The Banality of the Unitary Executive

by emptywheel

It's weird, blogging the Libby trial. I'm putting out details at such a tremendous rate all day that I have a real hard time getting the big picture--though I do get that by the time I talk it through with others here. But I do feel like I'm missing the middle ground.

Except relating to one thing. David Addington. By far the biggest surprise to me, in terms of personal impressions, is David Addington.

As I've been reminding at every opportunity, David Addington is Mr. Unitary Executive, the guy who has provided legal justification for many of Cheney's biggest power grabs: torture, extraordinary rendition, domestic spying, and so on.

I truly expected his interviews to be terribly hostile. I truly expected to see Addington bristle at every question. But that didn't happen.

To me, David Addington has all the mannerisms and look of a physics or computer science professor. He has the beard of a professor, the modest (at least looking) suit, and he's kind of big-shouldered.

I found his response to questions even more interesting. He simply answered them, with no hesitation. He was apt to offer up information rather than hold it back. He would wander on and on, explaining all the details surrounding something (I remember his description of various classifications, for example, as this long conversation, "and then ... and then ... and then"). He is so obviously steeped in this world and these regulations that he just holds forth on them, with almost no filter.

And there seemed to be no effort to protect Libby--or even Cheney. This became most clear when Fitzgerald started talking about the document on which Cheney mentioned Bush (then crossed it out). Fitzgerald's point was that OVP had stamped a classification that is not really a classification on these documents--Treated as Top Secret/SCI--that is, as Addington explained, not really a classification, "treated as." Pretty damning stuff, catching Cheney and Libby protecting their own deliberations by classifying the hell out of them, inventing new classifications.

And Addington just described this as he had everything else, wandering on in a seemingly endless mumble. He showed no hint of trying to hide this information, no hint of embarrassment that the guy who is, after all, still his boss was trying to pull a fast one to protect his own actions.

Not what I expected.

Comments

[GREYDOG]

Emptywheel,

You are doing a great, great job!!! Thank you so much!

The news has been cancelled in America, but you and your collegues at firedoglake (and a few others in the blogsphere) are real American Heroes, resurrecting the news, making information and analysis available to those of us who are hungry for the truth. There is no better example of this than your live blogging at the Libby Trial. If you weren't there, we would get some diluted, b.s. version from the talking heads, at best...or nothing at all.

Thank you for your time, skills, intelligence and your patriotism. All of you women give me hope for the future of this country and I thank you for that. You are an inspiraton!

PS. Best to Jane Hamsher. I hope she is doing well.

[KdmFromPhila]

I like the reference to Hanna Arendt, well-suited for this administration.

[dunderhead]

Marcy,

Caught your webcast last night. Kudos! You and Jerelyn were wonderfully concise, easy to understand and sooo much better informed than the reporter I heard on CNN. It was great to see your lovey faces for the first time.

You are doing important work. I think you'll hear and report even bigger surprises. Please take care of yourselves!

On to Cheney!

[Pete]

I was surprised by Addington too.

[John Casper]

emptywheel, I would characterize your PoliticsTV appearances as unbelieveably economical. You listen closely to what Christy or Jeralyn says and then "riff" off their comment covering so much territory, so briefly. I'm glad they gave you your own mike.

Wrt Addington, my take, is that he's been hemmed in by his FBI testimony. As I learned from you, so many thought Ashcroft would protect them, why not tell the truth. He just went with the flow.
He might not be so calm in a later trial when Fitz starts asking why he didn't take any action to stop the leaking he clearly knew was going on. Addington may not have known it was Scooter, but he knew leaks were happening. My guess is he'll say, "not in my job description," FBI was handling it, or words to that effect. Given his access to the information that leaked, his tolerance for the leaks may not look so good down the road.

IMHO there are different kinds of intelligences. Some people are good in math, some science, some liberal arts, music, ethics, kinesthetics.... Some people such as yourself, are gifted in many areas and in addition you have that ethical core. IMHO, Addington doesn't have that ethical intelligence or core. He could just as easily be writing a program for updating bus schedules in Cleveland as justifying torture. He appears to have no historical sense for how counter his unitary executive runs to the entire American anti-monarchical tradition. His kind probably had no problem running concentration camps for the Third Reich or slaves prior under the Mason Dixon line or enforcing legalized white supremacy until the 60's. It's just another technical problem to him. IMHO, he probably figures Scooter is guilty, because he was not technically proficient in avoiding prosecution. It's just a high stakes video game.
Completely agree with KdmfromPhila about the Arendt reference.

[Jim E.]

In terms of Addington, right-wing wackos don't all have to be screamers like O'Reilly. And if you look at the brain-power in this administration, those who use their intellect to prop up their king are almost all soft-spoken folks who come across as very polite. Look at Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and now Addington. They are all fanatics, they are all waaaay to the right, they all scare the shit out of me, but they are all rather professorial in terms of their personal style. Heck, you could even put Newt Gingrich in that category: he says outlandish and non-outlandish things in the same reasonable-sounding way.

[J. Thomason]

Really all Addingtion has done from a rhetorical perspective with respect to the theory of the unitary exective is take interstitial voids in constitutional case law and filled them with an argument for executive power-a forensic trop actually for an interest apparently some what confused with respect to the nature of self-governance. In other words the Executive has chosen to find his limits in the checks of the other branches where they can actually be applied under a guiding principle of expansive power. It is a direct challange that governance be imposed by others in a search for the limits of self. A reaction to this tendency argues for narrower holdings with the Supreme Court as a matter of jurisprudence rather than expansive nuanced discursive considerations, but this is a technical consideration.

The hope inherent in this dialectic is that it is only truly addressed in our nature. What a wonderful opportunity to explore this you, EW, and others are affording.

[DonS]

EW - I appreciate all your effort. I read a few comments elsewhere about how the video could be "improved". I just shook my head; its great.

I realy enjoy your understated and occasional wryish, zingerish humor! Unless you intended it to be blatant, in which case, my apologies!

[Jodi]

{... very quitely and politely, ... )

There you go again, John Casper. Building them big mountain ranges out of simple mole hills.

I dare say that if a Democrat() President had been elected to office in 2000, and 2004, and had thought that some of these actions, that many here carry on about, were necessary, then you would be on the mountain peaks shouting down the conservatives that had doubts about implementation.

The major characteristic I have noted in all the blogs, left, liberal, democrat(), middle, republican, conservative, right is a tendency to demonize everyone else.

Of course again, I am reminded of the wise DemFromCT who kindly explained to me, that that is what is to be expected on a political blog.

And then there are those who when they really disagree call people names.

... and by the way I don't do that. God! I must be a technocrat! Or worse, objective.

[mainsailset]

Addington may well represent an authoritarian personality so well evolved that it has overridden any balance of humanity. His very being is so well entrenched in the economy of the monarchy he is creating that his radar screen is void of any balance. Truly dangerous.

A chilling thought is to compare Addington's open testimony to that of a psycopath who watches with distant interest the suffering of his victim. The detachment is what is the most telling.

[margaret]

He's a lawyer, for heavens sake! They objectify everything and remain, emotionally, outside of the case they handle. I've always thought that this behavior bordered on the amoral, but, I realize that the LAW is the only thing that matters and how a lawyer can interpret, manipulate, and creatively apply the law or the loopholes to achieve the desired result. Addington may be a demon, or just a cool cucumber lawyer.

Marcie, you are great!!!

[頒tbob]

keep those video reports coming, they're great

[John Casper]

Jodi, I was raised a Barry Goldwater Republican and I was dumb enough to vote for Bush in 2000. Google on "nation building." You'll find Ronald Reagan routinely ripped the U.N. for engaging in it. As I've reminded you before, the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the Federal Government from using the US military to enforce the law in the US. Iraq has no military objectives for the U.S. It needs a police force and legal institutions. Our troops aren't trained to provide that, especially in a foreign language and in a foreign culture.

[janinsanfran]

Thanks -- you've confirmed here what your live-blogging conveyed about Addington -- he came across as a fairly conventional, competent lawyer. And I'd expected a nasty scheming monarchist. But he doesn't feel any need to scheme.

These wingers live entirely in their elite bubble and spin happy castles in their heads, then are injured when their victims point out they are murderers.

[Redshift]

Thanks for clarifying who had marked documents "treat as," Marcy. It certainly sounded like a secrecy-obsessed Cheneyism, but from the liveblog bit about originals and copies I wasn't quite clear whether it was done by OVP or as some kind of privacy indication by the prosecutor's office.

The funniest thing about it is that, based on Fleischer's testimony, they treated actual secret information so casually, and yet they still thought that faux security labeling would protect their own embarrassing or incriminating information.

[alabama]

You've provided a precise, exact, and accurate description of someone with the look and the style of the late Richard Bissell.

[Redshift]

I dare say that if a Democrat() President had been elected to office in 2000, and 2004, and had thought that some of these actions, that many here carry on about, were necessary, then you would be on the mountain peaks shouting down the conservatives that had doubts about implementation.

I dare say you're entirely wrong, Jodi. Blogs didn't exist in the Clinton years, but he got plenty of crap (not cheers of support) for his "triangulation" and moves to the right. Since the only president who has come close to this level of deciding that such power grabs "were necessary" was Nixon, you'd have to start with a lot of wild assumptions to even speculate about this "what if."

And just because you don't engage in name-calling (except for "Democrat President") doesn't make you "objective." Making unsupported assertions like this one and gross generalizations about all political bloggers (except your own enlightened self, of course) pretty much lets you off the hook for that.

[Leslie in CA]

Anyone else having trouble accessing FDL? I'm getting server error messages.

[John Casper]

Yeah, I can't get in either.

[Leslie in CA]

I am jonesing, John Casper! I need my trial fix.

And btw, you are far more equable than I would be in certain situations.

[cboldt]

With FDL being unable to serve web pages, perhaps Marcy will post her notes here, until whatever issue at FDL is sorted out.

I sure hope she's not getting wrapped up in web-related troubleshooting at the expense of taking notes on the trial proceedings.

[Tap Duncan]

Yeah me too!! So much for getting the word out about our little secret addiction. I've been trying for 15 minutes now, and I just started to itch, now come the bugs crawling all over me, and then curling up on the floor in a fetal position with deep abdominal pains!! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jodi]

John,

John,

bear with me. I just had a little fun after reading that Democrat() Congress or some such was like chalking a board.

Never thought of it.

Probably last time I do it.

:)

I do have been blocked, at least temporarily, from FDL. Perhaps their host has noticed all the traffic.

:(

[clueless]

emptywheel - have the servers crashed at FDL? Doesn't refresh for me nor take any comment updates - says something about server problems. Figured I'd try to here since FDL appears to be down. Status?

[clueless]

btw, emptywheel, your last Judy update ended at 11:00, per my computer update ('server down').