It’s all very well to insist that Obama be as forthcoming and transparent as possible concerning any connection between himself and his staff and the Blagojevich matter. Transparent, open government was an important part of what Obama promised as a candidate, and he should be held to his pledges. Even so, am I the only one who finds it absolutely crazy that anyone is this concerned about Obama’s answers on Blagojevich when we have just had a Senate report released that confirms that the highest levels of the current administration were implicated in and responsible for serious violations of the law? This is the sort of thing that some people have insisted not be investigated and prosecuted during the next administration’s tenure for various unpersuasive reasons, and not least because of the concern that it would appear to be a partisan witch-hunt. Obviously, we are not concerned about such appearances in Blagojevich’s case, because we think it important to enforce the law here, so why not enforce it when the crimes involved are far more serious and there are far greater breaches of the public trust? We are watching a strange spectacle, in which the entire country fixates on egregious corruption of one prominent public official while appearing to be largely indifferent to the systemic corruption and illegality of the highest officers in the executive branch of the federal government relating to matters of national security and prisoner abuse. To answer Prof. Cole, there is nothing mystifying in the timing of the report’s release–Congress’ desire to bury this issue and avoid doing the hard things necessary to defend the rule of law is evidently very strong.
Apparently, Bribery Is Serious, But Torture Not So Much
16 Responses to Apparently, Bribery Is Serious, But Torture Not So Much
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Jake - butnottheone says:
Daniel, the whole country is not focused on Blago. Much of liberal blogistan remains focused on torture and lies and Gitmo, and on and on and on. But not much attention is paid to that part of the world.
Truthfully, I don’t believe most people are that fascinated with Blago. It’s the press with nothing else to occupy their minds who can’t seem to talk about anything else. Largely because, and just like the many of the Democratic legislators of both houses, they have their own past to get past. Few people want to turn over too many torture rocks because for many their name might by under one of them. Or a lot of them. In the case of the press, it is because for the most part they didn’t perform their job. For the congress, it’s because they went along at best and actively approved at worst.
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les says:
Speaking for myself, part of the non-response is that the news on torture isn’t news, it’s a statement of what has seemed obvious for years. Outrage over the issue brings responses from boredom to accusations of anti-Americanism or BDS. The chance that there will be legal follow up seems slight. What’s the point of speaking up again? Blago, on the other hand, is a non-issue outside the “liberal MSM,” near as I can tell.
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nyx says:
The sad thing is the difference in degree. Blago is more corrupt than a mobster in the Sopranos but he is openly and blatantly so. The incestuous circle in Washington is corrupt and unresponsive as well, only their corruption is legalized. What Blago is to money, Washington is to power but there is no Fitzpatrick to put him on trial.
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When the vast majority of mainstream media coverage and punditry is obsessing about the other topic, it is not enough that the liberal blogs are doing good work paying attention to these things. Unfortunately, when it comes to the supply of news reporting and commentary, the former is drowning out the efforts of the latter. Blagojevich’s scandal is easy to cover because his crimes do not stain the entire system. People can point and laugh at it as being still something of an aberration, while the torture regime involves so many and was institutionalized as a matter of policy that too few people want to face what it means.
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rawshark says:
‘When the vast majority of mainstream media coverage and punditry is obsessing about the other topic, it is not enough that the liberal blogs are doing good work paying attention to these things. ‘
You mean Liberal media right? Anything not FOX or Rush is liberal, mainstream media or MSM are just euphamisms. How come when the media is focusing (obsessing) on a dem scandal they are mainstream but otherwise they’re liberal? Doublethink? I doubt Rush will be describibg this as liberal media attacking one of their own. Were they liberal during the Clinton impeachment?
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So bribery *isn’t* serious?
Does the phrase “fallacy of the false alternative” mean anything to you?
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Steve, obviousy I do think bribery is serious, and I have never said anything here or elsewhere to suggest otherwise. You delight in invoking this fallacy, but have never made the least effort to demonstrate that I have erred in this way. If you would like to address the matter at hand, be my guest. It would be a refreshing change.
What I am addressing here, as you seem intent on ignoring, is that there is something bizarre and disproportionate in the attention paid to *Obama’s* apparently tenuous connection to Blagojevich’s crimes when compared to the relative lack of attention being paid to a Congressional report that directly implicates high officials in serious crimes. They’re all serious offenses, but I hope we don’t have to dispute that abusing prisoners and torture are more serious matters than shakedowns and corrupt Illinois pols. They are all certainly more serious than some vague lack of transparency on the part of someone who is, as far as we know, not involved in any wrongdoing. The title may not have expressed all this as well as it could have, but the point stands.
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Josiwe says:
Daniel,
The reason nobody wants to talk about that report is simple.
It was a formality that confirmed what everyone already knew.
The entire country, with certain exceptions, knew EXACTLY what BushCo was doing, and condoned it from the beginning. Nobody is shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, to find out that the government has been torturing Muslims. A blind eye was turned, in the media, in the public, in the government, everywhere. Even those Americans who opposed it did nothing but complain. There were no marches, no organization. Nobody took to the streets. A few people wrote books about it.
There was a silent contract with the president: do what you have to, and even if it makes us sick to our stomachs, we’ll let it go as long as there is not another 9/11.
Blago did not have the benefit of such an unwritten agreement.
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tedschan says:
Wasn’t Kucinich pushing for impeachment for a while back?
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truthynesslover says:
Obamas not even in the whitehouse yet and the republicans cant wait to try to take him down.Any small descretion will do.Remember the Clinton days?I have yet to meet a republican who has ANY remourse for the witch hunts on the Clintons they feasted on it and believed the most outragous rumors.Sound familiar?
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Daniel, with all due respect: there are three obvious reasons why hardly anybody cares about this Senate report:
(1) the alleged complicity of Donald Rumsfeld & other Bush administration officials in “torture” has been hashed over *endlessly* for *years* now, and the Senate report adds nothing of any interest to that discussion.
(2) Rumsfeld is long gone anyway, and the Bush administration is soon going.
(3) One has to be a religious fanatic (of one sort or another) to lose any sleep over Mohamed al-Kahtani getting water-boarded.
But, be all that as it may, the Blago-bama-rahma scandal is another matter entirely.
It might be interesting to see you discuss that scandal on its own…merits…so to speak.
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One other neglected, related story is the trouble Obama is having finding a qualified CIA director who is not tainted by the practices of torture over the least eight years. Brennan was rejected because of his defenses of these practices, but finding someone who is clean is proving almost impossible. The real scandal here is not about who Obama ends up appointing, but that the entire intelligence-gathering community of the United States seems to have been so complicit in these crimes that there seem to be no high level officials, however, competent, who have not been a part of this regime of torture. This is astonishing. It clearly has not been the fault of a few rogue officers and low level officials, it has pervaded the entire intelligence community from top to bottom, and cleaning that rot out is going to take quite a lot of effort. It doesn’t even sound like it is going to be possible to ferret out those responsible, since everyone seems to have been complicit. It’s going to take some very stringent rules and disciplines, and we are going to have to count on many of the same people who broke the law to comply with and enforce it. Yikes.