10 Responses to “Obama-Style “Nation of Laws””

1. TomB, on April 17th, 2009 at 8:56 pm Said:

   James Bovard wrote:

   “Obama proudly declared yesterday that ours is a “nation of laws” at the same time he announced that CIA torturers would not be prosecuted for their crimes.”

   You know, this site quite regularly gets posters who seem to equate any differences one might have with George Bush or Rush Limbaugh as being lovers of Teddy Kennedy or etc. And indeed because on any number of issues I have ventured to criticize Bush I’ve had one or two such posters direct that kind of wrath (or accusations at least) at me, with the most recent even accusing me of looking down at him.

   But far from doing so in fact it just makes me exasperated and depressed a bit to see so many good, concerned people, often justifiably mad as hell, who in my opinion have been hoked into this or that unthinking polemical position by the likes of a Limbaugh or Hannity or etc. whose understanding of conservatism doesn’t seem to go beyond the ostentatious wearing of red-white-and-blue lapel pins.

   And I do feel depressed a bit because even though I think they have been victims of the spectacularly obvious self-interest of the Limbaughs and Hannity’s to keep everyone in a constant state of hysteria, nevertheless they sense what I think is something obvious too: And that is that there *is* still a kind of gleeful jihad that some folks pursue against what are seen as traditional American values and institutions.

   Most of that is on the Left of course, but, I have to say, when Bovard comes out and talks so blandly about “CIA torturers” and so clearly plumps for their prosecutions of the “crimes” he again so blandly just assumes occurred, this really rubs me the wrong way. In essence it smells to me the same way that Frank Church did back in the 1970’s gleefully waving around CIA dart-pistols that were never used and in essence just having a grand old time whacking at the Agency as a stalking horse in lieu of just being honest about his fundamentally McGovernite views about national security.

   Bovard writes that he ain’t holding his breath that the revelations of these memos will spur “how Americans view the federal government” and for my part I’m tempted to say that I hope he would. Because I think that rather than succumb to seeing Bovard’s axe ground the American people will indeed recognize some basic truths.

   And to me those truths are that while in the end the American people clearly choose not to continue with Mr. Bush’s policies he *was* the duly elected President at the time and the CIA is an executive-branch agency *specifically* set up to be used by Presidents. And there doesn’t seem to be a scintilla of evidence that anyone, least of all the CIA, went rogue and started doing things that they weren’t specifically asked if not ordered to do by the President. Indeed the evidence is that with many things, especially as regards taking off the gloves with captives, the CIA did exactly what the most fastidious would want and went to the federal government’s lawyers and asked what was within the law and what was without and then followed that fastidiously.

   And yet … here we have Bovard, clearly drooling at the prospect of hauling some poor GS-13 or 14 CIA folks into the dock, without a thought apparently given to the *utter* lack of evidence that they were doing anything other than faithfully effectuating what our elected President wanted them to do, after their superiors and legal advisors told them it was okay.

   I think Americans recognize this, and also recognize that when you aren’t talking about rogues you’re always going to have the pompous come along and try to trumpet their purity or whatever by still demanding that the little guy on the end of the stick get it in the neck even if the big boys really responsible are out happily clearing brush or fishing trout on their ranches.

   And I think another truth the American people will recognize is that they don’t want their system to turn into some hyper-ideological joke country like so many communist ones were where, with every change in leader they spent the next several years purging and assailing and prosecuting the ideological deviants of the last administration in some endless internecine warfare like the Bolsheviks versus the Mensheviks or etc.

   So what would Bovard have? If not every man a king then certainly every CIA officer a legal and constitutional scholar, right? All the while they’re living in some shithole of a country, probably far away from their families, nowhere near the Starbucks on Bovard’s street?

   This isn’t to deny that there aren’t some serious issues here. Indeed some time ago there was a wonderful back and forth about same on this site spurred on by the always-thoughtful Phil Giraldi, and in the end even I had to agree that there were some sound arguments that maybe some prosecutions of some CIA people might in the end be warranted.

   But thoughtfulness isn’t what I at least see in Bovard’s little contribution here. Instead it’s all “torturers” and assumed crimes and criminals and that ’s a couple of bridges too far for me at least—and I suspect the American people too in their wisdom, regardless of the state of Bovard’s breathing.

2. Bill Pearlman, on April 18th, 2009 at 9:58 am Said:

   At last a rational TAC reade. Kudo’s Tom. Although being praised by me is the kiss of death around here. Here is the thing. I think that Islamic terrorists are the bad guys. I think that CIA operative who are trying to keep me and my family safe are the good guys. Why is it more complicated than that.

3. TomT, on April 19th, 2009 at 7:16 am Said:

   **(Here is what I heard)
   Jim Bovard Posted on April 17th, 2009

   CIA torturers would not be prosecuted for their crimes.

   Kudos to the American Civil Liberties Union…

   …these are probably only the tip of the iceberg.

   …Bush-era crimes…

   …torture scandal…

   …crimes he covers up.

   …Justice Department tortured the law…

   **(…and more of the same)
   TomB on April 17th, 2009 at 8:56 pm Said:

   …accusing me of looking down at him.

   But far from doing so in fact it just makes me exasperated and depressed…

   …hoked into this or that unthinking polemical position by the likes of a Limbaugh or Hannity…

   …American people clearly choose not to continue with Mr. Bush’s policies…

   …isn’t to deny that there aren’t some serious issues here. Indeed some time ago there was a wonderful back and forth about same on this site spurred on by the always-thoughtful Phil Giraldi, and in the end even I had to agree that there were some sound arguments that maybe some prosecutions of some CIA people might in the end be warranted.

   **(History repeats itself)
   TomB, on March 10th, 2009 at 4:49 am Said:

   …saddle yourself on the Republican horse. Way to ensure that if you do ever come out of the cold you’ll have another Georgie Bush as your representative who has learnt *nothing* from history and is determined to repeat its every mistake.

   How in the world can anyone look at the leadership of the Republican Party and not simply feel disgust knowing of their Bush enablement?”

   …he was wrong in seeing the Republican Party as having any salvageable virtue left, at least so soon with so many of the same hacks who enabled Bush still there…

   If the Republicans had even a molecule of authentic, classical conservative principle left they’d shut the hell up for awhile, if only out of shame for what they allowed and did under Bush.

   **(With a little help from a past thread)
   Philip Giraldi, on March 18th, 2009 at 3:27 pm Said:

   Problem was then and now that a lot of people who had nothing to do with terrorism or subversion were subjected to our ministrations. Once you start, it’s hard to stop…

   …the guy who is the ticking bomb doesn’t really exist, except on television and in folklore. I know of no case where torturing someone actually saved anybody’s life…

   **(And my contribution)
   TomT now says:

   If memos carefully delineate what IS and IS NOT torture, and says to create an illusion of torture but keep medical personnel handy, and limit yourself to what we do to our own folks during training, then we better call these the TORTURE MEMOs.

   If the memos say that TWO people have been waterboarded, as of 2004, then we must postulate that there were THOUSANDS OF ABUSES.

   If GOOD OBAMA gets permission from the courts to do what the military says they need, he is a GOOD executive. If EVIL BUSH asks the courts for clarification, then he must have wanted to personally TORTURE INNOCENT CIVILIANS. (We must say GOOD JUDGES, as some of the same people may have been involved in giving GOOD OBAMA permission to blow black teenagers away, as gave EVIL BUSH permission to let his military slap innocent civilians agains a flexible plywood wall in the presence of doctors).

   If some of our Viet Nam vets used to apply electrical devices to the genitals of innocent civilians, they must necessarily insist that EVIL BUSH did the same, but all that is cleaned up now under GOOD OBAMA.

   If some of our bloggers enjoy, or get good information, from GOOD DAILY KOS, or GOOD HUFFINGTON POST, or GOOD MEDIA MATTERS, then we can assume that GOOD LIBERALS are all independent thinkers (who only COINCIDENTLY SOUND ALIKE).

   We can therefore assume that people who listen to BAD LIMBAUGH, probably all sound alike because they are mind-controlled, either by mesmerizing BAD RUSH, or by TOO MUCH ANGER at innocent civilians, who they wish to make war against, and who they would like to torture (or bomb).

   ========================================

   Am I pretty much understanding the flavor of this “American Conservative” blog?

4. TomB, on April 19th, 2009 at 2:57 pm Said:

   TomT wrote:

   “Am I pretty much understanding the flavor of this “American Conservative” blog?”

   No.

5. WRW, on April 20th, 2009 at 11:31 am Said:

   The “T” stands for tiresome. And Pearlman’s adolescent “they protect my family” ought to embarass him, but I know it doesn’t. (Maybe you can have Demi Moore’s role in “In a few good men” when she gives the “they stand watch” speech. Of course, she’s a girl, so it doesn’t sound quite so ridiculous from her.)

   There’s little surprise that Obama & Co. would bury this issue. First, they want to preserve the argument of executive perks and privileges. They also want to keep the CIA available in case they have their own wet work.

   Second, Obama is a calculating and cynical politico who crafted a persona of idealism because it was necessary to dethrone the Clinton’s. Now that he’s in, he won’t risk one iota of political capital or standing for the likes of the ACLU. (Which is partly why the ravings of Limbaugh, Hannity that Obama is a radical who will “risk national security!!’–and worse John Boehner–are so absurd.)

   Tiresome, simply tiresome.

   Oh, and BTW, a conservative website that doesn’t swoon at the thought of “tough-guy” bureaucrats with badges certainly is an anomaly these days. If you fellows want to squeal with the rest of the girls at some imagined Jack Bauer (never mind that the CIA has, on the whole, been grossly ineffective in its mission), head over to NRO.

6. Bill Pearlman, on April 20th, 2009 at 3:56 pm Said:

   Wow, don’t know how I’ll recover from that slashing rhetoric WRW. All I know is that in my mind the CIA are the good guys and Islamic terrorists are the bad guys. You obviously feel that it is the other way around. To each his own I suppose.

7. Jim Bovard, on April 21st, 2009 at 6:59 am Said:

   And good guys are automatically entitled to torture?

   This is a peculiar notion of “goodness.”

8. WRW, on April 21st, 2009 at 7:57 am Said:

   Mr. Bovard,

   Pearlman can’t hear you. His white hat blocks all sound and thought.

   But your point is correct–how do you determine the “good guys” except by seeing goodness? And what happened to the idea of, as you point out, a nation of law?

   And Pearlman, et al., will never admit that it was the Bushies who created the Saudi express that let the Islamic terrorists in the country. They also won’t admit that it’s our troops in the ME and support for Israel that makes us a target.

   They compound ignorance on the threat with childish generalization about the moral question on methods. Apparently, the idea that a man who does evil is not “good” is too obtuse for them.

   Utterly embarrassing.

9. TomB, on April 21st, 2009 at 8:47 am Said:

   Jim Bovard wrote:

   “And good guys are automatically entitled to torture?”

   I don’t think anyone here, including TomT, said that. On the other hand, speaking of words of mass assumption, you were the one who “automatically” assumed that all CIA officers who were involved in these interrogations had committed “crimes.”

   If you want to get beyond the mere polemics possible with this issue however and get into some of its complexities and nuances see Giraldi’s posts that have bracketed this one, especially his latest, as well as the fine comments it has elicited.

   Cheers,

10. Jim Bovard, on April 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm Said:

    My original comment mentioned Obama’s ruling that “CIA torturers would not be prosecuted for their crimes.”

    I did not assume the guilt of all CIA interrogators.

    But I also do not assume that just because someone works for a federal agency, he should be treated like an angel regardless of how much evidence of barbaric practices leaks out.

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