Jaw Droppingly Stupid
We've just seen a jawdropping illustration of Beltway Blindness. First, Brooks writes an astoundingly stupid article. Then Kinsley shows up with his crayon and scrawls an even more stupid article. Then Ignatius shows he has no clue either. And then Joe Klein shows up, links to it, and says "excellent advice."
The only thing you can conclude is that they don't actually research anything. They chat with friends and then write columns. The only good thing about all this is that we're now getting a pretty good idea why the administration has been able to peddle obvious lies on a routine basis.
So here's an introduction to this subject I can't do this in words of one syllable, but I'll try.
The issue here is actually very important, and speaks to the foundation of how the United States operates under the constitution. I shouldn't need to say this, but at this point, with four Beltway pundits all missing the point, I'm going to.
Brooks seems to get this:
"but the founders, who had a low but accurate view of human nature, figured that wasn’t possible. They placed the federal prosecutors within the executive branch of government, a political branch. They ordained that prosecutors would be overseen by the attorney general, a political officer."
Yes. And that is why the constitution calls for the _confirmation_ of US Attorneys. This is not as clear cut as I thought. You should read discussion in comments about this.
Got that? The key to preventing the executive branch from using the judicial system as a dirty tricks adjunct is to use the third branch of government to review these appointments. So that they can't do things like appoint Karl Rove's favorite oppo researcher as the US attorney in a purple state.
Back to the story. Last year, according to the then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, a staff member inserted a provision into the Patriot Act that reversed the Founders and made it possible for the president to appoint US Attorneys without confirmation hearings. He did so without the knowledge of any of the senators.
Let's just stop there for a minute. This is a bad thing. Senators are supposed to vote on little things like this. At the very least, they're supposed to know about them. So, you know, right here is something that is worth paying attention to.
Now why did the administration get this staffer to do this? They did it so they could appoint people who could not be confirmed, like the aforesaid oppo researcher. In fact, they did it so they could appoint people that they would be embarrassed to put in front of even Specter's committee.
This is a very bad thing, especially because it's clear that the project the appointees would be working on is "voter fraud." That is, doing all they could to suppress voting in Democratic precincts. This would include investigations into activity that the current crop of prosecutors found without merit and, more importantly, NOT investigating the various vote suppression schemes Republicans engaged in in the last three elections.
And, whoa, whattya know? What states got the new appointees? Utah and Massachusetts? Nope. NM and AZ. Purple swing states. 5 out of 8 were purple swing states. 2 were CA, including Carol Lam, who was prosecuting cases of corruption that pretty clearly would reach the White House. One, apparently, was included because performance reviews were so awful that it would have made the performance excuse transparently false.
Sorry for the length of this. But it looks like they need some help in understanding this.
Right on, Jay,
Tish
March 23, 2007 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Jay,
about your links. Brooks is behind the wall and the Kingsley one leads to another Brooks link on a blog and still behind the wall.
March 23, 2007 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
A conservative friend -- though not a Bush republican (hence the "friend") -- said, essentially, the mistake in doing this is that there's a weakened Bush administration. He suggested that there's always politics in the appointment / dis-appointment of U.S. Attorneys, but this time, Congress is in a position to make a fuss.
I asked if he meant that it was okay, as long as you could get away with it. Which prompted a very scornful look. What he meant, I believe, is that this type of political "purge" is commonplace; what's extraordinary is the flak the administration has received.
That is, I think, an interesting point -- one that will need to be addressed: Why is this so different from, say, what Clinton did upon taking office? I've got a gut feeling that it is, but that's because I no longer give GWBush et al. the benefit of the doubt.
March 23, 2007 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton never did this. They're pushing that one hard, but it's not true.
What Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II all did was, at the start of their terms, replace most political appointees with their own appointees, including the Attorney General and the US Attorneys.
What none of those presidents did was fire a large group--more than 10%--in the middle of their second term (first term for GHWB) and replace them with hacks. All of the appointments for these three presidents were okayed by senators from those states, which is a traditional courtesy. And they were confirmed by the Senate, which in the Constitution.
One of the reasons I'm focusing on the confirmation aspect is because that's where the body is buried. Tim Griffin is not gonna confirmed, ever. He's not gonna greenlighted by Pryor.
If you read this this article about the Griffin appointment, you will see that this that this is not a happenstance kind of thing. This has been a concerted, organized and long running effort to get Griffin into the USA position in a purple state.
No president, Republican, Democrat, Federalist or Whig has ever done this. It's a blatant violation of Constitution. Sneaking provisions into legislation that were not voted on is a blatant violation of the separation of powers.
This is a very big deal. And Clinton never did any of it.
March 23, 2007 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
>Sneaking provisions into legislation that were not voted on is a blatant violation of the separation of powers.
This is a very big deal. And Clinton never did any of it.
March 23, 2007 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
viviane -
What makes this episode so different is really quite simple (I think, anyway).
What Presidents Reagan, G. H. W. Bush & Clinton did was a normal change of administration. That is, USA's are appointed at the beginning of each administration to serve a four year term - the same term as the President. At the end of their term, the USA'a move on to another job - unless they are re-appointed. A President can keep the existing USA's for the second term using a "hold over" provision that essentially means the USA's don't have to go through confirmation again. All very normal.
G. W. Bush followed this normal process at the beginning of his terms, too.
What has happened here has never been done before. The President, via his Justice Department, fired eight USAs at once, mid-way through their second term, apparently without cause. This is the source of the controversy.
It is a fact that this action is not illegal. The aggravating circumstances which have blown this current episode up into a scandal are 1) the provision added to the Patriot Act that could allow the appointment of new USA's without Senate confirmation, 2) the "loyalty test" applied to determine whom to fire, 3) the lies told to Congress about why, 4) the apparent desire to hamper investigations into corrupt Republicans, 5) the retribution against USA's who did not prosecute Democrats (at least 2 instances seem to be after the USA investigated and determined there was no prosecutable offense), and 6) the "message" to other USA's about their fate should they choose to prosecute the wrong people, or not prosecute the right people.
March 23, 2007 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is this so different from, say, what Clinton did upon taking office?
If you haven't seen it yet, Josh has a post today that does a great job of answering that question. The takeaway, for me, was:
March 23, 2007 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jesus. This is right on the money. I wish Joe Klien would've linked to this post. It's like you keep thinking Rove's evil will somehow be exhausted - look what they've wrought after all - but this prince of darkness has a really bottomless pit of contempt for 'democracy' and the 'Constitution.'
As I get older, I really see the dead tree journos for the manipulators and top down opinion enforcers they are. I guess the vampire bats that feed on us need maggots to finish thier work.
Does Time magazine break news? Of course not, it's there to pat us on the head and tell us what to do and think.
March 23, 2007 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually this is a slightly modified version of a comment I posted over there.
March 23, 2007 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jay,
I don't think appointment of USA's is even in the Constitution at all. I don't think the Department of Justice even existed until this century.
The DOJ and the USA positions are established by statute (an act of Congress) and therefore the rules are established by statute, not by the Constitution.
Here's the link to the Constitution text.
Where is there any mention of this issue?
March 23, 2007 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is from the DoJ website list of Attorneys General. The first one was Edmund Jennings Randolph First Attorney General, 1789-1794. Attorneys General.
What is different now is that originally all the assistant US attorneys (AUSAs) were political appointees, just as the US attorney is today. But at some point in the twentieth century the AUSAs were made civil servants. This was a necessity if there was to be any experience, continuity and professionalism built up in the DoJ.
Art II Section 2 of the Constitution says this about the powers of the President:
The rules regarding who should be confirmed by the Senate are set here by the Constitution, with the legislature allowed to give the power to the President for inferior offices.March 23, 2007 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, you're right that the DoJ was created by statute.
But I think the more important point is that it was created in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution and separation of powers. The Executive would appoint, and Congress would vet and confirm, just like judges to the SCotUS for one example. That principle of appointment, vetting, and confirmation is fundamental to Separation of Powers and obviously to our democracy.
The Bush defense is, at best, they technically didn't do anything illegal by slipping the provision into Patriot in the dead of night, planning on using it to replace USA with political hatchet men to "reprioritize" prosecutions away from Republicans and onto Democrats. Not a very good defense for a common crook, let alone the President.
So that's the main point, where all these silly arguments by Brooks and Klein fall apart.
A concise rundown of what we know and the crimes and contempt implicated:
We know they lied to congress, multiple times. We have email evidence of the intent to exploit Patriot to circumvent the spirit of Separation of Powers. We know such mid-term, selective, firings are unprecedented. We know the intent to circumvent confirmation is utterly unprecedented. We know there have already been resignations, attempted cover-ups and spin jobs, slow walking and stonewalling, and basically utter contempt of Congress. There is strong circumstantial evidence that the firings were deliberate attempts to promote frivolous prosecution of Democrats and stifle legitimate ongoing investigations of Republican corruption, which have already produced some of the biggest corruption convictions in American history. The proximity to these historic prosecutions of corruption is not statistically probable. The additional coincidence of them occurring in such an unprecedented manner is also extremely dubious. The character of this administration strongly tends towards abuses of power and manipulation.
At the end of the day, aside from the crimes of lying to congress and complete contempt of congress, there might not technically be any other crimes. Not unless you count a complete disregard for the spirit of the Constitution and fundamental principles of Justice and Rule of Law, and an Administration intent on bending the rules to the breaking point every time they can while deceiving Congress and the American people. Just those crimes.
Is that the kind of "symbolic issue" Klein trivializes?
March 23, 2007 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice entry, Mr. Ackroyd.
But I think that these columnists aside from behaving a little like a circular firing squad, may be writing even more stupidly than you give them credit for.
Brooks writes.
One has to assume that he's referring to the Federalist Papers as he cannot be referring to the United States Constitution itself. I don't carry a copy in my pocket the way Robert Byrd does, but I can find it on the internet at the National Archives. The Advice and Consent Clause of Article II, enumerates specific officers which the President shall appoint with advice and consent of the Senate:
But then it goes on to say something I find very interesting.
(Emphasis Mine). As far as I can tell the words United States Attorney are not in the Constitution, nor is there a definition of inferior Officers.
It would seem to me that, should it wish to do so, the Congress of the United States could by law declare United States Attorneys inferior Officers and vest their appointment in the courts, if they wished to do so, retaining unto themselves the power of advice and consent. Tribunals (Courts) themselves, inferior to the Supreme Court, are creatures of Congress, according to section 8 of article II.
There's something in Blackstone's Commentary or English Common Law which would probably put the kibosh on this idea (lucky I'm not an attorney, huh?) but for Brooks to put some kind of special sanctity on this through reading the mind of the founding fathers is just silly, MHO.
I guess what I'm suggesting is that Congress can be just about as strong or weak in this area as its will allows it to be.
aMike
March 23, 2007 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
The intent is clear: Congress ultimately is "the decider."
Congress legislates, keeps the purse, ultimately decides appointments, or may delegates that power if it chooses. But historically that power has been retained for important positions in the spirit of Separation of Powers, and Congress can't delegate that responsibility in the most important appointments.
The executive is directly elected (probably a mistake) but does not have the power to legislate, nor does it have power to override a super majority in Congress.Furthermore Congress has the power to impeach.
Clearly it's the intent of the constitution that Congress ultimately holds all power, and the executive implements, with oversight from Congress.
The only reason BushCo is so hot on the notion of expanding executive powers beyond all reason is they're all corporate executives who are used to a completely different non-democratic system where the board is basically a rubber stamp. Speaking of which, look at the private sector scandals to see where that leads.
March 23, 2007 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jay
Thanks for an excellent article.
It is a bit scary that Brooks and others cannot distinguish the selection of people by a political, even a partisan political, process and the conduct of office in a partisan office.
Until Republicans really made judges a partisan issue who really cared or even knew who appointed most Federal judges? U.S. Attorneys get their jobs becasue of politics. However, it might be a crime and it certainly violates the canon of ethics if they conduct their office in a partisan manner.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
March 23, 2007 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, you are completely correct.
While the US attorneys may be appointed in a political process, to interfere with their work in any particular case is Obstruction of Justice. But just as the Legislature can set up recommened sentences for crimes that a judge has to apply, this is general management, not interference in any particular case.
To fire a US attorney like the one in San Francisco who was so bad that the judges complained about him and his assistant US attorneys were leaving at a high rate is no more than firing him for poor management. But firing him for failure to bring an indictment when there is no evidence to support it, especially right before an election and aimed at any particular Party is Obstruction of Justice.
March 23, 2007 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
But now with this new provision, the AG can appoint the USA and until the Pres. appoints another USA, the USA will occupy the office - is that correct?
March 23, 2007 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, until this past week, when subsequent to the USA scandal Congress rescinded that provision in the Patriot Act. The provision was inserted by the new USA of Utah, Brent Tolman. Mr. Tolman had previously served under the Senate Judiciary chairs, Spector and Hatch as the Chief counsel for the subcommittee on Crime and Terror. Hatch, Spector, McConnell and Frist were in a battle for the USA Utah position vs. Rove, who wanted to put Kyle Sampson in that position. So Rove used Tolman to insert the provision and then Tolman benefitted from it as the Senators won the battle.
All of which may account for the unraveling of Purgegate, Sampson most likely feels betrayed. Who knows what leverage the Senators used to trump Rove? However, Sampson may have the last laugh as it was he as one of Roves' minions who sent McNulty and them to the congressional hearings with false and misleading info, as he had been the point man to execute Rove's plan. Sampson was also the one pushing to use the provision in the Patriot Act now that it was there, asking why have the power if we do not use it? Sampson also made the list of who to terminate and provided the 'performance' reason.
We shall hear what all else, not in his emails that Mr. Sampson, would now like the public to know, when he VOLUNTARILY appears before the Senate Judiciary this Thursday.
Unless he is/has been offered a better position than USA before Thursday we may hear all the details. It was Sampson who asked Miers who would make the decision, if not the President, in his email about when to execute the purge.
March 23, 2007 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't been following this situation very closely and I was really curious as to how that sec. was amended.
Thanks for the info. I have to say that this still baffles me as to why they went to such trouble and subterfuge, because they have less than two years left. Even if it was to appoint "loyal Bushies" it seems incredibly stupid because the next president will ask them all to resign. (Probably)
I have absolutely no proof of this, and it is completely speculation, but I stll think this has something to do with the CIA/Foggo investigation. They were defending Carol Lam until the investigation of Cunningham widened.
March 23, 2007 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I have to say that this still baffles me as to why they went to such trouble and subterfuge, because they have less than two years left. Even if it was to appoint "loyal Bushies" it seems incredibly stupid because the next president will ask them all to resign. (Probably) "
But lots of other Democrats are on the ticket, besides the President. I suspect it is so they can 'steal' the election, again. The USA's are the ones who bring indictments against the local politicians. Recall, how Menendez in NJ was under indictment right before the election. Note, how Domenci and Wilson are in trouble for calling Iglesias about the indictments of her Dem opponent right before the election. In close elections, political indictments by the USA can swing the election. McKay from WA was let go for also not pursuing voter fraud charges of Dem opponents. This is about votes and purging the voter rolls. That is what they stand to gain all before the next President is installed. They may not have the WH but they can retake Congress, State houses and legislatures and local political majorities.
I agree that Lam is a big piece as well, this thing has multiple symptoms but the one overarching variable is polticization of the DOJ with myriad political benefits.
Like all the political cronyism and patronage in the system where they influence who will be indicted or given pleas based on political reasons. Lam's corruption case was halted with the Foggo search warrants, the Abramoff leads are not being followed up, Justice intervened in the settlement amount requested during the tobacco trial and there is the Lewis case where the USA who was the prosecutor Yang is now working for the firm defending Lewis after receiving over a million dollars to sign on with the firm headed by Olson who argued for Bush before the Supreme Court and prevailed with a selection Bush as President in 2000. Lots of nefarious and poltical opportunism is available when the DOJ is nothing but a defacto arm of the GOP mob, all before the next President will be sworn in January of 09.
March 23, 2007 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was looking at some of the documents, and wonder about the excuse given that Carol Lam wasn't prosecuting enough border cases.
In the documents, the San Diego office is ordered to cut contracting support (given to the office in 1995 specifically for border cases) to cut budget costs. In 2006, the office took 500K from the litigation budget to pay for border prosecution support. Also her numbers for prosecutions are comparable to New Mexico and Arizona.
March 23, 2007 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bev, this was a major step in the politicizing of the Department of Justice prior to the 2008 election.
Election fraud, like the phone-jamming in New Hampshire that elected Sen. Sununu in 2002, can effect close elections, and the conservatives have a real history of close elections. They buy their base, they lie to get independents to vote for them, and that gives them a close election. Election fraud frequently will award them the office. Control of the US attorneys allows them to slow-walk investigations like that of Tobin, the one Republican convicted in the phone-jamming case while they can issue indictments just before an election against Democrats. Then they have placed so many Judges at the Appeals level that they can get cases overturned, as they just did in the case of Tobin.
It's not just one thing. It's an overall system.
By the way, the Cunningham investigation threw up evidence that led to investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis. This investigation was led by the US attorney for Los Angeles, Debra Yang. It appears that Ms. Yang, a 47-year-old single mother of three young children, was offered a job at the law firm defending Rep. Jerry Lewis that pays $1,000,000 or so per year.
She took it, effective November 10, 2006 - three weeks before Carol Lam, US attorney in San Diego and six others were fired - under circumstances that left them with smeared reputations that have made it difficult to find other work.
Sure looks like she was given a choice - get bought out or get unemployed with three small children and bad references.
[My posts documenting my investigation of this are at Politics Plus Stuff - latest, Politics Plus Stuff - third, Politics Plus Stuff- second, and Politics Plus Stuff - first.
I also riff off of EmptyWheel, where she shows that Rep. Daryl Issa was central to getting Carol Lam of San Diego fired. The article shows that a number of California Republican Representatives who are likely under investigations resulting from Cunningham and Abramoff.]
March 24, 2007 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the information, Rick. As I said, I haven't been following this story very closely.
March 27, 2007 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The founders" can fairly be read to include the first Congress, which passed the Judiciary Act of 1789 and established the Department of Justice.
March 23, 2007 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the appropriate article (section 35). Three things strike me about this on an admittedly hurried reading. First, the United States attorneys for the District Courts are mentioned before the creation of the "attorney-general", who almost appears as an afterthought. Second, the section is silent on who should appoint these men "learned in the law," and third, neither office is capitalized, though rules of capitalization and punctuation back in those days weren't rigid.
Finally, James Madison, rightly called the Father of the Constitution wasn't particularly enamored of the act of 1789. He wrote
A facsimile of the whole letter can be found here. It interests me that he thought that it would be the judges, rather than the legislature who would be able to set the judiciary "to rights". Oliver Ellsworth was largely responsible for the language of the act. He later served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, but he doesn't appear as one of the signatories.
aMike
March 23, 2007 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
For what it is worth here are the pertinent code sections of Sec. 546 of Title 28 U.S. Code:
Sec C - A person appointed as U.S. Attorney may serve until the earlier of (1) the qualification of a U.S. Attorney for such a district appointed by the Pres. under sec. 541 of this title or (2) the expiration of 120 days after the appointment by the Attorney General under this section.
"The Patriot Act Reauthorization Bill of 2005 amended sec 546 by striking subsection (c) and (d) and inserting the following new subsec" -
(c) a person appointed as USA under the sec. may serve until the qualification of a USA for such district appointed by the Pres. under sec. 541 of this title.
In effect this overturned the 120 day rule.
Sec 546 Vacancies:
Title 28 Judiciary and Judicial Procedure Part II Dept of Justice chapter 35 US Attorneys
Sec 545 Vacancies
(b) the AG shall not appoint as US Attorney a person to whose appointment by the President to that office the senate refused to give advice and consent.
Just thought I'd throw this in the mix.
March 23, 2007 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Constitution does neither of those two things. On the one hand it states that the president has the power to appoint "inferior officers," and as a default process states that inferior officers shall be confirmed by the Senate. However, the constitution allows the Congress to vest the appointment of inferior officers "in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments."
Whether the people who wrote and enacted the constitution ever considered that there would be federal prosecutors is an open question to me. I just don't know. Someone else mentioned the judiciary act of 1789. Did that act contain provisions for federal prosecutors? In any case, it is not clear, as Brooks states, that "The Founders" intended federal prosecutors to be political.
So, both Jay and Brooks are wrong on this count.
Again, this was a completely constitutional method of appointing prosecutors. Whether it is wise is a different question.
March 23, 2007 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks to all for pointing out the nuances and correcting some hyperbole. It certainly does not appear to be as cut and dried as I thought.
March 23, 2007 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the best spirit of blogging, it's all in the interests of building on the original product.
Your basic idea was spot on - that some dopey Beltway narrative was gaining traction through all the usual channels; what you perhaps didn't realize is just how many ways there were to dissect the material.
March 23, 2007 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, of course. It's also something of an object lesson to folks like Joe Klein--there's always someone who knows more than you do about a subject. You should listen to such people.
March 23, 2007 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is as cut and dried as you thought. The president can be guilty of obstruction of justice just as anyone else can be, even as he does legal things. His interferrence with USA's is obstruction of justice. His, thru his staff, sneaking into an unrelated law a provision allowing him to appoint USA's without Congressional approval is also obstruction of justice and is unconstitutional.
USA's are appointed at the start of every president's term in office. Once appointed the President and his staff have no legal right to interfere with the work of those USA's. Doing so is clearly obstruction of justice, and, based on that being the primary grounds for impeachment for Nixon, that is an impeachable offense.
Hoppy in Sacramento
March 23, 2007 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
First they bring us the war, then they praise the little autocrat, then they smear the opposition. The best line I thought was in the Brooks column when he said the Democrats were out of ideas after 11 weeks in power. This harkens back to the Republicans as the party of ideas. Someone remind me again of the wonderful Republican ideas of the last 10 years: tax cuts, Iraq, tax cuts, Social Security privitization; tax cuts, trashing FEMA, tax cuts, trash public schools, tax cuts, trash UN, tax cuts, politicize justice, tax cuts, eliminate filibuster for Dems, tax cuts,...
March 23, 2007 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jay,
Perhaps of further interest... today Charles Krauthammer chimed in with his support for the "Bush did nothin' wrong" meme, displaying admirable obstinacy when it comes to a failure to grasp the difference between a political appointment, and political interference in the legal system.
I'm sure Joe Klein will be thrilled to know he's on the same page as a raving crackpot like Krauthammer... though I guess they all drink from the same poisoned well, the consequences of which are a terminal mental condition that causes them to look at EVERYTHING through a political prism.
Ps. Mike - in several posts you actually referred back to primary sources to make a number of salient points. Whilst this is commendable research, much valued in the real world, it's the Beltway equivalent of base-stealing so please stop doing it because it makes Serious People look foolish.
March 23, 2007 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually sent Krauthammer an abbreviated version of this.
On links, I sent a note to Lil Debbie some time ago, commending the web version of an article that contained links. She said she was going to include the email in a weekly ombud meeting she holds with the staff. She agreed with me completely, she said, that the article was much better with the links.
IIRC, it was about the libby trial, and the pdfs of the exhibits were linked in the article.
This is just a superior medium for news and news analysis than a newspaper is.
March 23, 2007 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love TPM. I was just on TIME's swamp thinking what beltway Nimrods their "bloggers" are, and what do you know, I see this cross posted.
March 23, 2007 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jay Ackroyd writes:
"he did so without the knowledge of the Senators."
So now we have unelected people, staffers, surreptitiously
creating legislation.
March 23, 2007 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
Here ya go Jay. From FindLaw
March 23, 2007 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Klein is a battered clown, and Kinsley is seemingly clueless, but they sure are getting a lot of attention for themselves on what is actually a third rate blog. It seems that the allure of Klein and Kinsley and Time itself are too much for the liberal blogosphere to leave alone -- like moths to the flame. I say let those people drown in the swamp of their own mediocrity and mendacity. All this to-do just helps them build their readership, which is all they care about. So why help them?
Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked judges, crooked politicians, crooked doctors, crooked scientists, crooked clergymen -- but no crooked journalists. An amazing record for an amazing class of people.
March 23, 2007 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that if this blog were being written by a collection of Jane Does that it would garner no attention.
But part of the whole point is that this flabby, ill-reasoned prose is what people get paid to write. I think it's good that Time has opened up a chink in the wall, and let not just the LTE editor see what folks are saying, but let everyone see what folks think. It may have a salutary effect.
But we can't let these people drown in their swamp of mendacity. They have a dead tree presence. They influence the influencers. My stepmother reads them, and not the blogs. This is an opportunity to hit them directly. And we should.
March 24, 2007 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
So shoot their nonsense down, but stop pretending that they really mean it. Everyone here is pretty internet savvy, yet everyone is willingly playing the troll game. The only ones who win are the people at Time, Kinsley (who got paid for his week of trolling), and Klein included. My fear is that if Time is able to make Swampland a viable part of the blogosphere - and it's going to be very hard to stop them -- the same insipid dishonesty that is part and parcel of every issue of Time will become part of the internet movement. A couple of years ago it was normal to see "liberals" on the internet who were capable of doing nothing more than repeating whatever they had just read in Time or Newsweek or the NYT or the WP (they are all interchangeable, anyway). Thanks to the work of Somerby and Media Matters and Greenwald and a few other people (Marshall at times, although he's also been very circumspect in his criticisms, and I now see that he's a Time.com contributor, which is something to consider), most people know better now. A Time-sponsored blog has the potential to put us back where we were.
I'm not usually much for "evil empire" type things, but Time has been, for several years, part of the evil, arrognat empire that our media have become. The internet has been something of an insurgent movement that has been able to upset that order. The stronger something like Swampland becomes, the weaker that insurgency is. The only way to shut them down is to marginalize them, and that means pointing it out when they are trolling for web hits. Yes, talk about the stupidity of Klein and Kinsley, but also understand, and say, what they are out to do.
Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked judges, crooked politicians, crooked doctors, crooked scientists, crooked clergymen -- but no crooked journalists. An amazing record for an amazing class of people.
March 24, 2007 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kinsley is so much clueless as elitist.
He and Ignatius concede that this is an administration of habitual liars who are always on a lookout for some low political game, but then they are terrified that with such a statement that could be mistaken for an unwashed rabble of blogofascists.
So they must add some sentences that are shiboleths of lofty elites, that show how much more subtle their point of view is than of mere rabid partisans with pitchforks (or keyboards that serve that role nowadays; I imagine that the infinitely subtle Kinsley is writing longhand using some expensive Mont Blanc writing implement).
March 23, 2007 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm still trying to figure out what was so "jaw-droppingly stupid" about Ignatius's column. Brooks is always painful to read, and Kinsley seems sadly befuddled of late, but Ignatius? Hard to disagree with anything he writes here:
Or does Klein's link just make Ignatius guilty by association? Please elaborate.
March 24, 2007 4:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
No argument that Ignatius raked the Bush gang over the coals as you outlined, however,I think the following quote from Ignatius' column is why he was included:
"I don't think the story is much of a scandal. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, and he can fire whomever he wants."
That part sounds like a Republican talking point and I guarantee it was noted by the RNC.
At times it appears to me that the MSM feels the need to ameliorate their criticism of the Bush gang by also including a few niceties in the column/report.
March 24, 2007 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
This, indeed, was the sentence that ticked me off.
March 24, 2007 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
They evoke privilege at the stroke of a pen. What happened to responsibility?
Best,
Tish
March 24, 2007 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink