The Objectivist
ONE FILTHY ADMINISTRATION
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
5/24/06
When it comes to corruption, the Clinton administration is to the Bush II administration as Mike Tyson is to Gary Coleman. The real question is how mainstream politicians and the dirty Janet Reno got away with looking past the third-world-style corruption.
The Clintons committed extraordinary campaign finance abuses. They took in beaucoup bucks in the Chinese funny-money scandal. Three individuals (Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung, and John Huang) funneled illegal money to the Clintons. Trie fled to China when faced with indictment; the other two were convicted of fundraising crimes. Chung admitted that he took funds from the Chinese government, Huang unquestionably funneled money from an Indonesian business owned by ethnic Chinese. This was not a one-time only event: Chung visited the White House over 45 times (more than did Monica Lewinsky) and Huang was a member of the administration with top-level FBI security clearance. Al Gore went to an illegal DNC fund-raiser at a Buddhist Temple in which money was washed through monks who had taken an oath of poverty. Maria L. Hsia (again, ethnic Chinese) pled guilty for this scam.
The Clintons also used their executive power as a sword to attack their political rivals. The Clinton administration illegally had over 900 Republican FBI files. Initially the administration called it a “snafu,” but later admitted that President Clinton’s friend and close advisor Anthony Marceca requested them. The pattern of IRS investigation strongly suggests that it was used to attack political enemies. There were audits of political enemies (e.g., Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, and Juanita Broaddrick) and opposed groups (e.g., The Heritage Foundation, the NRA, The National Review, and The American Spectator). The administration also illegally bypassed the required criminal background check for thousands of immigrants in order to add sympathetic voters before the 1996 election. One shudders at the extra rapes and murders in the U.S. that resulted.
The Clintons didn’t just engage in corruption for political gain, they also did it for personal gain. They gave pardons for money. For example, Clinton pardoned Marc Rich who had engaged in illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis and was a fugitive from the U.S. Clinton disregarded pardon protocol and pardoned him following his ex-wife’s donation of $1 million to Democratic causes, including $450,000 to Bill Clinton’s library fund and $70,000 to Hillary Clinton’s senatorial campaign. This type of corruption was nothing new to the Clintons. Earlier Hillary had received $100,000 from a $1,000 investment that was done through highly suspicious transactions by the attorney of a major Arkansas employer. Similarly, the investigation of the dirty Whitewater land deal and related corruption led to convictions of Clinton’s business partner, the Arkansas governor, and other Clinton associates.
This brings us to the Lewinsky scandal. Many Americans don’t think that a person’s sexual behavior is anyone else’s business. Let us assume that it is irrelevant whom Bill Clinton had sex with, harassed (Kathleen Willey), or possibly raped (see the underreported case of Juanita Broaddrick). Philandering in the White House has a long history, including Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, and JFK. However, in response to a civil suit by Paula Jones, the president then engaged in perjury (this eventually led to his law license being suspended and his being fined for contempt of court) and more likely than not obstruction of justice (Clinton associates arranged for Lewinsky to be offered a high-paying job and helped her hide evidence).
None of the facts I have cited is controversial. Together they provide an airtight case for the following claims: Bill Clinton’s administration was deeply corrupt and those we depend on to check executive misbehavior (Congress and the media) shamed themselves in failing to do anything about it.
***
The Constructivist
ONE DISGRACEFUL ADMINISTRATION
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
5/24/06
We’re having a pop quiz today, people, so please have your pens ready.
Identify, if you will, the fundamental American principles and practices from the next paragraph that have been violated by the Bush administration or its cronies and proxies in the paragraph that follows it. (For extra credit, you may add items to one or both paragraphs, with bonus points for items beginning with any letters of the alphabet that may happen to be missing from the lists below.)
The Bill of Rights. Checks and balances. Fiscal responsibility. The free market. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Minimal government. Presidential oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The rule of law. Separation of church and state. Separation of powers.
Abu Ghraib. Cherry-picking and manipulation of intelligence on WMD in Iraq. Denial and delay in dealing with the challenges of America’s oil addiction and the impacts of global climate change. Expansive definition of executive privilege to keep secret the records of Vice President Cheney’s energy task force’s meetings. Extraordinary rendition. Foreign-policy unilateralism. Fueling Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions by convincing them with the invasion of Iraq that they need such weapons as insurance against American-led regime change. Guantanamo Bay. “Heckuva job, Brownie.” Illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. “I’m the decider.” Implying that dissent is treasonous in a War on Terror with no end in sight. The Jack Abramoff-Tom DeLay axis of extortion. Lying about the scope of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. No-bid contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq. Playing politics with our nation’s public health infrastructure and allocation of federal Homeland Security funds. Post-9/11 profiling, detention, and deportation of thousands of immigrants from North Africa to South Asia. Record-setting trade and budget deficits, not to mention gas prices. The Republican war on science. “Scooter” Libby’s outing of a CIA Iran specialist’s identity (which may yet net indictments for Dick Cheney or Karl Rove) to discredit an influential critic during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Secret reclassification of previously declassified government documents. Tax cuts for the wealthy. USA PATRIOT Act. Using denials of security clearance to stonewall official investigations.
OK, time’s up. On to the essay portion of the quiz. First question: how would you assess George W. Bush’s presidency? Please feel free to contextualize your arguments by referring to historical comparisons by Princeton University’s Sean Wilentz of George W. Bush with the worst presidents in U.S. history; political analyses by David Cole and Jim Hightower that Bush has resurrected Nixon’s “imperial presidency”; and debates between liberal blogger “Billmon” and Republican strategist Kevin Phillips over whether the Bush administration is guided more by the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes or Niccolo Machiavelli.
Follow-up multiple-choice/short-answer question for extra credit: which of the following phrases best describes the Bush administration’s approach to governance, and why? a) borrow-and-spend conservativism; b) discipline-and-punish libertarianism; c) government-is-the-problem-planned-incompetence anarchism; d) all of the above.
Second essay question: in light of your answers to the previous items on the quiz, what, in your view, is the proper remedy for American citizens and their representatives to pursue during the remainder of the Bush presidency? Please support your position by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of arguments put forward by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold for Congressional censure of George W. Bush, the Center for Constitutional Rights for impeachment in Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush, and Glenn Greenwald for citizen action to save American democracy, starting with this November’s elections, in How Would a Patriot Act?.
Please send your answers to your Congressional representatives along with a short essay describing what you’d like them to do during the summer vacation.
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49 comments:
Dear Constructivist:
I would like to claim that a substantial amount of the Clinton administration's success was due to the '94 Republican Congress. In particular, the biggest accomplishments of the Clinton administration were welfare reform, NAFTA, and reduction of the deficit via reduced spending relative to the growth in the economy.
The first one is a straightforward program of the Republican Congress.
The second was supported by Republicans in the Congress and opposed by the Democrats, although to be fair Clinton pushed it hard.
The third was almost undoubtedly due to Republican financial discipline (now completely gone). In particular, the attempt to pull most of the medical field into government control was defeated by Republicans. It was also their project to remove farmers from the dole (now reversed by Bush the left).
So while I agree that the Bush presidency has been a disaster, I don't see the success of the Clinton years due to the administration.
Dear Constructivist:
One other point. The Bush is the opposite of a libertarian-right government. Here's my evidence.
1. Interventionism: Intervenionist wars and policies (e.g., Iraq). This, of course, follows up from Albright's war against Serbia and the Somalia nation-building debacle.
2. Increased Spending: The biggest increase in spending since LBJ, much of which relates to domestic, not defense spending.
3. New welfare program: A vast new welfare program (i.e., the expansion of medicare to cover drugs) and the re-introduction of an old one (i.e., farmers back on welfare)
4. A complete war on everyone's rights againt police searches and seizures: This can be seen whether we consider national-security related invasions (e.g., the Patriot Act, phone taps, and claims to hold persons without they're being able to make legal challenge). An aggressive attempt to expand police search and seizure rights.
5. A war on federalism: The Supreme Court, pushed by the Bush Administration in Ashcroft v. Raich, demolished what little hope there was for the commerce clause. This clause says that there is some Constitutional limit to what the federal government can regulate.
6. Third world immigrants: An attempt to explode the country's population with low-skilled workers. Say what you will aobut this, but confused libertarians aside, there is nothing about this that promotes liberty given the existence of a vast welfare state.
O, jeez, who would have thought you'd have turned into a member of the angry , America-hating Left who lack a basic sense of civility, decency, and respect for Our Great Leader? No, no, wait, I get it, it's Bush who betrayed the conservative movement, so he must be a liberal! Or is it that you've joined the majority of Americans who in May rated Clinton's job performance higher than Bush's?
OK, enough joking (and linking). Since I thought welfare reform and NAFTA were mistakes of Clinton's triangulation strategy, I'm happy to lay them at Republicans' feet (although, to be fair, it's unlikely they would have happened had Clinton not supported them). Particularly b/c NAFTA is the biggest contributor to the immigration increase (which has actually expanded since the Republicans took over the House, building on a Reagan-era amnesty bill!) you and your buddies are so riled up about that you all are discussing impeaching Bush.
OK, seriously going to stop the linking now.
Given that I'm not a big Clinton fan, you're not going to see me working too hard to come up with major accomplishments of his or defending his various character flaws. But I do find the obsession with the Clintons' sex lives pretty disgusting--and an obvious distraction from the constitutional crisis that the Bush administration has brought on the nation, not to mention a preemptive strike against a Hillary presidential run (just as your column is). Your comment suggests you agree with me that the Bush presidency has been disastrous for the country, but what do you think about my suggestion that his trampling of the Constitution deserves either censure or impeachment? Have you read Cato's report on "the constitutional record of George W. Bush"?
I would also like to hear more from you, O, on how good a job you think the Republicans have been doing on that "promoting liberty" thing since they've controlled every branch of the federal government. I teach Eric Foner's The Story of American Freedom in my Intro to American Studies course, which shows that commitment to--and infringements upon--liberty are not limited to conservatives, so we may be able to get into some substantive discussions over that.
Another possible line of discussion opened up by your comments is laying out some less-noted similarities and continuities between the Clinton and Bush administrations. I have some arguments building on Naomi Klein and William Greider that focus on geopolitics and globalization, but I'll hold off until I hear if you're interested in going further with this.
There's plenty of corruption in Government to go around for BOTH administrations. BTW, Constructivist, both of you come across as pretty intelligent. So, would you please drop the garbage about Separation of Church and State? I'm sure you're aware that those word's are NOT in the Constitution we so love. It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free expression thereof." Cangress has made NO LAW saying one religion or another is the "official" religion of the U.S. A nativity in a public park is not a LAW. Nor is voluntary school prayer. Just because a secularist/activist judge says it is, doesn't make it so. The Constitution is commonly mis-interpreted, either by mistake, or willfully, to push an agenda.
Neither side is lily white, and to infer otherwise is flat out wrong. Has Bush, and did Clinton abused the Office? Yes. Is one worse than the other, not to my way of thinking. Government is no longer about what is best or right. It's about keeping power.
B, thanks for the comment--I'd like to say you caught the bonus extra credit option (which items in para 2 aren't classic American principles and practices) but in fact that was a bit of carelessness on my part, as nothing in para 3 related to it.
The thing I'd emphasize in response to your "pox on both houses" comment is that Clinton's been out of office for something like 8 years, while we still have almost 2 years of a Bush administration to live with/under. So it worries me when Bush can find vehement support for a clearly unAmerican and unconstitutional practice like jailing journalists for what they write.
Politicians and parties in America need to understand there are limits to their pursuit of political power, but they won't unless the citizenry they represent and are empowered by assert their rights.
Said journalist wasn't jailed for what she wrote. She was jailed for refusing to reveal her source, if we're talking about the same one. As to Clinton being out of power, and Bush having 2 more years. Seems to me, Presidencies are the "gift that keeps on giving", so to speak. Often we pay, one way or another, for their mis-deeds in office. As for Bush, he's a lame duck. Look at the split in the republican party. They're so messed up, they're going to lose in November. Then, watch the country come apart. Last November I predicted that if the dems win congress, they'll move to impeach Bush. Why? Simple, payback for Clinton. Again, the gift that keeps on giving.
BTW, there's no Constitutional protection for journalists with regard to sources, or against prosecution for revealing top secret info. Those who are angry over the Plame crap, but not over the leaks of the NSA program, or others, seem to want to pick and choose what makes a good leak. I always find that ironic.
Anyway, I truly enjoy your Blog. Very well written and well thought out. I like blogs where I can learn something.
B, when you read the link, you'll see it's not about that hack Judy Miller, but about a recent Congressional debate over a new Bush administration posture towards those who leaked to Dana Priest and other Pulitzer-prize winning journalists. Please read the post--it quotes many conservative critics as well as liberal ones.
I do think you can and should make moral distinctions between different kinds of leaks--or, to borrow language conservatives love to use, it's wrong to assert a moral equivalence between all leaks. When someone's leaking information about how the US government is clearly violating the Geneva Conventions (which, like all treaties ratified by the US Congress, has the force of law in the US), there's a better justification for revealing a state secret, than, say, leaking to hide the weakness of your central case for going to war. But what's your case for moral equivalence? (I'm also that concerned your definition of irony is coming from more from Alanis Morissette than Cleanth Brooks, but I'll let that pass by linking rather than arguing.)
BTW, I'm inclined to doubt the Democrats will move to impeach Bush if they win even one house of Congress in November (which in my mind is still a long shot). Say they win back the Senate but not the House: unless they have an airtight way of removing the VP and the Speaker of the House, they could end up with someone worse than Bush as president. I actually think there's a better chance of impeachment if the Republicans keep controlling all three branches of government but fear the administration as a loose cannon that is mismanaging WWIV. Or you could see a major purge of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Yoo, and other key administration advisors, along with the appointment of folks to keep Bush in line. Or, more likely, you'll see the Republican Party go through some painful soul-searching as it gears up for the '08 elections...oh, wait, that's already happening so I guess it doesn't count as a prediction. With that, I'll leave the prediction game entirely.
Read the link. Point well taken. While I think a leaker of TS info, if a CIA employee, should be jailed, the journalist reporting should not. The editors should, of course, weigh the possible damage to ongoing ops before publishing. I agree. The thought of the Fed jailing reporters over writing the story should horrify anyone.
As to my mis-use of the word, you have my apology. English class is far in my past. My Uncle, doctorate in French and English and teaching in Minnesota, would be horrified at my usage. Let's not tell him. Thankyou, however, for not "flaming" me. It's appreciated.
Hey, B, no worries on the irony thing--everyone does it. Plus, check out my "from more from" construction in the very sentence I'm teasing you on your language--that's not ironic, just careless! (And funny.)
Humor is where you find it..
I take perverse pleasure in using improper english around said uncle. Double negatives and the like. It drives him crazy!
O, do you think we're in a Constitutional crisis or not? Check out these links from firedoglake before you answer....
From the tone and info provided, the answer is obvious. Pardon me for being a tiny bit skeptical. I've become wary of late. I have a few questions. Why haven't the Dems been screaming from the rafters about this? As to the search of the congressmans office, who, then should police them? They are not above the law. Apparently said congressman has ignored supeonas?(I can never spell that word!) to turn over documents. I don't trust the capitol police. Those are the clowns who DIDN"T give Kennedy a breathalizer test. That being said, from all outward appearances of what you've provided, then the answer would be yes.
I think the search of Congressman Jefferson's office is entirely constitutional--no one is above the law, not our representatives in Congress, and not our President!
We are in TOTAL agreement there. I still wonder at the dems not screaming about this. They scream about everything else. This is something that should be screamed about.
O, what do you think of this (including links)? Would you go so far as to support a republican or democratic candidate who broke with the "global war on terror" framework for US foreign policy?
The Homeland Security allocation scandal gets worse.
Dear O and B:
I want to discuss the claim that there was an obsession with Clinton's sex life. Look, it's got to bother you that he initially claimed that he could not be sued during his time as a President. In addition, the evidence strongly suggestst that he committed multiple acts of perjury, tried to buy Monica Lewinsky's silence with job offers, tried to tamper with Betty Curry's testimony, and hid evidence (gifts to Lewinsky). There is a huge threat that had his claims been acknowledged, he would have made the president above the law. This is not a minor threat, especially given the aggressive misuse of the FBI and IRS that Clinton shared with JFK, LBJ, and Nixon (sadly, only Nixon's reputation is besmirched by such behavior).
Here is my questions to you.
(1) How is my concern that the president be subject to the law obsession with his sex life?
(2) If Clinton while President, were to have raped Monica Lewinsky should he have been prosecuted and convicted at that time or do we have to wait until he left office?
In addition, the reason given against impleachment by that clown prince Robert Byrd was that the American people didn't support it. Thus, serious matters like impeachment are thus a function of polling results.
How do such dullards get elected?
Dear Constructivist:
I'm missing the point about the Homeland security allocation scandal. This strikes me as incredibly bad judgment, but not illegal.
I think the government generally uses terrible judgment and this doesn't surprise me. Consider the reintroduction of welfare for farmers, the steel tariffs, the consstant pork, and the recent move to ban on-line gambling.
O, you're right that bad judgment and outright mismanagement are endemic in government--just look at this one on our intelligence community under Bush--but it continues to amaze me that a party whom more Americans probably associate with defense/security competence and commitment to small, efficient government than the party I happen to be stuck with is so damn bad at implementing its supposedly core values. So, yes, chalk this one (and the ones you mention, although is online gambling on the same level as the rest?) up to Bush incompetence rather than malfeasance.
Still, I think you need widespread belief in Presidential incompetence, malfeasance, and sparking of a Constitutional crisis to get anyone to take impeachment seriously (and you probably need more post-9/11, given that Republicans were able to go after Clinton on much lower-level malfeasance [meant to protect his reputation in defense against a well-organized campaign to turn a consensual relationship into a political liability as well as a moral vice] and nothing else). So once you return from your weekend sojourns, I'd like to hear whether and on what grounds you'd favor impeaching Bush, given your apparently low standards for Clinton's (btw, I thought you were against all restrictions on campaign financing?).
As for keeping the President subject to the law while protecting the Presidency from frivolous lawsuits (something your anti-trial lawyer party ought to understand the value of), I agree that Clinton went too far (as all Presidents do) in pushing Executive Privilege. And certainly, if a President commits a serious crime like rape or murder while in office, he (looking backward rather than forward 'pronounally') should be prosecuted for it and should have the honor to step down while facing trial rather than forcing Congress to impeach him. But again, most Americans as well as their representatives agreed that Clinton's crimes, while enough to get him disbarred, were not impeachable offenses. Only time will tell whether Bush's will (or whether he'll sacrifice Cheney to keep the Presidency)....
Oh, and if you don't think Republicans are obsessed with sex, ask yourself why Frist wants to push Constitutional amendments to prohibit gay marriage on an unwilling Congress (and flag-burning, but that's another question) and why Bush is going along with it. Or why there are serious debates among conservatives over whether condoms or the rhythm method are responsible for 'killing' more unconceived children!
Dear C, I don't believe the "obsessed with his sex life" bit. He lied under oath, that was my concern. I don't care if it was about sex, or about walking the dog. He lied under oath.
As for your second point, I would have wanted him prosecuted after impeachment. If no impeachment, I don't think you could until he was out of office. As to how these dullards get elected, well, that's the fault of "we the people", don't you think? I think we're all secretly masochists!
Dear C and B:
I have a related question, which is the following. Imagine that college student A says that she saw her coach (a woman) having sex with her teammate, B, in the shower. She says this because she is a fundamentalist Christian and believes that such sex is wrong (qua lesbianism) and exploitative (qua age differences). The coach then sues A for defamation. The coach takes the stand and states that she did not have sex with that player, B.
Then through testimony of heretofore unknown third party it is clearly established that coach did have sex with B in the shower and that A saw it.
Two questions.
(1) Should the coach be prosecuted for perjury (lying under oath) and, perhaps also, fraud?
(2) Should the coach keep her job?
I suspect that you guys answer "yes," to both questions.
How is the Clinton case any different?
She'd lose the case more than likely. As to the second point, if she violated school ethics policy by having sex with the student, and dismissal is required by said policy, then, yes, she should lose her job.
How is the Clinton case different? Come on! You have at play two things, lying under oath by the Leader of the Nation, and politics. Lying under oath is wrong. Call me naive, but it's how I was raised. I know many do it. That doesn't make it right. Being the example the President is, makes it even more wrong.
Was politics in play in the impeachment hearings? Yes. Unfortunately, these are the times we live in. I do not see them changing soon, unless people wake up and start thinking for themselves.
Some interesting reflections on the legal history of the cases challenging the internment of Japanese residents and Japanese-American citizens during WWII. Which raises the question, O, do you feel such internment can ever be legally justified? What are your views on the Jose Padilla case and n Guantanamo Bay more generally?
Sorry, not interested in the analogy.
Dave at Orcinus makes the internment connection to the present explicit.
Dear C:
I think the internment was close to being justified during wartime and preventive detention can be. However, except in the case of immediate and uncontroversial threats I don't believe in taking away persons' liberty without a specific finding that they violated the criminal law.
The Padilla case, if I remember correctly involves an American citizen who is being detained without due process. I think this is a damn disgrace.
I wonder, however, why you oppose it? I think it is a terrible idea on the basis of broad libertarian principles about the priority given to liberty. However, on what grounds do you oppose it?
The analogy is a painful one for those who opposed impeachment and conviction of Clinton. This is because they are either committed to claiming that the President during his time in office is above the law or else they think that harmful perjury concerned with sex should be legal.
Since both positions are absurd, the defender of persons voting against conviction (e.g., Robert Byrd and Joe Lieberman) becomes increasingly untenable.
Dear C:
I'm curious as to whether you think there was evidence for the following.
1. A substantial number of Japanese-Americans (although less than half) remained loyal to Japan.
2. Some of the above were spying.
3. Security on West-Coast facilities is important in wartime.
If you acknowledge 1-3, then internment looks like a policy judgment designed to benefit the whole. This is similar to laws that ban race and sex discrimination in private businesses, random roadblocks that look for seatbelt and drunk-driving violations, mandated social security payments, and other liberty-restricting policies.
A libertarian has principled grounds to be opposed to all of these, including internment. However, I wonder what the left can say here other than to say that in retrospect, given that we know we won WWII, it was the wrong decision on the facts.
O, you're not trying to imply that libertarians have a monopoly on love of liberty, are you? I recommend Eric Foner's The Story of American Freedom if so. I think my post laid out some fundamental principles worth defending, no?
Here's another critique of the Bush administration's "power grab," which I found out about from Ralph Luker of Cliopatria.
Here's Hullabaloo on Hillary Clinton's Privacy Bill of Rights. So, O, is this principled liberty-loving or shameless pandering to libertarians to get them to vote against Bush?
This from Norbizness--again, is the invocation of the Constitution merely cynical and unprincipled, or are there principled grounds underlying the dark humor?
O, Arthur Silber is a true left libertarian--you should check out his blog, Once Upon a Time, not just for his critiques of Iraq and ther cntemporary manifestations of American manifest destinarianism, but for lines like these:
"For those readers who might wonder, I would describe myself as a libertarian of the old school, as emphatically distinguished from the utterly phony libertarians who sprout up like weeds these days, especially on the internet, and most of whom are the worst sort of apologists for the countless crimes of the Bush administration. I am opposed to all kinds of non-defensive foreign interventionism and, with regard to domestic politics, I theoretically tend toward anarchism. But I emphasize the 'theoretically' part of that: today, the major battle is to stop further damage to and disregard of civil liberties and individual rights, and generally to scale back the massive growth of the surveillance, corporatist state. That is path to dictatorship, and we are already well along that road. I'll be explaining all this in much more detail as I proceed through my Systems of Obedience series. I have a lot of that series outlined already, even though only the first part has been written. I expect to discuss the state in general and how it fits into my overall themes around installment five or six. But even in the planning stages, the series keeps altering and being modified in certain ways as I accumulate more material. So I have to ask for your patience with regard to a longer explanation of these very complicated issues.
"It's more than clear from many essays here, but perhaps I should add that I consider the Bush administration to be the worst of my lifetime, which stretches back to John Kennedy [and before, but he's the first president I remember at all well]. And I think Bush may finally be considered the worst president in all of our history, depending on what the next few years bring. As far as the potential further damage to our form of government is concerned, I am not at all looking forward to those years -- and I greatly fear what may still happen.
"With regard to my view of Bush and the neoconservative movement generally, here's one relevant earlier essay: In Service of the New Fascism, from August 2003. In February of this year, I added some prefatory notes concerning today's alleged 'libertarians.' As you may have gathered, those comments are not exactly favorable, to understate the matter considerably."
So, O, what do you make of his arguments here?
O, thoughts on the Hamdan decision?
U of Colorado prof Ira Chernus on Republican fairy-tales.
More on how hard it is to be a libertarian and a Republican these days. O, a response?
O, if that last one was too complicated, try this one!
O, perhaps you might want to clarify the terms of your libertarianism for your readers in a column or more? Reading this from Norbizness made me realize I'd like to hear more from you on these topics....
O, this one from Hullabaloo on the difference between liberty and freedom, with reference to the "liberation" of Iraq, also suggests some topics I'd love to see you write on....
O, if you have time a review of Bruce Ackerman vs. Richard Posner on civil liberties and the Constitution post-9/11 would be a great column topic!
Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald for half of the last ideas (the Ackerman part was mine)....
O, what will it take to make you admit publicly that Bush is by far a worse President than Clinton was? Why the Senate continues to go along with him, and the Democrats refuse to filibuster him, and libertarians refuse to question their allegiance to the Republican Party, I have no idea. I hope by the date I'm posting this you know what is inspiring this. I'm too depressed about the state of the States to link.
O, you've defended the use of torture in certain circumstances in a published book. I think it's time you and The Theist (or someone else) take the time to debate this crucial issue.
O, here might be one place to start the torture blogging. As Peter Levine points out, it started in a major blog (Balkinization), moved to a major online magazine (Slate), and then got read into the Congressional Record.
Alan Wolfe is a liberal cultural critic who has often criticized the cultural left. Here he is on the torture bill, in Open University (TNR's new academic blog).
And here's Tim Burke. And Michael Berube.
More from Glenn Greenwald on the Republican war on the private sphere. Any libertarian critiques of Bush you'd care to make public, O?
Here's something broader on the GOP War on the Constitution.
Looks like Republicans have also given up on being the "law and order" party, too. Of course, that was always a coded appeal to anti-black racists, anyway.
Norbizness got his 1 millionth visitor recently, and this is a good example of why.
Now that the Democrats are less than a month away from running the Congress, the other two options on my pop quiz are still worth debating.
No use trying to keep up with all the takes on the state of the union, but this one covers a lot of ground in very little space.
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