Month: July 2006

Post-Hamdan Politicking…

As the legislative and judicial branches struggle to rein in Dubya’s excesses, recent Senate testimony on the treatment of Gitmo detainees reveals fissues within the administration’s approach to the Hamdan ruling: “The testimony has shown that the Justice Department — which had insisted on the legality of the existing policy — is eager to sharply limit the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision, while military lawyers and some other Pentagon officials are celebrating it as a vindication of their long-held concerns about U.S. detainee policy.” Update: “The President is always right?” (Via Looka.)

…and Dubya’s FISA double down.

Meanwhile, in another recent reversal — one likely precipitated by both the Hamdan case and pending lawsuits by the ACLU and others — the Dubya White House agrees to a deal put forth by Arlen “paper tiger” Specter that would put the NSA warrantless wiretaps to a constitutional review by the FISA court. But the trick, as many Dems have pointed out, is under this deal the FISA court would only do a general review of the wiretap program, rather than conduct the individual case-by-case reviews that the law has always demanded: “Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) criticized the agreement, saying he will oppose ‘any bill that would grant blanket approval for warrantless surveillance of Americans, particularly when this administration has never explained why it believes that current law allowing surveillance of terrorist suspects is inadequate.’“

A Textbook Case.

“Just how similar passages showed up in two books is a tale of how the largely obscure $4 billion a year world of elementary and high school textbook publishing often works, for these passages were not written by the named authors but by one or more uncredited writers.” Using doubled passages on Homeland Security as a newspeg, the NYT delves into the somewhat sordid world of history textbook writing. Hmmm. From my experience, what the Times reports is true, but it’s not true of every book. I’ve done quite a bit of work revising supplementals for various history textbooks during my grad school tenure, and, at least for the ones I’ve worked on, the updates and revisions have come right from the top down, from the author or authors on the book’s cover.

Plame’s Civil War.

“I and my former colleagues trusted the government to protect us in our jobs.” Plamegate enters a new phase as Valerie Plame files a lawsuit against Cheney, Rove, and Libby for “leaking Plame’s identity to ‘discredit, punish and seek revenge against the plaintiffs.’” And for all the rabid right-wingers out there cheering on Paula Jones back in the day, it looks like the chickens have come home to roost: “Cheney and others might be compelled to turn over documents to the Wilsons, as well as give sworn depositions, as President Bill Clinton eventually had to do when Paula Jones sued him for sexual harrassment.”

They Shall Overcome.

“‘I gave blood,’ Mr. Lewis said, his voice rising, as he stood alongside photographs of the clash. ‘Some of my colleagues gave their very lives.'” Publicly embarrassed by their recent lapse into old-school “massive resistance,” (and no doubt chagrined by their dismal poll numbers), the House GOP get their act together enough to pass the Voting Rights Act extension 390-33, after giving fringe right-wingers the chance to vote up or down on a few poison-pill amendments. (All failed, thanks to the Dems.) Still, several southern conservatives are not appeased: “One of the 33 holdouts was Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.). ‘Some politicians in Washington wouldn’t dare vote against this bill because they’d be lambasted by the media and liberal interest groups.’“

Arena’s Empty.

In soccer news, after an eight-year stint, Bruce Arena is out as coach of the national team. “Speculation will center on Jurgen Klinsmann, who coached the German national team to a third-place finish in this month’s World Cup. Klinsmann, who lives in California with his family, stepped down from the German post earlier this week, saying he felt, ‘burnt out.’” And, hey, Larry Brown is looking for work…

From Beirut to Jerusalem.

More grim news in the world-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket department: So, obviously, there now seems to be a full-fledged firing war going on between Israel and Hezbollah, one which has already set back Lebanon years and threatens to bring in Syria and Iran as official combatants (a.k.a. Hezbollah‘s main backers) if it keeps up. For his part, other than having Bolton spike a UN resolution condemning Israel for “disproportionate use of force,” Dubya has been basically AWOL in terms of world leadership — in fact, he’s been more effusive about a German pig of late than he has a conflagration that threatens nothing less than full-scale war across the Middle East. Where have you gone Bill Clinton, our nation turns it lowly eyes to you?