Obsidian Wings

Why I'm A Ted Kennedy Liberal

by publius

Work deadlines have prevented me from watching literally a minute of the Kennedy coverage.  I've also read very little, other than Tweets.  So I'm sure everything's been said, but I still wanted to add my two cents.

I was a late convert to Ted.  As many of you know, I was a Republican for the first 21 years or so of my life.  And so I disliked Kennedy purely for ignorant ideological reasons.  He was the boogeyman liberal -- the icon of the enemy.

I even saw him once at a Harvard-Yale tailgate, and he wasn't exactly an impressive specimen up close.  (I'd like to think that seeing him at the tailgate made me start gradually liking him on some subconscious level).

And even after my long journey from conservative to shrill, the old ideological distaste for Kennedy lingered.  I still felt the need to be able to point to someone and say, "well, I've changed but I'm no Ted Kennedy liberal," or some nonsense like that. 

In time, I gradually learned more about him.  And I can honestly say that, today, I revere him.  To me, he embodies everything a progressive politician should be.  And I'm ashamed for not recognizing it earlier.

What's most striking about Kennedy is that he dedicated his life to helping people who he had no reason to help.  As russell noted in the comments yesterday, he could have had a very nice life yachting, and reading books, and traveling.  But he didn't do that.  He spent decades in the Senate fighting -- truly fighting -- for people who most needed help, who most needed a voice.  Unlike so many legislators, he wasn't the voice of the already-enfranchised.  He was, in this sense, a universal Senator for those with no champion, with no lobby.  Those people were the focus of his efforts.

I also revere him as a student of politics.  On some level, everyone here loves politics, and believes in it.  Otherwise, you'd be doing other things with your time.  It's easy, though, to wonder at time if it's all futile (see, e.g., David Simon).  Revered leaders inevitably disappoint; institutional realities weigh down ideals.  And as much as I love politics, it's easy to get down about it.

Kennedy, though, is one of those people who reaffirms my faith in the idea of politics.  That idea being that we can choose to fight for the right things, and that our choice can eventually help people.  That's what politics should be all about.

Kennedy showed it was possible.  Here's a man with unapologetic and uncompromising beliefs, who channeled those beliefs through an extremely arcane legislative process to create laws that truly helped people -- people without a K Street lobby, people who he personally had no reason in the world to be helping.  But he helped them anyway.

And it's not just about the dreamy abstract ideals, Kennedy would also rip you one if that's what the politics required.  If that's what it took to translate these values into concrete policy.  And I'd be lying if I said I didn't really enjoy that part of politics too.

The man had his faults.  All of us do.  And it's easy to lapse into sentimental hagiography after someone dies.  But still, he deserves an enormous amount of praise.  His sweat is entwined with the text of every major piece of progressive legislation since the 60s.  He chose to fight for things, and, if I may, he got shit done.

And it's heartbreaking that he couldn't live to see the final triumph on health care.  And I frankly wouldn't be all that surprised to see him crawl out of his grave to vote "Yea" when the time comes.  But if his passing ultimately helps make universal health care a reality, then that would be a quite fitting coda indeed.

Thanks Senator -- if only everyone chose to fight so long and so hard for the right reasons...

At any moment

by von

Michael Gerson has a sensible take on current Democratic efforts to reform health care -- by which I mean, of course, that Gerson has written something that I largely agree with.  President Obama's health care reform is not dying because of persistent nonsense regarding death panels.  Death panels are a favorite bete noir of some Democratic supporters, but, in reality, they are little more than chat noir.  They are a distraction.  The folks who believe these kinds of rumors are not going to support any Democratic-led health care reform effort. 

The reasons why more Americans oppose* the Democrats' reform proposals than support them is much more pragmatic -- and far more problematic to Obama and the House Democrats.  It's that many folks, all things being equal, will take the devil they know** over the devil they don't.  Or, as Gerson says in considerably more words:

Why is comprehensive health reform so difficult? Some structural challenges have complicated this issue since the days of Harry Truman. Because there are vastly more people inside the current health-care system than outside of it, the majority tends to be risk-averse and suspicious of efforts that might benefit the minority at their expense. ....

Obama's massive spending, intended to stabilize the economy, also drained the Treasury, making it more difficult to propose major new expenditures. Deficit estimates of $9 trillion over 10 years have raised the prospect, according to Warren Buffett, of an American "banana republic" -- endlessly printing money, weakened by inflation and abandoned by foreign bond investors. ...

Yet, the sales job in favor of health care reform has been largely a game of defense.  Aside from claims that the House version health care reform would bend the cost curve -- a claim that turned out to be false -- there's been nary a positive case made for it.  (Well, at least not a competent case -- more on that below.)

That's a massive problem when you're proposing a new government program:  You've got to explain why the new purchase is necessary; why it's better than what we already have.  You've got to sell the new program. 

There hasn't been such a sales job.  Saying that the "public option" won't kill public insurance because public insurance will be just like the Post Office is an argument against public insurance-- not in favor of it.  And proposing that we expand coverage is not enough.  You have to show that current coverage won't be diminished.  Put another way, when people worry about rationing, it's not enough to say that we're rationing under the current system.  Of course we are.  You have to explain how rationing will be different under the new proposal.  How will it affect the overwhelming majority of voters who already have health coverage?  Notably, "trust us, you'll be OK" is not a compelling answer.***

Similarly, when people worry whether cuts will disproportionately fall on the elderly, it's not enough to complain about lies and death panel scare tactics.  How does the new plan answer President Obama's "very difficult" question:  "Whether, ... society making those decisions to give my grandmother,.... a hip replacement when [she's] terminally ill is a sustainable model"?  That is a very difficult question, and one that should be asked.   Pity that no one seems to want to provide an answer -- most of all the Democrats.

As I've written before, I support health care reform under the bipartisan Wyden-Benett plan.  In part, that's because Wyden-Bennett has answers to many of these questions -- even if the answer is that the new system will have many of the same advantages and disadvantages as the current system.  Until supporters of the House plan do something like what Sens. Wyden and Benett did -- i.e., do more than just play defense -- the opposition to any reform effort, and the House reform effort in particular, is going to continue to grow.

*See Question No. 7.  Even worse for the Democrats is that the number of strong opposers greatly outnumbers the number of strong approvers, 47% to 27%.

**Question 9:  about 85% of Americans have health insurance or coverage under the current system.

***Yes, this is a selfish concern:  You expect voters to suddenly become altruists, and vote en mass against their self interest?

The Passing of Torches

by Eric Martin

Just as the death of Edward Kennedy marks the passing of one of the most prominent politicians in the American political firmament, today the Iraqi political scene lost one of its key figures as well.  Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of one of Iraq's main Shiite political parties, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), succumbed to a long bout with cancer.  al-Hakim, who was once feted by President Bush at the White House, passed away in a hospital in Tehran - a location of some significance given that it was his one time home during his years spent in exile from Saddam's Iraq.

Reidar Visser, as usual, provides a detailed backstory:

More than anything, through his political career, Hakim became a symbol of the chaos, the contradictions and the opportunism that have characterised Iraq in the post-2003 period. Having abandoned religious studies at an early level, Hakim made a professional career in the 1980s as a political-military operator in what was then called the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Khomeinist outfit created by Iran in 1982 in order to maximise its control of the Iraqi opposition during the Iran–Iraq War. He returned to Iraq from Iran after the start of the Iraq War in 2003, and in August that year, after the death of his brother Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim in a terrorist attack in Najaf, was propelled to the top leadership position in SCIRI.

It was during 2005 in particular that Hakim would make his mark on the post-2003 politics of Iraq, through a series of remarkable policy initiatives. Ever since the first pre-war opposition conferences in 2002, SCIRI had managed to wrestle itself to the unlikely position as the preferred partner of the United States in “dealing with the Shiite community of Iraq” (a strategy that in itself was predicated on a belief in Washington that the complexities of Iraqi politics would be best approached through sectarian lenses), and it consolidated this position between 2003 to 2005 by appealing to sectarian identity as a basis for political power. Then, in August 2005, Hakim dramatically launched a bid to create a federal region that would comprise the nine Shiite-majority governorates south of Baghdad – an overt projection of sectarian identity onto Iraq’s administrative map that had hitherto been the preserve of Israelis, Kuwaitis and pro-Kurdish American senators, and a scenario so radical and divisive that its sheer presence on the political agenda added a major obstacle to Iraq’s process of national reconciliation.  [...]

Throughout the post-war period, Hakim masterfully managed to balance US and Iranian pressures and was successful in creating the impression in Washington that SCIRI was on course to liberate itself from Iranian overlordship. This involved theatrics such as a name change in May 2007, where SCIRI became ISCI (without the “revolution”) and where the rumour was circulated (but never officially confirmed) that ISCI would henceforth take its orders from the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf in Iraq, instead of from Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Simultaneously, Hakim, who himself was never an Islamic scholar of repute, managed to create the impression of religious authority among Americans by focusing on his status as the son of a Shiite luminary (the Grand Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim) and as a sayyid (descendant of the Prophet), thereby prompting many international journalists to describe him as a “leading cleric” and one of the most “powerful” politicians of Iraq. It was only gradually since 2008 – and more pronouncedly since the local elections in January 2009 – that the idea of ISCI as a loyal ally of Iran returned to US policy-making circles in earnest. [...]

Hakim’s health began to deteriorate several years ago, but he remained a vital policy-maker until his death. Since May 2009, from his convalescent home in Tehran, he presided over a series of meetings with Iraqi politicians that prepared the ground for the revamping of the Shiite political alliance (UIA or the United Iraqi Alliance) that he had been instrumental in crafting back in 2004. Responding to experiences from the local elections, the newly formed Iraqi National Alliance (INA) now accords greater rhetorical emphasis to the idea of Iraqi national unity, but its programme still remains remorseless towards former Baathists (who are to be “cleansed” from the Iraqi state), and ISCI still keeps focusing on an ideology of radical decentralisation which many Iraqis believe contradict the idea of national unity.

Hakim chose to be treated for cancer in Iran and it is remarkable that the United States was unable to correctly interpret his physical movements as the most revealing indicator of his true political loyalties. Since 2003 and until today, Hakim, SCIRI/ISCI and members of the Badr brigades have travelled in and out of Iran without any restriction. It was Iranian territory that was used to orchestrate the new INA. It is inconceivable that the authorities in Tehran would have allowed these processes to go on within their own borders had they not felt that right until his death Hakim was pursuing a policy that was in Iran’s best interests. Instead, however, until recently Washington clung to a rosy scenario in which ISCI was seen as a potential convert to the American cause; ultimately it was the contradictions in this policy that would create the space for Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim’s peculiar political career.

For anyone interested in reading up on the new Iraqi National Alliance political party that, in a bit of cats and dogs sleeping together peculiarity, features the unlikely partnership of ISCI with its longtime rivals, the Sadrists, Visser has more.  As does Raed Jarrar. 

As this site warned many months ago, the full court press on the Sadrists (traditionally quite nationalistic and anti-Iranian), including forcing Moqtada al-Sadr to seek refuge in Iran, would end up strengthening Iran's ties to, and influence over, the Sadrists. Each of the Iraqi political factions needs foreign patronage in order to garner the resources necessary to carve out and hold on to political power (at least, as long as some factions are receiving support from abroad, the others will need support in kind in order to compete). 

The Sadrists, however, lack an obvious patron - while they received some minimal support from Iran, it was a pittance compared to what ISCI and Dawa received, given the latter two factions' closer ties and alliance with Iran.  Further, ISCI and Dawa were also the parties most favored by the US government, so they were taking with both hands.  Meanwhile, not only were the Sadrists left to deal with only lesser levels of support from Iran, and none from the US, but they were being actively targeted by US/government of Iraq forces. 

Under the circumstances, the Sadrists have nowhere else to turn, and Tehran is more than happy to play savior, patron and alliance builder.  Now, the INA alliance might not be able to stay together given the historical animosity and conflicting ideologies/agendas between its constituent parties, but as Visser and Jarrar point out, it's viability does not bode well for the future of Iraq given that it will likely pursue further ethnic/sectarian cleansing/harsh treatment of Sunni groups, and further decentralization of power with partition looming, as always, in the background.  At least as long as Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim's party remains a political force.  Which is a question, now, for his successors to answer.

Edward M. Kennedy, 1932-2009

by publius

Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

Too sad to write anything else at the moment.

Late Night Links

by publius

I've been wanting to do this somewhat more regularly, so here you go:

• Steven Pearlstein ... driven to shrill.

• Texas may soon be forced to acknowledge that it executed an innocent man. (h/t Balko Twitter feed).

• Montana Maven notes that Baucus's re-embrace of the public option may have something to do with local Montana Dem pressure. (h/t email).

• One theory of why AT&T blocked Google Voice on the iPhone (it's oldie, but goodie).

• I watched this amazing segment of Glenn Beck at the gym today (you would know if you followed "ObWi" on Twitter).  Fortunately, Media Matters has it, and you should at least watch the chalkboard conspiracy theory diagrams (starts around 3:30).  Honestly, I was more dumbfounded than outraged.

• And finally, Gary Farber draws some interesting analogies to today's torture debates from the first public statement in decades from William Calley, of My Lai fame.

Breaking News

by publius

Conservative man in rural southwest Georgia who listens to Rush and Fox News opposes health coverage reform, Kevin Sack of the NYT reports on A1.

(h/t Joe Sudbay)

Things On Which All Men and Women of Good Conscience Should Agree

--by Sebastian

I'm interested in doing a series of posts on what I think of as things that all men and women of good conscience should agree on. The idea is to focus on institutional situations in the US which many or most people would reflexively think are wrong, but which are actively encouraged by various governmental entities.

The classic example would be civil asset forfeiture. The idea that states can seize assets which they believe might be related to criminal activity (normally drug activity) and keep them until the owner can prove that they were not related to criminal activity is ridiculous. Often the police have seized the only method the owner could use to pay an attorney who they might hire to contest the forfeiture. More than 80% of the owners are never charged with a crime but nevertheless do not get their assets back. I've never met a single person outside of law enforcement who thought it was a good idea, and almost all of the non-lawyers I talk to initially think I must be making it up, that is clearly illegal, or that it must be only occasionally used.

Another example is how Megan's Laws have grown out of control. Initially passed to keep tabs on violent sexual predators, their use has spread to a variety of non-violent and non-predatory crimes. Being branded a sex offender for purposes of one of the registries puts an enormous number of restrictions on your life (and may subject you to vigilantism even if you offense was trivial, as the exact offense is rarely in the public database) which is arguably defensible for true violent sexual predators—though I would argue that if we are under-punishing them we should lock them up for longer—but is ridiculous for the enormous number of ancillary sexual crimes which have become attached to them. A girl who had sex with her boyfriend while they were both underage does not need to end up on a Megan's Law sexual predator list. A man who was charged with indecent exposure for urinating in public does not need to end up on a Megan's Law sexual predator list. Someone who texts a naked picture of herself to a friend shouldn't be prosecuted for child porn charges and shouldn't end up on a Megan's Law list.

A third example is statutory rape laws between teenagers. I'm uncomfortable with strict liability crimes in general, but understand that sexual relationships between a 25 year old and 15 year old are exploitive and need legal discouragement. As a society we may even decide that we want to have legal discouragements for same age sexual activity below the age of majority. They do not need to be drawn so broadly as to make sexual exploration between two sixteen year olds statutory rape.

This post is a bleg. I would like to have suggestions for more topics in this vein, and perhaps a fun title—as "Things On Which All Men and Women of Good Conscience Should Agree" is a bit long. It may also be that I've mis-titled it to begin with. I'm not focusing on things which everyone should agree on that are already illegal (like murder is wrong) but things that most people agree on, but in law seem to work contrary to most people's moral intuition. That is why I didn't choose a sort-of obvious example (prison rape) because while I feel that all people of good conscience should agree that it is wrong and more steps should be taken to prevent it, I suspect there are lots of people who think it isn't wrong or at least that it isn't worth worrying about too much.

This is also an open thread.

Salon columnist nonplussed by torture report

By Lindsay Beyerstein

Alex Koppelman reacts to the CIA Inspector General's report like it's a disappointing summer blockbuster:

The report itself, though, didn't really live up to the hype. That's not to say it didn't contain disturbing details, like mock executions and an interrogator's threat to rape the mother of one detainee, or some bits of news. But for the most part, the declassified sections of the report were, for the most part, filled with information that was already public knowledge.

I guess he was hoping for some snappy new atrocities. It's hard to compete with Inglourious Basterds, especially when CIA censors redact all the "good" bits.

Koppelman finds the report disappointing because it merely confirms what has already been reported about torture and the CIA.

It's infuriating when people dismiss official confirmation as old news. It's always a big deal when a disputed fact is publicly acknowledged, no matter how much we already knew. Until that point, it's still just a claim that insiders like Marc Ambinder will feel entitled to dismiss as the product of mere "gut hatred." Every time you bring up that claim, you've got to defend that premise anew.

Once an allegation is officially confirmed, the revelation will be re-branded as old news. The elite media will thereby give themselves an excuse to gloss over it, but at least it will have been incorporated into the conventional wisdom.

One other thing about the OIG report... So far, the focus has been on the unequivocally illegal acts detailed in the report. Mock executions, for example, are explicitly forbidden by U.S. anti-torture law. Even the CIA isn't condoning them The agency acknowledges that the mock executioners went beyond what they were authorized to do.

That these cases were closed is a sub-scandal unto itself. By closing the files on clear-cut crimes, someone decided to decriminalize torture at large, as opposed to a handful of EIT techniques. The interview room became a free fire zone.

I wonder whether Eric Holder's decision to reopen clear-cut criminal investigations will deflect attention from EIT cases in which the perpetrators claim to have been following legal orders. The Obama administration is afraid to probe too deeply into the latter cases because it's clear that responsibility goes all the way up to the former occupant of the White House.

The IG Report

by publius

It's hard to know what exactly to say about the IG Report (pdf).  It's hard to imagine anything that so completely contradicts the ideals this country is supposed to stand for.  Glenn's post pretty much covers the main points (and don't forget to check out Marcy and Spencer's posts too).  But here are a few thoughts:

Depravity

The IG Report is not for the faint of heart.  The details of abuse are so graphic and brutal that it's hard to read in places.  But Glenn is right -- everyone should read it (or at least the key parts).  People should see precisely what happened.

The highlights include:  (1) mock executions; (2) threatened rape of family members; (3) threatened murder of children; (4) kicking and beating a detainee with a metal flashlight to death; (5) threatening naked hooded detainees with power drills; (6) blowing cigar smoke in detainees' faces until they got sick; (7) waterboarding with massive volumes of water far beyond what OLC authorized (to make it "poignant"); (8) stress positions that nearly caused shoulder dislocations; (9) scraping detainees with stiff brushes; (10) choking a detainee with one's bare hands until they nearly pass out; (11) subjecting detainees to extremely cold temperatures and water dousing; (12) "hard takedowns" (sometimes in diapers); and (13) beating detainees with butts of rifles (followed by kicking them).

It's easy to let your mind skim over these.  But if you stop and linger over a couple of them -- and really take the time to reflect on the individual pain and fear that must have been involved -- it makes you sick to your stomach.  These acts must be punished.

Let's Thank All The Lawyers

Glenn mentioned this in his post and on Twitter.  But it's worth remembering that we know about this information because of the ACLU and other courageous lawyers' efforts (people like Katherine).  If it were up to Congress, we would know nothing.

Paper Trails

One remarkable aspect of this entire tragic affair is just how extensively papered it is.  Everyone was trying to cover themselves, and it created a lot of evidence.  This paper trail is significant for a couple of reasons.  First, it makes it easy for a Truth Commission (or some similar entity) to assemble all the information and then to investigate gaps, etc.  Second, it shows just how directly all of these policies came from straight the top.

The Limits of the Prosecution

Glenn and others are critiquing Holder's decision to limit the scope of the prosecution.  And I agree.  It would be a gross injustice if only the lower-lever officers were prosecuted.

My hope, though, is that today isn't the final word on that.  A few successful prosecutions could hopefully be leveraged to go after bigger fish -- the ones actually responsible for implementing torture as national policy. 

Baucus ♥ Public Option?

by publius

Not sure what to make of this (via the Benen):

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) confirmed this past week that he personally supports a public option for insurance coverage[.]

I supposed I should be heartened.  But I'm not.  Instead, I'm frustrated because it reminds me of how differently history might be playing out if certain individuals would make different and better choices.

Generally speaking, I'm skeptical of individual-centric explanations of historical events.  I prefer structural explanations, especially economic ones.  But in today's health coverage debate, I think that a very small group of individual legislators really could materially change History, if they were so inclined.

For instance, imagine a world (long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away) where the centrists Dems decided that they truly wanted to make coverage reform happen.  Imagine if Joe Lieberman and Kent Conrad and Ben Nelson got on TV and said, "we're going to make this happen, it's just too important to fail." 

The media would go absolutely nuts -- David Broder would attain nirvana.  Reform would have new momentum, and new pressure would ricochet back to the moderate Republicans.  If Kent Conrad is behind it, why aren't you?

Modern media cycles and herd mentality (information cascades) are unfortunately playing a large role in this legislative debate.  But that can work both ways.  A unified and active "centrist" bloc really could shift the narrative, and swing History in a different direction. 

It's such a rare thing for individuals to have this sort of opportunity -- the opportunity to do great, historic things just by choosing differently.  I mean, this is why they're Democrats, right?

But alas, that's not the world we live in.  In this world, Kent Conrad and Mike Ross feel that it is their god-given duty to say 100% negative and unhelpful things about the bill.  Joe Lieberman (but he's great on domestic policy!) could choose not to emphasize abandoning the uninsured.  Max Baucus -- the American Sphinx -- could choose to wrap things up in Finance.

It's just maddening to have so much riding on the whims of so few.