Rule Of Law, Rule Of Thumb

by DemFromCT

Following up on guest-poster Sara's piece on Pre-Emptive War from yesterday,  two stories in the am papers strike me as relevent. The NY Times offers this:

Four years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the government has yet to settle on a consistent strategy for holding and punishing people it says are terrorists. Its efforts remain a work in progress, notable for false starts and a reluctance to have the executive branch's broadest claims tested in the courts.

Last year, three Supreme Court decisions turned back the administration's boldest positions. Government lawyers do not seem eager to give the justices a vehicle for elaboration, at least not one that involves Jose Padilla, an American citizen captured on American soil.

and the WaPo offers this:

In Washington, a senior diplomat said the Bush remark as recounted in the newspaper "sounds like one of the president's one-liners that is meant as a joke." But, the diplomat said, "it was foolish for someone to write it down, and now it will be a story for days."

"We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press in an e-mail.

Part of yesterday's discussion revolved around what Bush did to get us into war (lying vs duped vs huge error: where you stand depends on where you sit) and the theoretical justification for getting to that point. The Times articles shows, in addition to Gonzales' memos on torture and the pre-war maneuvering to 'sex up' dodgy intelligence, that the Administration appears superficially committed to the Rule of Law. That's good, as far as it goes. But the wink and nod approach to the rules, starting with the 2000 election in Florida (no, we're not over it), have left Bush with half the country hating his guts (as either Cook or Rothenberg – or both – put it) and another fifth mistrusting him.

In that context, it's no wonder that any stories like the WaPo, based on chance remark, will be taken as gospel by half the country and raise doubts amongst a chunk of the rest.

This all gets back to the trust issue, which we've been writing about right along as Bush was losing it. He obviously still had some reserve last year, which is why he won in 2004 (but barely) and why the Swift Boating of Max Clelend and Kerry worked then and didn't work on Murtha now.

I've heard commentators claim that negative advertising no longer carries punch - Kaine won and Murtha's still standing, while Mean Jean Schmidt will never be the same (I still can't believe Ohioans actually elected her - what an embarrassment). But that's far too simplistic. Kaine's people felt it cost them, and the key to negative advertising is having a positive candidate for whom it's being run (didn't work for Forrester in NJ, but using Corzine's ex-wife was too crude).

But when it comes to a President with no credibility, any rumor, sourced gossip or other story that enforces the current narrative is likely to get play.

And you thought you had heard every conspiracy theory ever conceived? Just wait. And the scary part is one or two of them will turn out to be true.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

from Tom Friedman:

His second term was very brief. It lasted from his re-election in November 2004 until Election Day 2005. This was an utterly wasted term. It was dominated by an attempt to privatize Social Security, which the country rejected, political scandals involving I. Lewis Libby Jr., Tom DeLay and Bill Frist, a ham-fisted response to Katrina and a mishandling of the Iraq war to such a degree that many Democrats and Republicans have begun to vote "no confidence" in the Bush-Cheney war performance. If ours were a parliamentary system, Mr. Bush would have had to resign by now.

So now begins Mr. Bush's third term. What will he do with it? The last time Mr. Bush hit rock bottom - then from too much drinking - he found God and turned his life around. Now that he has hit rock bottom again - this time from drinking in too much Karl Rove - the question is whether he can find America and turn his presidency around.

The answer's no. You can't get trust back. However, as another rule of thumb, pundits are not allowed to say so for fear of (a) retaliation and (b) being wrong. In this case they carry equal weight.

[emptypockets]

the question is whether he can find America

He couldn't find Osama, he couldn't find WMDs, he couldn't find the leaker in his own White House... they keep broadening the target.

Next up: Can George W. Bush find his own ass?

[Melanie]

Dem,

It seems to me that he can't find America, and that's the reason he's flying all over the planet.

[rasmus]

Friedman is unbelievable. He's an enabler of the worst sort -- always holding out the chance for redemption, for pie-in-the-sky. His message is it's not Bush's fault, instead it's because he's been getting bad advice from Rove. The disastrous handling of the war is -Cheney's fault. And so on.

He reminds me of NFL commentators who are constantly saying so-and-so is a "nice guy," "the nicest guy you'll ever meet," "one of the good guys in the game," ad nauseum. They're too self-absorbed to realize that everybody is nice to them because they are famous, powerful broadcasters with audiences of millions.

[Mullah Kintyre]

the question is whether he can find America and turn his presidency around.

The Moustache of Understanding is apparently the only man who ever saw a bubble un-pop.

Wanker.

[DemFromCT]

Apt, Mullah, and well said.

[Mimikatz]

This is the inherent problem with the whole philosophy of style over substance, sizzle over steak, surface over depth, that infects our culture. It works just great when you are perceived as winning. But when the wheel turns, there is no depth, no broad well of support to fall back on. The whole edifice just crumbles.
It will be interesting to see how Bush copes with all this.

One more point: If it is true, as some have suggested, Murtha was speaking for at least a faction of the military, how will the retreat of Bush/Cheney be handled? It would seem that Bush is an easier sell than Cheney, which may account for all the stories that are attempting to isolate and wound Dick.

[DemFromCT]

from the Heretik:

LONDON - A civil servant has been charged under Britain’s Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a government memo that a newspaper said Tuesday suggested that Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded President Bush not to bomb the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera

[al-Fubar]

Tom Friedman should take his own advice, though in his case it is Sol III he needs to find.

As for Bush, it is hard to imagine him finding his way back to America. Stranger things have happened, but it's nothing to bet on.

-- Rick

[Meteor Blades]

While I'm gleeful at all the Bush-Cheney "crumbling," I'm also highly disturbed by it. The knights of reaction who would take us back to the 7th Century aren't illusory and America's invasion and occupation of Iraq has obviously, to use the word of those saying we can't leave now, "emboldened" them.

Meanwhile, B-C have weakened our military so much that it's questionable that we could respond effectively to a real threat. Their actions have driven ever more Americans into a kind of neo-isolationist mood.

Our leaders couldn't have done a better job of playing into Osama's hands if they had been working in his employ.

And while Tom Friedman and other pundits are saying Bush's presidency is over, he is STILL president, and, barring some extraordinary event WILL BE STILL president more than three years from today. Scary.

[Mimikatz]

Maybe, MB.

[DemFromCT]

Froomkin on – gasp – trust:

Within official Washington, politicians and journalists keep going round and round about whether or not the Bush administration deliberately misled the public in the run up to war in Iraq.

But out there in America, it appears the general public has already made up its mind. In fact, a very solid majority of Americans apparently feels that the Bush administration is being consistently deceptive, on a wide array of issues.

[DemFromCT]

more froomkin:

So here's my question: At what point does the mainstream media stop spending so much time covering the inside-the-Beltway rhetorical hairsplitting over whether the public has been intentionally misled -- and concentrate instead on the essential W's of reporting: who, what, where, when and why?

see above remarks about friedman.

[Mimikatz]

Even more from Froomkin, on Cheney the Big Coward:

From the NYT, after discussing that his year the pardoned turkeys go to Disneyland:

"In previous years, the pardoned birds were sent to Frying Pan Park in Herndon, Va., where many died within months.

" 'This year is going to be a little different,' Mr. Bush said, moments before a handler wrestled the flapping 37-pound Marshmallow to the stage in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 'Marshmallow and Yam were a little skeptical about going to a place called Frying Pan Park. I don't blame them.'

"After the bird had settled down, Mr. Bush cautiously stroked its white feathers, patted its head and invited a group of schoolchildren to the stage to do the same. Mr. Cheney, who has never been known as a lively campaigner, hung back in a corner of the stage and approached neither the turkey nor the children."

[DemFromCT]

Cheney needs to be seen in the company of not just a turkey but an albatross.

[saugatak]

. . . and a lobotomized baboon.

[muledriver]

"that the Administration appears superficially committed to the Rule of Law. That's good, as far as it goes."

Funny. To me it appears that they are committed to avoiding the law while giving the appearance of superficially complying. But that is mincing nuances. My real question is: this good for who?

[DemFromCT]

by paying lip service they acknowledge what the right and correct thing is to do. The alternative is worse.

[Notta Libb]

Check out a site dedicated to the absurdity and satire nature of saying "It's All George Bush's Fault!"

http://www.itsallgeorgebushsfault.com

Regards,
Notta Libb