Harman on the Hook.

“‘It’s the deepest kind of corruption,’ said a recently retired longtime national security official who was closely involved in the AIPAC investigation, ‘which was years in the making. It’s a story about the corruption of government — not legal corruption necessarily, but ethical corruption.” In a fascinating (and depressing) must-read, Congressional Quarterly‘s Jeff Stein lays bare a byzantine corruption scandal involving AIPAC, the Dubya WH, and Jane Harman, former Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee and, some grumbling aside, basically a “team player” for Dubya during the illegal and warrantless wiretaps episode. (Irony of ironies, it appears Harman’s misdeeds were caught on — a court-approved — wiretap.)

Talking Points Memo offers a handy timeline of the case here. Basically, on one level it’s your basic political quid-pro-quo. Harman told an unnamed suspected Israeli agent that she would “waddle into” a federal espionage case then extant against two members of AIPAC and gum up the works somehow. In return, “the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi…to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections.” (It didn’t take: Pelosi instead chose Silvestre Reyes.) “Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, ‘This conversation doesn’t exist.’“

Sordid enough. But what’s a mid-oughts scandal without the Dubya angle? After she had been caught on said wiretap, a federal investigation into Harman was approved…for awhile. But it seems Attorney General Alberto Gonzales now knew he had Harman in his pocket, and took advantage accordingly. “According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he ‘needed Jane’ to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times. Harman, he told [CIA Director Porter] Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program. He was right. On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, ‘I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.’“

Not that I need to remind anyone here, but Dubya’s use of illegal and warrantless wiretaps would, in more cases, be recognized as an impeachable offense. As it was, the Senate GOP (then in the catbird seat) held firm against hearings, and many of our congressional Dems — Feingold, Leahy, and a few other lonely souls notwithstanding — folded like a house of cards. Now, at least in the case of Harman, we know why.

Update: The NYT weighs in with their side, and it’s TLDR’ed by TPM. And Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald has a good bit of snarky fun with Harman’s recent “road to Damascus” moment regarding wiretaps.

Pouring Water on a Drowning Man.

“The Times article, based on information from former intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. The article said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding.” Perusing last week’s sordid torture memos, eagle-eyed blogger Marcy Wheeler discovered an unsettling statistic: two suspects — Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — were waterboarded by the CIA 266 times. Zubaydah “revealed no new information after being waterboarded, the article said, a conclusion that appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been ‘unnecessary’ in his case.“

Meanwhile, as right-wing stooges like former CIA director Michael Hayden and Mike Allen’s anonymous friend excoriate the president for breaking tradition and revealing the illegalities of the Dubya era, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel ventured onto the Sunday shows to tamp down talk of any prosecutions, even for the higher-ups. “[P]eople in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided. They shouldn’t be prosecuted…those who devised policy, he [Obama] believes that they were — should not be prosecuted either, and that’s not the place that we go — as he said in that letter.“

Wrong answer, Rahm. And, unless President Obama were to grant full pardons to the architects of Dubya-era torture, it’s not even his call whether or not they should be prosecuted. In fact, choosing not to prosecute them would constitute a violation of international law.

Update: The White House doesn’t necessarily agree with Rahm. “[A]dministration officials said Monday that Mr. Emanuel had meant the officials who ordered the policies carried out, not the lawyers who provided the legal rationale. Three Bush administration lawyers who signed memos, John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury, are the subjects of a coming report by the Justice Department’s ethics office that officials say is sharply critical of their work. The ethics office has the power to recommend disbarment or other professional penalties or, less likely, to refer cases for criminal prosecution.“

Update 2: “With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don’t want to prejudge that.” President Obama opens the door further for prosecution.

Inside our Room 101.

“You asked me once,” said O’Brien, “what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.”

The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O’Brien was standing, Winston could not see what the thing was.

“The worst thing in the world,” said O’Brien, “varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by implement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal…In your case,” said O’Brien, “the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.”

And, sometimes, here in our own Room 101, it’s insects. As breaking everywhere this afternoon, the President authorizes the release of four long-awaited CIA memos that detail the rationalizing and application of Bush-era torture policies. [No. 1 | No. 2, No. 3a/3b | 4a/4b.] And, as Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald notes, they seem to suggest that even the parties-that-be knew what they were doing constituted torture. (“Each year, in the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the United States condemns coercive interrogation techniques and other practices employed by other countries. Certain of the techniques the United States has condemned appear to bear resemblance to some of the CIA interrogation techniques…The State Department’s inclusion of nudity, water dousing, sleep deprivation, and food deprivation among the conduct it condemns is significant and provides some indication of an executive foreign relations tradition condemning the use of these techniques.“) But, they approved these already-condemned practices as legal anyway, with the caveat that they “cannot predict with confidence whether a court would agree with this conclusion.” Yeah, you think?

Well, let’s hope the courts get a chance to decide either way. While releasing these documents today, Pres. Obama and Attorney General Holder also made clear that the CIA interrogators involved will not be prosecuted for these acts. “‘It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department,’ he said in a statement.” Um, I’m of the opinion that it would be unfair to get strung up in a, cough, “stress position” by a bunch of Cheney-authorized CIA yahoos and then see no legal recourse for it. (And, hey, “just following orders” — what a novel legal defense. Who were the ad wizards that came up with that one?)

On the other hand, as the WP points out: “Today’s carefully worded statement left open the possibility, however, that agents and higher-level officials who may have ventured beyond the strategies approved by Bush lawyers could face legal jeopardy for their actions.” That still closes too many legal doors, imho. The strategies approved by Bush lawyers are horrible — and illegal — enough. But, at least we can still hold out the minute possibility that the real, top-level architects of Dubya-era torture policy will face some sort of prosecution for their crimes, above and beyond their inevitable condemnation in the history books. (President Obama may argue that “[t]his is a time for reflection, not retribution,” but, the law is the law. And, as he should know, pardoning Nixon didn’t do Gerald Ford any favors.)

Either way, let’s be clear: These memos prove beyond a shadow of a doubt — as if there were any doubt left — that it was the stated and directed policy of the Dubya-era CIA to engage in acts they knew to be torture. That is unacceptable, completely antithetical to our ideals, and exceedingly worthy of a criminal investigation. If, in the name of national unity or CIA morale or whatever, the president wants to give a pass to the flunkies who actually held the victims down as they flailed, choked, or writhed in agony…well, that just means somebody else higher-up has to pay. Fine. But, if the rule of law means anything anymore, and I believe it does, the people responsible must be held to account.

Show us the Body.

“Even for the hardest-core Obama loyalists, it’s rather difficult to attribute these increasingly harsh condemnations of Obama’s civil liberties, secrecy and executive power abuses to bad motives or ignorance when they’re coming from the likes of Russ Feingold, Talking Points Memo, the Center for American Progress, Nancy Pelosi, EFF, the ACLU, The New York Times Editorial Board, Keith Olbermann, Jonathan Turley, The American Prospect, Bruce Fein, Digby, along with some of the most enthusiastic Obama supporters and a bevvy of liberal law professors and international law experts — those who were most venerated by progressives during the Bush era on questions of the Constitution and executive power.“

Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald surveys the growing progressive consensus that something is rotten at Holder’s DOJ with regard to state secrets and the continuation of Bush-era policies antithetical to, if not downright contemptuous of, civil liberties. (In case you missed it here or here, I’m not happy either.) “That the Obama DOJ has repeatedly embraced the very legal theories responsible for much of the intense progressive rage towards the Bush/Cheney regime is now beyond dispute. The question of motive — of why Obama is doing this — is far less clear.“

Now, obviously, the president has a lot on his plate these days, and a finite amount of political capital with which to achieve an enormous number of objectives. Still, it’s well past time that the administration explain what’s going on on the civil liberties front from start to finish, akin to Obama’s economic overview speech at Georgetown this morning. These are not piddling matters.

Prisoners of our Own Device.

“‘The commission could be the most ambitious attempt to re-examine and reform the criminal justice system since the 1960s,’ said Mark Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group that supports reducing incarceration rates. ‘It is a huge undertaking,’ he said.” As he promised a few months ago, Sen. Jim Webb begins the push for a bipartisan commission on prison reform. (Webb’s effort drew particular kudos from Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald this morning.)

Speaking of which, count me among the many (like Greenwald) who found Obama’s glib answer on drug decriminalization during the online town hall the other day to be too smug and snickering by half. People are spending their lives in prison for basically harmless behavior that he — and countless other tsk-tsking political elites — engaged in. That’s not really something to chuckle about.

That being said, it’s obvious that, with everything else going on, Obama has nowhere near the political capital he would need to deal with this sort of thing right now, even if he does possess the inclination. But, Webb’s proposed commission might be exactly the sort of body that could grant Obama the cover he needs to get serious about drug and prison reform. In fact, other than punting on a popular issue like social security, which prison reform emphatically isn’t, that’s pretty much the sole purpose of a bipartisan commission.

Update: In very related news, NY Gov. David Paterson announces a deal has been struck to soften NY’s draconian Rockefeller drug laws and get rid of many mandatory minimums. “‘Since 1973, New York has had the harshest drug laws in the country, and they have simply not worked,’ Paterson said Friday in a radio interview.”

Tortured Reasoning…Again.

“Eric Holder’s Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same.” Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? The Obama administration and Holder Justice Dept. uphold Dubya’s dubious use of a “state secrets” privilege to put the kibosh on a lawsuit put forward by five men “extraordinarily rendered” by the CIA.

See also a livid Glenn Greenwald for the details: “The entire claim of ‘state secrets’ in this case is based on two sworn Declarations from CIA Director Michael Hayden — one public and one filed secretly with the court. In them, Hayden argues that courts cannot adjudicate this case because to do so would be to disclose and thus degrade key CIA programs of rendition and interrogation — the very policies which Obama, in his first week in office, ordered shall no longer exist. How, then, could continuation of this case possibly jeopardize national security when the rendition and interrogation practices which gave rise to these lawsuits are the very ones that the U.S. Government, under the new administration, claims to have banned?“

Update: Sensing the likely blowback, one presumes, the Justice Dept. announces it’ll be reviewing Dubya’s “state secrets” claims in due course. “It’s vital that we protect information that if released could jeopardize national security, but the Justice Department will ensure the privilege is not invoked to hide from the American people information about their government’s actions that they have a right to know.” So apparently, the ugly details of our now-defunct(?) extraordinary rendition policy aren’t among the actions we should have any clue about. Ugh…this one definitely goes in the Carcetti file.

Gore: “I believe in recycling, but that’s ridiculous.”

[T]he last eight years demonstrate that the special interests who have come to control the Republican Party are so powerful that serving them and serving the national well-being are now irreconcilable choices.

So what can we do about it?

We can carry Barack Obama’s message of hope and change to every family in America. And pledge that we will be there for him, not only in the heat of this election but in the aftermath as we put his agenda to work for our country.

We can tell Republicans and independents, as well as Democrats, exactly why our nation so badly needs a change from the approach of Bush, Cheney and McCain.

After they wrecked our economy, it is time for a change.

After they abandoned the search for the terrorists who attacked us and redeployed the troops to invade a nation that did not attack us, it’s time for a change.

After they abandoned the principle first laid down by Gen. George Washington, when he prohibited the torture of captives because it would bring, in his words, “shame, disgrace and ruin” to our nation, it’s time for a change.

When as many as three Supreme Court justices could be appointed in the first term of the next president, and John McCain promises to appoint more Scalias and Thomases and end a woman’s right to choose, it is time for a change.

I’m not sure if Tim Kaine (ok, a bit heavy on the God-talk for my taste) and Bill Richardson (looser and more likable than he ever seemed on the campaign trail) made it to TV. I’m sure Al Gore’s address got some coverage, though. [Transcript.] Now, longtime readers know I’m no fan of Gore’s, and when his speech began I had a reaalllly bad feeling about it. (“Today, we face essentially the same choice we faced in 2000“…Uh, hell no we don’t. Sen. Obama is at least thrice the candidate Gore ever was, and he has neither been running to the right all primary season, nor masking himself in the pungent odor of Republican-lite centrism all frickin’ election, like some Tennesseeans I could name. Two words, Al: Joe Lieberman.)

That being said, I thought Gore’s speech picked up soon after its score-settling preamble, and, in the end — as with John Kerry — it was probably better-delivered, more honest, and more passionate than any address he delivered as the 2000 candidate. In effect, Gore gave the much-needed “Glenn Greenwald speech”: Of all the remarks I heard this week, it (and Richardson’s) drew most attention to the erosion of civil liberties and constitutional behavior by the executive that has marked the last eight years. There was a good bit of discussion of climate change in there as well, of course — that’s where Gore’s post-Nobel “controlling moral authority” lies. And, while it’s been going around for awhile, I enjoyed the many “Man from Springfield” comparisons of Lincoln and Obama. But it was as Defender of the Constitution that Gore’s speech most resonated with me, and, if I liked it with my exceedingly low tolerance for most things Gore-related, I have to think it played well out there to the undecideds as well. Good job, Mr. (Almost-)President.

Stating — and Rejecting — the Obvious.

“‘As he’s said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark,’ Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.” So…I guess Wes Clark won’t be the veep. For some ill-defined reason, the Obama campaign sees fit to throw the general under the bus because Clark, a guy I run hot and cold on, simply stated the obvious. Getting shot down over Vietnam, however ostensibly character-building, in no way constitutes executive experience: “I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility…I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

Said Obama in Independence today: “McCain had ‘endured physical torment in service to our country’ and ‘no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides.’” Fair enough, but that wasn’t at all what Clark was doing. McCain’s basically getting away with the same sort of resume inflation as Sen. Clinton did in the primaries, and Clark — a five-star general who knows what he’s talking about — called him on it.

One could argue that there’s a method to this move by the Obama campaign, but even that theory suggests a certain ugly political opportunism at work. (One could also argue karma had some part to play in all this, since Clark earlier jumped all over Samantha Powers’ gaffe during the primaries.) Nonetheless, between this, the Senator’s switchback on telecom immunity (which I discussed in the comments here), and various other recent triangulations, the Obama campaign has had a pretty lousy week. I don’t know if it’s the recent influx of “veteran” hands, an attempt to beat back the National Journal liberal label, or just an early-summer malaise, but that sickly-sweet smell of Old-School Dem Politics is lingering in the air. Get it together, y’all. I know the polls look good, but this defensive-minded playing-not-to-lose is assuredly not the way to go.

Update: “I’ve said this for some weeks now, they’ve been repeated many times.” Clark sticks to his guns, and Webb has his back. Meanwhile, Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald makes the case against Obama’s last two weeks: “There is no question, at least to me, that having Obama beat McCain is vitally important…[but] his election is less likely, not more likely, the more homage he pays to these these tired, status-quo-perpetuating Beltway pieties.“

Update II: Obama clarifies on Clark: “I don’t think that General Clark you know had the same intent as the swift boat ads that we saw four years ago, I reject that analogy…I think in at least one publication was reported that my comments yesterday about Senator McCain were in a response to General Clark. I think my staff will confirm that that was in a draft of that speech that I had written two months ago.”

Update III: Fred Kaplan has a theory about Clark v. McCain: Grunts are from Mars, Flyboys are from Venus.

Yoo must be joking. | SSDAG.

“Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion,” said the memo written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.” (Nor, apparently, does the Fourth Amendment apply.) An unsettling memorandum by Dubya stooge John Yoo which advocates both dictatorial rule and the legality of torture is released to the public, five years later. “‘The whole point of the memo is obviously to nullify every possible legal restraint on the president’s wartime authority,’ Jaffer said. ‘The memo was meant to allow torture, and that’s exactly what it did.‘”

More than anything, I’m reminded of Lincoln’s remarks to the Indiana fourteenth: “‘Whenever I hear anyone arguing over slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.’“

And, just in case anyone was under the impression that this sort of thing only happened in the dark days of 2003, witness Attorney General Mukasey last week getting publicly verklempt and making up 9/11 tales as he goes along, all to help preserve the NSA’s warrantless wiretaps. At this point, Chuck Schumer has a lot to answer for.

Tribune: We’re good on Rezko. | Sun-Times too.

“U.S. Sen. Barack Obama waited 16 months to attempt the exorcism. But when he finally sat down with the Tribune editorial board Friday, Obama offered a lengthy and, to us, plausible explanation for the presence of now-indicted businessman Tony Rezko in his personal and political lives. The most remarkable facet of Obama’s 92-minute discussion was that, at the outset, he pledged to answer every question the three dozen Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him. And he did.“

After Obama sits down with Chicago journalists on Friday afternoon, the paper deems itself satisfied with regard to the Tony Rezko story. (By way of TNR.) “Less protection, less control, would have meant less hassle for his campaign. That said, Barack Obama now has spoken about his ties to Tony Rezko in uncommon detail. That’s a standard for candor by which other presidential candidates facing serious inquiries now can be judged.” (Previously, Glenn Greenwald surveyed the Rezko coverage and explained why there’s no there there.)

Update: Sen. Obama also spent 80 minutes in the Land of Ebert, answering any and all questions held by the Chicago Sun-Times on Rezko. “I don’t think anybody at this newspaper can make the claim any longer that he hasn’t answered our inquiries after an exhaustive 80-minute interview session Friday evening. I won’t.”