Tag: Slate

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Criticism Law Politics The Opinionsphere

Yes, the Senate Can Refuse to Seat Roland Burris

[digg-reddit-me]Ever since Governor Blagojevich announced his appointment of Roland Burris to take Obama’s Senate seat, the Conventional Wisdom has been that while Blagojevich’s actions are unseemly they are within the law – and more importantly, that Harry Reid and the rest of the Senate can’t do anything to stop Burris from being seated. The LA Times opined:

Exasperated as they are at being outfoxed by Blagojevich, his colleagues and critics must face the fact that he is still the governor of Illinois and empowered to appoint an interim U.S. senator. It’s not a pretty situation, but it’s the law.

The Wall Street Journal suddenly discovered the Constitution and the Rule of Law after eight years of amnesia ((That’s unfair. The Journal always remembers to invoke the Constitution when slamming Democrats. It only ignores it when Republicans are acting unconstitutionally.)) and declared that this was a matter of “Harry Reid v. the Constitution,” claiming without equivocation that Blagojevich had “every legal right” to appoint Burris, that the “Beltway Democrats can’t inject themselves into what is clearly a matter of Illinois law,” and finally that:

Nowhere in the Constitution is there a “qualification” saying that a Senator must not have been appointed by an embarrassing Illinois Governor…now that Mr. Burris has been appointed, Mr. Reid can’t legally deny him his seat. If this is the way Democrats are going to use their new monopoly on Beltway power even against a member of their own party, we’re in for an ugly couple of years.

David Gregory, temporarily sans smirk, parroted the same Conventional Wisdom on this morning’s Meet the Press.

This Conventional Wisdom holds that the 1969 Supreme Court case of Powell v. McCormack limits the Senate’s power to take action pursuant to Article I, Section 5 of the Constitition. The Article states:

Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members…

Powell limited this power by holding that:

In judging the qualifications of its members under Art. I, § 5, Congress is limited to the standing qualifications expressly prescribed by the Constitution.

What the LA Times and Wall Street Journal and David Gregory fail to take into account – whether deliberately or not is unclear – is that the Powell case revolved around the question of whether the Congress could judge the qualifications of a member and exclude him or her for bad conduct while Reid is making his case under the Senate’s power to judge the process by which it’s members are selected or elected. On Meet the Press, Reid said that he didn’t know of anything Burris had done wrong or any qualification he lacked. Rather Reid pointed to the tainted process which lead to Burris’s appointment as the problem. This is an entirely separate issue from the one decided in Powell – in which a duly elected Congressman was denied his seat for misconduct during the previous session of Congress:

Our examination of the relevant historical materials leads us to the conclusion that …the Constitution leaves the House without authority to exclude any person, duly elected by his constituents, who meets all the requirements for membership expressly prescribed in the Constitution.

The key phrase being “duly elected.” The Senate still has the power to judge the returns and the elections – and this power was not limited by Powell. The corruption of the process leading to Burris’s appointment is also what Reid & co. keep harping on – rather than Burris’s qualifications. An election of a Senator marred by corruption, like a corrupt appointment, is to be judged by the Senate. Akhil Reed Amar and Josh Chafetz explain the history of this power and it’s previous invocations.

If Reid chooses to push this claim of Constitutional authority and refuses to seat Burris, he may well prevail, proving once again John Kenneth Galbraith’s prescience:

The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.

Categories
Economics Financial Crisis Politics Scandal-mongering The Opinionsphere

Irony Watch

As Justice Brandeis observed, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

So says the man whose governorship was felled by a bit too much sunlight on his sordrid sex life.

But an excellent new column by Eliot Spitzer in Slate on reforms to bring transparency to Wall Street.

Categories
History Humor The Opinionsphere

The Twin Radical 20th Century American Revolutions

One of the points I tried to make in this piece this October was the similarity of the radicalism of the 1980s to the radicalism of the 1960s – and how both were responsible for overturning the economic and social stability of the 1950s and early 1960s. But Stephen Metcalf in a review of Tom Cruise’s career for Slate summarized almost my entire point with this:

The ’80s did for money what the ’60s did for sex.

Metcalf goes on:

They told a miraculously tempting lie about the curative powers of disinhibition. It took AIDS, feminism, and sociobiology a while to catch up to our illusions about free love. It has taken cronyism, speculation, and manic overleveraging a while to catch up to our illusions about free money.

Categories
Financial Crisis Humor Law

Discretionary Spending (cont.)

Contra Raoul Felder, who asked for a bailout for divorce lawyers in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal because:

There is no other profession more dependent on discretionary spending, except perhaps the oldest one.

Chris Thompson of Slate’s The Big Money:

Some of the luckiest attorneys in the world, he says, will be the divorce lawyers. “Suddenly, people find themselves cutting back, and that makes them lose face in their tony community,” he says. “So that exposes tensions in the relationship that may have been previously ignored. The matrimonial bar may see a flow out from this.”

So that’s what it’s come to for New York’s finest lawyers: waiting around for broke investment bankers to destroy their marriages.

Categories
The Media The Opinionsphere

David Gregory: Goofily Hollow

Slate’s Mickey Kaus and Troy Patterson sum up David Gregory’s presense as the new anchor of Meet the Press aptly.

Kaus:

Gregory seems not straightforwardly dull, but somehow goofily hollow.

Patterson:

It probably makes no difference to the show’s content, but the new face of Meet the Press wears a contented smirk.

Categories
Iraq Politics The Opinionsphere

Only we can throw shoes at our president

John Dickerson seems about a day too late in offering the conventional wisdom about the American reaction to the show-throwing incident:

At the very least, I suspect a spark of patriotism will kick in when some Americans watch the tape or see al-Zaidi heralded in the streets as a hero. Hey, you can’t throw shoes at our president, they might say. Only we can throw shoes at our president.

That was my first reaction certainly – but most other people seem to have either looked on the Iraqi journalist with sympathy or merely commenting on Bush’s dodging ability as was evident the day after the show-throw. And in the case of Iraq – and Bush’s insouciant, “So, what?” in response to Iraq’s lack of weapons of mass destruction – it’s hard to blame one an Iraqi for wanting to grievously insult our president.

Can we really be outraged that the man threw a shoe in anger when Bush invaded his country under untrue pretenses and so botched the aftermath of the war? I can’t.

Categories
Humor Law Politics The Opinionsphere

Dripping With Contempt

Dahlia Lithwick observing Justice Scalia at oral arguments on Iqbal v. Ashcroft:

Scalia then points out that the ability of the attorney general and FBI director to do their jobs should not be dependent on the discretion of a district court judge. He pronounces district court judge the way you or I might say serial wife-beater.

There’s a reason she’s my favorite writer on legal issues.

Categories
Politics The Opinionsphere

Caroline Kennedy

The possibility that Caroline Kennedy might be appointed to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate provoked a good deal of emotional responses. Ruth Marcus, writing for the Washington Post said that though she rationally should not want Caroline to be appointed Senator, her heart wanted Caroline be in the Senate to make for a kind of fairy tale ending to her story – of a father assassinated, a brother tragically killed in an accident, a mother dying young – and now, the young noblewoman, the only remaining survivor of her famous family, taking public office.

Richard Bradley writing for Slate, on the other hand, strongly opposes the possibility of Caroline Kennedy getting involved in public service. He mentions several times that he is biased in the matter – as he blames Caroline for trying to block the publication of a book he wrote about her late brother. But he insists his opposition to her is “more than personal.” Clearly from the piece though, it is at root personal. I was somewhat surprised that Slate published the piece at all as the tone struck me as a bit too cheap and personal. Some more editing might have improved the piece – but I thought Bradley’s personal bias came through rather strongly – and that it was based mainly on his perception of having been wronged.

Glenn Greenwald did not come out and specifically oppose Caroline’s appointment – but he wrote a post challenging our political culture of “nepotistic succession.” Although the piece was quoted and much discussed, I thought Greenwald missed the point here. He writes:

There are numerous factors that account for this artistocratization of our politics.  Viewing political officials through the combined prism of royalty and celebrity naturally generates interest in, and affection for, their family members.  The same deeply sad mentality that makes it worthwhile for celebrity magazines to pay many millions of dollars for celebrities’ baby photos is part of what makes so many people eager to vote for the sons, wives, and brothers of their favorite political star.  Independently, a rapid worsening of America’s rich-poor gap stratifies the society in terms of opportunities and access and breeds a merit-deprived aristocratic culture.

I think Greenwald ignores the more mundane explanations for what he calls the “aristocratization of politics.” For example – you don’t need to bring up “the combined prism of royalty and celebrity” and “a rapid worsening of America’s rich-poor gap” to explain why any person is more likely to trust the son or daughter of a friend than a stranger. There is truth to the idea that knowing a parent helps us to know their sons and daughters. This is natural, human, and probably to the good. The important thing is to not assume the qualities of the parent are the qualities of the child – as the Bushes demonstrated. Bush was certainly his father’s son – but he rejected his father’s moderation and common sense in favor of radicalism and ideology.

As for Caroline Kennedy in the New York Senate – I’m not sure that she would be the best choice. But she would be a good choice. The Kennedy name is extremely valuable – and more so on her, given who her father was. She could be very influential solely because of her name.

I think it’s worth taking the chance.

Categories
Barack Obama Politics The Opinionsphere

The Blagojevich Scandal

I like how Governor Blagojevich didn’t see the second and fourth items on his agenda as precluding the third:

Throughout the intercepted conversations, Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, according to the affidavit, including:

  • Frustration at being “stuck” as governor;
  • A belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor;
  • A desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016;
  • Avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature…

John Dickerson observes that Obama comes off looking great in the indictment, quoting the charges themselves:

ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that the consultants … are telling him that he has to “suck it up” for two years and do nothing and give this “motherfucker [the President-elect] his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him…”

Blagojevich said he knew that the President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but ‘they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.’

Dickerson’s conclusion:

It’s a little incredible that prostitutes weren’t involved (or aren’t yet, at least). Perhaps even more staggering is that the man at the center was so reckless while simultaneously aware of the advances in modern surveillance. As Blagojevich says at one point: “You gotta be careful how you express that and assume everybody’s listening, the whole world is listening. You hear me?”

Categories
Barack Obama The Opinionsphere The Web and Technology

In Defense of Indiscretion

Or, In Defense of Fondling Cardboard Cut-Outs

[digg-reddit-me]Dahlia Lithwick, writing in Slate about the character of John Roberts as he was being vetted for the Supreme Court in 2006:

I knew guys like [John Roberts] in college and at law school; we all knew guys like him. These were the guys who were certain, by age 19, that they couldn’t smoke pot, or date trampy girls, or throw up off the top of the school clock tower because it would impair their confirmation chances. They would have done all these things, but for the possibility of being carved out of the history books for it.

An acquaintance of mine from college has been in the news recently. No – I’m not talking about this profile in Newsweek (which was reddit-famous), this one from The New York Times, or this piece in Time magazine. I’m talking about the headline on The Drudge Report linking to this piece in the Washington Post. I ignored that piece when it first came up, hoping the story would die. It’s certainly not news in any meaningful sense. But it does turn out to be “news” in the sense that matters most these days: It provides a hook for people to fake righteous outrage over.

Jon Favreau, a speechwriter for Barack Obama now slated to move to the White House as chief speechwriter for Obama, had a picture taken of him at a party. I include the picture to keep matters in perspective – for without it, an observer would probably imagine something quite shocking.

(The Wikipedia entry’s description of the photo, Favreau “performing a suggestive gesture to a cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton.” With that description, I would have pictured something else entirely!)

The offending picture was posted on Facebook by a friend of Favreau’s for some two hours before it was taken down. Now it’s in the Washington Post and the New York Times and analysts on CNN are making profound noises about it. According to The New Agenda, a supposedly feminist group, Favreau should be fired. Campbell Brown of CNN, the individual whose brilliant first name inevitably leads her to disappoint viewers expecting profundity (“Free Sarah Palin!”) decided her counterintuitive response would be to attack Senator Clinton’s lack of outrage over the degradation of womankind that this photo represents:

Really, Sen. Clinton? Boy, have you changed your tune. You really think this photo is OK?

Put another woman in that photo, just an average woman who supported you during the campaign. Have it be her image being degraded by a colleague of hers. Would you be OK with that?

Yes – Campbell Brown is outraged over Hillary Clinton’s shrugging-off of an unfortunate photo while the economy is melting down and two wars are raging. Clearly, Hillary’s priorities are out of order – not Brown’s. Walter Cronkite must be ashamed to call himself a newsman these days.

There is a sensibility that infects mainstream coverage of any material that is tawdry and cheap – a kind of Hayes Code for today’s newsroom that makes every sexual scandal or embarrassing photograph into a morality tale. Without that cover, it’s hard to justify the right to show scandalous photographs repeatedly and talk in graphic details about the sex lives of politicians. (Remember the New York Post‘s scolding headline about the Miley Cyrus photograph, the scandalous photograph that they then enlarged on their front page to scold her about?) The goal of these morality tales is to pull readers or viewers in with titillating details while simultaneously and self-righteously denouncing the behavior.

What’s worse though than the faux-outrage and real outrage over such petty scandals is the type of public servant it encourages. We can’t all live as Dahlia Lithwick imagines John Roberts has. To view a scandal with good humor is one thing – to view it with the knowledge that we are all human, are all imperfect, all make mistakes – with the knowledge that if a perfect inquisitor came to judge us by our own standards, each of us would be found wanting. None of us are pure – and often those most obsessed with purity turn out to have their own demons. (See Haggard, Ted.) Our current political and media environment penalizes anyone who has lived and left any evidence to show for it. And we wonder how we’ve gotten in so much trouble.

At the same time, the self-appointed inquisitors have often been found wanting themselves. From preachers to journalists to politicians to news anchors to judges to each one of us – all of us, having lived, have done things we regret. Whether our regrets are dragged into the light of day and made into a media spectacle is largely a matter of happenstance. If you live in the public eye, then having the media pore over the worst moments of your life is a risk you take.

But we don’t really want to limit our politicians and public servants to those who have never done anything to have offended anyone in their lives.

Thankfully, Barack Obama has not taken this approach. If he wanted to avoid scandal and hypocritical tsk-tsk-ing, he would not have named Hillary Clinton Secretary of State with her long history. Lawrence Summers, as necessary as his brilliance may be to saving our economy, would have been eliminated because of controversial remarks he made some years ago. Eric Holder, despite his almost spotless record, would have been eliminated for that one spot – his minor role in the Marc Rich pardon. Joe Biden’s runaway mouth has led him to offend many constituencies.

Barack Obama campaigned saying he would change Washington and politics as usual. It seems his first order of business is to ignore the hypocrites of the media (and media-parasites like The New Agenda). With Hillary Clinton downplaying the incident and Obama having a history of ignoring this type of media scandal, I hope and trust that Jon Favreau’s job is safe.

But that’s not the point. It should never have been called into question over an incident like this. If the media wants to report on some lewd scandal, they can at least do their audience the favor of avoiding the hypocritical moral posturing and just revel in the tawdriness of it. It would at least be honest.

***

By the way, The New Agenda managed to insinuate that my college inculcated “less-than-respectful attitudes toward women”:

Ironically, other famous alumni of Jon Favreau’s alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross, are Clarence Thomas and Chris Matthews, also noted for their less-than-respectful attitudes toward women.

Apparently, the writer of this piece for The New Agenda never quite understood the meaning of the word “ironically.” That’s what a second-rate education will get you – a lack of knowledge of basic English vocabulary and a deficient sense of humor.

To complain about The New Agenda’s misuse of the word, “ironically,” you can email:

Or preferably, email each address to make sure someone gets it.

(It’s harder to get in touch with Campbell Brown – but you can comment to CNN here.)

Continue reading “In Defense of Indiscretion”