Call That Bluff Immediately
(updated below)
Over at the Daily Beast, Scott Horton reports that Senate Republicans are threatening to filibuster several of Obama's legal appointees if he decides to publicly release the various Bush administration memos authorizing torture techniques:
Moreover, the motivation for this threatened filibuster is almost surreal in its degeneracy. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the nominees themselves and everything to do with preventing the further public embarrassment of Bush administration officials who authorized illegal torture techniques against detainees. This is apparently what animates the modern GOP.
There's really only one way to respond to this sort of a threat, and that's to call the GOP's bluff. The Obama administration should publicly release the memos immediately and dare the GOP to continue with their completely indefensible and unprecedented threat to filibuster Johnsen and Koh. Once the cat is out of the bag and the media attention has focused on the content of the memos (which will be completely indefensible from a legal or political standpoint), the baseness of the GOP's motives here will be on full display. The memos will underscore the correctness of the statements that Koh and Johnsen have made that put them in the GOP's cross hairs to begin with. The Obama administration cannot let the GOP get away with this sort of blackmail. If they do, they'll just be confronted with the same tactics again and again.
End this now. Release the memos. Force the GOP to defend its denial of an up or down vote to these appointees.
For more on this issue, see this post by Hilzoy and this one by Jack Balkin.
UPDATE: Glenn is right. No matter what the GOP threatens to do, there is no justifiable excuse for refusing to release these memos.
Over at the Daily Beast, Scott Horton reports that Senate Republicans are threatening to filibuster several of Obama's legal appointees if he decides to publicly release the various Bush administration memos authorizing torture techniques:
A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.It's difficult for me to put into words just how angry this makes me. Both the threat and reason for it are disgusting and indefensible. Both Johnsen and Koh have already been subjected to completely baseless character assassination by the GOP and its right wing media allies. If there's a precedent for filibustering a president's appointees for legal advisory positions--particularly for unrelated ideological reasons--I'm unaware of it. I realize that both Republicans and Democrats have in the past mounted filibusters against judicial nominees, but those are lifetime appointments. Koh and Johnsen have been nominated to serve in advisory positions within the Obama administration. What possible justifiable rationale is there for denying a newly elected president his choice of legal personnel?
Moreover, the motivation for this threatened filibuster is almost surreal in its degeneracy. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the nominees themselves and everything to do with preventing the further public embarrassment of Bush administration officials who authorized illegal torture techniques against detainees. This is apparently what animates the modern GOP.
There's really only one way to respond to this sort of a threat, and that's to call the GOP's bluff. The Obama administration should publicly release the memos immediately and dare the GOP to continue with their completely indefensible and unprecedented threat to filibuster Johnsen and Koh. Once the cat is out of the bag and the media attention has focused on the content of the memos (which will be completely indefensible from a legal or political standpoint), the baseness of the GOP's motives here will be on full display. The memos will underscore the correctness of the statements that Koh and Johnsen have made that put them in the GOP's cross hairs to begin with. The Obama administration cannot let the GOP get away with this sort of blackmail. If they do, they'll just be confronted with the same tactics again and again.
End this now. Release the memos. Force the GOP to defend its denial of an up or down vote to these appointees.
For more on this issue, see this post by Hilzoy and this one by Jack Balkin.
UPDATE: Glenn is right. No matter what the GOP threatens to do, there is no justifiable excuse for refusing to release these memos.
posted by A.L. at 9:04 AM
12 Comments:
The Obama administration could also support Sen. Lahey's Truth Commission and Justice Dept. investigations of Bush/Cheney crimes. If the Replublicans want to go nuclear, give them a taste of what to expect.
obama's seems unable or unwilling to tangle in a realistic way with the right. he is not doing himself any good either; as it seems that while the right hates him no matter what, the left is getting pissed off too.
from my brain to your keyboard.
the moment I saw the horton allegation, my thought was "go right ahead, GOP. you do that."
But in fact I think the threat of of a fillibuster is not only so degenerate, but so politically asinine, I'm inclined to question the story (as GG does) and wonder if the Obama administration is just buying itself a little time.
Much as I'd love to believe it all, and see Obama call that bluff, til horton tell us who he heard (h/t Dr. Seuss) I won't get my hopes up.
Can anyone here explain to me once and for all what should REALLY occur when a Party filibusters? E.g., if they don't have enough votes for a cloture vote, that means they're suppposed to continue debating, yes? If so, why does that never happen?
Greenwald (whom I respect enormously) seems to caution that it may be too early to judge where the fault lies for the non disclosure of these memos.
But, absolutely! Release the memos right away.
Linking over to Glenn I find he feels that the Obama Administration has its own reasons for not releasing the memos. That it has little or nothing to do the GOP threats.
I think the Obama administration is taking the correct tack of letting the courts make rulings that release the memos, or having his appointees do it in a structured way. If he just releases them then suddenly it becomes about "him" and not about our country or even about his Administration. We already run the risk of having our entire Administrative branch be identified with Obama. He needs others to run interference for him and make his case too.
That said, the GOP is going WAY out-of-bounds with that kind extortion. Obama needs to do something - and quickly - to call their bluff.
I don't know if releasing them all now is the best way. Maybe it is. Or perhaps simply forcing them to do a full public filibuster and getting them on record of wanting to continue the Bush/Cheney secrecy would be effective both now and in 2010. Or release a memo every time there's a threat - like training a puppy by swatting it on the nose with a newspaper. Lots of ways to do it. They just need to do it immediately.
The Democrats control congress and oversight and investigation of this issue is their duty.
The fact that there isn't an investigation shows how corrupt they are.
Let me just say that the Republicans are corrupt beyond belief and should be exposed for what they are. But the Dems have plenty of culpability in this fiasco. They were there when it started, did nothing to stop it (helped it sometimes) and are doing nothing now that they have the power to clean it up.
To rail only about how bad the Repubs have been is half right.
I hope this doesn't indicate that the Obama administration can be very DEFERENTIAL when it comes to ex-government officials who authorized torture, as well as Wall Street executives.
Obama's deliberative style is to be admired in general. But there are times when one needs to act. I cannot imagine any reason not to release these memos ASAP. We need to put the era of official American torture behind us.
I think the Obama administration is taking the correct tack of letting the courts make rulings that release the memos,
Why is that the "correct tack"? Are you saying that the memos releases so far have been incorrectly released?
Disregarding the expenditure of political capital, openness is the right path to take—does Obama have the courage to walk it?
And how about an investigation?
The memos will underscore the CORRECTLESS of the statements that Koh and Johnsen have made that put them in the GOP's cross hairs to begin with.
I assume you mean CORRECTNESS.
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