I don’t know whether there’s any merit to the claim a Gitmo commander just filed against the Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg or not.

In a letter to the paper’s editor, Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon accused Carol Rosenberg of "multiple incidents of abusive and degrading comments of an explicitly sexual nature." Gordon, who deals primarily with the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison, said in the letter that this was a "formal sexual harassment complaint" and asked the Herald for a "thorough investigation."

"Her behavior has been so atrocious over the years," Gordon said in an interview. "I’ve been abused worse than the detainees have been abused."

But I do know two things. Rosenberg’s reporting from Gitmo has consistently been the best reporting from the military commissions.

And this accusation from Gordon sounds suspiciously like treatment US soldiers inflicted on detainees in military custody.

While watching Sept. 11, 2001, co-defendant Mustafa al-Hawsawi seated on a pillow in court last year, Rosenberg told Gordon: "Have you ever had a red hot poker shoved up your [butt]? Have you ever had a broomstick shoved up your [butt]? . . . How would you know how it feels if it never happened to you? Admit it, you liked it."

That is, the comment could be as much a comment about American members of the military dismissing torture as it is about harassment.

I’m not advocating ignoring a claim of harassment (note, Gordon claims Rosernberg made insinuations about his sexual orientation). But I do find it suspicious that this claim is being leveled against the best journalist covering our Kangaroo Courts.

Remember the OLC memo eviscerating the Fourth Amendment–the one they claimed was only ever hypothetical? Well, Cheney was itching to try it out to arrest the Lackawanna Six.

Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

[snip]

The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

In the discussions, Mr. Cheney and others cited an Oct. 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that, using a broad interpretation of presidential authority, argued that the domestic use of the military against Al Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement, purpose.

Unless I missed it, NYT didn’t tell you when Dick Cheney was proposing to suspend posse comitatus. But as it happens, most of the Lackawanna Six got arrested on September 14, 2002.

Which to me is just as interesting as the news that Cheney was pushing to do this: Imagine how well it would work to impose military rule just in time for the first anniversary of 9/11, and just as you’re rolling out the case for the Iraq War?

Update: scout prime reminds us that when it came to saving brown people, BushCo hesitated, citing the Constitution.

Turns out my family seems to be convening on the East Coast this weekend. So McCaffrey the MilleniaLab are road tripping out to join them today.

bmaz has the keys and I’ve stocked up the liquor cabinet (so you all can bust in there and feel like you’re pulling over a fast one on more again). Please be nice to one another.

I”ll be posting somewhat intermittently while on the East Coast and will have one more driving day. But I will be around in case anything exciting happens.

I have a feeling this will end badly.

Today the College Democrats of America (CDA) announced the schedule for the 2009 CDA National Convention to be held at The George Washington University in Washington, DC from Thursday, July 23- Sunday, July 26.

Over 300 CDA members from colleges and universities across the country will attend this year’s convention. Students will participate in trainings, community service events, and will hear from elected officials and top Democratic activists.

"College Democrats have had an amazing few years. The youth vote has surged in recent elections and we don’t plan on slowing down," said Katie Naranjo, President of College Democrats of America. "At this year’s convention we’ll strategize on how to build on the last few years’ electoral successes and work to organize in support of President Obama’s agenda for change. Getting President Obama and Democrats elected to Congress was just the start, now we have to roll up our sleeves and begin the hard work to bring lasting change to Washington."

Speakers at the CDA Convention include DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, DNC Vice Chair and Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter.

Below is a list of events that are open to the press. To attend any of these events, please RSVP to Joanna Roshlom at [email protected]. A valid press credential is required.

Thursday, July 23

Gavel in Convention and Opening Ceremonies

U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA)

DNC Vice Chair, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)
7:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M. [my emphasis]

I mean, I get it. Arlen "Used to be Haggis but is now Scrapple" Specter has lost much of his lead against Joe Sestak in a still-hypothetical primary. So to boost Scrapple’s Dem cred–and help him recruit campaign workers–the party has convinced the CDA to give Scrapple a prominent role at today’s events.

Aside from the (lack of wisdom) of big-footing Scrapple in such a prominent way, though, do the powers that be really think Scrapple is the kind of guy who ought to serve as a model for young Dems? A guy whose top legislative moment involved harassing a victim of sexual harassment? A guy who represents, above all, the principle that in politics the only principle is self-promotion? A guy who spent the last eight years veering further and further right, largely endorsing the policies that got Republicans shellacked last year?

That’s the guy the party wants to push onto the future of the party?

You need to keep one thing in mind as you read this story about Cheney’s campaign to get Bush to pardon Scooter Libby for his conviction related to the CIA Leak case. (h/t MadDog) Judge Emmet Sullivan has strongly suggested he’s going to rule in favor of CREW in its FOIA of Dick Cheney’s interview with Patrick Fitzgerald. So chances are good that we’ll get to see that interview in the foreseeable future. But Congress withdrew its request and CREW has not made any request to get Bush’s interview.

In other words, the sources for the story know that Cheney’s interview will soon become public, but that Bush’s probably won’t be.

As a result, the Bush partisans can tell a story about Bush being really miffed at Libby’s role in the case, all while claiming that the commutation (which of course was and still is the best way to ensure Libby never talks going forward) had nothing to do with Bush’s own knowledge of the leak.

Time Ignores that Libby Was Protecting Cheney AND Bush

This misleading narrative pervades the entire story. For example, Time suggests that Libby lied to the FBI because his job was on the line, and not because he was protecting Cheney and–at least to some degree–Bush. Time claims Cheney "assured Bush" Libby "wasn’t involved," when the note Cheney wrote prior to that exoneration implicates Bush himself and may reflect Cheney’s recognition that Libby had leaked the CIA trip report.

But Libby had reason to lie: his job was at stake, and his boss’s was on the line too. Bush had declared that anyone involved in leaking Plame’s identity would be fired. Cheney had personally assured Bush early on that his aide wasn’t involved, even persuading the President to exonerate Libby publicly through a spokesman.

And Time reports Bush officials acknowledging that Libby may well have taken the fall–but in spite of evidence of Bush’s personal involvement, portrays that acknowledgment as pertaining only to Cheney, not Bush himself.

As a former Bush senior aide explains, "I’m sure the President and [chief of staff] Josh [Bolten] and Fred had a concern that somewhere, deep in there, there was a cover-up."

[snip]

Some Bush officials wondered whether Libby was covering up for Cheney’s involvement in the leak of Plame’s identity.

Most humorously, Time doesn’t blink at the story that Bush felt the need to consult his own defense attorney about whether or not he should pardon Libby!

Meanwhile, Bush was running his own traps. He called Jim Sharp, his personal attorney in the Plame case, who had been present when he was interviewed by Fitzgerald in 2004. Sharp was known in Washington as one of the best lawyers nobody knew.

[snip]

While packing boxes in the upstairs residence, according to his associates, Bush noted that he was again under pressure from Cheney to pardon Libby. He characterized Cheney as a friend and a good Vice President but said his pardon request had little internal support. If the presidential staff were polled, the result would be 100 to 1 against a pardon, Bush joked. Then he turned to Sharp. "What’s the bottom line here? Did this guy lie or not?"

The lawyer, who had followed the case very closely, replied affirmatively.

I’m sure Bush’s defense lawyer didn’t mention that pardoning Libby would make it impossible for him to invoke the Fifth. Sure. Right.

Time Pretends Fielding’s Actions Were "Normal"

Time reports Fred Fielding as considering what was "normal" for pardons (remember–this guy worked for Nixon!), but does not note that the commutation itself violated the norm (which is that someone serves some of his time before a commutation). And it doesn’t mention that the commutation served an additional purpose–keeping Libby out of jail with his ability to invoke the Fifth intact, making it almost impossible for Congress to call him to testify on Bush or Cheney’s role in the leak.

Fielding’s arrival in early 2007 was one of several signs that the balance of power in the Administration had shifted against the Vice President. Fielding reviewed the Libby case before the appellate verdict came down and recommended against a presidential pardon. Cheney’s longtime aide hadn’t met the criteria: accepting responsibility for the crime, doing time and demonstrating remorse. "Pardons tend to be for the repentant," says a senior Administration official familiar with the 2007 pardon review, "not for those who think the system was politicized or they were unfairly targeted."

The verdict was one thing. Libby’s sentence was another matter. Fielding told Bush that the President had wide discretion to determine its fairness. And within hours of the appeals-court ruling, Bush pronounced the jail time "excessive," commuting Libby’s prison term while leaving in place the fine and, most important, the guilty verdict — which meant Libby would probably never practice law again. Fielding’s recommendation was widely circulated in the White House before it was announced, and there is no evidence of disagreement. If Cheney and his allies were disappointed with Bush’s decision, they did not show it, several former officials say, in part because they were, as one put it, "so happy that [Scooter] wasn’t going to jail."

Similarly, Time makes great efforts to make Fred Fielding’s recommendation that Bush not pardon Libby appear to be all reasonable, without noting that normally pardons get reviewed by the pardon attorney, not the White House Counsel.

The counsel knew that only one legitimate reason for a pardon remained: if the case against him had been a miscarriage of justice. Because that kind of judgment required a thorough review, Fielding plowed through a thick transcript of the trial himself, examining the evidence supporting each charge. It took Fielding a full week. He prepared his brief for an expected showdown at a pardon meeting in mid-January 2009. 

[snip]

For his part, Fielding laid out most of his findings in a document called the pardon book, a compendium of evidence for anyone seeking clemency. The book on Libby lengthened the odds on a pardon. "You might disagree with the fact that the case had been brought and that prosecutorial discretion had been used in this way," says a source familiar with the review. "But the question of whether there had been materially misleading statements made by Scooter — on the facts, on the evidence, it was pretty clear." As far as Fielding was concerned, Libby had lied under oath.

As a result, Time spins the highly unusual centrality of the White House Counsel in this decision and the outcome as a great, wise judgment rather than the best way to carry out a cover up.

Time Creates the Myth of Bush the Protector of the Truth

And most ridiculously, Time reports Bush’s appeal to the truth in his commutation, without noting Bush’s earlier flipflops on statements claiming to want the truth.

And there were these two sentences: "Our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth," Bush said. "And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable." Particularly if he serves in government. Bush’s allies would say later that the language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law.

(Of course, if Time were to admit that Bush promised to fire people who leaked Plame’s name but did not fire Rove, they would also have to admit that the magazine published claims from Rove they knew to be false during the investigation–so I guess I can see why they like this "truth" fairy tale.)

Which creates, finally, the noble fiction of Bush making this difficult decision alone, and choosing for the truth over his Vice President.

Bush would decide alone. In private, he was bothered by Libby’s lack of repentance. But he seemed more riveted by the central issue of the trial: truthfulness. Did Libby lie to prosecutors? The President had been told by private lawyers in the case that Libby never should have testified before the grand jury and instead should have invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. Prosecutors can accept that. But lie to them, and it gets personal. "It’s the difference between making mistakes, which everybody does, and making up a story," a lawyer told Bush. "That is a sin that prosecutors are not going to forgive."

Ah yes. Making up a story. Not like Bush and his partisans would ever do that!

Update: Politico reports that Obama has released the records, considering releasing all their visitor logs.

Remember when NPR posted a picture of all the lobbyists attending a health care committee meeting and asked its readers to crowd source those lobbyists identities?

Well, given the news that the Obama White House is treating the health industry executives who have visited with the same secrecy that Dick Cheney accorded his oil buddies, perhaps it’s time the White House press corps did something similar?

Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.

The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the "presidential communications privilege."

Think about it. The White House press corps has ready access to the outsides of the White House. A significant number of them hang around in their virtual office for hours on end. Wouldn’t they be much more productive if they started–collectively–documenting who was coming and going at the White House? Wouldn’t creating a record of who had the access at the White House be a better use of their time than serving as props in the next stage managed press conference?

I know this is a tall order, given that most of the outlets covering the White House full time would rather charge those White House visitors than expose them. But it might make these journalists’ efforts worthwhile. 

If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him. And we will show that we can–along with the American people–begin to push those freedom solutions at work in every area of our society.

About a million people have commented on Jim DeMint’s prayer to "break" our first African-American President by thwarting his attempts to reform and extend health care. But few–at least that I’ve seen–have connected it with another lingering news story: the role of C Street in pushing hyper-capitalist policies.

DeMint is the most senior C Street resident not currently embroiled in a sex scandal (or the cover-up of it, in Tom Coburn’s case).  And while his roomies all scramble to keep their jobs in the aftermath of being proven utter hypocrites, DeMint has taken the lead attacking health care and–significantly–counterposing it to "freedom solutions."

This is what C Street is really about–fighting back any check on hyper-capitalism. As Jeff Sharlet explained in a recent interview,

Sharlet: Exactly. However you look at it, The Family is effectively a union busting organization. They’re particularly concerned about the Teamsters and the Longshoremen. They thought they were run by some sort of devils. The Family was instrumental in the breaking of the spine of organized labor.

One of the things that makes them different from other Christian conservative organizations, and I think even upset some Christian conservative organizations, is that the issues for them are not abortion or morality or same-sex marriage. The important issue to them is what they call Biblical capitalism, and I think what even some conservative observers looking at them call crony capitalism.

That needs to the be the story here: the loudest opponent to health care reform is advocating the position of a morally discredited fascistic cult, that he’s interested in defeating a wildly popular policy so as to replace it with Orwellian "freedom solutions."

Sure, the opponents of health care reform are partly people–like Ben Nelson–being spoonfed honey by the insurance industry’s bean counters. But there are others–notably this loudmouthed and unrepentant member of the Family–who are opposing it as a rallying cry to some fundamentally authoritarian whack-jobs.

DeMint is going to continue to get face time for his outrageous comments.  We would do well to emphasize that he’s a morally hypocritical cult member just like Ensign and Sanford.

Last Monday, I noted two particular details of the Obama Administration’s response to news of spiked investigations into General Rashid Dostum’s massacre of up to thousands of prisoners in 2001. First, DOD said it didn’t need to investigate because there was no evidence American personnel were involved.

There’s DOD, which bases its opposition to an investigation on the claim that there’s no evidence US forces were involved in the massacre.

Asked about the report, Marine Corps Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that since U.S. military forces were not involved in the killings, there is nothing the Defense Department could investigate.

"There is no indication that U.S. military forces were there, or involved, or had any knowledge of this," Lapan said. "So there was not a full investigation conducted because there was no evidence that there was anything from a DoD (Department of Defense) perspective to investigate."

And, President Obama offered up the suggestion that we might have been involved.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war. And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, then I think that, you know, we have to know about that.

Which is why Mark Benjamin’s addition to this story is so key. He reports that American forces may have observed the men packed into trucks.

Earlier this month, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter James Risen advanced the story, revealing that the United States had resisted any war crimes investigation into the massacre, despite learning from Dell Spry, the lead FBI agent at Guantánamo Bay following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, that many Afghan detainees were telling similar stories of a mass killing. Spry directed interviews of detainees by FBI agents at Guantánamo Bay, and compiled allegations made by the detainees.

[snip]

What the Times did not say was that these Guantánamo prisoners also said that U.S. personnel were present during the massacre. "The allegation was that U.S. forces were present while Dostum’s troops were herding these people into these containers," Spry, now retired from the FBI and working as an FBI consultant, told Salon. "They were out rounding up alleged Taliban and insurgent folks."

Spry said that at the time of the interviews not long after the invasion of Afghanistan he found the detainees’ claims of a massacre "plausible," since the detainees separately told similar stories. Spry thought an investigation seemed warranted. He found the claims of the involvement of U.S. personnel, however, more specious, mostly because he doubted that Americans would participate in or stand by passively during a massacre. "I did not believe that then and I do not believe that now," he said about the alleged involvement of U.S. personnel.

DOD–at least according to the AP story–won’t investigate until there’s evidence US personnel were present. Yet survivors of the massacre did describe Americans being present at least when the Afghans were loaded onto trucks. 

Now, the investigative report Salon includes describes one American present before the Afghans were put into shipping containers, and Americans arriving at the prison a month after the Afghans were saved from the shipping containers. So it may be that any Americans were simply working with Dostum more generally (and photographing captivity operations). But it seems like the reports ought to be enough to require DOD to investigate.

Read the whole story–there’s a very disturbing report of the Taliban who currently hold a US solder captive invoking Dostum. Which might explain why this story originally got dumped into a Saturday news black hole.  

One of the indignities of Walter Cronkite’s death on Friday was that CBS ignored his passing in favor of their regular crappy Friday night lineup. The many big names whom Cronkite had mentored instead appeared on the cable news shows to give Cronkite a proper tribute. And as reporter after reporter described Cronkite being cut from CBS, I couldn’t help but wish that Dan Rather (who of course was on the cable news paying tribute to Cronkite as well) would get discovery in his suit against CBS.

Today, the Judge in Rather’s suit ordered CBS to give Rather 3,000 documents.

Dan Rather won significant victories Tuesday in his suit against his former network, CBS. He won access to more than 3,000 documents that his lawyer said were expected to reveal evidence that CBS had tried to influence the outcome of a panel that investigated his much-debated “60 Minutes” report about former President George W. Bush’s military record.

Mr. Rather also won an appeal to restore a fraud charge against CBS that had been dismissed. Martin Gold, the lawyer representing the former anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” called it “a very successful day for us; we got everything.”

Mr. Rather called it a “good day” for his side and — referring to the name for the CBS headquarters — “a bad day for Black Rock.”

Jim Quinn, the lawyer representing CBS, called it “a minor skirmish in a long battle” and predicted that the fraud charge would be dismissed again because “it’s frivolous.”

CBS’ lawyer can scoff all he wants–the big point here was always to get discovery. Among other documents, Rather will get emails between CBS’s panel investigating Rather and the law firm CBS paid to investigate the TANG story, drafts of the investigative panel’s report, and separation agreements of a bunch of CBS employees who were silenced when they left the network.

Maybe I’m overly optimistic that these documents will reveal how CBS caved for the Bush Administration and in so doing sacrificed Rather. But it all does feel like CBS’s bad karma is catching up to it.

In today’s second installment on ways American taxpayers are wasting money to protect Dick Cheney from embarrassment, Josh Gerstein has a report on today’s hearing on CREW’s FOIA of Cheney’s interview in the CIA Leak Case. And DOJ is unabashedly making the argument that it should not release Dick Cheney’s interview because it might embarrrass him. (h/t MadDog)

Smith said the Justice Department’s view was that a delay of five to ten years was appropriate, marked from the time the official or his or her administration left office. “It’s a judgment call,” Smith acknowledged.

Smith suggested that such a delay would make it more likely that the information was used for historical purposes and not for political embarrassment. “The distinction is between releasing it for historical view and releasing it into the political fray,” Smith said.

Funny, DOJ claimed it was arguing for the longer-than-statutes-of-limitation delay because of concerns that future Vice Presidents wouldn’t cooperate willingly with investigations. As time goes on an their arguments look shittier and shittier, I guess, they become more and more truthful. Thus their invention of a new FOIA embarrassment exemption.

It sounds like Emmet Sullivan is not buying that argument–though he is also unwilling to just order the release of the interview without giving Obama’s DOJ an opportunity to waste more money protecting Cheney from embarrassment.

As the hearing concluded, Sullivan said he thought Congress had drawn a “bright line” with language in the Freedom of Information Act that generally exempts information about pending investigations from disclosure, but not closed probes, like the CIA leak case. He also said he would stay any ruling so the government could appeal before he released any documents.

President Obama? Attorney General Holder? This nonsense has gone on long enough. As I noted, Cheney’s participation in this probe is proof enough that the investigative concerns are bunk. It really is high time to stop wasting money preventing taxpayers from learning what Cheney did in our name.