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Three key rules of media behavior shape their discussions of "the 'torture' debate" - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
For years, media stars ignored the fact that our Government was chronically breaking the law and systematically torturing detainees (look at this extremely detailed exposé by The Washington Post's Dana Priest and Barton Gellman from December, 2002 to get a sense for how much we've known about all of this and for how long we've known it). Now that the sheer criminality of this conduct, really for the first time, has exploded into mainstream political debates as a result of the OLC memos, media stars are forced to address it. Exactly as one would expect, they are closing ranks, demanding (as always) that their big powerful political-official-friends and their elite institutions not be subject to the dirty instruments that are meant only for the masses -- things like the rule of law, investigations, prosecutions, and accountability when they abuse their power.
An emerging progressive consensus on Obama's executive power and secrecy abuses - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
Amen. "It is becoming increasingly difficult for honest Obama supporters to dismiss away or even minimize these criticisms and, especially, to malign the motives of critics. After all, the Obama DOJ's embrace of many (though by no means all) of the most radical and extremist Bush/Cheney positions -- and the contradictions between Obama's campaign claims and his actions as President -- are now so glaring and severe that the harshest denunciations of Obama's actions are coming from those who, during the Bush years, were held up by liberals and by Obama supporters as the most trustworthy and praiseworthy authorities on these matters"
Keith Olbermann's scathing criticism of Obama's secrecy/immunity claims - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
Last night, Keith Olbermann -- who has undoubtedly been one of the most swooning and often-uncritical admirers of Barack Obama of anyone in the country [...] devoted the first two segments of his show to emphatically lambasting Obama and Eric Holder's DOJ for the story I wrote about on Monday: namely, the Obama administration's use of the radical Bush/Cheney state secrets doctrine and -- worse still -- a brand new claim of "sovereign immunity"
Thoughts on Bill O'Reilly and Squeaky the Chicago Mouse :: rogerebert.com
I understand you believe one of the Sun-Times misdemeanors was dropping your syndicated column. My editor informs me that "very few" readers complained about the disappearance of your column, adding, "many more complained about Nancy." I know I did. That was the famous Ernie Bushmiller comic strip in which Sluggo explained that "wow" was "mom" spelled upside-down.
How many ways can Senate Republicans show breathtaking intellectual hypocrisy? - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
The irony now on display among Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee is staggering.
John Yoo Torture Memo | Salon
Yoo's corrupt opinions are a black mark on the history of American law. They are certain to take their place with the rulings generally considered to be the worst in U.S. history: Dred Scott v. Sandford (which found slavery constitutional), Plessy v. Ferguson (which upheld racial segregation and the "separate but equal" doctrine), Korematsu v. United States (which upheld the incarceration of 110,000 innocent Japanese-Americans during WWII) and Bush v. Gore (in which right-wing justices used an absurd equal-protection argument to hand the presidency to their favored candidate).
In the end, what condemns Yoo most is his arrogant and dismissive attitude toward the law itself -- its logic, its precedents, its purpose. For Yoo, the law is simply a tool to be used to hand power to an omnipotent executive branch, and we must trust in the good faith of that executive branch to use its extra-legal powers properly. This view is the antithesis of both jurisprudence and the American system of government. The law is the last majestic bulwark against the tyranny of men. But in the hands of debased functionaries like Yoo, that great bulwark was eroded.
The corruption of the cocoon - Glenn Greenwald
"Our political discourse is so stratified that politicians and pundits can get all the exposure they want while confining themselves to hospitable venues and only speaking to sympathetic journalists. That, as but one example, is what fuels "access journalism" -- the willingness of politicians to speak only to deferential reporters, who stay deferential in order to ensure that those politicians continue to speak with them, a process that perpetuates itself ad infnitum. That has created a virtually complete -- and quite destructive -- accountability-free zone where politicians and pundits alike can simply avoid any form of adversarial questioning or challenges to their claims..."
Dawn Johnsen discovers the perils of "blogging, advocating, and speeching." - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
Part of the problem is that over the past eight years, Johnsen (whom I know a little and admire a lot) has burnished her academic and professional credentials with punditry, bloggery, and advocacy. This makes her an easy target for criticism. She has spoken out clearly! She has criticized openly! She has used language like "outrage" and "torture" to describe outrages and torture. Curiously enough, nobody on the committee disagrees with these legal conclusions today. They're just mainly bothered that she said them aloud.
Bowing down to the Taliban
Pakistan's military remains more concerned about a conflict with India than about Islamist terror at home. As a result, it accepts Talibanization as a necessary evil, allowing, for example, such changes as women no longer being accepted as customers in restaurants or tailors' shops -- even in Lahore, a liberal major city home to many intellectuals. "The influence of the extremists is being ignored and it's spreading like a virus," observes Gregor Enste, director of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Lahore.
The "Americans want bipartisanship" myth - Glenn Greenwald
The political establishment has never come to terms with, and the media establishment just refuses to acknowledge, how deeply unpopular and discredited the GOP is among most Americans in the wake of the eight-year Bush disaster. Political and media elites don't want to acknowledge that because they lent their continuous support for eight years to Republican power, yet -- even with Bush gone -- it's scarcely possible to imagine how a major political party could be held in lower esteem among voters. By huge margins (63-29%), Americans believe the GOP opposed Obama's stimulus package for political reasons, not because they genuinely believed it would be bad for the economy; they overwhelmingly disapprove of Congressional Republicans (38-56%) while approving of Obama (68-25%) and even Congressional Democrats (50-44%); trust Obama over Congressional Republicans to handle the economy (61-26%); and trust Democrats over Republicans "to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years" (56-30%). Those are enormous margins.
The punditry's claims that Americans want Democrats to dilute their policies in order to attract and include Republican support is entirely misleading. The endless media stories that Eric Cantor, Michael Steele and Rick Santelli are now riding some resurgent, anti-stimulus GOP wave are pure fiction. And the incessant calls for "bipartisanship" are anti-democratic in the extreme.
Beacon of Liberty Amid Depression
When do you think this statement was made: "An unreasonable optimism and enthusiasm took hold of the public and led bankers to excessive courses of action; the federal reserve banks were unable to temper such an elan." For good measure, he then added: "The fall that followed the boom was that much more catastrophic."
The novelist in wartime
"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."
Jeffrey Goldberg's gasping, dying smear tactics
"...people like Goldberg are becoming extra rancid and reckless in their rhetoric precisely because they know that these rhetorical devices have ceased working. There is a definite sea change when it comes to American policy debates toward Israel. They no longer possess the ability to stifle dissent through thuggish intimidation tactics and they know that, which is why they can now do nothing but turn up the volume on their name-calling attacks."
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