Obsidian Wings

What Price? What Gain?

by von

Katherine questions (below) whether the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" are effective.  I can't answer that; as Katherine rightly points out, the evidence for and against is classified (and perhaps rightly so).  We can know, however, that torture did not work in the case of Maher Arar, a case long chronicled on this blog.  From today's Washington Post:

The inquiry, which focused on the Canadian intelligence services, found that agents who were under pressure to find terrorists after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, falsely labeled an Ottawa computer consultant, Maher Arar, as a dangerous radical. They asked U.S. authorities to put him and his wife, a university economist, on the al-Qaeda "watchlist," without justification, the report said.

Arar was also listed as "an Islamic extremist individual" who was in the Washington area on Sept. 11. The report concluded that he had no involvement in Islamic extremism and was on business in San Diego that day, said the head of the inquiry commission, Ontario Justice Dennis O'Connor.

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan -- where he never has been -- and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.

O'Connor concluded that "categorically there is no evidence" that Arar did anything wrong or was a security threat.

The case against torture has always been both practical and moral.  Practical because the evidence shows, again and again, that information extracted by force is not trustworthy.  You can't know whether you're hearing the truth, a lie, or some mixture of the two. Moral because we should not adopt the tactics of our enemy, lest we blur the distinction between us and them.

The latter gets a lot of focus from some on the anti-war left.  And it is important.  But the practical concerns are what should pique* the ears of anyone serious about fighting this war.  We have already suffered systematic failures of intelligence.  In trying to right our course, we should not make new errors -- errors that, in the case of Maher Arar, resulted in a grevious injustice.

UPDATE:

*"Pique" originally read "peak," much to my current embarrassment.  Dan the Man caught the error.  My apologies; I'll plead a very busy schedule.  (Incidentally, Slartibartfast, I'm in your neck of the woods for about the next six weeks -- off and on, with one of my "offs" taken as a quickie trip to The City, downsouth from Jesu.  Drinks?)

"An Intelligence Program We Know Has Helped Save Lives"

by Katherine

Senator Mitch McConnell, via the Corner:

"For example, I imagine it would be awkward for many of my Democrat colleagues to go home and explain a vote to provide sensitive, classified information to terrorists, to shut down an intelligence program that we know has helped save lives, or to allow international courts to define the meaning of Common Article III—rather than the U.S. Congress—and put our troops at risk.

What we do know for sure, without question -- no ambiguity -- is that the current program works and has saved us from terrorist attacks and prevented us from being attacked again at home for over five years. The President needs tools to conduct these programs effectively to protect Americans at home. His proposal for terrorist detainees is one of those important tools. We do not all agree at this point, but we will have that discussion on the Senate floor."

This isn't true. We do not know that the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" have saved lives. The President claims that they have, but he is not a disinterested or trustworthy source. Although he was able to selectively declassify the intelligence that he thought best supported his argument, his evidence of the program's "saving lives" was vague and conclusory, and maybe also false.

What we do know for sure, without question -- no ambiguity -- is that the CIA's program has led to prisoners being tortured to death.

Still More Sweden-Blogging

by hilzoy

Sweden just turned the Social Democrats out of office:

"Sveriges nye statsminister heter Fredrik Reinfeldt. ”Svenska folket har röstat fram en alliansregering”, utropade moderatledaren inför jublande partimedlemmar sent i går kväll. Göran Persson avgår som statsminister och ledare för socialdemokraterna.

Strax före klockan elva i går kväll sträckte Fredrik Reinfeldt armarna i luften på valvakan på Nalen i Stockholm.

– De nya moderaterna är 2006 års val största valsegrare! utropade moderatledaren.

När rösterna vid midnatt hade räknats i 5768 av de 5783 valdistrikten stod det klart att de borgerliga tar hem en historisk seger i riksdagsvalet. Men de vinner med knapp marginal. Alliansen får 48,1 procent av rösterna, medan socialdemokraterna, miljöpartiet och vänsterpartiet tillsammans landar på 46,2 procent. Detta ger de borgerliga partierna sju mandats övervikt i riksdagen."

Oops! Sorry about that. What I meant to say was:

"Sweden swept away 12 years of center-left government on Sunday, voting to reject its longtime prime minister, Goran Persson, in favor of a conservative candidate who has pledged to revise the Swedish welfare state.

With almost all the votes counted by 11 p.m., three hours after the polls closed, the right-of-center coalition led by the leader of the Moderate Party, Fredrik Reinfeldt, had taken 48.1 percent of the vote, compared with 46.2 percent for the Social Democrats and their left-of-center allies."

This will probably be less of a change than it might seem, as far as policy is concerned:

"But in a country that likes stability, Mr. Reinfeldt has been at pains to cast his plans as a fine-tuning, rather than a full-scale overhaul, of Sweden’s economic model. “The Nordic welfare model is in many aspects a good model,” he said as he campaigned Sunday, “but it needs more of a choice for individuals.” (...)

In the previous election four years ago, Mr. Reinfeldt’s party was trounced at the polls when it ran on a traditional platform of big tax cuts and deep reductions in social security benefits. When he became party leader, Mr. Reinfeldt acknowledged that such a stance was unlikely to win any elections in a country that is essentially happy with its underlying big-government, high-tax system.

So he moved the party to the center and settled on unemployment as an issue on which the government would be particularly vulnerable."

Or as I said a few weeks ago:

"The debate between the left and right seems to be much less about what programs the government should pay for than about the best ways of implementing those programs. People think about questions like: should the government run all hospitals, or should private hospitals compete with public ones while receiving full public reimbursement for medical care? This is a debate that takes place, in the US, on the left: most liberals support some sort of national health insurance, but we divide about which particular version is best."

(For anyone interested in the debate over Swedish unemployment numbers, Dean Baker has a good comment. I asked people about it while I was over there; the consensus seemed to be that after decades of having very low unemployment, Sweden had morphed into a more standard European country, in that respect, during the mid-90s.)

If I had to guess -- and I shouldn't really, I don't know enough -- I'd say that the real effect will be to get the Social Democrats to ask themselves some tough and interesting questions. And asking oneself tough and interesting questions is always a good thing.

Krugman On Torture

by hilzoy

And here's Krugman on the administration bill, in an editorial called 'King of Pain':

"A lot has been written and said about President Bush’s demand that Congress “clarify” the part of the Geneva Conventions that, in effect, outlaws the use of torture under any circumstances.

We know that the world would see this action as a U.S. repudiation of the rules that bind civilized nations. We also know that an extraordinary lineup of former military and intelligence leaders, including Colin Powell, have spoken out against the Bush plan, warning that it would further damage America’s faltering moral standing, and end up endangering U.S. troops.

But I haven’t seen much discussion of the underlying question: why is Mr. Bush so determined to engage in torture?"

Krugman then considers and rejects a number of possibilities that will be familiar to our readers. Is torture needed? No. does it even work? No. And so on. He then gets to the heart of the matter:

"So why is the Bush administration so determined to torture people?

To show that it can.

The central drive of the Bush administration — more fundamental than any particular policy — has been the effort to eliminate all limits on the president’s power. Torture, I believe, appeals to the president and the vice president precisely because it’s a violation of both law and tradition. By making an illegal and immoral practice a key element of U.S. policy, they’re asserting their right to do whatever they claim is necessary.

And many of our politicians are willing to go along. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives is poised to vote in favor of the administration’s plan to, in effect, declare torture legal. Most Republican senators are equally willing to go along, although a few, to their credit, have stood with the Democrats in opposing the administration.

Mr. Bush would have us believe that the difference between him and those opposing him on this issue is that he’s willing to do what’s necessary to protect America, and they aren’t. But the record says otherwise.

The fact is that for all his talk of being a “war president,” Mr. Bush has been conspicuously unwilling to ask Americans to make sacrifices on behalf of the cause — even when, in the days after 9/11, the nation longed to be called to a higher purpose. His admirers looked at him and thought they saw Winston Churchill. But instead of offering us blood, toil, tears and sweat, he told us to go shopping and promised tax cuts.

Only now, five years after 9/11, has Mr. Bush finally found some things he wants us to sacrifice. And those things turn out to be our principles and our self-respect."

I think he's right. The reason Bush wants to do this is to show that he can: that when he decides that neither laws nor treaties nor basic human decency binds him, then they don't, whatever those fussy little people on the Supreme Court say. He's the decider, and he gets to make the decisions.

This is why I think there's a chance that he and the Senators might not be able to agree. I think that the administration bill genuinely sticks in the Senators' craws. McCain's ambitions might make him sway, and ever since Graham stripped the Guantanamo detainees of habeas corpus, I haven't been able to figure out what he thinks the rule of law actually means, but I have a harder time seeing why Warner would fold. And if there were any point where he'd draw the line, I would have thought that it would be something that both endangers our troops and tosses what remains of our national honor away.

But what I really can't see is George W. Bush acknowledging that the Senate has the right to make him yield. I just can't see that at all. He's a small-minded, mean-spirited bully with only a few thoughts in his conspicuously underutilized brain, and one of them is: No one, but NO ONE, gets to tell me what to do.

The Senators might yield. I suppose Bush might somehow be forced to, though I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that possibility. But he will not compromise unless he's forced, I think. Yielding on this one would cut far too close to that small number of things Bush really cares about.

I can only hope that the same is true of Warner.

Numbers

by hilzoy

I've been wondering for a while exactly how many people we have in detention outside the US. Roughly 455 at Guantanamo and 560 at Bagram: that was relatively easy to find out. But how many at all those other facilities whose names I didn't know? Apparently the AP wondered too, and reports the following (via TPM):

"In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.

"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release — without charge — last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."

Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.

Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross."

Suppose the actual error rate is 80%: that's 11,200 people who are now locked up for no reason. An awful lot of lives broken, and an awful lot of people who probably now hate us:

"Another released prisoner, Waleed Abdul Karim, 26, recounted how his guards would wield their absolute authority.

"Tell us about the ones who attack Americans in your neighborhood," he quoted an interrogator as saying, "or I will keep you in prison for another 50 years."

As with others, Karim's confinement may simply have strengthened support for the anti-U.S. resistance. "I will hate Americans for the rest of my life," he said."

And that's also 14,000 people who are about to be definitively stripped of habeas rights if either the administration bill on military commissions or the Warner/Graham/McCain alternative passes:

"Human rights groups count dozens of detainee deaths for which no one has been punished or that were never explained. The secret prisons — unknown in number and location — remain available for future detainees. The new manual banning torture doesn't cover CIA interrogators. And thousands of people still languish in a limbo, deprived of one of common law's oldest rights, habeas corpus, the right to know why you are imprisoned.

"If you, God forbid, are an innocent Afghan who gets sold down the river by some warlord rival, you can end up at Bagram and you have absolutely no way of clearing your name," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York. "You can't have a lawyer present evidence, or do anything organized to get yourself out of there."

The U.S. government has contended it can hold detainees until the "war on terror" ends — as it determines.

"I don't think we've gotten to the question of how long," said retired admiral John D. Hutson, former top lawyer for the U.S. Navy. "When we get up to 'forever,' I think it will be tested" in court, he said."

When we get to 'forever', if we ever do, those detainees will have been in prison, uncharged and untried, for a very long time. Those who are innocent will have been needlessly deprived of the ability to live their lives, see their families, and do whatever it is they wanted to do with themselves. We will have broken their lives apart, and even if we manage to undo the damage Bush has done to our legal system and our republic, the damage we have done to them can never be undone.

And the crowning touch to all of this is that it was completely unnecessary. The need to find some way to distinguish genuine enemy combatants from people detained by mistake is not a novel one, nor is this the first time we have ever fought in a war in which it's hard to tell enemies from noncombatants. In almost every war between the drafting of the Geneva Conventions and George W. Bush's election, we managed to deal with this problem without just tossing the Conventions aside and detaining huge numbers of people [Please see update below fold.] In Vietnam, for instance, we convened "Article 5 Tribunals" and used them to decide which detainees to keep in custody and which to free. (Basic history and doctrine here. I said that we did this in 'almost all' wars before Bush because, as the JAG manual quoted here puts it, "No Article 5 Tribunals were conducted in Grenada or Panama, as all captured enemy personnel were repatriated as soon as possible.")

But our clever President decided to throw out decades of military doctrine and procedure, declare that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to anyone captured in Afghanistan, and decline to set up tribunals to determine the status of detainees. This is directly related to the fact that we now have 14,000 of them, many of whom are probably innocent. Just one more brilliant move in Bush's never-ending campaign to alienate the entire Middle East in the name of making us safer.

Update On Our Existential Struggle Against Ourselves

by hilzoy

Glenn Greenwald reports, and dKos' McJoan confirms, that Harry Reid says that Democrats will not allow the Specter bill (which would give the President the authority to conduct his warrantless surveillance program, subject only to a review of the entire program by the FISA courts) to pass:

"Sen. Reid stated flatly and unequivocally -- and I'm paraphrasing -- that the Specter bill was not going anywhere, that it would not be enacted. I then asked him how he could be so certain about that -- specifically, I asked where the 51 votes against the Specter bill would come from in light of the support it enjoys from both the White House and at least some of the ostensibly "independent" Republicans, exacerbated by the fact that all 10 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted in favor of it yesterday (at least they voted in favor of sending it to the Senate floor).

In response, Sen. Reid explained that our system does not allow every bill to be enacted simply because a majority supports it, that Senate rules allow minority rights to be protected, clearly alluding to a filibuster. Indeed, as part of that vow, Sen. Reid specifically referenced the fact that in the Senate, one does not need 50%, but only 40%, to block the enactment of a bill. He explained that rule existed to protect minority rights. When I asked him expressly whether the Democrats are committed to filibustering the Specter bill if doing so is necessary to defeat it, he said he thought that would not be necessary, but repeated that they would make sure the Specter bill did not become law. He was unequivocal about that a second time."

This is wonderful news. Especially given the Democrats' silence about the administration's torture bill, I'm glad to see that they are willing to stick up for something, and that that something includes our constitutional freedoms. Moreover, if the Republicans can't get a bill through in the three-ish weeks before they go on recess, they are unlikely to get this program authorized later -- whether or not the Democrats regain control of either chamber, they seem certain to pick up seats, and that can only harm the chances that any such bill will ever become law. Which is great.

And then there's the torture bill. On one side, we have the awful Warner/Graham/McCain bill (pdf), which strips habeas rights from anyone we detain outside the US, provides immunity for various war crimes committed since 9/11, and does other bad things. On the other, we have the vastly worse administration bill (also pdf). Marty Lederman identifies the basic issue:

"Should the CIA be legally authorized to breach the Geneva Conventions by engaging in the following forms of "cruel treatment" prohibited by "common" Article 3(1)(a) of those Conventions?:

-- "Cold Cell," or hypothermia, where a prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees, during which he is doused with cold water.

-- "Long Time Standing," in which a prisoner is forced to stand, handcuffed and with his feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours.

-- Other forms of "stress positions" and prolonged sleep deprivation, perhaps akin to "Long Time Standing."

-- Threats of violence and death of a detainee and/or his family."

(One source for these descriptions of the techniques in question is here. I can't wait to see apologists for the administration describe being kept in a cell at 50 degrees while being doused with cold water as 'having the air conditioning turned down', or being forced to stand for more than 40 hours as 'a little discomfort'.)

This raises several questions. The first is whether or not we should authorize the CIA to use these techniques. Personally, I can't believe we're even having this debate. We ought to stand for something: for fairness and decency and opposition to the kinds of things that, normally, only dictators do. And it ought to be easy to stand up for our values in this case: after all, experts on interrogation regularly inform us that the kinds of measures under discussion don't even work. Instead, though, we get the likes of Paul from Powerline informing us that the Warner/Graham/McCain bill is really just an attempt "to provide gold-plated process to terrorists who are hell-bent on killing as many Americans and other Westerners as humanly possible."

Indeed.

The second is whether we should be allowed to do this in violation of the Geneva Conventions. However often the President might describe the provisions of his bill that deal with the Geneva Conventions as simply "clarifying" their requirements, his bill actually abrogates them. It does so in a somewhat sneaky way, by declaring (pp. 78-9) that "Satisfaction of the prohibitions against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment set forth in Section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (title X of Public Law 109-148; 119 Stat. 2739; 42 U.S.C. 2000dd) shall fully satisfy United States obligations with respect to the standards for detention and treatment established by section 1 of common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, with the exception of the obligations imposed by subsections 1(b) and 1(d) of such Article." Most scholars seem to agree that Common Article 3 requires more than the DTA, (for a good explanation of why, see here.)

The crucial point is that we do not have the right to decide, unilaterally, what the Geneva Conventions require. For this reason, passing a law that says "henceforth, satisfying the requirements of the DTA will also satisfy the requirements of the Geneva Convention" is more or less on a par with one of my students telling me that henceforth, if she submits any paper whatsoever, she will have fully satisfied my requirements for getting an A. She can say it, but that doesn't make it so, since, whatever PowerLine might think, we are not living in Wonderland, (zip file), and George W. Bush is not Humpty Dumpty:

"'I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.'"

In thinking about this, it's important to recognize that the Geneva Conventions, like any other treaty to which we are a party, did not just descend on us from the blue. We voluntarily signed them, and in so doing we promised to abide by them. Presumably, we did so because we thought that the protections they afford us would be worth the restrictions they entail. If President Bush thinks that this is not true -- if he concludes that being a party to the Geneva Conventions, and accepting their requirements, costs us more than it gains, he could do the honest thing and announce his intention to withdraw from them. Instead, his bill simply states that something satisfies them, when that is plainly not true. What he is basically doing is announcing his willingness to have our nation break its word, and to do so simply to avoid the embarrassment of having to propose withdrawing from Geneva. And this is just plain wrong.

Moreover, as a lot of military leaders have pointed out, this puts our troops in jeopardy. To quote the letter signed by 32 former military and intelligence leaders:

"We have abided by this standard in our own conduct for a simple reason: the same standard serves to protect American servicemen and women when they engage in conflicts covered by Common Article 3. Preserving the integrity of this standard has become increasingly important in recent years when our adversaries often are not nation-states. Congress acted in 1997 to further this goal by criminalizing violations of Common Article 3 in the War Crimes Act, enabling us to hold accountable those who abuse our captured personnel, no matter the nature of the armed conflict.

If any agency of the U.S. government is excused from compliance with these standards, or if we seek to redefine what Common Article 3 requires, we should not imagine that our enemies will take notice of the technical distinctions when they hold U.S. prisoners captive. If degradation, humiliation, physical and mental brutalization of prisoners is decriminalized or considered permissible under a restrictive interpretation of Common Article 3, we will forfeit all credible objections should such barbaric practices be inflicted upon American prisoners."

Such military experts as NRO's Andrew McCarthy disagree, on the grounds that "Our enemies don’t give a damn about the Geneva Conventions". Similarly, the eminent strategic thinker Paul at PowerLine mocks "the absurdly naive claim that our treatment of detainees will affect how our bloodthirsty enemies treat our soldiers." Unlikely as it might seem, these experts on force protection miss the point, as, more importantly, our military's Commander in Chief did in his press conference:

"Q Sir, with respect, if other countries interpret the Geneva Conventions as they see fit -- as they see fit -- you're saying that you'd be okay with that?

THE PRESIDENT: I am saying that I would hope that they would adopt the same standards we adopt; and that by clarifying Article III, we make it stronger, we make it clearer, we make it definite."

This is not about what we can expect that al Qaeda will do to captive Americans; surely no one expects them to pay attention to the Geneva Conventions in any case. Nor is it (entirely) about the specific standards for interrogations contained in the administration's bill. It's about the question whether countries who have signed a legally binding agreement have the obligation to either adhere to that agreement or withdraw from it; or can they instead take the Humpty Dumpty approach?

If we adopt the Humpty Dumpty approach to treaty interpretation, we don't just lose our right to protest when "our bloodthirsty enemies" follow our lead. We lose the right to protest when anyone at all decides to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions as they see fit, even if the proposed reinterpretation is as bizarre as ours is. Nor do we lose the right to protest only if they adopt the very same interpretation we adopt; we lose the right to protest when they adopt whatever strained and unconvincing interpretation they choose. That, after all, is what we are doing.

If there were some way of constraining the possible future effects of passing the administration bill to future wars against al Qaeda, and of limiting the interpretations we have no grounds to protest to the very interpretation we have adopted, this part of the administration's bill would still be objectionable. The forms of interrogation it allows the CIA to engage in are morally wrong, and it is also wrong to break our word by violating a treaty we have sworn to uphold. As it is, however, we have another objection: that it will leaved us with no way to plausibly protest if, in some unforeseen future conflict, our adversaries choose to play their own game of Humpty Dumpty with the Geneva Conventions. And, as the former military and intelligence leaders wrote in the letter I cited above:

"This is not just a theoretical concern. We have people deployed right now in theaters where Common Article 3 is the only source of legal protection should they be captured. If we allow that standard to be eroded, we put their safety at greater risk."

When it comes to the safety of our troops, we need to decide whether to trust Gens. Powell, Shalikashvili, Vessey, Hoar, Turner, et al on the one hand, or PowerLine and NRO on the other. After wrenching deliberations a great deal of soul-searching much thought some thought thought, I trust the retired generals.

***

There is, however, one small glimmer of hope. Lots of people seem to think that the administration will manage to come to some sort of compromise with Senators Warner, Graham, and McCain. They're probably right, but I think there is a real chance that the two sides will not be able to agree. On the one hand, the three Senators seem to be pretty clearly committed to their position, and if one assumes (as I do) that all three genuinely care about the safety of people in the military, the statements by the various retired military leaders will probably strengthen their resolve.

On the other hand, George W. Bush seems to be constitutionally incapable of any sort of compromise. He does change positions when he isn't really wedded to any of them, but the idea of genuinely giving ground when he's really staked himself on some position doesn't seem to be part of his conceptual universe. And he certainly seemed to be wedded to this position in his press conference Friday: he was, to my eye, visibly angry at the very idea that people were defying him, to the point where he threatened not to continue interrogating people unless his bill passed. I don't really see him giving ground either, nor does it seem as though the House leadership wants to.

And remember: Congress is supposed to adjourn on Oct. 6, three weeks from now. That's not a lot of time to get bills passed in the House and Senate, go through a compromise committee, and have the conference bill pass both houses. If they haven't agreed on a bill by Oct. 6, they have two three choices. [UPDATE: They could also call a lame duck session, as baltar notes in comments. End update.] First, they could not pass a bill, in which case they might well have to start from scratch after the elections. In this case, the chances that Bush would get the bill he wants would go down dramatically, even if the Republicans maintain control of both houses.

Second, they could stay in session until they work it out. This would be a problem for them: the elections are coming up, and everyone in the House, and one third of the Senators, are up for reelection. Staying in session when they could be out campaigning would not be a good thing for them, and it would help the Democrats, who have fewer incumbent seats to lose.

The administration and the Republicans in Congress can read a calendar as well as I can, of course, and none of this will be lost on them. So they will probably do whatever they can to reach a compromise, and, as I said, most of the political analysts I've read think they'll probably succeed. But there is room for a tiny bit of hope, I think. And since it's the first I've had for a while, I didn't want to let it pass unnoticed.

Reading is Fun(damental)

by Andrew

Just because I like to read, a little chat about some books I've read lately. All book links are to my reviews on my own site.

Decision in the West, by Albert Castel. Someone here at ObWings inspired me to read this one, for which I'm quite grateful. It's an account of Sherman's campaign across Georgia to capture Atlanta in 1864. It gets into great detail about the campaign and explains clearly why the campaign was so important to the outcome of the American Civil War. I'm a little leery of wholly endorsing it because the author endorses the 'Lincoln wanted to capture Richmond' thesis that any close look at Lincoln demonstrates wasn't true, so I'm not sure if Castel's analysis is equally flawed in other areas, but it's still a darn good history.

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose. This is a history of the Lewis and Clark expedition mixed with a mini-biography of Meriweather Lewis. I found Ambrose's writing to be iffy in spots, but the story is so fascinating I'll forgive those foibles easily. The Lewis and Clark expedition is something the likes of which we'll never see again, unless perhaps someday we begin deep-space exploration: a party of men who literally vanished for about two years, with no communication whatsoever with those who launched them.

Take This Job and Ship It, by Senator Byron Dorgan. I was sent this to review, but it had its moments so I'll mention it here. Dorgan wants to take a stand about America's trade deficit, and Take This Job is his attempt to push the fight and offer some solutions to the problem. I don't concur with him that it's a problem, with a few exceptions (environmental, mostly), but I liked the book because Dorgan did a pretty good job of trying to reach out. Yes, he fills the book with plenty of villains, but I was impressed with his attempts to find good guys on all sides in order to attract as much support as possible to his position. I didn't end up a lot closer to his position when I finished the book than when I started it, but I'd be more than willing to continue the discussion with him based on how he laid things out. There's something to be said for that, in my opinion.

American Sphinx, by Joseph Ellis. This is a semi-biography of Thomas Jefferson that focuses on several key periods in his life. I'm still looking for a good full biography of Jefferson, but this was an interesting look at Jefferson the man; I'm a big fan of Ellis. (On a side note I found quite amusing, Brad DeLong actually linked to my review, beginning the link with the comment 'Andrew Olmsted is right to highly recommend the Jefferson biography American Sphinx'. I'm really tempted to put just the first five words of that on my main page, with a link to Brad's full quote. :)

Open thread. Go nuts.

Public Service Announcement

by hilzoy

For our female readers. Also for guys with romantic anniversaries coming up. (Don't just guess the size, though.)

Personally, I think the blindfolds and cuffs are a bit much. Even if I were into that sort of thing, I can't imagine producing any such object without bursting out laughing. The bras are pretty nice, though, and it's hard to beat the sale prices.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehn, Goodbye!

by hilzoy

From the NYT

"Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio, has agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal charges related to his dealings with the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, lawyers and others with knowledge of the investigation said Thursday.

A guilty plea would make Mr. Ney, a six-term congressman, the first member of Congress to admit to criminal charges in the Abramoff investigation, which has focused on the actions of several current and former Republican lawmakers who had been close to the former lobbyist.

People with detailed knowledge of the investigation said Mr. Ney had entered an in-patient rehabilitation center in recent days for treatment of alcoholism, making it uncertain whether he would appear at a court hearing to announce the plea. Lawyers and others would speak only anonymously because of concern they would anger prosecutors.

They said the agreement with the Justice Department — and the exact criminal charges, which are expected to include conspiracy and false statement — would be disclosed in Washington as soon as Friday and would probably require Mr. Ney to serve at least some time in prison. (...)

In May, Mr. Ney’s former chief of staff, Neil G. Volz, who left the House to join Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying firm, pleaded guilty to trying to corrupt Mr. Ney with illegal gifts, including the Scotland trip, which included rounds of golf at the fabled course at St. Andrews.

Mr. Volz’s guilty plea offered a road map to the criminal charges that Mr. Ney might have faced had he been forced to go to trial.

The Volz agreement, which did not identity Mr. Ney by name, referring to him instead as Representative No. 1, said the lawmaker had accepted a variety of gifts from Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying operation, including the Scotland trip, regular food and drink at two Washington restaurants owned by Mr. Abramoff and the use of his luxury skyboxes at local sports stadiums. Mr. Ney’s lawyers in Washington, Mark H. Tuohey and William E. Lawler, did not return phone calls on Thursday. Nor did Justice Department officials.

Another person familiar with the department’s investigation said that at least one of the criminal charges in Mr. Ney’s guilty plea would involve the accuracy of his claim in a House financial disclosure statement that he won $34,000 in a private London casino during a trip in 2003.

Those winnings were also under scrutiny by the Justice Department, in part because the amount of the winnings coincided to a surprising degree with the amount of debt outstanding on Mr. Ney’s credit cards. Mr. Ney’s host on that trip was a Cyprus-based aviation firm that was seeking Congressional support for sales of airplane parts to Iran."

As I've said before, I think it's very important that corrupt Congresspeople get caught, not just because they have sold out the public trust, but because it has to serve as some sort of deterrent to others who might be tempted to do the same. The last six years have seen a spectacular amount of corruption in Washington, and every time one of the people who participated in it goes down, I rejoice.

Enjoy your stay in prison, soon-to-be-ex-Representative Ney. I hope all those golf trips were worth it.

The Next Congress

by Andrew

Checking the news this morning, I see that Senator Lincoln Chafee held off Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey in last night's primary election in Rhode Island. Stipulating that it is by no means necessary to feel anything about all events, I read that and was unsure whether that was good news or bad.

On the plus side, Chafee's win maintains a Republican party with a liberal wing, represented not only by Chafee but also Senators Olympia Snowe and Nancy Collins from my birthplace, Maine. Since we are stuck with a two-party system, I consider it a good thing for each party to represent as broad a constituency as possible. Being a fringe-type myself, it's nice to at least have the occasional Ron Paul, even if he is overwhelmed by the statists. It doesn't mean a great deal, but it seems to me a better alternative than two parties with more monolithic views that leave a large swathe of Americans feeling that they are wholly without representation in our system. (Which is not to say that I consider myself a Republican, any more than I would consider myself a Democrat if Paul were to jump the aisle.)

But, had Laffey won the primary, that Rhode Island seat would certainly have switched parties, increasing the chances that the Democrats take the Senate in November. While, as I've said many times before, I'm not a fan of the Democrats by any means, they have the singular virtue of not being Republicans, and that goes a long way after the last six years. And while I would in some ways prefer to see the Democrats take the House than the Senate (assuming, of course, they won't take both, which may well be a bad assumption), I wonder if the Democrats might not have a better shot of taking the Senate than the House. Senate seats, unlike House seats, cannot be gerrymandered, which means they change parties more often. And looking at the open Senate seats this year, the Democrats do seem to have a shot at grabbing the Senate: Chafee is not a shoo-in for his seat in November. Senator Conrad Burns of Montana is facing a tough race in part thanks to his relationship with Jack Abramoff. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania is currently trailing in his reelection battle, and Pennsylvania, thanks to Philadelphia, leans Democratic. Harold Ford is neck-and-neck with Bob Corker in Tennessee. And Senator George Allen is losing ground to James Webb. Rasmussen is currently calling 49 seats as Republican or leaning Republican, 45 as Democratic or leaning Democratic, and six as toss-ups. On the down side, most of those toss-ups have moved in the direction of the Republicans, but there's still a long ways to go before the elections. Still, had Chafee lost to Laffey, that would have been a big help for the Democrats. Though I see Kos is convinced Chafee will lose to Whitehouse. Truly, politics makes for strange bedfellows.

So, where are the election wonks among us? Let's hear your opinions on where the Democrats need to focus their efforts in order to turn the tide in November.