Tom Ridge and the Terror Alert of Doom

I have always tried to avoid the worst of anti-Bush hysteria, mainly because I thought well-intentioned, ideologically-driven incompetence was a much better explanation for what went on during that administration than cackling Evil Villainery. Besides, I've always thought that ranting on about the evilness of the principals and their imagined acts distracted from the evilness of the things they actually did do, which were no less evil just because they were motivated by negligence and stupidity. Banality of evil and all that.

And now we have this.

I never put any stock in the idea that anyone in the Bush administration would actually purposefully manipulate this country's national security apparatus to win an election, both because I discounted the whole cackling hand-rubbing image, and because while I knew they were dumb, I never thought anyone could be that dumb.

Well, almost no one.

As is the usual way of these things, we're hearing about it third or fourth hand from the second cousin of someone who read a draft of a book that looks an awful lot like a grindstone, by someone who has plenty of axes lined up and ready to go. So I don't think we can say what really happened yet.

For example:

"[Ridge says he was] pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over."

Key phrase there, and you don't know what to make of it until you read the book. Suffice to say we don't have all the facts yet.

Also,

"We went over backwards repeatedly and with great discipline to make sure politics did not influence any national security and homeland security decisions," -- former WH CoS Andy Card

Which I buy, actually.

But that doesn't mean it didn't happen anyway. That's the kind of thing Cheney's office would have done just because someone told them not to.

"Of course we'll hit our own troops. But appearances must be maintained. Fire at will."

Still, grain of salt firmly in place, I'm tempted to give Ridge the benefit of the doubt. He always struck me as a good guy stuck with one of the most poorly-thought-out job descriptions in all of Washington, and that's saying something.

"Could you take responsibility for the security of the entire nation without any real authority? Knew you could. 'Preesh."

So I buy it, at least on the face of it. All that remains is to see who said what when, and exactly how bad it really was.

This never-ending stream of revelations about the Bush administration, each one confirming that not only as bad as we thought, but it was actually worse, does nothing to shake my faith in humanity. I didn't have that much to begin with. Humanity is capable of far worse; despite what some lulubirds shriek, we've never even scratched the surface of the Nazi or Stalinist kind of evil. But it has shaken my faith in this country. That we could have ever let things get so bad, that we're so slow to face what actually happened, and that we'll probably never hold anyone truly accountable... at least the Constitution held, and we changed governments. But it took so little for us to get scared out of our most basic principles, and to betray our better natures as a people.

-- The Prolix Wag
My faith in myself, of course, remains profoundly unshaken.

If the Unexamined Life Isn't Worth Living, Why Are So Many People Living It?

As I noted in "Stupid Liberals, Evil Conservatives", political belief is often received knowledge, a culture built around a shared set of beliefs, with more emphasis on the shared part than the beliefs part. Maintaining political orthodoxy has become so integral a part of political identity in this country (thanks, two-party system!), we're surprised when someone breaks ranks. We're downright shocked if they're doing it because of what they actually believe instead of for the sake of political expediency.

Enter Ted Olson.

Go read the article. If you don't have a free account with the NYT already, shame on you and go get one. I'll wait.

A couple quotes of note from the article before we dive in:

"...during the Reagan administration, when Mr. Olson was asked if the Justice Department could dismiss a prosecutor for being gay, he wrote that it was “improper to deny employment or to terminate anyone on the basis of sexual conduct. In 1984, Mr. Olson returned to private practice and was succeeded by Mr. Cooper, his adversary in the marriage case. The switch eliminated 'what was seen as a certain libertarian squishiness at the Office of Legal Counsel under Ted,' Mr. Calabresi said."

Libertarian squishiness. Libertarian squishiness. That's right. If you have an internally consistent set of political beliefs and you stand by them in the face of political pressure, you're squishy, because you agree with the opposition. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why orthodoxy is not a thinking man's art.

"Mr. Cooper asserts that Mr. Olson is stretching the scope of the Lawrence decision, pointing out that it dealt with the criminalization of private sexual behavior, not a state’s duty to recognize a marriage. But Mr. Olson notes that no less a conservative than Justice Antonin Scalia argued in a blistering dissent that the majority in Lawrence had indeed opened the door to same-sex marriage. "

This is why I fucking love lawyers. Also, I have a newfound affection for Scalia.

"Furthermore, the Court's ruling in Ambler v. Whipple all but guarantees that I shall be forced by stare decisis to lower the disco ball and perform my famed Gloria Gaynor impersonation at the beginning of each session. I find this deeply distressing."

"Since then, he and Mr. Cooper have been filing dueling briefs. "

*snort* He said "dueling briefs". Gaaaaaaaaay...

It could also mean "undergarments to be worn during a duel". This is just how my mind works.

I don't know about you, but I find this article incredibly inspiring.

It's not so much that Mr. Olson has "seen the light" on gay marriage that I find cause to celebrate. It's the fact that he didn't need to "see the light" at all. Here's someone who is intelligent enough to understand the underpinnings of his own political beliefs, and has enough intellectual integrity to follow them through to their logical conclusion, AND isn't a whackadoo about it. What I think about his take on gay marriage is pretty much irrelevant; I respect this man for the depth of his thinking and the integrity of the way he lives.

I find the line between having a consistent ideology and being an ideologue fascinating, mostly because so few people ever tread it successfully. Usually, political beliefs are determined by your party, which is a mish-mashed coalition of sometimes mutually exclusive interests that a lot of people don't want to examine too closely. To take just two examples:

The Right
Government should stay out of our lives
UNLESS
It involves people having sex in a way I think is icky.

The Left
Government should stay out of our lives
UNLESS
It involves guns.

There are exceptions to this kind of schizophrenic political thinking, but they tend to be of the proves-the-rule variety.

*cough*

How many of us would be willing to follow our political and personal philosophies to conclusions we didn't like?

I don't have this problem, what with the being always right and all, but sometimes I wonder how the little people live.

-- The Prolix Wag
Why does everyone assume that just because I'm elite, that makes me an elitist?

Phrases That Need to Be Retired: "I Have a First Amendment Right..."

I would like to hereby request that no one ever say the phrase "I have a First Amendment right to [do/say X]" again.

Why? Because the only time anyone ever says that, it's not what they mean. Hell, it only gets said in situations where it's completely irrelevant.

How I know this? Because, in situations where someone's First Amendment rights are actually at stake, one of the following things gets said instead:

1) "As the Court noted in Brandenburg v. Ohio, 'the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.'"

2) "Come back with a warrant."

3) "Don't taze me, bro."

Or, as your parents used to say: "Not in the face, officer! That's how I make my living!"

No, people only say "I have a First Amendment right to [do/say X]" when the issue is not a governmental abridgement of their right to Free Speech, but rather, someone else calling them on the fact that they're being assholes.

It usually goes something like this:

Person A: "Your mother's a whore."
Person B: "Hey!"
Person A: "I have a First Amendment right to say what I want."
Person B: "Well, yeah, but..."
Person A: "And your mother's a whore."
Person B: "Cut it out!"
Person A: "First Amendment!"
Person B: "..."
Person A: "Whooooooooooore."

What that looks like to a casual observer is a vigorous, full-throated defense of the kind of free debate that makes us Americans. What it is, is a rhetorical bait-and-switch.

See, the debate is almost never about whether someone should be allowed to say something (although when it is, people often severely overestimate that right -- more on that in a sec)... it's about whether or not it's a dumb thing to say.

(Note well the Religious Corollary: I am not a bigot because I say your religion is stupid. That's called a theological debate. I'm a bigot if I say that means I should treat all people of your faith as anything other than fellow human beings. Who believe stupid things.)

Say one word, and I will have the ACLU on your ass so fast you won't remember what it feels like NOT being sued.

Usually, people invoke the First Amendment not because their rights are being infringed, but because they're unwilling to take responsibility for the way they've chosen to exercise that right.

With that in mind, let's try the above conversation again:

Person A: "Your mother's a whore."
Person B: "And you're an asshole."
Person A: "Hey, I have a First Amendment Right --"
Person B: "To be an asshole. Yes. Which you're exercising. And I have a First Amendment right to call you on it. Asshole."
Person A: "Quit calling me that."
Person B: "First Amendment!"
Person A: "..."
Person B: "Ashoooooooooooooole."

Of course, if your mother actually is a whore, you're on your own. If the spanking was purely recreational in nature, carry on.

As I mentioned earlier, even when issues of government abridgement of the right to Free Speech are invoked, the people invoking it are way off base. The concept of civil disobedience is often misunderstood, for example.

Civil disobedience doesn't mean you have a right to block traffic, or even protest in a park where you don't have a permit. What it means is that you get arrested for those things on purpose, go to jail, pay your fine, and own it. You use the publicity of the arrest itself to further your cause. You don't whine about it; you don't act all surprised and put upon when the officer actually puts the cuffs on. You go to jail with your head held high, to prove your point. Suck it up.

Similarly, your right to swing your fist always ends where my face begins. If you, say, go to a Town Hall meeting with the intention of shouting down people that disagree with you, guess what? In most jurisdictions, you will get thrown out on the street for attempting to materially interfere with someone else being heard.

And then you'll go on FOX News and cry about how your rights were violated. Because that's how you roll.

Oh, and just because you have a sign and a cause and you really feel it doesn't mean you get to ignore the fire code. Sorry.

-- The Prolix Wag
Wondering what it would be like to have people NOT want to hear what he has to say.

Stupid Liberals, Evil Conservatives

Used to be, the conventional wisdom from each end of the political spectrum towards the other was (respectively) that Liberals were stupid, and Conservatives were evil.

You know, Liberals were wooly-headed, sob-story-loving, flower-sniffing hippies with bleeding hearts, whereas Conservatives were greedy, rapacious, heartless bastards with no hearts at all.

The equations went something like this:


and



Thankfully, we've moved past all that now. The old stereotypes, the baggage from the Vietnam War and the Reagan Revolution, are all behind us. We are truly living in a brave new world.

Here's what we see now, instead:

and


Seriously. We've done an about-face on political stereotyping. What mystifies Liberals these days is not so much How Can Anyone Be So Evil (Dick Cheney aside) as How Can Anyone Be So Stupid? The Right is full of blowhards and assholes, sure, but mostly they're just dumb and wrong. The usual lament on the Left is: if Only They Understood the Facts as Well as We Do, They Would Surely Come Around. Rush Limbaugh is a clown. Bill O'Reilly is an idiot. Sarah Palin can write almost all her letters, as long as the crayon is sharp.

Liberals, on the other hand, are seen by the opposition as Servants of Dark Powers. The question for them is not How Can We Convince Them They're Wrong, it's How Can We Stop Them Before They Eat Our Children? Hillary Clinton is a castrating bitch. Barack Obama is somehow simultaneously Hitler, Stalin, Bull Connor and Karl Marx, all rolled into one.

The Right exasperates and infuriates the Left, the Left offends and terrifies the Right. Both sides get to enjoy a similar feeling of superiority, but the Left's is intellectual whereas the Right's is moral.

It's an interesting dynamic, one we haven't seen since the days of FDR and Hoover, Johnson and Barry Goldwater. It has a lot to do with the way the Right cornered the market on folksy charm with Reagan and Bush II, and the way they absorbed the culture and values of the South and of Fundamentalist Christianity, which tend more towards favoring the hearts of the righteous than the minds of the learned. Similarly, the Left has staked out its turf in intellectualism (Gore, Obama) and pragmatism (Clinton, Obama), while hitching its wagon to the urban coasts, which have always tended to put head before heart if they had to make a choice. Add to that the newfound dearth of intellectuals and thinktankers on the Right (used to be you couldn't swing a cat without hitting one), and the strong liberal culture on most college campuses, and it starts to make a bit of sense.

But it's still interesting to me the way that a two-party political culture can shift. It's especially interesting when you consider how strongly we tend to identify with our political beliefs, and how patchwork and arbitrary those can often be (How can Republicans be against Gun Laws, but for the War on Drugs? How can Democrats be all about Human Rights abroad, until it comes time to put boots on the ground?) So much of political culture is received knowledge, and so much of it will be completely unrecognizable a generation from now.

Just a little something to think about the next time someone tries to tell you what the Founding Fathers would have thought of a particular piece of legislation.

-- The Prolix Wag
Silly thing to argue about. They would have thought what I think.

I Got Soul, Why'm I Not a Soldier?

I have a great deal of respect and admiration for soldiers. My dad was in the Army, as well as one of my uncles, and two of my cousins. My best friend is a marine.

Hell, my great-uncle invented indirect artillery fire.

So I've got it in the blood. I have seriously contemplated signing up several times, especially right after 9/11. I'm a little guilty to admit that I'm a little jealous of those who've had the chance to serve, getting shot at included.

So why didn't I? Why am I not a soldier?

1) I have a mental illness.

This is the official, huge, I-can't-get-around-it reason. Soldiers need to be dependable in combat. Soldiers are at a huge risk of getting their brains broken in combat. My brain is already broken.
It might be a totally different kind of broken; I might be totally immune to PTSD. The assumption is kinda in the opposite direction, though, and that's probably wise. Who knows what minor stimulus might set me off?

Mean men in green yelling at you doesn't usually cause an immediate psychotic break, but we can't be too careful.

2) I have flat feet.

10 1/2 EEEE. Wide as a Hobbit's and twice as flat. Even with arch supports, I would suck at marching long distances. We're talking whiny bitchdom after about half a mile.

While that rules out the infantry, the 23rd Segway Assault Battalion is still a distinct possibility.

3) While not a bad driver, I am a lousy parker.

In my defense, it was much bigger than my Scion.

4) I am a lazy, whiny bitch.

No, really. Ask Mrs. Wag. Getting me out of bed before noon requires using live ammunition, and that's at home. The military would probably break itself like waves on the rocks of my laziness and sense of entitlement. God knows grad school did.

If he doesn't have to get dressed for a firefight, then neither do I.

5) Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

I'm straight, but I can also fag out with the best of them. I'm gayer than many gay people I know. And while the military might be content not to ask any questions, god knows I couldn't keep my mouth shut about it. I just couldn't grow and bloom like the precious blossom I am in that kind of stifling, bigoted environment.

Then again...

6) I have a huge ego.

While plenty of military men have had huge egos, to the point of being massive prima donnas (paging Patton, MacArthur, et. al.), mine is that particular brand of egotism that is less about being a cocky badass and way more about being a smug know-it-all. Which is the kind of thing that could get me shot in the back by my own unit, and who could blame them.

"Screw the firefight! You get my good side in this shot or I swear to god I'm going home right now!"

Despite the fact that I would suck at it massively, I remain fascinated by soliders and soldiering. They've figured prominently in just about all the plays I've written so far. It's not the "glory" of war that attracts me, either: it's the idea of people doing something that seems impossible, usually not for the sake of king or country or religion, but for their buddies. God bless 'em.

-- The Prolix Wag
You're still welcome to salute whenever I walk by.

How to Run Counterterrorism Operations Like a 5-Year Old

Okay, so it looks like the Double Secret Probation CIA Op they were hiding from Congress was, in fact Cheney's Super Assassin Hit Squad Go!

Scary part? Not a photoshop.

One of the more infuriating things my eldest daughter has a habit of doing is of taking something she knows she needs permission for, without asking for permission. Especially when it's something that I would have gladly given her - nay, wanted to give her - but now couldn't because she took it without asking. And I have to then punish her.

Why does she do it? Same reason we all did it when we were kids. Because the parent or parents in question might have said "no".

Which is exactly how the Bush Administration chose to run the vast majority of their counterterrorism operations. Hell, it's how they chose to run the country.

Here's the thing: there are conservatives out there who will be howling bloody murder about how this is a perfectly valid program, what's the problem, how can you help our enemies, don't you love Amurr'ka, etc. etc.

To my fine friends on the right: Shut up. That isn't what this is about, at all.

If you can find me one liberal who thinks that hunting down the leadership of Al Quaeda and assassinating them one by one (or dozens by dozens) is a bad idea, I will personally punch them in the face. Twice.

We all knew the CIA was going to be doing this; it's their job. We want the CIA to be doing this. We'd be angry if they weren't. But we live in a constitutional democracy. And that means you have to ask permission.

But Congress might have (not would have - not in a million years - but might have) said no. And like the finest five-year-old minds since time immemorial, Bush/Cheney/Feith/Yoo/et. al. decided that meant they shouldn't ask.

As much as they would love it to be, it is most emphatically not the Executive Branch's job to say what is and is not legal. That's for Congress, in all of its wonderful, dysfunctional glory, to argue about. The Executive Branch then does it, to the best of their ability. This is all for a very good reason: because if you don't do it that way, you get stuff like this.

And if you do stuff like that, you get America, circa 2001-2008.

America, circa 2001-2008.

Bit of advice: if you're some mid-to-top level CIA admin, and Dick Cheney tells you to keep something under your hat? You make damn double sure to tell everyone you legally can about it, because if keeping it secret isn't illegal, then it's immoral, and if it isn't immoral, it's unethical, and any way you slice it, your ass will burn for it some day, not his.

Guaranteed.

-- The Prolix Wag
Why be patronized by anyone else?

Picture a fist punching John Yoo in the face, forever.

Two new revelations this week in the whimpering, dragging-itself-along-the-forest-floor, gut-shot wounded animal that is the Saga of the Bush Years. First, the wiretapping program was way more extensive than the first five or six times they admitted it was more extensive than they said it was before. Second, the CIA hid a big program from Congress, which may or may not be "executive assassination rings" that reported to Dick Cheney.

So much for outrage fatigue.

You know what? You know that whole look-forward-not-backward, we've-got-bigger-things-on-our-plate, we're-still-at-war line the Obama administration has been selling? I'm over it. I am well and truly over it. I want criminal investigations, and I want them six years ago. If these cowardly hidden things that were done in my name had good cause, if they were done in good faith so that my children could sleep safe at night, then let's pull them out and see if they can breathe in the light of day. If not, let the bastards rot in jail, or at the very least sweat under the lights in front of a committee and the American people.

Once upon a time, Ford pardoned Nixon to "heal the country". It wound up doing just about the exact opposite. Transparency heals. Accountability heals. Truth heals.

And by god, I think we're owed some. I really do.

-- The Prolix Wag
Because sometimes righteous indignation is just that.

Gang Kiltie

The observation in Laura Miller's review of Margaret MacMillan's "Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History," on Salon today, that Highland Scottish culture was pretty much made up in the 19th century out of whole (tartan) cloth might seem like something that might upset someone like me. My dad was a piper. I grew up listening to so much bagpipe music that it lulls me to sleep like a baby. I wore a kilt to my Senior Homecoming, my wedding, every Helen Hayes Awards ceremony I've ever been to, and every formal or semiformal occasion I can make up half an excuse to wear it at. I've recited "To a Haggis" at many Burn's Nicht Dinners, and been payed pretty well to do it, too (still available for this year! Book early, book often!). I'm Scots and Proud.

But I've known for a very long time that the whole thing was made up. It's essentially playing pretend. Anyone who wanted to show up at one of my dad's band's rehearsals and learn how to play the World's Finest Outdoor Instrument or even just to wear a kilt could be a part of that culture. Could be Scottish.

This guy is way more Scottish than I'll ever be.

A more general example would be St. Patrick's Day. Anyone who wants to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day can be Irish. Really and truly. It may seem like a matter of putting on funny clothes and just saying you are something, and that's because it is. But that's exactly what all culture is. Not that we always treat it that way.

We usually treat culture like it's inherited absolutely, like it's burned into your forehead by God when you're born. And we use it to exclude as much as (or more than) include. And we wind up with Rwanda and Sunni v. Shiite and pretty much all of the Balkans.

I think my way is more fun. Plus, there's simply no outfit more flattering to the masculine form than a kilt and a sharp Prince Charlie jacket. And a sporran has all the benefits of a purse with none of the drawbacks. AND women will ask you "Do you wear your kilt in traditional way?" ALL DAMN NIGHT. And they'll want to check. Don't ask me why.

-- The Prolix Wag
I'm not an elitist; you're just a prole.

Don't Cry for Me, Alaska...

The thing that amazes me about Sarah Palin's rambling, incoherent resignation announcement isn't the fact that she up and resigned out of nowhere, or the fact that she pretty much told everyone that any governor who serves out his term is doing their state a deep disservice (???), or the fact that she is still deeply devoted to her own victimhood, or the fact that she's still falling back on what she excelled at in High School.

No, what amazes me most is the fact that pretty much no one in the media seems interested in pointing out just how little sense she made. I mean, good lord:

My choice is to take a stand and effect change - not hit our heads against the wall and watch valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars, go down the drain in this new environment. Rather, we know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities - and so we will, for Alaskans and for Americans.

Look, I can understand a little bit of healthy American populist anti-intellectualism, but that MAKES NO DAMN SENSE WHATSOEVER. Many politicians manage to talk a lot and say nothing, but I've never seen one abandon the rules of conventional grammar so completely to do it. And not get called on it.

I dunno, I'm just remembering back to the election, and how it was somehow not okay to point out the fact that this woman is stupid. I mean, not-quite-ready-for-city-council stupid. Dumber-than-Dan-Quayle stupid. And that she was as close as you can get to being the Vice President of this country and not get it.

Of course, we went through eight years of the same thing with our actual President, but let's not get into that. And, to be fair, she is stupider than he is.

-- The Prolix Wag

I’m not an elitist; I just – okay, okay. I’m totally an elitist.

Independence Day

When I woke up this morning, it was to the sounds of a chorus of dulcet-throated NPRers reading our Declaration of Independence. As it does every year, it brought a tear to my eye, specifically at the part where they say "these United States of America" for the first time. Where they speak a country into being where none existed before. There are parts of that document, like where they're bitching about taxes and Hessians and having to hold parliament in uncomfortable places, that are a little querulous, and even quaint. And there are parts like "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes", that are polite and personal and make the thing sound like what it is, the biggest Dear John letter in history. And then there are parts like these:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,

and

...these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

that are so powerful and new and weird. I mean, I know they had all kinds of Enlightenment philosophy and Classic democracies as things to build on, but the truth of the matter is that no one had ever built a government this way, just spoken it into being with the only basic axiom not being "god(s) said so", but "we deserve it, because we're human".

these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States

Those are words with some serious mojo. Like "with this ring, I thee wed", only with a whole nation getting hitched instead of just two people.

Like a in a marriage, we've lived with the consequences of those words so long it's pretty much impossible not to take them for granted. And, just like my own wedding vows, whenever I take the time to really contemplate what was said, what was spoken into being, I can't help but get chills.

Happy Independence Day

-- The Prolix Wag
The Hemmingway of Semicolons