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Jim Webb: We Are Endorsing Assassination of Leaders of Countries We Recognize

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I’m watching the Senate Foreign Relation Committee’s grilling of Harold Koh–either bmaz or I will post on that later.

But Jim Webb just made a really important point. He noted that we have suspended, but not severed, our relations with Libya. After cornering Koh on that issue (and finally getting Koh to acknowledge that point), Webb then asked “What is the constitutional limitation on the assassination of a head of state?” Koh replied that the ban on assassinations is an Executive Order, not a law (a point I make all the time, given that it means the ban can be pixie dusted at will by Presidents).

Webb then said that Nobody up here wants Qaddafi to remain. But moral standard we set is one we should expect.

In other words, Webb notes, if we actively work to assassinate the leader of a country we recognize, we are implicitly endorsing such actions against us.

Silly Webb doesn’t get yet that the US operates under one giant double standard, I guess.

Webb and McCain’s Attacks and the GI Bill

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A number of people have noted that McCain is now trying to give Jim Webb the same treatment he has given General Clark.

If you didn’t think this was a coordinated attack on John McCain’s credentials before, it’s clear now that it is. Barack Obama’s surrogates are telling the McCain campaign to "calm down" about attacks on his military record? Seriously? Now somehow Wes Clark’s attacks are John McCain’s fault? It’s absurd. If Barack Obama can’t control his own surrogate operation, how can he be trusted to run the country?

I would respond to McCain’s baseless attack on Webb by noting that someone in McCain’s camp must be making a panicked effort to inoculate himself against any questions that getting shot out of an airplane doesn’t automatically qualify you to be President.

But it’s more than that, isn’t it?

This attack on Webb (and Clark, for that matter) comes right on the heels of one of McCain’s most cynical moves–out of many cynical moves–thus far this campaign season. After opposing Jim Webb’s GI Bill (mostly because he thought it was generous enough that it might make it harder to keep people in the military because they don’t have better options and because they can’t get an education), Bush and McCain have been claiming credit for Webb’s GI Bill.

Yesterday, House leaders in both parties struck a deal on a war supplemental bill that includes expanded college benefits for veterans. The GI Bill is Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) version, as well as a provision allowing troops to transfer the benefits to family members. President Bush has promised to sign the legislation.

Now, however, Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — the two most vocal opponents of Webb’s bill — are trying to take credit for it. They are claiming that they always supported the generous benefits — their main concern was just ensuring the benefits’ transferability:

At a time when (if we were really good at our jobs) we would be attacking McCain for opposing veteran benefits, he has, instead, turned and starting attacking Webb. Presumably, at least in part, to prevent any attacks on him for his cynical stance on the GI Bill.

Me, I’ve never served. I respect all three men–Clark, Webb, and McCain–for having done so. Like John Cole, I think not every fighter pilot would make a good President. Read more →

FISA Liveblog

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Reid is on the floor talking about what votes we’ll have tomorrow:

Immunity
Substitution
Exclusivity

Argh. This means we won’t have 60 there for exclusivity.

Reid and Mitch McConnell had some back and forth on the stimulus package.

Kit Bond:

Thank colleagues for agreeing to a way forward on this bill. Hehehe, it would do no good to pass a good that is good for politics, but does not do what those who protect our country need. With these fixes we’ll have a bill the President will sign.

Shorter Kit: this is very very technical and so we’ve decided to just do away with Congressional review and, while we’re at it, privacy. What Mike McConnell wants, Mike McConnell gets.

Whitehouse:

In this debate about revising FISA and cleaning up the damage done by the President’s warrantless wiretap program, the Administration expends all its rhetorical focus on what we agree on.

On what terms will this Administration spy on Americans?

The privacy of Americans from government surveillance.

Both Chairmen–Leahy and Rockefeller–have given it their blessing.

As former AG and USA, I oversaw wiretaps, and I learned that with any electronic surveillance, information about Americans is intercepted incidentally.

In domestic law enforcement, clear ways to minimize information about Americans. Prospect of judicial review is an important part of protecting Americans. Bond and Rockefeller have already put into the bill that the authority to review the minimization if the target is an American inside the US. But as will often be the case, the target will often be outside the US. An American could just as easily be intercepted in these situations. This protection (review of minimization) should apply when the intercepted It makes no sense to strip a court based on the identity of the target. It may be that if there’s litigation that a court will decide that it is implied. The mere prospect of judicial review has a salutary effect. The opposite is true as well, when executive officials are ensured that a Court is forbidden to police enforcement, then they are more apt to ignore compliance. Both here, where the FISA bill creates an unheard of limit on Court powers, and in the immunity debate, where we intercede to choose winners and losers. Bad precedent for separation of powers. Those of you who are Federalist Society members should be concerned about this absence of separation of powers. Read more →