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sysprog
Published Letters: 2957 Editor's Choice: 2
on signing statements, on January 31, 2007, Charlie Savage was
the only mainstream media reporter who joined the bloggers in
covering that hearing.
(Well, it was only a one day hearing, so I guess it was only an
"uproar du jour".)
http://boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/02/01/house_panel_probing_bushs_record_on_signing_statements
. . . Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree testified that signing statements create potential dangers even if the executive branch does not violate the laws.Ogletree cited a signing statement Bush attached to a December 2006 law banning the transfer of nuclear technology to India if it violates international non proliferation guidelines. Bush claimed that he has independent power to run America's foreign affairs and so he would view the ban as merely "advisory."
Indian newspapers reported that the government of India took note of Bush's statement, Ogletree said, raising the possibility it would not take the ban seriously.
- - By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | February 1, 2007
Maybe, just maybe, the nuclear proliferation issues, and other issues related to presidential signing statements, should be reported by somebody other than Charlie Savage? It's not as if the final story on signing statements has already been written. There's still an enormous amount of digging to be done. Somebody should ask every assignment editor in D.C. why they didn't assign any reporters to cover that hearing.
Little v. Barreme, 6 U.S. 170 (1804) established that Congress does indeed have the Constitutional authority to "micromanage" the military by passing laws.
Congressional war powers include, but aren't limited to, the power of the purse.
The commander-in-chief is merely the top general and top admiral. If he(she) gives an illegal order, then the generals and admirals under his(her) command are legally obliged to disregard that order.
What might be an illegal order? That's up to Congress (subject to presidential veto, of course).
Congressional "micromanagement" of the military, by passage of laws, might be impractical, but it's absolutely constitutional.
http://pollkatz.homestead.com/files/graphic-disapproval_files/pollkatzmainGRAPHICS_9432_image001.gif
According to noted numbers crunchologist Stuart Eugene Thiel (alias "Dr. Pollkatz"), Bush's numbers are up!
But seriously, it's remarkable how the chart of Bush disapproval (and the almost identical chart of Iraq War disapproval) shows such a smooth and steady upward trend.
Clearly, the equation in people's minds is that "Bush = Iraq".
Disapproval of both has been over 50% for two years now, and keeps moving up.
With Congress, the picture's a little different. According to a recent Pew survey, most Americans don't know the Iraq War positions of their local Congressman or Congresswoman.
This is related to the fact that local Congressmen and Congresswomen don't get much news coverage, especially not on television, and television is still the primary source of news for most Americans.
Brit Hume was once a reporter. Now he's a pusher, pushing his party line.
What really happened to the Democratic Party after they stopped supporting the Vietnam War? Here's what a pro-war hawk (now semi-reformed) wrote last month.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601827,00.html
TIME magazine
Why the Dems Should Go for It
Thursday, Mar. 22, 2007
By PETER BEINART. . . Despite today's conventional wisdom, Democrats didn't suffer in the 1970s for opposing Vietnam . . .
In 1973 the Senate voted to suspend funding for American military operations in Vietnam; the next year, Congress voted to cut off aid to the embattled government in Saigon. Some of today's commentators argue that those votes devastated the Democratic Party in the mid-1970s. But if so, the Democrats had a strange way of showing it. They won the 1974 midterm elections in a landslide. Two years later, Jimmy Carter grabbed the White House. To be sure, Watergate played a major role in those victories. But if the party's efforts to end the war weren't the primary reason for its success, they certainly didn't hurt.
It's true that in 1972, antiwar crusader George McGovern suffered one of the biggest political wallopings in American history, losing 49 states to Richard Nixon. Surely then, Democrats suffered for opposing Vietnam? Actually, no. People forget that in 1972 Nixon ran on a peace platform too. In his convention speech, he boasted that he had ended the draft, withdrawn American troops from ground combat, pursued a negotiated settlement with North Vietnam and reduced U.S. casualties 98%. The fall was marked by feverish diplomacy between Washington and Hanoi, culminating in Henry Kissinger's declaration, less than two weeks before the election, that "peace is at hand." . . .
- - Peter Beinart
Nixon, for all his faults, was far more reality-based than Bush is, and Nixon knew that he had to be (or had to pretend to be) a peace candidate, not a "war president".
"Sentence first — verdict afterwards," said the Queen of Hearts.
Case in point is Feinstein's steering of DoD contracts to her husband. A Republican is in jail for the same thing while she merely resigns a committee post. Can you honestly consider that fair?
- - shooter242 Tuesday, April 17, 2007 03:38 PM
Shooter's not much of a conservative, but he's quite a card.
And did Feinstein resign a committee post? Not according to the story at : http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200704/POL20070404a.html
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
