Backfill

Geez, I leave town for a week and everyone goes nuts! What's up with that?

BUH-BYE, GONZO
The big news, of course, was that Alberto Gonzales finally resigned -- with little or no explanation, though various administration officials applied various spins to the decision.

Not that it really matters. I don't care if he wants to "pursue other options" or "spend more time with his family" or simply "make more money in the private sector." I don't care if he was forced out or jumped or fell. All I can say is, "at last." It was too long in coming.

His resignation won't bring an end to the myriad Congressional inquiries into his actions and those of his subordinates. But it might take some of the bite and energy out of them.

His temporary replacement will be Solicitor General Paul Clement. A permanent replacement will be hard to find, for several reasons: Bush's diminished influence, the mess Gonzales leaves behind, and the fact that "permanent" means a little more than a year at the end of a dying presidency. It would essentially be a caretaker role, not a platform for grand initiatives.

If Bush is smart, he'll find someone of impeccable integrity who can spend the year cleaning up the department and restoring its morale and reputation -- an endeavor that, if successful, might erase the memory of Gonzales in time for the 2008 elections. But it could take quite a sales job to persuade the right person to take on that task.


CRAIG'S RAP SHEET
Meanwhile, reporters discovered that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig was arrested in an airport bathroom here in Minnesota, and pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from an undercover cop.

(Tangentially, it must be just loads of fun to be an undercover vice cop, sitting in toilet stalls and waiting for someone to proposition you. I wonder if they get a lot of reading done.)

Craig, pressured by Republican leaders, said he would resign -- but is now reconsidering that decision.

Craig denies being gay or soliciting sex, saying he pleaded guilty in hopes of making an embarassing situation go away. And the evidence against him is circumstantial -- essentially, a series of actions that are traditionally used by gay men seeking sex. No direct request, no words spoken.

Still, the sequence of events is odd to say the least -- looking into the neighboring stall, placing his bag against the front of his own stall, tapping his foot, touching the undercover officer's foot and "swiping his hand under the stall divider."

Any one of those actions could be explained away -- though the last is somewhat difficult. But all of it in sequence makes little sense except as a come-on. He might claim police entrapment -- but the officer in question has a good reputation.

On the other hand, the transcript of his discussion with the officer shows sharp disagreement about what occurred. So there's room for doubt. Nothing Craig said in the transcript conflicts with his public claims. It comes down to who you believe -- and what weight you place on the unreliability of eyewitnesses, even trained eyewitnesses like undercover officers. Craig could well be telling the truth, and he might well have prevailed had he been willing to endure a public trial.

Still, for the sake of argument, let's assume Craig is guilty. What should be our reaction?

My basic take is that, in a perfect world, this should be a nonstory. Who cares about his sexual orientation or private sexual habits, as long as they're not illegal? But the hypocrisy -- of Republicans in general, and the strongly anti-gay Craig in particular -- is what drives these sort of things. Republicans have made an issue of homosexuality, and poking their nose in people's bedrooms; this is the flip side of that coming home to roost.

Which is why a Republican strategist, Michelle Laxalt, said the following about the Craig case on Larry King:

"I happened to have come into the Republican Party during the more civil libertarian era of Barry Goldwater, Bill Buckley, Paul Laxalt, Ronald Reagan. And in their philosophy, the view about judging people regarding their personal lives was a live and let live philosophy. And somehow during the ensuing years, there has been a faction who call themselves the Moral Majority. We all remember the bumper stickers many years ago floating around Washington, which read 'The Moral Majority is neither.' And here we find ourselves virtually every single time getting whacked because of what is perceived to be a hypocrisy factor. The Republican Party needs to have some very serious introspection and return to the values that started us out, and that is individual liberty and a live and let live policy when it comes to people's private lives."

Amen. The Dems figured that out years ago, which is why nobody cares if a Dem is gay. There's no hypocrisy. In cases like this, Republicans are merely reaping what they have sown in their embrace of the religious right and "family values" issues.


THEY'RE BAAACCKKK!!
Congress returns from their summer recess, and that means more hearings on Iraq. Today we got a look at a GAO report on the Iraqi benchmarks, which notes that the Iraqi government has met only three of the 18 goals it set for itself, and partially met four others. And the ones that were met were the small, easy ones. (click here for the full report (pdf))

Wednesday and Thursday we'll get Congressional reports on the Iraqi security forces and the administration's own assessment of progress on benchmarks. And next week we'll get the big surge update from Gen. Petraeus. Both sides are already jockeying for position, with the White House downplaying the importance of political benchmarks and Congressional Democrats downplaying the importance of military benchmarks. It appears that many minds are already made up, and won't be changed by anything as mundane as facts on the ground.

This is a bit depressing, though I must admit that it's funny to see the White House criticizing the GAO report as "lacking nuance" when back in 2004 President Bush famously said he "doesn't do nuance." Oh what a difference three years of plummeting popularity makes.

Me, I accept the argument that the political benchmarks are more important than the military ones. But both are important, because progress (or backsliding) in one sphere can foreshadow progress (or backsliding) in the other. And it won't be as simple as "have they been met yet?" Indeed, that is only one of two important questions to be answered about the benchmarks.

1. Have they been met yet? This question is important both as an assessment of where we stand and as a way to judge the credibility of the claimants on both sides of the war, which should have some bearing on whom we believe going forward.

2. Has there been progress? And if so, how much? If the strategy can be shown to be working -- if there is reasonable reason to believe that it will deliver the necessary results -- then it deserves more time. But if the political benchmarks remain out of reach despite battlefield successes, or the battlefield is not successful enough to sustain the political achievements, then it's time to pull the plug.

Time to pull out my crystal ball.

Assuming the predictions are correct, what we'll get is a report that shows modest battlefield advances but political paralysis. So the debate will move on to two subordinate questions: what are the prospects for political progress, and are the battlefield gains both real and sustainable?

For that, we must await the reports.

gonzales, Craig, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Vitter roundup

In today's Vitter news (shown above with Rudy Giuliani during a visit to New Orleans):

E.J. Dionne, of all people offers a limited defense of Vitter. I heartily agree, except for the part about giving conservative hypocrites a complete pass. Don't go overboard, but point out the hypocrisy.

Best line in the piece comes courtesy of a conservative:

Kate O'Beirne, the conservative writer, deserves a place in the annals of political commentary for her remark on the divorce rate among the top Republican presidential contenders. She noted that the only one with "only one wife would be the Mormon," Mitt Romney.

Ignoring Dionne's advice, Lousiana Democrats plan to call for Vitter's resignation. That's a mistake that will come back to bite them in the long run -- particularly because this is Louisiana.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jim DeMint says he's talked to Vitter, who is apparently at home with his family, and the senator plans to return to work on Tuesday.

Vitter, politics, midtopia

It's the hypocrisy, stupid

A group blog I recently added to my blogroll, Buck Naked Politics, has a lengthy and thoughtful post on the Vitter scandal, noting that it's the hypocrisy, not the act, that people criticize the most.

A taste:

I don't actually care what people get up to in the privacy of their own marriages or elsewhere with one or more consenting adults, and am prepared to feel sympathetic if they overstep, get caught out, and suffer public humiliation.

But when someone tries to impose religious and ethical values on me by writing them into law, they should expect me to assume that they at least have those values themselves.

The moment for David Vitter to stop pushing his religious/marriage agenda was the moment, whenever it was, that he himself acted in a manner that violated the sanctity of marriage, an institution he claims to consider sacred.

One reason people were willing to forgive Bill Clinton for his Oval Office assignation is that he never tried to lecture others about sex and infidelity. That didn't make his infidelity okay, but it meant he wasn't a hypocrite. And it helped that he compartmentalized well: his private failings didn't seem to have much effect on his ability to execute his public duties.

Many social conservatives actually live their values. But a distressing number of them publicly profess one thing while living another. Another (small-bore) example emerged yesterday: The arrest of Florida State Rep. Bob Allen (and state co-chairman for the McCain campaign) for soliciting a sex act from a male undercover officer. Allen received an "A" from the Christian Coalition in 2005-06, based in part on votes in favor of interfering in the Schiavo case and making "In God we Trust" the state motto.

Anyway, give the link a read.

Vitter, Bob Allen, politics, midtopia

Vitter goes missing

A day after acknowledging he had patronized an escort service, Sen. David Vitter is keeping a low profile. Invisible, actually. Not at his D.C. apartment, not at his office, and not on the Senate floor.

I'd hide out, too, if I was him. But he's still being paid by the taxpayers, so he'll need to show up for work at some point.

Also, remote as the possibility may be, I hope nothing has happened to him. He doesn't sound crazy enough to harm himself over something like this, and the criticism and laughter are well deserved. But I'll feel better when he's back in public view.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post has the details on how Vitter was exposed, with Larry Flynt confirming his role. More interesting to me is that the process is so laborious that going through the entire list of phone numbers is going to take a good long time unless someone throws some serious computing power at it. Expect revelations to dribble out over many months, with long waits in between.

ABC News delves into the psychology of hypocrisy, that special mental talent that lets powerful public figures say one thing while doing another. My favorite quote? "Often the people who speak loudest about something are trying to protect themselves from their own urges. They act out one way on the public stage, but inside they have this urge. They feel it's wrong, and outwardly, they're telling themselves it's wrong. It's as if they're having a conversation with themselves."

Let's apply that to the gay marriage debate, shall we?

Update: Vitter's office says he's "with his family" and will return to work soon.


hypocrisy, Vitter, politics, midtopia

Vitter caught in prostitute probe

Far more quickly than I expected, we have our first member of Congress to be exposed as a client of the "D.C. Madam."

It's Republican Sen. David Vitter of Lousiana. And to the delight of hypocrisy fans everywhere, he's a perfect 10 in that department. He's a rock-ribbed social conservative, a family values guy who among other things has been a chief sponsor of constitutional amendments to ban gay-marriage. He earned a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union in 2002, when he was serving in the House -- a House seat he won in a special election in 1999 to replace House Speaker Robert Livingston, who resigned, ironically enough, after revelations that he had had an affair.

There were also rumors that Vitter had a long relationship with a French Quarter prostitute in 1999 -- a relationship he denied but which may have helped derail his prospective 2002 gubernatorial bid.

His wife, asked in March 2000 if she would be as forgiving as Hillary Clinton if her husband had an affair, replied, "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary."

Apparently, in the event, it turned out she was as forgiving as Hillary. But of course, she did it out of love while Hillary did it out of, er, naked political ambition.

Glenn Greenwald sums it up nicely, so I'll give him the last word:

So, to recap: in Louisiana, Vitter carried on a year-long affair with a prostitute in 1999. Then he ran for the House as a hard-core social conservative family values candidate, parading around his wife and kids as props and leading the public crusade in defense of traditional marriage.

Then, in Washington, he became a client of Deborah Palfrey's. Then he announced that amending the Constitution to protect traditional marriage was the most important political priority the country faces. Rush Limbaugh, Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich supported the same amendment.

As always, it is so striking how many Defenders of Traditional Marriage have a record in their own broken lives of shattered marriages, multiple wives and serial adultery. And they never seek to protect the Sacred Institution of Traditional Marriage by banning the un-Christian and untraditional divorces they want for themselves when they are done with their wives and are ready to move on to the next, newer model. Instead, they only defend these Very Sacred Values by banning the same-sex marriages that they don't want for themselves.

Greenwald overreaches a bit -- notably, referring to the French Quarter prostitute story as if it were proven fact -- but otherwise nails the hypocrisy of it all.

I caution people about getting too partisan about all of this. As I noted in my earlier post, this is likely to be a bipartisan scandal as it develops. It's quite possible that the next name revealed will be a prominent Democrat, who will deserve pillorying in his turn, either for moral failing or hypocrisy. But this first name couldn't be more perfect if it were being written into a movie.

Update: Some further -- if uncorroborated -- details on Vitter's New Orleans paid squeeze. Take them with a grain of salt.

It also turns out that Vitter's name was uncovered by an independent investigator who is writing a book with Deborah Palfrey, the D.C. Madam. But he also works for Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, who has made an avocation out of exposing sex scandals involving (mostly Republican) politicians.

hypocrites, prostitution, Vitter, politics, midtopia

Robert Bork, hypocrite

This is priceless.

Robert Bork ... is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law.

I'm just speechless.

The Wall Street Journal has the lawsuit documents (pdf) and its own commentary.

tort reform, Bork, politics, midtopia

Hypocrisy, Republican flavor

This is funny:

A Republican congressman who issued a large number of subpoenas for Clinton administration officials in the 1990s joined fellow Republicans in criticizing Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman for alleged overuse of subpoena authority....

[Rep. Dan Burton] chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the 1990s, and became famous for issuing a wide variety of subpoenas to Clinton White House staff and other executive branch officials. In a report on the oversight activities conducted to date in the 110th Congress, Burton joined other House Republicans to warn Democrats not to "abuse" their authority.

"The minority is concerned the majority may abuse the deposition authority provided to this committee under the 110th House Rules. The minority also is concerned with the majority's practice of threatening subpoenas to witnesses unless they 'agree' to transcribed interviews," warned Burton with other Congress members.

Dems do the same thing, of course. Indeed, the article sounds a cautionary note for them, from former White House counsel Lanny Davis:

"We complained about Burton’s use of the subpoena power in the 1990s and need to show restraint and not use the same clearly partisan tactics," he argued.

Yep. Tempting as it is to play tit for tat, Dems need to take the high road. They were elected to oversee the executive branch, not bury it in partisan investigations. In the prosecutor case they have come dangerously close to overplaying their hand a couple of times, only to be saved by further White House bumbling. They can't count on getting that lucky all the time. They are probably convinced that the administration is a sea of corruption and vice. But the way to expose that is to find a thread and unravel it, not go on unjustified fishing expeditions.

Burton, politics, midtopia

New Jersey grants gay civil unions

New Jersey becomes the third state to allow either civil unions or marriage.

Meanwhile, a Michigan court ruled earlier this month that the state's recent gay-marriage ban also outlaws domestic-partner benefits to government employees, including those who work for public universities. The logic: health benefits cannot be provided if doing so is based on treating same-sex relationships similar to marriage.

And so while New Jersey expands freedom and fairness, Michigan trips into the minefield of litigation and unintended consequences caused by a hastily passed, too-broadly drawn constitutional amendment that singles out a minority for discrimination. Another 20 states with similar bans probably will face similar troubles -- unless they take the route Alaska took and decide the law doesn't apply to such benefits.

Of course, some people are happy that this will hurt gay families. Take Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association's Michigan chapter:

“For the average Michigan taxpayer whose family does not receive government-paid insurance of any kind, this was a victory because Michigan taxpayers will no longer be forced to subsidize homosexual relationships among government workers as if those relationships are equal or similar to marriage,” he says.

That logic is so disingenuous, not to mention mean-spirited, I don't even know where to begin.

The AFA, by the way, also warns against witchcraft, specifically attacking a middle school newspaper for publishing an 8th-grade girl's article on her Wiccan aunt and Wiccan beliefs. This is a little ironic, considering they have a "religious freedom" section of their Web site where they purport to stand up for religious expression.

Such routine hypocrisy aside, it'll be interesting to see if there is a second wave of constitutional amendments amending the gay-marriage bans. I wouldn't expect outright repeals, but at the very least we might see language exempting domestic partner benefits or allowing civil unions. And the lessons of these first states -- moral as well as legal -- will likely slow the rush to adopt similar measures in the remaining states.

I stand by my prediction that in 20 years, the country will largely look back on this brouhaha and ask "what was the big deal"? Gay marriage laws will go the way of sodomy laws, falling state by state until the Supreme Court repeals the last few holdouts. Because manifest unfairness rarely survives for long, even when it involves something as visceral as homosexuality.

gay marriage, politics, midtopia

Republicans spin conspiracy theories

Remember how much conservatives and Republicans jeered when Hillary Clinton said she and Bill were victims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy"?

Well, now the shoe's on the other foot.

Leading Republicans, with the support of conservative media outlets, are charging that the Mark Foley scandal was a plot orchestrated by Democrats to damage the G.O.P.'s electoral prospects this November. According to the Washington Post, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert appeared on Rush Limbaugh's radio show and "agreed when the host said the Foley story was driven by Democrats 'in some sort of cooperation with some in the media' to suppress turnout of conservative voters" before the midterm elections.

Conservative talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt has said that Hastert had become the "target right now of the left-wing media machine," and House Majority Leader John Boehner has charged that the release of the Foley documents so close to the elections "is concerning, at a minimum."

The rest of the article is one journalist's explanation of how the Foley e-mails came to light, which shoots down many of the theories outlined above.

But the theories were junk to begin with. Was it plausible that the Democrats might pull something like this? Sure. Was there any evidence that they had? No. And the "suspicious timing" argument was silly, too. The e-mails and IMs are three years old; why wouldn't the Dems have released them in 2004 instead of waiting for the 2006 by-election? And if they were going to wait, why release them five weeks before the election? Why not two weeks, or one?

It was all just speculation -- pure, partisan speculation masquerading as fact. And a sad spectacle, too, because let's just say that it turned out to be true -- that Democrats released the e-mails. So what? Does that change their substance? Does that let GOP leaders off the hook?

The only way this could tar the Democrats is if they had the far-more-lurid IMs and sat on them, waiting for a moment of maximum political advantage. But again, there's no evidence that this happened.

What we do have, however, is clear evidence of right-wing hypocrisy and double standards when it comes to crying "conspiracy", and intellectual dishonesty when it comes to separating fact from fantasy.

Foley, politics, midtopia

A threat to the fabric of freedom

The Bush administration continues to play by its own set of rules, to the detriment of truth and liberty.

First we have the big news of the day, that Bush himself authorized Lewis Libby to discuss classified information with reporters.

As the Washington Post notes, this is legal by definition -- the President, after all, has the ultimate authority to declassify information -- but was "highly unusual and amounted to using sensitive intelligence data for political gain."

This doesn't directly implicate Bush in the Plame case; he authorized discussion of a National Intelligence Estimate, not Plame's identity. But it does expose Bush's hypocrisy, since he complained about leaks of classified information while leaking such information himself. So his real position is that he should be the only one allowed to leak information. This is legally correct, but ethically it stinks.

But almost lost in the hubbub over the leak revelation is this little gem from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:

Gonzales left open the possibility yesterday that President Bush could order warrantless wiretaps on telephone calls occurring solely within the United States -- a move that would dramatically expand the reach of a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

In response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales suggested that the administration could decide it was legal to listen in on a domestic call without supervision if it were related to al-Qaeda.

"I'm not going to rule it out," Gonzales said.

Translation: there is no legal line that the administration will not cross on its own authority. Warrants? We don't need no stinkin' warrants. FISA? Nothing but a toothless scrap of paper.

Whatever you think of the administration, giving one branch of government the right to decide for itself whether its actions are legal is a really, really, really bad idea. The whole reason warrants exist is to protect citizens from the government. What Gonzales has just suggested is that such protection doesn't exist if the executive branch, on its own sole authority, decides it wants to eavesdrop on you.

I have no objection to wiretapping suspected terrorists; I want them caught and foiled just like everybody else. Just get a warrant first. If the evidence of terrorism involvement isn't strong enough to survive scrutiny by a court as compliant as FISA, then the wiretap is probably unjustified.

You know, Democrats may be a threat to my wallet (though given the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush administration, I don't know how anyone can make that case anymore). But they don't scare me. Republicans under Bush, on the other hand, are a threat to the fundamental fabric of freedom. Warrantless wiretaps. Pre-emptive war based on the thinnest of reasoning, followed by stunning incompetence in the occupation and here at home. Massive deficits. Politicizing science. Corruption. Shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class. Unfunded mandates for the states. Band-aid solutions for big problems like health care. Ignoring AMT. The list goes on and on and on. Their carelessness and hubris is not just incredible; it's actively harmful.

Find a set of principles, Mr. President. Respect the law, Mr. President. Do your job, Mr. President.

And Congress, you do yours. Stand up for the country and actually serve as a check on the executive branch, rather than playing the patsy or accomplice.

You won't see me rant very often. But stuff like this makes my blood boil.

warrant, wiretaps, eavesdropping, Gonzales, Libby, leak, Bush, politics, midtopia