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pecuniumI've been having some reservations about him for a while. There seems to be a lack of depth to him; he seems to be playing at the Clintonian game of "triangulating," trying to set up a win with the swing voters, after the primary, than really telling me what he thinks.
But now I have to question his judgement. Robert F. Bauer, Obama's general counsel, is clueless about history, and clueless in a way which is bad for the republic.
First, he's advocating a pardon for Libby. Why? Because that will create some sort of backlash against the president.
Where, one wonders, is this backlash supposed to come from? Right now the president is polling around 30 percent. It's not like the populace need him to do something overt to repudiate him.
The press... well the press couldn't care less. They are all touting the story that Libby didn't do anything wrong, that Fitzgerald ought to have gone after the "real" crooks, the one's who outed Plame; despite that being impossible because of what Libby did.
No, the press isn't going to stick it to Bush if he pardons Libby.
That's the first thing which bothers me about that (not the idea that one might want, for politics, to have a miscarriage of justice done, in the interest of a greater good being done).
The second thing is this elaboration, "Nothing in the nature of the pardon renders it inappropriate to these purposes. The issuance of a presidential pardon, not reserved for miscarriages of justice, has historically also served political functions -- to redirect policy, to send a message, to associate the president with a cause or position. Gerald Ford radically altered the nation's politics with the pardon of Richard Nixon. Credited with an act of national healing, he also spared the man who had selected him for the vice presidency and whose prosecution might have haunted his party even more than the act of pardoning him. He reshaped with a stroke of the pen the national agenda: this pardon, he told Congress, was meant to "change our national focus." George W. Bush's father expressed his contempt for the opposition's "criminalization" of policy differences, with a batch of pardons for high Republican
We may be in the place we are now, precisely, because of Ford pardoning Nixon. Nixon got to skate, and while lots of people expressed disapproval of what he'd done, the system basically said it wasn't a big deal. Light wasn't really shined into the dark corners, and the roaches got to scuttle to safety.
The fruits of that were things like Bork (of the Saturday Night Massacre) being nominated to the Supreme Court.
Then the Bush pardons. We are most definitely paying the price for those, because some of those pardoned people are still active in present politics; they've been apointed to the Bush cabinet.
The "criminalization" happened when people like Oliver North went around, you know, breaking the law (and then lying about it to Congress, and bragging about having lied to Congress).
That Bush might be implicated if the people he pardoned had been tried, well that doesn't matter in the equation; Bauer just brushes this aside characterizing that as Bush pere, "expressing his contempt," not for the rule of law, but rather for differences of opinion on matters of policy.
That's not the sort of attitude I want the counsel to the president to have. That Obama has someone who thinks like this, is problematic.
But now I have to question his judgement. Robert F. Bauer, Obama's general counsel, is clueless about history, and clueless in a way which is bad for the republic.
First, he's advocating a pardon for Libby. Why? Because that will create some sort of backlash against the president.
Where, one wonders, is this backlash supposed to come from? Right now the president is polling around 30 percent. It's not like the populace need him to do something overt to repudiate him.
The press... well the press couldn't care less. They are all touting the story that Libby didn't do anything wrong, that Fitzgerald ought to have gone after the "real" crooks, the one's who outed Plame; despite that being impossible because of what Libby did.
No, the press isn't going to stick it to Bush if he pardons Libby.
That's the first thing which bothers me about that (not the idea that one might want, for politics, to have a miscarriage of justice done, in the interest of a greater good being done).
The second thing is this elaboration, "Nothing in the nature of the pardon renders it inappropriate to these purposes. The issuance of a presidential pardon, not reserved for miscarriages of justice, has historically also served political functions -- to redirect policy, to send a message, to associate the president with a cause or position. Gerald Ford radically altered the nation's politics with the pardon of Richard Nixon. Credited with an act of national healing, he also spared the man who had selected him for the vice presidency and whose prosecution might have haunted his party even more than the act of pardoning him. He reshaped with a stroke of the pen the national agenda: this pardon, he told Congress, was meant to "change our national focus." George W. Bush's father expressed his contempt for the opposition's "criminalization" of policy differences, with a batch of pardons for high Republican
We may be in the place we are now, precisely, because of Ford pardoning Nixon. Nixon got to skate, and while lots of people expressed disapproval of what he'd done, the system basically said it wasn't a big deal. Light wasn't really shined into the dark corners, and the roaches got to scuttle to safety.
The fruits of that were things like Bork (of the Saturday Night Massacre) being nominated to the Supreme Court.
Then the Bush pardons. We are most definitely paying the price for those, because some of those pardoned people are still active in present politics; they've been apointed to the Bush cabinet.
The "criminalization" happened when people like Oliver North went around, you know, breaking the law (and then lying about it to Congress, and bragging about having lied to Congress).
That Bush might be implicated if the people he pardoned had been tried, well that doesn't matter in the equation; Bauer just brushes this aside characterizing that as Bush pere, "expressing his contempt," not for the rule of law, but rather for differences of opinion on matters of policy.
That's not the sort of attitude I want the counsel to the president to have. That Obama has someone who thinks like this, is problematic.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 09:32 pm (UTC))
His argument doesn't seem to be "Bush should pardon him because it will make people mad" as "A President's ability to pardon is essentially unfettered, but would more closely associate him with the action"
no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 10:06 pm (UTC)If one reads the whole piece, his stand is, actually, worse than the portion I excerpted, because he equates Clintons prevarication (which was non-perjurous) to Libby's perjury, and leaves out the obstruction of justice issues.
Rather, he compares it to a perjury case where other factors, militated, "the case for absolution," which says to me he is carrying water for the "Libby didn't do anything so bad as to merit punishment.
In other words, this was a witch hunt, and might not even rise the level of wrongdoing as Clinton's parsing of answers.
He says I, as a progressive, am not appalled by Libby's lies. He's wrong. I am appalled by them. I am appalled by them precisely for the reason they are criminal. He lied in such a way as to make a greater crime unsolvable (or at least unprovable).
He subverted justice.
And Bauer goes on to say, But if the President pardons Libby, and by this act makes the case his own, he will have picked up a portion of the cost. Libby will fall back, restored to obscurity. Bush will step forward and take the lead role. He will have to explain himself; he will have to answer questions.
That's an assertion that Bush will pay a penalty for the pardon; but the pundits, the Kliens, the Novaks, the Colmes and the Hannities; the people who would be tasked with holding Bush's feet to the fire, are all saying Libby deserves a pardon.
So a pardon, in that case, would redound to Bush's credit.
Even as a political case the pardon is a bad thing.
Morally it's reprehensible.
TK
no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 09:57 pm (UTC)Alberto "it's only torture if I say it's torture" Gonzales, was Bush's counsel before he was Att'y General.
I am not sure if Bauer is Obama's personal counsel (and as such an member of his senatorial staff) or a counsel for the campaign.
In general, in either case, his job is to give legal advise to his client (which is either Obama the senator, or Obama the candidate, and may be both).
Such a person, in this context, also appears to be giving policy advice to Obama, the candidate.
Either that, or he's gone off the reservation, and Obama hasn't reined him in, or cast him out.
In any case, it calls Obama's judgement into question.
TK
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 03:18 am (UTC)I'd like Schweitzer (governor of Colorado, IIRC) to run, but barring him, it's either Edwards, or Richardson for me right now.
TK