"Exactly who in the White House betrayed these secrets? Did a superior authorize it?"

Romney asked.

"These are things that Americans are entitled to know — and they are entitled to know right now. If the president believes — as he said last week — that the buck stops with him, then he owes all Americans a full and prompt accounting of the facts."

It's "truly stunning" that the result in the Obamacare case hasn't leaked.

Says Ethan Leib (at PrawfsBlag):

Is it possible that no clerk mentioned what s/he is working on to a spouse?  That no spouse with the information mentioned it to a parent or friend, even accidentally?  That no parent or friend let it leak to a sniffing journalist or day trader in the community?  With an aggressive press corps dying for a scoop, well-connected within the community of people that work in and around the Court, doesn't it seem surprising that a secret could be so well kept? 

Perhaps it seems so amazing in contrast to the way other things have leaked — notably the many national security leaks from the Obama White House. Another way of looking at this picture is with the template that everyone is probably doing what they really want to do. Nothing is actually an impressive feat of maintaining secrecy. People can keep secrets. We're surprised when they do only because of the rarity of wanting to keep secrets.

Just an alternate theory.

"Why do the president's appointees think the picture of him with a kill list in his hand makes him look good?"

Asks Peggy Noonan.

He sits and personally decides who to kill? Americans don't think of their presidents like that. And they don't want to....

After the killing of bin Laden, members of the administration, in a spirit of triumphalism, began giving briefings and interviews in which they said too much. One of the adults in the administration, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reportedly went to Mr. Donilon's office. "I have a new strategic communications approach to recommend," he said. What? asked Mr. Donilon.

"Shut the [blank] up," Mr. Gates said.

Woodward and Bernstein on "Face the Nation" — falling short on consistency about journalistic ethics?

First, they praise their own work from the Watergate era:

WOODWARD: Well, that we were just trying to find out what happened and... we were as empirical as we could be. And, you know, it needs to be said that we work for an editor, Ben Bradley, and other editors at the Post who were not - who didn't have an agenda themselves. But their agenda was "get the f-ing story; get into it; keep digging; don't let up." And we were 28 and 29 at the time. And it is very liberating to work in an institution where they really understand what we're trying to do. And they say to you, you know, use all your resources, use all the resources of this newspaper. In fact, if there is peril, if we are not believed but we think we have good sources, continue.

Then, the interviewer, Bob Schieffer, brings up the present-day problem with national security leaks that seem to be coming from the White House and for the purpose of making Obama "look like a stronger leader."

BERNSTEIN: I think first you've got to be very careful about creating a witch hunt for sources, and a witch hunt in which you go after reporters, because now more than ever we need real reporting on this presidency, on national security, on all these areas. And the press is not the problem here. We've got plenty of laws and if somebody inside is doing things with real national security secrets that he oughtn't or she oughtn't to be doing in terms of giving them to the press, that's one thing. But let's be really careful before we start a witch hunt here.

WOODWARD: Yes, and I completely agree with that. And by having an investigation, I mean, was there real harm to the national security? I think that question needs to be addressed at a policy level. And it's very difficult, I know from doing stories like this, where you are dealing with sensitive government secrets, to modulate and be careful, at the same time hold the government accountable for what they're doing. So this is an area that needs to be handled with great delicacy and I'm not sure we have a political system that knows how to do anything with great delicacy.

BERNSTEIN: The record of the press, you know, is really quite good in protecting real genuine national security secrets which we often know about. Don't put -- you know, think of what you are carrying around in your head that you don't put on the air.

What happened to get the f-ing story; get into it; keep digging; don't let up?

"So the Obama administration... deliberately put the life of a British agent in jeopardy... someone who had infiltrated al Qaeda."

A much more serious breach of security than the case of Valerie Plame that everyone once cared so deeply about.

"The whole Homeland Security thing has been a bureaucratic crock."

"It’s turned out exactly as I predicted."

"I would rather the Obama folks be hypocrites in favor of protecting the national security than principled fools..."

What would John Yoo say?

Obama's Libya adventure does not fit the War Powers Resolution... and can only be supported by the most extreme view of presidential power.

Lawprof Bruce Ackerman explains:

After the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which granted the president the power to act unilaterally for 60 days in response to a "national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." The law gave the chief executive an additional 30 days to disengage if he failed to gain congressional assent during the interim.  

But... these provisions have little to do with the constitutionality of the Libyan intervention, since Libya did not attack our "armed forces." The president failed to mention this fundamental point in giving Congress notice of his decision on Monday, in compliance with another provision of the resolution. Without an armed "attack," there is no compelling reason for the president to cut Congress out of a crucial decision on war and peace....

The War Powers Resolution doesn't authorize a single day of Libyan bombing. But it does provide an escape hatch, stating that it is not "intended to alter the constitutional authority of the Congress or of the President." So it's open for Obama to assert that his power as commander in chief allows him to wage war without Congress, despite the Constitution's insistence to the contrary....

Many modern presidents have made such claims, and Harry Truman acted upon this assertion in Korea. But it's surprising to find Obama on the verge of ratifying such precedents. He was elected in reaction to the unilateralist assertions of John Yoo and other apologists for George W. Bush-era illegalities. Yet he is now moving onto ground that even Bush did not occupy....

The War Powers Resolution cedes power to the President in the very place where the argument for independent presidential power is strong: When there is a national security emergency. If you don't fit the War Powers Resolution, because it's not an emergency, the argument for independent power is at its weakest.

Here's the part of my diavlog with Bob Wright where we talk about this issue. Note how, challenged, Bob comes up with a generic neocon argument about how more democracy in the world is good for national security. I press him about how there needs to be an emergency to justify not including Congress in the decisionmaking. (I've let this clip go on a bit, so it's a little long, but I purport to tell you the whole story of constitutional law, so it's actually super-concise.)

"I can see why we should promote women's rights as a covert national security concept."

"But if 'they' know we're doing that, it will undercut the cause of women's rights."

A comment by me, on jac's "Why are young men often passionate about religion and war? Can women put an end to war?"

Get ready for the government to look at you with X-ray eyes.

The Transportation Security Administration wants to see you naked... at the airport... from a discreet high-tech distance. The new scrutiny begins today... in Tulsa.

Congressman Peter Hoekstra tweets a security breach!

"Moved into green zone by helicopter Iraqi flag now over palace. Headed to new US embassy Appears calmer less chaotic than previous here."

IN THE COMMENTS: Jason (freezing) says:

Please, all his tweets are like that:

Deciding where to put new nuke dump. Who wants to donate to my campaign?

Rate this congressional page 1-10

At meeting with pres, BORED, anyone wanna chat?

@biden I haven't paid taxes in years, where's my appointment? LOL

Obama said he'll close Guantánamo, but will he?

We heard his opaque order the other day, a plan to close down Guantánamo by a year from now, with all the details to be worked out later. That sounded spurious to me from the first minute of this ticking-down year, and I expected the dribbling out of news of complicating, newly discovered circumstances. The dribble starts here:

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

No comprehensive files? Bush screwed it up!

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is "scattered throughout the executive branch," a senior administration official said.

Oh! The mismanagement! The files are not all in one place!

The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.

So, first, we have to get all the files in one place, folks, and that's going to take months, after which point we will begin to work on a plan for something to do with the detainees other than to keep them at Guantánamo.

After promising quick solutions, one former senior official said, the Obama administration is now "backpedaling and trying to buy time" by blaming its predecessor. Unless political appointees decide to overrule the recommendations of the career bureaucrats handling the issue under both administrations, he predicted, the new review will reach the same conclusion as the last: that most of the detainees can be neither released nor easily tried in this country.

"All but about 60 who have been approved for release," assuming countries can be found to accept them, "are either high-level al-Qaeda people responsible for 9/11 or bombings, or were high-level Taliban or al-Qaeda facilitators or money people"....

A poll:

Will Obama close Guantanamo?
	Yes
	No
pollcode.com free polls

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs finds Obama to be "a non-ideological pragmatist who was willing to both listen and lead."

WaPo reports on the 45-minute conversation between Adm. Michael Mullen and the President-elect:

There was little talk of exiting Iraq or beefing up the U.S. force in Afghanistan; the one-on-one, 45-minute conversation ranged from the personal to the philosophical. Mullen came away with what he wanted: a view of the next president as a non-ideological pragmatist who was willing to both listen and lead. After the meeting, the chairman "felt very good, very positive"...

As Obama prepares to announce his national security team tomorrow, he faces a military that has long mistrusted Democrats and is particularly wary of a young, intellectual leader with no experience in uniform, who once called Iraq a "dumb" war....

But so far, Obama appears to be going out of his way to reassure them that he will do nothing rash and will seek their advice, even while making clear that he may not always take it....

Obama may, in fact, satisfy the military in ways that Bush did not:

"Open and serious debate versus ideological certitude will be a great relief to the military leaders," said retired Maj. Gen. William L. Nash of the Council on Foreign Relations. Senior officers are aware that few in their ranks voiced misgivings over the Iraq war, but they counter that they were not encouraged to do so by the Bush White House or the Pentagon under Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"The joke was that when you leave a meeting, everybody is supposed to drink the Kool-Aid," Nash said. "In the Bush administration, you had to drink the Kool-Aid before you got to go to the meeting."

"Guantanamo Closure Called Obama Priority."

So reads the WaPo headline. Here's the text:

The Obama administration will launch a review of the classified files of the approximately 250 detainees at Guantanamo Bay immediately after taking office, as part of an intensive effort to close the U.S. prison in Cuba, according to people who advised the campaign on detainee issues.

So they'll launch a review...

Announcing the closure of the controversial detention facility would be among the most potent signals the incoming administration could send of its sharp break with the Bush era, according to the advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for the president-elect. They believe the move would create a global wave of diplomatic and popular goodwill that could accelerate the transfer of some detainees to other countries.

It could happen that other countries will open their doors to these people if only we close Guantanamo. It could happen. They love our goodwill gestures, right? (I say, sarcastically.)

But the advisers, as well as outside national security and legal experts, said the new administration will face a thicket of legal, diplomatic, political and logistical challenges to closing the prison and prosecuting the most serious offenders in the United States -- an effort that could take many months or longer....

Moreover, the new administration will face hard decisions regarding not just the current Guantanamo Bay detainees but also how it will handle future captures of terrorism suspects.

Yes, what about all the problems, all the reasons why we have Guantanamo and executive detention?

Don't you wonder what Obama will say after all of that intensive effort at thinking all this through?

I'm going to bet that Obama will keep Guantanamo open. Don't worry, he'll break it to us comfortably, with the most cushiony possible rhetoric. And all you Bush haters will be just fine with it.

MORE: Here.

Whales and dolphins suffer a bitter defeat in the Supreme Court

Chief Justice Roberts writes for the majority in Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council. He begins with a quote from George Washington: "To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." And the Navy wins.

The plaintiffs are the Natural Resources Defense Council, Jean-Michael Cousteau (an environmental enthusiast and filmmaker), and several other groups devoted to the protection of marine mammals and ocean habitats. They contend that MFA sonar can cause much more serious injuries to marine mammals than the Navy acknowledges, including permanent hearing loss, decompression sickness, and major behavioral disruptions. According to the plaintiffs, several mass strandings of marine mammals (outside of SOCAL) have been “associated” with the use of active sonar. They argue that certain species of marine mammals—such as beaked whales—are uniquely susceptible to injury from active sonar; these injuries would not necessarily be detected by the Navy, given that beaked whales are “very deep divers” that spend little time at the surface.

An enthusiast, eh?

[E]ven if plaintiffs have shown irreparable injury from the Navy’s training exercises, any such injury is outweighed by the public interest and the Navy’s interest in effective, realistic training of its sailors. A proper consideration of these factors alone requires denial of the requested injunctive relief....

For the plaintiffs, the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals that they study and observe. In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained antisubmarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet. Active sonar is the only reliable technology for detecting and tracking enemy diesel-electric submarines, and the President—the Commander in Chief—has determined that training with active sonar is “essential to national security.”

Justice Ginsburg dissents, joined by Justice Souter:

Flexibility is a hallmark of equity jurisdiction.... [C]ourts do not insist that litigants uniformly show a particular, predetermined quantum of probable success or injury before awarding equitable relief....

The Navy’s own EA predicted substantial and irreparable harm to marine mammals. Sonar is linked to mass strandings of marine mammals, hemorrhaging around the brain and ears, acute spongiotic changes in the central nervous system, and lesions in vital organs....

In my view, this likely harm—170,000 behavioral disturbances, including 8,000 instances of temporary hearing loss; and 564 Level A harms, including 436 injuries to a beaked whale population numbering only 1,121—cannot be lightly dismissed, even in the face of an alleged risk to the effectiveness of the Navy’s 14 training exercises.

(There's also an opinion by Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Stevens, taking a middle position.)

"We're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him."

"Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

When is the press going to force Joe Biden to explain what the hell he meant by that? And, generally, when is the press going to pay attention to Biden's mistakes? Kirsten Powers would like to know.

The stock answer is: "It's just Biden being Biden." We all know how smart he is about foreign policy, so it's not the same as when Sarah Palin says something that seems off....

And Biden is the foreign-policy gravitas on the Democratic ticket, so his comments are actually even more disconcerting.

Even those who support Obama -- not all, but some -- are getting nauseated by the press bias. And it's not just the bias. I'm really queasy about that future Biden is foreseeing. He has access to all sorts of reports of threats that we can't be told. It's as if he's taunting us with his inside knowledge. There will be -- what? -- attacks? And is Obama already planning to respond in ways that they know will dismay us? Tell us more. Is it about Israel?

ADDED: Kathryn Jean Lopez thinks maybe Biden means that Obama wants a draft.

What "privileges" would Barack Obama give to the Guantanamo detainees?

Here's the statement Barack Obama made yesterday about the Guantanamo detainees:

By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been an enormous failure. Over the course of nearly seven years, there has not been a single conviction for a terrorist act at Guantanamo. There has been just one conviction for material support for terrorism. Meanwhile, this legal black hole has substantially set back America’s ability to lead the world against the threat of terrorism, and undermined our most basic values. Make no mistake: we are less safe because of the way George Bush has handled this.

My approach is guided by a simple premise: I have confidence that our system of justice is strong enough to deal with terrorists; Senator McCain does not. That is not the same as giving these detainees the same full privileges as Americans citizens. I never said that, the Supreme Court never said that, and I would never do that as President of the United States. So either Senator McCain’s campaign doesn’t understand what the Court decided, or they are distorting my position.

So he's talking about what he isn't saying I'd like him to be clear about what he is saying. He won't give them "full privileges," but what portion of privileges does he favor? (And why is he saying "privileges" and not "rights"?)

I have made the same arguments as Republicans like Arlen Specter, countless Generals and national security experts, and the largely Republican-appointed Supreme Court of the United States of America – which is that we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while we fight terrorism.

Ugh. Tricky rhetoric. We are having an argument about what American jurisprudence dictates. It's a difficult question, and the people who disagree with Obama — such as the dissenters in Boumediene — don't favor throwing out "American jurisprudence." (And why is he saying "American jurisprudence" and not "the Constitution"?)

We do not need to choose between our most deeply held values, and keeping this nation safe. That’s a false choice, and I completely reject it.

Fine, but again, he is having an argument with people who are not proposing throwing away "deeply held values" for national security. He is defining and balancing these things differently from the way they do, and I wish he'd be more precise about what his plan is rather than simply asserting that he will be able to harmonize competing interests so that everything works out just fine.

***

Feel free to point me to more information on the precise subject. I spent some time reading the official Obama website looking for material on the detainees. It is not one of the topics on the "issues" menu, and I can't see a way to run a search for particular words.

UPDATE: I was just listening to the podcast of yesterday's Rush Limbaugh show, which played this statement from Obama:

Let's talk specifically about my statement around Guantanamo.

Statement around Guantanamo? When I hear "around" used like that, I get nervous. Isn't it a signal that the speaker is going to be cagey?

The question is whether or not, as the Supreme Court said, people who are being held have a chance to at least suggest that, hey, you've got the wrong guy, or I shouldn't be here. It's not a question of whether or not they're freed. And the simple point that I was making, which I will continue to make throughout this campaign, is that we can abide by due process and abide by basic concepts of rule of law and still crack down on terrorists. The fact that you are allowing habeas does not necessitate that you are suddenly putting terrorists in a full US trial court. That's not... Those two things aren't equivalent.

Again, he's saying what his position isn't and not what it is. But, then, he is saying "due process," which suggests that he's talking about constitutional rights. But he holds back from saying that the detainees would be treated to a full-scale criminal trial. The question, presumably, is: What process is due? What rights can they enforce? And he doesn't tell us. So allowing the detainees to petition for a writ of habeas corpus doesn't necessitate a full-scale criminal trial (sudden or not). Fine. True enough. It's not necessarily going to be that way, but is it?"Those two things aren't equivalent," yes, but habeas is the first step, so what do you think is the next step?

Here's how Rush Limbaugh reacts to that Obama statement:

Does anybody have any idea what he said there? Again, illustrating my point: Get this guy off the teleprompter or without some prepared notes, and he's wandering aimlessly for syllabic combinations that will equal a cogent, salient thought. I think the last thing that he said here is really what he was angling at trying to say. "Just because you're allowing habeas [corpus] doesn't necessitate that you're suddenly putting terrorists in a full US trial." Oh, it doesn't? Well, then why are we going to have to take them out of Club Gitmo, sir? And why are we going to have to bring them to the US court system and grant them lawyers? You don't think those lawyers are going to go straight to court? And when they go straight to court with habeas corpus, doesn't it mean, Senator, that they are presumed innocent?

I'm inclined to say Rush is wrong, but I note that he's only asking a series of questions, so I can't. I'll have to say that, ironically, Rush is a bit like Obama, wandering aimlessly for syllabic combinations that will equal a cogent, salient thought. Both men mesmerize their listeners and move them along on a current of verbiage.

I suspect that Rush's asking those questions caused millions of listeners to believe that Obama wants all the detainees to have full-scale criminal trials. Now, I'd like to hear Obama clearly say what he does want — not what things don't necessarily mean and so forth — what he actually wants.

"Secure," "confidential" plans for the WTC Freedom Tower...

... found by a homeless man in a street trash bin at West Houston and Sullivan Streets.

Law and breasts...

You'd think I would have blogged this story, but no, I passed it up, yet here's Glenn Reynolds, blogging and displaying a whole Gloria-Allred-with-the-pliers photograph:



I have just 2 things to say:

1. Airport security people don't force you to do anything — e.g., rip out your pus-stuck nipple tacks with pliers — they give you a choice. You can go forward onto your flight by accepting the search or turn around and leave.

2. When I see Gloria Allred, the direction I feel like turning is to "South Park." What's that episode where they mock Gloria Allred? Well, their website is so fabulous that you can not only easily search using your key word, but you can watch the whole episode. It's "Cripple Fight."

"If there is a bear."

John Dickerson writes about Hillary Clinton's children sleeping ad:

The new Clinton ad tries to ... [expand] the group of voters who care most about experience. Remember, it's a dangerous world.

The Bush campaign never ran an ad like this when it was accused of scare-mongering during the 2004 campaign. (They preferred using animals.) Perhaps that's why Clinton campaign staffers have to insist they are not trying to frighten voters. While coyness is annoying, the essential question the ad asks is a fair one: Which of the candidates do you trust to keep his or her head when everyone around them is lighting theirs on fire, and at a time when your kid's safety could be on the line?

At "animals," Dickerson links to this Bush ad:



YouTube wisely serves up this other ad:



I wonder how dangerous the world would need to be before I wouldn't laugh at "If there is a bear"?

Anyway, it's interesting, isn't it? Democrats try to scare you with children and Republicans try to scare you with animals.