Charles Krauthammer nails it !
http://article.nationalreview.com/423992/the-great-peasant-revolt-of-2010/charles-krauthammer
February 5, 2010
The Great Peasant Revolt of 2010
The president’s supercilious modesty is getting him into trouble.
‘I am not an ideologue,” protested President Obama at a gathering with Republican House members last week. Perhaps, but he does have a tenacious commitment to a set of political convictions.Compare his 2010 State of the Union with his first address to Congress a year earlier. The consistency is remarkable. In 2009, after passing a $787 billion (now $862 billion) stimulus package, the largest spending bill in galactic history, he unveiled a manifesto for fundamentally restructuring the commanding heights of American society — health care, education, and energy.
A year later, after stunning Democratic setbacks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama gave a stay-the-course State of the Union address (a) pledging not to walk away from health-care reform, (b) seeking to turn college education increasingly into a federal entitlement, and (c) asking again for cap-and-trade energy legislation. Plus, of course, another stimulus package, this time renamed a “jobs bill.”
This being a democracy, don’t the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don’t they understand Massachusetts?
Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid, and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.
Liberal expressions of disdain for the intelligence and emotional maturity of the electorate have been, post-Massachusetts, remarkably unguarded. New York Times columnist Charles Blow chided Obama for not understanding the necessity of speaking “in the plain words of plain folks,” because the people are “suspicious of complexity.” Counseled Blow: “The next time he gives a speech, someone should tap him on the ankle and say, ‘Mr. President, we’re down here.’”
A Time magazine blogger was even more blunt about the ankle-dwelling mob, explaining that we are “a nation of dodos” that is “too dumb to thrive.” Obama joined the parade in the State of the Union address when, with supercilious modesty, he chided himself “for not explaining it [health care] more clearly to the American people.” The subject, he noted, was “complex.” The subject, it might also be noted, was one to which the master of complexity had devoted 29 speeches. Perhaps he did not speak slowly enough.
Then there are the emotional deficiencies of the masses. Nearly every Democratic apologist lamented the people’s anger and anxiety, a free-floating agitation that prevented them from appreciating the beneficence of the social agenda that the Democrats are so determined to foist upon them.
That brings us to Part Two of the liberal conceit: Liberals act in the public interest, while conservatives think only of power, elections, self-aggrandizement, and self-interest.
It is an old liberal theme that conservative ideas, being red in tooth and claw, cannot possibly emerge from any notion of the public good. A 2002 New York Times obituary for philosopher Robert Nozick explained that the strongly libertarian implications of Nozick’s masterwork, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, “proved comforting to the right, which was grateful for what it embraced as philosophical justification.” The right, you see, is grateful when a bright intellectual can graft some philosophical rationalization onto its thoroughly base and self-regarding politics.
This belief in the moral hollowness of conservatism animates the current liberal mantra that Republican opposition to Obama’s social democratic agenda — which couldn’t get through even a Democratic Congress and powered major Democratic losses in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts — is nothing but blind and cynical obstructionism.
By contrast, Democratic opposition to George W. Bush — from Iraq to Social Security reform — constituted dissent. And dissent, we were told at the time, including by candidate Obama, is “one of the truest expressions of patriotism.”
No more. Today, dissent from the governing orthodoxy is nihilistic malice. “They made a decision,” explained David Axelrod, “they were going to sit it out and hope that we failed, that the country failed” — a perfect expression of liberals’ conviction that their aspirations are necessarily the country’s, that their idea of the public good is the public’s, that their failure is therefore the nation’s.
Then comes Massachusetts, an election Obama himself helped nationalize, to shatter this most self-congratulatory of illusions. For liberals, the observation that “the peasants are revolting” is a pun. For conservatives, it is cause for uncharacteristic optimism. No matter how far the ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end the bedrock common sense of the American people will prevail.The ankle-dwelling populace pushes back. It re-centers. It renormalizes. Even in Massachusetts.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Is this where our country is headed ?
Is Greece Our Future? [Victor Davis Hanson]
I lived in Greece for more than two years, and one of my best memories is of a small hotelier at a seaside resort. He checked you in; he cooked; he did the landscaping at night; he did all the maintenance during the day. I asked him why he didn’t hire more help, since his hotel wasn’t all that small and he seemed to be going 24/7. What followed was a harangue about the cost of hiring a permanent worker in Greece, the difficulty of ever firing him if he proved worthless, and why he preferred to do everything himself rather than fill out all sorts of forms and hire unmotivated but tenured employees.
Besides, he said, almost everyone was on some sort of pension, disability, or government benefit, and was unwilling to work, so his choices were either illegal immigrants or broke foreign students. Then he launched into a blast against socialism, and explained how he was forced to become an expert tax dodger, how he would barter for all the transactions he could, and why he hated the government. He finished by sighing that in Greece, the people spend their time either devising ways to get government money or scheming to avoid the tax collectors — or, preferably, both.
I think the medicine for Greece’s current crisis will prove more unpalatable than the wasting disease.
I lived in Greece for more than two years, and one of my best memories is of a small hotelier at a seaside resort. He checked you in; he cooked; he did the landscaping at night; he did all the maintenance during the day. I asked him why he didn’t hire more help, since his hotel wasn’t all that small and he seemed to be going 24/7. What followed was a harangue about the cost of hiring a permanent worker in Greece, the difficulty of ever firing him if he proved worthless, and why he preferred to do everything himself rather than fill out all sorts of forms and hire unmotivated but tenured employees.
Besides, he said, almost everyone was on some sort of pension, disability, or government benefit, and was unwilling to work, so his choices were either illegal immigrants or broke foreign students. Then he launched into a blast against socialism, and explained how he was forced to become an expert tax dodger, how he would barter for all the transactions he could, and why he hated the government. He finished by sighing that in Greece, the people spend their time either devising ways to get government money or scheming to avoid the tax collectors — or, preferably, both.
I think the medicine for Greece’s current crisis will prove more unpalatable than the wasting disease.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Scott Brown sworn in today ...
Viva La Revolucion !
Scott Brown's Remarks Following His Swearing-In
It's a great honor to stand before you as the new United States Senator from Massachusetts.
I want to express my gratitude and appreciation to many people, starting with my wife Gail, to Vice President Biden, to Senators Kerry and Kirk, to Leader McConnell, and to so many other people who have been generous with their time and their advice.
I especially want to thank the people of Massachusetts who sent me here. I can't promise I'll be right in every vote I make. I'm sure I'll make mistakes from time to time. But I will try to give them my level best every day.
My daughters Ayla and Arianna could not be here, but I felt their presence. The bibles I used for today's swearing-in belong to my daughters, and I stacked them one on top of the other and took my oath on them. So they were both with me in spirit.
People have asked me why I wanted to get sworn-in so quickly after the results had been certified. It's because I want to get to work.
There are a lot of votes pending that I would like to participate in.
Even more importantly, these are urgent times for our nation. The President this week submitted a $3.8 trillion budget. We'll have to borrow 40% of that amount because we don't have the money to pay for all that spending. I'm concerned we're living beyond our means. Also this week, the CIA director said there will be another al-Qaeda attack in the US in the next 3 to 6 months. This is frightening news, and we owe the people of America everything we can do to deter and prevent future attacks on our nation.
So I'm glad to be fully able to participate in the affairs our nation at this critical time.I also want to extend my appreciation to all of you in the press. I see many familiar faces here and I want you to know how much I respect the work you do, and the patience and many kindnesses you have shown my family.
With that, I'll take a few questions
Scott Brown's Remarks Following His Swearing-In
It's a great honor to stand before you as the new United States Senator from Massachusetts.
I want to express my gratitude and appreciation to many people, starting with my wife Gail, to Vice President Biden, to Senators Kerry and Kirk, to Leader McConnell, and to so many other people who have been generous with their time and their advice.
I especially want to thank the people of Massachusetts who sent me here. I can't promise I'll be right in every vote I make. I'm sure I'll make mistakes from time to time. But I will try to give them my level best every day.
My daughters Ayla and Arianna could not be here, but I felt their presence. The bibles I used for today's swearing-in belong to my daughters, and I stacked them one on top of the other and took my oath on them. So they were both with me in spirit.
People have asked me why I wanted to get sworn-in so quickly after the results had been certified. It's because I want to get to work.
There are a lot of votes pending that I would like to participate in.
Even more importantly, these are urgent times for our nation. The President this week submitted a $3.8 trillion budget. We'll have to borrow 40% of that amount because we don't have the money to pay for all that spending. I'm concerned we're living beyond our means. Also this week, the CIA director said there will be another al-Qaeda attack in the US in the next 3 to 6 months. This is frightening news, and we owe the people of America everything we can do to deter and prevent future attacks on our nation.
So I'm glad to be fully able to participate in the affairs our nation at this critical time.I also want to extend my appreciation to all of you in the press. I see many familiar faces here and I want you to know how much I respect the work you do, and the patience and many kindnesses you have shown my family.
With that, I'll take a few questions
Obama's Waffling on Nat'l Security critiqued here ...
Re: Did Obama Reverse Himself on Miranda Rights for Terrorists? [Andy McCarthy]
Dan, the main problem with Obama's above-it-all, government-by-speeches approach, is that the job of a president is not to vote present, observe, and provide us with running commentary. He's not the play-by-play announcer of a game between arch rivals. He is the main participant on one of the teams, who actually has to make decisions. If he doesn't affirmatively make them, he makes them by default — meaning, the system's routine processes will carry on.
I'll have more to say in a column about yesterday's letter by Attorney General Holder to Sen. Mitch McConnell regarding the Christmas bomber case. But the AG's position is basically: These are our procedures (arrest, Miranda, appointment of counsel, civilian indictment, etc.) and we followed them. Obama would like you to believe that he is captive to these procedures, but he's in charge and he can change them — as Lincoln did, FDR did, and Bush did, to name a few.
I'm not a Holder fan, but I give him credit for this: He really does believe prosecution in the civilian justice system is the way to go, even in cases involving alien enemy combatants sent by al-Qaeda to the United States to carry out acts of war during wartime. Vice President Cheney, to the contrary, really believed (and believes) that this law-enforcement orientation doesn't work against wartime enemies, that it thus endangers the country, and that we have to treat a war like a war, with indefinite detention of enemy-combatants and military commissions for war criminals. Holder and Cheney have defended their positions vigorously. As my column will elaborate, I don't think Holder's defense is very persuasive, but at least he's making it. These guys are willing to be accountable for their positions.
Then there's Obama — you know, the guy who actually has decision-making authority. (In the executive branch, all the power is reposed in the president. Everyone else, including the vice president and the attorney general, is just carrying out his policies.) What do we get from our president? We get his already tired routine: Some people say our criminal justice system is not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists. Others say you must give every arrested person Miranda rights and treat them just like shoplifters. I reject this false choice between terrorism and shoplifting.
Well, no, big guy, it's not a false choice. But it is a choice, it has to be made, and you have to make it. If you're going to use our criminal justice system because you think, as is, it is capable of safeguarding the country from terrorists, then, as the attorney general argues, you have to give the terrorists Miranda warnings and be accountable for the fact that you will lose at least five weeks of actionable intel against people who are tying to kill us. If you think the justice system doesn't work for this class of offenders, then you have to try another approach, as VP Cheney urges, and be prepared for the inevitability of caterwauling from the Left (knowing it will be considerably milder than what Cheney had to deal with). But one way or the other, you've got to decide. And if you choose to stay on the golf course while the attorney general handles it, that is a decision to do it the attorney general's way. Obama's decision, not Holder's.
Who Is Wrong, Dennis Blair or Eric Holder? [Daniel Foster]
From the looks of things, it must be one of them.
Consider, in his letter to Senate Republicans yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote:
On the evening of December 25 and again on the morning of December 26, the FBI informed its partners in the Intelligence Community that Abdulmutallab would be charged criminally, and no agency objected to this course of action. In the days following December 25 – including during a meeting with the President and other senior members of his national security team on January 5 – high-level discussions ensued within the Administration in which the possibility of detaining Mr. Abdulmutallab under the law of war was explicitly discussed. No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued.
But in testimony in before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael E. Leiter and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said they were not consulted about the charging decision.
Blair, Mueller, Leiter, and Napolitano all fall under one or both of the descriptions "partners in the intelligence community" and "senior members of [Obama's] national security team," and all four claim they were not consulted. Could they all be mistaken?
Krauthammer's Take [NRO Staff]
On Eric Holder’s letter regarding the interrogation of the Christmas Day bomber:
In that letter, Holder [says] he followed the precedent of the Bush administration. It's true that with Richard Reid … he was Mirandized, he was treated as a civilian. But it was a mistake. It happened three months after 9/11, and the military commission system hadn't been established. . .
Here we are eight years later where we know that's not the way to go, and they repeat the error and defend it.
They also had said there was a meeting — Holder said there was a meeting on January 5th involving the president, all the senior members of the security cabinet on this issue, and nobody even raised the issue of having him held under the laws of war. . .
Why it [Mirandizing Abdulmutallab] was done in the first place is a mystery and why it wasn't undone and why nobody at a senior level, including the president, had suggested undoing it and having him interrogated without him having the right of silence, is really quite puzzling.
The Attorney General Speaks — and Says Nothing [Bill Burck and Dana Perino]
Attorney General Eric Holder has penned a five-page response to senators who demanded answers about his decision to Mirandize and charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, as a criminal defendant. It is a full-bore justification of the law-enforcement approach to combating terrorism, and despite its length, it does nothing to solve his problems.
Near the beginning of the letter, Holder writes: “I am confident that, as a result of the hard work of the FBI and our career federal prosecutors, we will be able to successfully prosecute Mr. Abdulmutallab under the federal criminal law.” No one has ever doubted that. Even if Abdulmutallab had never uttered a word in response to questioning, there were 200 witnesses on the plane he tried to blow up, not to mention the defective bomb discovered in his underpants, which should provide plenty of evidence to prosecute and convict him.
They didn’t need a confession to convict him, so why Mirandize him at all? Well, Holder explains, everyone did everything by the book. Again, no one doubts that the Justice Department followed its internal system to a T. But as one of us has discussed, the system itself is a big part of the problem, because it excludes the intelligence services from participation and prioritizes law-enforcement interests over intelligence gathering when a foreign terrorist is captured on U.S. soil.
Keep reading this post . . .
More on the Holder Letter [Shannen Coffin]
Among the outrages in Attorney General Holder’s letter to Senator McConnell is his selective memory when it comes to military detention of terrorist suspects captured in the United States. Oddly, the only words highlighted for emphasis in the entire letter are in this sentence: “Since the September 11, 2001 attack, the practice of the U.S. government, followed by prior and current Administrations without a single exception, has been to arrest and detain under federal criminal law all terrorist suspects who are apprehended inside the United States.” That emphasis is odd because, on the very next page, he explains that two “persons apprehended in recent times have been held under the law of war.” I guess by “without single exception” he meant that two is not one. Just as it is true that a hitter does not get credit for two singles when he hits a double, two exceptions are not “a single exception.”
But that’s not the most outrageous misrepresentation (or omission) when it comes to those cases. Holder explains that Jose Padilla and Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri were both transferred to military custody after being apprehended in the United States and held initially in civilian custody. Holder explains the “lengthy litigation” that ensued: “In Mr. Padilla’s case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that the President did not have the authority to detain him under the law of war.” Ultimately, Mr. Holder says, Padilla was returned to law enforcement custody, convicted of terrorism charges and sentenced to prison.
Strangely, that is where Holder leaves it, suggesting that Jose Padilla was transferred to law enforcement custody because he couldn’t be held in military detention. Holder is correct that, in 2004, the Second Circuit did indeed hold that the President did not have authority to detain him. It did so not because the President lacks authority to indefinitely detain unlawful enemy combatants captured in the United States. It did so because Padilla, unlike Omar Abdulmuttallab, was a U.S. citizen. More importantly, Holder leaves out a bit of crucial information: The Second Circuit’s decision was vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that the Second Circuit had no jurisdiction to decide Padilla’s habeas corpus petition, since he was being held outside of that jurisdiction in a brig in South Carolina.
So Holder (apparently deliberately) misrepresents the ultimate holding in the Padilla case. But it gets even worse for Holder’s claims. After the Supreme Court vacated the Second Circuit ruling, Padilla’s case went to the proper court in South Carolina, which also held that Padilla could not be held in military detention. That ruling, too, was eventually thrown out. In Padilla v. Hanft, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ultimately held that the President indeed had the authority to detain Padilla, by virtue of his own constitutional power and the Congressional delegation of authority under the Authorization of Use of Military Force Joint Resolution enacted by Congress in the days after September 11, 2001. Padilla was subsequently transferred to civilian criminal custody while Padilla’s petition for Supreme Court review of that decision was pending, and the Supreme Court eventually declined to hear the case.
Curiously, Holder does not mention any of this subsequent history, leaving his audience with the suggestion that there was some limitation imposed by the Padilla case on the power of the President to designate and detain under the laws of war an enemy combatant captured on U.S. soil. The truth is just the opposite. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the power of the President to detain Jose Padilla — a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil — “as a fundamental incident to the conduct of war.” While the Supreme Court never had a chance to hear the case, Holder grossly misrepresented its importance in citing a Second Circuit decision that had no legal value because it had been issued by a court that improperly asserted jurisdiction over the case in the first place.
A Craven Act [Bill Burck & Dana Perino]
Yesterday, we talked about the White House's outrageous decision to leak that the underwear bomber was now cooperating with the FBI. We said that these coordinated leaks would damage national security by, among other things, telling the underwear bomber's fellow terrorists that he had flipped on them and it was time to go to ground.
The White House dismissed this criticism, saying that revealing the underwear bomber's cooperation would not harm national security. Well, apparently FBI director Robert Mueller didn't get the memo. According to this letter from Senator Bond on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director Mueller on Monday "personally stressed [to Senator Bond] that keeping the fact of his cooperation quiet was vital to preventing future attacks against the United States.
"Less than 24 hours later, the White House was deliberately leaking this very information to the press. What changed in those 24 hours? Nothing except the White House decided the political benefits of leaking outweighed the national security costs.It is hard to imagine a more craven act than this one. The question is whether anyone will be investigated for this leak.
Unlikely.
— Dana M. Perino is former press secretary to Pres. George W. Bush. Bill Burck is a former federal prosecutor and deputy counsel to President Bush.
Politicizing the Justice Department, Chapter 329,721 ... [Andy McCarthy]
I should have mentioned this but I've been too under it. Encounter Books has just released by contribution to its series of pamphlets, which publisher Roger Kimball calls "Encounter Broadsides." Mine is called, "How the Obama Administration Has Politicized Justice." I'm very proud to be a part of the series, which includes contrributions on important topics by Michael Ledeen, Victor Davis Hanson, John Fund, Roy Spencer, Steeve Moore, and David Gratzer — and there are more to come.
What I'm not very proud of, as a Justice Department alum, is that it should be necessary to write such a thing. Alas, there seems always to be more to come on that score, too. Scott Hennen alerts me that Pres. Obama has nominated a DNC member, trial lawyer, and long-time John Edwards crony, Tim Purdon, to be the the next U.S. attorney for North Dakota. Purdon has reportedly never been a prosecutor, and the candidate who was passed over had 12 years' experience in that district's U.S. Attorney's Office. More here.
Of course, as I argue in the pamphlet and said during the trumped up U.S. attorneys firing "scandal" (see here and here), this is the kind of political patronage that goes on all the time with these slots. Still, I can't help but wonder whether, with a Democratic administration now in charge and passing out the goodies to Democrats, the congressional judiciary committees will scorch the earth with subpoenas and demand testimony from top White House staff?
Dan, the main problem with Obama's above-it-all, government-by-speeches approach, is that the job of a president is not to vote present, observe, and provide us with running commentary. He's not the play-by-play announcer of a game between arch rivals. He is the main participant on one of the teams, who actually has to make decisions. If he doesn't affirmatively make them, he makes them by default — meaning, the system's routine processes will carry on.
I'll have more to say in a column about yesterday's letter by Attorney General Holder to Sen. Mitch McConnell regarding the Christmas bomber case. But the AG's position is basically: These are our procedures (arrest, Miranda, appointment of counsel, civilian indictment, etc.) and we followed them. Obama would like you to believe that he is captive to these procedures, but he's in charge and he can change them — as Lincoln did, FDR did, and Bush did, to name a few.
I'm not a Holder fan, but I give him credit for this: He really does believe prosecution in the civilian justice system is the way to go, even in cases involving alien enemy combatants sent by al-Qaeda to the United States to carry out acts of war during wartime. Vice President Cheney, to the contrary, really believed (and believes) that this law-enforcement orientation doesn't work against wartime enemies, that it thus endangers the country, and that we have to treat a war like a war, with indefinite detention of enemy-combatants and military commissions for war criminals. Holder and Cheney have defended their positions vigorously. As my column will elaborate, I don't think Holder's defense is very persuasive, but at least he's making it. These guys are willing to be accountable for their positions.
Then there's Obama — you know, the guy who actually has decision-making authority. (In the executive branch, all the power is reposed in the president. Everyone else, including the vice president and the attorney general, is just carrying out his policies.) What do we get from our president? We get his already tired routine: Some people say our criminal justice system is not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists. Others say you must give every arrested person Miranda rights and treat them just like shoplifters. I reject this false choice between terrorism and shoplifting.
Well, no, big guy, it's not a false choice. But it is a choice, it has to be made, and you have to make it. If you're going to use our criminal justice system because you think, as is, it is capable of safeguarding the country from terrorists, then, as the attorney general argues, you have to give the terrorists Miranda warnings and be accountable for the fact that you will lose at least five weeks of actionable intel against people who are tying to kill us. If you think the justice system doesn't work for this class of offenders, then you have to try another approach, as VP Cheney urges, and be prepared for the inevitability of caterwauling from the Left (knowing it will be considerably milder than what Cheney had to deal with). But one way or the other, you've got to decide. And if you choose to stay on the golf course while the attorney general handles it, that is a decision to do it the attorney general's way. Obama's decision, not Holder's.
Who Is Wrong, Dennis Blair or Eric Holder? [Daniel Foster]
From the looks of things, it must be one of them.
Consider, in his letter to Senate Republicans yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote:
On the evening of December 25 and again on the morning of December 26, the FBI informed its partners in the Intelligence Community that Abdulmutallab would be charged criminally, and no agency objected to this course of action. In the days following December 25 – including during a meeting with the President and other senior members of his national security team on January 5 – high-level discussions ensued within the Administration in which the possibility of detaining Mr. Abdulmutallab under the law of war was explicitly discussed. No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued.
But in testimony in before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael E. Leiter and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said they were not consulted about the charging decision.
Blair, Mueller, Leiter, and Napolitano all fall under one or both of the descriptions "partners in the intelligence community" and "senior members of [Obama's] national security team," and all four claim they were not consulted. Could they all be mistaken?
Krauthammer's Take [NRO Staff]
On Eric Holder’s letter regarding the interrogation of the Christmas Day bomber:
In that letter, Holder [says] he followed the precedent of the Bush administration. It's true that with Richard Reid … he was Mirandized, he was treated as a civilian. But it was a mistake. It happened three months after 9/11, and the military commission system hadn't been established. . .
Here we are eight years later where we know that's not the way to go, and they repeat the error and defend it.
They also had said there was a meeting — Holder said there was a meeting on January 5th involving the president, all the senior members of the security cabinet on this issue, and nobody even raised the issue of having him held under the laws of war. . .
Why it [Mirandizing Abdulmutallab] was done in the first place is a mystery and why it wasn't undone and why nobody at a senior level, including the president, had suggested undoing it and having him interrogated without him having the right of silence, is really quite puzzling.
The Attorney General Speaks — and Says Nothing [Bill Burck and Dana Perino]
Attorney General Eric Holder has penned a five-page response to senators who demanded answers about his decision to Mirandize and charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, as a criminal defendant. It is a full-bore justification of the law-enforcement approach to combating terrorism, and despite its length, it does nothing to solve his problems.
Near the beginning of the letter, Holder writes: “I am confident that, as a result of the hard work of the FBI and our career federal prosecutors, we will be able to successfully prosecute Mr. Abdulmutallab under the federal criminal law.” No one has ever doubted that. Even if Abdulmutallab had never uttered a word in response to questioning, there were 200 witnesses on the plane he tried to blow up, not to mention the defective bomb discovered in his underpants, which should provide plenty of evidence to prosecute and convict him.
They didn’t need a confession to convict him, so why Mirandize him at all? Well, Holder explains, everyone did everything by the book. Again, no one doubts that the Justice Department followed its internal system to a T. But as one of us has discussed, the system itself is a big part of the problem, because it excludes the intelligence services from participation and prioritizes law-enforcement interests over intelligence gathering when a foreign terrorist is captured on U.S. soil.
Keep reading this post . . .
More on the Holder Letter [Shannen Coffin]
Among the outrages in Attorney General Holder’s letter to Senator McConnell is his selective memory when it comes to military detention of terrorist suspects captured in the United States. Oddly, the only words highlighted for emphasis in the entire letter are in this sentence: “Since the September 11, 2001 attack, the practice of the U.S. government, followed by prior and current Administrations without a single exception, has been to arrest and detain under federal criminal law all terrorist suspects who are apprehended inside the United States.” That emphasis is odd because, on the very next page, he explains that two “persons apprehended in recent times have been held under the law of war.” I guess by “without single exception” he meant that two is not one. Just as it is true that a hitter does not get credit for two singles when he hits a double, two exceptions are not “a single exception.”
But that’s not the most outrageous misrepresentation (or omission) when it comes to those cases. Holder explains that Jose Padilla and Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri were both transferred to military custody after being apprehended in the United States and held initially in civilian custody. Holder explains the “lengthy litigation” that ensued: “In Mr. Padilla’s case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that the President did not have the authority to detain him under the law of war.” Ultimately, Mr. Holder says, Padilla was returned to law enforcement custody, convicted of terrorism charges and sentenced to prison.
Strangely, that is where Holder leaves it, suggesting that Jose Padilla was transferred to law enforcement custody because he couldn’t be held in military detention. Holder is correct that, in 2004, the Second Circuit did indeed hold that the President did not have authority to detain him. It did so not because the President lacks authority to indefinitely detain unlawful enemy combatants captured in the United States. It did so because Padilla, unlike Omar Abdulmuttallab, was a U.S. citizen. More importantly, Holder leaves out a bit of crucial information: The Second Circuit’s decision was vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that the Second Circuit had no jurisdiction to decide Padilla’s habeas corpus petition, since he was being held outside of that jurisdiction in a brig in South Carolina.
So Holder (apparently deliberately) misrepresents the ultimate holding in the Padilla case. But it gets even worse for Holder’s claims. After the Supreme Court vacated the Second Circuit ruling, Padilla’s case went to the proper court in South Carolina, which also held that Padilla could not be held in military detention. That ruling, too, was eventually thrown out. In Padilla v. Hanft, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ultimately held that the President indeed had the authority to detain Padilla, by virtue of his own constitutional power and the Congressional delegation of authority under the Authorization of Use of Military Force Joint Resolution enacted by Congress in the days after September 11, 2001. Padilla was subsequently transferred to civilian criminal custody while Padilla’s petition for Supreme Court review of that decision was pending, and the Supreme Court eventually declined to hear the case.
Curiously, Holder does not mention any of this subsequent history, leaving his audience with the suggestion that there was some limitation imposed by the Padilla case on the power of the President to designate and detain under the laws of war an enemy combatant captured on U.S. soil. The truth is just the opposite. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the power of the President to detain Jose Padilla — a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil — “as a fundamental incident to the conduct of war.” While the Supreme Court never had a chance to hear the case, Holder grossly misrepresented its importance in citing a Second Circuit decision that had no legal value because it had been issued by a court that improperly asserted jurisdiction over the case in the first place.
A Craven Act [Bill Burck & Dana Perino]
Yesterday, we talked about the White House's outrageous decision to leak that the underwear bomber was now cooperating with the FBI. We said that these coordinated leaks would damage national security by, among other things, telling the underwear bomber's fellow terrorists that he had flipped on them and it was time to go to ground.
The White House dismissed this criticism, saying that revealing the underwear bomber's cooperation would not harm national security. Well, apparently FBI director Robert Mueller didn't get the memo. According to this letter from Senator Bond on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director Mueller on Monday "personally stressed [to Senator Bond] that keeping the fact of his cooperation quiet was vital to preventing future attacks against the United States.
"Less than 24 hours later, the White House was deliberately leaking this very information to the press. What changed in those 24 hours? Nothing except the White House decided the political benefits of leaking outweighed the national security costs.It is hard to imagine a more craven act than this one. The question is whether anyone will be investigated for this leak.
Unlikely.
— Dana M. Perino is former press secretary to Pres. George W. Bush. Bill Burck is a former federal prosecutor and deputy counsel to President Bush.
Politicizing the Justice Department, Chapter 329,721 ... [Andy McCarthy]
I should have mentioned this but I've been too under it. Encounter Books has just released by contribution to its series of pamphlets, which publisher Roger Kimball calls "Encounter Broadsides." Mine is called, "How the Obama Administration Has Politicized Justice." I'm very proud to be a part of the series, which includes contrributions on important topics by Michael Ledeen, Victor Davis Hanson, John Fund, Roy Spencer, Steeve Moore, and David Gratzer — and there are more to come.
What I'm not very proud of, as a Justice Department alum, is that it should be necessary to write such a thing. Alas, there seems always to be more to come on that score, too. Scott Hennen alerts me that Pres. Obama has nominated a DNC member, trial lawyer, and long-time John Edwards crony, Tim Purdon, to be the the next U.S. attorney for North Dakota. Purdon has reportedly never been a prosecutor, and the candidate who was passed over had 12 years' experience in that district's U.S. Attorney's Office. More here.
Of course, as I argue in the pamphlet and said during the trumped up U.S. attorneys firing "scandal" (see here and here), this is the kind of political patronage that goes on all the time with these slots. Still, I can't help but wonder whether, with a Democratic administration now in charge and passing out the goodies to Democrats, the congressional judiciary committees will scorch the earth with subpoenas and demand testimony from top White House staff?
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Holder: ‘I made the Decision’ on Abdulmutallab
Holder: ‘I made the Decision’ on Abdulmutallab [Daniel Foster]
Attorney General Eric Holder has taken ownership of the decision to treat Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a civilian criminal.
"I made the decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab with federal crimes, and to seek his detention in connection with those charges, with the knowledge of, and with no objection from, all other relevant departments of the government," Holder says in a letter addressed to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other senators who have sought testimony from Holder on the treatment of Abdulmutallab.
In an at-times testy letter, Holder endorses the treatment of terrorist attacks as a matter of criminal justice, and implies that Senate Republicans are using the Abdulmutallab case for political gain, saying that his Justice Department relied on procedures that were not criticized when employed by previous administrations:
The decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab in federal court, and the methods used to interrogate him, are fully consistent with the long-established and publicly known policies and practices of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the United States Government as a whole, as implemented for many years by Administrations of both parties. Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous Administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security. They are among the many powerful weapons this country can and should use to win the war against al-Qaeda.
Holder writes that on December 25 and 26, the FBI informed partner agencies within the intelligence community of the decision to try Abdulmutallab as a criminal, and that none registered objections. He also writes that the idea of trying Abdulmutallab under the laws of war was explicitly discussed — and rejected — in high-level meetings with President Obama.
In the days following December 25 — including during a meeting with the President and other senior members of his national security team on January 5 — high-level discussions ensued within the Administration in which the possibility of detaining Mr. Abdulmutallab under the law of war was explicitly discussed. No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued.
Holder writes that "without a single exception" (emphasis in original) terror suspects arrested on American soil have been treated as federal criminals. But later in the letter, he notes two exceptions under the Bush administration in which suspects arrested under criminal law were later transferred to military custody by executive order. (National Review Online first noted those two cases here).
A Senate Republican aide tells National Review Online that Holder's response was released within hours of Senate Republicans' formal request that Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) call on Holder to testify before the body. It was Holder's first public response to a series of four GOP letters on terrorism policy that date back eight months, according to Republicans.
In a written statement released just before Holder's response was made available, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), ranking Republican on the Committee, said "We have been asking the Attorney General questions on behalf of the American people. He has not simply shut us out; he has also shut out the public."
Charles Krauthammer:
On the Obama administration's anti-terror policies:
What we are seeing is a collapse of the Obama policy — [closing] Guantanamo, Mirandizing [terrorists] and [granting] trials in a place like New York with all the constitutional protections of a civilian.
These are untenable in terms of logic and national security, and they are increasingly untenable in terms of politics, especially after Massachusetts. That's why Democrats are retreating on this.
All three elements of this [policy] are going to collapse in the end
Attorney General Eric Holder has taken ownership of the decision to treat Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a civilian criminal.
"I made the decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab with federal crimes, and to seek his detention in connection with those charges, with the knowledge of, and with no objection from, all other relevant departments of the government," Holder says in a letter addressed to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other senators who have sought testimony from Holder on the treatment of Abdulmutallab.
In an at-times testy letter, Holder endorses the treatment of terrorist attacks as a matter of criminal justice, and implies that Senate Republicans are using the Abdulmutallab case for political gain, saying that his Justice Department relied on procedures that were not criticized when employed by previous administrations:
The decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab in federal court, and the methods used to interrogate him, are fully consistent with the long-established and publicly known policies and practices of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the United States Government as a whole, as implemented for many years by Administrations of both parties. Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous Administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security. They are among the many powerful weapons this country can and should use to win the war against al-Qaeda.
Holder writes that on December 25 and 26, the FBI informed partner agencies within the intelligence community of the decision to try Abdulmutallab as a criminal, and that none registered objections. He also writes that the idea of trying Abdulmutallab under the laws of war was explicitly discussed — and rejected — in high-level meetings with President Obama.
In the days following December 25 — including during a meeting with the President and other senior members of his national security team on January 5 — high-level discussions ensued within the Administration in which the possibility of detaining Mr. Abdulmutallab under the law of war was explicitly discussed. No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued.
Holder writes that "without a single exception" (emphasis in original) terror suspects arrested on American soil have been treated as federal criminals. But later in the letter, he notes two exceptions under the Bush administration in which suspects arrested under criminal law were later transferred to military custody by executive order. (National Review Online first noted those two cases here).
A Senate Republican aide tells National Review Online that Holder's response was released within hours of Senate Republicans' formal request that Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) call on Holder to testify before the body. It was Holder's first public response to a series of four GOP letters on terrorism policy that date back eight months, according to Republicans.
In a written statement released just before Holder's response was made available, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), ranking Republican on the Committee, said "We have been asking the Attorney General questions on behalf of the American people. He has not simply shut us out; he has also shut out the public."
Charles Krauthammer:
On the Obama administration's anti-terror policies:
What we are seeing is a collapse of the Obama policy — [closing] Guantanamo, Mirandizing [terrorists] and [granting] trials in a place like New York with all the constitutional protections of a civilian.
These are untenable in terms of logic and national security, and they are increasingly untenable in terms of politics, especially after Massachusetts. That's why Democrats are retreating on this.
All three elements of this [policy] are going to collapse in the end
Nuclear Weapons Follies
Road to 'Zero' [David Satter]
U.S. and Russian arms-control negotiators have now reached an “agreement in principle” on a new nuclear arms-reduction treaty which will symbolize the Alice in Wonderland readiness of the U.S. side to believe all manner of impossible things before breakfast.
The agreement will bring down the ceiling for deployed nuclear weapons to 1,500 to 1,675 (from 2,200) and the ceiling for nuclear-delivery systems (missiles, submarines, and bombers) to between 700 and 800 for each side. It will soon be the task of the U.S. Senate to ask why these reductions are necessary but it is already obvious that the negotiations for the treaty have been carried out in an atmosphere of irreality that does not bode well for the usefulness of the final product.
In the first place, the new arms-reduction treaty is a major part of the Obama administration’s “reset” of relations with Russia, a policy that so far has involved serious U.S. concessions to Russia, such as the cancellation of the deployment of anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe with scant sign of reciprocity on issues of concern to the U.S. for the Russians.At the same time, the treaty along with the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by Congress is seen as an important step in “getting to zero,” a world without nuclear weapons. This, under existing circumstances, is a totally unrealistic and even dangerous goal. It comes at time when Russia, far from seeking to abolish nuclear weapons, is making them the keystone of its military strategy and lowering the threshold for their use.If all this wasn’t bad enough, the Obama administration believes that its efforts in the disarmament field will make it easier for the U.S. to isolate the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs in advance of the United Nations conference to review the nuclear non-proliferation treaty later this year. It should be plain to “a drunken hedgehog” as the Russians like to say, that Iran and North Korea are not going to be deflected from their goal of building a nuclear arsenal by the moral example of Russia and the U.S.
Finally, the treaty is based on the elimination of weapons that the Russians would be obliged to scrap anyway. Russia does not have the means to maintain its present nuclear arsenal. In exchange, the U.S. will eliminate weapons that we can afford and may need to keep. Ironically, by preserving Russian parity in nuclear weapons — the one area where they can compete — at U.S. expense, we don’t make the world safer. All we do is encourage Russia’s great power illusions which are actually more dangerous than the nuclear weapons themselves.
— David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His latest book is Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State.
U.S. and Russian arms-control negotiators have now reached an “agreement in principle” on a new nuclear arms-reduction treaty which will symbolize the Alice in Wonderland readiness of the U.S. side to believe all manner of impossible things before breakfast.
The agreement will bring down the ceiling for deployed nuclear weapons to 1,500 to 1,675 (from 2,200) and the ceiling for nuclear-delivery systems (missiles, submarines, and bombers) to between 700 and 800 for each side. It will soon be the task of the U.S. Senate to ask why these reductions are necessary but it is already obvious that the negotiations for the treaty have been carried out in an atmosphere of irreality that does not bode well for the usefulness of the final product.
In the first place, the new arms-reduction treaty is a major part of the Obama administration’s “reset” of relations with Russia, a policy that so far has involved serious U.S. concessions to Russia, such as the cancellation of the deployment of anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe with scant sign of reciprocity on issues of concern to the U.S. for the Russians.At the same time, the treaty along with the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by Congress is seen as an important step in “getting to zero,” a world without nuclear weapons. This, under existing circumstances, is a totally unrealistic and even dangerous goal. It comes at time when Russia, far from seeking to abolish nuclear weapons, is making them the keystone of its military strategy and lowering the threshold for their use.If all this wasn’t bad enough, the Obama administration believes that its efforts in the disarmament field will make it easier for the U.S. to isolate the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs in advance of the United Nations conference to review the nuclear non-proliferation treaty later this year. It should be plain to “a drunken hedgehog” as the Russians like to say, that Iran and North Korea are not going to be deflected from their goal of building a nuclear arsenal by the moral example of Russia and the U.S.
Finally, the treaty is based on the elimination of weapons that the Russians would be obliged to scrap anyway. Russia does not have the means to maintain its present nuclear arsenal. In exchange, the U.S. will eliminate weapons that we can afford and may need to keep. Ironically, by preserving Russian parity in nuclear weapons — the one area where they can compete — at U.S. expense, we don’t make the world safer. All we do is encourage Russia’s great power illusions which are actually more dangerous than the nuclear weapons themselves.
— David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His latest book is Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State.
Obama / Holder just don't get it on National Security
Candidate Obama talked tough about terrorists not having Miranda rights.
President Obama ? Like most of his other claims / assertions / promises ... he lied.
Spineless; feckless; wuss.
Stephen Hayes has an excellent article at The Weekly Standard:
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-vs-holder
In an interview with 60 Minutes last spring, President Obama discussed the handling of captured terrorists and challenged those who claimed the "American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists."Obama said: "I fundamentally disagree with that. Now -- do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter -- down the block? Of course not." President Obama ought to call Attorney General Eric Holder. In a five-page letter to Senator Mitch McConnell, Holder lays out in exhaustive detail exactly why these folks deserve Miranda rights and why his Justice Department will treat them like a shoplifter down the block.Holder's letter responds to criticism of the Obama administration's handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, from McConnell and other Republicans
President Obama ? Like most of his other claims / assertions / promises ... he lied.
Spineless; feckless; wuss.
Stephen Hayes has an excellent article at The Weekly Standard:
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-vs-holder
In an interview with 60 Minutes last spring, President Obama discussed the handling of captured terrorists and challenged those who claimed the "American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists."Obama said: "I fundamentally disagree with that. Now -- do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter -- down the block? Of course not." President Obama ought to call Attorney General Eric Holder. In a five-page letter to Senator Mitch McConnell, Holder lays out in exhaustive detail exactly why these folks deserve Miranda rights and why his Justice Department will treat them like a shoplifter down the block.Holder's letter responds to criticism of the Obama administration's handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, from McConnell and other Republicans
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