Mary McCarthy

by hilzoy

DaveC asks, in comments, why no one has commented on Mary McCarthy. I can't speak for anyone else, but in my case it was a combination of two things: first, being busy (this will end soon, I hope), and second, the fact that I really didn't think I knew enough about what had happened, and wanted to wait a bit to see what came out. What came out has only made things less clear: McCarthy denies that she leaked any classified information, and that she was the source of Dana Priest's story in particular. She says that she was fired for having unauthorized contact to reporters, which could cover anything from running into a reporter at the supermarket to being Deep Throat. And:

"Though McCarthy acknowledged having contact with reporters, a senior intelligence official confirmed yesterday that she is not believed to have played a central role in The Post's reporting on the secret prisons. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing personnel matters."

Some thoughts about this below the fold.

First, I am happy with the side of me that held off on this one because I hadn't seen McCarthy's side of it. It's the cautious side that also, for instance, accounts for my not having jumped on any of the various Duke LaCrosse team bandwagons, and that makes me say, every so often: these people are people, not characters in our private storylines.

Second, I think that the decision to leak classified information because you think that the public needs to know about it should never, ever be undertaken lightly. There is, and should be, a very large presumption that it is the wrong decision. Our classification system may be all screwed up in any number of ways, but a "system" in which people got to just decide for themselves what to leak and what not to leak would be worse.

That said, I think that leaking it is sometimes justified. The existence of a system for the classification and declassification of documents is important, but it's not the most important thing in the world, and sometimes its importance might be outweighed. Consider a purely imaginary example, which I am just making up for the sake of argument and do not actually believe: suppose that the US government was behind 9/11, and that Osama bin Laden is just a two-bit idiot who was glad to claim it for the free publicity. Otherwise, things are just as they are now: in particular, people are all worried about Islamic terrorism in just the way they are now. I think that in that case, leaking this information would absolutely be the right thing to do. That said, I think that the decision to leak classified information for the public good is an incredibly difficult one that should never, ever be undertaken lightly; and that, as with civil disobedience, the best way to do it is publicly, and with a willingness to accept the consequences.

I also think that one needs to weigh the importance to the public of knowing the information in question against the damage its revelation will do to ongoing operations. Sometimes, harmless information that has for some reason been classified would not matter to the public. Suppose, for instance, that someone had classified Porter Goss' favorite color: revealing this would not damage anything, but neither would it provide us with any information that we actually need to know. In a case like this, I think that the only relevant fact is that it's classified, and thus that even though a leak would do no damage, it would be wrong. You need a real case for the public's need to know in order to begin to overcome the presumption in favor of respecting classification, and there is no such case here.

This is one reason why I think that leaking Valerie Plame's name was clearly wrong: there was no public need to know, and the damage it did was serious. (This is so even if one buys the story that Valerie Plame herself wasn't really undercover anymore, that the front company the leak exposed didn't really matter, etc. That leak told agents in the CIA that their identities could be revealed for political purposes. And that knowledge has to damage their willingness to put their lives in danger for our government.)

Third, if it turns out that McCarthy leaked classified information, I think her firing was justified. This does not mean that I don't also think her leak was justified. That would depend on, for instance, what she leaked, and why. To pick a non-hypothetical example: I think that Daniel Ellsberg was right to leak the Pentagon Papers; but I also think that it would have been appropriate for the RAND corporation to fire him once he had done so.

Fourth, about whoever helped to leak the Washington Post story: the story cites as its sources "U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement." Steve Clemons has an interesting post on Priest's sources, which he wrote about before this story broke. He cites an earlier post in which he wrote:

"But TWN has confirmed from multiple sources that the Senate Republican blame-fest after the Dana Priest article was even more theatrically absurd because Priest had no single source on that story. She had many, many sources in the U.S. and in Europe."

He now adds:

"My hunches are that her source(s), are in Europe -- not the United States. Dana Priest made two long trips through Europe and Eastern Europe these last couple of years and developed much of her material on the secret prisons there."

Obviously, if the leaker was not a US government official or a US citizen, then s/he is not bound by the same rules, and a leak is a lot easier to justify. If the leaker was a US citizen or official with clearance, then a lot depends on what s/he said. Some of the officials quoted in the story are pretty clearly trying to defend the CIA. Thus, consider the source of this:

"Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay."

Assuming that Priest already had the story when she talked to this source, the source seems to have provided not facts about the prison system, but a possible rationale. (In fact, this one seems as though it might be an authorized leak -- e.g., someone who was authorized to talk to Priest when the agency found out that she had the story.)

Others discuss the agency's decision-making and morale. Thus:

"Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?'""

and:

"Meanwhile, the debate over the wisdom of the program continues among CIA officers, some of whom also argue that the secrecy surrounding the program is not sustainable.

"It's just a horrible burden," said the intelligence official."

Some concern history:

"The idea of holding terrorists outside the U.S. legal system was not under consideration before Sept. 11, 2001, not even for Osama bin Laden, according to former government officials. The plan was to bring bin Laden and his top associates into the U.S. justice system for trial or to send them to foreign countries where they would be tried.

"The issue of detaining and interrogating people was never, ever discussed," said a former senior intelligence officer who worked in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, during that period. "It was against the culture and they believed information was best gleaned by other means.""

With the exception of the first ('defensive') quote, none of these quotes reveals operations, sources, or methods. I think that all but the first are justifiable, since none reveals classified information (as best I can tell), and that the first was clearly justifiable if authorized.

The trickier question, of course, concerns those sources who reveal classified information. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the person who originally leaked the story was a CIA official. And suppose further that that person had protested through channels without success. (This does not seem to me to be at all unlikely, at the moment. Neither the leadership of the CIA nor the Congress seems to have any interest in investigating abuses or possible violations of law.)

The argument in favor of the leak is: the fact that the US government is running a string of secret prisons into which people disappear, without charges or any real oversight, and where they are tortured and (in at least one case reported in the story) killed. This is not a minor detail. It is a serious violation of US and international law. And by 'a violation of US law' I do not mean that we are allowing the CIA to do abroad things that it would not be allowed to do in the US. The law provides for that. I mean that we have signed a variety of treaties that have the force of law, and that prohibit us from doing these things anywhere. Moreover, this is something the American people should know. We normally (used to) assume that our government does not just 'disappear' people, the way the Argentinian junta did, and throw them into prisons that no one knows about, where they can be tortured, and where no one will ever be able to find out what happened to them, since the very existence of these prisons is secret. We normally (used to) think that our government did not maintain a sort of legal black hole into which it could make people vanish at will. Finding out that our government does these things matters in a democracy.

The argument against is, of course, that classified information is classified, and it should not be up to individuals to decide unilaterally that classified information should be released.

I think that this one is a tough call. I think that the leak would be justified, but I can see the other side. However, I remain unconvinced that this leak did come from within the CIA.

Here's one that came from somewhere in the intelligence community, however:

"In hindsight, say some former and current intelligence officials, the CIA's problems were exacerbated by another decision made within the Counterterrorist Center at Langley.

The CIA program's original scope was to hide and interrogate the two dozen or so al Qaeda leaders believed to be directly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, or who posed an imminent threat, or had knowledge of the larger al Qaeda network. But as the volume of leads pouring into the CTC from abroad increased, and the capacity of its paramilitary group to seize suspects grew, the CIA began apprehending more people whose intelligence value and links to terrorism were less certain, according to four current and former officials.

The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored, they said. "They've got many, many more who don't reach any threshold," one intelligence official said."

Suppose that Dana Priest already had the main story when she talked to this intelligence official. She knew about the prisons; she knew that people from al Qaeda were being held in them; and she was going to publish that information. Suppose also, as before, that this official had tried to have this policy changed through normal channels, and failed. Would it be justifiable to provide this detail? I think so. Note, first, that it's unclear that the fact that the standard for keeping suspects in those prisons has been lowered is classified. The essential bits of plainly classified information in this passage -- the existence of prisons in which we keep suspected al Qaeda members, and our ability to apprehend suspected terrorists -- I am assuming (for the sake of argument) that Priest already had; I can imagine ways of providing the quote in the article without actually confirming that. (The charade of "supposing for the moment that there is such a program, which I do not concede...". This would be a charade, of course; but that just underscores the fact that if Priest already knew this, then whether or not an agent goes through it doesn't matter much, as far as revealing secrets is concerned.) The new information is that we have loosened our standards a lot and are as a result holding people whose connection to terrorism is dubious incommunicado in secret prisons.

Moreover, this information is also important for us to know. It matters a lot that the prisons we're talking about are not being used just to house a dozen senior al Qaeda members, and that they are showing the usual tendency of programs to grow beyond their original purpose. In this case, the information does not compromise sources, methods, or operations (on the assumption that Priest had the main story, that was already done.) It's not clear what classified information is added by the disclosure that the standards have been lowered. It is clear, however, why this information matters to the American public.

But the only reason I think this is because I think that this information is very important for citizens in a democracy to know. In most cases, I would take a completely different view, since, as I said, I think that the general rule has to be: you keep classified information secret.

Comments

[liberaljaponicus]

I disagreed with the whole premise that the US Govt intended for Maher Arar to be tortured, for instance.

I hope this isn't piling on here, but this comment reveals an interesting point. I don't think anyone here and certainly not anyone who I have read and given any kind of thought or time to has ever suggested that the US Government 'intended' that Maher Arar be tortured. In fact, I think that most people believe that the government didn't intend that innocent people be tortured, but given the haphazard, extralegal pull things out of one's hindquarters rationales that are being invoked, it is inevitable that things like this will happen, which makes it even more damning. If I drink and drive, and plow into a group of people, no one is going to claim that I 'intended' to run them down, but the opprobrium that I would get (and rightly deserve) is not based in any way on my intent. In a similar way, much of the criticism those on the left are throwing at the administration simply thinks the question of intent is irrelevant. Yet you are reading into this criticism a belief that we have something to say about the intent of the government. Taking you as a representative conservative, I have to suggest that if there is always such a mistaken view of how and under what criteria those on the left are judging the administration, we are doomed to be unable to communicate.

[Jesurgislac]

liberaljaponicus: I don't think anyone here and certainly not anyone who I have read and given any kind of thought or time to has ever suggested that the US Government 'intended' that Maher Arar be tortured.

Do you really believe that?

Yes, I suppose you do. Well, that's a lesson to me: I'd never supposed that anyone could read Katherine's excellent series of posts on Maher Arar and not realise that the US Government intended that he should be tortured. Why else, after all, would he have been sent to Syria rather than to Canada?

[liberaljaponicus]

Jes,
I don't know why you like to pick fights with people who are arguing from the same basic principles as you. I could do the Gary thing and suggest that governments can't actually intend anything, but that would be even less helpful than your comment. The fact of the matter is that I am suggesting that there is a chain of reasoning on DaveC's part that goes like this.
-The US government doesn't intend to harm the innocent
-making that assumption (and for the record, I take the position that only the pathologically criminal want to punish innocents), I (DaveC) see that many people are criticizing the US government, so they are therefore arguing that the government is intent on harming innocents
-therefore, any criticism, because it is based on that notion of government intent, is invalid

Now, if you want to pull a threadjack about how criminal the Bush admin is, and make yourself happy that you are moral pure, that's your call. But for me, it is much more damning not that they are intent on hurting innocents, but that they just don't care. They don't notice and if they do notice, they cover up because they don't want to admit that their negligence and poor planning has real world consequences. To me, the person who goes out to harm the innocent cannot be reasoned with, because you cannot get them to see even a slight overlap with your worldview. But you can make the person who acts out of negligence and pride and arrogance see that they have screwed up. While it might not be possible for Bush, Cheney et. al because one can never create a situation where they can realize and empathize with someone like Maher Arar, I am praying that it can be done with someone like DaveC or any other conservative who engages here. Hearts and minds is not something that just exists in Iraq or the Middle East, but everywhere where people try and discuss these issues.

[liberaljaponicus]

I should add that when I said
I could do the Gary thing and suggest that governments can't actually intend anything, but that would be even less helpful than your comment.

I meant no disrespect to Gary, I just meant that in this case, it would not, imo, do anything to change your opinion.

[DaveC]

Certainly I tend to think more about mnimizing the number of would be terrorists that get away, and some of my friends here are more concerned about minimizing the number of innocents that get sucked into some black hole of detention, and of course the ideal is to minimize both of those bad outcomes.

Which is hard to do.

[Anarch]

But for me, it is much more damning not that they are intent on hurting innocents, but that they just don't care. They don't notice and if they do notice, they cover up because they don't want to admit that their negligence and poor planning has real world consequences.

Unsurprisingly, this is very similar to Frankfurt's analysis of bullshit; in particular, his contention that bullshit is in some way worse than lying because at least the liar respects the truth enough to subvert it, whereas the bullshitter simply doesn't care. And it definitely seems as if this larger pathology is at work in the Bush Administration, viz the remarks about no longer being "reality-based": warmed-over Nietzscheanism at its finest.

[Gary Farber]

"Gery, you'll have to admit that you are putting a whuoopin on me bcause the is a distinct lack of conservativt tarkets around these parts."

Wow, I so won't.

I have stated repeatedly, dozens of times, how much I think it's a bad thing that ObWings doesn't have more regular posts from conservatives, as it happens. Dozens and dozens and dozens of times.

So, no, I'm as sure I don't have to admit to otherwise as I'm sure 2 and 2 don't make 5. Because it's completely untrue.

"Now, your issue with me goes way back to the memo from Sen Jay Rockefeller's office...."

Cite, please? News to me. A link would be good.

"Now quite frankly, I do think that many newspapers, broadcast TV and radio stations do self-censor so as to not present any positive, and I actally do think that that is politically motivated."

I'm pretty unclear what this means. Tv stations are conspiring against you?

Tv stations and newspapers don't want to agree with you? What? Is this like getting messages in your teeth?

"But the fact of the matter is I just say what I think. I am not a writer, nor an acedemic. I 'm not as knowledgeable as you are about current events."

Hey, DaveC, I'm a college dropout who didn't complete freshman year. I just say what I think, too. But if you completed college, I guess I'll have to object to your elitism. Or something. What the hell?

I mean, I didn't get through freshman year at college. So what the eff are you talking about here? And what, exactly, is your point?

It's not often that I get to use the fact that I'm a college drop-out who didn't even complete freshman year as a discussion point, so forgive me for saying what the eff?

(Although if I had, I'd still ask: what the eff? How would ad hominem change the facts?)

I miss the old days when you used to respond to facts. I wouldn't get so irate at you if I didn't miss that DaveC. I liked that DaveC. I'm bothered by the fact that the recent DaveC seems to be determined to live up to the Glenn Greenwald stereotype of Republicans whose beliefs are determined by emotion and preference and refusal to respond to facts.

I don't know how to respond to people who don't respond to facts, and to comment after comment after comment.

I hope the old DaveC is still there, and will return. I really liked him.

And I still wish ObWings would find a couple of conservatives and/or libertarians to regularly post.

[Gary Farber]

"I meant no disrespect to Gary, I just meant that in this case, it would not, imo, do anything to change your opinion."

This is good, because otherwise I wouldn't know, also, what the heck you were talking about. I don't recall ever speaking about what goverments do and don't intend, here, or about the Bush government's "intent" regarding torture.

(Although I may have spoken before of government consisting of individuals, and of them compiling intent into policy, or somesuch.)

[KCinDC]

Gary, I don't see where you're getting anything about TV stations conspiring against him out of DaveC's remark. To me it seems to be a relatively straightforward statement of the standard conservative claim that the "liberal" media are refusing to report the good news, in order to make Bush (or Republicans in general) look bad.

And your response to LJ seems itself to be an example of doing the Gary thing -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Gary Farber]

"Certainly I tend to think more about mnimizing the number of would be terrorists that get away, and some of my friends here are more concerned about minimizing the number of innocents that get sucked into some black hole of detention, and of course the ideal is to minimize both of those bad outcomes."

Anyone sane wants to catch terrorists, and not suck innocents into detention, DaveC, right? Certainly all liberals want to, you know, catch terrorists.

As it happens, lots of us lived in NYC, worked in the World Trade Center, and have friends who lived across the street. Like me. Which is why I get so irate when you tend to imply otherwise. How many months did you work in the building, exactly? How many friends do you have who were forced out after the crash?

I was lucky enough to not have a friend who died there, but I have friends who have friends and relatives who died there. This is part of why your tendency to suggest that people who differ from you don't tends to, well, enrage me. They fu--, er, effing died. And we want to fight the members of al Qaeda who did that, and want to do such things again.

So I'd really appreciate it if you'd, like, keep that in mind. Damnit. It's that effing simple. When you imply otherwise, I get damn mad. Because we're all in this together. Even people like us Democrats. Goddamnit.

Why you imply otherwise, and like Rush Limbaugh, and such folks (woo, drug addicts), who say otherwise, I have no idea. We happen to be patriots, too. And why I even have to explain this, I also don't know.

I love America. And so do all Democrats. So, [CENSORED].

Jeebus! I have friends who have been killed by terrorist bombs, DaveC! Have you?! Where the eff do you get off with this sh*t? I'm Jewish, and plenty of folks want to kill me because. I have relatives killed in the Holocaust, and I have friends killed in Israel. Where the hell do you get off with any implication that you and your preferred politicians care more about terrorism than I and mine do? Where do you get the effing right?

Tell me where you get the moral right there, DaveC. Because I. Don't. Effing. See. It.

I know dead folk. Do you? Do you have the dead relatives?

[DaveC]

Look, Gary, the place I work used to be owned by Israeli ex-pats, and there was a branch in Haifa. And they are liberals, and they joint ventured little business things with Palestinians and a guy I saw every day at work was friends with people who were killed in the Hebrew U. bombings. I can sort of follow along if I am at temple with friends by reading the phonetic parts and glancing at the English translation, and I get it to the extent that I know to wear the yarmulke but of course not the prayer shawl. I totally support Israel's right to exist, and not just to fulfill some Biblical prophesy.

I do like to stir things up a bit, but quite frankly I am not Sebastian, who is much more logical, consistant and well spoken than I am. I sympathize with Von quite a bit because he never had quite the time to write the perfect post or respond perfectly in the comments. And I guess that was what I was trying to get at by pointing out that I'm not a writer or academic (my assumption is that most people in the Humanities have learned to write well, and quickly over the years).

And, uh, by the way I do have dead relatives but by natural causes, old age really, and I was sort of expecting it.

[DaveC]

Here's the Rockefeller memo link and text:

Rockefeller memo

Here is the full text of the memo from the office of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa.) on setting a strategy for pursuing an independent investigation of pre-war White House intelligence dealings on Iraq.

We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows:

1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard.

For example, in addition to the President's State of the Union speech, the chairman [Sen. Pat Roberts] has agreed to look at the activities of the office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department.

The fact that the chairman supports our investigations into these offices and cosigns our requests for information is helpful and potentially crucial. We don't know what we will find but our prospects for getting the access we seek is far greater when we have the backing of the majority. [We can verbally mention some of the intriguing leads we are pursuing.]

2) Assiduously prepare Democratic 'additional views' to attach to any interim or final reports the committee may release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we intend to take full advantage of it.

In that regard we may have already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by senior administration officials. We will identify the most exaggerated claims. We will contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified. Our additional views will also, among other things, castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.

The Democrats will then be in a strong position to reopen the question of establishing an Independent Commission [i.e., the Corzine Amendment.]

3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once.

The best time to do so will probably be next year, either:

A) After we have already released our additional views on an interim report, thereby providing as many as three opportunities to make our case to the public. Additional views on the interim report (1). The announcement of our independent investigation (2). And (3) additional views on the final investigation. Or:

B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence.

In the meantime, even without a specifically authorized independent investigation, we continue to act independently when we encounter footdragging on the part of the majority. For example, the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at the request of the vice chairman. We have independently submitted written requests to the DOD and we are preparing further independent requests for information.

SUMMARY: Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.

The approach outlined above seems to offer the best prospect for exposing the administration's dubious motives.

It pretty much has disappeared from Google for some reason.

[Gary Farber]

Y'know, DaveC, meeting me that much, ok. Thanks. I've been having a very angry evening, I've realized, and I probably shouldn't have taken so much out on you, though I don't withdraw any of my points. I'm just saying that I was angry, and that it wasn't entirely at you, although I also don't hold with various things you've said.

But I have to say that I'm impressed at your holding your own temper at me. That sort of thing is always impressive. Mr. Gandhi thought so, and he was right. (If anyone, however, cites "Ghandi," at me, I will mock them.)

So good for you.

I still think, of course, that you make a lot of foolish and non-factual comments, but I'd like to get back to discussing actual facts, if we could, ok?

[Gary Farber]

There are still, of course, endless numbers of points of debate here, DaveC. Do you acknowledge that "liberals" and Democrats, such as me and Hilzoy, and others here, are patriots who wish to protect our country and fight terrorists, for instance? I can't believe I have to even ask such a question, but given previous nonsense and crap from you, I have to. Are we all in this together, or not?

[Gary Farber]

Or to hit a certain point, is Senator Edward Kennedy, brother of President John Edward Kennedy, a patriot, and a fighter for our country, or not?

Ditto that Senator Hillary Clinton? Patriot, or traitor terror symp?

I'd like to know what terms we are talking about. Political debate among reasonable people, or wacky stuff?

[DaveC]

Yeah, I do get it Gary, that most people who dislike the Bush administration don''t really want the bad guys to win.

Here's a link to Roger L Simon discussing the problems of broadly categorizing political differences.

Also, more on whistleblowing from neo-neocon.

[DaveC]

Also, I miss a lot of stuff because I dont get cable at home. Dont know where I was, but week or two ago I saw on CNN (Anderson Cooper?) Hugh Hewitt, Michael Yon, and Michael Ware (sp?). Whodathunkit?

[Jesurgislac]

DaveC: Yeah, I do get it Gary, that most people who dislike the Bush administration don''t really want the bad guys to win.

Reciprocally, I accept that even though you support the Bush administration, you're not doing so because you want the bad guys to win. (You've said elsewhere that you want to support the party that's strongest on national security, so it's kind of weird that you continue to support the party that's weakest on national security, but that's party politics for you: I blame William III.)

[liberaljaponicus]

Reciprocally, I accept that even though you support the Bush administration, you're not doing so because you want the bad guys to win.

I guess it's as good a time as any for a group hug!

[Jesurgislac]

*group hug*

[Donald Johnson]

Count me out of the group hug. All this William III bashing is getting on my nerves.

Not that I understood the reference, mind you.

[Gary Farber]

*group hug* including Donald against his will! (Us commie collectivists do that, you know.)

[John Thullen]

The next time Obwings has a group hug, can we book a room at the Watergate?

We swim in waters opaque with passionate political sediment. Let me make clear that what I really want to do is strangle Ann Coulter and company with my bare hands. Then I want to have a beer with DaveC.

I hate linking and the other proprieties of commenting, but I want to have a beer with Gary.

I want to drink bourbon with Jes.

LJ and I will mix our liquors and pass out. (No, I exaggerate. The last time I mixed sake and tequila, the deed took place in the hills of Kowloon, and I passed out in Manila)

Gary, I'm glad you mention your time at WTC. I find that a good countervailing weight to a guy named Tacitus, who when listing his bonafides as the MOST outraged (his outrage being of a purity lesser beings can only aspire to) person on Earth by the attacks on the WTC, likes to mention the ash that settled in his wife's hair that awful day.

I wish he would wash her hair, already, and then go find Osama Bin Laden. That said, Tacitus may be in the post-group hug picture and go out with us afterwards, sport.

DaveC.: "Like Sebastian, who is much more logical, consistent, and much more well-spoken than I am."

Which drives me stark-raving crazy when we're all trying to have an emotionally-gruelling knock-down, drag-out over Social Security. Pause the group hug for a moment to flash 18 smiley emoticons at Sebastian.

And don't get me started on Slart's insistence on using a regular hammer to knock those nails in when installing wood floors.

By the way, if I ever hear that Hilzoy has been hustled off to a secret prison by the Bush Administration, all bets are off and Mr. Nice Guy starts the insurrection.

[Gary Farber]

Incidentally, it's been a few years since I was able to afford cable tv. When I had housemates, about three years ago, yeah. But not since.

[Gary Farber]

For the record, I once had a job in the WTC. I worked at a Chase Bank office umpty miles in the sky. It was long ago, and far away. It was, in fact, one of the first jobs I ever had, practically as a kid.

They actually fingerprinted me to be on a vast floor of typists. It was 1976 or so, and I was very very very young.

I had to type stuff off a never-ending reel of info. It was mind-numbing. I didn't last long. It was as close to factory work as I ever came.

But year after year after year I took visiting friends to the building to See It.

We went up to the top floor. We did the tourist schtick.

Dozens and dozens and dozens of times, year after year after year. Just like we'd visit the Empire State Building, and the Village, and Fifth Avenue, and all of the standard stops on my Tourist Guide To NYC tour, that I did as a native of Brooklyn, born and bred in Flatbush and Midwood, raised at 1047 East 10th St., between Avenue J and K.

And then I spent a year or so living on Clinton St., in the 90s, not a long walk from the WTC.

And all my many years there, I walked past it, and visited it, and went up and down the elevators, and walked near it. Trinity Church, and J&R's Electronics, and City Hall, and the whole damn thing.

My effing picture on my blog is of me at Battery Park, circa 1995, a few blocks from the then WTC. A short walk. A few hot dog stands away.

It was a site intimate to me.

And I had friends who lived literally lived across the street. Michael, who wasn't able to return home for about a year. Who had friends who died there. Ellie, who same same.

And on and on.

So I tend to be (more than) irate when someone implies that I, or other New Yorkers, don't care about terrorism.

We're all in this together.

And no one should ever forget that.

[Gary Farber]

And, yet, despite all my friends who walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, that day, ash falling in their own hair -- we're Democrats, and lifelong members of the ACLU.

We belive in liberty, and freedom, and the ideals of America.

Strange that so many Republicans don't, but are instead for torture, and censorship, and arresting dissenters, and for seeking out members of that anti-American organization, the CIA, who want to report the truth, rather than what our rulers want to hear.

Strange.

They imagine the suppression of people printed in our nation's most read newspapers and magazines, and claim their voices can't be heard. They hallucinate. They accuse.

They want to use the power of law to arrest those who disagree with them. Some, like Ann Coulter, want to blow up the buildings of those who report news they dislike, and poison Justices whose decisions they dislike.

That's not just strange. That's evil.

Meanwhile, our ruling party is one of bribes and refusal to protect our ports, and for know-nothing nativism, opposed to people speaking other languages, and against hard-working people working for low wages to support our country. They, essentially, hate all that is good and right about America, our land that is supposed to stand for justice, and freedom.

And they call us, who disagree, traitors.

God bless America.

Even if they hate it.

[Ugh]

Gary's latest (4/30 at 2:32pm) reminds me of how the Bush administration, if they could, would re-write the Constitution. In Larry Diamond's Squandered Victory, he discusses the writing of the interim constitution that was to govern Iraq. What was the Bush administration's position?
They objected to the exclusionary rule, "the CPA pressed for wording that would allow illegally obtained evidence (including coerced confessions) to be admissible in court if the evidence 'could have been obtained' without the use of illegal methods." (page 147 of the paperback).

The Bush Administration pushes for a "strong -- almost presidential -- prime minister." (page 153)

"the Americans were urging a simple majority vote in the transitional assembly to ratify a treaty." (page 159) Diamond comments, "I found it bizarre, disturbing, and politically unwise for the United States to be asking the emerging Iraqi democracy to accept a lower threshold for treaty ratification than the Founders of the United States had deemed appropriate. I was appalled, and at the same time amused, to see -- not for the only time -- the Iraqis taking the more democratic side of a constitutional argument with the United States....the request for a low threshold for treaty ratification was being driven from Washington....Again and again, down to the final negotiations, the Americans insisted ona simple-majority approval. 'The fact that we keep mentioning this should tell you how important it is to us,' Bremer's deputy, Ambassador Richard Jones [said]." (Id.)

"'The American position was that they did not want any restrictions on their [force] movements. And they wanted to make it clear that the Bill of Rights only applied to the Iraqi government. Only the Iraqi government would need an arrest warrant; the multinational force could break down doors.'" (page 161)

[DaveC]

should have been inserted a couple of comments earlier.

[Dave]

hmm I tried to put in a fake "/grouphug" and it didn't show.

Back to the fray:

Meanwhile, our ruling party is one of bribes and refusal to protect our ports, and for know-nothing nativism, opposed to people speaking other languages, and against hard-working people working for low wages to support our country. They, essentially, hate all that is good and right about America, our land that is supposed to stand for justice, and freedom.

And they call us, who disagree, traitors.

Billy Beck points to This Essay, if that's what the kind of thing you are talking about.

[rilkefan]

"I want to drink bourbon with Jes."

We know what kind.

[John Thullen]

Rilkefan, my Boswell, not that I resemble in any way what's-his-name, remembers what goes around and makes it come around.

[dutchmarbel]

It's a shame Jes doesn't live in Bournemouth, since I'll be there with the family for a few days :)