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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"Few things could reflect better on Panetta's selection than the fact that Feinstein and Rockefeller -- two of the most Bush-enabling Senators -- are unhappy with it."
When I heard the news tonight that Obama had picked Panetta I initially thought...great...another Clinton person. Later when I heard E.J. Dionne say that Feinstein was not happy because she wasn't consulted and may have wanted Jane "illegal spying is ok with me" Harman...I started liking the idea of Panetta because like you I thought if DiFi and Jello Jay (heard about him later) didn't like him he MUST be a good pick. This might just get interesting.
via Digby
Folks have been praising the novelty of a director-designate of the CIA who has unequivocally denounced torture. Good to remember, too, how the name "Leon Panetta" first came to national prominence, in 1969, when he resigne[d] from the Nixon administration in protest against the Southern Strategy. - Rick Perlstein
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009010205/leon-panetta
1/5/09 SF Chronicle OpEd
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/05/EDED15262K.DTL
Bush-Cheney deserve censure for declaring war against the Constitution
Bruce Fein, Ralph Nader
Monday, January 5, 2009
Before Inauguration Day, the 111th Congress should pass a forward-looking resolution censuring President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for executive aggrandizements or abuses that have reduced Congress to vassalage and shredded the rule of law. The resolution should express a congressional intent to prevent repetitions by the President-elect Barack Obama or his successors. The objective is not Bush-Cheney bashing, but to restore a republican form of government in which "We the People" are sovereign, and the president is checked and publicly scrutinized by Congress and the courts. The Bush-Cheney duumvirate won an undeclared war against the Constitution. Most troublesome, they captured the power to initiate war from a spineless Congress. The Founding Fathers were unanimous in denying the president that constitutional authority. They knew that presidents would chronically deceive Congress and concoct excuses for war to control public information, benefit political friends through government contracts, quell dissent, assert emergency powers and enjoy the intoxicating thrill of, "I came, I saw, I conquered."
By wielding the threat of international terrorism, the Bush-Cheney team put the nation on a permanent war footing - the first time in history that war has been undertaken against a tactic. They maintained that the entire post-9/11 world is an active battlefield where United States military force may be used to kill suspected members of al Qaeda irrespective of international boundaries.
They claimed executive privilege and state secrets to conduct secret government - thereby circumventing political and legal accountability. This included directives to former White House officials Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to flout congressional subpoenas for testimony. They detained hundreds of people (including American citizens) as enemy combatants without accusation or trial. They authorized torture (waterboarding and extraordinary rendition), abductions, secret prisons and illegal surveillance of American citizens.
Like its immediate predecessors, the 110th Congress eagerly yielded its authorities - even the power of the purse - to the president. The Iraqi War Resolution, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments, and the declination to hold Rove in contempt of Congress were emblematic.
If left unrebuked, the Bush-Cheney usurpations of power will become part of the constitutional firmament and risk creating a safe harbor for future presidential abuses. Every member of Congress, moreover, is required to take an oath to "support (the) Constitution" pursuant to Article VI. There is no corresponding oath to support the Republican or Democratic parties or to subordinate the Constitution in the name of political harmony. Censure would be no novelty.
The Senate voted to rebuke President Andrew Jackson for constitutional lawlessness in 1834: "Resolved, That the President, in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both."
The censure resolution we contemplate would enumerate the serial Bush-Cheney constitutional violations; and, censure them for complicity in wrecking the Constitution's finely tuned balance of powers. In two previous congressional sessions, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., introduced censure resolutions against the president and vice president for deceiving Congress about the war in Iraq and warrantless spying on American citizens in contravention of FISA.
The resolution should also endorse a remedial legislative agenda that would be binding on all future presidents, including the president-elect. It should include a criminal prohibition on intentional misrepresentations to Congress to obtain authorization for war; or, the president's initiation of war without an express congressional mandate. The president's withholding of information demanded by Congress should likewise be prohibited.
An independent prosecutor should be created to prosecute crimes allegedly perpetrated by high-level executive-branch officials in the course of executing presidential directives or defending presidential prerogatives. FISA should be amended to restore individualized warrants based on probable cause to spy on Americans in order to gather foreign intelligence.
Censure will not, by itself, remedy the Bush-Cheney vandalizing of the Constitution. But if members of Congress neglect even that modest step, our republic and democracy will have been irreparably harmed.
Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, is chairman of the American Freedom Agenda and author of "Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for our Constitution and Democracy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Ralph Nader is a citizen advocate and author.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/05/EDED15262K.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
"Few things could reflect better on Panetta's selection than the fact that Feinstein and Rockefeller -- two of the most Bush-enabling Senators -- are unhappy with it."
Yesssssss!
First: great stuff Glenn - Thanks!. And lots of great dialogue.
I was elated to hear that Dawn Johnsen was Obama’s pick to take charge of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). She is one of the best appointments yet (IMO) out of Obama's many excellent picks.
I became a huge Dawn Johnsen fan after watching her testimony to Congress on the 'secret laws' hearings on CSPAN.
(CSPAN is great, but why is all the good stuff always on at 2AM ;-) )
Much of the Bush administration's flagrant disregard for the Constitution had the OLC at the center of it all.
They ran an inside circle run-around. The Yoo headed OLC drafted opinions to support the nefarious intentions of the administration. The administration then carries out their agenda offering the support/cover of the OLC opinion as evidence of the legality (plausible deniability really) should their tactics ever come to light. However, they rarely did as this administration released very little of this usually disseminated information - keeping even Congress in the dark.
It’s like robbing a bank and saying ‘it’s o.k. – I asked my lawyer beforehand, and he wrote this paper for me saying it was fine!’
Dawn Johnsen was a VERY vocal opponent to these tactics and spoke with authority on the matter having severed in the OLC under Clinton.
Her appoint to head the OLC is a HUGE AND MASSIVE direction in the right step! YESSSSSS!!!!
Our Country is blessed to have someone so able, willing, honest and brilliant step up to serve.
(her testimony to Congress on the 'secret law' of this administration was enthralling - yes, really! Did you watch the CSPAN video?)
Obama's other picks in this area are of similar value.
Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, an eight-term congressional veteran and administrative expert, is being tapped to head the CIA.
Retired Adm. Dennis Blair is Obama's choice to be director of national intelligence.
With our new President being a scholarly Constitutional layer, and the people he is surrounding himself with, the heart of America - the Constitution - has found some champions on which to find firmer ground.
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"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
