If you treat this issue as a simple legal issue, to be resolved in a bipartisan manner then you go after the followers of illegal orders (CIA agents) and the drafters of illegal laws (Bybee, Yoo, etc.)
But it is self evidently not a legal issue because the orders came from the top - it is a HIGH CRIME - and the only court to resolve high crimes is the Congress, and of course Pelosi took that off the table on many levels, including surely regarding the torture issue about which she and all Congressional leadership were briefed.
So now Yoo, Bybee et al should be made scapegoats for the Democratic and Republican party Congressional cabal that authorized and permitted the torture? That can't be right!
Obama has inherited a deeply corrupted BIPARTISAN political establishment, that itself would be on trial if these issues are treated as the High Crimes that they are.
When he says he wants a bipartisan response he means he is promising not to upset any of the torture approving and authorizing Republicans and Democrats in Congress. You should be disgusted by that approach and by the Congress critters he is protecting.
One thing for sure, Obama has given his word not to go after the soldiers at the CIA, and Congress won't go after itself and didn't go after Bush and Cheney. That leaves the middle managers, Yoo, Bybee and friends. To watch them go down while their superiors and foot soldiers walk would give me little satisfaction.
]]>Sex feels good? Really? How about when it DOESN'T feel good? Is it still good then?
How about when it feels good in the moment but doesn't feel good the next day or in ten year retrospect?
How about when the body part feels good, but the mind or the heart isn't so sure how it feels?
What if the part of the person that doesn't feel good is hidden from the person while the damage is occurring, but only discovered later... can preserved cultural wisdom enable people to understand that they may not be experiencing all the feelings associated with sex in the moment of sex?
I dispute the premise from top to bottom. Sex does NOT "feel good." Sex is what it is, and if the only part of sex that you call sex is the part that feels good, then you've missed the iceberg beneath the waves, which includes many other hidden goods and hidden bads, not all of which are easily or quickly felt, but are all, everyone, part of sexual feeling.
]]>News flash.... Google has files... the NSA has files... your employer has files...
]]>"Why did the Obama administration call for Wagoner's head but allow ineffectual banking CEOs to stay on the job and the government dole?"
.... seems like a pretty damn good question to me.
I've heard we've shoveled a pile of money in their direction. I haven't heard that we are telling them how to run their lending business the way we are telling GM to run its car business (or at least demanding a new plan for how to do that).
To read any of this as sympathy for Wagner doesn't make sense.
]]>Shrill? You sound like villagers to me.
Those of us out here in the hinterlands understand pretty well that wall street "owns" the administration and Detroit does not... today's events just make that clear...
But one little headline that points out the hypocrisy and some folks get their undies all in a bunch.
Read the recent article in the Atlantic to understand how the financial class is so closely aligned with the political class that the political class is unable to act without its permission and cooperation... just like any banana republic, except worse:
]]>Instead President Come Let Us Reason Together got taken to the cleaners... the Republicans get to say they tried to help... and the failure was due to Obama.
A depressing start.
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I don't recall exactly how Obama parsed his teams non-involvement... but the involvement of his CHIEF OF STAFF... that's one step away from Obama... it stinks. And it SEEMS a lot worse than Obama implied.
Who believes that Rahm Emanuel conducts negotiations that he doesn't inform Obama about?
I don't know whether to be happy or sad if he gets caught playing ball with the devil.
Of course Obama will come out clean... they understand firewalls. But imagine if this thing brought down the chief of staff? Well, better before January 20 than after.
What is your culpability if you hear an offer to sell an office and discuss it and then reject it? Are there "reporting requirements"? That would seem to be a pretty vague law if there are.
But if Rahm heard a whisper of this then I'd say Obama has already parsed the truth of this so closely that we might as well just call it the first big lie.
]]>Osama is as likely to die of old age as a U.S. bullet.
We will make enemies of Pakistanis on a new level.
In contrast, drawing down the empire (in Pakistan and around the world) will increase, not decrease our influence and solve the economic crisis.
Taking that money and building universities that draw people from all over the world will enhance U.S. power far more than throwing U.S. lives into the Afghan/Pakistan tribal regions. Invest it in alternative energy and all the good stuff too.
I view the promise of an Afghan war as having been a useful BS point early in Obama's campaign, designed to convince people that he was a hawk even though he wanted to end the Iraq war. Mission accomplished. Time to renege on that really stupid idea... if he's any kind of "progressive" or anything left of "center-right."
Why pursue the war that Bush Cheney incompetence forced on America in 2001? Why hang himself by THEIR rope? Just walk away Obama, just like you are walking away from Clinton's and Lieberman's attacks.
I consider that unlikely, but he may be smarter than we think.
]]>But it is an illusion to think that low level people don't have an influence (they can resist change, for example.)
I'm not worried about right of center functionaries, who can be directed from above... I'm much apprehensive about Obama's progressive credentials.
What's he planning to do about the cancer that is the military budget, or the size of the empire itself? Nothing that I can see.
]]>There are better "Connecticut for Libermans" than him, don't you think?
]]>And I don't say that in the sense of "evil is good"... but in the sense that a politician needs to have a certain readiness with the quip, the response and the comeback... an ability to think on his feet... all of which consistently seem to be somewhat lacking in Obama. He thinks with his pen, I would guess.
Of course he speaks well... but that is really just translating the written word... where he excels. In interviews and debates... much less impressive as a speaker. Obviously sincere, but not obviously eloquent.
He's smart as anything, sincere as all get out, he'll make a fine administrator and leader, and probably a pretty good strategist... but as a campaigner I think he benefits enormously from the lousiness of the competition.
He's kind of B plus as a politician... he'll be much better in other roles.
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