I think if you take a look at the various floor statements, you'll see that many of the proponents of the Specter Amendment gave good account. You might like Smith's quote from Justice Jackson, and pretty much any of the things that Specter had to say were a credit to what ought to be a thoroughly discredited party.

Posted by: CharleyCarp at September 29, 2006 05:33 PM | Permalink to this comment

Here's a snippet from my blog post from yesterday:

A number of the speeches were good, by the way. Leahy's, Levin's, Specter's (one of them), Clinton's, and I can't find a link to Smith's, but will try later. [UPDATE: Also Feingold and Byrd. Here's an excerpt from Smith's]:

I suppose what brings me to the floor today is my memory of my study of the law. While I was in law school, I was particularly taken with the study of the Nuremberg trials. The words of Justice Robert H. Jackson inspired me then and inspire me still. He was our chief counsel for the allied powers. What he said on that occasion in his closing address to the international military tribunal is an inspiration. Said he:

That four great nations, flushed with victory
and stung with injury stay the hand of
vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive
enemies to the judgment of the law is
one of the most significant tributes that
Power has ever paid to Reason.

On the fairness of the Nuremberg proceedings, he said in his closing statement:

Of one thing we may be sure. The future
will never have to ask with misgiving, what
could the Nazis have said in their favor. History
will know that whatever could be said,
they were allowed to say. They have been
given the kind of a Trial which they, in the
days of their pomp and power, never gave to
any man. But fairness is not weakness. The
extraordinary fairness of these hearings is an
attribute to our strength.

I simply feel this particular provision in this bill ought to be taken out. We ought not to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. We should go the extra mile, not as a sign of weakness, but as evidence of our strength.

Posted by: CharleyCarp at September 29, 2006 05:36 PM | Permalink to this comment

Also, Joe Lieberman.

Posted by: Jon H at September 29, 2006 05:43 PM | Permalink to this comment

You could make a shorter list by telling us who should stay.
Feingold, definitely. After that, I'm not sure.

Posted by: Marky at September 29, 2006 06:54 PM | Permalink to this comment

imbecility.

And even spelled correctly, it is too kind of a word for the combination of evilness and stupidity that occupies George Allen's head, as well as the heads of a Republican leadership that thought he would make a fine president.

Posted by: kid bitzer at September 29, 2006 07:51 PM | Permalink to this comment

I realize that the Dems deserve their own share of harsh criticism, but somebody please explain to me how anybody who purports to be intelligent, informed, and acting in good faith, can identify himself as a Republican. I don't mean anybody here; I mean in general.

Posted by: sglover at September 29, 2006 07:59 PM | Permalink to this comment

I am able to vote for Casey and against Santorum (recall Bob Kerrey's bon mot, "Santorum? Isn't that Latin for a**hole?") and will so relish doing so. I agree with sglover above, which is why I may be a poor choice for manning the phone banks for Bob Casey in the weeks before the vote.

Posted by: David at September 29, 2006 08:19 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Stay and be comforted", if I may quote Aragorn in a situation of almost comparable desperation. All the numerous recent polls show Casey regaining his landslide lead (which had been sagging a bit after Santorum's frantic TV blitz); and the latest 3-day sequence of "Survey USA" polls indicates that the N-word brouhaha -- now that more witnesses are confirming the story -- just may have been the straw that broke the camel's back where Allen is concerned: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/09/27/in_virginia_senate_race_is_unpredictable.html

Of course, the NJ Dems have gotten entangled in a stinky scandal of their own -- but, hey, they have a tradition to uphold.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 29, 2006 09:29 PM | Permalink to this comment

As for Specter and Smith, however, note that they -- along with McCain -- ultimately voted FOR Bush's bill at the same time that all three of them publicly expressed serious doubts that it's constitutional! Specter went a bit further -- as the New Republic points out ( http://www.tnr.com/blog/openuniversity?pid=42149 ):
"Arlen Specter said the other day that the bill 'would take our civilized society back some 900 years.' He voted for it anyway." Now, THOSE are profiles in courage!

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 29, 2006 09:41 PM | Permalink to this comment

This just in: Sons of Confederate Veterans call George Allen a racist.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=42220 .

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 29, 2006 10:05 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Arlen Specter said the other day that the bill 'would take our civilized society back some 900 years.' He voted for it anyway."

yeah, the photos of Specter that Rove has got--man, they must be so disgusting, I don't *ever* want to see them.

or do they just have one of his grandkids in the Salt Pit or something?

Whatever it is, he is a ruined man, a man without a soul. Very ugly and sad.

Posted by: kid bitzer at September 29, 2006 10:18 PM | Permalink to this comment

(1) Another gem from Trent Lott: "President Bush barely mentioned the war in Iraq when he met with Republican senators behind closed doors in the Capitol Thursday morning and was not asked about the course of the war, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, said.

" 'No, none of that,' Lott told reporters after the session when asked if the Iraq war was discussed. 'You're the only ones who obsess on that. We don't and the real people out in the real world don't for the most part.' " ( http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2006/09/lott-bush-barely-mentioned-iraq-in.html )

(2) Specter, it turns out, didn't just say that the bill he voted MIGHT be unconstitutional -- he said it WAS "patently unconstitutional", as well as "turning Western civilization back 900 years." Then he voted for it anyway:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001637.php

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 29, 2006 10:22 PM | Permalink to this comment

Trent Lott is an idiot. I know everybody knows that, I just wanted to type it (again - I've typed it before).

Yeah, so inspiring, when politicians stand up and give impassioned speeches against something (I suspect as source material for pull quotes for their website and of course, for the Congressional Record, for posterity, don't you know) and then turn around and vote for it. Profiles in courage indeed.

But America got the Congress it voted for, the Americans who actually bother voting, that is. Lott, Santorum, etc. wouldn't have a Congress or Constitution to despoil if they hadn't been selected by enough people in their respective states. And George Bush wouldn't be president if all the people who say they think he's an idiot today would have voted accordingly in large enough numbers when it actually counted. It's not like he fooled anybody, he's always been pretty transparent. He ran as a dummy, and that's why a lot of people voted for him, because they think smart people act all superior and we don't want someone like that in charge. Bush is a man of the people, ie, ignorant and proud of it. So we got a dummy for president. Why the hell is anybody surprised by his job performance now? I'm not. This is the government we get when the only people who bother voting are party hacks and self-serving interest groups.

Posted by: LL at September 30, 2006 12:14 AM | Permalink to this comment

You make some great points. I'm a Republican that has been very dissatisfied with our current foreign policy and is hoping for a change.

Posted by: Charlie at September 30, 2006 12:53 AM | Permalink to this comment

As much as I have come to detest the Republican leadership, and regret the times I've voted for these moral dwarfs, I'm not sure the Trent Lott quote is all that ignorant. I don't carry any water for Trent, but his form of expression is something that I could have used. I can perhaps understand intellectually some of the things he bemoans about the Muslin world, but I can't grasp it with my heart or emotions, so I can't fully understand it. The mindset of the jihadists is so foreign to us, and something we cannot understand, because very few of us have ever encountered evil of this magnitude in our personal lives.

Posted by: RWC at September 30, 2006 01:41 AM | Permalink to this comment

Of course "Our political class is desperately mediocre these days". It has always has been so. It always will be so. Not just our political class but all political classes from all places thru all history have been mediocre. Most Americans who were not rabid or professional partisans, normally a small percentage, always knew it too.

At any rate it's unfair to site Lott as a leader of any consequense. He leads nothing and while he did 'lead' the Senate for some time that was quite awhile ago and counts for nothing now. In those days the congress did account for something but those days are gone. All power now rests in the Executive branch.

The passage of the detainee bill was necessary because the administration was going to continue doing what it was doing anyway and so non passage would only have spotlighted their total irrelevancy. Best to pass 94 pages of vague and contradictory 'law' and pretend that it matters one whit.

American survived pretty well for 225 years despite the mediocraty because no small group was ever able to grab total power. The idea of the constitution was that since people were not perfectable and since perfection was impossible the best we could do was to pit the various mediocraties against one another and the best, but still far less than perfect solution, would be arrived at.

Now however our leaders have the perfect ideology and our Leader is a direct instrument of God. As the disaster unfolds over the next 20 years a few oldtimers might again wish only for mediocraty.

Posted by: rapier at September 30, 2006 02:03 AM | Permalink to this comment

Choosing between nullities on Election Day isn't worth much. The system is broken and cannot reform itself. That is why we need a new government, and why I have been writing about that subject.
http://broadsunlituplands.wordpress.com/

Posted by: Tom Perry at September 30, 2006 03:31 AM | Permalink to this comment

At the risk of sounding like a complete paranoid:

This bill is so well designed to concentrate power in the Oval Office and also to protect whoever wields that power from any legal consequences, does it strike anyone besides me as sorta strange Bush only got around to pushing for its passage now?

I mean, why not try to get it passed right after his victory in 2004? He still had about half the country supporting him then, ready to eat whatever shite he fed them.

It makes me wonder if, either the 2006 and 2008 elections already rigged; and/or if Bush simply has no intention of leaving office. Ever.

Yes, he's petulant and bored with the responsibilities of governing, but he does like the kowtowing and the shiny toys. Why would he want to give them up? Esp. now that he has police powers even Nixon could only dream of having.

And what's to prevent him from deciding he's President for Life?

The fact that it's illegal and a clear violation of the Constitution? - Pardon me while I laugh until I pass out.

The fact that 60% of the country doesn't want him in office anymore? Yeah; that'll stop him.

Seriously. What if Bush were to announce, at some point between now and 2008, that Only He Can Protect Us From Terrists, and God Told Him He Must Remain President Forever -

What would happen? I mean, I can think of quite a few people, right off the top of my head, who'd think that was a fine idea. One of them is probably Richard Scaife.

Posted by: CaseyL at September 30, 2006 03:32 AM | Permalink to this comment

Here's an interesting thing about Sen. Lott's comments -- they accurately reflect the thinking of about 80% of Americans, who really don't understand "what is wrong with those people" in Iraq.

Now, Greg does, because his dad was an ambassador and he lives in Manhattan, and understanding these people and why what they do is vitally important to us is just something a sophisticated person does. Most Americans are not that sophisticated, though, and as they come to believe that we are not after all in Iraq to "fight terrorists there so we won't have to fight them at home" it will be awfully hard to persuade them that whether Sunnis kill Shiites in Iraq or vice versa is vitally important -- or important at all -- to them.

That is where public opinion on Iraq is headed, not to a consensus in favor of a new direction in our policy there but instead toward letting Iraqis who want their civil war have it. It isn't that you can't talk to Americans about the reasons Sunni Arabs hate Shiites enough to want to kill them with suicide bombs in markets; you just won't have much luck convincing them that these reasons make any sense (and to be fair, they don't) or that they ought to be our problem.

This isn't about Americans' views about Donald Rumsfeld, or whether Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein, or whether we should have had 40,000 more troops in Baghdad in May of 2003. It's about whether the commitment in Iraq is worth the price we're paying for it now. If that commitment is not seen to be about terrorism, the American public will say that it isn't worth it. If Greg is waiting for a "political class" able to persuade Americans that an expensive war in which the worst violence isn't even directed at our troops is worth continuing until we have an Iraqi democracy (or the arrival of the 12th Imam, whichever comes first) he'll be waiting a lot longer than this November.

Posted by: Zathras at September 30, 2006 06:59 AM | Permalink to this comment

"intelligent, informed, and acting in good faith, can identify himself as a Republican."
What crap.

For those of us who are pro-life-- "smarmy" pro-life candidates are better than charming pro-abortion folk.

For those of us who are small gov't, low tax oriented -- tax-cut supporting frat boys who are big spenders are better than honest Dems who support tax increases and are even bigger spenders.

For those of us who want to fight the Long War mostly overseas -- an "incompetent" with the right offense is far better than any cut and run ex General or Veteran or Draft Dodger.

It's policy and laws, not personality, that are crucial for many of us.
ex-Libertarian (for Life), now Republican.

Read Marc Cooper for some fair minded personality critiques of both sides (he hates Bush far worse than he hates Kerry or Hillary, but...)

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at September 30, 2006 03:58 PM | Permalink to this comment

Liberty Dad:

You are not a kool-aid drinker. You and your ilk are one of the guards who forced the other Jonestown folks at gunpoint to drink the kool-aid, and the American people are the ones being forced to drink it.

You have shown absolutely no gift for sophisticated thought in anything you have expounded upon. Your comments consist of nothing but course cut and paste jobs from extreme wingnut blogs.

You are a troll. Please go crawl back under your bridge.

Posted by: Liberty Dad sucks at September 30, 2006 07:52 PM | Permalink to this comment

Mr. Grey:

An "offense" strategy that makes things actively WORSE than they would otherwise have been (which Bush's has managed to do) is indeed worse than a do-nothing strategy -- and there are very few Democrats genuinely even in favor of a "do-nothing" strategy. And "big spending" has to be paid for somehow -- either by deficits whose destructive effects are spread across the populace as a whole, or taxes which can be focused on the people most able to pay.

So grow up, hmm?

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 30, 2006 09:05 PM | Permalink to this comment

It is a nice bogeyman that the democrats would spend lots of money when compared to Republicans, but it seems awfully counterfactual at this point.

Reagan broke all limits for overspending, then Bush Sr followed his footsteps.

Then Clinton cut spending dramatically and balanced the budget.

Now Bush Jr has wildly exceeded all previous overspending, with no apparent consideration for ever slowing his rapidly increasing overspending.

Posted by: fairytoothfairy at September 30, 2006 11:57 PM | Permalink to this comment

intelligent, informed, and acting in good faith

Hey "Liberty Dad" --
Thanks for answering my question, and supporting my contention at the same time. I sense you're up to date on the Republican disinfo points, and actually believe the doublethink, so I'll put you in Faction One, the "Acutely Stupid" bloc of the GOP coalition.

Thanks! Now I know to skip over your comments!

Posted by: sglover at October 1, 2006 03:07 AM | Permalink to this comment

I think it is about time for you to drop the "psuedo' I used to be a republican costume. It is evident you are a soros democrat and your site certainly attracts the soros club.

Posted by: judith at October 1, 2006 01:42 PM | Permalink to this comment

I suppose it hasn't occurred to any of the commenters disparaging BD that it isn't the blogger or his views that have changed per se, but a re-evaluation based on annoying little things like facts and evidence.

If this administration had pursued a serious engagement in Iraq, more readers and commenters in this blog would likely have been more supportive than they have been. Because they have not done so, they have come under criticism from this and many other corners.

In fact, you'll probably find far more commenters these days--you know, liberals like George Will--disparaging the administration for its incompetent, messianic adventurism than whatever passes for "moderate" in what's left of today's GOP.

Underestimate the number and furor of those of us who once supported this administration, but have been disgusted by the level of cronyism, incompetence, and politicization of policy, at your peril.

Posted by: vm at October 1, 2006 02:50 PM | Permalink to this comment

I can grant those who, after a long stiff belt of Reality (neat), come to a change of heart and find themselves admitting, first through a low whisper, then quietly, with a few friends around in the kitchen, "we failed...we believed, and we even still want to believe...but we failed. And we can't believe...in this president anymore" in a bland but telling voice (or something like this). I can even grant VM from 10/1 in the assertion that "underestimate the number and furor of those of us who once supported this administration but have been disgusted(...) at your peril."

But I can't escape the sense, so palpable, of the sheer naivete and disingenuousness (sic?) of so many who did support this administration in the 'halcyon' days of shock and awe, when everything this administration was doing was given the full measure of support and imprimature of justification, even when so many who joined the bandwagon showed signs that they weren't entirely certain what they were supporting, and maybe had the sense that more than some of it wasn't justifiable. The cronyism and corruption of this administration was there from the get-go, given the personalities involved, and for people to be infuriated only now seems so late in the day. The election of 2000 is still a travesty no matter how much you want to pretend it isn't, no matter how much you feel infuriated by anyone who keeps bringing that inconvenient little point up.

So, okay - we underestimate those who supported this administration but are disgusted with it now 'at our peril.' But exactly what are we supposed to be in peril of? So many of you got everything you wanted - the White House, and both houses of the most dysfunctional, most corrupt, most spineless Congress in living memory. So many of you succeeded in equating liberalism with, say, baby-killing. So many of you allowed your talking points to be shaped by the likes of people like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity. More than a few of you even got some real liberals to scream at the top of their lungs for war, and maybe a few to even want to join in to the extent that Robert Downey Jr.'s tabloid TV hack journo in 'Natural Born Killers' did, when he found that Woody Harrelson's killing spree was more tonic and exhilarating when he joined it rather than just reported it. Except, of course, that none of these real-life hack journos actually did - they thought they were joining in by cheerleading till they dropped.

The point is that you demand now to be still taken seriously, both for the levity of your anger and for your numbers as a voting constituency, but given the way you've treated your opposition, real or imagined, and given the binary moral oppositions you've casted, I seriously doubt that you're entitled to any sympathy. One thing is for certain - you would get space (if not much sympathy) in more genuinely liberal air. I truly believe it. And I am willing to come around to someone like Greg, who I have no doubt really has had that shot of Reality and is now feeling the afterburn repeat on him - and as tough as it is, I thank him for at least having the guts to come around to that.

('...liberals like George Will...'? We truly do live in times off-their-nut when George Will is called a liberal, and doing so would have been a grave insult to a conservative like him say, just a year ago).

Posted by: sekaijin at October 1, 2006 05:32 PM | Permalink to this comment

I must confess i fail to see what where i live or what my father did for a living (save that it allowed me to spend time in the Middle East, perhaps) has to do with this post. if anything, my experience in the Balkans, where i saw ethnic cleansing up close, and so can draw some parallels to the increasing sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, might be a reason for all the so-called sophistication Z appears to denigrate (increasingly in a rather passive aggressive, not to mention personal, fashion of late, I can`t help noticing, unfortunately).

Look, that a former Majority Leader of the Senate, after the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis (many of these deaths at very least an indirect result of the chaos the American occupation unleashed) would deign to callously, or cluelessely, or even cruelly say: 'they all look the same to me,' well it might not shock world-weary and wise to the ways, mores and orientation of the american national character Joseph Britt, but it sure as hell shocks me, and I suspect not because of irrelevant data about my father having served in the foreign service and whether I live in hyper-sophisticated Manhattan or in remotest Peoria.

frankly, i hope and trust and think other americans, many of them living well West of the Hudson, are repulsed by Lott's comments too. all this said, i take zathras/britt´s point that most Americans will be not at all pleased to see American forces forced to arbitrate a potentially increasingly messy civil war, so that the clamor for withdrawal will increase, but that´s not really the point i was making above. still, it's an issue i plan to address more four-square in the space in coming weeks.

Posted by: greg at October 1, 2006 05:43 PM | Permalink to this comment

Well, you know, Trent Lott is used to saying "they all look alike" about ANOTHER famous ethnic group...

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 1, 2006 08:33 PM | Permalink to this comment

If Greg wants to find out if "other Americans" are repulsed by Sen. Lott's remarks, he could always ask them. I'd be interested to find out what they tell him.

That most Americans are going to be increasingly disinclined to support the enormously expensive commitment in Iraq if its only purpose is to referee a civil war (or indeed to do anything that does not involve preventing terrorism against Americans) WAS the point I was making, because it is the one that matters. I suspect that Sen. Lott, though he has never been known as a leader of opinion on foreign affairs, is closer to understanding this than Greg is. To most Americans, the differences (in appearance or otherwise) between Iraqi Sunni Arabs and Shiites are close to invisible, and not important enough to risk their blood and treasure trying to resolve. I understand it is shocking to say this, of people to whom we are bringing the blessings of freedom yet. But Iraq is not Bosnia, and it is not Rwanda, and it is certainly not so much more important than every other foreign policy task America has to justify the lives and money we are spending on it every day.

As to the question of tone, I observe that Greg has felt able to use the most violent language about numerous commentators, bloggers, politicians and so forth on this platform -- they are idiots, imbeciles, fantasists and some other things that French phrases are required to name properly -- which he has every right to do. I had assumed someone in that habit would have a thicker skin. The assumption having proven wrong, I will do my best to tread more carefully in the future, aware as readers should be that my best is subject to influence by my health, my mood, the weather, and occasionally Northwest Airlines when I have to fly on business. So, no promises.

Posted by: Zathras at October 2, 2006 05:18 AM | Permalink to this comment

zathras: feel free to fire away--including calling me an imbecile, idiot or fantasist whenever you believe suits--and even if you haven't flown on NW that day. just keep my family out of it! cheers, gd

Posted by: greg at October 2, 2006 01:52 PM | Permalink to this comment

Zathras has an important point which is easy to lose in the noise.

Everybody but Bush shills believes we're losing in iraq. We can stay there as long as we're willing to pay big bucks for it, but we're not getting anything out of staying there and it costs big bucks.

Most of the public is upset at Bush about losing the war.

That doesn't tell us anything about how they feel about the other issues. They can be angry at Bush about iraq, and still want us to invade iran. They could think they're better off without habeas corpus. They could approve of torture for any suspects outside their immediate family. They could approve of every GOP candidate except Bush and Cheney, who aren't running. They could approve of every other Bush initiative including stealing the social security money. What we haver right now is that every citizen who's paying attention is mad at Bush about iraq.

Too soon to tell how that will translate into action, or how far it will carry into other issues. Suppose Bush said, "OK, we made a mistake in iraq. Our intentions were the very best but it didn't work out, so we're leaving today".

Then all the Bush supporters who're talking about how we have to stay the course will immediately start saying that there was really no alternative to leaving now. Anybody who says we should have stayed longer will have pretty much everybody piling onto him. And when anybody points to genocide or starvation or iranian domination etc in iraq, the Bush supporters will all start shouting "He already said he was sorry! There's nothing we can do about it unless you want to invade iraq agaiin! We did the best we could and we're better off with Saddam gone! Shut up!"

And after a few months it will be old news. You can blame Bush all you want but Bush isn't running for anything. And the guys who'll be running can all say it wasn't their fault.

Old news.

Are people catching on to the Bush administration? Or are they just mad we're losing the war?

Posted by: J Thomas at October 2, 2006 03:20 PM | Permalink to this comment

I think J Thomas is right; most Republicans who say they're anti-Bush now just hate that Bushco bungled the war and made us (America) look like a bunch of losers. If the war was going swimmingly, there'd be not a peep from any of them about what an incompetent Bush is. And some would say that's valid, that they're entitled to judge Bush on his mismanagement of a massive war effort. Fair enough, but Bush is incompetent on a whole other host of issues right here at home. Not that the war and our losing of it isn't important, but let's also remember how he's cocked up a whole bunch of other stuff, stuff that will affect us much longer than Iraq ever will.

And I don't think most Americans give a rat's ass what happens in Iraq now. They're just about convinced there's no way for us to "win" there, whatever "win" could possibly mean now, and so let's cut our losses and get the hell out and let the Iraqis kill each other. Few people will say this, but I believe it's what most people think. Just because they continue to vote Republican doesn't mean they still care about Iraq or think it's a huge threat to us, they just believe the unprovable "the Democrats would be worse" BS the Republicans trot out as a lame excuse for their idiotic "leadership." Bushco has plausible deniability on Iraq now, as far as most Republicans are concerned. Whether we stay through 2008 or leave now, it'll never be Bush's fault. It'll be the terrorists' fault, or the Iraqis who can't get along or the liberal press or the way the planets are aligned, but it'll never be Bush's fault. Until George Bush gets caught sending creepy e-mails to an underage boy, these people are with him and the party he represents and will vote accordingly. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. If Bush proclaimed himself president for life tomorrow, I think most of his hardcore support would cheer him all the way, and the cowardly Congress (of both parties) would follow meekly behind, the way they have for the past 5 years. Bush only has as much power as they allow him to have, so their show of independence now is way too little, way too late.

Posted by: LL at October 2, 2006 04:32 PM | Permalink to this comment