Welcome to Katalusis for progressive views on politics, religion, environmental issues,
and popular culture. (Photo of the Mississippi River
from the University Club in St. Paul, MN.)
Here we go again. Some of us warned repeatedly throughout the Democratic primary, that Barack Obama would wind up following in Dubya’s footsteps.
Think Progress reported yesterday that the Obama Administration is siding with the Bush Administration in appealing Judge John Bates’ ruling that ‘“some prisoners at the Air Force base in Bagram have a right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. civilian courts, saying the detainees are “virtually identical” to detainees at Guantánamo and so they have the same constitutional rights granted in Boumediene vs. Bush.”’
Here’s the scoop from Think Progress:
The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight. In a court filing, the Justice Department also asked District Judge John D. Bates not to proceed with the habeas-corpus cases of three detainees at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Afghanistan.
I missed Matthew Lee’s report a couple of weeks ago on the many ways in which the State Department under Hillary Clinton is making use of the new media. Cut me some slack, though: it’s hard to keep up with Secretary Clinton as she jets around the globe and when back in Washington easily navigates the worldwide Web.
Lee writes:
WASHINGTON — Her videos aren't quite viral yet and she's not tweeting, but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is embracing new media, using the Web to promote the agency and her role as the nation's top envoy.
In less than three months, Clinton's State Department has embarked on a digital diplomacy drive aimed at spreading the word about American foreign policy and restoring Washington's image. Part of a broader Internet outreach by President Barack Obama's administration, Clinton's Web efforts already have outpaced those of her predecessors.
Since taking over at Foggy Bottom, Clinton's team has built on e-diplomacy innovations developed during George W. Bush's presidency:
_They have revamped the department's Web site and the Dipnote blog ( and ) with a fresh array of features, graphics and colorful posts.
In an odd kind of way it’s depressing now to see acknowledgement of unpleasant facts that many of us tried to point out back during the Democratic primary such as MSNBC’s substitution of Obama worship for objective news coverage; the many signs that Obama would follow in Bush’s footsteps on domestic surveillance issues; the likelihood that for all his anti-war bluster, Obama would prolong the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and as highlighted in Liberal Values today by Ron Chusid, Obama’s Bush-like legal immunity and secrecy claims.
But what can I say? The damage has been done, and we’re stuck for the next four years with yet another president the American electorate voted into office on the basis of charm over substance.
In an apparent attempt to save face for the liberal (except for their sexism, misogyny, and ageism) bloggers who burnished the One’s halo throughout the 2008 election, Chusid holds up for praise belated attempts of these self-same bloggers to hold our rock-star president to account:
MSNBC has come under justified criticism for often appearing like a mirror image of Fox during their prime time political coverage. During the campaign they ultimately removed Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as anchors for political events due to their obvious support for Obama. As Obama comes under increased criticism for the policies of his administration regarding state secrets, Keith Olbermann’s criticism of Obama is receiving considerable attention. While many conservatives were willing to defend Bush regardless of his actions (with other more principled conservatives abandoning the Republican Party) it is clear that even those who supported Obama are concerned with principle as opposed to the type of blind support for leaders seen among Republicans.
Glenn Greenwald has summarized the criticism from Olbermann (including video) as well as liberal bloggers. In a long post with, at present, three updates Greenwald writes:
The fact that Keith Olbermann, an intense Obama supporter, spent the first ten minutes of his show attacking Obama for replicating (and, in this instance, actually surpassing) some of the worst Bush/Cheney abuses of executive power and secrecy claims reflects just how extreme is the conduct of the Obama DOJ here. Just as revealingly, the top recommended Kos diary today (voted by the compulsively pro-Obama Kos readership) is one devoted to attacking Obama for his embrace of Bush/Cheney secrecy and immunity doctrines. Also, a front page Daily Kos post yesterday by McJoan vehemently criticizing Obama (and quoting my criticisms at length) sparked near universal condemnation of Obama in the hundreds of comments that followed. Additionally, my post on Monday spawned vehement objections to what Obama is doing in this area from the largest tech/privacy sites, such as Boing Boing and Slashdot.
This is quite encouraging but should not be surprising. As much as anything else, what fueled the extreme hostility towards the Bush/Cheney administration were their imperious and radical efforts to place themselves behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and above and beyond the rule of law. It would require a virtually pathological level of tribal loyalty and monumental intellectual dishonesty not to object just as vehemently as we watch the Obama DOJ repeatedly invoke these very same theories and, in this instance, actually invent a new one that not even the Bush administration espoused.
To be clear: there are important areas in which Obama has been quite commendable, and I’ve personally praised him fairly lavishly for those actions (see, for instance, here, here and here), but it is simply unacceptable — no matter what else is true about him — for Obama to claim for himself the very legal immunity and secrecy powers which characterized and enabled the worst excesses of Bush lawlessness. Yet in a short period of time, he has taken onestepafterthenext to do exactly that.
Paul Krugman has been the voice crying in the wilderness during the financial meltdown, desperately trying to get the attention of our inexperienced, economically challenged president and his minions as they continue to waste taxpayer dollars propping up failing banks.
In this morning’s op-ed, Krugman examines the history of the banking industry in the United States and reminds readers of how remiss the Obama transition team was in vetting Larry Summers as head of the National Economic Council:
Only a few people warned that this supercharged financial system might come to a bad end. Perhaps the most notable Cassandra was Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, who argued at a 2005 conference that the rapid growth of finance had increased the risk of a “catastrophic meltdown.” But other participants in the conference, including Lawrence Summers, now the head of the National Economic Council, ridiculed Mr. Rajan’s concerns.
The Huffington Post reports on the Maersk Alabama hostage situation, the first of its kind in US history (emphases mine):
WASHINGTON — The piracy crisis over a lone hostage in the Indian Ocean took on the familiar air of a cops-and-robbers standoff, with the U.S. Navy seeking advice Thursday from seasoned FBI negotiators.
Their goal: Resolve the incident without military force.
As the FBI joined the delicate negotiations, President Barack Obama, facing one of his first national security tests, declined comment when asked about the standoff. Vice President Joe Biden said the administration was working "round the clock" on the problem.
The incident epitomizes the limits of U.S. power in an age of increasing threat from violence-minded, faceless groups and individuals.
Attorney General Eric Holder said "we'll obviously do what we have to do to make sure that the maritime life of this nation is protected."
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the bureau's hostage negotiating team as "fully engaged" with the military in strategizing ways to retrieve the ship's captain and secure the Maersk Alabama and its roughly 20-person U.S. crew.
The FBI was summoned as the Pentagon substantially stepped up its monitoring of the hostage standoff, sending in P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft and other equipment and securing video footage of the scene.
The pirates were still holding the 55-year-old Phillips, from Underhill, Vt., after the American crew retook the ship Wednesday and the hostage-takers fled into the lifeboat. Hostage negotiators and military officials have been working around the clock to free Phillips.
The FBI is considered the negotiating arm of the U.S. government for international incidents. The crisis negotiation team has been dispatched to more than 100 incidents worldwide since 1990, according to the bureau. The unit, whose motto is "resolution through dialogue" is based at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., about 40 miles south of Washington.
"We're deeply concerned and we're following it very closely," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "More generally, the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy."
The pirate-hostage drama was the first of its kind in modern history involving a U.S. crew.
Good morning, readers. Sorry I haven’t posted for a couple of days. I’ve been busy with a few freelance writing projects in addition to my usual volunteer church work. The good news is that my recently founded mindfulness meditation group prompts me to continue my daily practice, which helps me deal with stress and stay centered and focused.
My practice includes daily reading on mindfulness and on contemplative prayer. I recently finished a wonderful book titled: Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanhn: Engaged Spirituality in an Age of Globalization,” by Robert King. King reminds us of Merton’s and Nhat Hanh’s social activism.
I’ll continue to resist the temptation to withdraw from the world and will stay on my toes in the political realm.
Scanning the online news sources this morning, I came across Greg Sargent’s post at Plum Line on complaints from liberal bloggers that Dems aren’t buying ads on their web sites even though said bloggers helped drive the Democratic ascendancy.
Sargent writes:
Some of the leading liberal bloggers are privately furious with the major progressive groups — and in some cases, the Democratic Party committees — for failing to spend money advertising on their sites, even as these groups constantly ask the bloggers for free assistance in driving their message.
Brings tears to your eyes doesn’t it? Especially when you read something like this:
“Most want the easy way — having a big blogger promote their agenda,” adds Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos. “Then they turn around and spend $50K for a one-page ad in the New York Times or whatever.” Moulitsas adds that officials at such groups often do nothing to engage the sites’s audiences by, say, writing posts, instead wanting the bloggers to do everything for them.
In response to Sargent’s post, readers saw a few problems. I especially appreciated this reader’s comment that recalls how the big liberal blogs became megaphones for Barack Obama during the Democratic primary while doing their utmost to destroy Hillary Clinton :
dg | April 8th, 2009 at 05:28 pm
There have got to be significant legal problems in many instances with the kind of quid pro quo that these bloggers are openly advocating.
Furthermore, how are the Democratic party committees going to spend money advertising/supporting the liberal blogs, when the blogs tend to pick preferred candidates in Democratic primaries? These blogs can’t have it both ways - throw their support behind who they deem to be *their* preferred Democrats & darlings of the blogosphere *and* expect the party and progressive organizations to throw money their way regardless of whether or not it’s a practical investment.
Markos Moulitsas and John Aravosis in particular should think about why they’re expecting support from Dem party organizations after they devoted significant resources all last year to slandering one of our Democratic presidential candidates and current Secretary of State.
Well, it is good to know up front that big liberal bloggers who supported Obama are open to bribes from the Democrats who revealed during the primary that they were not averse to corrupt practices.
Remember back in the Democratic primary – of course, you do – when the upstanding John Edwards, he of the superior moral fiber; and Barack Obama, he of the spanking new politics that transcended the old Boomer divides; made smug remarks during debates and campaign rallies that echoed Karl Rove in questioning Hillary Clinton’s integrity and labeling her a polarizing figure?
The haloed Edwards and Obama also hammered Clinton for her pragmatic approach to lobbyists. She contended there were ethical lobbyists as well as unethical, and it was a mistake to put them all in the same category.
Since then the real John Edwards has stood up and revealed himself. He’s the guy who was having an affair with another woman while his cancer-stricken wife faithfully supported him in his run for the Democratic nomination.
And as for lobbyists, early in his presidency, Obama picked William Lynn III, the Raytheon Company’s top lobbyist, for the number two position at the Pentagon. Obama argued that Lynn was the best qualified person for the job even though he’d landed huge defense contracts for Raytheon. Obama said you just can’t go around being all that choosy or else you’d never get important posts filled.
But back to that polarization charge against Clinton during the primary. Infatuated Obama supporters truly believed their guy could unite first the country and then the world solely by virtue of his personal charm. But here’s a little news flash for you: the Guardian reported today:
Barack Obama's promise to overcome partisan political divisions and reunite the United States has so far failed to materialise, according to independent analysts in Washington.
The Pew Research Centre carried out a survey of polls six weeks into the Obama era and found that, contrary to the bipartisan note he has sounded, US politics is more polarised at this early stage in his presidency than at any equivalent point in the past four decades.
The researchers looked at the approval ratings for Obama reflected across several polls in early March, comparing his support among Democratic voters which stood at a huge 88% with that among Republican voters - only 27%. That gives a partisan gap of 61 points.
That is wider than even the 51-point gap between Republican (87%) and Democratic (36%) voters recorded at the start of George Bush's first term in 2001, despite Bush's reputation for divisiveness.
