Spin what I say, not what I do

The administration is having some difficulty with the latest National Intelligence Estimate (PDF format) which says that Al Qa'ida "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas...."

The implication, just so we're clear, is that Al Qa'ida's ability to attack the United States is growing, not shrinking. Of particular concern to the Administration, naturally, is the implication that the strategy of fighting terrorism in Iraq--where the terrorists were actually hard to find--is less effective than fighting it in Afghanistan--where they weren't--perhaps because we're not really fighting it there any longer. Any suggestion that perhaps the U.S. should be focusing more on the presence of terrorism in Afghanistan rather than Iraq is bound to get the them nervous.

So, how does one spin that?

By arguing that the party responsible is, of course, not the Administration, but rather--well, let's just say--the Pakistani government. Why? Because it was their decision to stop battling separatist elements along the Afghani/Pakistani border that gave Al Qa'ida a chance to to find a place to call home. Here's National Intelligence Director Mike Mitchell on Meet the Press:

Now, what happened? What's different? What changed? In Pakistan, where they're enjoying a safe haven, the government of Pakistan chose to try a political solution. The political solution meant a peace treaty with a region that’s never been governed—not governed from the outside, not governed by Pakistan. The opposite occurred. Instead of pushing al-Qaeda out, the people who live in the—these federally- administered tribal areas, rather than pushing al-Qaeda out, they made a safe haven for training and recruiting. And so, in that period of time, al-Qaeda has been able to regain some of its momentum. The leadership’s intact, they have operational planners, and they have safe haven. The thing they’re missing are operatives inside the United States. So that's the difference between last year and this year, in, in our assessment.

In other words, if those guys--silly Pakistanis, hah! Trying to secure a political solution! Who would ever have thought of trying something like that, huh?--had just stuck with the military approach, we wouldn't be here.

Here's the problem: as Bill Scher wrote on Liberal Oasis back last September, the very same peace treaty that the Administration is now condeming was endorsed and indeed encouraged by the Administration. By the President himself, in fact. Let's quote from his press conference on September 22, 2006:

Q Thank you, sir. There's been a back-and-forth this week over whether the U.S. needs permission to strike inside Pakistan if Osama bin Laden is located. Could each of you give your position on that? And did you -- are you satisfied with his assurances on the tribal deal?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I appreciate the briefing on the tribal deal. When the President looks me in the eye and says, the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people, and that there won't be a Taliban and won't be al Qaeda, I believe him, you know? This is a person with whom I've now had close working relationships for five-and-a-half years. And when he says, if we find -- when we find Osama bin Laden, he will be brought to justice, I believe him. And we'll let the tactics speak for themselves after it happens.

Well, I'm all for trying to un-Talibanize the region. But if we wanted to do that, perhaps shouldn't have removed our troops from Afghanistan and allowed a virtually unfettered playing field where former Talibani elements could effectively seize control over large swathes of the country. But that's what we did, and now the Administration is basically blaming Pakistan for following a policy that the Administration itself supported. Bill Scher is right on the money:

The Bush Administration did not prioritize going after the actual terrorist threat, instead choosing to pursue a permanent occupation of Iraq as a policy goal, whihc [sic] has created more terrorists.

While the Bush Administration is trying to use this safe haven to shift blame to Pakistan, the fact is the safe haven is the direct result of a policy that the Bush Administration is directly complict in crafting [emphasis in original]

It's a shame the Ministry of Truth didn't get that press conference transcript down the memory hole in time. Didn't we send Winston Smith to Guantanamo yet?

Should they impeach?

(Updated below)

There's a lot of discussion lately about the growing sentiment in the U.S. today that suggests that--contra Nancy Pelosi--impeachment is not only on the table, it is something that should be seriously considered. Steve Benen had a good post at TPM recently, addressing some important points to bear in mind:

• According to a Rasmussen poll, 39% of Americans believe that Bush should be impeached and removed from office. 49% disagree, while 12% are not sure. That's a shift from 2005, when the numbers were 32%/52%/14%. (Those under 30 are apparently less patient than their parents: 54% favor impeachment while 38% are opposed.) Nor is this poll an outlier: an InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll in May found numbers similar numbers, while an American Research Group poll from July 5 found that 45% of all adults favor impeachment while 46% oppose it.


• As Benen says, if 40% of the public support impeachment, it can't really be considered a fringe idea any more. (A historical note: in August-September 1998, before President Clinton's impeachment hearings began, an average of 10 polls found 26% in support of impeachment and removal; 36% supported hearings.)

So should the House impeach President Bush? Or Dick Cheney? Or both?

That isn't a question about whether there are adequate grounds for impeachment; my sense is that the Judiciary committeee has ample reason to begin hearings. Authorizing domestic spying on American citizens using the NSA violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and is a Federal crime. Bush has never denied it--he simply asserts that the law doesn't apply. Condoning torture, and lying to gin up support for a war of choice, are arguably reasons for impeachment as well--though I think in both cases it's going to be hard to make the factual case that Bush was directly responsible, and in the case of the Iraq War, my personal feeling is that it's too close to being a political and policy issue to warrant impeachment. On the other hand there's that whole U.S. Attorney scandal thing, too, I suppose <shrug>. Oh, and the possibility that Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence might be obstruction of justice because it impedes an investigation into the Vice President's Office, and conceivably the President himself. Oh, and...well, you get the idea.

The most persuasive case for articles of impeachment, however, is not the specific crimes that have been committed. Rather, it's Bush's philosophy (well, Cheney's) of the unitary executive and the disregard for the constitutional separation of powers. That's most evident in the absurd privilege claims (for people who are no longer even employees of the government) to prevent them from testifying to Congress. Harriet Miers, former White House Counsel, didn't even bother to show up to the hearing--clearly demonstrating that the question of privilege really wasn't the issue (claims of executive privilege have to be evaluated against specific questions--there is no blanket privilege--so she had no possible legal right to refuse to even be called to testify). And this, of course, is the real danger that Bush poses and the reason that impeachment should be considered: the transparent and casual disregard for any accountability is a fundamental threat to a constitutional system of government.

To my mind, this is a compelling argument. Bruce Fein and John Nichols argued persuasively on Bill Moyer's Journal last night that Bush (well, Bush and Cheney both, I think) must be impeached because to do otherwise would be to admit tacitly that the expansive powers claimed by the administration were acceptable. Their argument is that unless Congress takes a firm stand to expose and discredit these moves, then the executive's illegitimate authority becomes institutionalized; lip service alone is not enough to prevent such abuses in the future. I agree completely with the sentiment. Congress should realize that its action or inaction in this situation carries at least some weight as precedent. How much weight depends on a number of factors, many of which are not under its control, but there is no question that in idly watching its continued emasculation Congress has done real damage to the system of checks and balances--so much so that the Bush administration has been emboldened to openly defy Congressional authority as part of an ongoing effort to shield itself and its activities from any legal oversight, and with only sixteen months seventeen months left in Bush's term, it may be too late to really do much about it. Impeachment and removal from office is not excessive for this situation--it is precisely the kind of thing the founders had in mind.

The problem is that a decision to impeach a President is a political decision, and the judgement by a vote of the House is a political vote, not a legal one. The precedent established by an impeachment is inextricably linked to the way the judgement is perceived. There is no principle of stare decisis in the case of impeachments. Clinton is actually a good example of that, I think: his impeachment didn't set a precedent that Presidents who lie should be impeached; if anything, the fact that he wasn't convicted suggests that while we may find a President's lying repugnant, we must be careful to use such a significant punishment only for the most serious offenses. And that is emphatically a political judgement, a result in part of the disgust the public felt with the overreaching of the Republican Congress. The Senate in 2007 or 2008 will also not vote to convict George Bush. And since it's the political spin that will determine how the historical judgement is interpreted, the fact that Bush was impeached on matters for which the public unquestionably condemns him won't be what sets the 'precedent': it will be that not enough senators (perhaps not even a majority, given the odious Joe Lieberman) voted to convict him.

If this were 1974, I think this would be less of an issue. The press was not so supine; the media in general was less corporatist; politicians (even Nixon) were not so shameless; the opposition was not so spineless. But I can't imagine that impeachment would be viewed as a check on the anti-democratic and anti-constitutional principles of this administration; rather, I think that the failure to convict would be viewed as a vindication, encourating future administrations to use the powers dreamed up by the Cheney administration.

We're playing for keeps on this one. As much as the clowns in this administration deserve to be impeached and thrown out of office, preserving the Constitution is the most important thing at stake here: and I'm afraid that impeachment may not be the best way to do it.

[Editor's note: I previously misstated the results of the American Research Group poll as 45% opposed to impeachment when in fact it's 46%. Not a big difference, granted, but those of us in the reality-based community like to get these things right.]


UPDATE: Here's a little more explanation on why Harriet Miers can't just refuse to show up in response to a Congressional subpoena. To quote John Conyers's letter to George Manning, Miers's attorney:

We are aware of absolutely no court decision that supports the notion that a former White House official has the option of refusing to even appear in response to a Congressional subpoena. ... We are prepared at the hearing tomorrow to consider and rule on any specific assertions of privilege in response to specific questions.

The implication is that claims of executive privilege can be made and negotiated in response to specific questions, but A) there is no legal right to claim executive privilege as an automatic, blanket response to any question asked by the committee; and B) there is absolutely no right for anyone to simply not show up to the hearing.


UPDATE 2: Reader JVW at Talking Points Memo suggests that communications between the President and the White House Counsel may not even be protected by executive privilege. That was all litigated during the Clinton administration (see In Re: Bruce Lindsey before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit); the result seems to have been that privilege does not apply automatically and must be granted by the courts.

Iraq withdrawal update

On my post about Schmidt: although I mentioned that HR 517 (calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq) was sponsored by the Republican leadership, I should make clear that the leadership was not seriously calling for an end to the war; by all accounts, it was simply a ploy to discredit John Murtha by getting a massive vote against withdrawal on the record. The MSM, as usual, has largely failed to parse the differences between Murtha's resolution (which did not get a vote) and HR 517 (which did). They are not insignificant, as the post below should make clear. Finally, however, some folks are beginning to note that Murtha and the leadership were talking about two very different things. For more information, take a look at Fred Kaplan's article at Slate, as well as this entry at Salon.

Schmidt: you don't know Bubp-kis

 

Representive Jean Schmidt has this to say about her attack against John Murtha (D-PA) on the House floor last week:

Last week as I returned to the Capitol Building after attending a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery for a local fallen Marine, I found out that the Democrats had just announced their policy position to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq.

My good friend Representative Bubp called me to discuss this plan during the House debate on the issue of immediately removing troops from Iraq. [Ed. note: Bubp now says he didn't actually say this. Oops.]

I relayed our conversation with Representative Bubp on the House Floor.

Since that moment I have been attacked from across the country by the left.

I never meant to attack Congressman Murtha personally. I sent him a personal note of apology on Friday evening moments after my words. While I strongly disagree with his policy, neither Representative Bubp nor I ever wished to attack Congressman Murtha. I only take exception to his policy position.

Now let's look at what she actually said:

Yesterday I stood at Arlington National Cemetery attending the funeral of a young marine in my district. He believed in what we were doing is the right thing and had the courage to lay his life on the line to do it. A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bop [sic], Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do. Danny and the rest of America and the world want the assurance from this body – that we will see this through.

Calling a colleague a coward is a violation of House rules, and Rep. Schmidt was forced to ask that her speech be withdrawn. So much for the "Gee, I didn't mean the guy I was pointing at when I said that" defense.

Finally, one minor factual point: Murtha didn't call for the U.S. to immediately cut and run; he proposed "immediate redeployment of U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces, to create a quick reaction force in the region, to create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines, and to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq" (transcript here). When questioned about a timeline, he said, "Well, I think they can get them out of there in six months. I think that we could do it -- you know, you have to do it in a very consistent way. But I think six months would be a reasonable time to get them out of there."

So Murtha wasn't calling for immediate withdrawal in a way anything like Jean Schmidt says he was. That IS the wording, however, for HR 517, which in a show of chest-thumping, went down to defeat 403-3. The sponsors of that legislation?

The House Republican leadership.

Yet More FEMA Oddities: Where's that New Orleans Place Again?

 
Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque has checked out the text of President Bush's August 27th Emergency Declaration and finds something strange:

While giving FEMA full responsibility for coordinating all disaster relief efforts in "those parishes in the path of the storm," the Aug. 27 declaration leaves out the specific parishes in and around New Orleans and along the coast -- the very areas mostly likely to sustain the most catastrophic damage.

Now, as Chris points out, Bush's declaration of August 29th targets the entire state of Louisiana, establishing that "a major disaster exists in the State of Louisiana" and orders "Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the area struck by Hurricane Katrina." That's fine, as far as it goes--but in this declaration, one should note, as Chris does, that it only dealt with the availability of funds to individuals and state and local governments. It didn't actually set up any infrastructure or activate any plans to coordinate the relief effort. And what did Bush discuss with Michael Chertoff, head of DHS, on the 29th? In his own words:

I spoke to Mike Chertoff today -- he's the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue, so we got us an airplane on -- a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are. That's the most effective way to do things, is to work with the state and local authorities. There are more resources that will be available, we'll have more folks on the border; there will be more detention space to make sure that those who are stopped trying to illegally enter our country are able to be detained.

So on Monday the 29th, after a category 4 hurricane has hit New Orleans, President Bush, who stresses the need to coordinate relief efforts with local officials, makes preventing illegal immigration the focus of his efforts. I'm sure that the folks whose toxic, collapsing, and empty houses were threatened by the tide of immigrants feel much better. And on Saturday the 27th, his emergency declaration specifically omits the areas of Louisiana most likely to be damaged by the hurricane--when everyone was still talking about Katrina being a category 5 storm at landfall, and that landfall was expected to hit New Orleans dead on.

I guess nobody could have anticipated that the hurricane might hit New Orleans.