13 May Dawn Johnsen’s Nomination Is in Trouble (Updated)
It’s certainly not over yet, but it isn’t looking good:
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) moves to ease a backlog of executive branch nominations, he suggested on Tuesday that he does not have the votes to bring up President Barack Obama’s pick to run the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.
“Right now we’re finding out when to do that,” Reid said, responding to a question about the status of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to the Justice post. “We need a couple Republican votes until we can get to 60.”
As Christy Hardin Smith has pointed out, the White House has done virtually nothing to support Johnsen’s nomination since, you know, it nominated her. I guess it’s been too busy blackmailing the UK into concealing evidence of the Bush administration’s torture of Binyam Mohamed, walking back its promise to release the additional photos of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq, and avoiding putting an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
UPDATE: And the reversal on the photographs is complete. It even includes parroting the Bush administration’s line that their release will further fan the flames of anti-Americanism. Obama also claims that he fears “the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse” — which is ironic, given that Obama is doing everything he can to avoid such investigations. What he really means is that publication of the photos will have a chilling effect on his ability to cover up the Bush administration’s crimes, because they will further fan the flames of outrage at the Bush administration. What pathetic double-speak.
This is disappointing, she seems like an eminently qualified candidate and it isn’t as if the OLC doesn’t need some leadership right now!!
This is the kind of thing to get us to acquiesce to her not being named folks. We need to find out who are the two or three Republicans they need and insist with them. More broadly, we need to insist on her confirmation. As to the rest of the things, you have to insist these things be disclosed. If Liz Cheney is the person who is going to get people to back away from telling the rest of the Americans the truth, then we are not worth it. Give me a break!
Best,
Ben
On the 2000 photos that Obama is not releasing, that is a huge mistake. The ostensible reason is that commanders have said troops will be hurt. I believe that the reason lies in other places in particular 1) who knew of these photos before and what did they do about them? 2) the photos show horrendous torture, rape etc that was done that pulls the cover off all the US denials about what was done to people, 3) if they come out, the force for criminal prosecution will be irresistible domestically and internationally and this is not where Obama wants to go. He and Gates are showing a lack of courage – as are the generals. The only way to get around this horrendous error is to bring it to light and criminally prosecute those who put the policy in place. Anything else is chickensh*t.
Best,
Ben
What is so odd to me is that on the one hand, people argue that releasing the photographs would fan the flames of anti-Americanism and endanger our soldiers.
But on the other hand, everything we did was perfectly within the law and morally acceptable.
I guess it shouldn’t be so odd to me. I did watch the Judiciary subcommittee hearing today. The ultra-conservative guy who said that the claim that we tortured is a lie was also the guy who said, “If we decide that torture was committed, we must prosecute those who authorized, planned and executed the torture.” Lindsey Graham didn’t look too thrilled at hearing that come from the conservative witness. Bwomp bwomp.
The reversal is not complete. There will be a hearing before a judge who will decide whether to further order their release now that they have been gathered by the government. I think there are several reasons for this happening right now. 1) Obama is heading to Egypt in one week to two weeks to make a major speech of outreach to the Arab World and he does not need this blowing up on that trip. 2) The soldier killing 5 soldiers in Iraq suggests a deterioration in the state of our soldiers there and a likely uptick in violence (places being bombed that have not been bombed in a long time) and Obama is worried about this sparking a further uptick in that violence there, 3) change of command in Afghanistan and the need to remake that situation under a new commander with the Taliban resurgent. Again the uptick in violence risk in Afghanistan and demoralizing the Pakistani effort in Pakistan are concerns at this time. Add to this the new “mantra” of Cheney and daughter that military families and 9/11 survivors (please wrap yourself in the flag before you attack) are asking them “when did we start siding… Read more »
The mistake here was retaining Gates and Petraeus. The political logic is understandable: knowing that the economy and health care would be the top issues this year, Obama didn’t want to give the Republicans anything that they might be able to use to disrupt or impede things in Congress. Nevertheless, it was a bad mistake, foir the simple reason that Gates and Petraeus are: 1) War criminals. 2) Incompetents in the mold of George McClellan. Until such time as Obama realizes his mistake and cleans house at DoD, he will suffer for it in everything DoD touches. Indeed, I could easily see this stuff leading to a split in the Democratic party in 2012 with the Progressive wing running someone like Dennis Kucinich or Barbara Lee on a third party ticket, and much as I admire and support Obama, if he’s still compromising with war criminals then, I’d vote for it. If something like that happens, it will only be because Barrack Obama shot himself in the foot. Sounding good brought him a long way, but if he truly wants to succeed he’s got to step it up and actually work for the good — and compromising with the CRIMINALS,… Read more »
Yes, I too can see a split in the Democrats just like that, no wait, actually I can’t.
Benjamin, Chirac was a terrible leader who oversaw about 12 years of stagnation in France. That quote sums him up nicely and probably goes a long way to explaining why he ended up in run-off against Le Pen and left office thoroughly disliked by just about everyone.
More importantly, you are forgetting the appeals process – I guarantee you that if the Judge doesn’t agree with Obama, that will be appealed, and I suspect that judicial deference to the executive only increases as you go up the appeal ladder.
So these photos will not be released for some long time yet.
CNN has a poll asking whether the pictures should be released – so far, 81 % say no.
You can “vote” on http://www.cnn.com — right side, down a bit
I agree the quote sums Chirac up – I also think that for once he was quite accurate.
Best,
Ben