Sometimes, I fall into scary left-wing conspiracy mode and start to think... well, I start to think that the Obama administration, in some ways, wants to fail. Take this latest Justice Department filing. Arguing before a judge that Dick Cheney's testimony before the FBI in the Valerie Plame case should remain sealed, Jeffrey Smith apparently said, "I don't want a future vice president to say, 'I'm not going to cooperate with you because I don't want to be fodder for 'The Daily Show.'"Jason Linkins (and thanks, Glenn Farrington, for the link) at HuffPo already has a nice, short takedown of the ridiculousness of using this as an argument for not releasing records:
I hardly think that citing the need to shield public figures from satire as a justification for denying this request has got the public's interests properly balanced. But I also have a question for the DOJ: Uhm...have you met our last two vice presidents? Joe "OMGZ EVACUATE THE TRAINZ IT'S THE PIG FLU!" Biden and Dick "I thirst for a consomme of infant tears" Cheney? By comparison, I think future vice-presidents have a better than even shot at avoiding comic ridicule without the intervention of federal courts.
I have, in fact, met one of our two last vice presidents, who was as gaffy and daffy as he seems (and charming, and knowledgable, all that, too), and I have to say -- I cannot believe that the White House and the Department of Justice aren't aware of the absolute absurdity of this argument. We can't release what Cheney said because it might be used against him in a court of mockery? It might be used against him in a campaign? Quick, name an event which isn't fodder for the campaign machine, when put in the right (read: Stephen Colbert's) hands? This leads me to believe one of three things:
- Everyone in the Obama DOJ is an idiot.
- Everyone in the Obama DOJ is hoping to land a role on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart: Irony Beach."
- Everyone in the Obama DOJ is looking for the easiest possible way to make the Courts decide that the records must be released.
What's left is to go to Court -- and lose.
Politically, number three is a gold mine for Obama: Cheney's old statements get released because the Courts -- still for whatever reason lauded as apolitical -- say they have to be, which makes his hands look pretty clean if the GOP wants to launch a This Is Just Political Shenanigans! tour of cable news.
But it requires a huge leap of faith to believe in the quiet, hidden brilliance of the Obama DOJ. I feel a little like I'm teetering into Conspiracy Land for suggesting it, but... what else is the Internet for?
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Catherine Forsythe
Writer to the Stars
Emily Holleman
Iron Skillet
Leslie Harpole
old new lefty
Salon.com
Comments
I don't know that I totally believe it either -- but it does, in some cases, make sense, and would be a better outcome and assurance of permanent reduction in executive power than otherwise possible.
I will sleep better at night hoping door #3 holds up. It's a reach, admittedly, but I do like it.
I don't know enough about political v career appointments at DOJ and how that works...
also guessing this is not the same Jeffrey Smith that worked/(s) for the Washington Post (& FTR...is not my husband of the same name)
I think we've already lost.
But, Saturn, you're a winner in my book.
RATED
LPS: I'm pretty sure it's a different Jeffrey Smith, and glad to help you sleep a little sounder by virtue of my wacky theories. Hee hee!
Rick: Yeah, it does seem ominous if it's come to this. But I tell myself: sometimes the path of least resistance leads through the Forest of Crazy.
http://open.salon.com/blog/rickyb/2009/05/23/barack_obama_the_batman_boomerang_theory_and_the_whu
How about this scenario? Well-known and widely read OS blogger Saturn Smith points out the absurdity of the Obama DOJ's filings in the face of Obama's campaign pledges for transparency and rectification by offering up a fantastic secret and silly scheme to explain this absurdity, thereby pointing out through parody the fact that Obama isn't doing what so many expected him to do?
I'd say it's equally possible that Obama's doing #3 as that you don't really mean any of your post.
The problem here, of course, is that Obama's DOJ's filings have all been of the kind that you're focusing on here. On every single issue before the court, his DOJ's been shielding the Bush White House - on state secrets, on torture, on indefinite detention, on rendition, etc., etc., and in fact, they have gone even further than Bush and Cheney dared: asserting "sovereign immunity," proposing "prolonged detention" for individuals who they won't or can't prosecute on the grounds that these individuals might do something, not what they have done.
If you want to (secretly) release the records of what Cheney and Bush have done, you don't say to the Senate, as Obama and Rahm Emanuel did on Wednesday, that they will issue an executive order to block the torture photos' release if Congress doesn't pass a bill to do the same.
If you want the torturers to be held to account, you don't say on the record that it's a time for "reflection, not retribution."
You don't falsely claim that torture was the actions of a "small number of people" and laud the motives of those who did the torturing and spying.
You don't retain rendition for your own administration and the right to use torture on those who you deem "high value detainees."
You don't block any of the hundreds (600 now, perhaps twice that in the future because you're doubling Bagram's size) being held at Bagram from habeas corpus rights.
You don't block lawsuits by detainees who were tortured under Bush by asking that the court reverse its earlier ruling that allowed such suits to proceed. You let those lawsuits proceed.
If Obama and his DOJ secretly wanted the courts to do what they refuse themselves refuse to do, then they would have let the Mohamed, et al v. Jeppensen, et al. case proceed and let the court do what they won't. That case demonstrates by itself, forget the rest of the evidence, that your scenario 3 is false. I urge folks to read my post on that, or to read the ACLU's report on it.
The term "conspiracy theorist" comes from post Warren Report investigations into the Kennedy assassination - and what do you know? The Report said "Lone nut, magic bullet" and the CTs said ""grassy knoll." Guess who really made more sense and who is now borne out by released information?
I expect Obama to deliver on certain social programs, but so far my hopes are not high on the "transparency" thing.
The notion that the Exec has to resist the Judicial is the line of the "unitary executive" doctrine proponents like the Federalist Society (Sam Alito, Antonin Scalia, John Yoo, et al).
According to Saturn's fanciful scenario 3, the Obama DOJ is hoping that the Court will do what the WH/DOJ are unwilling to do openly. That makes the question of the judicial role one in which the White House is hoping that the Court will do something. But, then, as I've argued, the WH and DOJ are doing no such thing, otherwise they'd have let Mohamed, et al v. Jeppensen, et al go forward.
In the meantime, can we stop this "hail and question" BS with N. Korea and stop the shipment to their country before they Nuke Hawaii?! I know I'm not important, but I'm jest saying....
We actually have a defense of our country that is all Defense. We wait for them to build a nuclear missile and hope against hope our missile defense system works when they launch it at us. What kind of suicidal idiots behave like that?!
However, if he "insists" but get slapped down by the courts, this *proves* the law supreme. Law didn't win because the president was nice enough not to put up a fight - the matter was contested and decided.
I expect that this is to be accomplished both by
1) greatly reducing the amount of behind-the-scenes pressure on serving judges regarding these cases, leaving only some "public exhortations" (i.e. leaving stuff like "White house in its brief said the court should let it do what it wants" but not applying massive pressure and threats of retaliation and etc behind the scenes, like the Bushies did when they went to court)
2) by choice of judicial appointments.
See what I'm saying?
I think, btw, we're beginning to see this easing of pressure on the bench through some of the recent decisions, like Padilla vs. Yoo.
If this were 1962, would you be screaming "nuke Cuba"? Or even just "invade Cuba"? This is kinda like that, only worse, cause the damn villains currently running the Middle Kingdom can play dumb and say "it's not us, it's nutjob over here... but this is still too close to me for you to be flexing on him".