Letters to the Editor
masaccio
Published Letters: 230 Editor's Choice: 16
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The minority government
[Read the article: "Are We Rome?"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We just don't seem to be working right as a nation. When I was young, in the 50s the differences between the parties did not seem that great to me, and that similarity enabled us to get on with a number of huge social changes in the rights of African-Americans and women.
These things were not fixed but we got a good running start, until under Nixon, the government just began to ignore what the people wanted. We wanted out of Viet Nam. We wanted civil rights, and reasonably equal education and more. What we got was liars like Nixon and Kissinger, death and destruction, and a gradual breakdown in the relations between citizen and government.
Now, I don't think government is responsive to the will of the people at all. Bush thinks he knows what is best, and he is going to push it down our throats. The elites just don't care what we think. Their sense of entitlement is clear from a reading of the Scooter Libby pardon letters.
How the heck does Murphy think we are supposed to fix things when the will of a majority can be ignored with impunity, the Attorney General and his minions lie to Congress about their actions with impunity, and our constitutional rights are stripped away by the Congress?
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The letters
[Read the article: The Libby lobby's pardon campaign]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have read the pardon letters. They paint a picture of a very smart man, with the ability to manage huge amounts of information about complex matters. The writers, almost all of them, say that the convictions are inconsistent with the Libby they know, most of them from long work relationships, and the rest from long social relationships. He was nice to everyone he met, including very junior people and the aides and drivers who attended to him and the VP. He remembered them, and helped them over long periods of time. Even allowing for the context of requests for mercy, they are impressive.
The only way to make the conviction consistent with the character the writers give Libby is to assume that he lied on purpose. He had some goal in lying that to him was more important than his honor and his family. It is hard for me to believe that a person would consider lying to protect Cheney or the Bushies from disclosure of the facts would be enough to risk jail, but I don't see any other option.
During the trial, several people pointed out that his wife seemed really upset about things, and that it seemed to be directed to Libby, not his lawyers. Several of the social friends were women who say that Libby and his wife were close. I think she knows what happened and why. I wonder if she could plead a spousal privilege to refuse to testify before Congress.
(comment posted elsewhere)
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Packing advice
[Read the article: I don't know how to take a vacation!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I love the packing advice, and would add a detail. Wherever you go people sell stuff. So, if you forget something, just buy another one. Better yet, buy the local version instead of the one you always get. Make shopping for it a goal. You will have to wander around and interact with the locals.
I have been traveling that way for years.
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Hilton, Libby, the same thing
[Read the article: Perp Paris and other news]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The parallels between Hilton and Libby are obvious. The rich are just stunned to learn that they are held to the same standards as the rest of us. Reading the letters from Libby supporters, you realize that the senders are offended that this "good man, good husband, good father" has to go to jail for lying. In exactly the same way, Hilton's parents are working their butts off to fend off a well-deserved sentence for drunk driving. Our little Libby/Paris in jail? Scandalous.
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The Dissent
[Read the article: The al-Marri decision]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The dissent by Judge Hudson, a District Judge sitting by designation, deserves some thought. Judge Hudson joins the majority on the jurisdictional issue. His dissent is premised on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force:
"[T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
Judge Hudson interprets this provision to mean that the US is at war with al-Qaeda. According to him, the "unrebutted proof" is that al-Marri is a sleeper agent of al-Qaeda, which means that the President is authorized to act against him. He was given a meaningful opportunity to rebut the allegations that make him an unlawful combatant, as required by the decision in Hamdi. That is what he gets.
The fundamental beam on which this analysis rests is the AUMF. Time to repeal or at least amend it. It is just too dangerous.
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Cleaning up after Bush
[Read the article: Hillary's hard-won experience]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I see one very important lesson from the first Clinton that I hope the second has learned. When democrats take over from republicans, they have to clean out the apparatchiks that the rs leave behind. All of them. And, you have to do it in a way that brands them as liars, thieves, cowards and incompetents, so they won't ever return to public life without a chorus of jeers. The first Clinton didn't do that, and look: they're baaack!
To make sure they don't come back, the second Clinton, or any democratic president, has to start ruthlessly going through documents and releasing them to the public. The material should be shoveled out in front of Congress and used to tar these baby Rumsfelds, Wolfowitzs and Scalias with the clear intent of ruining their reputations.
It may not work: Eliot Abrams was resuscitated like some zombie, and Gingrich has blown his burst bubble into the public limelight, but it gives us a fighting chance further down the road.
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One small good thing
[Read the article: Richard Cohen's brilliant (and unintentional) exposé of our media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One good thing is that the WaPo allows comments, and hundreds of people have called Cohen out on this. I wonder if he reads the comments.
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Is it true
[Read the article: The good news about George W. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That Tony Snow is Satan?