brainiac conspiracy

Burn, Baby, Burn [Disc]

Following up on my last post, this unrelated tidbit from the Post via Steve Benen:

Preemptively invading another country under false pretenses: Not lawbreaking.

Downloading a CD file onto your iPod: Lawbreaking.

The [recording] industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files [defendant Jeffrey] Howell made on his computer are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

Man oh man, this is not the best way to win the hearts and minds of consumers, now, is it? Then again, perhaps the RIAA has come to the conclusion that they're past the point of no return for trying to reach some accommodation with commercial file sharing services. Or perhaps they're simply scared to death, given recent long-term sales trends:

In a dramatic acceleration of the seven-year sales decline that has battered the music industry, compact-disc sales for the first three months of this year plunged 20% from a year earlier, the latest sign of the seismic shift in the way consumers acquire music.

Gee, ya suppose the first batch of December Soundscan numbers aren't looking so hot?

---Vitelius

Snark of the Day . . .

Over at Salon today, the ever-steadfast and resolute Glenn Greenwald weighs in (first, natch) with a subject the Baron also wanted to discuss: The almost-a-done-deal presidential candidacy-to-save-America of the postpartisan Mr. Michael Bloomberg:

Bloomberg is basically just Rudy Giuliani with a billion or two dollars to spend to alter the election.

Glenn then proceeds to cite chapter and verse on Bloomberg's many, many policy pronouncements over the past few years, noting how closely they have dovetailed with those of the rabidly-partisan-except-when-we-say-it-isn't positions of the Bush administration, the Congress, and sundry Beltway Mediocrats. It's well worth a read in its entirety, but there's an ancillary subject I wanted to touch on: Specifically, the sheer and utter foolishness of the "partisan" versus "nonpartisan" dichomotomy that the Hagels, Nunns, Bloombergs and their friends in the Broderocracy have been telling us, again and again ad nauseum, is the sworn and mortal enemy of Our Republic.

You surely know the argument: shrill and bitter party partisanship, the narrative goes, has infected our legislative bodies beyond their capacity to regulate themselves, poisoning the well of public discourse and bequeathing us a legacy of stalemate and paralysis. Only a visionary nonpartisan or "post-partisan" executive can navigate these rocky partisan shoals to deliver the elixir of healing nonpartisanship (whatever the hell that is, exactly) to our diseased civic bodies, purging the body politic of its partisan paroxysms and restoring the health and vigor of our High Offices. Or something to that effect.

Now, silly "Great Man" history theories aside, the Baron won't bother dignifying this line of one-sided non-logic with a reply. Glenn can explain it far more pointedly I can, and furthermore---and this is of the utmost importance here---is the plain and simple fact that most of the major policy positions that we in the Progressosphere have been advocating against for years do not---repeat, not---have a goddamn thing to do with political partisanship. They have everything to do with respect for the Constitution and the rule of US and international law. Let's run down a few examples, shall we?

1. Preemptively invading another country that poses no threat to yours is not a partisan issue. It is strictly an international legal issue---specifically, it is proscribed behavior under the UN Charter to which the US is a signatory.

2. Persuading a nation to go to war under pretenses which the war's advocates know to be plainly and certifiably false is not a partisan issue. It is a statutory issue---specifically, a conspiracy to defraud the people of the United States, which is punishable under federal law.

3. Giving the executive branch unlimited access to the personal correspondences of American citizens without cause and without warrant is not a partisan issue. It is Constitutional issue---specifically, it is proscribed behavior under the Fourth Amendment.

4. The arbitrary designation of military prisoners as "enemy combatants" and their indefinite detention in secret facilities without right to legal recourse is not a partisan issue---it is an international legal issue---a violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter.

5. The practice of "coercive interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding is not a partisan issue. It is a legal issue---specifcally, violations of both the Geneva Conventions and the US Military Code of Conduct.

6. The practice of deliberately withholding public records of non-classified White House activities is not a partisan issue. It is a statutory issue---violations of the Presidential Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

7. The lobbying of federal employees on behalf of a political party is not a partisan issue. It is a statutory issue---a violation of the Hatch Act.

I could go on for another ten thousand words, but I don't need to. No matter how many Bloombergs or Nunns or Broders emerge from the Beltway Fog in an attempt to spin it, the fundamental policy issue of our time, which has yet to to be confronted or addressed by our government and our media, has nothing to do with political partisanship. It is simply this: Either you believe the executive branch of government is no longer subject to any conventionally accepted rule of law---be it domestic, constitutional, international, military---or you don't. And yes, it is really is that simple.

Does that make me a partisan, guys? If so, then it makes you an accessory to war crimes.

And now, a couple of closing thoughts. First, from a Friend of Mike:

Sam Waterston, the actor whose former co-star on Law and Order, Fred D. Thompson, is a Republican presidential candidate, is a founder of Unity08. That group also hopes to advance a nonpartisan ticket, and Mr. Waterston says the mayor is often mentioned on the group's Web site as a prospective nominee.

"If he formally embraced Unity08's principal goals of a bipartisan, nonpartisan, postpartisan ticket---which he's almost in a position to do all by himself, having been a Democrat, a Republican, and now an independent---and of an administration dedicated to ending partisanship within itself and in Washington, then it's hard to think of anyone better placed to win Unity08's support if he sought it," Mr. Waterston said. "And, of course, there's nothing that says Unity08 couldn't draft him."

If Freddie and Waterston are any indicators, the Hollywood writers' strike hit Law & Order about seven years too late. Finally:

One concern among Mr. Bloomberg's inner circle is whether a loss would label him a spoiler---a rich Ralph Nader---who cost a more viable candidate the presidency in a watershed political year. One person close to the mayor, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to be seen discussing internal strategy, stressed that Mr. Bloomberg would run only if he believed he could win.

Then why waste everyone's time going through the motions? Does Sam Waterston or Chuck Hagel or Sam Nunn honestly believe that Bloomberg has a chance of winning 270 electoral votes? Pray tell where, exactly? Joe Lieberman, the guy Bloomberg most resembles politically, barely won re-election in his home state . As Glenn mentions in his column, the only thing a Bloomberg candidacy would win, most likely, is another four years in the Oval Office for a Republican proponent of executive lawlessness and perpetual war. If that ain't a case of the cure being worse than the disease, I sure as heck don't know what is.

---Vitelius

WW 3.1? Wake Me When It's Over

Well, the Baron has had some time to gather his wits after yesterday's terrible tragedy, and while I'm less mad than mournful today, I'm growing more suspicious by the minute about the whole awful mess.

For one thing, we can't seem to get a straight story about what actually happened on the ground in Rawalpindi, or how Bhutto actually perished. Initial reports yesterday suggested a coordinated multi-person effort, with at least one gunman working in consort with a suicide bomber. Later accounts, including those of eyewitnesses, claimed that the gunman and bomber were the same person. Yet another account---which due to its sourcing should be taken with a grain of salt, but which can't entirely be dismissed out of hand, given the questions it raises about our continued support of Musharraf's government---suggests a full-on paramilitary assault, with multiple suicide bombers. Even stranger yet today, the doctor who treated Bhutto at the hospital says she wasn't shot at all but died from head wounds caused by bomb shrapnel.

Now I know some folks might say that this is all morbid speculation, that these discrepancies are not terribly relevant in the bigger scope of things, that it's merely the residue of confusion on the scene, but I would beg to disagree---unless, of course, you happen to believe that the particulars of, say, the JFK assassination are of no great historical relevance either. Given the massive discrepancies in the accounts we have up to now, somebody out there is telling some pretty big whoppers, and it would behoove us to find out as many hard facts as we can about this sad event so we can more properly arrive at a sober and rational plan of action before we start chasing down the usual suspects. No more faith-based foreign policy, please.

As an aside on the subject, I found it interesting that amongst the mostly meaningless condolences that our presidential candidates issued yesterday, the only candidate who called for the kinds of specific and concrete policy measures I suggested is the only candidate with any actual hands-on diplomatic experience in the Middle East: Bill Richardson.

And speaking of whoppers, how about this one? Is anybody out there thinking that maybe, just maybe, that some folks in Islamabad are trying to muddy the waters a bit? And if so, why?

Also, it seems even clearer to me than when I posted on this initially that there was a serious---perhaps coordinated?---breakdown in Bhutto's security detail (which, obviously, the Sun article referenced above states bluntly). I wondered almost immediately how an assassin could possibly get so close to her car that he could detonate a bomb that killed 20 additional people (and apparently near-totaled the vehicle). Well, it looks like others are asking similar questions today, and Bhutto herself seems to have complained that the security plans that the Musharraf government had arranged for her were desultory and half-hearted at best.

As for the White House, well, they've got contingency plans at the ready, right? Er, sorry, uhh . . . the Deciderer is in Crawford on vacation this week. And yes, I know, he made a brief appearance between bike rides and brush clearings to condemn cowardly acts---but honestly, people, a major world political figure has been assassinated, the seventh-most populous country on the planet is on the verge of collapse, its nuclear arsenal is ripe for the picking, and this guy can't maybe think about changing his plans for a few days to talk things over with his foreign policy team?

Over at TPM, a blog poster who goes by "Barth" does a good job explaining the cause of the inertia:

On September 11 and again today (as well as several times in between) the immediate thought which occurs is that a political system in this country in which the executive and his (or her) government is selected on the basis of who projects the best, who is the nicest person, whose "ground game" is most effective during the primaries, and whose commercials are the most effective results in a government that is obsessed with elections and re-elections, the only thing they can do, and not in effectively managing the resources they have and meeting their responsibilities to the country.

On September 11, then, the President was doing what presidents do: he was doing a photo-op to support a re-election campaign three years away. When told that the country was under threat he did nothing because that is not what presidents do anymore.

Today he is in Crawford, Texas. He may, or may not, make an appearance, but it is of no moment. His administration has no real policy in Pakistan other than to hope that some general is in charge so that people who might want to use it, do not get their hands on the nuclear weapons at the Pakistani government's disposal. If they "supported" Benazir Bhutto to share power it was based on nothing but but the hope that such an agreement would dampen the efforts by people who want to kill her to get the means to do so.

This is not a policy. Hoping for the best is something I can do as a private citizen. The President of the United States has many more tools and far more responsibility than do I but instead chooses to clear brush. I do not begrudge a person his vacation, especially at this time of year, but if he can interrupt his vacation to interfere in the Schiavo family's travails, he can return to Washington and summon the national security council and people of both parties who have thought about this, to put the United States on a course that will better ensure against Pakistan's disintegration.

I do not know the answer. If I did, I would ask to to be part of this process. But there are people who know the area and know what to do. None of them are named George Bush, Dick Cheney or Condoleeza Rice, but they are out there. Do something, Mr. President, and I would be willing to pay someone to clear your brush for you.

---Vitelius

Benazir Bhutto

The Baron woke up early today, rested and ready from a bonny-good Christmas, and set to do a little more research into this whole Ron Paul-Stormfront deal, when suddenly . . . it didn't seem at all important anymore.

I don't know what else to say here except, I'm really angry today.

And it's as good a time as any to reflect on the hydra-headed monster that is the military government of Pakistan. Virtually from the country's inception, it has been the nation's dominant political force, and in many ways, it is an ugly relic of a Cold War long past. Its one which we have lavished with tens of billions of dollars in aid money---five billion alone since September 11---and countless billions more in high-tech weapons sales. And just two weeks ago, Congress again authorized yet another quarter of a billion dollars in aid money for the dictatorship. Yes, there were strings attached, with all the typical prattle about the Pakistani government's need to improve its records on human rights and to crack down further on the usual militants . . . but this morning, it is painfully obvious that our half-assed conditions are simply not enough. Guaranteeing human rights---which one would assume includes holding free and fair elections, with living and breathing candidates---is meaningless if you can't guarantee the safety and security of those candidates. And it seems painfully obvious, given today's sad events, that the Musharraf government---if in fairness it can even be called a "government"---has not exactly made the security of opposition political leaders a serious priority.

So how's about this for an alternative foreign aid package instead: how about no more money of any kind for Pakistan until elections are held, a new civilian government is installed, and respect for the rule of law established?

The generals killed her father, her brother and now her. And it hasn't mattered a whit whether the tinpots' names were Zia, or Musharraf, or Yusef Shlabotnik---they have ruled the country, on and off, the same cruel way for the past 50 years: crushing democratic opposition, enriching themselves at the expense of their own people, and creating a safe haven for jihadists and terrorists of all stripes. The Baron hates to sound bitter and vengeful today----I suspect that Benazir Bhutto would chastise me severely for giving air to such sentiments---but it strikes me as high past time that we start putting the screws to the generals in a serious and meaningful way. Can anyone in Washington say trade sanctions?

Don't tell me that this murder couldn't have been prevented because I'm not buying it. All I know is, I am pissed off as hell over this, and somebody needs to pay.

---Vitelius

Your Liberal Media, v3.7.1

From this morning's WaPo front page, a sterling example of sliming by association, in which a portrait is painted of Dem presidential candidates kneeling slavishly before Kingmaker Al Sharpton. According to the article:

. . . he is being wooed by the leading Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom are seeking his endorsement. (Emphasis added.)

Really? Hillary and Obama and Edwards are all courting him? And Chris Dodd and Joe Biden and Bill Richardson too? This is news to the Baron, so naturally I continued reading, and reading, and reading some more, to find out how, and why, our presidential candidate pool had lost its collective mind by toadying up to such an insignificant character. Hundreds of words later, I was still in the dark, for while Keith Richburg didn't seem to have the time to inform me of any meetings between Sharpton and Bill Richardson, or Hillary or John Edwards, he did take the time to remind me about Tawana Brawley, and about Sharpton's troubles with the IRS, and about his intolerant statements about Mormonism, and all the reasons why reasonable readers should all agree that Al Sharpton is not a credible, or even a particularly trustworthy, political figure.

Seventeen paragraphs later, we finally get to the money shot:

He planned to fly to South Carolina earlier this month to meet former president Bill Clinton until his flight was cancelled. Last month, he shared a meal of chicken wings, cornbread and coconut shrimp with Obama at Sylvia's, a Harlem soul food restaurant.

Well now, that's pretty weak tea, now isn't it? Or at least it would be at a newspaper that was aiming to convey anything resembling relevant political news to its readers. Then again, a non-story such as this is not intended to do any such thing. What it does intend to do---and it certainly does it, all too transparently---is to create a straw man out of Sharpton, recasting an increasingly irrelevant and thoroughly discredited figure as a powerful party potentate. By so doing, the Post's readers are reminded, however indirectly, of the Democratic candidates' reliance on the support of spokesmen for its most divisive and polarizing voting bloc---the Loony Left™---as part and parcel of their quest for the White House. One need not spend much time at trying to guess what tonight's featured topic on The O'Reilly Factor will be.

---Vitelius

A Christmas Wish . . .

If only, like Scrooge, we could awaken today from our collective nightmare of . . .

. . . a glimpse of the future of the global economy, a pattern that would repeat itself again and again, from Russia to South Africa to Argentina: an urban bubble of frenetic speculation and dubious accounting fueling superprofits and frantic consumerism, ringed by the ghostly factories and rotting infrastructure of a development past; roughly half the population excluded from the economy altogether; out-of-control corruption and cronyism; decimation of nationally owned small and medium-sized businesses; a huge transfer of wealth from public to private hands, followed by a huge transfer of private debts into public hands.

If only it were an undigested bit of beef . . .

Sound familiar? Nope, it's not America of the present day. It is Chile, circa 1975, and it comes from the pages of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, the incendiary new book by the brilliant Naomi Klein and an absolute 100-percent must-read for all Brainiacs everywhere. I am sure we have all read many, many critiques of the anti-Keynesian economic model known in this country as Reaganomics but more properly referred to as "corporativism," first advocated by Milton Friedman at the Chicago School of Economics in the 1940s and '50s, but nowhere else can the Baron recall such a detailed treatise on the origins of Friedmanomics, its overarching philosophical goals and preferred method of execution, and how the implementation of this economic model upon a nation with a typical mixed public-private economy affects the lives of its citizens, and what measures governments typically resort to in order to perpetuate it.

From the book's liner notes, the economic gospel of Friedmanomics is nothing less than:

. . . the use of public disorientation following massive collective shocks---wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters---to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don't succeed in wiping out all resistance, a third is employed: that of the electrode in the prison cell or of the Taser gun.

Now, I am sure some of you are going to dismiss this as merely generic Marxist boilerplate. After all, look at New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. That was a real disaster, and nobody's being tortured or repressed down there, right? Heck, we're rolling up our sleeves and doing the hard work of rebuilding that great city block by block. And yes, it's true that the population is not even 70 percent of its pre-Katrina level after two years, and that there may be as many as a half million people still displaced and requiring assistance, but sometimes, tough times call for tough measures.

Take public housing---y'know, like, places where poor people used to live. Lots of it was trashed by the hurricane and is still uninhabitable, and the New Orleans City Council recently voted to demolish some 4,500 units of it for redevelopment. Naturally, some of the old residents of these housing units didn't take too kindly to being dispossessed of their former homes, and they gathered last week to lobby the council to reconsider its vote.

And how was the reception at City Hall?

Police used chemical spray and stun guns as dozens of protesters tried to force their way into the packed City Council chamber. One woman was sprayed and dragged from the gates. Emergency workers took her away on a stretcher. Another woman said she was stunned by officers, and still had what appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt.

"I was just standing, trying to get into my City Council meeting," said the dazed woman, Kim Ellis, who was taken away in an ambulance.

"Is this what democracy looks like?" Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who opposes demolition, said as he held a strand of Taser wire he said had been shot into another of the protesters.

Buy this book for yourself, for your friends, for anyone who has been trying to figure out what the hell has been done to our citizenry, to the people of Iraq and the Middle
East---all in our name---since September 11. As Naomi Klein lays it out, what has happened during the last six years is not some aberration---the stumbling and cartoonish improvisations of a dimwitted executive and his scheming vice-president---but the calculated continuation of a premeditated economic policy that has been many decades in the making. Then keep buying those Lotto tickets---the lure of moving to a home in Europe never sounded so good as it will after reading this terrific and terrifying book.

--Vitelius

You Know You're Having a Bad Week When . . .

Ouch!

If you were building a Republican presidential candidate from a kit, imagine what pieces you'd use: an athletic build, ramrod posture, Reaganesque hair, a charismatic speaking style and a crisp dark suit, You'd add a beautiful wife and family, a wildly successful business career and just enough government experience. You'd pour in some old GOP bromides---spending cuts and lower taxes---plus some new positions for 2008: anti-immigrant rhetoric and a focus on faith.

Add it all up and you get Mitt Romney, a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped.

Well, this is a new one on me. I can't recall ever reading an anti-endorsement in a newspaper before. But there's a first time for everything, I guess.

---Vitelius

The Problem With Paul, Revisited

As some of you may have heard this week, there's been a minor flap in the press about Ron Paul's decision to accept a $500 campaign check from an avowed white supremacist. And as far as the matter goes on its face, the Baron couldn't give a hoot about it. Just because Paul decides to pocket the dough, his supporters remind us, it doesn't mean he's obliged to subscribe to his donors' views. And that's a fair enough retort.

From DeDurkheim over at Rising Hegemon, however, comes this rather ominous backstory. If true, it seems America's Maverick® may be a little tighter with some of these white boys than he'd like us to know. At least one of them is calling him out:

For his spokesman to call white racialism a "small ideology" and claim white activists are "wasting their money" trying to influence Paul is ridiculous. Paul is a white nationalist of the Stormfront type who has always kept his racial views and his views about world Judaism quiet because of his political position.

Now, if true, this really wouldn't surprise the Baron too terribly. Paul has a long track record of opposition to anything resembling federal civil rights legislation. He has denounced the landmark Civil Rights Bill of 1964 as promoting "forced integration." He's inveighed for years against affirmative action laws, and was one of only two members of Congress who voted against a recent hate-crimes bill that would have authorized reopening a number of pre-1970s civil rights cases such as the Emmett Till murder. Up to now, he's had the cover of his libertarianism to shield him against any suspicion of racism, and given the libertarian perspective---that all rights are individual, not group-based, and that one doesn't create a colorblind society by "writing color" into federal law---one hesitates to draw any hard conclusions. It could be, after all, that Ron Paul opposes these kinds of laws strictly on political principle. Or perhaps he opposes them because he's a flat-out racist, who knows.

Either way, if members of Your Liberal Media™ can summon the resources to find out where John Edwards gets his hair cut, or which radical madrassa taught Barack Obama to hate America when he was nine years old, you would think that some wire-service stringer somewhere could run down this story and see where it leads.

And finally, whether Paul is a racist or not, his own voting record illustrates the folly of modern-day libertarianism. It is all well and good to rail against government intrusion of civil liberties---as Paul does unflaggingly, to his credit---but what Paul (and some of his supporters, it would seem) fail to recognize is that the principles of civil rights and civil liberties are by their natures inseparable; Ron Paul's privacy right not to have his phone tapped by the feds is in essence no different than a Mississippi black man's privacy right not to have his house set on fire by members of the local Klan. The refusal to make this connection based on some Plessy-vintage reading of the Constitution at this point in our history is either criminally stupid or intellectually dishonest in the extreme, and is yet another reason why Paul---his views on the war and wiretapping notwithstanding---is far and away the most radical presidential candidate from a major party that we have seen in many, many years.

Bottom line: noble platitudes about individual privacy rights aside, there's really no such thing as civil liberties in America if you're not willing to give the government the enforcement power to safeguard them. We've tried that approach in this country already. It resulted in something called the Jim Crow Era, and . . . 'nuff said.

--Vitelius

Why Do Americans Hate America?

It's been a rough week for our boy Mitt, what with this whole MLK memory deal. Now, on the ropes in Iowa, he needs a knockout to derail the Huckster Express . . . so what has he come up with?

Warning: He's just like Clinton!

"Governor Huckabee's record is more liberal than our nation needs right now," the former Massachusetts governor said in Iowa last week, seeking to link his GOP presidential rival to the former Democratic president who is loathed by many Republican loyalists.

Well yes, if one believes that government owes its citizens anything more than tax cuts and perpetual war, well yeah, Huck's too liberal or you. Then again, Huckabee's sudden surge in popularity would seem to indicate what has been readily apparent to the Baron for quite a long time. Actually, a couple of things: (1) That domestic policy---education, infrastructure, poverty, health care---just might have a bigger role to play in the '08 elections than one might have thought, say, six months ago, and (2) the majority of people in this country are considerably more liberal than their own federal government on domestic policy matters. They want universal health care. They want more federal spending for education, not less. They want us to sign the Kyoto Protocols and get serious about global warming.

And this is the bigger dilemma facing Mitt, Rudy, and the other GOP hardliners who have run slavishly in the shadow of the Unitary Executive: Long term, it's a disaster in waiting.

People are tired of Tough Talk™. They're fed up with a president who governs by bullying and intimidation. They want a president who actually gives a shit when a city the size of New Orleans is reduced to rubble, or when covert CIA operations are blown by vengeful White House subordinates. Small wonder, then, that the candidates who have enjoyed the most fervent and devoted support in this primary season---Paul, Obama, Kucinich and now Huckabee---are those who have gone out of their way to avoid Tough Talk and Bully Boilerplate.

Now, it's possible that Mitt or Rudy can rally a sufficient number of troglodytes to the cause at the eleventh hour, and limp into Minneapolis with enough delgates to sew up the nomination. But it strikes the Baron as odd--very odd, indeed, but indicative of the mindset that has consumed the GOP in recent years---that more upstanding members of the conservosphere haven't come to the Huckster's defense. The way I see it, the chowderheads at National Review, Freeper Nation and the entire RNC should be embracing Huckabee, not sending out attack dogs to slime him. Why? Because, in many ways, he's the most electable Republican in the general election. Yes, his batshit-crazy religious views may cause him some problems, but merely running on his record as governor, he figures to take a slew of domestic issues---health care and poverty, for starters---off the table in a way that Mitt, Rudy or McCain simply can't. And in a Huck-Obama matchup, for instance, the "experience" issue goes away as well. He can run as a moderate, in other words, even if he really isn't.

But that's today's GOP, where ideological purity trumps electability. Folks like us should be licking their chops.

---Vitelius

Living History: The Hoover Vacuum

This is, uhhh . . . chilling:

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Enemy combatants? Well, let's not quibble over nomenclature:

Hoover wanted President Harry S Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage." The FBI would "apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous" to national security, Hoover's proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under "a master warrant attached to a list of names" provided by the bureau.

The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. (Emphasis added.)

An early form of data mining, eh? Well now, guess we have been there before. And the subversives, er, what rights did they have?

"In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus."

Read the whole article. The parallels to the present day are myriad and mind-boggling, from the abrogation of civil rights to surreptitious intelligence gathering, to military detentions and trials without evidence . . . and even a cowed Congress voting to approve the detention of "dangerous radicals" in case of a declared emergency.

One can only wonder: Does Hoover's list still exist? If so, who's on it? How was it compiled?

And another thing: who declassified this thing, exactly? And why now? Could there be any connection to this bit of news?

One last bit of wonderment: That even now, 35 years after his death, we continue to learn of even more depravities emanating from one of the sickest and most perverse individuals to ever hold high office in our land. Sadder yet, he'd still have plenty of friends in Washington today.

---Vitelius

With Friends Like These . . .

Good to see the Baron is not alone these days! As he posted previously, the Huckster's rather, uh, extreme religious views aren't what's roiling the GOP landscape these days, as EJ Dionne reminds us in The Post today:

The rise of Mike Huckabee has put the fear of God into the Republican establishment. Its alarm has nothing to do with the Almighty.

Yep, it's all about the money. More specifically, the economic policy threat that Huckabee's campaign poses to a party that has spent the past thirty years lavishing corporate coffers with billions in tax breaks, telling the poor to fend for themselves, and transforming the government into a masssive protection racket. And as the Huckster's sudden groundswell of grass-roots support has shown, apparently that view is looking, uh, increasingly inadequate to a growing number of self-proclaimed "conservative" voters:

In a May 2005 report, the Pew Research Center pointed to the rise of a new group within the Republican alliance it labeled "pro-government conservatives." Pew sees this group accounting for just under a third of the GOP's core support.

The report described them as "broadly religious and socially conservative, but they deviate from the party line in their backing for government involvement in a wide range of policy areas, such as government regulation and more generous assistance to the poor."

Exactly. These are people who think that all that Christian banter about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked might actually be a legitimate role of government as well as of the church. They want more support for their schools, for their poor and indigent, for libraries and fire and police departments. They want more public transit, and reduced global warming. A good many of them, I'd wager, even want national health insurance, even if it means paying more taxes; things like abortion and gay marriage have a way of becoming secondary concerns when your asthmatic kid can't get HMO coverage due to "pre-existing condition."

And make no mistake, if you're this kind of conservative, Huck's your man. For example:

Huckabee, who plays bass guitar in a rock band for fun, also would like to provide every child with art and music education so they can "flex both the left and right sides of the brain." It's not every day that a presidential candidate gets quite so deep in a citizen's head.

Now there's a policy position that's bound to warn the heart-cockles of the tax-cuts 'n' vouchers crowd. And come to think of it, when was the last time you heard any presidential candidate of either party advocating increased government support of the arts and music? John Kennedy, maybe? Needless to say, this is a genuinely visionary and enlightened policy, and my hat's off in deepest gratitude to Huckabee for this.

Unfortunately, he's also equally capable of lobbying for policies that are, frankly, well, nuts:

When Huckabee talks about abolishing the IRS and replacing the income tax with a sales tax, he assures voters, "I'm not being facetious."

"Get rid of the IRS and that would account for most of the problems," he said.

Just in case you needed reminding who the Baron will not be voting for next fall, support for youth symphonies be damned.

While the Baron's willing to lay down some scratch on Huck as the 2008 GOP nominee at this point, Dionne is still somewhat skeptical of his chances:

If you had to bet, you'd wager that the Republican establishment will eventually crush Huckabee. But the rebellion he is leading is a warning to Republicans. The faithful are restive, tired of being used and no longer willing to do the bidding of a crowd that subordinates Main Street's values to Wall Street's interests.

And crush him they very well may---but is there time enough for it? In a normal election cycle, with caucuses and primaries spread out over the course of several months, the Baron would have to agree with Dionne. But the next presidential nominees from both parties are likely to be decided within the next six weeks. And because of that, the way the Baron sees it, Huckabee really only needs one more solid month of campaign momentum before heading to Minneapolis as his party's front-runner. I could be wrong, of course---it happens once every few years---so I've now got two Peet's gift certificates at the ready for Josh and EJ should the Huckster falter along the way.

But I'll ride the hot hand and keep my chips on Huck's number for now. As any playoff-addled baseball fan will tell you nowadays, it ain't always the team with the best season-long record that ends up winning the Series anymore---as often as not, it's the team that catches fire in the last few weeks, even if they finish in second place. That's why they call 'em "wild cards", no?

---Vitelius

In Springfield, Cries of "Present" Were HeardAs Astonished Journos Reported No News

From today's Times, a nominee for Most Insipid & Pointless Non-Story Political Story of the Year:

Obama's Vote in Illinois
Was Often Just "Present"

By Raymond Hernandez and Christopher Drew

In 1999, Barack Obama was faced with a difficult vote in the Illinois legislature---to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults, a position that risked drawing fire from African-Americans, or to oppose it, possibly undermining his image as a tough-on-crime moderate.

In the end, Mr. Obama chose neither to vote for nor against the bill. He voted "present," effectively sidestepping the issue, an option he invoked nearly 130 times as a state senator.

And how many votes did Obama cast as a state legislator?

Mr. Obama's aides and some allies dispute the characterization that a present vote is tantamount to ducking an issue. They said Mr. Obama cast 4,000 votes in the Illinois Senate and used the present vote to protest bills that he believed had been drafted unconstitutionally or as part of a broader legislative strategy.

Hmmm. 130 votes out of 4,000 means he voted "present" a little more than three percent of the time. Yet the Times' headline writer (and, one presumes, his or her managing editor) thinks that percentage is frequent enough to warant the adverb "often" to describe it. Uhhhhh . . .

So, often schmoften, whatever. What pearls of insight are to be gleaned from Obama's "present" votes?

Although a present vote is not unusual in Illinois, Mr. Obama's use of it is being raised as he tries to distinguish himself as a leader who will take on the tough issues, even if it means telling people the "hard truths" they do not want to hear.

Actually, a vote of "present" is not unusual is any legislative body, and legislators do it for a number of reasons. Sometimes, as the authors of this piece insinuate, it's done to weasel one's way out of a vote that could piss off a core segment of a legislator's constituency. It's also done if a legislator, also as mentioned, sympathizes in general with the tone of the legislation at hand but doubts the constitutionality or enforceability of its contents. A vote of "present" could also be cast (and this doesn't take an advanced degree from the Kennedy School to figure out) if a legislator simply hasn't made up his mind about the legislation at hand, and would prefer to postpone his decision to a later date. Word to Drew and Hernandez: Sometimes "hard truths" at the legislative level don't manifest themselves overnight.

And there is a fourth reason, which our dynamic duo neglect to mention: Legislators will sometimes choose to vote "present" if they fear that the opposing party has forced a vote on a controversial issue---like a bill banning flag burning, say, or outlawing gay marriage---which the opposition has only done to use as a cudgel against him, and his fellow Democrats, in future election campaigns should he opt to vote against it.

Silly me. Republicans would never do such things, now, would they?

It makes no matter, really. Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes studying state and local politics knows that there is nothing at all unusual in voting "present" on controversial legislation anywhere in the country, and if Drew and Hernandez (or their bosses) don't know this, they have no business reporting on legislative issues. And certainly not for a publication that likes to think of itself as America's paper of record.

----Vitelius

Snark of the Month

Barry O is The Man!

In answering a question on immigration, Obama said it would be impossible to lock all the illegal immigrants up, even if he wanted to.

"We'd clear out some of the prisons to make room for somebody who's a housekeeper at Mitt Romney's house," he joked.

---Vitelius

Looking Into His Soul, Not in the Mirror

Future historians will no doubt revel in mining the many rich layers of irony that marked the Bush Years:

Bush spoke cautiously about the state of democracy in Russia under President Vladimir Putin, who has tightened control of the courts and the media and maneuvered to retain power as his term ends . . . Putin was just named Time magazine's ''Person of the Year'' for imposing stability that restored Russia as a world power.

''I presume they put him on there because he was a consequential leader,'' Bush said. ''And the fundamental question is, consequential to what end? What will the country look like 10 years from now? My hope, of course, is that Russia is a country that understands there needs to be checks and balances.''

Monty Python had nothing on our Unitary Executive. Except they were, like, actually funny.

---Vitelius

Rudy's Regression to the Mean, and other Woes

As the Baron asked in his previous post, is it too soon to say "Feel the Huckmentum""?

--Vitelius

Weird Scenes Inside the Glue Factory:Handicapping the GOP Horse Race

Over at TPM this morning, Josh Marshall returns from a well-deserved vacation to weigh the prospects of the varied GOP presidential hopefuls as they sprint---or limp--towards the finish line in Iowa and New Hampshire. And as it turns out, he still likes Mitt Romney's chances to capture the Big Prize next summer.

The Baron respectfully disagrees, for reasons I'll enumerate in a moment.

First, let me say just how personally indebted I am to Josh for all his work at TPM the past seven years. He's a terrific political writer, has a wonderfully dry and sardonic sense of humor, is a keen judge of journalistic talent, and his takes on the bloviating sturm und drang emanating from Washington and the campaign trail are almost always spot-on. I've been reading his commentaries daily from practically the very first day he went online with his site, and he's one of the handful of folks---Digby, Kos, and Glenn Greenwald being some of the others---who inspired me to start up my own blog.

That said, the primary problem I have with Josh's argument here is his analysis of Huckabee, who I think he dismisses too quickly:

. . . as we're now seeing day after day with Huckabee, despite the affable manner and the politics that are gaining him huge support within the GOP's evangelical base, the dude just has way too much baggage to get him to the nomination---letting a bunch of anti-Clinton whacks convince you to let a serial rapist out of prison, all sorts of completely whacked views, wild unpreparedness on foreign policy. And they haven't even gotten to truly nutball ideas he's for like the 'Fair Tax'. I'm not saying it can't happen. But I just think Huckabee's got too much baggage on too many fronts.

Perhaps. But we are now only a matter of days until the first caucuses, and only a few weeks until the first round of big-state primaries, and as of right now, all of the momentum is in the Huckster's corner. And as Josh certainly knows, momentum is only as important its timing. Three months ago, the game was all Rudy all the time, but as noted elsewhere, his support nationwide appears to be cratering among GOP voters---not surprising, given his myriad peccadillos, moderate social views, and his near-catatonic reliance on the words "September 11" as a substitute for any coherent foreign policy position. He's still ahead in some of the delegate-rich states, but his numbers aren't tracking in the right direction anywhere right now. I think that a lot of people have simply gotten tired of his hectoring one-note campaign delivery and are mentally tuning him out.

Mitt, too, looks from this corner to be in trouble. He's dumped a ton of money into buying an organzation in Iowa, and if he should lose to Huck there, then lose to a fast-charging McCain in his own backyard, what does he have left to hang his hat on to project himself as a candidate who can "win" anywhere? He's getting clobbered in South Carolina (no surprise; could a Mormon win any Southern primary?), and if he's hoping to pull off a big-state coup a few weeks from now in, say, Florida or California, he's running a distant second there too.

Given this scenario, what's the public perception to be? He can't win a swing state, he can't win a Southern state, and he can't win a big-ticket state. How long do you think it will take before the Sunday morning pundocrats start using words like "underachiever" to describe him?

Mind you, I'm not saying he won't get his share of delegates, and he still does have time for a comeback. And given his personal wealth, he doesn't need to panic right away if his contributions dry up. But right now, he's sorta looking like the Yankees did last season---talented, competitive, and richer than God, but they hit their stride a little too soon, and when the playoffs rolled around, they got whacked.

Now don't get me wrong---everything Josh states about Huckster is absolutely true. Once you get past the small-town charm of the man, there are quite a few loose screws clanging around inside his head. And in a sane and rational political environment, he wouldn't have a ghost's chance of getting out of the primaries with anything but a handful of delegates. But to the greatest extent, the 2008 GOP primary campaign has not been conducted by men urging sane and rational policies, and by and large they are certainly not appealing to sane and rational voters. And I think that's why we can't count Huck out. And if he pulls off the improbable, and captures Iowa---and for the record, I think he'll do exactly that---all the money and grass-roots support that will come flooding in after the geniuses in TV BobbleheadLand remind us of the potency of a "Southern evangelical who can win outside the South" . . . well, this will make him all that much more formidable in the weeks ahead.

Now, the Baron's not a betting man, but he'd be willing to wager Josh a jumbo mug of his preferred caffeinated frothy that in two months' time, we are looking at a GOP field that shakes down like this, from top to bottom:

Huckabee, frontrunner
McCain, the tortoise
Rudy, still in free-fall
Mitt, living off his ATM card
Paul, raking in the dough if not the votes
Freddie, RIP
Tancredo, RIP
Hunter, RIP but hanging around through California (noblesse oblige)
Alan Keyes, nominated by the Lord already, awaiting coronation

Again, in deference to Josh, this is not a logical order at all. But today's GOP activist base is not populated by logical men. In many ways, the entire party has existed in a state of full-blown dementia since 9/11, and for that reason alone, I'd say all bets are off the smart money.

Also too, I think what we are seeing here in the Huck Phenomenon is a kind of grass-roots revolt by a voter base that the GOP has so painstakingly courted---and cynically manipulated---for the past 30 years. In many ways, it is reminiscent of what happened to the party at the Cow Palace in 1964. Like the Birchers and McCarthyites (the fundamentalists of their time) who felt they'd been burned too many times by softies like Eisenhower, the modern-day fundies have been burned (in their minds) by too many Republican pols who might appoint some high-profile judges to their liking, but who otherwise won't push their social agenda too aggressively. Now, in Huckabee, they have one of their own---or at least the perception of it, and they will turn out the votes, and the money for him given half a chance. Think of Huck as a latter-day Huey Long by way of Trinity Broadcasting, and his sudden popularity starts to make a little more sense. And like Barry Goldwater in 1964, I think Huckabee is going to be the party's presidential nominee in Minneapolis.

Look at it this way: when you've basically driven away what few moderate voters you had over the past six years, who's left to vote in your primaries---and attend your convention---but the crazies?

---Vitelius

Mittster Wept

Nope, it's not a come-to-Jesus moment, just the latest from our Sincerity Troll of the week:

Having a Muskie moment isn't necessarily a bad thing anymore. Tears, once kryptonite to serious presidential candidates, today are more often seen as a useful part of the political tool kit.

Mitt Romney this week became the latest candidate to show his sensitive side. Tears welled in his eyes Monday as he spoke on the New Hampshire campaign trail about watching the casket of a soldier killed in Iraq and imagining that he had lost a son of his own. A day earlier, he choked up on NBC's "Meet the Press" in speaking about his religion.

Well, perhaps Mitt's a sensitive kind of fella after all. Or maybe he's starting to see some unpleasant writing on the wall? Heck, if I worked on his campaign staff, and news like this or this got past my Spam filter this morning, I'd be seriously bummed too.

---Vitelius

Shaggy Iraqi Story

Now we'll see some sanctions imposed on Blackwater, no?

Baghdad -- The U.S. embassy in Iraq is investigating another deadly shooting incident involving its Blackwater bodyguards---this time of the New York Times's dog.

Staff at the newspaper's Baghdad bureau said Blackwater bodyguards shot Hentish dead last week before a visit by a U.S. diplomat to the Times compound.

Bad journo, forgetting to include breed and age. Didn't they teach you that stuff at Medill? Paragraph 2 should have read:

The victim, identified as Hentish, 4, a Bouvier-Borzoi mix, was found lying behind a dumpster near the Green Zone Kennel Club early Saturday morning. Authorites have ruled the death a likely homicide.

Anyway, quick as a greyhound, the Feds are on the case:

State Department investigators have made two follow-up visits to the Times compound to investigate the shooting of Hentish, correspondent Alissa Rubin said.

"They were very solicitous and I thought took the incident very seriously," Rubin said. "It's not a dog that everyone's close to in the compound.

"But it's a dog that's been around a long time. It lived its whole life there."

Nope, no jokes in this post about media lapdogs---this is, uhhhh, Sirius business, people. And say, it's amazing what people in the Bush Administration can find the time to investigate when they put their minds to it, isn't it?

---Vitelius

Snark of the Day . . .

The ever-steadfast and resolute Matt Taibbi, who has rapidly become the Baron's favorite political writer:

. . . mostly, Obama is selling himself. When he talks about "showing a new face to the world," it's not exactly a mystery that he's talking about his face. In person, Obama is a dynamic, handsome, virile presence, a stark contrast to the bloated hairy shitbags we usually elect to positions of power in this country.

Matt has inherited a heavy mantle---he now warms the same chair at Rolling Stone that was once occupied by the nonpareil Hunter Thompson---but he has grown into the position most admirably. If he goes easy on the Jack Daniels and mescaline, we are all in for a helluva ride for the next 30 years.

---Vitelius

Pole-Vaulting the Shark

The mojo, she ain't a' workin' so good anymore:

"The most negative thing Congress can do in the face of economic uncertainty is to raise taxes on the American people," Bush said.

The audience of roughly 80 people listened to Bush with respectful silence. Yet a line that normally gets him applause---"I'll veto any tax increase"---drew no reaction at all.

Not sure what's more rich and rewarding about this story: The fact that nobody gives a hoot about tax cuts anymore, or that the Unitary Executive has been reduced to making Rotary Club speeches at a joint in the VA suburbs called Yak-a-Doo's. One supposes some day they'll put up a plaque on the wall that reads . . . "GW Bush Yakked Here"?

---Vitelius