The President And The Palestinians

It is easy, when hearing a major address, to get caught up in the central message or, paradoxically, in individual phrases or sentences.

And so it is that President Obama has garnered widespread acclaim for a speech that acknowledges the shortcomings of his country and pledges its support for a beleagured, historically oppressed people.

But a more sanguine analysis of Obama's address in Cairo to the Muslim world reveals interesting- and disturbing- symmetry.

In the space of three- and, most importantly, three consecutive- paragraphs, the President made the following unremarkable points:

1) Jews have suffered for centuries, culminating in the Holocaust;

2) Threatening Israel with destruction is "wrong";

3) Palestinians "have suffered in pursuit of a homeland";

4) The region "for decades" has endured "a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations."

Nothing extraordinary nor bold there. But there are two clear implications: a)the Holocaust and the oppression of Palestinians have been equivalent horrors (as in "on the other hand"); and b)the Israelis, and no one else, are responsible for the plight of the "Palestinian people, Muslims and Christians" (as Obama phrased it in an earlier paragraph, suggesting the confluence of interests between Muslims and Christians in opposition to those of Jewish Palestinians).

Now these implications, so clear in the reading, are remarkable. Remarkably inaccurate and, in the case of establishing symmetry between the experiences of the Jewish people and those of the Palestinians, remarkably obscene. To be sure, in the course of 13 paragraphs devoted to the Mideast, Mr. Obama managed to say that the Arab states must "help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel's legitimacy, and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past." But there was no suggestion that these Arab states in any way have been responsible for the plight of the Palestinians nor a factor in the continuing absence of a homeland; only three sentences so bland and insignificant that no one, as far as I can tell, even has mentioned the reference.

President Obama's concern for the aspirations of the Palestinian people are shared by most Americans- and most Israelis, as well as by their government. If there were now as much interest on the part of Arab governments, other than as an alibi for their own failure, Mr. Obama's vision might be fulfilled. If only.

Not In His Own Interest

Perhaps it is a reflection of the sentiment of a President who is unfailingly practical and has stated "generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards."

Perhaps it is because it would undermine the perception of bipartisanship/non-partisanship of the President, who has said "If and when there needs to be a fuller accounting of what took place during this period, I think for Congress to examine ways that it can be done in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process that can sometimes break down and break entirely along party lines...."

Or maybe it's a sense of the opposition of the American people. No, as this poll indicates, the citizens of our nation want the truth revealed.

But the coolness of President Barack Obama to the excesses of the Bush Administration, drunk on the privileges of power, to any kind of "truth" or "truth and reconciliation" commission, is hard to fathom. But maybe not anymore.

An editorial which ran on June 1 in The Washington Post, though not addressing that issue, inadvertently reveals a clue:

The Justice Department filed notice Thursday of its intention to challenge in the Supreme Court a New York federal appeals court ruling that ordered the administration to make public photographs allegedly depicting the abuse of terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. The American Civil Liberties Union had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit to force their disclosure. (The Washington Post Co. filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the ACLU.) At the same time, the Justice Department alerted the court that a formal appeal by the June 9 deadline may be unnecessary if Congress quickly passes the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009. The department also asked Friday that the deadline be extended to July 9.

The measure, supported by the White House and passed May 21 as an attachment to a Senate funding bill, would put beyond the reach of FOIA any photographs taken between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22, 2009, "relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States" that the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have determined would endanger military personnel if released.

There is an apparent inconsistency in Obama's support for this measure, sponsored by Senators Lieberman (I-D- Conn.) and Graham (R.- So. Carolina). The White House's website proclaims "President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history" and the Post's editors note "Mr. Obama runs the risk of taking two steps back in his quest for more open government."

The action by the Administration, by way of the Justice Department, for this outrageous effort to abrogate the Freedom of Information Act is of a piece with Senator Obama's support for reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. (Note the apparent bewilderment here over the Senator's apparent support for illegal spying.) Glenn Greenwald explains the parallelism between the two congressional measures (and the Military Commisssions Act of 2006) supported by Barack Obama by pointing out opposition to permitting release of the torture photographs

....is part of a broader trend whereby the Government simply retroactively changes the law whenever it decides it does not want to abide by it. For decades, we had laws in place authorizing citizens to sue their telecommunication carriers if the telecoms allowed government spying on their communications in violation of the law, but when it was revealed that the telecoms did exactly this, the Congress simply changed the law retroactively so that it no longer applied. For decades, we had laws imposing civil and criminal liability on government officials who engaged in or authorized torture, but when it was revealed that our government did that, the Congress just retroactively changed the law to protect the torturers. And now that courts have ruled that our decades-old transparency law compels disclosure of this torture evidence, the Congress is just going to retroactively change the law -- again -- this time to empower the President to suppress that evidence anyway.

However, there is something additional that binds Barack Obama's support for FISA reauthorization, suppression of photographic evidence of misdeeds of the U.S. government, and opposition to a commission which might reveal abuses by the previous presidential regime. It is support for Executive authority- extreme and unprecedented presidential power.

Nuanced, thoughtful, and deliberative as he might be, Barack Obama is no hypocrite. He could support transparency and a revelatory look into Bush Administration torture, spying, and/or political exploitation of the Justice Department. But it would hardly be consistent, or perhaps even fair-minded, to do so while arrogating to yourself authority and power President George W. Bush didn't dare assume, but would have loved to have.

Families First, Principles Second (Or Not At All)

It's a short post (by a deservedly famous leftist blogger) so herewith is Jane Hamsher's comment of June 3 in its entirety about the conservative impulse to be empathetic when convenient:

Shorter Newt: Now that Robert Gibbs and President Obama have accepted my central premise that Sotomayor's remarks were racist, let's all just agree that "empathy" disqualifies her from the bench.

I was on MSNBC yesterday talking with David Shuster and Matt Lewis about Dick Cheney's newly vocal reverence for gay marriage. I made the point (which I freely admit came from Glenn Greenwald) that conservative principles seem to crumble when they come up against empathy -- Cheney endorses full civil rights because of his experience as the father of a lesbian daughter, Nancy Reagan becomes the spokesperson for stem cell research because of her husband, and Erich "Mancow" Muller renounces his support for waterboarding after he tries it himself.

No wonder conservatives hate empathy.

Leaving aside the issue of what role, if any, "empathy" should play in consideration of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the United States Supreme Court, Hamsher makes an excellent point, although not exactly the one she intended.

Cheney's support for gay rights is not "newly vocal reverence." When asked at a campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa in 2004. Hinting (so strongly that he was promptly critized by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Center) that he opposed President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, Cheney explained (video below)

Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with. With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone. ... People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.

(And Cheney's recent position seems very similar to that he expressed almost five years ago.)

Although it is true that right-wing iconoclastic talk show host Erich "Mancow" Muller has renounced support for torture now that he has endured it, his case is vastly different. Muller has no familial, or any personal, stake in interrogation techniques. His (current) position on waterboarding- though Hamsher might not agree- is more credible and rationally conceived than that of the others. Muller did not come to his view for any personal or self-interested reason but because he learned about this "enhanced interrogation technique" firsthand. Speaking from knowledge and not self-interest: Muller is, if not unique, unusual among Republicans or conservatives.

A better, third example, would be former McCain campaign advisor Steve Schmidt, who on April 17 told the Log Cabin Republicans

it seems to me that denying two consenting adults of the same sex the right to form a lawful union that is protected and respected by the state denies them two of the most basic natural rights affirmed in the preamble of our Declaration of Independence.

Mr. Schmidt, unsurprisingly, has a sister who is a lesbian. Or as this blogger, citing Cheney, Reagan, and Rush Limbaugh, put it:

...Schmidt's position on same-sex marriage isn't all that groundbreaking when you consider that his family is directly affected by the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples. It's just more proof, as if more were needed, that Republicans are quite capable of tolerance and open-mindedness and empathy—but only when they themselves or members of their own families are touched by an issue that requires a little tolerance, open-mindedness, or empathy.

Hero Worship, NBC News Edition

Mediabistro.com, operating under "TV Newswer.... and now the news about the news," reports

In advance of the NBC News special "Inside the Obama White House" — set to air tomorrow and Wednesday at 9pmET — Brian Williams tells The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz that among the 150 hours of footage shot for the program, "there's stuff we've never seen of how the White House operates...we were pretty stunned at how much we were able to record and how natural events seemed to be."

Williams talks of "walking through the West Wing and Secretary [Hillary] Clinton drops by to see the president. To be in the hallway when the president walks by with a handful of M&Ms, popping them in his mouth as he goes to visit his chief of staff —it was unbelievable."

We've always known Brian Williams is no Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein but... he admits this?

Abortion Rhetoric

Chris Matthews, who apparently believes "there has to be some conditions set here when you have a late-term abortion," discussed the murder of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas Monday on Hardball with William Saletan and the Washington Post's Ceci Connolly. Matthews, who can be annoying, aggravating, or (in the case of Barack Obama, video below) awestruck, made one critical point and Saletan another:

SALETAN: Politically, no, but morally, I think it exposes a concession that this is not literally murder, that we are not to treat it literally like murder.

MATTHEWS: You know, I always ask people, Ceci, you know, rhetorically

not just rhetorically, but, When you say it‘s murder, as opposed to killing—you say “murder,” that‘s a legal term. And you start using terms like that, do you really think a woman, for example, should go to penitentiary for having an abortion performed on her? Do you think a person should serve any time for that? And inevitably, the answer is no. So there is a kind of an intellectual break point here, isn‘t there? And I think it is clearly in effect today in the aftermath of this murder.

SALETAN: Right.

MATTHEWS: I‘m just talking...

SALETAN: And none of these pro-life organizations—not a single bill that they have proposed has ever had a penalty for the woman who procures the abortion.

MATTHEWS: Why not?

SALETAN: Because they don‘t literally believe that she is a murderer.

CONNOLLY: And...

MATTHEWS: But they believe who is—who commits the murder then?

SALETAN: Well, it‘s a contract hit, if you want to use that—that...

MATTHEWS: But then, if that‘s true, then she should be guilty, too.

SALETAN: Exactly. But they don‘t propose it...

MATTHEWS: If you believe that logic.

SALETAN: Right. Just...

When you say it's murder, as opposed to just killing- you say "murder," that's a legal term. Dictionary.com defines "murder" in law as "the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law." The freedictionary. com defines murder as "the killing of a human being by a sane person, with intent, malice aforethought (prior intention to kill the particular victim or anyone who gets in the way), and with no legal excuse or authority" and specifies

Death of an unborn child who is "quick" (fetus is moving) can be murder, provided there was premeditation, malice, and no legal authority. Thus, abortion is not murder under the law.

And none of these pro-life organizations—not a single bill that they have proposed has ever had a penalty for the woman who procures the abortion. Thus, if abortion were prohibited (on the basis, obviously, of it being an act of killing a human being), the woman would be not only involved in, but the catalyst behind, a contract killing. Presumably, pro-life organizations and politicians assiduously avoid including the woman as culpable in this "murder" for strategic reasons, that it would undermine (probably destroy) popular support for any anti-abortion legislation.

The right routinely accuses the mainstream media of being "liberal" and no doubt the issue of abortion features prominently in this perspective. It then is curious that Matthews and Saletan are two of the few members of the profession to note the intellectual dishonesty of the pro-life movement: referring to abortion inaccurately as "murder" and the woman pursuing an abortion as "victim" rather than hitman.

Prompt Response

The Obama Administration has reacted to the murder of Dr. George Tiller, head of one of only three clinics in the U.S.A. to provide late-term abortions. The root.com reported Sunday evening that President Obama issued this statement:

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.

And on Monday we learned:

Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered increased security for some abortion clinics and doctors in the wake of the slaying of Dr. George Tiller.

Jeff Carter, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, confirmed the decision “to increase security for a number of individuals and facilities” following Tiller’s slaying at a church service Sunday in Wichita, Kan.

The clinic built by Dr. Tiller is nearly a fortress- a moat, metal detectors, no windows, and other safeguards- and Tiller himself employed private security. But he did not expect a hit to take place at church, perhaps especially because so much pro-life enthusiasm emanates from devout elements of the Christian community. No doubt Tiller believed, as probably do most abortion providers, that violence and sabotage are most likely at the clinics, and that otherwise they and their staff are most vulnerable traveling to and from work.

That would be a legitimate impulse, but hopefully the increased security provided by the federal government will consider every contingency. And it is not unreasonable to suggest that intimidation, if not violence, will continue and even escalate. For, as Matthew Yglesias points out

direct action terrorist violence against abortion providers has, I think, proven to be a fairly successful tactic. Every time you murder a doctor, you create a disincentive for other medical professionals to provide these services. What’s more, you create a need for additional security at facilities around the country. In addition, the anti-abortion protestors who frequently gather near clinics are made to seem much more intimidating by the fact that the occurrence of these sorts of acts of violence.

In general, I think people tend to overestimate the efficacy of violence as a political tactic. But in this particular case, I think people tend to understate it.

And so, at least for now, the Obama Administration for its response deserves a thumbs-up.

And They Call It Pro-Life

And now it has happened to 77- year-old Dr. George Tiller, the eighth abortion provider since 1977 to be murdered by "pro-life" activists.

Tiller, who had been acquitted a few months earlier of providing late-term abortions without getting the second opinion required by Kansas law, was gunned down at approximately 10:00 a.m. in Wichita. 51-year-old anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder, arrested three hours later as he drove an automobile approximately 170 miles away, was charged with one count of murder and two counts of aggravated assault and held without bond.

The Women's Health Care Services Clinic managed by Dr. Tiller is one of only three clinics in the nation which provide third trimester abortions. (The deceased himself had been providing abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973.) The clinic was bombed in 1985 and was the focal point of "Summer of Mercy" anti-abortion protesters in 1991, during which Tiller was protected by the Federal Marshalls Service for two weeks. He was shot in both arms in 1993, and after being found on the top of an anti-abortion hit list (following the assassination of an abortion provider and an escort in Pensacola), was protected for 30 months by the Marshalls Service.

A new building, as Dr. Tiller noted in 2008, was built. There was a metal detector, no windows, a moat, and "people have to have airport-like security to get in and out of the clinic." Nevertheless, in early May of this year, Tiller needed to ask the FBI to investigate vandalism at the clinic- including cut wires to surveillance cameras.

Abortion obviously is highly controversial, even more so late-term abortions. Dr. Tiller, however, was complying with the law which, in Kansas, apparently permits a woman to obtain an abortion in her third term only when two doctors stipulate that bringing the pregnancy to term would cause the woman "substantial and irreversible impairment." Nevertheless, Operation Rescue had a "Tiller Watch" (now taken down) on its website and even such a mainstream (albeit irresponsible) media figure as GOP TV's Bill O'Reilly referred to Tiller as "The Baby Killer," and accusing him of "executing fetuses in his Wichita office" in a "barabaric display" of "slaughter."

Some might think it ironic that Dr. Tiller was struck down on Sunday morning at his church, on the brink of worship while serving as an usher. But it is not really ironic, even though Tiller family spokesman and attorney Dan Mannat told CNN's Rick Perez this afternoon "church is one place where George Tiller thought he was safe from violence." No, given the fanaticism of much of the pro-life movement, it really isn't surprising that the murder would have taken place as the victim was preparing to glorify God, presumably by a man convinced that he, and those with his political views, have a unique pipeline to God, or at least to righteousness.