Thursday, February 16, 2006
The Poor Man v. TigerHawk: The reply brief
While the Editors themselves have been quite civil, the commenters over there get pretty personal in a hurry. The exchange has reminded me that our commenters, both left and right, are generally more diverse in their views and more civil in their writing than the more polarized blogs of the left (and, in fairness, their counterparts on the right). I think all of us are grateful for that.
So what to do about The Editors of The Poor Man? File a reply brief.
In their opening shot, The Editors described me as a "pro-torture conservative." I objected to that characterization in their comments, claiming that "I’m not 'pro-torture,' either on utilitarian or other grounds. I have written nothing to suggest that I am." I further invited The Editors to "chew me," by which I mean a robust and well-extended "bite me." This they did:
You are pro-Bush - pro the man who made and maintains torture as US policy. You are pro-Republican - pro the party which most strongly defends and endorses this policy.
It is true that I endorsed Bush over John Kerry, but mostly because I am a big hawk on foreign policy. If the Democrats still had a real hawkish wing -- if there were Scoop Jackson Democrats for the Islamofascist era -- I could very well have supported a Democrat against Bush. Curious true fact: the only candidate I gave money to in the last presidential cycle was Howard Dean. (That last is more than a little disingenuous, insofar as I did it to honor a good friend's request rather than out of conviction, but in the interests of entertaining The Poor Man's readers I figured I'd toss it out there.)
The real problem here is that The Editors deploy a rhetorical trick -- having been challenged to support their accusation that I am a "pro-torture conservative," they now want you to believe that I must be pro-torture if I support George W. Bush. Sorry, but I do not accept that my support for a particular politician requires me to incorporate by reference support for every policy, act or opinion of that politician. Does The Poor Man believe that? I expect not. I doubt that The Editors, for example, support extraordinary rendition just because Al "snatch his ass" Gore does (or at least did).
And, most importantly, you have joined in in the smearing of people like Amnesty International, Dick Durbin (temporarily), and now Al Gore - whose opposition to torture, and the supporters of and apologists for torture, is unqualified.
I don't get the part about me "smearing" Amnesty International or Dick Durbin. I gave money to Amnesty International for many years, and finally gave it up only when they got too annoying on the question of capital punishment, which I support under very limited circumstances. I can't locate any post among the thousands that I have written that "smears" AI. When Durbin gave a speech comparing the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo to the treatment of prisoners under the Nazis, I referred to it as "absurd," but that's hardly a "smear." Is the claim that I "joined in the smearing" of Amnesty and Sen. Durbin another guilt-by-association argument? If so, that's a smear.
The next bit involves some fairly Talmudic parsing of the meanings of "traitor" and "treason," the Editors having previously accused me of claiming that Gore was and did same, and me having denied it. The Editors:
So you say Gore “attacked the United States”, and that he was “deliberately undermining the United States during a time of war”, and being “both destructive and disloyal”, but you don’t think he came close to treason? Please explain to me the great gulf you see between these ideas.
Sure. Treason is a crime. That stuff Al Gore said may have been disloyal, but it was not a crime. It's the crime/not crime gulf.
Yes, there are, as The Editors point out at length, non-legal meanings of the word that mean, essentially, disloyalty. But they wrote "TigerHawk excoriates Al Gore for treason" on purpose -- they knew that many of their readers would take that to mean that I accused Gore of a crime, which accusation would have tagged me as an unreconstructed nut-job (which, had I in fact accused Gore of a crime, I would have been, notwithstanding this argument). The Editors were relying on the dual meaning of the word to confuse their readers (at least some of whom are easily confused). Another rhetorical trick. Nasssty Editorses.
The Editors then defended Gore's strange comment about our new visa policies "playing into al Qaeda's hands."
Gore said:
"The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake," Gore said during the Jiddah Economic Forum. "The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States."
I wrote:1
Substantively, the idea that cracking down on Saudi visa applications is "playing into al Qaeda's hands" is laughable. Had we scrutinized Saudi visas a little more carefully in 2001, thousands of Americans who died on September 11 that year might well have lived. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on that day were Saudi nationals. If we had denied some or all of them visas, exactly how would that have "played into al Qaeda's hands"?
Perhaps Gore is suggesting that notwithstanding the obvious benefits of our tough visa policies, if they irritate the House of Saud, or just the average wealthy Saudi, the Saudis will abandon the fight against al Qaeda out of pique. If so, his point is absurd. The House of Saud and al Qaeda are at war, and have been going at each other with hammer and tongs since May 2003. Whether or not some Saudis are offended by American visa policies, that inconvenience -- or indignity, even -- is nothing compared to the mortal threat of the jihadis.
The Editors responded:
Since I’ve still got my dictionary open, let’s look up the word “scrutiny”, and see if it means anything like “handling in a thoughtless way”, “routinely blocking”, or any of the other things Gore is quoted or paraphrased as objecting to in the Bush visa policy. Let’s see, “scrumptious”, “scrutable”, ah! here it is! “scrutiny”. No it doesn’t seem to mean that at all - almost the opposite, in fact. And, indeed, the craziness quotient of objecting to “close scrutiny” and “thoughtless handling” for visa applications is, I’m sure you will agree, completely different. I won’t speculate as to why you would chose such an, um, imprecise characterization, but it might be something for you to reflect on.
Well, we have long since learned that the Editors can use a dictionary, which is a relief. But you know and they know that they deliberately ignored Al Gore's meaning. When the Gorebot accused the United States of "thoughtless handling" of Saudi visa applications, he was witlessly characterizing the current higher level of scrutiny -- which results in delays and rejections that are vexing to the audience at the Jeddah Economic Forum -- as "thoughtless." The Saudis, of course, wish that we would return to the old "Visa Express" days, which rubber-stamp program probably allowed al Qaeda to get at least part of its team into the country. The reversion to our old system for issuing visas, plus heightened review for young men, is not "thoughtless," but greater "scrutiny," to wit:
Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the State Department has imposed a more rigorous review of Arab and Muslim men, ages 16 to 45, including in Saudi Arabia. Officials acknowledge that the new procedures, described as temporary, have slowed visa applications in Saudi Arabia.
In any case, The Editors did not respond to my more substantive point, which is that there is simply no way that -- ok, a "more rigorous review" -- of Saudi visa applications "plays into al Qaeda's hands." Visa Express played into al Qaeda's hands.2 And, by the way, we should be extremely skeptical of the idea that letting in rich Saudis is going to deepen the "channels of friendship and mutual understanding" between Americans and that revolting regime. Have you ever met any of these guys? They're freakin' royalty! America invented lèse-majesté fer Chrissakes. We should act like it. If we need to open up "channels of friendship and mutual understanding," my suggestion is that we grant refugee status to the many Saudi women desperate to leave their country, and pressure the Saudis to let them out.
The heart of our argument, though, relates to whether there can be any criticism of the President, or American government policy, or America in a more general sense, that is inappropriate, disloyal, or otherwise fairly considered immoral in some basic sense. My claim is that there is a big difference between attempting to persuade Americans and attempting to persuade foreigners. The Poor Man sees otherwise.
This is what I wrote:
Procedurally, Gore's speech is repugnant. It is one thing to say such things to an American audience in an effort to change our policy. Whether or not one agrees with Gore on the substance, if he wants to change American policy to let in more Saudis the only way he can do that it is to campaign for that change among influential Americans. It is, however, another thing entirely to travel to a foreign country that features pivotally in the war of our generation for the purpose of denouncing American policies in front of the affected foreign audience. It is especially problematic to mess with Saudi political opinions, which are subject to intensive influence and coercion by internal actors and the United States, al Qaeda, and Iran, among other powers. Supposing that some Saudis were inclined to be angry over the American visa policy, won't they be more angry after Al Gore has told them that they're being humiliated? How is that helpful?
Finally, Gore's outrage at the American treatment of Arab and Muslim captives may be genuine, and it may even be worthy of expression in the United States, where we aspire to do better than press accounts suggest we have done. But whatever nasty things we have done in exceptional cases in time of war, they pale in comparison to the standard operating procedure in Saudi Arabia. So this is what Gore has done: he has traveled to Jiddah to explain to the elites of an ugly and tyrannical regime that the big problem in the world isn't the oppression of Arabs by Arabs throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but the mistreatment of a few hundred Arabs in the United States. This is like visiting Moscow in 1970 and denouncing the United States in front of a bunch of Communist Party deputies for the killings at Kent State. Indeed, the differences in that comparison reflect badly on Gore.
There is simply no defense for what Gore has done here, for he is deliberately undermining the United States during a time of war, in a part of the world crucial to our success in that war, in front of an audience that does not vote in American elections. Gore's speech is both destructive and disloyal, not because of its content -- which is as silly as it is subversive -- but because of its location and its intended audience.
The Poor Man walked crunchily and carried a big stick with TR all over it:
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. (Theodore Roosevelt, 1918)
That’s one man’s thoughts on patriotism and treason; I happen to admire Teddy Roosevelt, but I wouldn’t try to say that he gets to say once and for all what is and what ain’t patriotic. It’s a debate, it’s a constant dialogue. But he has painted a starkly different picture than you: that asking private citizens to hold back their criticism is not merely not what you must do to warn people away from treason(or perhaps even a “treason”!); it is, in fact, unpatriotic and servile! Ouch. Roosevelt makes no mention of context or extenuating circumstances here, but the unqualified tone of his statement does have a “Green Eggs and Ham” quality - “it is servile in a hat/ it is servile on a mat” etc., etc. I suspect that it is servile in a tree/ and it is servile in Arabee. I admire Roosevelt, and I think he is absolutely correct here...
Dude. Do you think Teddy Roosevelt might not have qualified that statement if, say, William Jennings Bryan had travelled to Havana or Manila in, say, 1898, and denounced the American war to oust the Spanish? If you think there is even the slightest possibility that he would not have condemned such a speech as "unpatriotic" and "disloyal," you are not the admirer of TR that you claim to be. No, for at least the third time in your "response" you have attacked an argument I quite clearly did not make. In fact, I was (and have been many times) quite clear that I have no problem with attacks on the President personally or the administration's policies if the purpose is to defeat the President in an election (now moot) or change those policies. But that does not mean that there aren't some attacks that are not more destructive to American interests, writ broadly, than is necessary to effect the change advocated. I would have no procedural objection to Gore's speech, and certainly would not have considered it disloyal, if he delivered it on American soil to an American audience.
The Poor Man gets to that question:
You have said that “it is manifestly disloyal for Americans to launch attacks on American policy from foreign soil in front of foreign audiences.” I don’t see the manifestness. What obvious principle am I missing which makes it “manifest”? “No talking out of school?” “What goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas?” “Because the purpose of such an attack is not primarily to change American policy,” as they can’t vote, you say. But this is utter nonsense: you might as well attack praise of American policy abroad, too, because it can have no reenforcing effect on the policy. I mean, are there any circumstances in which talking politics with foreigners would be acceptable? Or with residents of Washington, D.C. Puerto Rico, for that matter (who get as many votes as Saudis in national elections)? Is this really a “manifest” definition of “disloyalty”? Because it seems like a decent definition of “baloney”.
OK, forget the "manifest" part. My bad. It is just disloyal with no modifier.
I look at this quite simply. We are in a war that includes, among other things, an exceedingly deep effort to cajole, coerce, persuade and contain different elements of Saudi society, which is buffeted by similar efforts from all the powers in the region, including both Iran and al Qaeda and its cognates. The House of Saud, which in a simpler world was very friendly with the Bush 41/Scowcroft faction (and, apparently, the Gore faction), has strained relations with the Bush 43 group (hand-holding notwithstanding), in no small part because of the latter's democratization strategy (The Poor Man's readers, by the way, might be interested in my discussion of the "realist case" for that policy). You can argue that American policy toward Saudi Arabia has been effective (they are still pumping oil at the margin to defeat more confrontational countries, and since May 2003 have joined the fight against al Qaeda with enthusiasm) or ineffective (they are working to subvert the Shia majority in Iraq, for example), but it is impossible to say that they are not important or thoroughly considered.
So what did Al Gore do in the middle of this war? He did his level best to persuade a room full of influential Saudis that they were correct to resent American national policy. It was absolutely within his rights under the law to do that, but how was it within any conception of American interests to undermine the policies of an administration that will persist for three more years whether Gore likes it or not? One need not conflate loyalty to country, administration or any particular policy, as The Editors claim that I did, to wonder whether Al Gore was serving a national purpose, or only his own. Accordingly, I am entirely comfortable agreeing with the principles, if not the specific opinions, in the Editors' closing remarks.
The loyalty “owed” a President, or any government official, or any policy of the same, by a private citizen, is this much loyalty: zero. Let me say that again: the loyalty I, or you, or anyone “owes” to someone in the government, or to some course of action they favor, is none whatsoever. To think otherwise, Teddy Roosevelt might comment, is “unpatriotic and servile”. Now, this is not to say you can’t give your loyalty to the President or his policies - it’s a free country, and you can do any non-treasonous thing you want with your loyalty - but that’s your decision, and nobody has to live with it but you (and all the people who suffer from the consequences of your stupid choice of loyalties, of course.) Personally, I think the President is a horrible fucking stupid cunt and his policies are for shit. Your results may vary. But if someone tells me that I “owe” it to the President or his crap policy to act like I don’t think that, well, that person can get in the big long line with WPE and the rest of folks who really desperately need to go fuck themselves.
But Democracy gets even worse. The President and the President’s policies owe me loyalty. The President and his policies are supposed to be working for the good of the country and her people. That’s how the loyalty flows. The President is required to act for my (ok, “our”) benefit; if he does not, the betrayal is his, and the sorts of things which you’d like to call “disloyalty” become duty. Does Gore’s speaking out against torture “undermine” the country? That’s a tricky position to hold if you oppose torture. Does it “undermine” the policy? I wish. No, it does this: it reminds the world that however fucked up our government is, it isn’t us, it doesn’t speak for us, and it can never, ever make us quiet down. And I do say God Bless America.
Neither the President nor the government speaks "for us," except in the most legalistic sense, so I agree. But, and this is a big "but," we elect the government to defend us, both militarily and diplomatically. Recognizing that it may very well screw the pooch from time to time in the execution of that duty and that we can and should criticize it for doing so, it is also true that that criticism can be expressed in a time or place that does more or less damage to our interests as a country. If Al Gore, who is a private citizen both privileged to have and burdened by his status as a former Vice President, deploys that status to discredit American governmental policy in front of an audience that can't affect that policy but which can hurt our interests in a war, I say that he is being disloyal to Americans, and that Theodore Roosevelt would agree with me.
_______________________
1. The Poor Man leveraged off a shorter version of the same point that I posted in his comments section.
2. Just to prove that I am not a crazed "pro-Bush" partisan, I freely acknowledge that it was his State Department that extended the Visa Express program to Saudi Arabia in the spring of 2001. Bizarrely, Gore's "thoughtless handling" codespeak is an implicit endorsement of one Bush administration decision that virtually everybody, left and right, has condemned.
32 Comments:
By 
Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Feb 16, 11:10:00 AM:
That didn't strike me as brief. (kidding) It was thoughtful and reasonable. Hopefully your detractors will respond with similar class. I'll give you a pass this week since you so many more distinguished luminaries visiting to argue.
By Gordon Smith, at
Thu Feb 16, 11:20:00 AM:
Classy response, Hawk.
I'll throw in two cents with the knowledge that it'd take about $2.50 to cover all the points in your post and in the tete-a-tete b/w you and the Poorman.
To stand before a foreign audience and decry poor treatment of Arabs is the kind of thing I'd like to see the President do. I'd like to see him outlaw rendition, outlaw torture, close Gitmo, and nail the Abu Ghraib gang (Abu Gonzales included) to the wall. But he won't. He persists in human rights abuses that make every other effort appear to be hypocritical smoke-and-mirrors.
When Al Gore, a man supported by half of our nation only 5 years, gets up and decries human rights abuses, I stand up and cheer. The way to security (in addition to improved prevention and international cooperation) is to be able to stand before the world without parsing what the definition of torture is or what the definition of POW is. Human rights are already codified, and the United States can take a moral lead in this global culture war.
President Bush chooses not to do away with human rights abuses. That's a mistake, and it's making me and my family less safe.
Good luck in the debate with The Poorman. Scrutiny Hooligans think you're one of the few reasonable bloggers on the right. Though we disagree, we can always talk.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu Feb 16, 11:24:00 AM:
The thing that is hilariously ironic is that I would bet $1 there has been another moment when the Poor Man or those like them mocked Bush as Suadi-royalty-ass-kissing-oil-grubbing-Texas-dumbass. Now here Gore goes off and tells the Saudi royals that he would be a better friend to them than Bush (undoubtedly in a craven effort to raise money), and the lefties defend Gore.
Hello? IQ test anyone? Hello?
Another title to the whole Gore drama -- rather than focusing on his disloyalty -- might be...
GORE SOLICITS SAUDI ROYALTY SUPPORT FOR RELAXED IMMIGRATION POLICY
Now that would stir things up...
By 
, at
Thu Feb 16, 12:33:00 PM:
You and The Editors are doing an excellent job of writing entertaining debate posts. Though I side closer to The Editors on this issue, your viewpoint is understandable and defendable, and the debate is one that should engender understanding, as opposed to enmity.
Good discussion, and good post.
By , at
Thu Feb 16, 03:04:00 PM:
You know, I'm not a US citizen, and I'm reading your blog. Now I'm not a terrorist, but if I were, there'd still be nothing stopping me from reading this and other US-centric blogs. Furthermore, US media (television, etc) absolutely dominates worldwide - there are probably more US shows on TV over here in Australia than local programming. In fact, media may well at the moment be the USA's biggest export. Even the media content that doesn't get exported or put up on the web gets blogged about or talked about on BBSs.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that short of massive Government censorship (which I'm sure you're not advocating), there's nothing US opinion leaders say that doesn't either get exported to the world or archived in easy-to-google format on the web. That's just one of the byproducts of American hegemony and dominance over the world's media. Given that, I really don't see what distinction being on or not on US soil makes.
By , at
Thu Feb 16, 03:28:00 PM:
This is the same poster as above. I just realise 'terrorist' doesn't make much sense in this context. I was conflating this issue with the wiretapping scandal for some reason. The criticism from the right on the fact that the media and opinion leaders openly discuss that story is often that now al Qaeda knows they're being eavesdropped on. Which strikes me as disengenuous, given that they had every reason to suspect they were being eavesdropped on.
But that's neither here or there, just replace 'terrorist' with 'Muslim gentleman currently torn between supporting or opposing US interests in the region', and the comment makes more sense
By , at
Thu Feb 16, 06:04:00 PM:
Issues of torture, the ability to torture, the ability of the president to order torture or other such illegal acts under claimed legal authority, these are large issues and very substantive concerning whether one supports the Bush presidency. Just because you declare that you do not have to support all aspects of Bush's policy to be pro-Bush is a little disingenuous when we factor in the magnitude of the policy decisions in question. Just because you say it is not so, doesn't make it not so. Also, it is one thing to criticise an actual policy versus a position on a policy. We have to be hypoithetical about what Gore would actually do and we don't have to be that way with Mr. Bush. You mention a rhetorical trick of The Poor Man's, concerning the nature of supporting a candidate but not all of their policies. Which policies of Bush exactly are deal breakers for you and which aren't? It really seems like there are none, therefore, much of the evidence suggests you are emphatically pro-Bush, therefore in essence you support all of his policies. You have made the decision that X and Y are more important than torture, thus you accept torture, plain and simple. Just as I would have to support Al Gore's position on rendition, if it came down to the choice between Gore and Bush, I would have to say that I would support any Gore policy over the summation of Bush policies. See, I would have to accept that mantle, I could say I don't agree with it, and would choose NOT to support it if I could, but I made the choice, just as you have. The difference: I would recognize and admit it.
Later taters,
P.I.N.K.O
By Cassandra, at
Thu Feb 16, 07:19:00 PM:
Anonymous, suspecting and knowing are two entirely different things.
And suspecting the existence of a thing is one thing. Knowing with specificity how a thing is being done allows you to take measure to counter it.
When you are dealing with a diffused network of terrorists like al Qaeda that communicates over the Internet, yes, it matters GREATLY whether we are talking about something openly or not.
Just as hundreds of United States Congressmen and women knew of this NSA program but weren't complaining about it until the New York Times chose to publish an article about it, so al Qaeda may have had its suspicions that they were being listened to, but very likely were doing little to evade our monitoring until the New York Times oh so conventiently brought it to their attention.
Thanks a lot, Mr. Risen.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Feb 16, 07:20:00 PM:
Good Lord, I have *got* to find my other reading glasses.
Sorry for all the typos.
By , at
Thu Feb 16, 09:08:00 PM:
See Bubba, Be Bubba, do as Bubba.
Whores know where the moneys are. I think Mr. Gore's speech was a bellweather of things to come from such a genius & human rights activist. Hey AL! Don't forget about all the dead that were/and are being killed in Saudi, Syria, Iran and Iraq before Saddam Hussien's overthrow. I'm sure your worried about thier rights to come to the USA but they don't count cause their dead and don't have $250,000 for one of your assine/stupid talks. What's the matter Al? We were waitng for a global warming follow ups but it must be to hot when you picked up the check. Mr. Gore, You are such a loser & a bigger fool to boot.
By , at
Thu Feb 16, 09:31:00 PM:
TigerHawk,
You admitted Bush's first change to our Saudi visa policy sucked. You imply he went back to the "old way" after 9/11. He did not. You imply that Gore's criticism here is baseless pandering. You are prepared, I assume, to discuss what makes the current policy better than the pre-Bush policies. I mean, not being prepared to do so would be tantamount to cheerleading a "yeah, we blew it last time, but we've got it right this time, trust us" mentality. Hell, you are probably ready to call Al Gore out on this; even debate visa policies with him in this webspace.
Alternately, you could just be bandwagonning on a "yeah but our opponents would be worse" meme that gives little or no consideration to actual policy. That would be unremarkable, really; but we must not accept the soft bigotry of low expectations, so I choose to believe the former.
Cassandra: but very likely were doing little to evade our monitoring until the New York Times... Obviously we're going to be fine then, since our enemies are all morons. Or, some of us might be underestimating them. See if you can find some Sun Tzu (at the office perhaps) and look for relevant passages.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Feb 16, 10:35:00 PM:
CMatt:
If you're married to a Marine, you have drowned in Sun Tzu quotes since your wedding day.
Don't exaggerate my point. I'm sure you are smart enough to realize that a diffused network of terrorists, not all of whom are equally well-educated or sophisticated, aren't all going to be in lockstep on their security procedures, now are they? They're not churning them out of a mold.
That sort of thing is almost impossible to enforce even in a formal organization that is tightly knit. So it stands to reason that we don't want to publicize exactly what we're doing because the easier it is for them to find out *how* we're watching (assuming they're halfway intelligent) the more of them will figure out how to avoid being listened in on.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Feb 16, 11:40:00 PM:
He quoted Sun Tzu on your wedding day? Like, which passage?
I kill me.
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 01:23:00 AM:
Cassandra: Don't exaggerate my point. Indeed. You are quite capable of doing it on your own.
Revisit your own paragraph. FYI, there were 8 people in Congress who knew of the program, and zero of their staff members. And "very likely doing little to evade" is you in your own (ill-considered) words. Own them, and stop ducking.
Now, if you intended to write something else, you certainly can do so at any point and note the flaws in your earlier formulations. That would be intellectually honest.
Your last response does a somewhat better job of addressing this. There are some terrorists out there. Some already knew enough to avoid surveilance by this program; some are just dumb or lacking in means and will not avoid it even if its outlines are revealed; and some percentage will stand a chance of benefitting from the knowledge. So that third group is what bears discussion, and their potential gain is to be weighed against the civil liberties costs of not allowing oversight.
I'm rather unsure of how you do this calculus with absolutely no idea how many potential terrorist communication intercepts we are weighing vs. the (still) unknown amount of civil liberty we are sacrificing (without being asked or having anyone ask on our behalf).
There are only two ways I can see to come down on the ask-no-questions side. Either one thinks no amount of freedom sacrificed is too much to ask, for the chance to snag even one potential terrorist communique. Or one has complete trust in the Bush administration on this issue. Neither applies to me.
On the other hand, I'm quite willing to not know personally, if there is a limited checks and balances system. I'm fine with it if say, the executive, the FISA court, and the Congressional intelligence committee members/cleared staff know. I don't demand to know all this personally, just that someone is actually asking questions and may, if an egregious enough abuse of the process occurs, call bullsh!t.
But throwing ourselves at Cheney's feet and mewling, "Save us Dick, whatever it takes!" would be a G.D. ridiculous excuse for a plan even if we'd seen nothing but brilliant competence and unearthly wisdom from him up 'til now. And yes, that's precisely what I think the demand that the executive branch manage this with zero oversight amounts to.
Your take seems to be a little different. Please feel free to explain.
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 01:39:00 AM:
Let me also add that that calculus assumes, if not technical perfection, at least successful implementation and best-use of resources. Yet another area where zero oversight seems flawed.
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 04:29:00 AM:
"Personally, I think the President is a horrible fucking stupid cunt and his policies are for shit."
Why even bother, TH?
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 07:33:00 AM:
Knowing with specificity how a thing is being done allows you to take measure to counter it.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how this works. What specifics do they know about? It's not that complicated, they talk into a phone to another person, a third person listens in. As far as I can tell that's what they now know, and what they previously had every reason to discuss.
But that's beside the point, and I'm afraid I seem to have hijacked this thread with a single misplaced word.
What do you think of the substantive arguments in my first post (rather than the observations in my second)? When nearly every word an opinion leader says in public is eiter exported to the world or archived on the internet, hat difference does the physical location where they make the speech make>
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 07:34:00 AM:
('Discuss' in that second par should mean 'believe').
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Feb 17, 08:05:00 AM:
When nearly every word an opinion leader says in public is eiter exported to the world or archived on the internet, hat difference does the physical location where they make the speech make?
A good and fair question.
From a purely utilitarian perspective, measuring only one side of the balance sheet, it may not matter very much. That is, I certainly agree that Al Gore's words will be transmitted around the world in any case. If he said the same things in front of the Washington press corps, they might be just as damaging.
Now, I do think that context matters. What context? Time and place. The same words spoken by a presidential candidate, a sitting president, and an ex-president, carry different credibility and significance. Audience also matters. I expect that Arab will be a lot less likely to notice a speech in front of Democratic partisans in San Francisco than in front of princes in Jeddah. Al Gore speaking in Jeddah is news. Al Gore bleating to an environmentalist group in Seattle is not news.
But I appreciate that your point largely holds -- the damage is done either way.
The difference, I think, goes to motive, which is an essential element of "disloyalty," insofar as one cannot be disloyal by accident, or even as a collateral consequence of a trumping moral obligation. Al Gore has a legitimate right, and many would say a moral duty, to advocate changes in American policy. Our system only functions when people who disagree with the government stand up and say so. This function is important even when it causes international blowback.
The problem here is that Gore was causing the damage without serving the higher purpose of internal criticism. The damage he did, if he did any, was not collateral damage, it was direct damage. There's a big moral difference between the two, as anybody who worries about civilian casualties in war well knows.
By Gordon Smith, at
Fri Feb 17, 09:17:00 AM:
So...
You support warrantless spying, indefinite detention, torture, and endless executive branch secrecy in the name of preserving freedom, yet you oppose people talking about these programs?
It's twisted people. Twisted.
By Cassandra, at
Fri Feb 17, 09:41:00 AM:
How on earth, given my previous remarks Screwy, can you get that I support torture?
I have, many times, stated that I think it is wrong. For you to ignore what I have said and deliberately state otherwise indicates you simply are not paying attention. Unless you are talking to TH, and he has also stated he is not pro-torture.
So who are you talking to? I am confused.
Neither have either of us (that I am aware) supported "endless executive branch secrecy". That is another wilful distortion.
It's kind of hard to have a conversation when one party just makes things up and ignores what the other parties *have* said, isn't it?
And warrantless "spying"? Warrantless wiretaps are already being used in this country - in one of my posts I linked to a long list of examples that you obviously did not read. Or you're just ignoring that too.
*sigh*
You can't win an argument by intentionally distorting your opponent's statements and then claiming you have knocked them down. You have to refute what they actually said.
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 09:55:00 AM:
"But I appreciate that your point largely holds -- the damage is done either way.
"
To clarify, I don't think what Gore said did any "damage" whatsoever. Criticism of a government and their policies, whether done by an ex-vp, a private citizen, or whatever, is not only beneficial but essential to a functioning democracy.
By Cassandra, at
Fri Feb 17, 09:57:00 AM:
Can't we all just get along? :)
Heh...
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 03:05:00 PM:
TH: While the Editors themselves have been quite civil, the commenters over there get pretty personal in a hurry.
You're suffering for the sins of your many predecessors in this regard, I'm afraid. To take one particularly egregious example, the Poor Man was once trolled by a guy who suggested that Casey Sheehan wasn't really worth honouring -- and in fact should be a shame to his mother, who therefore ought to slink into obscurity and hide -- because he went and got himself killed.
The real problem here is that The Editors deploy a rhetorical trick -- having been challenged to support their accusation that I am a "pro-torture conservative," they now want you to believe that I must be pro-torture if I support George W. Bush
In order to support George W. Bush, you would need to be able to weigh your big hawkishness against the actual, continuing use of torture (along with a host of other issues) and find the latter to be not a big enough deal to sour your support. To those who are aware of the widely-reported and well-attested effects of torture in demolishing America's moral authority and capacity to effectively prosecute the war you claim to support, such an apparently frivolous and cavalier attitude to the issue means that whether or not you're according-to-Hoyle "pro-torture," you basically might as well be.
(That's, of course, assuming you aren't inhabiting the Movementarian Alternate Universe in which things like waterboarding are only torture if foreigners do them.)
But they wrote "TigerHawk excoriates Al Gore for treason" on purpose
By the same token, it seems safe to say that your choice of the phrase "deliberately undermining the United States during a time of war" -- bringing your rhetoric within a stone's throw of the "aid and comfort to the enemy" legal definition of treason -- wasn't accidental. And to be blunt, it's very difficult to believe that your purpose was to imply a careful, responsible distinction between Al Gore's actions and treason. (In similar fashion, it would be possible to say "Dick Cheney actively solicits pleasure from young boys" without technically accusing the Veep of criminally molesting anyone -- but it would be awfully hard to believe that the person making the accusation wasn't, in fact, trying to imply precisely that.)
Someone here is definitely using ambiguity and implication to pander to the worst instincts of their readership. I'm not convinced it's The Editors.
It was absolutely within his rights under the law to do that, but how was it within any conception of American interests to undermine the policies of an administration that will persist for three more years whether Gore likes it or not?
Others have addressed this, but just to pile on:
It's within the conception of American interests that contends that a democratic society* benefits more from open exhcanges of views than from attempting to stifle them out of the craven fear of "undermining" this or that policy. And it's within a conception of world realities that acknowledges that the Muslim world is media-savvy enough to recognize spin and dishonesty, and aware enough of the actual effects of American policy that the real-world outcomes of that Gore is unlikely to have the ability to "undermine"** anything with a single speech.
[* Strictly speaking, the whole notion of the "Unitary Executive" being largely above the law makes it worth wondering if America is still "democratic," but we'll assume so for the sake of argument.]
[** Bad policy undermines itself, in any case; if you're really worried about American actions tanking American interests, Gore should be the least of your concerns.]
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 03:10:00 PM:
And it's within a conception of world realities that acknowledges that the Muslim world is media-savvy enough to recognize spin and dishonesty
To qualify this: media-savvy enough to recognize these things within much the same limits as other societies. Obviously no part of the planet has even close to a foolproof record for recognizing spin and dishonesty.
and aware enough of the actual effects of American policy that the real-world outcomes of that Gore is unlikely to have the ability to "undermine"** anything with a single speech.
The above should read: "and aware enough of the actual effects of American policy that Gore is unlikely to have the ability to "undermine"** anything with a single speech."
By , at
Fri Feb 17, 03:59:00 PM:
Good points, doc. I particularly agree that if criticism of any government program is likely to have the effect TigerHawk seems to think it does, then it's far more likely that it is the program that is at fault, and not the criticism.
By Gordon Smith, at
Fri Feb 17, 05:23:00 PM:
Cassandra,
Alas, I'm often guilty of not reading all of your extensive, comprehensive, well-researched, bodacious posts.
However,
What are we talking about again?
I'm thinking you're saying that Al Gore, by speaking about mistreatment of Arabs through his (per your remarks) hypocritical robotic lips, is putting your husband at greater risk.
What's putting your husband at risk, aside from a murderous bunch of radicals, is an administration bent on endless war.
If you're not pro-torture, I'll assume you're against torture. Excellent. Now we can help our administration adhere to the rule of law. We're getting along already!
If you're not for domestic spying, I'll assume you're against it. Excellent. Now we can work together to pursue a sane strategy for security, rather than just spying on everybody. We're getting along better and better, friend!
If you're not for endless executive branch secrecy, I'll assume you're against it. Superb! Now we can work together to end this administration's willful disregard for oversight and willingness to evade even congressional questions. We're bestest friends and allies all'a'the sudden!
Thanks Cass. Wanna bake?
By Cassandra, at
Fri Feb 17, 06:25:00 PM:
Screwy,
If you would listen to what I actually say instead of rephrasing it to suit yourself, you wouldn't need to assume anything.
Anyway, it's Friday, I've had a really long week and I don't have the heart to argue with anyone anymore. The beer's on me.
Bottoms up.
By Gordon Smith, at
Fri Feb 17, 11:47:00 PM:
Thanks for the pint, Cass.
I'm going to start all over listening and see if I can get it the next go 'round.
btw, if you're ever in Asheville, please come by Drinking Liberally. I'm guessing our conversation would fairly sparkle.
By s9, at
Sat Feb 18, 11:54:00 AM:
"...I say that [Al Gore] is being disloyal to Americans..."
Who cares?
By Cassandra, at
Sun Feb 19, 12:31:00 PM:
I'd enjoy that, Screwy :)
Very much.
By , at
Fri Mar 03, 08:13:00 PM:
The real problem here is that The Editors deploy a rhetorical trick -- having been challenged to support their accusation that I am a "pro-torture conservative," they now want you to believe that I must be pro-torture if I support George W. Bush.
Of course, you support torture if you support the regime that is responsible for it. In fact the argument can reasonably be made that those who do not speak out against it also support torture whether they support Bush or not. It was horrible watching this country being manipulated into supporting a war without demanding any answers, and it's worse watching them accepting torture in our name.
