What Mattered This Week?

Ugh. What didn't matter this week?

I suppose a lot of this is in the we-don't-know-yet category. Of course, the events in Boston and in Texas certainly mattered to the people involved. Whether they matter beyond that...well, we'll be getting tighter security at sports events for a long while, at least. But we're yet to know any larger importance for the marathon bombings.

As for the Texas explosion, was it a sign of lax regulation and more to come unless there are changes? Or was it a freak event?

And then there was everything else that happened this week. To tell the truth, I'm still catching up, so I don't even know much about anything that wasn't in the headlines or in my particular radar.

So I'll leave it all to you. What do you think mattered this week?

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Sean Maher, 38.

I don't have much good stuff, but here goes:

1. Erica Chenoweth on Boston.

2. Bruce Scheier on Boston.

3. And torture after September 11.

What Mattered This Week?

The Anwar al-Awlaki killing has got to go first, I think. Rather than give my thoughts about it, let me give you a few links: a review of the issues here, and then comments from Jack Goldsmith and Spencer Ackerman -- if I've missed other good contributions, please leave them in comments.

It's October 1st, so time to look at good news/bad news in US and coalition casualties. The bad news is that after a goose egg in August, the US had three troop deaths in Iraq in September. The good news is that coalition deaths in Afghanistan continue trending down. Total coalition deaths are down 80 from January through September 2010. For the US, this September had the lowest total troop deaths (Iraq and Afghanistan combined) since September 2003. That's something, isn't it? It's also possible, although unlikely, that combined Iraq and Afghanistan coalition deaths for the entire year will be the lowest since the Iraq War began. Of course, as usual when I discuss these stats, it doesn't say anything how any (other) war goals are going. but as usual my sense for domestic politics is that what matters, if anything, is the fate of US troops.

The government didn't shut down. The fiscal year ended. The shutdown clock is now reset for mid-November, and it's hard to see how it won't at the very least be a full-fledged showdown, although I suppose it's hard to see from here what the odds are of either a short or a prolonged shutdown.

What else? Some good economic news, some bad, but Europe looms over all of that, of course.

What am I missing? What do you think mattered this week?

September 11 Reading/Viewing/Listening

I'll do regular Sunday questions later, but I'll start off another thread here on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks: what is your reading, viewing, or listening list of September 11 related materials? I'll kick it off by saying that I'm a big fan of the 9/11 Commission Report. Feel free, however, to interpret the question however you want -- I'm interested in everything from academic work to fiction to movies to whatever. Doesn't have to be something produced since the attacks, either. Whatever you think appropriate to recommend.

What Mattered This Week?

I'm going to need your help here; I have no idea what mattered this week. I know, as Chevy Chase would say, that Osama bin Laden is still dead...I know that the Huck is going to tell us what he's doing later today. Beyond that, I know that I'm a good week behind on everything going on in the world; sometimes, travel and work commitments will just do that to you, I guess. So I'm going to need your help: what do you think mattered this week?

Pro-Truth

Spencer Ackerman was right on the money yesterday, calling for a revival of the 9/11 Commission to document the hunt for bin Laden. Marcy Wheeler agrees. So does Andrew Sullivan. And Adam Serwer. Each of them adds interesting recommendations about the scope of what the commission should look at.

My contribution is to remind everyone what nonpartisan, specially appointed commissions are good for. Two things: they're good at giving cover to something that politicians want to do (or not do) but don't want the credit or blame for; and, they can be good at fact-finding.

So don't expect much in the way of policy breakthroughs, unfortunately. Right now, I'm not aware of any policy that everyone (meaning, basically, majorities large enough to pass something and sign in into law) wants to enact but is scared of doing. That may have been the case during the 111th Congress, but as of now I highly doubt that 60 Senators and 218 Members of the House would vote for sensible detention and counterterrorism measures even if they had full political cover to do so.

No, right now what's needed is establishing the truth. The target audience? Washingtonians, including many in the working press and some key players in both parties, who like to think of themselves as tough-minded and sophisticated, and are tempted to believe that the anti-torture crowd is simply naive about the Way the World Works. That, in my opinion at least, isn't a terrible instinct -- but I'm fairly confident that it just leads in the wrong direction with regard to torture, the capacity of the regular courts, and several other Cheneyite activities.

Or maybe not. We need to know that, too.

One thing, though. Ackerman's suggestion to get the facts on the table is spreading rapidly among those who believe that torture was unlikely to have been helpful in the hunt for bin Laden. Anyone from the pro-torture side looking to document the truth?

I didn't think so.

For my earlier thoughts on this, see here and here.

What Mattered This Week?

Hmm....anything happen this week?

Sorry. OK, the death of bin Laden. If anyone wants to argue about whether (and how) it's important, go for it below; I'm not going to be with you.

As far as the 2012 election (and for the other reasons it matters), we also had a pretty good jobs report, and some not at all encouraging other economic reports.

The cloture vote on Jack McConnell, a district judge nominee, was actually a pretty big deal, with eleven Republicans voting yes on cloture, then no on confirmation. That doesn't guarantee that every district court nominee will be confirmed, but it's a very good sign. It's also worth noting that the president is finally nominating judges at a faster pace than they're retiring, too.

So, what did I miss? What do you think mattered this week?

To Celebrate....

For better or worse, terrorism will always be with us. There's plenty of policy discussion to be had about exactly how to deal with that, in general and in the wake of bid Laden's death, but apart from that: we, the American people, deserve something real, immediate, and practical. The color-coded security status is already headed for the Smithsonian, but what else from the bin Laden era could we get rid of? I mean little, annoying, things, that we can take this occasion to eliminate; I'm not talking about major policy changes, for better or for worse.

My preference? Runner up would be the words "homeland security," beginning with changing the horrid name of the misbegotten department (although actually dismantling the department at this point would probably be as big a mistake as constructing it in the first place). But no question -- what I'd really like is for the president to ask Bud Selig to get rid of that awful "God Bless America" seventh inning stretch. Please.

Again, I'm not looking for major policy efforts in this thread, just annoying junk that we can jettison. What do you suggest?

Catch of the Day, and Housekeeping

Catch of the Day? I think I'll go with Barack Obama, along with a whole bunch of federal government employees, for killing Osama bin Laden. Perhaps not in keeping with the normal order of things, but that's the advantage of having your own award.

Just a few quick notes...

The very best headline I saw last night before I went to bed? From Jeffrey Goldberg: "A Great Day For Islam." Perhaps more aspirational than descriptive; perhaps not.

Here are the links to presidential speech watchers James Fallows and Andrew Sprung. Yeah, I cringed for Fallows when Obama did the "rote-autotext" ending.

On the level of domestic politics, it's going to be interesting to see how Republicans handle the next few days. Someone last night linked to an old post of mine about it...we'll see how long it takes for some intrepid Republicans to start trying to spin this against Obama. I'm guessing days, not weeks! So far, however, most Republicans are explicitly supporting the president and, to a lesser extent, giving him credit; that means we're going to see a significant rally-round-the-flag bump in Obama's approval ratings, from the mid-40s at the end of last week to...hmmm, I'll start the bidding at 60%, a major spike. I see Jamelle Bouie expects a "bump past the 50 percent mark," but I think that's too modest, although I'm obviously just guessing, here. I suppose I should also link to a column I did on the rally effect over at TNR.

Plenty more later, but much of it's going to be over at the Plum Line. Greg's taking the week off ; he has a brand new baby daughter to enjoy -- mazel tov! -- and I'm filling in for him. And then after that, posting will probably continue to be irregular early next week, because I'll be travelling. So I will be posting here over the next ten days, but not on the usual schedule.

Stupid...Or Super-Genius?

What would torture apologists and Cheneyites such as Marc Theissen and Andy McCarthy say if Barack Obama actually managed to capture and/or kill Osama bin Laden, after the Bush administration failed to do so for eight years?  That's a tough one!  I think it's the context, however, of what Adam Serwer calls "stupid" ideas that McCarthy spouts in an interview excerpted by Conor Friedersdorf.

I mean, think about it.  What would they say if bin Laden is killed on Obama's watch?  I can think of a few lines of attack...


1.  The credit should go to Bush: it was information obtained from torture during the Bush administration that allowed the new team to benefit, even as they dismantled the methods that worked so well.  Problem: first of all, it's highly unlikely that there will be any evidence for the connection; second, the longer into the new administration, the less plausible this attack will be.

2.  bin Laden doesn't matter, and al-Qaeda is still winning.  This one has the disadvantage of being far too responsible.  It's only a half step away from the fully responsible step of praising the president for the good and attacking him for the bad. 

3.  The Theissen thesis: killing them is much worse than capturing them.  McCarthy endorses this brand of lunacy, but recognizes it's small potatoes, and not really useful if the big cheese himself is killed.

4.  Really, what else?  I couldn't have thought of anything. 

But then...I'm no Andy McCarthy:

These days, the vibrant debate in Islamist circles — the circles Obama has courted assiduously — is over whether al-Qaeda has outlived its usefulness, at least when it comes to attacking our homeland. Many Islamist thinkers believe the Islamist movement is making such progress marching through our institutions (and Europe’s) that terrorist attacks at this point are a tactical blunder. They cause a blowback effect that retards the progress of what Robert Spencer aptly calls the “stealth jihad.”

Don’t get me wrong: The Islamists are still supportive of terrorist aims, and they still applaud al-Qaeda’s attacks on American troops operating in Muslim countries. (We don’t seem to get this, but even if we think we are doing humanitarian service, Islamist ideology construes sharia to condemn as acts of war attempts to plant Western ideas and institutions in Islamic countries, and to call for violent jihad in response.) But the Brotherhood and the Saudis will sing no sad songs if the U.S. kills bin Laden or crushes al-Qaeda. In Muslim countries, they’ll use it as propaganda against us; in the West, they’ll pretend that they always condemned terrorism (they do that now — even as they urge the destruction of Israel and attacks against American troops). So Obama knows the Islamists he wants to engage have decided al-Qaeda is expendable. He won’t lose any ground with them by smashing al-Qaeda.

Got that?  By killing al-Qaeda leaders -- by possibly killing bin Laden -- Obama is actively following Islamist plans. 

This isn't stupid; it's genius.  McCarthy's plan is foolproof; it covers not only a lucky shot that hits bin Laden, but a complete victory over al-Qaeda.  All part of Barack Obama's treasonous treachery.  Notice, by the way, that it's only a "vibrant debate in Islamist circles."  Nice touch; if by some chance Obama curtails the drone strikes, or is in any way defeated by bin Laden, then that will presumably prove that the "vibrant debate" was decided in favor of al-Qaeda, and Obama acted accordingly.

Granted, as policy, it's insane.  But as a creative effort to invent a story of liberal Democratic malfeasance that can be spoon-fed to those who want such things, it's a pretty amazing accomplishment. 

Let Me Get This Straight...

I try not to do pile-on posts, and I'm not saying anything here that people aren't saying all over the place...I have nothing original here.  But I have to say: you mean, there are people now who are honestly suggesting that the government should be able to grab someone off the street, take away their citizenship, and send them off to rot indefinitely in an off-shore prison camp?  With no judicial constraints at all?  And not only suggesting it, but attacking the president for not doing it?

And those same people are also complaining that the presidency of  Barack Obama is the end of liberty and the beginning of tyranny. 

TNC says, "I get the sense that very few of these people have ever been on the other side of law enforcement."   Well, yes, but you would think that some of them have, well, read their own complaints about government oppression and made some connections.  Or, I don't know, read a book or watched a movie or TV show some time, and absorbed a little understanding.  Or: you wouldn't think that, but you sure wish we lived in a world in which that might happen, that the same people who are so dedicated to waiving around copies of the Constitution might stop and think a little about the consequences of being selective about who those rights are for.

Yeah, as I said, nothing here that you can't read in a million other places.  Let's try to work something a bit more analytic in...you know, I am actually totally fine with the idea that Constitutional rights are contested.  In fact, when I teach civil liberties, that's actually the first point I try to make: these rights are very difficult to nail down, and that contesting the meaning of basic rights is a legitimate part of the American political system. 


Really, though, this is just sad, sad, sad.

Surrender Monkies

I don't know what else to call (via Friedersdorf) Bill Burck and Dana Perino, who argue assert that the Times Square failed bombing shows that Americans should avoid doing anything -- well, one thing in particular -- to avoid angering The Scary Terrorists:

This is a sobering message to all of us. And it should remind us that the federal officials who continue to insist that New York City is the best place to try KSM and other 9/11 terrorists are, frankly, out of their minds. Attorney General Eric Holder remains delusional on this front, as he has continued to say that a civilian trial in New York remains on the table, despite the uniform protest of all major New York public officials from the mayor to the police chief to the governor.

New York is the world’s number-one terrorist target, and has been since at least he first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Those who claim, in spite of all logic and experience, that New York could be secured if KSM were brought there for trial are either being misleading or are plain old crazy. The only way to do this effectively would be to shut down the city, which would paralyze New York and cause terrible damage to its efforts to recover from the recession.

Never mind the breathtaking gaps in the logic of their post ("No one yet knows for sure who is responsible...Whoever did this, we can be sure, is in league with the underwear bomber, Major Hasan, and other terrorist..."). Or their assumption that the world is divided between absolute friends and absolute enemies of the United States, so there is no such thing as potential friends that could be influenced by American behavior.  Or the basic idea that if only trials are restricted to Guantanamo, The Scary Terrorists will be totally flummoxed and will just sit around all day unable to think of a target for retaliation (that's my favorite one -- the image that Al Qaeda is right now all ready to activate a devastating attack as soon as they learn the location of the KSM trial, and that they'll be totally stymied and disband the strike force on news that it'll be a military commission at Gitmo). 

(Yeah, I should probably  include a disclaimer here somewhere that it's obviously true that Al Qaeda is a beyond nasty organization dedicated to among other things killing lots of Americans, and that preventing such attacks should, in fact, remain a priority). 

No, as a sincere Friend of New York, what I want to know from Burck and Perino (but I'll accept suggestions in comments) is: which other American values and practices should be abandoned to keep New York safely out of the sights of the terrorists? 

(UPDATE: The best thing I've seen written about the Times Square attack is, no surprise, by James Fallows). 

Lies

Kevin Drum spots a pattern of clumsy, obvious lies in support of the proposition that torture elicited important information, and concludes:

If torture were really as effective as the Thiessen/Cheney wing of the conservative movement thinks, they'd hardly risk resorting to such obvious lies to defend it. They'd have so much good evidence in favor of it that they wouldn't need to bother. But apparently they don't.

Just to add to that -- remember (as many have pointed out) that for torture to be a good idea, it must:

1.  Get (accurate, usable) information;
2.  Get more (and more accurate) information than normal, Geneva-approved procedures would get;
3.  Get enough extra information that it's worth accepting the very real effects of the negative publicity surrounding torture.

And of course that's just the pragmatic case, not the moral case. 

The obvious problem here is that the Cheney gang can't seem to get past the first one of these conditions.  Every time they claim that torture produced information, it turns out that they're wrong. 

I don't know; there could be classified materials that will someday make a much better case for the Cheney gang than they make for themselves right now.  It's certainly possible. There just isn't any (I want to say isn't much, but I really don't think there's any, so far) meaningful evidence in that direction, and increasing evidence the other way.

Translated, From the Conservative (Miranda edition)

I haven't seen anyone mention this, but it's probably worth pointing out something perhaps relevant about many of the conservatives who oppose reading terrorists their Miranda rights: for better or worse, many of them never actually liked the whole idea of Miranda rights in the first place, for anybody.  For traditional Reagan conservatives, "Miranda rights" are a criminal-coddling outrage perpetrated on the nation by permissive liberals and activist courts. 

Just saying...conservative complaints about Miranda rights and terrorists should probably be seen in that context.

TPM Bait? 2

Plain Blog has clout!

Not really, but almost exactly the same time that I published this post, Talking Points Memo published a story that could well have been a response to my questions.  However, I still have questions!

First, one nitpick.  TPM's Justin Elliott relied on this AP story for his December 25 timetable; I think that this more recent LA Times story is more definitive on the key substantive issue of whether the Miranda warning made the guy shut up: the Times says it didn't.

Now, on to the media portion of the story.  TPM, I think, nailed down the story that it was Ridge and Cheney, and not elected officials, who got the Miranda story going.  But neither of them claimed that Miranda has actually had an effect -- only that it was a mistake.  Ridge just asked whether they had Mirandized him, and then on December 30 Cheney said:

He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won't be at war.

Again,  Cheney doesn't actually claim that anything specific happened on December 25.  He certainly attacks the idea of reading Miranda rights, but he's careful not to allege anything specific about any actual incident.  That's why I didn't include Cheney in my rundown in the previous post.  (Of course, this is an old Bush/Cheney trick; they never actually said that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks, but managed to get that message out to conservatives).

It seems to me that, right or wrong, hypocritical or not, claiming that terrorists should not receive Miranda warnings is a legitimate position to take.  However, what's interesting to me about this one is that somewhere between Christmas and January 15 conservatives managed to spread a timeline of what happened on December 25 that (1) turns out (if current reporting is correct) to be false, and (2) as far as I can see, the people who spread the story had no way of knowing about.

I hope TPM goes back and nails down that part of the story.

(UPDATE: Link fixed, typos fixed...ugh).

TPM Bait?

Kevin Drum points to some of the pushback from last week against the idea that the Christmas bomber was mishandled.  My question is: where did that idea come from?  I don't know the answer, and I don't recall anyone reporting on this (although please correct me if I'm wrong).  Here's what a little googling found, but this is really a job, as the item title says, for Josh Marshall's crew.

The statement that seemed to firmly establish the "fact" that something went wrong, or at least the statement that seemed to be quoted all over the conservative blogosphere, is from a January 9 article in the Telegraph:

"He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up," Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission that investigated the Sept 2001 terror attacks on the US, told The Sunday Telegraph.  

The article is written around that claim...but the article gives no further evidence that such a thing happened, nor does it give any reason we should believe that Slade Gorton knows anything about it.  Gorton wasn't first, however.  That might have been Charles Krauthammer, who said in his January 1 column:

Instead, Abdulmutallab is dispatched to some Detroit-area jail and immediately lawyered up. At which point -- surprise! -- he stops talking. 

And that's as far as the trail went that I followed.   Krauthammer didn't cite anything for his claim (which, again, now appears to be wrong).

Now, I was on the road that week, so for all I know someone actually reported that the Christmas bomber was talking, then received Miranda, and then shut up. However, the New York Times story on the 26th, for example, reports lots of details from what he told the FBI, but nothing about him not talking.  I didn't have the patience to look through all the stories from the Times before Krauthammer got started, but I can say that a search on "Abdulmutallab" and "Miranda" yields nothing before a Michael Kinsley op-ed on January 5, which responded to the general question about how to treat suspects but did not refer to the allegation that the Christmas bomber stopped talking after being read his rights.

So: anyone know where this thing came from?  Did Krauthammer just make it up?

Read Stuff, You Should

Got behind again, so I'm dumping lots of stuff here, as usual.  I don't really have a don't read...I'll agree with everyone that Maureen Dowd on Sunday wasn't at her best, but that's not much value added.  There was also a very weak NYT story and other coverage that you didn't need to read last week on the Dodd/Dorgan retirements (see for an explanation here and here), but again, if you didn't read it then, it's too late now, and vice versa (or something like that -- you know what I'm trying to say.  Sorry, but on to the good bits:

1. I haven't blogged about the Christmas bomber, but I have read lots of good items.  I'll start with two long but interesting pieces from political scientist Matthew Dickinson, who is expert in the presidency and bureaucracy.  I'm a huge fan of this sort of thing, from TPM: that's a good use of web-based journalism.  Here's Kevin Drum, reassessing what went wrong.  And you shouldn't miss this terrific piece by Robert Mackey.  Don't know if he's right or not, but it's a great story.

2.  No columnist is more fun to read than Michael Kinsley, still at the top of his game.

3.  No real need to the fancy furrin word, and I don't quite agree with everything he has to say here, but Julian Sanchez is well worth reading (part one, part two).  What I'll add is that you're rarely wrong if you bet on the candidate with the most resentment to capture the GOP presidential nomination.  Just think about the guy who captured that trophy three times.

4.  Again, not sure I agree completely, but Chris Bowers shows how to do a predictions piece.  He's right that the Tea Party crowd as such is going to be a minor footnote in history, not a major force.  On the other hand, people still talk about Ross Perot as if he was Very Important, so we may be stuck hearing about Tea Party types for a long time, regardless.

5.  I'll end with a couple of fun hit pieces: Chait on Tony Coelho, and Sullivan on the Sage of Wasilla.

Enjoy!

Are They Cowards?

Matt Yglesias and Steve Benen are full of contempt today for Bushies who told the NYT's Peter Baker that they actually like Obama's antiterrorism policies, but won't say so publicly because (1) they're afraid of Dick Cheney, and (2) they are pissed at Obama for bashing Bush too much.

On the latter point, fair enough.  But on the former point...well, I can only say that it's pretty clearly a legitimate fear.  Anyone who wants to work in a future Republican administration is well advised to stay on the right side of Cheney and other Republican enforcers.  This may seem odd to liberals, who mostly see the Bush administration as a fiasco, but a future Republican president-elect is unlikely to care who liberals think should be invited to join his or her administration. 

I'd add one thing: it's true that at some point, Republicans who believe that Obama's policies are better for the nation than Cheney's policies should be willing to fight for those policies, and would be rightly criticized for cowardice if they don't.  However, what's at stake (for Republicans) at this point isn't a choice between policies; it's whether to follow a rejectionist strategy in public.  It may not be ethical Best Practices to attack the president regardless of whether you think that he's doing the right thing or not, but it's not cowardice.