Tag Archives: America

On Growing Up, Politically Speaking

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Kevin Baker writes for a living and voted for Bernie Sanders in the New York primary. In today’s New York Times, he calls on us liberals (aka progressives) to get serious: “Let’s Grow Up, Liberals”.

First, as preamble, he offers a critical analysis of the way Sanders endorsed Clinton this week: 

Senator Sanders’s embrace of the presumptive Democratic nominee included all the inclinations that many of us have come to find, shall we say, a tad grating about the man: his interminable, self-congratulatory stump speech, wearingly bereft of humor, argument, story or anecdote, more a listing of all bad things in the world and how they must be put right, delivered in his usual droning shout. The need to make it all about the platform concessions he had wrangled out of Mrs. Clinton, and the historical magnitude of the Senator himself: “Together we have begun a political revolution to transform America and that revolution continues.” Followed by about as short and perfunctory an actual endorsement as possible.

At least it was done. If Achilles had sulked this long in his tent we would all be speaking Trojan, but never mind. Bernie Sanders did, clearly and unequivocally, say that Hillary Clinton had won the most elected delegates, that she “will make an outstanding President and I am proud to stand with her here today” …

Mr. Kramer then diagnoses a continuing problem with left-wing politics:

Polling shows that 85 percent of Sanders supporters are willing to vote for Mrs. Clinton in November… Most of the remainder will likely come around over the next four months… yet there is a lingering problem here…

With Bernie out of the battle, what remains is the left’s odd, outmoded doctrine of purity, of revolutionary posturing. This is a philosophy alien to the long legacy of pragmatic American liberalism. Its perpetuation speaks directly to the reasons today’s liberals seem to have such difficulty holding and wielding power in this country. “The worse, the better,” went the Leninist saw. There is no reforming the rotten old system. Best to “let the empire burn,” and have the fires purify the new society….

Change — lasting, democratic change, which is the only kind worth fighting for — is hard, slow, often exasperating. And yet the theatrics of revolution seem to mesmerize the left, over and over again. The concept, all too similar to the religious fundamentalist’s obsession with the end times, is that cataclysm will bring redemption. There is inherent in this a deep indifference to the historical recognition that one thing proceeds from another … and that when we start down an unknown trail we cannot be sure where we will end up….

The corrosive effects of a political philosophy devoted to waiting for the revolution can be heard in the oddly passive demands of those speeches by Mr. Sanders that lay out always what he wants, but not how we can get it. It is reflected in the left’s distraction over presidential elections while failing to build democracy on a state or local level….

He concludes by quoting Barry Goldwater’s call to action after Goldwater lost the Republican nomination to Richard Nixon in 1960:

This country is too important for anyone’s feelings,” Goldwater thundered at his delegates. “This country, and its majesty, is too great for any man, be he conservative or liberal, to stay home and not work just because he doesn’t agree. Let’s grow up, conservatives. We want to take this party back, and I think some day we can. Let’s go to work.”

Goldwater backed up his words by campaigning hard in support of Nixon — and not incidentally, building a foundation for the right wing around the country. Four years later, he would use it to gain the nomination himself, and by 1980, Ronald Reagan had taken not only the party but the country for conservatism.

If Voting Was Considered a Sacred Responsibility

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Everyone would be willing to visit the VOX site and watch the 41-minute video in which Ezra Klein interviews Hillary Clinton on subjects like poverty, deficit spending and immigration. Or else read the slightly edited transcript.

After they did that, they’d be curious enough to read Mr. Klein’s associated article: “Understanding Hillary: Why the Clinton America Sees Isn’t the Clinton Colleagues Know”. He has an interesting answer. It’s not one I’ve heard before.

The video and transcript

The associated article “Understanding Hillary”

Then, in November, they’d vote for the candidate they prefer and the Congressional candidates who’d help her do her job.

Hillary Clinton Made a Great Speech

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At the A.M.E. Church conference in Philadelphia on Thursday, July 8th, the day after the killings in Dallas. The full speech is here, with excerpts below the video:

Partial transcript of her remarks:

Gun violence is ripping apart people’s lives. They’re trying to tell us. And we need to listen.

I know that, just by saying all these things together, I may upset some people. I’m talking about criminal justice reform the day after a horrific attack on police officers. I’m talking about courageous, honorable police officers just a few days after officer-involved killings in Louisiana and Minnesota. I’m bringing up guns in a country where merely talking about comprehensive background checks and getting assault weapons off our streets gets you demonized.

But all these things can be true at once. We do need police and criminal justice reforms, to save lives and make sure all Americans are treated equally in rights and dignity. We do need to support police departments and stand up for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect us. And we do need to reduce gun violence. We may disagree about how to do all these things, but surely we can all agree with those basic premises. Surely this week showed us how true they are.

Now, I have set forth plans for over a year to reduce excessive violence, reform our sentencing laws, support police departments that are doing things right, make it harder for the wrong people to get their hands on guns. For example, there are two important steps that I will take as president.

First, I will bring law enforcement and communities together to develop national guidelines on the use of force by police officers. We will make it clear for everyone to see when deadly force is warranted, and when it isn’t. And we will emphasize proven methods for de-escalating situations before they reach that point.

And second, let’s be honest — let’s acknowledge that implicit bias still exists across our society and even in the best police departments. We have to tackle it together, which is why in my first budget, I will commit $1 billion to find and fund the best training programs, support new research, and make this a national policing priority. Let’s learn from those police departments like Dallas that have been making progress, apply their lessons nationwide.

Now, plans like these are important. But we have to acknowledge that — on their own — they won’t be enough. On their own, our thoughts and prayers aren’t enough, either. We need to do some hard work inside ourselves, too….

I’ve tried to say for some time now that our country needs more love and kindness. I know it’s not the kind of thing presidential candidates usually say. But we have to find ways to repair these wounds and close these divides. The great genius and salvation of the United States is our capacity to do and to be better. And we must answer the call to do that again. It’s critical to everything else we want to achieve — more jobs with rising income; good education no matter what ZIP code a child lives in; affordable college; paying back debts; health care for everyone. We must never give up on the dream of this nation.

I want to close with a favorite passage — a passage that you all know — that means a great deal to me and I’m sure to many of you, from Galatians. “Let us not grow weary in doing good” — “for in due season, we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.”

Only Some Professional Writers Are Professional

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Of course, I’m not one of them, if only because I’m not getting paid. You might see an occasional advertisement on this blog (I never do – they just remind me that you guys might), but not a dime comes my way. In fact, I’m paying WordPress more than seven cents a day just to keep whereofonecanspeak.com reasonably operational. 

But back to my topic: If you can stand it, Fred Kaplan of Slate has an excellent little summary of the email situation: “The Hillary Email Scandal Was Totally Overblown”. The whole thing is here. The “top comment” says “this is the most level-headed piece I’ve read on the email ‘scandal'”.

To quote one little bit, this is Mr. Kaplan writing about Patrick Healy, the New York Times reporter who produced a “news analysis” article in the form of an attack ad that Trump can use if he ever runs out of insults:

And yet, here is New York Times political reporter Patrick Healy, in a front-page news analysis, paraphrasing Comey’s rebuke of the current presumptive Democratic candidate for president: The FBI director, Healy wrote, “basically just called her out for having committed one of the most irresponsible moves in the modern history of the State Department.” I defy anyone to pore through the most scathing passages of Comey’s remarks and find anything that remotely resembles this description.

Wow. I would have thought that Hillary using a private email server couldn’t possibly make the list of irresponsible Secretary of State “moves” that includes things like Colin Powell selling Bush’s invasion of Iraq. But I’m not a professional writer like Patrick Healy.

Fortunately, neither is Fred Kaplan.

The Director of the F.B.I. Adds His Two Cents

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I wasn’t surprised when James Comey, head of the F.B.I., announced that Hillary Clinton would not face criminal charges as a result of her email practices. But I was relieved. There was always the possibility that Comey, a Republican, might complicate the election by calling for an indictment. So it was good news when Comey said:

….no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case…. In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.

That could have been the end of the matter. The F.B.I.’s job was to determine the facts and make a recommendation to the Attorney General. In this case, the recommendation was: “No prosecution is called for”.

But Comey had much more to say that morning (actually he had 2,300 words to say in his prepared statement). In an attempt at explanation, he included this preamble:

This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways. First, I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest. Second, I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say.

As you’ve probably heard, Comey then went into some detail about what the F.B.I. found. He also strongly criticized Clinton for being careless with national security (although no actual breach of national security was detected) and offered critiques of some of Clinton’s statements.

Immediately, what seemed like a good day for Clinton seemed like a very bad day. Reporters and pundits repeated Comey’s language about carelessness and drew conclusions about the negative effects the F.B.I. director’s remarks would have. One reporter for the New York Times went so far as to write a theoretical attack ad for Trump’s campaign. It was presented on the front page of the Times as “news analysis”.

Since then, of course, the Republicans have strongly criticized Comey’s recommendation that Clinton not be prosecuted. And other facts have come out. For example, it turns out that some of the information that was labeled “classified” shouldn’t have been, according to the State Department, and that the labeling wasn’t done according to the rules in a clearly visible way.

Compared to the other issues we’re confronting, and considering who Clinton is running against, it’s possible that the email issue will fade away as the election approaches and our ballots are finally cast. (I’ve always thought this story was mainly interesting because it demonstrates how too much information is “classified” by overzealous government employees.) Nevertheless, after the initial blast of “analysis”, I saw an article and a letter to the editor that characterized Comey’s two-thousand-word statement in an interesting way.

The article in The Washington Post was written by a former director of the Justice Department’s public affairs office. It’s called “James Comey’s Abuse of Power” and is worth quoting at length:

When FBI Director James B. Comey stepped to the lectern to deliver his remarks about Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, he violated time-honored Justice Department practices for how such matters are to be handled, set a dangerous precedent for future investigations and committed a gross abuse of his own power.

…his willingness to reprimand publicly a figure against whom he believes there is no basis for criminal charges should trouble anyone who believes in the rule of law and fundamental principles of fairness.

Justice Department rules set clear guidelines for when it is appropriate for the government to comment about individuals involved in an ongoing investigation, which this matter was until prosecutors closed it Wednesday. Prosecutors and investigators can reassure the public that a matter is being taken seriously, and in some rare cases can provide additional information to protect public safety, such as when a suspect is loose and poses a danger.

And when the department closes an investigation, it typically does so quietly, at most noting that it has investigated the matter fully and decided not to bring charges.

These practices are important because of the role the Justice Department and FBI play in our system of justice. They are not the final adjudicators of the appropriateness of conduct for anyone they investigate. Instead, they build cases that they present in court, where their assertions are backed up by evidence that can be challenged by an opposing party and ultimately adjudicated by a judge or jury.

In a case where the government decides it will not submit its assertions to that sort of rigorous scrutiny by bringing charges, it has the responsibility to not besmirch someone’s reputation by lobbing accusations publicly instead. Prosecutors and agents have followed this precedent for years.

In this case, Comey ignored those rules to editorialize about what he called carelessness by Clinton and her aides in handling classified information, a statement not grounded in any position in law. He recklessly speculated that Clinton’s email system could have been hacked, even while admitting he had no evidence that it was. This conjecture, which has been the subject of much debate and heated allegations, puts Clinton in the impossible position of having to prove a negative in response….

While Clinton shouldn’t have received special treatment, she does not deserve worse treatment from her government than anyone else, either. Yet by inserting himself into the middle of a political campaign and making unprecedented public assertions, that is exactly what Comey provided.

Finally, a professor of legal ethics at the New York University school of law wrote this letter to The Times:

James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was out of line in holding a press briefing to deliver his verdict on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server. The F.B.I. investigates crime and reports its findings and recommendations to federal prosecutors, who then decide whether to seek indictments.

The F.B.I. is neither judge nor jury. And it certainly has no business characterizing the noncriminal conduct of subjects of investigation, as Mr. Comey did. Cops, even top cops, should not play this role.

While it may gratify the country to hear Mr. Comey’s independent views on the server controversy, his press briefing sets a bad precedent that can harm the fair administration of justice. Few people under investigation have the resources Mrs. Clinton has to defend herself….

Once a decision is made not to indict, a prosecuting agency should say nothing more. Its job is to prosecute crime, and if there is no crime, it should remain silent.

My conclusion is that Comey’s statement was unusual in a way he didn’t think to mention, i.e., it was wrong for him to make it.