Kremlin justice in the U.S., by Jonathan Chait

AS ATTY. GEN. Alberto R. Gonzales takes to Capitol Hill to testify today, it’s worth keeping in mind what this whole imbroglio is really about. … It’s about whether the Bush administration sought to subvert democracy by turning the federal judicial system into a weapon of the ruling party.

Many people think of democracy as free elections, some other basic rights (like free speech) and not much more. But really, that’s only the beginning. …

Communications professors Donald Shields and John Cragan have found that, since Bush took office, U.S. attorneys have investigated or indicted 298 Democratic officeholders and only 67 Republicans. This massive disparity, which I have not seen any Republican even try to explain, is deeply suspicious. [mjh: Conservatives have a simple and smug explanation: Dems are corrupt and Reps are chaste. Snort. Yeah, right.]

And there are other ways in which Republicans have tried to use the legal system to win partisan disputes. [mjh: read them] …

It would be very easy to overreact to all these things and conclude that our democracy is imperiled or that Republicans are wannabe Putins. But almost nobody seems to be overreacting.

Most people are under-reacting. Allowing the security apparatus of the state to help tilt elections is an extremely grave precedent. When the line of acceptable behavior can be moved without much protest, it often can be moved further the next time.

No, we’re not becoming Russia. But becoming just a little bit like Russia still ought to be considered a major scandal.
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GOP Unknown Halts Electronic Finance Filings By Matthew Mosk, Washington Post Staff Writer

But before Feingold’s bill [requiring members to file their campaign finance forms electronically instead of on paper] could move forward, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) rose and announced, “Mr. President, on behalf of a Republican senator, I object.”

The objection represented another Senate tradition that is almost as quaint and baffling to outsiders as paper filings — it is called an anonymous hold. The long-standing practice allows a single unnamed senator to stop any bill in its tracks.

Senators voted earlier this year to end anonymous holds as part of their ethics reform bill, but that measure still awaits action in the House. So when Alexander unfurled his objection, there was little anyone could do. …

Campaign finance reform advocate Steven Weissman said he could only laugh — what a poetic way for senate Republicans to slam the brakes on a long-pending disclosure bill. “This is truly ironic,” he said yesterday. “Secrecy is being used to reinforce secrecy.”

Sen. Ima Luddite (R) – Washington Post Editorial

Would that this Luddite had the courage of his or her convictions to explain publicly said opposition to 21st-century custom. … All opposed ought to have the guts to come forward and explain their antipathy to sunshine.
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ABQjournal: Gov. Considers Ethics Special Session, By Felicia Fonseca, The Associated Press [4/1/07]

Senate Republican Whip Leonard Lee Rawson of Las Cruces said Saturday that he doesn’t believe the idea of the special session will be well received by lawmakers.

Ethics legislation would only trap people who are trying to be honest, and the laws can be abused, he said.

“Just because you have an ethics commission or ethics laws, doesn’t make someone ethical,” Rawson said. “Just because you walk in the garage, doesn’t make you a car. Ethics legislation only treats the symptoms, it doesn’t treat the cause.”

The bottom line, Rawson said, is that, if voters elect ethical people, “then you don’t have to worry about ethics legislation.” [mjh: it’s so simple only a simpleton can see it]

TJ Center » Blog Archive » Censuring the Censors

For the sixteenth straight year, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression is celebrating the April birth date of its namesake by calling attention to some of the more egregious or ridiculous affronts to free expression that occurred in the preceding year.

The Short List:

1. The Bush Administration
2. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
3. Representative Pete King (R-NY)
4. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
5. The US Department of Defense
6. The Ohio General Assembly

http://www.tjcenter.org/2007/04/10/censuring-the-censors/

Full list with complete explanations:

TJ Center » 2007 Muzzle Awards
http://www.tjcenter.org/muzzles/muzzle-archive-2007

Dan Froomkin – Cheney Sticks to His Delusions

It’s not a coincidence that Cheney was talking to Limbaugh yesterday. The show has been one of Cheney’s favorite venues.

As I wrote in my January 29 column, The Unraveling of Dick Cheney, Cheney is increasingly out of touch with reality. He seems to think that by asserting things that are simply untrue, he can make others believe they are so.

In Limbaughland, he’s right.

In Limbaughland, not only were Saddam and Al Qaeda linked but — more significantly — liberals hate America. In Limbaughland, Cheney can say a lot simply by failing to disagree with his host’s assertions.

Consider a few of yesterday’s exchanges.

Limbaugh was complaining to Cheney about how the Democrats seem to be primarily motivated by a desire “to make sure we come home defeated.” [mjh: asshole.]

Limbaugh: “Can you share with us whether or not you understand [Democrat’s] devotion, or their seeming allegiance to the concept of U.S. defeat?”

Cheney: “I can’t.” …

Limbaugh called [Sam “Swift Boat”] Fox “a great American” and praised the White House for making an end-run around Democratic opposition.

Limbaugh: “This is the kind of move that garners a lot of support from the people in the country. This shows the administration willing to engage these people and not allow them to get away with this kind of — well, my term — you don’t have to accept it — Stalinist behavior from these people on that committee.”

Cheney: “Well, you’re dead on, Rush.”

The two also chuckled about the White House move.

Limbaugh: “You go on vacation, this is what happens to you.”

Cheney: “If you’re a Democrat.” They both laughed. …
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So why is the White House so angry [about Pelosi in Syria]?

[Joe Conason writes in Salon]: “The neoconservatives, both within and outside the White House, resent Pelosi for publicly dissenting from their ideology of war and their rejection of diplomacy. [Neo-con’s] own vision has collapsed in ruins; they have gravely harmed the American military and discredited the ideals of democracy, and they have run out of ideas.” …
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Matt Spetalnick writes for Reuters: “With George W. Bush struggling to stay relevant in his final 22 months in the White House, his administration is looking more and more like the incredible shrinking presidency….”
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Joe Klein writes in his opinion column for Time about what he calls “the epic collapse of the Bush Administration”: “[T]he three defining sins of the Bush Administration–arrogance, incompetence, cynicism–are congenital: they’re part of his personality. They’re not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.”

Ex-Aide Says He’s Lost Faith in Bush – New York Times, By JIM RUTENBERG

In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal. …

He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

“I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said. He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him.

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.
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More Than a Feeling – New York Times

President Bush and his advisers have made a lot of ridiculous charges about critics of the war in Iraq: they’re unpatriotic, they want the terrorists to win, they don’t support the troops, to cite just a few. But none of these seem quite as absurd as President Bush’s latest suggestion, that critics of the war whose children are at risk are too “emotional” to see things clearly.

The direct target was Matthew Dowd, one of the chief strategists of Mr. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, who has grown disillusioned with the president and the war, which he made clear in an interview with Jim Rutenberg published in The Times last Sunday. But by extension, Mr. Bush’s comments were insulting to the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and spouses have served or will serve in Iraq.

They are perfectly capable of forming judgments about the war, pro or con, on the merits. But when Mr. Bush was asked about Mr. Dowd during a Rose Garden news conference yesterday, he said, “This is an emotional issue for Matthew, as it is for a lot of other people in our country.”

Mr. Dowd’s case, Mr. Bush said, “as I understand it, is obviously intensified because his son is deployable.” …

This form of attack is especially galling from a president who from the start tried to paint this war as virtually sacrifice-free: the Iraqis would welcome America with open arms, the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues — and the all-volunteer military would concentrate the sacrifice on only a portion of the nation’s families.

Mr. Bush’s comments about Mr. Dowd are a reflection of the otherworldliness that permeates his public appearances these days. Mr. Bush seems increasingly isolated, clinging to a fantasy version of Iraq that is more and more disconnected from reality. He gives a frightening impression that he has never heard any voice from any quarter that gave him pause, much less led him to rethink a position. [mjh: some call it dim-witted boneheadedness, but in Texas they call it resolute.]

Mr. Bush’s former campaign aide showed an open-mindedness and willingness to adapt to reality that is sorely lacking in the commander in chief.