Eric Holder… Psychic
The Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, is under fire again after making some ill-advised remarks about how the administration looks at the leadership of trans-national terrorist organizations. The crux of the idiocy seems to have occurred following a question by Republican member of the House.
“Let’s deal with reality,” Holder said. “You’re talking about a hypothetical that will never occur. The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden. He will never appear in an American courtroom. That’s the reality. … He will be killed by us, or he will be killed by his own people so he’s not captured by us. We know that.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34525.html#ixzz0iUHSt6iD
Eric Holder seems to approach this hypothetical with the pompous arrogance of, well, his superior. Simple peons! We know better than to think we could possibly catch Osama alive. Apparently, the Attorney General is not an advocate for looking into serious tensions between the law and security, war-time and peace-time differences in application of law et cetera because he has everything figured out, including the future. His prescience reminds me of The Chili Song by Gary P. Nunn in which a part of the verse goes:
Some people think we’re strange, just a little bit crazy,
Cause we can see tomorrow, yesterday
Apparently, the Obama Administration is beyond having to thinkabout these matters, because they have justice completely figured out. Whereas, those in the Bush Administration who knew justice to be an ever elusive ideal worth striving for because it is the highest component of the soul, actually received the bad rap of being close-minded and Neanderthal-like in their group-think, despite that fact that the so-called “Torture Memos” were the rich pontifications of such matters as they pertain to law, war and peace. I like how an Administration like Obama’s, that so publicly lashed out at the previous administration for Water-Boarding, is content with just killing Osama bin Laden without a trial as long as it gets Eric Holder out of question and answer time with Congress.
What’s good is that my lady Liz Cheney and her Keep America Safeorganization is already holding Holder accountable for his testimony. Debra Burlingame was quoted in Politico:
“Putting Charlie Manson in a civilian court didn’t endanger any intelligence secrets,” Debra Burlingame, a member of the Keep America Safe Board of Directors, told Politico. “When he draws analogies like that, that’s when he loses people. It appears as if he doesn’t know we’re at war.”
Furthermore, General McChrystal had to come out and assure people that their intention was to capture Osama so that they can extrapolate intelligence (I guess by asking pretty please) and track down the other members in the network and prevent future plots.
What needs to be addressed, however, is the fact that Eric Holder should not be asked what he plans on doing with Osama bin Laden when he’s caught, because that is not Eric Holder’s place. The nation is at war, and if Osama were captured, I would expect him to receive a tribunal like any other enemy combatant.
-rj
God Help Me. I Agree With Kennedy…
…now granted, there are myriad ways I agreed with John F. Kennedy (and many where we disagreed); there were not very many instances where I agreed with the old “Liberal Lion” though and let’s face it, his son Patrick is a bit of a tool. Let’s just say, if he asked me to go for a joy ride in his Mustang Convertible, I would kindly take a rain-check.
But Patrick Kennedy did something yesterday, that I believe deserves bi-partisan support. He went after the media for turning our Federal government into a circus show, 24/7, and perpetuating the belief that Congress is nothing more than an episode of Maury in expensive suits. And the media is guilty of the charges that were levied against them.
He’s right. How many of our nation’s bravest men and women have laid down their lives in far away places, only to have their memories passed over because the press finds sexual harassment and “world’s ugliest dog” far more interesting? And this is by no means, a liberal or conservative issue: news organizations with a favorable sway towards either ideological camp are guilty of this, even though I find FoxNews and MSNBC to be the worst offenders.
Congressman Kennedy and I may part ways on every political issue under the sun, and we even disagree with what the objective of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, I believe the impassioned monologue he delivered yesterday should speak to all Americans and remind them that the most important issues are those that have to do with our security and the security of our men and women overseas. So what Massa might be gay (a topic unworthy of discussion, as I cannot imagine someone going on Larry King Live and having the Crypt Keeper on that show hammering them on whether or not that guest is straight … hard hitting indeed) and he may be a nutjob for lack of a better term; there are more important things out there to be talking about. But many people in the news media wouldn’t know, because they are just as seperated from everyday Americans as politicians are.
-rj
No John Adams: Weekly Standard Defends Liz and KAS
This was posted at Draft Liz Cheney earlier:
One of the main points that Liz Cheney and Keep America Safe critics have been using in their attacks on the “Al Qaeda 7” video is that John Adams represented British soldiers after the Boston Massacre. Well Thomas Joscelyn at The Weekly Standard has a phenomenal piece explaining why these two similar situations seperated by over 200 years of history, are actually very dissimilar when the facts are actually taken into account:
The conservative critics argue that the lawyers’ work on behalf of detainees is a strictly noble pursuit. They point to John Adams’ representation of British soldiers after the Boston massacre as evidence that the lawyers are simply the heirs of a longstanding and honorable legal process. The comparison is absurd for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that Adams did not represent America’s enemies during an actual war, as the lawyers in question have.
But the Times article also ends with this:David Remes, a lawyer who represents 18 detainees, said in a telephone interview from Guantánamo that the deeper point of the attack on the lawyers was political.
The goal, Mr. Remes suggested, “was to make the Obama administration and the Justice Department even more gun-shy than they are on Guantánamo issues.”
What do the conservative lawyers think of David Remes?
He is no John Adams.
Please go read the rest of the piece! The plot thickens, trust me.
-rj
Defending the Indefensible? Liz, McCarthy(s) and the GWOT
An old charge has been brought back from the grave and used against members of Keep America Safe, the political action committee dedicated to ensuring America’s benevolent hegemony abroad, as well as her safety at home. The PAC was started by William Kristol, son of the late (great) Irving Kristol; Elizabeth Cheney (daughter of Dick Cheney); and Debra Burlingame, “sister of Charles F. ‘Chic’ Burlingame, III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.” It would behoove us to keep in mind the effort that critics of KAS take in singling out only Kristol and Cheney in their attacks. Let’s be clear however, that members of both the Right and Left are calling all three Founders “McCarthy-ites” when they levy these charges of “fear-mongering” and borderline Neo-Nazism.
What’s funny, is that being called a McCarthyite is extraordinarily mild compared to the perpetual reduction ad Hitlerum the left consistently employs against National Security Conservatives. While Washington Post editorial columnist Jonathan Capehart dares not tread past the label “fear-mongering” in his quaint and insipid blog post about the matter of “The Al-Qaeda 7,” one of the members of his amen corner dares tread where… well, most liberals dare to tread:
The Rabid Reichwingers like Lizzy Borden Cheney, and Dick Adolf Cheney, are liken to Vampires. Once they get a taste of BLOOD, they want more.
They know by attacking these Lawyers, that their Reichwing Minions will pressure any Lawyer who would dare defend the Terrorist.
They assume everyone’s as Ignorant as their Minions, and won’t remeber all the court cases doing the Bush Error, concerning Terrorist.
In reality the real Terrorist America should be concern with are people like Lizzy B. Cheney and the ever increasing “RABID REICH”.
(Spelling mistakes in the original, due in part to modern liberal education I assume)
Andrew Sullivan also falls into the old reduction ad Hitlerum a number of times, one instance being his 2007 rant against President Bush’s enhanced interrogations. How depressing, that an erudite student of Dr. Harvey Mansfield would resort to such empty hyperbole. But I digress.
So liberals like to associate Republicans with a political party responsible for the extermination of twelve million plus fellow human beings; all of a sudden being called a McCarthyite doesn’t sting as bad. One of these days, it is my hope that being called a Neo-Nazi, a Klansmen, a McCarthyist, et cetera will ring hollow, like the heads from whence they were spoken. I guess this makes me an idealist.
The fury is over a recent KAS add which addresses the hiring of nine attorneys in the Department of Justice, who also happened to have represented suspected terrorists in the past. This matter is a bit unnerving for some as I am sure the ACLU would not be so inclined as to hire, say, Robert Bork; or how about the Southern Poverty law Center giving jobs to a handful of lawyers who represented Aryan Nations, the Klan, or real Neo-Nazis. Does that mean that those people should not be hired? Of course not, and by now anyone who has been keeping up with the news has heard all of the historical anecdotes where good Americans represented clients who went against America’s principles in the name of justice in the rule of law. The most famous example being reiterated is that of John Adams’ representation of the English soldiers who opened fire on a crowd of Colonialists in Boston, Massachusetts in 1770.
The main point, however, is not that the Department of Justice hired people who used to represent suspected terrorists. Perhaps this entire issue would have been avoided if Eric Holder, the Attorney general, had just given the names to the Senate back in November 2009 when they requested further information on the matter, as Marc Thiessen points out in the Washington Post:
In November, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Holder a letter requesting that he identify officials who represented terrorists or worked for organizations advocating on their behalf, the cases and projects they worked on before coming to the Justice Department, the cases and projects they’ve worked on since joining the administration, and a list of officials who have recused themselves because of prior work on behalf of terrorist detainees.
Holder stonewalled for nearly three months. Finally, two weeks ago, he admitted that nine political appointees in the Justice Department had represented or advocated for terrorist detainees, but he failed to identify seven whose names were not publicly known or to directly answer other questions the senators posed. So Keep America Safe, a group headed by Liz Cheney, posted a Web ad demanding that Holder identify the “al-Qaeda seven,” and a subsequent Fox News investigation unearthed the names. Only under this public pressure did the Justice Department confirm their identities — but Holder still refuses to disclose their roles in detention policy.
Andrew McCarthy also addresses the issue:
Only our terrorist enemies get the red carpet treatment. “Enemies” in this context is not hyperbole. We are at war under a congressional authorization. Nearly 200,000 young Americans are in harm’s way. But enemy operatives are returning to their jihad against our troops and our citizens thanks to the help of American law firms. Only lawyers demand immunity from the ordinary duties of citizenship in a nation at war. And they further demand to be above criticism for donating their skills to al Qaeda operatives (though American prisoners must represent themselves in habeas corpus actions). The profession would reinterpret “patriotism” in total relativism: some risk their lives to fight the enemy for us, while others litigate so the enemy may be freed to return to the fight. Americans are not buying – that’s why Liz Cheney’s common sense resonates.
As for Jonathan Capehart and the sycophantic left, I look forward to their confrontations with their peers about the way they treated Bush Administration lawyers who meticulously explored the issue of torture, enhanced interrogations, the War on Terror, and the law. That was exactly what lawyers like John Yoo, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and other lawyers did when they wrote what are considered the ‘nefarious torture memos’ now. Writing in-depth analysis into the heart and soul of security and the law warranted harassment by the fringe left at their private residences and even possible criminal indictments from Congress.
In the end, Senator Grassley, Liz Cheney, Keep America Safe, and FoxNews were asking their government a question regarding the most important issue facing our Federal government. This should be an issue that Conservatives and some libertarian-leaning friends can unite around, considering both consider the Federal government’s central role to be protecting citizens. We have a right to ask questions regarding our safety; and the Obama Administration has a right to not answer us. But don’t get your panties in a bunch when you get called out for promising transparency, and again fail to deliver on your campaign promise. It’s politics. Grow up.
-rj
Saturday Ramblings
We survived the week, and our feet are firmly placed on that oasis of time surrounded by five day long treks on both sides: the weekend! Usually we are fairly hard-nosed here at thelobbyist, and for good reason because politics and culture are hard things to deal with. However, I want to use this brief moment to look at some lighter sides of life, just to prove to our readers that if you thought we did not have lives before, your opinions are about to be confirmed!
First and foremost, we are excited for this coming week here at thelobbyist! We put a lot of blood, sweat, tears and coffee and Mountain Dew into our work; our recent project will be no exception. Stay tuned!
Secondly, Lacrosse season has started. For those who played… ’nuff said!
Third, I do not speak on behalf of everyone here when I say Beat The Hell Outta texas. Texas A&M vs texas basketball game at two o’clock. As my snobby D-I friends are always quick to point out, no I did not attend A&M. But then again, neither did they. So what do I care…
Finally, I have taken it unto myself to try and sway Liz Cheney into the political arena on a more official capacity. Draft Liz Cheney Blog is up and running, my own private endeavour, because there are some people who don’t share my sentiments on the matter. We can’t all be right I suppose.
Happy Saturday
-rj
Greece-ing the Skids Toward Dependency
On my drive from work, I was listening to a snippet of NPR where they were discussing the current economic apocalypse in Greece that Glenn Beck warned in his CPAC speech would occur here. There have been riots in the streets as the Greek government desperately seeks to find ways of ameliorating their budgetary boondoggle. They are of course frustrated by a plethora of failings and attempted fixes as reported by The Globe and Mail:
Greece will need to cut spending – by 10 per cent of GDP over 10 years – while raising revenue and cracking down on its untaxed black-market economy, which counts for as much as a third of all financial activity in the country. This combination could provoke further unrest, and may foretell similar tensions in Italy and Portugal.
If Greece’s crisis and accompanying political unrest were an isolated case, it might be more manageable, but this week the turmoil seemed to spread across the belly of Europe.
On Tuesday, Spain’s cities were shut down by unionized workers protesting its left-wing government’s plan to raise the retirement age to 67 and cut spending in order to deal with its own serious fiscal situation.
Spain has debt of 54 per cent of GDP and a deficit of more than 11 per cent, plus unemployment levels that approach 20 per cent and a housing-market collapse.
What struck me during the NPR report was their emphasis on the retirement age being raised while benefits are to head in the opposite direction in Greece; and at the same time, the story according to The Globe and Mail is that Greece is going to be taking similar steps.
Riots are occurring in the streets because the government is controlling the retirement benefits of the citizenry. Scary.
I was listening to the February 23rd edition of Mark Levin (I do the free podcast a day later while I run, God bless him for making his show free and available) where he talked about being at the mercy of the government. As these people in Europe see themselves: at the mercy of their government. “Please sir, can I have some more?” Where is the dignity and the honor? I work in a place where I see the day to day sufferings of people who find themselves dependent on a government that only knows of their existence based on a number in a database. Is this what we want? To have to go to the government, to Social Security, to your Congress-persons’ offices, to Medicare, and beg for money to exist?
Tocqueville once lamented about the coming age of rational control. We look at a leviathan to take away the “pain of thinking” and the “agony of living” as Dr. Mansfield once recounted. What needs to be explained to people, is that a dependency on government does nothing of the sort! The people dependent on government might have purged the “pain of thinking” from their lives, but they continue to live in agony as their life is no longer at the will of him or her self or even Providence, but of boards, panels and case workers… How long after Health Care gets passed (should we be so unfortunate) before we are rioting in the streets because we have found ourselves in government bondage?
-rj
What Can Brown Do For You?
It hurts, I know. For the countless Conservatives and Tea Partiers who helped Scott Brown’s campaign make history, those who donated money from all around these United States (like the $348,000 spent by the Tea Party Express in California for a Scott Brown TV ad), those Republican operatives who boarded the buses here in DC and trekked northward into enemy territory to knock on doors: I cannot offer you and yours much comfort in my words. Actions speak louder than words, and Conservatives, Libertarians and Tea Partiers seem to be uniting for the first time this year due to Senator Brown’s recent actions.
It sucks; and nobody wanted to think this was going to be the case because as Glenn Beck said during his closing speech at CPAC, “it’s not enough for Republicans to just suck less than the other side.”
What led us to this unfortunate quandary was the Senator’s recent vote against the filibuster for Senator Harry Reid’s Jobs Bill. This will allow the Bill to reach a final vote in the Senate Wednesday. His actions earned him praise from Maryland Democrat and Representative Steny Hoyer, which is the equivalent of Dallas Cowboys picking up L.T. and having Dan Snyder applaud the move as “great.” It has also earned him some malicious scorn on his Facebook page and office phone lines; and a bit of criticism here at thelobbyist as well.
Sen. Brown was probably pacing back and forth with his home state sticking to his shoes before returning to DC for votes this week. He was probably taking a lot of information in about the problems facing Massachusetts, particularly unemployment which increased from 8.7% to 9.4% (November – December 2009), a considerable increase especially when compared to the rest of the United States. All the while, Massachusetts’ Unemployment Insurance benefits have dipped $41.9 million into the red.
I am not endorsing Senator Brown’s actions, nor am I even excusing them. It is imperative that the Republican Party experience an eureka moment where they do not treat people who are for limited domestic influence by federal government as the fringe. Can’t there be someone who can moderately explain why limited government involvement on the federal level is a good idea for the entire country? Isn’t this where Reagan reigned supreme? At the same time, can’t Tea Partiers, Conservatives and some Libertarians also come to accept that a Republican in Massachusetts will not be an exact replica of a Texas Republican, or a Carolina Republican?
I am just asking for everyone to hold tight I guess. I know we made Scott Brown into this last best hope, and I do not think that his voting in favor of this particular jobs bill shows us anything we really should not have already expected: Scott Brown is a Republican. Not a Tea Partier, not particularly Conservative, and certainly not a libertarian. Does this make him a RINO? No… he is still a Republican and can still help us keep the $1 Trillion government slow-roll take-over of healthcare. That means a lot more to me right now than the $14-40 Billion jobs bill. Let’s not burn our bridge just yet, and keep our eyes on the prize.
-rj
Rep. Pence @ CPAC
Representative Mike Pence came to the blogger’s lounge at CPAC for an impromptu interview session. Key points:
1. Representative Pence says he WILL NOT run for the Presidency in 2012, he is focusing his efforts on being a Representative and serving his constituents. While we are aware that a lot of people state they will not run for the Oval Office matter-of-factly; Dustin pointed out during our encounter with the Representative that he is making his way to the Speaker’s Office…
2. Representative Pence spoke briefly about Representative Ryan’s “Road map” and referred to it as “his (Paul Ryan’s) Road map” as opposed to any sort of collective Republican road map. He admits there are some things that he would do differently.
3. Representative Pence gave his prediction for 2010… What are our chances of gaining the House this year? Representative Pence says 100%
-rj
Charlie Wilson’s War
Anyone who has a relationship with the state of Texas and her people, knows that a) Texas is a special state and b) she has within her borders, special people. I mean this with all seriousness. I remember Dr. Harvey Mansfield’s 2007 Lecture on the Humanities in which he uses Lyle Lovett’s “You’re Not From Texas” to help show honor’s relationship with thumos.
Lyle Lovett has a song “You’re not from Texas” that ends like this: “That’s right you’re not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway.” Lyle teaches us the central problem of multiculturalism: if it’s so important to come from Texas, how can Texas want you if you’re not? Those of us not from Texas have to live with the shame of it, rather doubtful that Texas wants us anyway. For with honor goes the shame of dishonor.
Everything’s Bigger in Texas is how the saying goes. A telling statement about the soul of the people who inhabit the state. There is a spirit that there be told, of people who can have so much energy and perhaps more thumos than citizens of any other state, while at the same time the same people are more than willing to pull their cars (or old trucks) over and onto the shoulder so you can pass on a narrow two-lane country road. People don’t do that often in many other states. How can someone with a “If you can read this, roll me over” bumper sticker and gun rack be so overt about their spirited manliness, while at the same time demonstrating humility by pulling over and acknowledging that you are going faster than they? The two don’t mix, or so we should think.
Only a state like Texas, could produce a man like former Representative Charles Wilson. Charlie Wilson was a larger than life figure, The Liberal from Lufkin, who entered politics to get back at the man who killed his dog. Charlie Wilson’s story was brought to the younger folks of my generation in the form of (alas!) a movie staring Tom Hanks (with my personal favorite, Amy Adams, in a supporting role) which told how the extravagant Mr. Wilson became engulfed in Afghanistan’s battle for freedom against the Soviet Union. At the end of the movie, Charlie Wilson is quoted as saying:
“Those things happened and they were glorious, and then we fucked up the end game.”
It was true then, and continues to be true for us in Afghanistan today. Charlie passed away Wednesday, after battling heart problems for the better part of two decades. Goodbye to the Liberal from Lufkin, I’ll be having a few glasses for him tonight.
-rj
Reflect and Give Thanks
The District of Columbia and surrounding the surrounding states of Virginia and Maryland just survived one of the worst snowstorms in recorded history. As a result, the Federal government has been shut down Monday, and will be shut down Tuesday. What’s even better, the National Weather Service is placing DC and surrounding areas under a Winter Weather Warning. We might be able to count on the Federal government taking a week long vacation, as well as Washington’s Birthday this coming Monday.
I once proclaimed aloud the fact that the government wasn’t getting anything done some time ago, in front of my friend, who was quick to inform me that perhaps it was for the better. This is most certainly one of those times. Let’s all give thanks to the Winter gods (likely Norse) for the past, and future snow, as well as the Federal government taking a time-out. Hopefully, decision makers in the Federal government are taking this time for some reflection, and are thankfully incapacitated from doing more damage. I was once told that “idle hands are the Devil’s playthings;” but when it comes to this Congress and President, I believe that the opposite holds true.
-rj
