Obama's Pandora's Box & The WSJ

I see that Karl Rove, writing at the WSJ, has reached the same conclusion as I did in the post below - that Obama's decision to criminalize political differences by prosecuting Bush era OLC attorneys for their advice on CIA interrogation methods will create a maelstrom in our politics the likes of which have not been seen in living memory. I would add that it will be a maelstrom not seen since at least April 11, 1861.

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Obama's decision to green light the prosecution of OLC attorneys for what amounts to a difference of political opinion violates his oath to support and defend the Constitution. At a minimum, as I noted below and as the WSJ notes in an editorial today, Obama has poisoned our body politic. The question is, will he act to stop it before the poison takes full hold at tremendous cost to our nation. This from Karl Rove writing in the WSJ:

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

If this analogy seems excessive, consider how Mr. Obama has framed the issue. He has absolved CIA operatives of any legal jeopardy, no doubt because his intelligence advisers told him how damaging that would be to CIA morale when Mr. Obama needs the agency to protect the country. But he has pointedly invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials.

. . . Mr. Obama seemed to understand the peril of such an exercise when he said, before his inauguration, that he wanted to "look forward" and beyond the antiterror debates of the Bush years. As recently as Sunday, Rahm Emanuel said no prosecutions were contemplated and now is not a time for "anger and retribution." Two days later the President disavowed his own chief of staff. Yet nothing had changed except that Mr. Obama's decision last week to release the interrogation memos unleashed a revenge lust on the political left that he refuses to resist.

. . . [H]e is trying to co-opt his left-wing base by playing to it -- only to encourage it more. Within hours of Mr. Obama's Tuesday comments, Senator Carl Levin piled on with his own accusatory Intelligence Committee report. The demands for a "special counsel" at Justice and a Congressional show trial are louder than ever, and both Europe's left and the U.N. are signaling their desire to file their own charges against former U.S. officials.

Those officials won't be the only ones who suffer if all of this goes forward. Congress will face questions about what the Members knew and when, especially Nancy Pelosi when she was on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002. The Speaker now says she remembers hearing about waterboarding, though not that it would actually be used. Does anyone believe that? Porter Goss, her GOP counterpart at the time, says he knew exactly what he was hearing and that, if anything, Ms. Pelosi worried the CIA wasn't doing enough to stop another attack. By all means, put her under oath.

Mr. Obama may think he can soar above all of this, but he'll soon learn otherwise. The Beltway's political energy will focus more on the spectacle of revenge, and less on his agenda. The CIA will have its reputation smeared, and its agents second-guessing themselves. And if there is another terror attack against Americans, Mr. Obama will have set himself up for the argument that his campaign against the Bush policies is partly to blame.

. . . Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, due in part to his personal charm and his seeming goodwill. By indulging his party's desire to criminalize policy advice, he has unleashed furies that will haunt his Presidency.

Read the entire article. I really think that Karl Rove stops too short here. I will reiterate my concluding analysis from the post below:

I blogged on my analysis of the legal memos here. I read them in full and with an open mind. I know more than a little about the law. My conclusion regarding the OLC memos was that they present colorable legal arguments that the enhanced interrogation techniques fell short of the legal definition of "torture." I also concluded that there were some weaknesses in the analysis such that reasonable people could disagree. That said, as of yet, I have heard not a single principled argument in disagreement. I emphasize that because quite literally everyone I have seen and heard on the topic has cited no opposing precedent to support their conclusory assertions and labels that the interrogation techniques were unlawful torture. At any rate, what Obama, Soros and the far left want to do now is, as they indicated prior to the election, criminalize their disagreement. I could imagine no greater threat to the fabric of our nation. Even the attempt to do this is going to set off a maelstrom the likes of which we have never seen in this country since 1861.

It does not end there. As I see it, if Obama and his far left base succeed in successfully prosecuting the attorneys over this, then President Obama will have abandoned his most sacred duty - to support and defend the Constitution. That is the day the far left crosses the Rubicon and we cease to be a free nation. The day any one of the OLC attorneys are marched into prison because of a political disagreement can and should be the day a true civil war - one that involves violence - starts in this country. Trust me when I say that up until three days ago, never did I think it the remotest possibility that those words would ever pass my lips.

Obama may be intelligent, but he is incredibly unrealistic and naive if he does not recognize the forces he is unleashing. He would be very wise to end the threatened prosecution of the OLC attorneys immediately. This scenario could very easily spiral far out of Obama's control and it could do so quickly.

The painting at the top of this post is "Pandora's Box" by Howard David Johnson.

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Radical Change

We really are at a cross-roads in this nation. The change Obama offers is a radical change to the left in many ways. I have blogged before on two fundamental issues - the far left's plans for criminalizing political differences should they get their hands on the reigns of power in America and that Supreme Court activism is a is drastically degrading our written Constitution. Both issues are in the news today.

As I've written previously:

There are many things deeply troubling about the far left in America. Their disdain for democracy and utter refusal to contenance dissenting speech are at the top of the list. But, now on the verge of actually taking control of the police power of the U.S. in the November elections, the far left are going beyond intolerance and into a realm of existential threat to America and democracy. It is the talk - from Obama through his potential advisors and numerous others - to criminalize policy differnces and dissent. This is a giant step beyond mere partisan politics in a competitive democracy.

If you go to that post, you will see the numerous examples I've included of this rising call on the far left to prosecute the Bush administration, including for war crimes. The talk goes from Obama and Biden on down. And today, the NRO weighs in on this very troubling issue:

So now we have Barack Obama’s plan for bringing the nation together after the election: If he gets his hands on the Department of Justice, Obama will use that power to prosecute his political opponents.

. . . across the political divide, there is a broad understanding among Americans that these disputes are political differences, not legal ones. They are the stuff of elections, not indictments. It is tyrannies and banana republics, not mature democracies, that criminalize policy disputes.

Read the entire article. That this is even an issue appearing on the radar screen in America is a measure of just how radical a change from our Western, capitalist democracy that an Obama victory portends to make.

And equally troubling is the left's attitudes towards the Constitution and the Supreme Court. As I've written previously:

There are two broad schools of Constitutional interpretation today – originalism and the "living constitution" theory. The latter is pure judicial activism dressed in a bare patina of Constitutional justification. In the last week, we have been treated to the best – an originalist Second Amendment decision - and worst – an activist habeas corpus decision - of the Supreme Court by Judges applying those two schools of thought.

Originalists attempt to interpret the Constitution by determining what the people who drafted it and voted for it understood it to mean at the time. An intellectually honest originalist does not announce new policy, he or she interprets history and precedent. That is a bit oversimplified - originalism is certainly not always that clean and can become muddled as precedent builds (and see the discussion here). But because there is always a strong bias to stay limited to what the Constitution says and what the drafters meant, it provides a carefully circumscribed role for unelected judges, thus paying the maximum deference to democracy.

When a Court stops interpreting the meaning of the Constitution and starts to impose its own policy views under the color of a "living constitution," it transforms into a Politburo legislating by fiat. Judicial activists and the left who champions them are the people who see an activist Court as a way around democracy and an irreplacable tool to remake society.

That post gives numerous examples of how this has played out as a fundamental threat to the fabric of our nation. I do not believe that an overstatement. You are welcome to visit the post and decide for yourself.

That said, Rasmussen did a recent survey on attitudes toward the Supreme Court and the basis for their jurisprudence. What he found is that well over half the left want to jettison the Constitution as the basis for decision making by our courts and near a majority want to replace it with "fairness." This is an incredible indictment of our educational system and a truly frightening look into the views of the left:

While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama’s supporters agree. Just 11% of McCain supporters say judges should rule based on the judge’s sense of fairness, while nearly half (49%) of Obama supporters agree.

Read the entire article.

Obama has promised change. God help the nation if he delivers.

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The Left's Wars

Over the past week, we have been witness to an uprecedented and concerted effort by the left to destroy Sarah Palin. The reason - she stands opposed to their dogma. There is little attempt being made to argue with her on her policies. The vast majority of what we are seeing are pure ad hominem attacks on her very legitimacy. I hope everyone is paying attention, because what we are witnessing is merely one manifestation of the progressive left's attitude towards freedom of speech and those with whom they disagree politically. Another, far more sinister and dangerous manifestation, is the repeated calls on the left from Obama on down to bring war crimes and other charges against the Bush administration should they get power. They have been quite open about it, and the latest to add his voice to this chorus is VP nominee Joe Biden.

This really is not a normal election. We stand at a cross-roads. The progressive left - which is represented by Obama and his coterie - would fundamentally remake America. Nothing is more indicative of the degree of change they would bring than the repeated calls to criminalize political differences, much as one would expect in an non-democratic regime. I have documented and commented on this in a post here.

Add to the chorus of calls today Joe Biden.

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

Biden's comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

But his statements represent the Democrats' strongest vow so far this year to investigate alleged misdeeds committed during the Bush years.

"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued," Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC.

"[N]ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution," he added, "out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law."

Obama sounded a similar note in April, vowing that if elected, he would ask his attorney general to initiate a prompt review of Bush-era actions to distinguish between possible "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies". . . .

Read the entire article. This is very dangerous stuff. No one is above the law, true. But for Obama to indulge the base on their calls for show trials regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, Guantanamo, waterboarding and the like is a road taken at great peril. There is not a single thing the Bush administration has done that has not been fully briefed to both sides of the aisle. The decision to go to war was fully reviewed by the 9-11 Commission. What Obama and Biden are suggesting is unprecedented in American politics - but not in the politics of other nations.

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Blasphemers

Let he who blasphemes suffer the pains of hell until he repents. Or in the modern parlance of NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, let's jail people for "crimes against humanity" if they should question the dogma of anthropogenic global warming.
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The far left of today have a lot of historical antecedents, particularly among the inquisitors who ruthlessly punished any who questioned their dogma. This from Fox News:

The heads of major fossil-fuel companies who spread disinformation about global warming should be "tried for high crimes against humanity and nature," according to a leading climate scientist.

Dr. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, sounded the alarm about global warming in testimony before a Senate subcommittee exactly 20 years ago.

He returned to the topic Monday with a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., given to the Worldwatch Institute.

"Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future," Hansen writes in an opinion piece posted on the institute's Web site. "Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming."

"CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual," Hansen continues. "In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature."

Read the entire article. The fact that a sizable portion of the scientific community disagrees with Dr. Hensen's assessment is apparently of no consequence.

This attitude towards free speech and dissent is typical across the spectrum of the radical left today, of which the global warming crowd are but one subset. As we speak, a law school in Massachussets is planning a meeting in September to draw up war crimes charges against Bush, et. al for capital offenses. Obama has said one of his first actions in office will be to initiate criminal investigations of the prior administration. The far left is not merely opposed to freedom of speech, they demonize any who express opinions at variance with their own and they seek to criminalize any dissenting speech.

If not else, people like Dr. Hensen should give everyone renewed resepct for those wise men who drafted our Constitution over two centuries ago. That they thought to include protection of freedom of speech in the very first Amendment of the Bill of Rights seems very prescient at the moment.

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