I reject completely your assertion that Obama is preserving the status quo so maybe he can do the same thing.

I don’t think I ever said that he was preserving the status quo so that he could do the same thing.

I’m troubled by the precedent being there at all, without being altered. So my desire is to see Bush’s arguments repudiated and put to bed as extreme and harmful, not preserved, or left floating in this sort of vague, ill-defined way. I don’t trust any politician, on principle. Letting past arguments stand without repudiation is not a good way to go.

Do I think Obama wants to do the same things Bush did? Not really. Do I trust that he won’t? Absolutely not. And that has nothing to do with Obama per se. That just has to do with my unwillingness to trust politicians tout court.

Of course, it doesn’t help when you see that American citizens are being listed on JSOC/CIA’s target list for killing, per Obama’s instruction. That is deeply troubling to me. On the other hand, I’ll give him props when I think he’s due them: like releasing the OLC memos, etc.

[Edit: Ok, maybe I drifted towards saying that he was maintaining the status quo in order to make use of it in my last comment, when I said that perhaps it’s not unreasonable to conflate use and abuse. But I didn’t mean to imply that Obama = Bush. Just that these troubling practices are being held over, whatever Obama’s motives may be.]

And yes, cases are brought and adjudicate based on evidence and argument. But you left out the part that those things are also decided on by a non partial entity. The court, judges and juries. And I realize the tricky nature of SS cases and some judges not wanting to even consider the evidence out of deference to the Gov.. But this is the system we have. Until there is new laws passed out of Congress to clarify the SS conundrum.

We will just have to disagree on this, though I understand your frustration, I reject completely your assertion that Obama is preserving the status quo so maybe he can do the same thing. This is the mindless projection of Obama bashing of his being like Bush that I oppose, every time. You need evidence to make those claims, and letting these cases proceed to let the courts make the call is not that. It is not covering up anything, it is not Obama being Bush, much as you want to allege. Just isn’t, But you are free to allege it and I am free to knock it down. Carry on.

He is letting the courts decide their fate and validity. No more, no less, IMHO>

And I think you’re just wrong about that, and your comments suggest to me that you don’t understand how our legal system works.

The courts are what we have to decide these things, and they are doing that. [...] Until then, let the courts do their work which is what we pay them for.

You continually miss the point that courts don’t just “do their work” in a vacuum. The courts decide cases based on evidence and arguments (either or both, depending on what level we’re talking about). Those are not presented in some pristine, “objective” way. They are presented by advocates. One side tries to persuade the court to do it their way, the other side tries to persuade the court to do it their way. The way you present your case is entirely up to you.

all of these things already existed before Bush and now. The status quo for Bush’s use of them was to abuse them and is sorta the topic of this thread.

The point is that Bush made aggressive and shockingly broad arguments on all those fronts. That is the Bush status quo. Yes, they existed, but the arguments Bush made to justify his positions were extreme.

There is a question of legal precedent at question here, and if Obama were to just pull the plug, it would set one. And the next time someone got a bug up their ass and wanted the government to turn over their secrets, just to make sure, they would only have to use these cases being dropped as the default position.

Um, no. They would have the various doctrines as they presently exist. Whether to take a case to court is not simply a matter of law. It’s a matter of policy. Even for criminal cases. What do you think “prosecutorial discretion” means in that context? In the context we’re talking about, i.e. civil cases, it’s even more a matter of policy, policy that is routinely determined at the highest levels of government.

Obama promised to return to the right principles of doing that devoid of pol expediency of the Executive branch.

Promises don’t mean anything without action.

You seem to be conflating Bush’s abuse of these provisions with Obama using them without abusing them.

Indefinite detention without trial, trials by military commissions still planned, continuing extreme claims of secrecy, denials of habeas corpus.

Perhaps it’s not unreasonable to conflate use with abuse in these cases.

If Obama did not want to maintain the Bush status quo on state secrets, or executive power, or war powers,

all of these things already existed before Bush and now. The status quo for Bush’s use of them was to abuse them and is sorta the topic of this thread.

Oversimplification and a reduction of evidence to a simplistic binary frame is a favorite sophistic tactic of the wing-nuts and single-focus advocates (left, right and center). Often, this reduction to a binary frame is based on a false assumption that binary absolutes are the only measure of purity (and therefore: truth). The rejection of a holistic view of how the world actually works drives me nuts

You seem to be conflating Bush’s abuse of these provisions with Obama using them without abusing them. Unless you have solid evidence he is. And my previous comment states what I think Obama is doing with these legacy lawsuits, so no need to rehash them again. He is letting the courts decide their fate and validity. No more, no less, IMHO>

Here is the thing. Folks like you and me screamed loudly and rightly so of Bush breaches in separation of powers with not only the Judicial Branch, but the Legislative one as well. Obama promised to return to the right principles of doing that devoid of pol expediency of the Executive branch. I think that is what he is doing, and the only way to restore such sanctity to the system is to stop doing it wrong. Which is to me Obama bending to cries from the left to do their bidding. The courts are what we have to decide these things, and they are doing that. And the Congress has pending leg to clarify the whole use of SS priv./ Until then, let the courts do their work which is what we pay them for.

The courts do change the rules, absent of clear congressional intent, or law. The cases are in the motherfucking courts now.

I missed commenting on that little pearl of wisdom.

You glided right over the whole point I was making: courts don’t just up and decide to change the rules because, hey, it feels like a good day to go ahead and change some rules.

Courts are there to adjudicate cases and controversies. Adjudication means resolving disputes. A dispute requires two parties. In our adversarial system, the two parties make arguments to courts, and the courts rule (ostensibly) on the basis of who has the better arguments, or which side is right (or more right than the other).

That means that the parties have to make arguments.

The arguments a party makes are going to be based on the outcome they desire. If I want outcome X, and y & z are reasons that would tend to establish X, I’m going to argue y & z. If I want outcome A, and b & c are arguments tending to establish A, I’m not going to argue y & z, now am I?

If Obama did not want to maintain the Bush status quo on state secrets, or executive power, or war powers, the arguments the Obama administration makes before the courts would be different than the ones Bush’s administration did, because they would be seeking different results.

Do you think that cases just happen in courts by themselves? That they magically pop up like mushrooms and the judges just go about their business adjudicating these random appearances?

Cases in courts have to be argued by the parties. In several instances one of the parties is, that’s right, the United States government, represented by DoJ. That requires DoJ to go to court and make arguments about the scope and extent of state secrets, for example, or any other issue you can imagine, including executive power. The arguments DoJ makes in those cases will depend on the sitting president’s view of the issues.

Why do you think that the D.C. federal district courts allowed for a certain delay in the GITMO habeas cases when Obama was just coming into office? The courts acknowledged that there were likely to be new or different policies with the new administration, which would change the complexion of the legal arguments made in the GITMO habeas cases. They acknowledged that some of the issues being litigated may be rendered moot by new positions taken by the DoJ.

Changing the arguments you make before a court because the party you represent has a different view of the issue is not injecting politics into the DoJ in the way Bush wanted to do. Bush wanted people in the DoJ who would aggressively pursue a partisan Republican agenda, who would harass or prosecute Democrats and leave Republican politicians alone. Bush injected politics into DoJ by making political party relevant to whether you were hired as a career civil service employee, like asking people applying for internships or positions in U.S. attorney offices who they voted for, etc. That is injecting politics into the DoJ. Changing the arguments you make to reflect a different view of the legal issues is not injecting politics into the DoJ, not in the relevant sense you mean.

We’re not talking about ordering a particular U.S. Attorney to suspend the criminal prosecution of a particular person or something. The U.S. Attorneys are supposed to make those decisions themselves. What we’re talking about is making new arguments to courts to reflect Obama’s purportedly different policies.

If you dispute that, cite examples, because those are the only types of cases I know of that people of my persuasion are particularly annoyed with Obama about.

They do that. Republicans are notorious for accusing Democrats of WANTING or TRYING to do things the the Republicans have been ACTUALLY DOING for years or decades. It was a Rove specialty too; he used to do it with hand-rubbing glee.

You name it: sex, corruption, fascism, statism, socialism, raising taxes, inflating the deficit, shredding the Constitution—all these things Republicans are accusing Democrats of TRYING to do, the Republicans have actually been doing for decades.

“Death panels” is my favorite of the recent ones: we have had death panels for decades, and they’re called “insurance company claims review clerks”. Pre-existing condition—no health care for you!

Republican projection worked great for a long time, because it used to cause Democrats to get al flummoxed and incoherent and defensive and start denying that, no, they didn’t ever beat their wives, nor were they trying to. Ancient political trick, updated for the last 30 years of Republican projection.

But people are starting to get wise to it. We have a few scrappy Democrats like Alan Grayson and Al Franken who give it right back and hit back really hard.

And Obama is in a class by himself, he’s unflappable, and he doesn’t fall for this at all. He just calmly and expertly dismantles the projection, as above.

If you’ve ever watched the “Joe the Plumber” exchange, it’s stunning. Sam the not-really-a-plumber was basically lying out his ass and projecting, and Obama did just like what he did here: calmly dismantled the guy. Sam had no business. Sam wasn’t making $250k/year. Sam had no clue what the hell he was talking about. Sam wasn’t even named Joe. Obama had his number within seconds.

If I could I would double down the bolding that you make on my quote. Courts, Judges and juries decide stuff of legal controversy. Now maybe, or maybe there is merit to the claims made by either side in these cases. But since they are in the system, or were when Obama took office, I will say again. FOR OBAMA TO PULL THE CASES NOW BECAUSE THE LEFT WANTS HIM TO IS INJECTING POLITICS INTO THE DOJ, LIKE BUSH WOULD DO.

There, now, I did it. doubled down.

If you need evidence of how the rules aren’t set in stone, and that they change, and that it is the courts who change them based on evaluating competing arguments, with specific reference to the state secrets privilege, see Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan in the 9th Circuit

And you make my argument for me. The courts do change the rules, absent of clear congressional intent, or law. The cases are in the motherfucking courts now. New law is pending to clarify how and when the SS can be used.

Or equating Obama letting Bush ongoing court cases play themselves out in the judicial system as being akin to obama also breaking the law by not dropping them because liberals are pressuring him to which would amount to the same politicization of the DOJ that the Bushies were guilty of.

...I sincerely hope you were having a moment where you just needed to vent and so didn’t really stop and think about what you were typing. Because the emboldened (ha) part is, well, wildly inaccurate. Not to mention wrong.

Until that becomes law, these cases are being adjudicated by the system we have.

Yes, by the system we have. The system in which the rules of evidence and procedure are routinely examined, restated, modified, created, eliminated. The system in which one presents arguments about what certain evidentiary privileges mean, how far they extend, what they should and shouldn’t cover and why or why not. Not the system in which one is required to sit by and be silent, because the cases are “in the system.”

If you need evidence of how the rules aren’t set in stone, and that they change, and that it is the courts who change them based on evaluating competing arguments, with specific reference to the state secrets privilege, see Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan in the 9th Circuit (PDF warning).

I saw ‘Crazy Heart’ last night also. It was a great movie. Jeff Bridges has my vote for Best Actor, though Maggie Gylenhall was terrific, as well.

Obama has said a great many good things.

If the president honestly wanted to help small business, he’d loosen credit. (This would mean concessions from the bankers.)

I guess you weren’t paying attention to the SOTU address where he proposed to give TARP money to communtiy banks specifically to loosen up credit for small businesses.

Some people would say you were being disingenuous, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

We just mainlined the first three seasons

Yeah, same here. Season 3 in one night, no less. I’ve read all of Weir’s previous books, am currently on her new one re Anne Boleyn. (God, I love my Kindle.) The absolute best, most recent Tudor fiction is Mantel’s Wolf Hall. Cannot wait for the sequel.

Funny, I remember just a couple of weeks ago that Kevin Drum was an example of someone who was totally wrong about needing to pass the Senate bill because he was totally wrong about Iraq so therefore he would never be right about anything again ever, QED.

Now he’s the last honest man.