Pruning Shears

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Avedon pointed me to Jane Hamsher’s response to Joe Conason’s call to pardon those involved in torture:  “demanding accountability isn’t part of some partisan victory lap, it’s the duty of a responsible citizenry.”  In fact, let’s just go with a big ol’ chunk of Jane (emphasis hers):

Can we stop casting this as vengeance? Can we stop painting people who believe that something terrible was lost during the last eight years, something moral and decent and good at the core of the American soul, as little more than “angry” and “vindictive?” And can we stop assuming that there is something magnanimous about a “bipartisanship” that exists only when both sides agree to walk into the next room and pretend that the pile of wreckage we leave behind, the one that nobody wants to look, isn’t still on fire?

There’s something really disturbing about the assumption that “magnanimously binding up the nation’s wounds” by fobbing off the responsibility for enforcing our laws onto international courts represents some kind of “greater good.” Or that people who still believe accountability in government is the very foundation of the rule of law simply haven’t moved on to a higher moral plane, where “truth” can be sought without “vengeance.”

The political discourse has become increasingly polarized over the last eight years, but that’s not — as “bipartisan” fetishists found out during the stimulus debate — because all sides are equal and everyone is arguing in good faith, just waiting for a grand unifier to raise them up from their bickering. It’s because the nation was being run like an organized crime syndicate by crooks, and the appropriate response was outrage.

When that lady is on she’s as sharp a political commentator as we have in America.

I nearly fell off my chair when I read this from Charles Schumer:

I do agree with people like Roubini or Mishkin — and I think people would support this — that the government should come in. And what the government would do would be: wipe out the shareholders, put in new management — wipe out the old management and put in new management — and then let the bank run sort of independently without day-to-day government intervention.

That is literally the first time I’ve seen a major politician invoke Roubini’s name and it’s a big deal to me at least.  It means that maybe someone who was right about the whole developing mess is actually being cited as an expert.  To this point the only people who have enjoyed such status have either been perpetrators or were asleep at the switch.  If someone whose advice has demonstrated credibility is being listened to it’s a huge change, and obviously a welcome one.  UPDATE:  Articles like this make me think that exactly 3 months from today - May 22, 4:30 PM - would be the perfect moment to announce which banks will be nationalized.  It’s enough time to do the stress testing, not too long for the market to wait, and if it was announced the minute the markets closed on the Friday before Memorial Day it would give a 3 day weekend for everyone to digest it.  (This is just the speculation of a somewhat close observer of the situation; I claim no expertise or inside information.)

From welcome to unwelcome.  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in China this week and said of Chinese leaders’ record on human rights “we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere” with other issues.  I’ve never been able to come to any definitive position on China.  Its human rights violations domestically and in Tibet are detestable and its aggressive stance towards Taiwan seems to frequently be a source of international tension.  On the other hand it is an the world’s most populous nation and is attempting to industrialize - and generally raise the standards of living of its citizens - without losing control or having another Cultural Revolution.  (And those who think industrialization is evil have probably never tried subsistence farming.)  Whenever I see American officials downplay human rights abuses like Clinton did it sets my teeth on edge.  On the other hand, a destabilized China would likely produce far worse fates for far larger numbers of people.   What the hell are you going to do?

Oh and also, thanks to George Fucking Bush this is all a purely academic exercise.  America is obviously in no position to call out civil or human rights abuses in other nations.

From unwelcome to horrible.  Easily the worst news of the week is that Barack Obama is going to continue Bush’s policy of extrajudicial imprisonment at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan.  It’s an explicit embrace of one of Bush’s worst policies.  Terrible policy, terrible decision, but it gives us a much better idea of what to expect from Obama.  Heck of a job, guy.

UNPACKING JANE:  Speaking of detention programs, on pp. 257-8 Mayer writes about the death of Manadel al-Jamadi:

“Is the CIA capable of addressing an illegal killing by its own hands?” asked Thomas Powers, the author of two books on the Agency.  “My guess is not.”

It appeared that in the view of the Bush Administration, the killing of Jamadi broke no laws.  The CIA’s inspector general launched an investigation of the homicide and eventually made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, after finding “the possibility of criminality” in the Agency’s conduct.  But the referral went nowhere.  Former CIA inspector General Fred Hitz, a lecturer in public and international affairs at Princeton University, said “I think they’re just playing stall ball.  They want this case to disappear off the screen.”  Given that both Attorney General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, as well as the head of the criminal division, Michael Chertoff, had signed off on the CIA’s secret interrogation and detention program, a prosecution would have risked exposure and blame.  As John Sifton, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch, concluded: “It’s hard to imagine the current leadership pursuing these guys, because the Justice Department is centrally implicated in crafting the policies that led to the abuse.”

It is becoming increasingly hard to envision any leadership pursuing these guys.