President Obama, leading with maturity and understanding

By Mustang Bobby 

Andrew Sullivan marvels at President Obama's ability to handle a very tense situation with coolness and reflection.

No other president could have said what Obama said on Friday afternoon with similar authority. What was striking to me was the tone of acute sadness – a tone others could have used after what was, under any interpretation, a tragedy. And then there was the fact that this first black president, even after such a polarizing incident, spoke to all Americans, white and black. I cannot fathom how some on the knee-jerk right could have seen this as a divisive set of comments – just as I cannot quite fathom how this president is capable of controlling and channeling his own emotions.

What he tried to do was explain to white America how it must feel like to be perpetually deemed guilty before being proven innocent just because of your age, gender and the color of your skin. He didn’t deny the facts of the Martin case; he didn't dispute the jury's decision; he didn't dismiss legitimate issues like the toll of gun violence within the young black male population – but he did insist that we all understand the context, the history, and the reason, behind the anguish and anger of many African-American men and parents and boys. What he was asking for was some mutual empathy.

To answer his point about the knee-jerk right seeing this as divisive, it was a given; Sean Hannity and the rest of the people at Fox News and other such places would have had the same reaction if the president had come out and given his mother's recipe for beef stew.  Their response to anything he says is programmed far in advance. He speaks like Martin Luther King, they hear Malcolm X.

Read more »

Forgiving torture

By Frank Moraes 

I am often reminded that I'm not a very nice person. Most recently, this came to mind because Jonathan Bernstein wrote at PostPartisan, "How Do We Keep from Torturing Again?" This is coming off the Constitution Project report stating unequivocally that after 9/11, the United States, as a matter of government policy, tortured people in our custody. As I reported in an update to that story, Andrew Sullivan has called for a truth commission or something similar to address this unacceptable behavior.

Bernstein said much the same thing, but with a political scientist's eye: the only way we can prevent future episodes of government torture is to admit what we did. We can't be a nation where one party is against torture and the other is for it. In fact, that is exactly what we now have for reasons that should be clear to readers of this site. But this gets to the point about my not being a nice person. Bernstein wrote:

I've argued -- against many torture opponents -- that a Truth Commission, combined with blanket pardons and generous expressions of understanding for those who were responsible, as odious as what they did was, is actually the best way to proceed.

I think he is right, and yet I have trouble offering those generous expressions of understanding. But it isn't because I'm not forgiving -- I am very forgiving. It is just that I remain resentful as long as the wrongdoer does not admit his error. I think most people are like this.

Read more »

America tortured after 9/11

By Michael J.W. Stickings and Frank Moraes 

MJWS:

I highly recommend reading the report, or at least as much of it as you can, particularly the "Statement of the Task Force" and "Findings and Recommendations" -- that will take you just to page 25. Much of the rest is an extraordinarily detailed account of detainee treatment. The statement includes this:

The events examined in this report are unprecedented in U.S. history. In the course of the nation's many previous conflicts, there is little doubt that some U.S. personnel committed brutal acts against captives, as have armies and governments throughout history.

But there is no evidence there had ever before been the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after September 11, directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.

In other words, what happened was historically awful. Which makes it even more unacceptable, and unjust, that the enablers, architects, and practitioners of America's massive post-9/11 torture regime have yet to be held to account for their crimes.

**********

FM:

It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture. That's not what I say; that's according to the nonpartisan, independent review conducted by The Constitution Project and released, as a 577-page report, yesterday.

I understand that a group with a name like "The Constitution Project" sounds like it's filled with a bunch of libertarian and pacifists who are outside the political mainstream. But that isn't really the case. It is a think tank that tries to bring the left and right of the political spectrum together to agree on constitutional matters. And the eleven members of panel were well represented by the two major parties. What's more, as Scott Shane of The New York Times explained, "[i]t is the most ambitious independent attempt to date to assess the detention and interrogation programs."

What is most significant about the report is that it is so unequivocal. When Dianne Feinstein et al, wrote their letter criticizing the film Zero Dark Thirty, they were careful never to use the word "torture." This is because, according the United States government, we never tortured anyone. Of course, this is just a semantic game: you say "torture," I say "enhanced interrogation techniques"; let's call the whole thing off?

Read more »

Andrew Sullivan doesn't like Obama anymore

By Frank Moraes

You may remember Andrew Sullivan. He is a conservative Obama supporter. And after the first presidential debate, Sullivan had a very public freak out. That was understandable, a lot of liberals were similarly concerned, although he was much more ridiculous than most.

Now that Sullivan has got the president he wanted, Sullivan apparently thinks that Obama shouldn't do anything as rash as govern on his campaign promises. In a blog post yesterday, he writes, "Meeting In The Middle." In it, he quotes Ezra Klein and Michael Tomasky, basically saying the same thing: it is good to see that Obama has learned how to negotiate. Tomasky writes, "If the White House had instead yesterday offered a modest set of specific entitlement cuts and domestic spending cuts, that would have started the negotiations on GOP turf, since those are the two things the GOP wants."

Exactly!

But Sullivan thinks this is all wrong:

But he just got re-elected. It's a classic time for magnanimity -- and yet he began the critical negotiations by poking the defeated GOP in the eye. This is not the new politics. It's the old partisanship. I hope it works. I fear it won't.

Read more »

Another win for Newt: Observations while not live-blogging tonight's Republican debate in South Carolina

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm not live-blogging, but I'm watching closely, with another eye on American Idol, on this perhaps the most important day of the 2012 Republican presidential race so far.

Quick impression: Newt, as expected, is doing exceptionally well, while Romney, as usual, is playing what in football would be the most preventative of prevent defences, doing everything he can to avoid a gaffe, saying nothing of substance, resorting to his usual talking points, most of them ridiculously anti-Obama (his default position to deflect attention away from his own positions and appeal to the anti-Obama right) being anything but a persuasive, dynamic leader -- anything but genuinely presidential and more like some sort of presidential caricature as performed by some sort of robot programmed by aliens who base their understanding of what is presidential on two-dimensional stereotypes.

(UPDATE: Here are my grades for the debate -- In a vacuum, Santorum (A-) won. But Newt (B+) did what he had to do to keep his surge going and to deflect attention away from Marianne and his even worse past than we thought. Romney (C) was typically mediocre and unimpressive. Paul (B-) was okay but seems less and less relevant. In the end, Newt was the winner if only because he will benefit the most from a strong performance.)

I'm also following Andrew Sullivan, who is doing some very fine live-blogging tonight (as usual). Here are a few of his finer observations, in reverse chronological order, with my comments in blue italics.

-- "Why can't Romney once - just once - directly answer the question asked, instead of insisting on saying what he wants to say first? It's deeply irritating and underlines his too-polished, too arrogant affect. And then he forgets even what the actual question was in the first place. Then he segues into a bizarre attack on Newt's relationship with Reagan. He lost it back there. It's his worst performance yet - at the very moment he needs to deliver his best." (It was just Romney being Romney. What else is new?) (9:00 pm)

-- "Buzzfeed says that Newt won the debate in the first five minutes. There's still some time to go but that's my impression as well. Romney is being flattened tonight. Santorum's brutal, relentless attacks, Newt's ccontempt, Paul's jocular indifference... they all contrast with classic, mindless robo-speak from Mr Plastic." (That's a shorter way of saying what I said above: "classic, mindless robo-speak.") "Now Gingrich has ambushed him on his tax returns. This is what South Carolina always does. It's sometimes necessary to look away before the feeding frenzy ends. But the result is always bloody. Romney's sinking. He's sinking." (But will he sink far enough for Newt to win on Saturday? With such a decisive win here, there's hardly any doubt the Newt surge will continue. But what about the Marianne G. interview later? That could quickly derail his astonishing comeback.) (8:48 pm)

-- "A classic Gingrich phrase: 'Mildly amazing.' Classic passive aggression from the 'shy boy' who's now so angry he explodes spontaneously. Then Newt tickles the Southern g-spot, by saying that his debating Obama will be a battle between 'knowledge' and a 'TelePrompTer.' I don't think Newt realizes how his contempt and condescension toward Obama is riddled with racism." (He recoils in horror and then lashes out whenever he's faced with the racism charge, but he has a long record of this sort of racially-charged rhetoric.) (8:44 pm)

-- "Santorum hones his manufacturing working class economic chops in a very deft and indrect criticism of Romney's kind of capitalism. A very effective performance. They're all on tonight, it seems. But Gingrich's spirited, angry, anti-media rant at the start towers over the rest. (Yes, Santorum has been typically strong: confident and coherent. But I'm just not sure it matters anymore. At this point, unless Newt completely tanks as a result of the Marianne interview tonight, all Santorum will be doing by staying in the race is dividing the anti-Romney vote and hindering Gingrich's chances of knocking off the frontrunner. Still, while I don't agree with him on, well, on anything, I've got to credit him with an impressive performance ever since he surged up the polls pre-Iowa. He has way too much baggage, but if he'd been seen as a serious contender much earlier in the race, he might have been a potent conservative alternative to Romney, everything Perry and Bachmann were not.) (8:30 pm)

-- "Gingrich is on a roll - rattling off a list of South Carolina issues, including the port of Charleston. Then he quickly and effectively summarizes a core case against the dodgy practices of Bain Capital. Romney then tries to avoid answering the direct question about Bain and seems to conflate 'crony capitalism' with Democrats' relationships with the union. He does not address the core issue of how you make millions off bankrupting companies." (I don't see the Bain attacks hurting Romney all that much in the GOP primaries, given that he can position himself as a successful capitalist and where there is little concern for the poor and disadvantaged, or for income inequality, or for justice, but this could come back to haunt him in the general election, with independents particularly.) (8:20 pm)

-- "Newt's response to the open marriage is turned into a tour de force against the media. He calls John King's questions 'as close to despicable as I can imagine.' The crowd loves it. The first response as to whether he wanted to talk about it: 'No, but I will.' Perfect. Then he rounds on King and gets another standing ovation. I think he may have won the primary tonight with that response." (You knew this was coming, and I wrote about it earlier: Newt always tries to turn the tables by going after the media.) (8:12 pm)

The wildest day of the campaign so far keeps exceeding expectations. And we still have the interview to come. Crazy.

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Republican "dickishness"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've got to hand it to Andrew Sullivan. I may not always agree with him (and his small 'c' conservatism), but he's immensely quotable and, when it comes to what's wrong with American conservatism and the Republican Party, is right on:

What we've observed these past two years is a political party that knows nothing but scorched earth tactics, cannot begin to see any merits in the other party's arguments, refuses to compromise one inch on anything, and has sought from the very beginning to do nothing but destroy the Obama presidency. I see no other coherent message or strategy since 2008. Just opposition to everything, zero support for a president grappling with a recession their own party did much to precipitate, and facing a fiscal crisis the GOP alone made far worse with their spending in the Bush-Cheney years. There is not a scintilla of responsibility for their past; not a sliver of good will for a duly elected president. Worse, figures like Cantor and McCain actively seek to back foreign governments against the duly elected president of their own country, and seek to repeal the signature policy achievement of Obama's first two years, universal healthcare.

Read the whole post.

"Politics as total war" and the state of American conservatism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This, from Andrew Sullivan, is a fantastic overview of how the right is conducting itself these days:

When Andrew Breitbart offers $100,000 for a private email list-serv archive, essentially all bets are off. Every blogger or writer who has ever offered an opinion is now on warning: your opponents will not just argue against you, they will do all they can to ransack your private life, cull your email in-tray, and use whatever material they have to unleash the moronic hounds of today's right-wing base.

Yes, the Economist was right. This is not about transparency, or hypocrisy. It's about power. And when you are Andrew Breitbart, power is all that matters. There is not a whit of thoughtfulness about this, not an iota of pretense that it might actually advance the conversation about how to deal with, say, a world still perilously close to a second Great Depression, a government that is bankrupt, two wars that have been or are being lost, an energy crisis that is also threatening our planet's ecosystem, and a media increasingly incapable of holding the powerful accountable.

Meanwhile, the GOP leaders, having done all they can to destroy a presidency by obstructing everything and anything he might do or have done to address the crippling problems bequeathed him by his predecessor, are now also waging a scorched earth battle to prevent the working poor from having any real access to affordable health insurance.

This is what the right now is: no solutions, just anger, paranoia, insecurity and partisan hatred. 

I quote Andrew's entire post -- it's that good.

He's right on the mark here, on everything. If there's one thing he understands, as a conservative himself (in a non-American sort of way), it's conservatism (and those who call themselves conservatives). (Just look at his ongoing deconstruction of Sarah Palin -- a brilliant effort.)

I have certainly disagreed with Andrew in the past, many times and on many issues, but it's this sort of acute, big-picture analysis that makes him an essential voice in the blogosphere, and a must-read.

Quote of the Day

By Creature

"Watching this paper die a sad a sordid death as it gathers a gaggle of neocon sycophants and has-beens around a proud war criminal like Cheney is truly depressing." -- Andrew Sullivan, on the demise of The Washington Post.

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on "Big Babyism"

By Creature

"What you have here is big babyism. After the worst downturn in memory, bequeathed a massive and growing debt, two failing wars, a financial sector threatening to bring down the entire economy, Obama has betrayed this person by preventing a Second Great Depression." -- Andrew Sullivan, in response to an independent's absurd Obama complaint (which -- thanks to a feckless messaging machine -- has become conventional wisdom).

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Rick Warren and Uganda's anti-gay legislation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I posted yesterday on the "Anti-Homosexuality Bill" currently working its way through Uganda's Parliament. It's a despicable piece of legislation that, if enacted, would impose life imprisonment and even capital punishment for gays.

The legislator who intoduced the bill, David Bahati, is a member of "The Family," an American right-wing theocratic group closely connected to some high-ranking Republicans in Washington, while another man behind the bill is Martin Ssempa, a minister who wants to "kick sodomy out of Uganda" and who is closely connected to popular American evangelist Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life, among other books, and the man who, much to the chagrin of many of us, gave the invocation at Obama's inauguration.

Warren is refusing to take a position on the Ugandan legislation -- "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides." -- but it's pretty clear where he stands, which is firmly against not just same-sex marriage but even basic human and civil rights for homosexuals, and his non-interference dodge here is simply disgusting. Here's Andrew Sullivan rightly tearing him to shreds:

This is an act of terror and murder against an already beleaguered minority, and Warren is an accessory to it. As a powerful figure in distributing AIDS funding in Uganda, he cannot bring himself to oppose a law that would condemn someone in a gay relationship to death, and imprison him or her for touching another human being, and inciting a wave of informing on family members and friends and acquaintances in order to terrify a sexual minority. This alleged man of God cannot speak out on this - except to protect his own p.r. His schtick of actually being the nice evangelical -- a schtick that got him to Obama's inauguration -- is a lie. If he cannot condemn this fascist act of violence against a tiny minority of vulnerable human beings, then his position in this struggle is clear enough.

*****

He lies. He has taken sides, whenever possible, to stigmatize, demonize and now physically threaten the lives of gay people in his own country and abroad. And his silence on this issue means the deaths of others. Warren needs to come out and condemn this law as evil, which it is. And to stop hiding his own enmeshment with the most virulent forms of fundamentalist hatred under the veil of media-savvy benevolence.

Yes, this bestselling author, this hugely popular public figure, this "alleged man of God," is essentially a bigoted thug out to protect his clean image, off which he profits mightily, while fighting his battles through surrogates at home and abroad. This whole episode tells you pretty much all you need to know about him.

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Obama

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Like Andrew Sullivan, I remain fairly "bullish" on Obama, despite my own rather significant reservations. He makes a good case:

I think Obama's handling of the economic crisis has been about as good as it reasonably gets; I think his handling of Iran is equally adroit; I find his relentless emphasis on reality in Afghanistan a good sign; I suspect the only way to get health insurance reform is the way he has attempted; I think the stimulus was necessary and sufficient; and I think unemployment will be coming down when he runs for re-election. On those issues I differ with him on -- accountability for war crimes and civil rights -- I can see the cool and cunning logic of his moves so far. The depth and complexity of the problems he faces remain immense. Perhaps he will prove incapable of surmounting them. But his persistence matters here. And we are not yet a year in.

Well, it's not all that good -- his failure adequately to address "accountability for war crimes and civil [and specifically gay] rights" continues to be a major blight on his record, and I'm not terribly happy with a Wall Street bailout run by some of the very people (Geithner, Summers) who caused the problem, and profited from the disease, in the first place, and I think he could do more on climate change, among other issues, but, overall, I tend to agree with Andrew that, for the most part, "he is on the right path." I'm just not "absurdly confident" about it.

Obama has done remarkably well, all things considered, but there's a lot more to be done.

Sarah Palin, lying her way to a bestseller

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For those of who who think Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue, won't be an egomaniacal, self-glorifying diatribe of dishonesty, make sure to check out Andrew Sullivan's handy list, reposted, of some of her most glaring lies. (I first linked to it here, back in the summer.)

"Sarah Palin" and "lies" go hand-in-hand here at The Reaction. For our past posts, see here.

(Oh, and the McCain people aren't terribly amused either. Looks like she may not be telling the whole truth, to put it mildly, in what is sure to be an instant bestseller.)

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on religious extremism and the Fort Hood massacre

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Given how little we know, it is ridiculous, as Joe Lieberman did, to call the Fort Hood massacre a "terrorist attack." (It seems to have been an act of violence, not terror, as the point was not to terrorize, or necessarily to act to effect political change, which suggests the creation of abject fear beyond the act itself. Still, it's clear we don't really know yet what it was. At the very least, it is premature, and somewhat irresponsible, given how freely the word is thrown around post-9/11, to call it terrorism.) On the flip side, it is ridiculous to claim, as some have (such as James Fallows), that the attack was essentially meaningless.

Without rushing to prejudicial conclusions, after all, we do need to consider the possibility that Nidal Malik Hasan's Muslim faith played at least some role, if not necessarily the dominant one, in what happened.

Here's Andrew Sullivan, responding to Jeffrey Goldberg, with a very sensible take:

I did not leap to that conclusion in this case as the primary reason for the attack because we didn't fully know the entire picture -- and still don't. But as the pieces fall into place, it seems increasingly clear that Nidal Hasan's faith -- and the conflicts it presented in the context of the war on Islamist terror -- was absolutely relevant in this horrifying massacre of servicemembers. It may well have been combined with individual stress, exposure to others with PTSD, fear of deployment, psychological disturbance, etc. But that it was a critical factor seems to me important to note.

But every case is unique.

If the man is not part of any wider conspiracy or terror group, it is silly to treat him the way we would a Qaeda cell, for example, as Lieberman seems to want to do. And the random murder spree was not designed to wound the US militarily in any strategic way. But religion is poisonous when it fuses with politics and deploys violence to control or punish others -- and Hasan's increasingly Wahabbist version of Islam is about as crude a conflation of religion, certainty and violence as one can imagine.

This applies to the extremes of Christianity and Judaism as well, of course. I do not think you can understand the assassination of abortion doctor George Tiller without grasping the religious motivation of his killer, just as I think a brutal gay-bashing by a thug with Leviticus tattooed on his arm gives you a good idea of the religious motivation for the beat-down. Ditto, I might add, when we discover that it was a fanatical Jewish settler -- transposed from America -- who gunned down people at a gay walk-in center in Jerusalem. Religious fanaticism -- in Texas or the West Bank or in Gaza -- is a dangerous, dangerous impulse in an increasingly fundamentalist age. We should not balk at saying that as plainly as we can and demanding that religious leaders condemn the violent and extremist members of their respective flocks. And we should try much harder to find such extremists in the military and do a better job at monitoring them or throwing them out.

None of this justifies the bigoted, knee-jerk reaction of many on the right, of course, but I agree that these points need to be raised, just as they would in the event of a similar incident involving a Christian or Jewish extremist -- or any other religious extremist, for that matter.

Hasan's Muslim faith shouldn't shield him from such an investigation, and rejecting one extreme (right-wing bigotry) with another (avoidance, perhaps for political reasons) is dangerous insofar as it both perpetuates ignorance and allows the ignorance of the right to prevail. Denialism is no counter to bigotry, and, here, an effort to deny that Hasan's faith had anything to do with it simply comes across as an effort to cover up the truth. We need to know what really happened, what really was behind the massacre, even if that means an uncomfortable, and discomfiting, investigation into what role Hasan's faith played in the killing. (While also recognizing, of course, that other factors, related or not to his faith, were undoubtedly involved and that the motivations behind the attack were likely multiple and complicated.)

For while Hasan may not be connected to al Qaeda, and while the massacre may not have been a terrorist attack per se, it is important that the truth, however ugly, be known, not least as more about Hasan and his reprehensible beliefs comes out, so as to try to prevent such incidents from happening again and to counter efforts to spin the incident for partisan political purposes.

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Obama and health-care reform

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Times:

I remain convinced Obama will win this fight. Not totally; not without political cost; but win it he shall. And the strategy is really very simple. The most popular elements of the bill will be kept in and the most contentious left out.

The fundamental issue of costs will be deferred. A bill that prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing illnesses; that creates healthcare exchanges, where people can buy their own insurance policy subsidised by the government; that brings agreed price reductions by the drug companies in return for all these new, previously uninsured clients: this will pass and be popular. How could it not? The option of a government-run insurance plan to compete with private ones will be either dispensed with or held in reserve. If, after a few years, health costs keep soaring and the private companies have not mended their free-spending ways, it could be brought back.

*****

So, tactically, Obama is on the defensive. Strategically? Again, he is stronger than he now appears. When the health insurance bill is passed and elderly Americans are not rounded up into concentration camps and granny isn't subjected to euthanasia, and when many uninsured people gain a peace of mind they have never felt before, and people become able to change job without fearing loss of insurance, the Republican scare tactics may come to seem absurd.

Well, the Republican lies are absurd, we know that already, but they likely will "come to seem absurd" to more and more people as time goes on. Overall, while I continue to stress that a public option ought to be an essential element of any reform package (and while Josh Marshall may be right, even through hyperbole, that a bill with "no public option or competition with the insurers" would be "pretty much a catastrophe for the Democrats in political terms"), I think that Sullivan's prediction makes a lot of sense. Even if we don't get quite what we want, namely, a robust public option, there is still the possibility that a compromise package (with the "most popular elements"), if passed, would be the thin end of the wedge leading to additional reform down the road.

This, I suppose, is my fall-back position, and I think it's one we need to prepare ourselves for. Obama still ought to push for a robust public option, as he may in his speech this week (and may behind close doors, attempting to pull Democrats together), and I still think Democrats ought to consider going it fully alone on reform (or with one or two Republicans), even with less than 60 votes in the Senate, but some reform may be better than no reform if the reform that is actually passed addresses some of the most pressing problems of the current system -- such as the huge numbers of uninsured and inadequately insured -- in a serious and meaningful way.

Okay, I sound like I'm backing down. I'm not. The fight for reform needs to continue. But there is nonetheless the possibility that Obama retains "a strategic cunning," in Sullivan's words, that will actually lead to more substantial change over the long haul.

Exactly

By Creature

Andrew Sullivan gets to the torture nub:

One more point that [Richard] Cohen simply ignores. Torture is illegal. It is a war crime. You cannot get to the point of debating its pros and cons until you have changed the law, removed the US from Geneva and the UN Convention on Torture and placed the US legally on the same ground as the enemy. That's the only legal way to do it - by repealing the laws against it. But the laws were not repealed; they were secretly broken; and those who broke the law, the former president and vice-president chief among them, are above the law in Washington.

Torture is not a "policy" disagreement, it's a criminal act.

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Obama and the racism of the Birthers

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's Sullivan, in The Times:

This is the silly season. But this silly story seems to me an indication of something more ominous. The demographics tell the basic story: a black man is president and a large majority of white southerners cannot accept that, even in 2009. They grasp conspiracy theories to wish Obama — and the America he represents — away. Since white southerners comprise an increasing proportion of the 22% of Americans who still describe themselves as Republican, the GOP can neither dismiss the crankery nor move past it. The fringe defines what’s left of the Republican centre.

The chilling implication is that a large number of Americans believe the president has no right to be in office and has fraudulently manoeuvred himself there.

I hope the secret service is on alert. If we thought racial panic had ended with Obama’s election, the resilience of this story in key parts of the country is a helpful wake-up call.

I'm not sure if we're at the level of "racial panic" here, but I think Sullivan is right that racism is one of the prime motivations -- if not the prime motivation -- behind the Birther movement.

If you doubt that, answer this: Do you really think there would be any sort of Birther movement directed at a white president, even a white Democratic president? Do you really think there would an organized campaign, supported by leading members of the right-wing media, questioning the legitimacy, based on place of birth, of, say, John Kerry or Howard Dean or Hillary Clinton or John Edwards?

Sure, a white Democratic president -- or any Democratic president -- would be subjected to other right-wing campaigns questioning his or her legitimacy (or fitness for the job), but the Birther campaign both feeds off and stokes racism. In Clinton's case, some on the right would no doubt have questioned her sexual orientation, but, here, the Birthers have tried to turn Obama into an African, and specifically, doubling up on the bigotry, into an African Muslim.

Polls show than many Americans -- most of them Republican -- believe the lie to be true. That is, they believe that Obama may very well be both an African and a Muslim, and that he is not just an illegitimate president but, given their ideological prejudices, very possibly an enemy of America.

Being black (even half-black), Obama is already, to these Americans, the Other. The Birther movement, along with the other right-wing efforts to paint Obama as a non- or even anti-American, builds off that racism, that all-too-common racism, and provides an outlet for some of the ugliness that seethes below the surface of American society -- and that is right on the surface, with deep roots below, of much of the American right.

Liars, damned liars, and Sarah Palin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We already have two posts up on Palin today -- one from me, one from Carl -- so let's make it three with this one.

**********

Over at The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan has done us an extremely useful service, posting a round-up of Palin's many "odd lies." And by many I mean 32 in all. (And they've all been re-fact-checked.)

I don't think they're at all "odd," though. Palin is a liar. It's as simple as that. And, as Andrew rightly asks: "After you have read these, ask yourself: what wouldn't Sarah Palin lie about if she felt she had to?"

The answer is pretty clear.

Reactions to the Palin resignation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Right now, most of the speculation, if not all of it, is premature, as speculation is wont to be. Still, everyone who is anyone, which is pretty much everyone, is weighing in. I checked Memeorandum a while ago, and the entirety of the "Top Items" section was given over to Palin's resignation, the first time I've ever seen such uniformity.

So let's delve into it a bit.

Bill Kristol, neocon extraordinaire and one of Palin's biggest boosters, is being predictably upbeat about it all:

After all, she's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues -- and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she'll take a hit for leaving the governorship early -- but how much of one? She's probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor, and is leaving a sympatico lieutenant governor in charge.

And haven't conservatives been lamenting the lack of a national leader? Well, now she'll try to be that. She may not succeed. Everything rests on her talents, and on her performance. She'll be under intense and hostile scrutiny, and she'll have to perform well.

All in all, it's going to be a high-wire act. The odds are against her pulling it off. But I wouldn't bet against it.

Right, it's all proof of her outstanding courage, and Kristol's with her all the way.

Kristol presents himself as a "contrarian," but this is but the most prominent example of what is already the right's pro-Palin spin: Sure, she stepped down, and, sure, that looks bad, but it's for a good cause, a noble calling, and she may soon be our leader. Get down on your knees, our saviour has arrived.

Back in the real world, though, things look a little different.

For example, Josh Marshall offers some helpful perspective:

It seems like a colossal sulk on Palin's part, or perhaps better to say an effort on her part to ingeniously combine anti-liberal media bias agitation with Christianist politics by portraying herself as having been crucified by the liberal media.

*****

[T]his clearly happened so quickly that Palin hasn't even had a chance to come up with a coherent cover story for her resignation. Some context is probably helpful here, however. Remember that based on the public record, Palin is a wildly unethical public official, guilty at a minimum of numerous instances of abusing her authority as governor. And a lot of very damaging information has come out about her in the last few days -- though mainly embarrassing information about her character rather than new evidence of bad acts. I would not be surprised if this latest round of revelations shook something else loose that we haven't heard about yet.

And that very well may be the case. As Think Progress is reporting, Palin may have resigned "because she was trying to avert a major, yet-to-be-disclosed corruption scandal," one involving embezzlement.

Needless to say, we shall see.

As is so often the case when a major story breaks, I turn to Slate's John Dickerson, who offers this explanation (if an explanation is even possible this early on):

The larger reason for Palin's early departure was that she was having no fun. Ever since she returned to Alaska from the national stage, being governor has been a chore. Her political opponents have launched 15 ethics charges against her. The state economy has turned sour, and she got into an ugly squabble over federal stimulus funds. It's much more enjoyable to travel the country waving to adoring crowds of GOP activists.

So Palin decided to chuck her office for the limelight.
She can now tour the country as the only superstar in a party that desperately needs one. Because she can pack bleachers, she can raise money. In addition to boosting party morale and filling its coffers (and her own), she can build relationships nationwide that will be crucial if she really is interested in running for national office again.

This is sort of what I said yesterday. If I may quote myself:

What I think is that she's come to believe all the right-wing talk about how great and wonderful she is -- from the likes of Bill Kristol, as well as from Dear Leader Rush and the movement conservatives.

It could very well be that Alaska is simply too small for her now. Don't get me wrong, she's still a parochial fool. I don't think she's become some sort of genuinely national leader, or that she really has grown beyond Alaska. But, clearly, her ambitions have outgrown Alaska, and, after her sudden rise to the big time last year, and with the talk ongoing about her potential, she may just not want to govern a relatively small and insignificant state anymore.

In other words, when the going got tough -- that is, when she actually had to be governor at a time when things weren't going well, and with her adorers and admirers calling her from across the land -- she threw in the towel and moved on, and up, to what she surely imagines are much, much greener pastures. As HuffPo suggests, she just wanted to get the hell out of Alaska while the getting was good.

Let me conclude by quoting one of Palin's most fervent critics in the blogosphere, Andrew Sullivan, who, once again, may be right on here:

I guessed right, which I suppose reflects just how much time I've spent trying to figure what goes on in her head. I think the simple truth is that, as even Alaskan Republicans told us last September, she was far from able to be governor of Alaska, let alone vice-president of the United States. Once the klieglights hit, it was only a matter of time before she imploded or exploded or some gruesome combination of the two.

*****

In the end, I think, the one thing to say is that the Republican party is in such a total state of collapse and incoherence that it actually believed she could be a future president; and that John McCain was so reckless, so cynical and so cavalier that he was prepared to rest the national security of this country on her shoulders if he, in his seventies, were to become unable to fulfill his duties or die. In some ways, this is a moment to reflect on McCain, and his irresponsibility, not Palin and her drama.

I'm too stunned to say anything else, to tell you the truth. And yet not surprised at all.

Actually, I'm not stunned at all. It was inevitable that Palin's wildly exaggerated sense of self, blown up out of all proportion by her various enablers on the right (like Kristol), would win out, that she would give up Alaska for a full-out assault on the national scene.

Palin isn't going away, she's only going to get bigger. Even if her run for the top fails miserably, as it surely will, it won't be for lack of delusional self-righteousness on her part -- or on the part of those who form her inner circle and the bubble that shields her from reality.

Happy Fourth of July!

How Ahmadinejad is like Bush/Cheney/Rove

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I haven't blogged on it, but I've been following the Iranian election, and post-election, closely -- and it's pretty clear that Iranian democracy is a sham.

Here's Andrew Sullivan, bringing it home with some of the best analysis I've read (making a point that is sure to freak out the right):

Ahmadinejad's bag of tricks is eerily like that of Karl Rove - the constant use of fear, the exploitation of religion, the demonization of liberals, the deployment of Potemkin symbolism like Sarah Palin...

Think of this regime as Cheney and Rove in a police state setting, and you see what's been going on. (Of course, Rove and Cheney live within a democratic system utterly unlike Iran, and there's no evidence they would violate democratic norms as Khamenei just did. But their demagoguery, abuse of the state, dedication to conflict abroad, co-optation of the armed forces, and manipulation of rural and religious voters all have parallels in Red State Iran.) We keep expecting to see some kind of shame or some attempt at rational dialogue. They have nothing but contempt for that kind of talk. If they're going to lie, it's gonna be a Big Lie. Like this sham of an election.

And, of course, of course, no one -- neither Andrew nor I (nor anyone else I can think of) is suggesting that Bush, Cheney, and Rove are as bad as Ahmadinejad. They're not Holocaust deniers, after all, nor have they suggested that Israel ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. But in some ways -- that is, in terms of their democratic activity (i.e., running for election) -- the similarities are striking.

We are right to applaud the brave protesters on the streets of Tehran, and elsewhere. We are right to demand the release of opposition figures, critics of the anti-liberal, anti-democratic Ahmadinejad regime (although it is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who runs the show, of course). We are right to call on President Obama to speak out in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi and the courageous opposition (as Republican Rep. Mike Pence has done -- I applaud him, for perhaps the first time, though I disagree with his criticism of the Obama Administration for what he calls an "olive branch-and-apology approach to enemies" (as if Obama is any worse than Bush on that front! as if that hasn't been American policy generally!)). We are right to be suspicious of the outpouring of support for Ahmadinejad. And we are right to remember that Iran is not a democracy, however vibrant its culture, but a police state, and that the Iranian people are subjected to appalling oppression.

But we are also right to remember that American democracy, while better and healthier than Iran's "democracy," isn't perfect either.

Tying his hands

By Mustang Bobby

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA Director Michael Hayden -- both formerly in the former Bush administration -- came out this morning in The Wall Street Journal with what John Cole at Balloon Juice calls the Republican talking points on the release of the torture memos.

The effect of this disclosure on the morale and effectiveness of many in the intelligence community is not hard to predict. Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits. Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable. Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself.

Beyond that, anyone in government who seeks an opinion from the OLC as to the propriety of any action, or who authors an opinion for the OLC, is on notice henceforth that such a request for advice, and the advice itself, is now more likely than before to be subject after the fact to public and partisan criticism. It is hard to see how that will promote candor either from those who should be encouraged to ask for advice before they act, or from those who must give it.

Aside from the fact that this sounds a lot like the opening argument of a defense lawyer in a criminal trial, Mr. Mukasey and Mr. Hayden are saying that the techniques that were employed by the Bush administration and the justifications they got from the Department of Justice won't work any more, in effect tying the president's hands.

They say that as if that is a bad thing. As President Obama said last night:

The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.

Andrew Sullivan notes: "What Obama understands is that what is truly vital is that this dark and shameful period not become a workable precedent. It must be repudiated at the very heart of the American political system, and removed like the cancer it is."

What's especially ironic is that after ten days or so of right-wing tea-bag protests about how oppressive the federal government is and how -- now -- we shouldn't blindly trust the president to do the right thing, the loyal Bushies and their Wormtongues like William Kristol (who, speaking of tea-bagging, is still pitching a tent for war) are saying that it was very important for the president -- the previous one, that is -- to be granted the full power and immunity to conduct war and interrogation the way he saw fit and without any oversight whatsoever, and that any restrictions on that power were a sign of weakness and cowardice.

What escapes their understanding is that power without discipline is a lot more dangerous and more terrifying than anything the jihadists can throw at us.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)