to connote fascism, the Soviet Union, Red China, what have you—and not, for instance, the economies of Israel or Norway. The right’s use of the term does not come with a footnote that says “don’t confuse socialism with fascism or totalitarianism because they have different dictionary meanings in reality.” The term is meant to frighten and reduce. Many free market capitalists have a genuine opposition to socialist economics, and that’s fine. But that’s not how the word is bandied.

We do have a new president and Democratic majority in Congress. It’s activist, progressive, and liberal, absolutely. It’s not Clinton Lite The other breaking news is that based on the health care leaders’ recent decision to pursue significant cuts in health care (like they couldn’t do it before!), the Chamber of Commerce’s support of major health care reform including a public option, and the auto industry’s support just today of uniform and higher national mileage standards, I’d say that more than just the average working union Jane and Jeff are moving in the direction of working with activist government in the areas of health care and energy. These corporate CEOs, by the way, aren’t moles from some phantom socialist cell. Though they may just be realists who don’t want their seat at the table taken away.

~ ~ ~

Rory Cooper responds

Thanks David. A couple thoughts before I look up ‘excessivement’ in my French-English dictionary: I’m glad you withdrew your comments on fascism, etc although it is entirely likely you are hiding behind a “poetic trope of antithesis” to say what you really mean.

As for immigration, there will be plenty of time for us to consider your position of rewarding illegal activity in the name of economic progress versus strong and safe borders that eliminate that moral dilemma in the first place. And there will be plenty of time for me to argue that automakers were smiling today because they were doing what their CEO (Obama) told them to do, and that a small group of health care lobbyists last week were trying to help make dinner rather than be the dessert. For now, I’m off to the dictionary.

But I especially appreciate your reversal of attitude on fine Southerners, pegging your words as electoral; although you contradict yourself by taking Texas out of the equation which is a strong red state. However, I’m afraid you continue to miss the point on national security. Conservatives don’t hope for the day that America gets attacked so we can have a ‘metric’ to use against Obama. We want to protect America first and foremost. And the current Administration’s policies just won’t work. Now, the typical liberal argument you counter with, that Bush’s post-9/11 policies and wars bred terrorism, is nonsense based on the Spock-like logic that Bin Laden attacked New York pre-9/11. What was he using to recruit then? What encouraged him to attack embassies in Africa, the USS Cole, and the earlier World Trade Center attack? Trying to smile and handshake our way out of this War with extremists will not keep us safe.

~ ~ ~

My response

Rory, little was withdrawn, but I appreciate your change in tone, and I look forward to the debate with you on those terms. 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 to be realists about it because Jihadists don’t need motivation to attack civilians. That’s why the right’s claim of Bush’s policies versus Obama’s is absurdly reductive. Nonetheless, implications that liberals want to weaken the country won’t hunt, and I don’t take them seriously. (We talk like that in Texas and, yes, I can envision a blue Texas, again,  in my lifetime.)

This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

If you were the decider, how would you decide the fate of a Guantanamo detainee?

…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.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

How did Obama do at Notre Dame? What message should Obama deliver to Netanyahu?

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

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

New Format for Take 2: Politics and Policy, and Poetry

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.

Subscribe (RSS) to Take 2

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Is the Rocket Flaming Out?

“How a Man Who Threw Heat Was Consumed by His Own Fire” by Michiko Kakutani

from The New York Times

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Not Playboy, Too

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

follow david on twitter

What’s Google Up To?

“Your Search Returned 12 Million Books” by Farhad Manjoo

from Slate

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Sex on the Brain

“Big Think Presents Sex on the Brain Week”

from Big Think

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

The Sun Will Come Out Today…Not Tomorrow

“Disney’s First Black Princess” by Keith Josef Adkins

from The Root

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Catching Up with California Camelot

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

follow david on twitter

 

You Say Bi-Partisanship, I say Go Screw Yourself

   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:
•  

  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.

• •    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:
    •  

      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:

    • 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.

Hey, Governor Perry, Don’t Mess with Texas

“So Long, Pardner” by Hendrick Hertzberg

from The New Yorker

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

How To Succeed and Start a Business During a Recession

“Big Think’s Guide to Recession Entrepreneurship” by Sean McManus

from Big Think

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Tortured, Part 3

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?

• 

  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.

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.

• 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

• Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

• follow david on twitter

Omit Needless Words

“‘The Elements of Style’” Turns 50″ by Sam Roberts

from The New York Times

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

 

2009 Pulitzer Prizes Awarded

“2009 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music”

from The New York Times

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Tortured, Round 2

 

Cesar Conda

Republican strategist, former Romney and Cheney advisor

 

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.

 

 

• David Biespiel

  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.

  Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

  follow david on twitter

   

Tortured

 

Cesar Conda

Republican strategist, former Romney and Cheney advisor

 

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.”

 

• David Biespiel

  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

  follow david on twitter

   

Who Stole the Mona Lisa?

“Stealing Mona Lisa” by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler

from Vanity Fair

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Coming Home

“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

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Two Duckies: Mr. & Mrs. William F. Buckley

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

follow david on twitter

Bedtime Tonic for Adults: Reading Poetry

“Childhood’s Bedtime Ritual of Poetry Reading Overdue for Adulthood Revival”

From my poetry column in last Sunday’s Oregonian.

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Just for Trekkies

“To Boldly Star” by Krista Smith

from Vanity Fair

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

 

Samuel Beckett’s Letters

“I’ll Go On” by Joseph O’Neill

from The New York Times

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

 

Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen

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

follow david on twitter

 

Opening Day!

“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

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

It’s a Depression

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

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter

Doesn’t Anyone Want To Be Britain’s Next Poet Laureate?

“A Poet Laureate Should Work Harder” by David Lister

from The Independent

Focus on your writing at the Attic Writers’ Workshop

follow david on twitter