Obama & the Rule of Law

I don’t know if there are any civil libertarians or scholars whose views on the rule of law I trust more than Glenn Greenwald’s. Glenn has been one of the most vocal advocates for defending the Constitution throughout the Bush administration and was a key player in bringing pressure to bear on Democrats during the FISA reauthorization fights of 2007 and 2008. That’s why I tend to take his views on how President Obama is handling rule of law questions, such as those raised by Charlie Savage in today’s New York Times, quite seriously.

I agree with Greenwald that Obama has made steps in the right direction, but has generally taken a longer view to resolving problematic powers left to him by the Bush administration. In the first few weeks of his presidency, Obama has issued some positive executive orders pertaining to the rule of law. At the same time, some of his underlings have taken positions on a number of issues that signal they want to continue Bush-era powers unabated. Glenn rightly points out that “Policies become policies when the President adopts them, not when some of his appointees advocate them.”

I would feel a whole lot better had Obama promised on the campaign trail, as Chris Dodd did,  that on the very first hour of his very first day in office, he would sign executive orders to restore the Constitution and the rule of law to America. Obama didn’t make this promise and he hasn’t acted to realize the same ends yet. I hope that he does. But as with Greenwald, we cannot rely on the fact that Obama is a Democrat and someone Democrats supported and thus infinitely better suited to hold the powers of the presidency as George W. Bush as cause to stop pressuring President Obama to restore the rule of law in America. As Glenn writes:

We don’t place faith in the Goodness and kindness of specific leaders — even Barack Obama — to secretly exercise powers for our own Good.  We rely instead on transparency and on constant compulsory limits on those powers as imposed by the Constitution, by other branches, and by law.  That’s what it means to be a nation of laws and not men.  When Obama embraces the same abusive and excessive powers that Bush embraced, it isn’t better because it’s Obama rather than Bush wielding that power.  It’s the same.  And that’s true even if one “trusts” Obama more than Bush.

A genuine reversal of the last eight years — meaning something more than just sand-papering the roughest edges — will come not from having a kinder-hearted and more magnanimous leader, but only from a restoration of the legal and Constitutional framework that makes a President’s magnanimity irrelevant, since his powers are exercised transparently and with real checks and limits.  It remains very much an open question whether that will happen.  There are some preliminary signs that it could, and some much more concrete signs that it won’t — at least not without a very concerted fight.

There really haven’t been any situations were President Obama (or president-elect Obama) asked the civil liberties base to “make him do it,” a la Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  But that doesn’t mean that progressives and people who believe in the importance of the rule of law to the American project should not push to make restoring the Constitution a top priority for Obama. Bush era policies on rendition, torture, wiretapping, state secrets, executive privilege, and habeas corpus must not live on in an Obama presidency. While we can hope that Obama will not misuse these powers as long as he possesses them, we cannot leave it to hope that he will simply do the right thing while keeping the powers for the presidency.

Standing up for the rule of law during an Obama administration is not a stand against Obama. Pointing out the need to recommit our nation to the rule of law is not an attack. And while I personally wish there had been more done on this front already – and that Obama’s appointees were expressing at minimum the same levels of commitment he made as a candidate on this array of issues – I do think, like Greenwald, that the door is still wide open for President Obama to restore the rule of law. I would just propose that Obama can go faster.

Losar Civil Disobedience in Tibet

Tibetans inside Tibet have been working on a campaign for civil disobedience when it comes to Losar (Tibetan New Year) this year. Instead of celebrating in normal fashion, countless Tibetans will be in mourning for the thousands killed by the Chinese military in the national uprising last spring and the untold thousands more who are languishing in prison or have been disappeared.

China has closed Tibet to foreign visitors and the media – not just the T.A.R. but eastern Tibetan regions that are incorporated into Chinese provinces. Time’s China Blog reports on the closures and the Losar boycott:

Whatever the truth, it’s what the ordinary Tibetans believe–and the rage it inspires– that counts. The boycott infuriated the Chinese authorities, but more on that later when we’ll have a story about what seems to have been a wide scale act of civil disobedience. That could be repetaed [sic] in the Tibet Autonomous Region proper from February 25th onwards when the official Tibetan new year begins. (Tibetans outside the TAR don’t much choice but to celebrate according to the Chinese lunar calendar).

…

Update: the government has now announced that all Tibetan areas in Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces are closed to foreigners, so it looks as though we got in just in time

China is locking down Tibet at a time when there are widely circulating plans for civil disobedience. The Chinese government is setting up the conditions for a massive crackdown with no international witnesses or media to report on their actions. That the action of cutting off 30% of the land controlled by the Chinese government from all foreign tourists and press isn’t drawing international outrage and attention is a bad statement about the willingness of the global community to criticize the Chinese government for their reprehensible behavior.

Dodd Caps Executive Compensation to TARP Companies

I’m very happy to see that my former boss, Senator Chris Dodd, has gone out and done the right thing over administration objections. The New York Times reports:

A provision buried deep inside the $787 billion economic stimulus bill would impose restrictions on executive bonuses at financial institutions that are much tougher than those proposed 10 days ago by the Treasury Department.

The provision, inserted by Senate Democrats over the objections of the Obama administration, is aimed at companies that have received financial bailout funds. It would prohibit cash bonuses and almost all other incentive compensation for the five most senior officers and the 20 highest-paid executives at large companies that receive money under the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The stimulus package was approved by the House on Friday, then by the Senate in the late evening.

The pay restrictions resemble those that the Treasury Department announced this month, but are likely to ensnare more executives at many more companies and also to cut more deeply into the bonuses that often account for the bulk of annual pay.

The restriction with the most bite would bar top executives from receiving bonuses exceeding one-third of their annual pay. Any bonus would have to be in the form of long-term incentives, like restricted stock, which could not be cashed out until the TARP money was repaid in full.

The provision, written by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, highlighted the growing wrath among lawmakers and voters over the lavish compensation that top Wall Street firms and big banks awarded to senior executives at the same time that many of the companies, teetering on the brink of insolvency, received taxpayer-paid bailouts.

“The decisions of certain Wall Street executives to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers have seriously undermined public confidence,” Mr. Dodd said Friday. “These tough new rules will help ensure that taxpayer dollars no longer effectively subsidize lavish Wall Street bonuses.”

Top economic advisers to President Obama adamantly opposed the pay restrictions, according to Congressional officials, warning lawmakers behind closed doors that they went too far and would cause a brain drain in the financial industry during an acute crisis. Another worry is the tougher restrictions may encourage executives to more quickly pay back the government’s investments since, in a compromise with the financial industry, banks no longer have to replace federal funds with private capital. That could remove an extra capital cushion, further reducing lending.

The key with Dodd’s provision is that it sets the caps retroactively and not just moving forward. A lot of corporations who took billions from the taxpayer coffers and spent substantially on their executives, and not on getting the economy moving forward, are going to have to give the money back. This is meaningful accountability and it shows that the US government will not tolerate rewarding people who ran their companies into the ground and then came begging for cash from Uncle Sam.

This is an important part of the stimulus legislation. It would be deeply disappointing if the administration tried to cut it out or nullify it in any way.

Ya Think?

Markos:

I’ve got an idea about what Obama should do with that post. It’s kind of crazy, but keep an open mind and try not to dismiss it out of hand, no matter how unconventional it might be in today’s political world:

Nominate a fucking Democrat.

That’s so crazy it just might work.

Educating on Employee Free Choice, Part 19

President Barack Obama was quoted in two major publications about his support for labor and the Employee Free Choice Act.

Detroit Free Press:

“He also discussed legislation pushed by labor that could make it easier to organize. A supporter of the “Employee Free Choice Act” decried by business, Obama said he believes there is no economic risk to workers organizing and making a living wage – especially if workers understand, as he says they seem to, that unreasonable demands on the part of labor would only serve to destroy jobs in the long run. He said he hoped to see in coming weeks forces on both sides talk about common ground which could be reached on the legislation.”

Philadelphia Inquirer:

On other topics, Obama said he would not urge a delay in consideration of the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation sought by organized labor that would make it easier for unions to win the right to represent workers.

Business groups are fiercely opposed, saying that the bill – which would allow unions to be certified by workers’ signatures, without a secret ballot, and would require arbitration – would increase costs.

“I don’t buy the argument that providing workers with collective-bargaining rights somehow weakens the economy or worsens the business environment,” Obama said. “If you’ve got workers who have decent pay and benefits, they’re also customers for business.”

At the same time, Obama said business had legitimate concerns. He said he would like to see labor and business groups work together on a compromise.

“Whether those conversations can bear fruit over the next several months, we’ll see,” he said. “But I’m always a big believer in before we gear up for some tooth-and-nail battle, that we see if some accommodations can’t be found.”

Barack Obama is a supporter of labor and I think we’ll see massive steps forward for working Americans during his presidency.

The First Opportunity for Leadership

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be making her first trip to China next week. Today’s New York Times previews some of the issues under consideration and the potential pitfalls they see as facing the Obama administration in their dealings with China. While the title of the Times piece is “US Prepares to Broach Hard Issues With China,” it only skirts past human rights and China’s ongoing military occupation of Tibet. It seems the challenges these days is how can the US make sure that China doesn’t shut off the money spigot during tough economic times. As a result, the Times’ Mark Landler gives the distinct impression that Clinton will be disinclined from pressing on human rights issues. Whether that is true or not, I don’t know, but it certainly makes for good Conventional Wisdom.

Clinton and Obama have a unique opportunity to put human rights and freedom above and aside other economic issues. Challenging China to improve the lot of their people and to end their occupations of Tibet, East Turkestan, and Inner Mongolia — as well as relaxing tensions with Taiwa — is the morally right thing to do. And in these economic times, it’s also the hard thing to do. But we elected President Obama because we need leadership that is more comfortable doing what is right than doing what is easy. Secretary of State Clinton’s trip to China is the first real opportunity for President Obama to show that he has the mettle to lead America back to a place of respected, moral greatness. This is an opportunity not muddled by partisan fighting nor cable news bickering, but one that can be made following study and evaluation about what is right and what America’s President and Secretary of State can achieve with the power of their words. They should seize this opportunity and call for a release of political prisoners, relaxation of military presence in Tibet, and the beginning of meaningful negotiations about the future of Tibet with the Tibetan Government in Exile.

Populist Caucus To Form in House

Congressman Bruce Braley of Iowa has formed the Populist Caucus. Ryan Grim of Huffington Post reports that it will start out with twenty-one members. Here they are:

Reps. Michael Arcuri (D-NY); Pete DeFazio (D-OR); Betty Sutton (D-OH); Leonard Boswell (D-IA); Steve Cohen (D-TN); Joe Courney (D-CT); Keith Ellison (D-MN); Bob Filner (D-CA); Phil Hare (D-IL); Mazie Hirono (D-HI); Hank Johnson (D-GA); Steve Kagan (D-WI); David Loebsack (D-IA); Eric Massa (D-NY); Linda Sanchez (D-CA); Jan Schakowsky (D-IL); Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH); Peter Welch (D-VT); and John Yarmouth (D-KY).

I would expect a few other names to join – Alan Grayson, Kucinich, Donna Edwards, a number of folks from the New York City area, Pete Stark. That is, this is a caucus that is sure to grow.

Update:

I was sick and blogging too fast yesterday. Lukeness in the comments points out that Braley has formed the Populist caucus, not the Progressive one as my post originally said. The entry has been edited to correct the mistake.

Censoring Major Disasters in China

Imagine if the American government had censored the Minneapolis bridge collapse in the summer of 2007? Or the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11? Somewhere in between the importance of those two events lies the fire which destroyed the brand new Chinese Central TV building, which includes the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The CCTV building was one of China’s much-touted construction projects that went along with their massive expenditures in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics. The building, in central Beijing and one of the largest landmarks in the capital, was destroyed, yet that destruction was censored by government propaganda officials and not reported in the press.

There were no pictures on the front page of The Beijing News. The home page of Xinhua, the official news agency, featured a photo from another tragedy: a stampede in South Korea that left four people dead. Throughout the morning, CCTV’s brief bulletins about the blaze omitted footage of the burning tower.

Even before the flames had been extinguished early Tuesday, pcitures of the burning hotel had been removed from the country’s main Internet portals. By afternoon, the story had been largely buried.

A directive sent out by propaganda officials made it clear that the authorities were eager to reduce public attention to the blaze, a colossal embarrassment that many people believe augurs poorly for the new year. “No photos, no video clips, no in-depth reports,” read the memo, which instructed all media outlets to use only Xinhua’s dispatches. “The news should be put on news areas only and the comments posting areas should be closed.”

It’s hard to comprehend this whitewashing in the Chinese “press” but there it is. Because this fire is an incredible embarrassment to the Chinese government, it is being hidden from the public.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a government so petrified of its people.

The GOP Minority’s Honeymoon with the Press

It’s starting to look like what it always looked like during the Clinton years – no matter what Obama does, he can’t win with the Beltway press. Peter Baker’s wank-tacular piece of “news analysis” in the New York Times today shows exactly what Obama is up against. Namely, the press corps refuses to recognize that Republican obstructionism has a direct relationship to President Obama’s diction regarding the economic recovery package.

Baker’s piece is titled “Taking On Critics, Obama Puts Aside Talk of Unity.” Well, yes, this is what Obama has done. But nowhere in Baker’s article does he document the causal relationship between how Republicans have obstinantly opposed Obama’s overtures and the inevitable shift towards a harder line by the Obama administration. The actions of Republicans in response to Obama’s efforts at unity and bipartisanship simply do not play into Baker’s piece, making it nigh impossible for a reader to know that President Obama isn’t taking a stand on the economic recovery out of narcissism or partisanship or because he had the urge to take pot-shots at the Bush administration.

President Obama has done exactly what the Washington press corps and the Conventional Wisdom set have asked of Democrats for decades. He put aside ideology and reached across the aisle to accomplish legislation for the good of the country at a time when we are in crisis. The Republican response to his outreach, his overtures, his invitations, and his cocktail parties has been to reject him outright. That three Republicans in the Senate have supported a watered down version of the recovery package in itself is a tremendous accomplishment in the name of bipartisanship.  Despite acting exactly as he promised to act during the campaign and putting forward a post-partisan effort to pass this legislation, Baker hits Obama at the moment when he’s pushing for the best bipartisan legislation he could possibly get from the current group of Republicans in Congress.

It might be easy for Baker to write this article. After all, false claims of equivalence have long been a hallmark of the Washington press corps’ hostility towards Democrats. In the end, that’s exactly the sort of article this is, a “gotcha!” attack on a popular president. Baker’s article could be summed up as: “Obama promised to be post-partisan, but it turns out he’s a Democrat!”

The larger problem with Baker’s piece, outside its gotcha style, is that it completely ignores the existence of Republicans from the course of events surrounding the economic recovery package. As far as I can tell from Baker’s piece, Republicans are merely passive flowers that are the subject of harsh words from Democrats. Had Obama spent more time sprinkling them with sugar water while promising to pour vinegar on nasty Democrats who want to vote for the recovery package Obama supports, perhaps then he would have lived up to whatever twisted expectations Baker has for his behavior in The Village.

It’s hard to process the extent to which Republicans are getting a pass for their absolutist obstructionism in the early days of the Obama administration. Baker’s article today is a perfect microcosm for the honeymoon Republicans are getting with the press. I’ve already seen quotes to suggest that the Obama honeymoon is over, less than a month into his administration. But something tells me that the Republican minority’s honeymoon with the press will continue for a long, long time to come…and at the expense of the Obama administration’s ability to get things done for the good of the country.