The man who was supposed to be the conscience of the administration on civil liberties has failed time and time again. This time he has certainly gone too far. From failing to close Guantanamo, backpedaling on civilian trials for the Times Square bomber, going after Swartz and defending Ortiz, Fast and Furious, and now the AP Leak it’s time for him to go. A persuasive case from a fellow liberal:
I recognize that there are times when journalists might have to reveal sources—when a person’s life is at stake, say, and others. And remember, the Supreme Court has never recognized a journalist’s right to protect source confidentiality. But even with all that, it’s pretty clear that Obama has been waging a secret war and then pursuing journalists trying to dig into it with more zeal than even the Bush administration did. And it’s an extra irony that Mr. Process Liberal is presiding over all this.
So what’s he going to do now? I think we can predict. He’s going to stand by Eric Holder for now and let some interminable process play out. Just like he’s going to let some lengthy process play out at the IRS.
And while these processes play out, it’s going to be drip, drip, drip. Republicans will say anything they need to say to gain political advantage. And now, this is the kind of matter that’s going to get Democrats worked up too. I wrote yesterday that he needs to crack some heads at the IRS and crack them fast. And now, he ought to ask for Holder’s resignation. This week. Enough already. Holder’s rights here aren’t more important than Obama sending a strong signal that he is in charge and can make hard decisions. Holder will go off and make millions of dollars anyway, and there are lots of other people out there who can be attorney general.
Congress has refused to appropriate funds for closure.
Considering it could easily be closed via executive order I lay it at the President’s feet. I suspect AP goes all the way to the top to unfortunately. But he is grossly incompetent and totally unconcerned with civil liberties. The only reason not to sack him is to prevent him from critiquing the administration and because the President has no appetite for a fight over a new AG.
Closing requires funding and only Congress can appropriate. If the President could close by executive order he’s been consistent enough about this that he would have by now.
I’d agree or disagree with you on a few of those other things, but this AP scandal is inexcusable, even if he “recused himself,” which to me was a very convenient way to divorce himself from taking the responsibility for the actions that were clearly going to happen.
He really does have to go.
I honestly don’t care about Fast and Furious, I concede Guantanamo is more complex, but I just wanted to list that the AG has consistently stood in the way of civil liberties and put himself above the reputation of the DOJ. He has to go. It’s as simple as that. Mitchell’s actions weren’t nearly as threatening to the integrity of the Constitution.
Then I think you’re mistaken. I lived through the John Mitchell era, this doesn’t compare. I suggest you learn more about the despicable operation Mr. Mitchell led. His wife, Martha Mitchell, was demonized as “unstable” and alcoholic only after she began contacting reporters with damaging information about Watergate. Her death, allegedly by natural causes, has always been tainted with suspicion. She was kidnapped and held against her will for extended periods — Mr. Mitchell was surely aware of that. Mr. Holder, for better or worse, is simply not comparable to John Mitchell.
I am not yet convinced that the AP issue is as bad this thread is suggesting.
I’ll retract the Nixon comparison since it will take us into the weeds. I didn’t live through Watergate like my parents did, I guess I am just a lot more cynical and now no that in many ways the bugging JFK and LBJ performed were a lot worse, as was nearly anything Reagan or Bush 43 did. In the light of those presidencies, Nixon’s second rate burglary looks childish and tame. I would also argue that Nixon never ordered the deaths of American citizens, which we cannot say for Holder or our President. Like I said in another post below, it’s not entirely Holder’s fault, but it would behoove the President to get ahead of this scandal and many others by issuing a strong housecleaning regarding the way his administration treats the press, whistleblowers, and civil liberties more broadly. It would simultaneously win back an incredibly disillusioned base while also winning over moderate/independent leaning voters and libertarians.
The reason the Ford pardons were so bad is that they, by design, stopped the investigation into the many illegal operations of the Nixon administration. I know it seems incredible, but — for example — Dorothy Hunt (wife of convicted conspirator E. Howard Hunt) was carrying one hundred thousand dollars in hush money when she was killed in the crash of UA flight 553. A contributor to the wild speculation and tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories since then is that White House aide Egil Krogh — convicted in the related Ellsberg break-in conspiracy — was, the next day, appointed head of the two agencies charged with investigating the crash. A week later, Alexander Butterfield (who revealed the existence of the White House taping operation) was appointed head of the FAA. Five weeks after that, Dwight Chapen (Richard Nixon’s appointment secretary and convicted Watergate conspirator) became a top UA executive.
I fear you greatly underestimate the scope and gravity of the Watergate scandal — not because of any fault of your own, but because Gerald Ford’s pardons ended the investigations and prosecutions that would have revealed the full extent of the plot. Remember, we are talking about CIA, FBI, DOJ and even State (Henry Kissinger was deeply implicated in the extensive web woven by Richard Nixon and his co-conspirators).
I am not surprised he walked away unscathed, it’s fairly obvious that man is addicted to power and wielding it for his own ends. The surprise is how he was able to wash his hands of Watergate and pin the blame on Nixon’s insecurities. Of course in the era of Bush 43 you don’t need a presidential pardon, just docile Democrats unwilling to investigate and foolishly thinking they can use the same powers for better ends. I will say that my early enthusiasm for the second term has already been spent up, he is a lame duck walking.
…for President Nixon, which I for one agree with President Ford’s reasoning for doing. I’m not aware of Kissinger being tied to it. Plenty of others DID serve time.
Sorry, Christopher, but not everything goes by the book and not everything gets written in history — especially the history taught in public schools.
Ok, one pardon. Still, it did enormous harm. The principle beneficiaries of the pardon were the many co-conspirators of Richard Nixon and the GOP. It was only the GOP and its sympathizers who found the prospects of a debate “divisive”.
The text of the pardon itself is far, far broader than it should have been (emphasis mine):
You aren’t aware of Henry Kissinger being tied into it because the investigation that would have proved it was halted by the pardon. Henry Kissinger was Richard Nixon’s right-hand man (some would say “Dr. Strangelove). Henry Kissinger was deeply involved in the Ellsberg break-in, he was closely tied to the people involved in the “White House Plumbers”, and he and Mr. Nixon together masterminded the secret and illegal US bombing of Cambodia.
Numerous sources detail Mr. Kissinger’s role in illegal wiretapping and domestic surveillance — all this was covered by Mr. Ford’s blanket pardon.
What you, and too many others, fail to realize is the enormous scope of Mr. Nixon’s hunger for power and control. The several conspiracies put together by Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were and are breathtaking. Had they been revealed (as they should have been), there is a good chance the GOP would have been eliminated altogether as a viable political force.
Hence Mr. Ford’s pardon.
We barely got that far along in US history by the end of the year, even in my private high school. I have however read quite a bit on my own, though I forgot the Ellsburg connection and did a cursory look for Kissinger-Watergate links before commenting above. I also know that unlike many others he did not serve time, but a pardon of Nixon in no way would have stopped an investigation of Kissinger if that had been warranted. After all, if others who were not pardoned were convicted and sentenced why couldn’t Kissinger have been? While he is a major figure in books about the Nixon presidency generally he is in my experience usually a minor figure in books specifically about Watergate and related crimes. I know he wasn’t a saint; in fact with his realpolitik hardnosedness he would probably be the first to admit that much. I do however believe in innocent until proven guilty, except where the process is halted in the case of Nixon though I don’t think Kissinger was even ever named an unindicted coconspiritor the way Nixon was.
When Mr. Nixon resigned, the GOP and right wing demanded that virtually all prosecutions stop — with no call for a prosecution, there was no driver for an investigation. The reason why Henry Kissinger wasn’t convicted and sentenced is that he was too powerful and too well protected. He is a relatively minor figure in books about Watergate because few authors were and are willing to go out on a limb for which there is so little investigative support. It’s the same reason why so few Democrats were willing to oppose the 2003 invasion of Iraq — to do so demands facts (in the 2003 case, enough to show that Mr. Bush was lying), the facts can only come from an investigation. When the investigation is stopped, the facts are suppressed and the blight largely erased.
There is a difference between “realpolitic hardnosedness” and plain old evil manipulator. Henry Kissinger was the canonical Prince of Darkness. He (or he together with Mr. Nixon) was responsible for a great many of the worst excesses of Viet Nam and Watergate era — and there were a multitude.
Really it sounds like Woodward and Bernstein would have gone there if they could. This is American political history after all, a topic about which I am more familiar than just about any other topic. I’ll cop to forgetting some of the details like I mentioned above, but there was it seems HEAVY appetite for investigations from the media and Congress. It’s why Ford took the unprecedented step of testifying before Congress about the pardon and likely a key reason for not getting elected in his own right.
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were conservative reporters who kept their focus on Watergate and on facts that could be verified from multiple independent sources. The involvement of Henry Kissinger was well outside that envelope.
The phrase “plausible deniability” came into use during Watergate, and much of the techniques were developed by the intelligence community (especially the CIA). It is not surprising that skilled CIA professionals were able to cover their tracks (and those of their superiors) well enough to block the kind of inquiry you describe.
Regarding the Kissinger/Ellsberg matter, I invite you to start with sources like PBS and go from there. I suspect that you, like me, will be impressed by how closely-knit these “independent” groups and events are.
I fear you forget just how extreme these events and people were. You suggest that “Woodward and Bernstein would have gone there if they could” — yet sources like this reveal just how tense the situation was — and how conservative the Washington Post was (I mean “conservative” in the sense of being careful).
I appreciate and encourage your interest in American political history. Many of the players in this pivotal drama are still alive, and the web and Google make it far easier to piece together the truth that often lies “between the lines” of simple facts.
The bottom line is that the “Watergate conspiracy” went far, far beyond a “simple” break-in at the DNC.
I guess I see it as a good thing that a couple of journalists stuck to verifiable and well-sourced facts. Going beyond that is tabloid territory.
In the absence of a vigorous and professional investigation, a great deal of malfeasance goes unnoticed. Most of the crimes committed every day by organized crime fail to meet the test of “verifiable and well-sourced facts”. Does that mean that organized crime is also “tabloid territory”?
I get that your historical “comfort zone” relies on the standard you offer. Sadly, that comfort zone leads to you what I would describe as erroneous conclusions — such as the following:
You, in essence, assume the argument you are trying to support. You’re not aware of Mr. Kissinger’s involvement in the many Nixon conspiracies because Mr. Ford’s pardon blocked the investigations that were most likely to reveal them.
I wonder if you will sing the same tune when history buffs of 2048 assure you, using the same standard, that the kidnap, rape, abuse, and torture conducted under formal policies originating in the White House never happened, and were in fact just partisan accusations from liberal Democrats. By then there will be no “verifiable and well-sourced facts” to support them, and another dark episode in US history will be whitewashed.
That is why the administration of Barack Obama should have persued war-crime investigations, and that is why Gerald Ford’s pardon was wrong.
Those who lived through these times know that US policy in South and Central America, the Vietnam War, the Nixon conspiracies, the multitude of illegal activities pursued by the Reagan administration (and similarly whitewashed by pardons from George H. Bush), and the many illegal activities of the George W. Bush administration are all morally reprehensible behavior that violate the basic standards of human decency, fundamental right and wrong, and the US rule of law.
That is why they should have each been prosecuted, and that also explains why they were not. Too many of us prefer the illusions of cheap patriotism and nationalism to the hard work of actually respecting our national values and honor.
My understanding of a pardon is that ony the person pardoned is exempt from criminal sentence. Since Kissinger weren’t pardoned he could have been investigated. In fact I think even Nixon’s role could still have been investigated even if not prosecuted. Not sure what the organized crime metaphor is about. Those crimes are investigated all the time and I hope and assume the alleged perpetrators have the benefit of innocence until proven guilty. There has been plenty that has come out about the actions during the Bush era that I think qualify as verifiable facts.
doing what President Obama wants him to do? For all of his great poltical and leadership qualities, there is a lack of concern with human rights on Obama’s part that is troubling. His excessive pursuit of alleged leakers in the administration, culminating in the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning, is an example of this.
I don’t think Eric Holder should take the fall simply for doing what the president has asked him to do.
Obviously the ‘buck stops here’ means that the President is ultimately responsible for a lot of this mess. From drones, to Manning*, to Gitmo, to several reports that the President has been obsessed with killing leaks and whistleblowing from day 1 of his presidency. We can’t lay it all at Holder’s feet. But I think Holder, who like Obama had a sterling reputation as a civil libertarian before he started serving as AG, has enabled and at times urged the President to take some of these drastic actions. I think managing a Holder resignation should be part of a much wider house cleaning effort by the White House to restore the rule of law, civil liberties, and transparency to governing, even in the national security sphere. We have not had a major terrorist attack since 9/11**, and I think we can rollback a lot of these excesses.
*Manning, in my view, endangered thousands of American lives and helped cripple the efficacy of the State Department. That said, he deserves humane treatment and the full rights he is entitled to under the US Constitution. In my view he is no Ellsburg, but his treatment will do much to discourage the next Ellsburg from taking a stand. It has to stop.
**The Boston attack was the act of two lone losers, it was not an attack from foreign extremists affiliated with AQ on the United States, hence it was an act of terrorism rather than a terrorist attack, and this is an important distinction which we are forgetting because the bimbers were not white and were Muslim.
for Obama to point the finger at a subordinate (in this case Holder) and say ‘I’m cleaning house.’
I’m not convinced Holder had to do much urging of the president to take drastic actions against leakers. The president sets the tone for these things and his subordinates pick up on that tone and run with it. Holder has run with it.
Rather than fire Holder, I think Obama should take responsibility for the AP mess, in particular, and tell the American people it will never happen again in his administration. Then he can direct Holder to change the DOJ’s policies regarding leaks. None of this will necessarily happen if Obama just fires Holder. It will only make it appear that something has been done.
Personally I think he’s been a horrible Attorney General. Maybe you’re right that he’s done nothing but take orders from another morally compromised and cynical president- certainly that doesn’t exactly speak highly of Holder’s own character. Screw him.
He should get ahead of this, give a televised address, admit to wrongdoing in AP and promise never to do it again. And then fire Holder and replace him with someone that has a sterling reputation as a civil libertarian with enough non-partisan/independent credentials to get confirmed. Patrick Fitzgerald would be a fine choice, and last I checked he has little else to do.
…namely our esteemed Governor, who after all once headed the Civil Rights Division.
A) He doesn’t want the job
I used to disbelieve the cabinet and SCOTUS denials, but he clearly wants to be MA Gov until his term is over (and in fact I think he should run for a third but that’s another discussion).
B) He wouldn’t get confirmed
As others pointed out elsewhere on BMG, if the tiny Gloucester press is convinced he is a a best friend of the President it wouldn’t help with public perception of a house clearing. And at this point it’s better for Deval to distance himself from the stinking and sinking ship of the Obama administration. He’d make a fine AG for President Clinton though, or DHS.
He had a couple of bad days of “scandals” mostly the fault of low-level bureaucrats, from which he will easily recover. I agree he may not want the job as he constantly insists he will serve out his term, but he’s only non-confirmable in the sense that the GOP has pretty much decided not to confirm anyone.
Think anything is going to get done the next three and a half years?
and forgetting the crimes of the Bush administration on day one of his first term? Jeez- is there no honor among these people?
Which appears to be his job description – so I’m not sure what you’re griping about.