SmartRemarks

Why? Why does a presidential administration that came into office on the diligent labor and fervent hopes of progressives continue to send progressives the message that it doesn’t need them, indeed that it doesn’t even care what they think, that their principles and passions are nothing more than chips to be bargained away as evidence of the White House’s “post-partisan” cred?

Today Barack Obama announced that his nominee to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court will be Elena Kagan, current Solicitor General, former Dean of Harvard Law. After much debate and speculation in the press and online, the decision isn’t really a surprise. It is, however, a major disappointment.

A Supreme Court vacancy is always a huge opportunity, and my personal hopes for Obama’s choice when this one arose could be summed up in just three words: please be bold. I had hoped that with (as it were) strategist David Axelrod whispering in one ear (recently fairly outspoken about the pointlessness of seeking cooperation from the right) and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel whispering in the other (advocating triangulation and expediency, valuing power over principle as ever), for a change Obama might recapture the spirit that animated his campaign and decide that, if the GOP is determined to give him a fight, he’ll make it one with stakes worth winning.

But once again, he didn’t.

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Tags: Elena Kagan, Glenn Greenwald, John Paul Stevens, judiciary, Obama, progressives, Rahm Emanuel, Senate, Supreme Court

Either way, it’s definitely disturbing, and (a term I don’t often use) un-American.

What is? The fact that the Obama White House has ordered the CIA to assassinate an American citizen, wherever and whenever he may be found. A man who’s been charged with no crime, much less convicted of one.

The ostensible reason? “Terrorism,” of course.

That this is absolutely unconscionable and inexcusable should go without saying. But apparently it doesn’t, since people I know to be smart, thoughtful liberals have been making excuses for it. So let’s talk about it for a bit.

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Tags: al-Awlaki, assassination, CIA, Constitution, due process, Glenn Greenwald, Obama, terrorism

August is a strange season in politics. In the final weeks of summer last year, we had the incredible (and incredibly short-lived) public buzz surrounding Sarah Palin, before people realized she just used those glasses for looks, not reading. This year’s dog days brought us hordes of astroturf Teabagger Republicans demonstrating that they think public discourse boils down to “whoever shouts loudest wins.”

I’ve sat back and haven’t posted a great deal in recent weeks (although it’s been impossible to avoid following the theater of it all). For one thing, there are better things to do when the weather is nice (not all that common a condition in Chicago). For another, there’s been a lot of justifiable uncertainty and skepticism developing among progressives about exactly where and how Obama and the Democratic party are willing to take a stand, and I’ve been genuinely unsure of my own assessment, wavering from cynicism to optimism sometimes on a daily basis.

But Labor Day is behind us and silly season is over, and the president gave a major speech on health care tonight, and it’s time to take a serious look at where things stand.

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Tags: Democrats, Glenn Greenwald, health care, Obama, Paul Krugman, progressives, Rahm Emanuel

The CIA Inspector General’s report on U.S. torture of detainees was released this week (under court order, thanks to a diligent ACLU lawsuit, after five years hidden from public view). The timing dovetails with Attorney General Holder’s decision to launch an investigation of that torture (albeit a tightly constrained one).

The conduct detailed in the report is barbaric and shameful, and the report moreover makes clear that it was of questionable effectiveness in gaining any useful intelligence information. Most of the media coverage has reflected this straightforward reality.

Then there’s Fox News…

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Tags: CIA, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Eric Holder, Glenn Greenwald, Obama, OLC memos, torture

Chuck Todd is the White House correspondent for NBC News. He is, frankly, one of the smartest political analysts on network TV—certainly he was among the best covering last year’s elections.

And yet… events this week make it clear that Chuck Todd has no faith in the American justice system, has no confidence in the democratic process, and doesn’t even trust mass-media journalism—his own profession—to do anything for public discourse other than debase it. Apparently even a top-level practitioner of the Beltway media establishment still can’t help but embody its worst systemic flaws.

This all arose when Chuck was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday discussing AG Eric Holder’s possible appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Bush administration war crimes (as I wrote about here). Salon’s Glenn Greenwald jumped all over Chuck’s casually dismissive remarks about the idea, and Chuck (to his credit) agreed to a detailed interview with Glenn. The results were very revealing, and very discouraging.

Here are excerpts (all emphases mine) from what Chuck said on Tuesday…

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Tags: Chuck Todd, DOJ, Eric Holder, Glenn Greenwald, John Yoo, journalism, media, torture