Month: March 2010

Obama Threatens Intelligence Oversight Veto

Another day, another way in which the Obama administration is pulling from the Bush administration playbook word for word when it comes to oversight of intelligence and restoring the rule of law in the United States. Oh and the veto is also being threatened because the legislation in question would fund a renewed investigation of the anthrax attacks perpetrated following 9/11, which the FBI recently declared to be neatly solved. The administration doesn’t want to “undermine public confidence” in an FBI probe of the attacks “and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions.”

I remember when transparency and oversight we promises made by Barack Obama, the candidate. Now they’re punchlines.

Obama & The Judiciary

James Oliphant of the LA Times has a disturbing piece highlighting the slow pace the Obama administration has gone about filling vacancies in the federal judiciary. Republican obstructionism has further slowed the pace of administration nominees reaching the bench. Combined, President Obama has had only minimal impact on the shape of the federal bench and time is running out for that to change, as midterm elections look only likely to decrease the President’s ability to put liberal judges on the courts.

The judiciary is an area where we absolutely needed our 44th President to make a huge stride forward. The Bush administration had tremendous success adding young, ultra-conservative jurists to the federal bench. Only strong efforts by this administration to appoint young, liberal judges can counteract Bush’s move to change the makeup of the federal courts, which according to the LA Times is now made of 60% Republican appointments (seven of the nine the Supreme Court  justices are Republican appointees). A failure for the Obama administration to aggressively try to balance out the makeup of the judiciary will have impact on what America looks like over the next thirty to forty years.

We need President Obama to dramatically move the ball down the field. The lack of progress is truly disheartening, as this is an area where I’d assumed a constitutional law professor would easily see the importance of aggressive action. Instead we see the same lack of willingness to fight – to spend political capital – on ensuring his picks are confirmed as we see elsewhere on labor reform, the rule of law, and key pieces of health care reform.

Yudrug’s New Generation

Today is the fifty-first anniversary of the March 10th, 1959 uprising by Tibetans in Lhasa against China’s military occupation that allowed the Dalai Lama to escape capture and flee into exile. It’s appropriate, then, to share this post from High Peaks, Pure Earth, one of the best English language blogs covering what is happening inside Tibet via the Tibetan blogosphere. High Peaks, Pure Earth has a post up on the Tibetan hip-hop group Yudrug. The go by the English name Green Dragon, too, but Yudrug really means a type of horse popular in the part of Tibet where they are from. High Peaks, Pure Earth write:

The group however do appear to be very professional, as can be seen in their meticulously edited video and good sound quality. In the past, they have given due credit to the song composers, even crediting well-known Nepal based exile Tibetan singer Tsering Gyurmey for a cover of his song “Dream” that they recorded.

This bold new style of musical expression heard in “New Generation” has been quite controversial in Tibetan cyberspace with Tibetan bloggers praising Yudrug for their outspoken lyrics but some also criticising Yudrug for adopting a style that is seen as “too western”. Whatever your musical taste may be, the song is undeniably powerful and energetic with a rousing chorus:

The new generation has a resource called youth
The new generation has a pride called confidence
The new generation has an appearance called playfulness
The new generation has a temptation called freedom

I first watched the video for this song a few weeks ago with some Tibetan friends in New York. While it was incredible both from its level of polish, it was also remarkable to hear parts of it translated. It was defiant and proud and unapologetically Tibetan. Now, I see the full lyrics translated. They close with these lines:

Our story has not ended here
It’s just the beginning
We never fall asleep but are awake forever

Get used to dreaming
Get used to unlawful damage and uprisings
Get used to this way of living
Get used to moving forward

It is impossible to not see this short song, this music video as a tremendous body blow to the hopes of the Chinese government that the Tibetan desire for freedom may one day die with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Not “You” – “Conservatives”

Glenn Greenwald writes of President Obama’s trend towards caving to conservative fear-mongers who don’t want civil liberties and the rule of law to be preserved whenever terrorism comes:

If, in the face of “GOP demands” that Mohamed be denied a civilian trial, he again reverses himself — this time on the highest-profile civil liberties decision of his administration — he will unmistakably reveal himself, even to his most enamored admirers, as someone so utterly devoid not only of principle but also of resolve: you just blow on him a little and he falls down and shatters into little pieces.

No Glenn, not “you.” Conservatives. President Obama has shown incredible resolve when it comes to resisting the demands, requests, and entreaties of progressives. The pressure on Obama from the right may be slight and he may cave with great consistency, but this is in stark contrast to how he stands up boldly to those on the left who ask him to keep promises he made and beliefs he claims to espouse.

There have been many places where I’ve been disappointed with the Obama administration – war policy, healthcare, and labor reform to name a few. But none is more infuriating than the absolute chickenshittery the administration has put forth when it comes to the rule of law and restoring the Constitution. It’s still early, but a reversal of civilian trials for the 9/11 defendants for purely political reasons (though who can honestly think this is a political calculus that is correct?) would be the nail in the coffin for any hopes I’ve held out that President Obama would fix the damage George W. Bush did to the rule of law in America.

Must-Read on Rahm

Dan Froomkin has a must-read analysis of the recent stories in the DC press about how great Rahm Emanuel is. There’s a lot of good stuff, but this line stood out to me:

The fact is that after a campaign that appealed so successfully to idealism, Obama hired a bunch of saboteurs of hope and change.

Rahm was simply their chief of staff. And now, this hypercompetitive bantam rooster is attempting to blame others for what went wrong. That’s evidently so important to him that he’s trying to take a victory lap around the wreckage of what was once such a promising presidency.

What’s so offensive to me isn’t the presence of long, hagiographic pieces on Rahm Emanuel. It’s that these pieces are being pitched and written while key decisions that affect the path of the administration are being made. Rahm and his loyalists are spinning these stories at a point in time when both the Obama presidency and Democratic majorities are facing incredibly rocky political terrain. The timing is so wrong it is in itself offensive.

Challenging Blanche Lincoln

I’m glad to see that Arkansas Lt. Governor Bill Halter is challenging Blanche Lincoln. The challenge will be coming from the left and is exactly what conservative Democratic Lincoln deserves. She was a big part of the reason labor reform did not pass last year and has been obstinate on health care reform. At a certain point, the party has to recognize that the biggest obstacles to achieving progressive legislative goals are not in the Republican Party, but are to be found in conservative Democrats in both the Senate and House. The best way to remove these obstacles or show obstructionists that it is not in their best interest to block the Democratic agenda is through primaries. It’s not an overnight fix, but at least it shows the conservadems that even in places like Arkansas, in the way is not a good place to stand.