by H. N. Burdett
Early in my newspaper career, I witnessed the Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates announce from the rostrum in the lower house chamber to some 140 colleagues that he was stepping down in the wake of a grand jury indictment. To my everlasting astonishment, Speaker A. Gordon Boone was given a standing ovation. Rather than accepting the news as a possibility that he might be serving jail time, the assemblage of lawmakers reacted as though Boone had hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth to win the World Series for the Baltimore Orioles.
That event remains among the more bizarre I can recall after years of covering statewide, county and city election campaigns and sessions of the state legislature, city and county councils, as well as the United States Congress.
Even had Boone been a beloved figure among his colleagues, a round of applause from elected members of the General Assembly, considering the circumstances under which he was leaving, would have been passing strange. But I cannot say that he was.
The only plausible explanation for the vote of confidence -- if that's what it was -- is that the House of Delegates was expressing the equivalent of a collective sigh of relief, thinking: There but for the grace of God. . .
That evening over dinner, I related my astonishment at what I'd witnessed to a reform-minded delegate who had regarded Boone as a member of the entrenched establishment, a burr in the saddle of progress. "Did you consider," he said, "that some of us were applauding as our way of saying goodbye and good riddance?"
Boone's apparent mistake was choosing to defend his legal clients -- savings and loan companies -- before a grand jury rather than in a courtroom.
He had earlier told friends and colleagues of his intention to voluntarily testify before the grand jury on behalf of his clients. He ignored the warnings of fellow lawyers to reconsider, that unnecessarily going before a grand jury is a high-risk proposition. And he paid the price for ignoring free legal advice when his indictment alleged that he had withheld information from the grand jury. Boone was subsequently convicted.
Until then, Maryland really did not have a reputation as a particularly corrupt state. It was not nearly in the same league with Louisiana and West Virginia, both of which a relative who happened to be working on an auditing project involving various state governments assured me had, at that time, left the remaining 48 states in their dust.
But the Old Line State seemed determined in succeeding years to catch up with the Bayou and Mountaineer states. The list of politicians convicted by a jury of their peers included: Governor Marvin Mandel, U.S. Senator Daniel Brewster, Rep. William O. Mills, Anne Arundel County Executive Joseph W. Alton, Jr., Baltimore County Executive Dale Anderson, Baltimore County State's Attorney Samuel Green, Jr., and Baltimore City Council President Walter S. Orlinsky.
Most of the humpty-dumpties who were pushed or fell off the wall followed the reeling in of the biggest fish of all, former Maryland governor and then U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. In an act of epochal audacity, Agnew continued to collect cash in white envelopes for favors rendered as Baltimore County Executive when he was a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Agnew spent the remainder of his life as the middle man in deals cut by Saudi King Faisal and living his dream as one of Frank Sinatra's fawning acolytes, but seething with bitter anti-Semitism, blaming Jews, rather than his own boundless greed, for his fall from grace. Clearly those "nattering nabobs of negativism" (a phrase dreamed up by his Jewish speechwriter, Bill Safire), against whom Agnew ranted as Richard Nixon's hatchet man, had the last word.
Those were embarrassing days for Marylanders, particularly when out-of-state colleagues, friends and relatives barraged them with jokes and wisecracks about the culture of corruption that was rampant in the state. I waged a short-lived campaign to have the U.S. Postal Service merge two neighboring southern Anne Arundel County communities, Deale and Shadyside, for the purpose of establishing a Shady Deale, Maryland, postmark. But the wagons of local pride circled to prevent such mischief, which I maintained would have saved tons of postal dollars and put those two sleepy villages on the map beyond the wildest expectations of their respective chambers of commerce. Some villages prefer not to be awakened from their slumber.
A stock defiant response to the endless insults suffered in the Free State back then was: Maryland has no more corrupt politicians than any other state, it's just that here we prosecute them. That rejoinder was somewhat disingenuous inasmuch as many if not most of the prosecutions were promulgated by federal rather than state grand juries.
Anne Arundel County Executive Joe Alton, who in 1974 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit extortion, was among those who blamed their troubles on their conviction that "the rules changed."
Alton never really explained what rules had undergone transformation between the time he had taken the oath of office and his receiving a subpoena to answer federal corruption charges. Perhaps the "rule" was that prosecutors were supposed to look the other way when a politician was into the cookie jar up to his elbow. It was a sad time indeed.
The late Dick Levine, a legendary Baltimore Sun investigative reporter who was almost single-handedly responsible for a dramatic shakeup of the corruption-ridden Baltimore City Police Deparment, once told me: "I've never been in favor of capital punishment with one exception. I'm for beheading anyone who takes an oath to protect the public trust, then violates it." Levine capsulized what a great many Marylanders felt when the roofs came crashing down on so many duly elected public officials.
It would be a stretch to characterize onetime Maryland House Speaker A. Gordon Boone as a folk hero. But in New York's Harlem, Charlie Rangel, could without the slightest exaggeration make such a claim -- as could any member of Congress who had represented his district for 40 successive years.
Rep. Charles B. Rangel faces a U.S. House of Representatives ethics committee hearing, expected to begin in September -- only two months before voters go to the polls to determine whether he will serve his 21st term in Congress.
The 80-year-old congressman's flair for the poetic is a throwback to bygone days under the dome of the nation's capitol. His response to the announcement of his pending public trial reveals that his love of language remains very much intact: "I am pleased that, at long last, sunshine will pierce the cloud of serious allegations that have been raised against me in the media."
Counter charges of headline-hunting media are commonplace among politicians following court indictments or announcement of ethic probes. After all, someone has to be responsible for the mess in which they have waded hip deep and it certainly could not be these innocent-as-lambs-pure-as-the-driven-snow pols. Their plea harkens all the way back to the call for killing the messenger.
On the other hand, where there's smoke, there's often fire. In Rangel's case, for years there has been enough smoke to choke half the population of Harlem, and the time to separate the wheat from the chaff will be soon enough upon us.
Rangel reluctantly relinquished his chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee in March, only days after the ethics panel decreed that in an unrelated case he had breached congressional gift rules by accepting trips in 2007 and 2008 to conferences in the Caribbean financed by corporate interests.
The ethics submcommittee has reportedly found evidence that the Harlem congressman misused his office to preserve a tax loophole worth half a billion dollars for a corporate executive who agreed to contribute $1 million to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York; that he neither reported nor paid taxes on rental income from a beachfront villa he owns in the Dominican Republic, and that he wrongfully accepted four rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan including one he used as a campaign office.
There is speculation that Rangel, at this late date in his political career, will resign his seat in Congress rather than submit himself to the humiliation of a public trial. But this is contradicted by his "sunshine will pierce the cloud" statement followed by his recent feisty comment that this is "not the time to be hanging up the gloves." Despite his advanced age, not many have questioned the pride or the courage of Charlie Rangel, who as a soldier during the Korean war nearly froze to death while U.S. forces were under attack by the Chinese.
As horrific and nauseating as the charges against Maryland politicians and Charlie Rangel have been, they pale in comparison to those leveled against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich who is currently on trial. The litany of allegations against Blago curdle the blood, including:
Plotting to auction off then President-elect Obama's U.S. Senate seat for personal gain; signing a bill in exchange for a campaign contribution from the horse-racing industry; awarding a toll road contract in exchange for a campaign contribution; engaging in pay-to-play in making appointments and plotting to award a state job with the Illinois Finance Authority in exchange for campaign contributions; attempting to exchange state permits for cash.
It seems that federal prosecutors have thrown everything against the wall in the hope that one or more might stick.
Perhaps the most damaging evidence uncovered during the prosecution's case was a suggestion caught on tape to Blagojevich by his brother, a soft-spoken former army officer described as the polar opposite of the foul-mouthed, chip-on-the-shoulder governor.
Blago's sibling, confidant and co-defendant, is caught telling the governor: "If you can get Obama to get (U.S. Attorney Patrick) Fitzgerald to close the investigation on you, it completely provides you with total clarity."
Robert Blagojevich's advice to his brother is interpreted as quid pro quo for the governor naming the Obamas' longtime friend and inner circle adviser, Valerie Jarrett, to the president's former Senate seat. Robert has argued that his suggestion had nothing to do with Jarrett's possible appointment, but was meant "in the context of what politicians do." Interesting construction.
The governor has been treading boiling water staunchly and unsurprisingly proclaiming his innocence in his typical brash, in-your-face style that has characterized his public career and apparently has some cache in certain precincts within the City of Big Shoulders.
When the prosecution rested and before his defense commenced, the embattled Governor Blagojevich went before the television cameras to announce to Illinois and the world: "The government proved I never took a corrupt dollar. I never took a corrupt dime, not a corrupt nickel, not a corrupt penny."
Blago continued: "In the tapes the government played, they didn't prove. . .I did (anything) illegal. In fact, they proved I sought the advice of my lawyers and my advisors. They proved I was on the phone talking with them, brainstorming about ideas. Yes, they proved some of the ideas were stupid. But they also proved some of the ideas were good. The government, in their case, proved my innocence."
"I've learned a lot of lessons from this whole experience," he told the press. "And probably the biggest. . .is that I talk too much."
Whatever the outcome of Blago's trial, it would be beyond comprehension for anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to the proceedings or the governor's colorful career that he has "learned" any such lesson. He is first and foremost a shoot-from-the-lip politician, whose vocabulary might be severely limited absent four-letter invective.
When politicians are hauled into the dock to answer corruption charges, whether in Maryland, Illinois, New York or anywhere else, they instinctively and almost invariably go on the offensive by insinuating if not outright counter-charging that some hot-shot prosecutor is trumping up spurious charges to make a name for himself, perhaps as a springboard for political office. There have been instances when such allegations have been justified. But at least credit Blago with a little more imagination than that: his tactic of claiming that the prosecution has not only failed to prove its charges but has actually cleared his name is one calculated to resonate with a jury of his peers.
It will be ultimately up to that jury to determine whether the Illinois governor is guilty of anything more than having the foulest mouth in politics. Yet the United States v. Blagojevich, involving an elected official in a state that has had its share of paragons of political virtue and integrity is disquieting. Enough so that Abraham Lincoln, Adlai Stevenson and Senator Paul Douglas must be pinwheeling in their respective graves.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
THE U.S. IMMIGRATION QUANDARY
by H. N. Burdett
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer are both deeply disturbed that immigration reform has been shoved to the back burner. But they are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the kind of reform they have in mind.
Last April 23, Gov. Brewer signed the nation's toughest bill on illegal immigration. Its aim is to identify, prosecute and deport undocumented immigrants.
Mayor Bloomberg is forming a coalition of chief executives of major U.S. corporations and big city mayors advocating reform that includes citizenship for illegal immigrants now living in the United States.
Even before Brewer signed the Arizona bill that gives state and local police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, President Obama expressed opposition to it.
The president said the law, scheduled to take affect next month, threatens "to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe."
Gov. Brewer calls the law "another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis that we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix, the crisis caused by illegal immigration on Arizona's porous borders."
Opponents have called the law an open invitation to harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.
Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony likened the inclusion in the law that grants law enforcement officers the authority to demand to see a suspected illegal immigrant's papers to "Nazism."
"Governor Brewer caved to the radical fringe," says a statement issued by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which claimed the law would create "a spiral of pervasive fear, community dissent, increased crime, costly litigation, with nationwide repercussions."
Acknowledging the concern of critics, Brewer said she would work to ensure that Arizona police have proper training to carry out the statute.
She said the law "protects all of us, every Arizona citizen, and everyone here in our state lawfully. And it does so while ensuring that the Constitutional rights of all in Arizona remain solid, stable and steadfast."
"This legislation mirrors federal laws regarding immigration enforcement," the governor stressed. "Despite erroneous and misleading statements suggesting otherwise."
The Arizona law, which makes it a misdemeanor to willfully fail to complete or carry an alien registration document, Brewer said "is adopted verbatim from the same offense found in federal statute."
Provisions of the law, introduced by Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, an outspoken advocate of immigration restrictions, include:
* Requiring police officers, "when practicable," to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment.
* Making it a state crime -- a misdemeanor -- not to carry immigration documents.
* Allowing people to sue local government or agencies if they believe federal or state immigration law is not being enforced.
Michael Hethmon, general counsel of the Immigration Reform Law Institute who assisted in the drafting of the language of the Arizona law, says he has been contacted by lawmakers of four states who want to introduce similar legislation. He declined to identify the states on grounds of attorney/client privilege.
The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that in recent years there has been a substantial increase in state laws relating to immigration. In 2005, 300 bills were introduced in statehouses throughout the U.S. In the following year, that number nearly doubled. In 2007, more than 1,500 bills were introduced; in 2008, another 1,305. Last year, some 1,500 immigration measures were introduced, 222 were enacted and 131 resolutions relating to immigration approved.
Last December when Pearce's immigration bill was being debated in the Arizona legislature, the New York Times reported state and federal officials had testified that the drug war among Mexican cartels and their pushing to expand operations in the U.S. had led to a wave of kidnappings, shootings and home invasions in the state.
The article noted that the drug trade had long brought violence to Arizona, a hub from which illicit drugs and illegal immigrants are smuggled to the rest of the nation.
Phoenix police regularly receive reports involving border-related kidnappings or hostage-taking in a home, according to the Times. The Maricopa County Attorney's office said such cases rose from 48 in 2004 to 241 in 2008, and investigators believed many more go unreported.
The violence in Mexico -- where more than 6,000 people were killed in 2008 in drug-related violence, double the number of the previous year -- is "reaching into Arizona and that is what is really alarming local and state law enforcement," said Commander Dan Allen of the Arizona Department of Public Safey.
"We are finding home invasion and attacks involving people impersonating law enforcement officers," Allen told the state Senate Judiciary Committee. "They are very forceful and aggressive. They are heavily armed, and they threaten, assail, bind and sometimes kill victims."
Chief David Denlinger of the state's Department of Public Safety, said that while tactics like home invasion might not be new in the drug trade, "they are getting more prevalent." He added: "Border crimes are not just on the border."
Large quantities of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs smuggled in vehicles, sometimes on the backs of couriers and illegal immigants linked to drug organizations are regularly seized by police and federal agents in Arizona.
A vast majority of weapons used in Mexico's drug-related killings come from the U.S. and Arizona is a top exporter.
On July 7, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the state of Arizona in federal court, challenging the law. The federal government will argue that federal law supersedes the state statute and that enforcing immigration law is a federal responsibility. The DOJ is requesting a preliminary injunction to delay enactment of the law, arguing that its operation will cause "irreparable harm."
The lawsuit is based on the preemption doctrine adopted by the Supreme Court under the Constitution's supremacy clause, stating that certain matters are of such federal character, as opposed to local or state, that only the federal government can act on them.
"I agree with the argument that the federal government's authority under the preemption clause will prevail over the Arizona state law," says Southwestern Law School professor Robert Pugsley. "Otherwise we could have 50 states writing immigration laws and it would result in the charge that the preemption clause was specifically created to prevent."
Kevin Johnson, Dean of the School of Law at the University of California, David, said it is "a clear situation where the federal government is having its power intruded upon by the state government."
But Hector Chichoni, partner at the national law firm Epstein Becker Green, says, "There is a good basis to believe the DOJ lawsuit may fail. The Arizona law does not necessarily preempt the Federal government, rather (it) sets the state and local governments as enforcers of what is already available, and on certain cases, mandatory under immigration law."
Unclear is whether state police have authority to enforce immigration law, says Muzzafar Chisti, director of the Migration Policy Institute's office at the New York University School of Law.
A few weeks after the law's passage, Arizona lawmakers modified the language dictating when a policeman could ask for papers from a suspected illegal immigrant. They added a stipulation that police could only do so if the person had already been pulled over for another offense, such as speeding. That action may have strengthened Arizona's case, Chisti contends.
Catherine Wilson, a political scientist at Villanova University, says the DOJ suit could have potentially damaging repercussions for the Arizona midterm election this year.
She noted that "three embattled Arizona Democratic representatives -- Reps. Harry Mitchell, Gabrielle Giffords and Ann Kirkpatrick -- (had) urged the President to reconsider the lawsuit given their vulnerable seats. Instead of suing the state, they argue that the Obama administration's efforts would be best spent on providing resources and security to the border."
Addressing both the Arizona law and the issue of immigration reform, President Obama said, "Government has a responsibility to enforce the law and secure our borders and set clear rules and priorities for future immigration. And under Secretary (Janet) Napolitano's leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, that's exactly what we're doing. We've strengthened security at borders, ports and airports, and we will continue to do so, because America's borders must be secure." (When Secretary Napolitano served as governor of Arizona before she was tapped for her position in Obama's cabinet, she vetoed legislation similar to the current law.)
Obama further noted: "Businesses have a responsibility to obey the law and not undermine American workers, especially when so many Americans are out of work. Many businesses work to comply with the law every day. But for those who don't -- those that ignore the law and exploit and abuse vulnerable workers and try to gain an unfair advantage over all businesses that do follow the law -- we will hold them accountable."
The president said that those who are in the United States illegally "have a responsibility to pay their back taxes and admit responsibility for breaking the law, pay a penalty, learn English, pass criminal background checks, and get right with the law -- or face removal -- before they can get in line to eventually earn their citizenship."
"Indeed, our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility in others," Obama emphasized. "And that includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threatened to undermine the basic notion of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe. . .
"In fact I've instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. But if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country."
In response to Obama's remarks, Gov. Brewer issued an executive order calling for the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training Board "to develop training and appropriately implement (the bill). Importantly, this training will include what does and what does not constitute reasonable suspicion that a person is not legally present in the United States."
"We must acknowledge the truth," the Arizona governor said. "People across America are watching Arizona, seeing how we implement this law, ready to jump on even the slightest misstep. Some of these people from outside our state have an interest in seeing us fail. They will wait for a single slip-up, one mistake and they will work day and night to create headlines and get face time they so desperately covet.
"We must react calmly. We must enforce the law evenly, and without regard to skin color. . .or social status. We must prove the alarmists and the cynics wrong."
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll in June, 58 percent of all Americans support the new Arizona law -- including 79 percent of Republicans, 40 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of independents.
But far from reflecting a tidal wave of xenophobia overwhelming the country, the same poll showed 57 percent of Americans supported allowing illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements. In addition to 66 percent of Demcorats and 49 percent of Republicans, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants was supported by 56 percent of independents.
Meanwhile, among those who have joined Bloomberg's Partnership for a New American Economy seeking to reframe immmigration reform as the solution to repairing and stimulating the American economy, were the chief executive officers of Boeing, Disney, Hewlett-Packard and News Corp.
In 2006, Bloomberg proposed establishing a DNA or fingerprint database to track and verify all legal U.S. workers. At that time, he said all 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States should be given the opportunity for citizenship, claiming that deportation was not only impossible but it would devastate the economy. He added that lawmakers who want to deport all illegal immigrants are "living in a fantasy world."
Declaring that current U.S. immigration policy is "national suicide," Bloomberg said: "I can't think of any way to destroy this country quite as direct and impactful as our immigration policy. We educate the best and the brightest, and then we don't give them a green card."
The main goals of Bloomberg's new coalition are: secure the borders; develop an easy system for employers to verify work eligibility; hold companies accountable for breaking the laws and to improve the use of technology to prevent illegal immigration; more opportunities for immigrants to join the U.S. workforce, and a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants."
Immigration is "our great strength as a nation, and it's also critical for continued economic growth," said Robert Iger, chairman and CEO of Walt Disney Co. "To remain competititve in the 21st century, we need effective immigration reform that invites people to contribute to our shared success by building their own American dream."
Among coalition members is Rupert Murdoch, the Australia-born chairman and CEO of News Corp. "As an immigrant myself," he said, "I believe that the country can and must enact new immigration policies that fulfill our employment needs, provide a careful pathway to legal status for undocumented residents and end illegal immigration."
With the Arizona law bringing the issue back to center stage in the political arena, Congress may be unable to ignore the pressure to finally take action on immigration reform. President Obama says he would like to see a bill on his desk as early as this fall.
But in a Congressional midterm election year, most national lawmakers hardly can be eager to tackle such a contentious issue. Hispanics or Latinos today comprise from 25 percent to nearly 60 percent of nine of the 10 most populous cities in the United States, as well as 15 percent of the total U.S. population. The Census Bureau projects U.S. population to increase by another 130 million by mid-century, with immigration accounting for virtually all of this growth.
This is deeply disturbing to groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which, unlike Bloomberg and his coalition, contends that the country will be unable to sustain increased population pressures on U.S. resources, economy, employment, environment and infrastructure. FAIR is, among other things, seeking what it views as more realistic limitations on legal immigration, a moratorium on immigration until such a figure is reached, and opposes paths to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants.
Even the most committed progressives generally concede that the United States politically leans slightly to the right, so the poll revealing that 58 percent of Americans support the Arizona law is not surprising. Beyond surprising, downright startling in fact, is that in a country with a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, 57 percent of Americans favor a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Respect for immigrant workers is the only possible way to account for a conservative-leaning nation, reeling from recession and high unemployment, supporting amnesty for undocumented workers in virtually the same numbers that it backs the most restrictive immigration law in the country.
Whether documented or undocumented, Hispanic and Latino workers are pervasive throughout the nation. From our smallest rural villages to our largest cities, they are not hard to find. There is widespread disagreement over whether or not they are accepting employment that no one else wants, or taking jobs from those who really do want them. Rarely disputed, however, is the work ethic and skills Hispanics and Latinos bring to the workplace. It belies the old myth of the so-called lazy Mexican, taking a perpetual siesta in a sitting position against an adobe building, his sombrero and serape shielding him from the elements.
There's little doubt that the poll is testimony to the respect Hispanic and Latino immigrants have gained among Americans wearing either a blue or a white collar. What cannot and should not be respected, however, is the American companies, large and small, that encourage illegal immigration, their under-the-table payments driving down the wage scale for all American workers, to say nothing of avoiding the payment of taxes, health insurance, workmen's compensation and the dispensation of other employer benefits.
When it comes to the question of deportation, as a general rule I'd be much more supportive of shipping all of the sleazy, illegal entrepreneurs who lure immigrants across the borders with their off-the-books jobs to whatever sorry destinations that might welcome them. I'd be only too happy to fling those pathetic parasites to the wolves and keep any and all Hispanics and Latinos who have demonstrated respect for our laws, taken the time and trouble to learn our language, and brought to us a nostalgic reminder of the work ethic and skills that once were matters of national pride.
At the risk of seeming to want it both ways, I am cognizant of the fact that the United States is no longer a repository of infinite natural resources: the sinking water tables of our western states and our reliance on foreign oil are but two of the more chilling examples. This is a situation that ranges from serious to grave and is bound to intensify in the coming years. In deliberations to determine U.S. immigration policy, environmental, economic, labor force and resource projections must be taken into account.
As the son of immigrants who all too vividly recalls the honesty and industriousness of his own parents, as one who bore witness to how much they appreciated and loved their adopted land, how fervently they believed in and eventually lived the American dream, I cannot find it in myself to deny to any other hard-working, honest person the same opportunity to share in that dream of which I am a beneficiary.
As someone who has also witnessed firsthand the deleterious impact of unsustainable population growth in several developing countries, neither can I bring myself to support distributing green cards to anyone and everyone wanting them. Moreover, the path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is troubling because if it is made too easy it is bound to encourage more and more people to enter the country illegally and dream of future amnesty. That is not policy, it is utter madness.
There really is more than one side to the issue that knee-jerk conservatives and knee-jerk liberals may simply refuse to see. But what's wrong with acting on those issues on which virtually everyone can agree? One that pops immediately into mind is securing our borders.
All too many Arizona residents live in fear. When the state's law enforcement authorities tell them the Mexican drug cartel wars have spilled over into Arizona, you'd best believe them. The state's top cops offered convincing evidence to the state's Senate Judiciary Committee last December
Securing our borders is a federal responsibility and I agree with Gov. Brewer that the federal government has done a terrible job of living up to it. President Obama is the first to own up to that.
How a former governor of Texas, a state sharing a significant border with Mexico, who was elected to two terms as President of the United States could allow immigration reform to slip between the cracks, is puzzling to say the least.
He did have a plan that included amnesty for illegal immigrants tied to their meeting specific conditions. But the energy and enthusiasm he put into immigration reform can be fairly questioned. Perhaps he was too busy invading Afghanistan and Iraq, so we wouldn't have to fight the terrorists at home.
Under Bush's very nose the drug traffickers were moving back and forth as though the borders do not exist. But conventient though it may be, it is disingenuous to place all of the blame on George W. Bush. There's more than enough to spread around. There are plenty of Democrats who have served in the White House and in Congress who just weren't paying attention. They are all guilty of, at very least, benign neglect.
Now is the time to get beyond the blame game and resolve to ensure the safety as well as the sustainability of Arizona and the rest of the United States by establishing and enforcing a firm and fair immigration policy. This can be done. And we shouldn't have to wait until after the November election to get it done. The safety and security of Americans shouldn't have to wait for politics to run its course.
The border fence frankly leaves me cold. First, because a poor Mexican with a family to feed is going to find his way over, around or under it. Secondly, it is horrifically expensive. And, finally, if it is to be the enduring symbol of U.S. immigration policy, we've got to do something about tearing down that Lady in the Harbor, the one who beckons to "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses gaining to breathe free."
That particular Lady has inspired many, many people beyond my parents. Generations of immigrants who went on to work hard and be rewarded with their share of the American dream. And don't anyone dare to tell me this is sentimental claptrap. I'm not one to make idle threats, but that Lady has inspired too many people whose names will never make the history books, but who were, in my book, great Americans, who built this country, believed in it, worked to make it better, and who have defended it with their lives. Too much blood has been spilled from Bunker Hill to Antietam to Anzio and Iwo Jima to defend her honor and all that she stands for. Anyone who wants to tear down that Lady in the Harbor and have a border fence stand as our new symbol is going to have to go through me. So bring it on, but I can guarantee you one thing: I won't be alone.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer are both deeply disturbed that immigration reform has been shoved to the back burner. But they are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the kind of reform they have in mind.
Last April 23, Gov. Brewer signed the nation's toughest bill on illegal immigration. Its aim is to identify, prosecute and deport undocumented immigrants.
Mayor Bloomberg is forming a coalition of chief executives of major U.S. corporations and big city mayors advocating reform that includes citizenship for illegal immigrants now living in the United States.
Even before Brewer signed the Arizona bill that gives state and local police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, President Obama expressed opposition to it.
The president said the law, scheduled to take affect next month, threatens "to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe."
Gov. Brewer calls the law "another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis that we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix, the crisis caused by illegal immigration on Arizona's porous borders."
Opponents have called the law an open invitation to harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.
Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony likened the inclusion in the law that grants law enforcement officers the authority to demand to see a suspected illegal immigrant's papers to "Nazism."
"Governor Brewer caved to the radical fringe," says a statement issued by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which claimed the law would create "a spiral of pervasive fear, community dissent, increased crime, costly litigation, with nationwide repercussions."
Acknowledging the concern of critics, Brewer said she would work to ensure that Arizona police have proper training to carry out the statute.
She said the law "protects all of us, every Arizona citizen, and everyone here in our state lawfully. And it does so while ensuring that the Constitutional rights of all in Arizona remain solid, stable and steadfast."
"This legislation mirrors federal laws regarding immigration enforcement," the governor stressed. "Despite erroneous and misleading statements suggesting otherwise."
The Arizona law, which makes it a misdemeanor to willfully fail to complete or carry an alien registration document, Brewer said "is adopted verbatim from the same offense found in federal statute."
Provisions of the law, introduced by Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, an outspoken advocate of immigration restrictions, include:
* Requiring police officers, "when practicable," to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment.
* Making it a state crime -- a misdemeanor -- not to carry immigration documents.
* Allowing people to sue local government or agencies if they believe federal or state immigration law is not being enforced.
Michael Hethmon, general counsel of the Immigration Reform Law Institute who assisted in the drafting of the language of the Arizona law, says he has been contacted by lawmakers of four states who want to introduce similar legislation. He declined to identify the states on grounds of attorney/client privilege.
The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that in recent years there has been a substantial increase in state laws relating to immigration. In 2005, 300 bills were introduced in statehouses throughout the U.S. In the following year, that number nearly doubled. In 2007, more than 1,500 bills were introduced; in 2008, another 1,305. Last year, some 1,500 immigration measures were introduced, 222 were enacted and 131 resolutions relating to immigration approved.
Last December when Pearce's immigration bill was being debated in the Arizona legislature, the New York Times reported state and federal officials had testified that the drug war among Mexican cartels and their pushing to expand operations in the U.S. had led to a wave of kidnappings, shootings and home invasions in the state.
The article noted that the drug trade had long brought violence to Arizona, a hub from which illicit drugs and illegal immigrants are smuggled to the rest of the nation.
Phoenix police regularly receive reports involving border-related kidnappings or hostage-taking in a home, according to the Times. The Maricopa County Attorney's office said such cases rose from 48 in 2004 to 241 in 2008, and investigators believed many more go unreported.
The violence in Mexico -- where more than 6,000 people were killed in 2008 in drug-related violence, double the number of the previous year -- is "reaching into Arizona and that is what is really alarming local and state law enforcement," said Commander Dan Allen of the Arizona Department of Public Safey.
"We are finding home invasion and attacks involving people impersonating law enforcement officers," Allen told the state Senate Judiciary Committee. "They are very forceful and aggressive. They are heavily armed, and they threaten, assail, bind and sometimes kill victims."
Chief David Denlinger of the state's Department of Public Safety, said that while tactics like home invasion might not be new in the drug trade, "they are getting more prevalent." He added: "Border crimes are not just on the border."
Large quantities of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs smuggled in vehicles, sometimes on the backs of couriers and illegal immigants linked to drug organizations are regularly seized by police and federal agents in Arizona.
A vast majority of weapons used in Mexico's drug-related killings come from the U.S. and Arizona is a top exporter.
On July 7, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the state of Arizona in federal court, challenging the law. The federal government will argue that federal law supersedes the state statute and that enforcing immigration law is a federal responsibility. The DOJ is requesting a preliminary injunction to delay enactment of the law, arguing that its operation will cause "irreparable harm."
The lawsuit is based on the preemption doctrine adopted by the Supreme Court under the Constitution's supremacy clause, stating that certain matters are of such federal character, as opposed to local or state, that only the federal government can act on them.
"I agree with the argument that the federal government's authority under the preemption clause will prevail over the Arizona state law," says Southwestern Law School professor Robert Pugsley. "Otherwise we could have 50 states writing immigration laws and it would result in the charge that the preemption clause was specifically created to prevent."
Kevin Johnson, Dean of the School of Law at the University of California, David, said it is "a clear situation where the federal government is having its power intruded upon by the state government."
But Hector Chichoni, partner at the national law firm Epstein Becker Green, says, "There is a good basis to believe the DOJ lawsuit may fail. The Arizona law does not necessarily preempt the Federal government, rather (it) sets the state and local governments as enforcers of what is already available, and on certain cases, mandatory under immigration law."
Unclear is whether state police have authority to enforce immigration law, says Muzzafar Chisti, director of the Migration Policy Institute's office at the New York University School of Law.
A few weeks after the law's passage, Arizona lawmakers modified the language dictating when a policeman could ask for papers from a suspected illegal immigrant. They added a stipulation that police could only do so if the person had already been pulled over for another offense, such as speeding. That action may have strengthened Arizona's case, Chisti contends.
Catherine Wilson, a political scientist at Villanova University, says the DOJ suit could have potentially damaging repercussions for the Arizona midterm election this year.
She noted that "three embattled Arizona Democratic representatives -- Reps. Harry Mitchell, Gabrielle Giffords and Ann Kirkpatrick -- (had) urged the President to reconsider the lawsuit given their vulnerable seats. Instead of suing the state, they argue that the Obama administration's efforts would be best spent on providing resources and security to the border."
Addressing both the Arizona law and the issue of immigration reform, President Obama said, "Government has a responsibility to enforce the law and secure our borders and set clear rules and priorities for future immigration. And under Secretary (Janet) Napolitano's leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, that's exactly what we're doing. We've strengthened security at borders, ports and airports, and we will continue to do so, because America's borders must be secure." (When Secretary Napolitano served as governor of Arizona before she was tapped for her position in Obama's cabinet, she vetoed legislation similar to the current law.)
Obama further noted: "Businesses have a responsibility to obey the law and not undermine American workers, especially when so many Americans are out of work. Many businesses work to comply with the law every day. But for those who don't -- those that ignore the law and exploit and abuse vulnerable workers and try to gain an unfair advantage over all businesses that do follow the law -- we will hold them accountable."
The president said that those who are in the United States illegally "have a responsibility to pay their back taxes and admit responsibility for breaking the law, pay a penalty, learn English, pass criminal background checks, and get right with the law -- or face removal -- before they can get in line to eventually earn their citizenship."
"Indeed, our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility in others," Obama emphasized. "And that includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threatened to undermine the basic notion of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe. . .
"In fact I've instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. But if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country."
In response to Obama's remarks, Gov. Brewer issued an executive order calling for the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training Board "to develop training and appropriately implement (the bill). Importantly, this training will include what does and what does not constitute reasonable suspicion that a person is not legally present in the United States."
"We must acknowledge the truth," the Arizona governor said. "People across America are watching Arizona, seeing how we implement this law, ready to jump on even the slightest misstep. Some of these people from outside our state have an interest in seeing us fail. They will wait for a single slip-up, one mistake and they will work day and night to create headlines and get face time they so desperately covet.
"We must react calmly. We must enforce the law evenly, and without regard to skin color. . .or social status. We must prove the alarmists and the cynics wrong."
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll in June, 58 percent of all Americans support the new Arizona law -- including 79 percent of Republicans, 40 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of independents.
But far from reflecting a tidal wave of xenophobia overwhelming the country, the same poll showed 57 percent of Americans supported allowing illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements. In addition to 66 percent of Demcorats and 49 percent of Republicans, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants was supported by 56 percent of independents.
Meanwhile, among those who have joined Bloomberg's Partnership for a New American Economy seeking to reframe immmigration reform as the solution to repairing and stimulating the American economy, were the chief executive officers of Boeing, Disney, Hewlett-Packard and News Corp.
In 2006, Bloomberg proposed establishing a DNA or fingerprint database to track and verify all legal U.S. workers. At that time, he said all 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States should be given the opportunity for citizenship, claiming that deportation was not only impossible but it would devastate the economy. He added that lawmakers who want to deport all illegal immigrants are "living in a fantasy world."
Declaring that current U.S. immigration policy is "national suicide," Bloomberg said: "I can't think of any way to destroy this country quite as direct and impactful as our immigration policy. We educate the best and the brightest, and then we don't give them a green card."
The main goals of Bloomberg's new coalition are: secure the borders; develop an easy system for employers to verify work eligibility; hold companies accountable for breaking the laws and to improve the use of technology to prevent illegal immigration; more opportunities for immigrants to join the U.S. workforce, and a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants."
Immigration is "our great strength as a nation, and it's also critical for continued economic growth," said Robert Iger, chairman and CEO of Walt Disney Co. "To remain competititve in the 21st century, we need effective immigration reform that invites people to contribute to our shared success by building their own American dream."
Among coalition members is Rupert Murdoch, the Australia-born chairman and CEO of News Corp. "As an immigrant myself," he said, "I believe that the country can and must enact new immigration policies that fulfill our employment needs, provide a careful pathway to legal status for undocumented residents and end illegal immigration."
With the Arizona law bringing the issue back to center stage in the political arena, Congress may be unable to ignore the pressure to finally take action on immigration reform. President Obama says he would like to see a bill on his desk as early as this fall.
But in a Congressional midterm election year, most national lawmakers hardly can be eager to tackle such a contentious issue. Hispanics or Latinos today comprise from 25 percent to nearly 60 percent of nine of the 10 most populous cities in the United States, as well as 15 percent of the total U.S. population. The Census Bureau projects U.S. population to increase by another 130 million by mid-century, with immigration accounting for virtually all of this growth.
This is deeply disturbing to groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which, unlike Bloomberg and his coalition, contends that the country will be unable to sustain increased population pressures on U.S. resources, economy, employment, environment and infrastructure. FAIR is, among other things, seeking what it views as more realistic limitations on legal immigration, a moratorium on immigration until such a figure is reached, and opposes paths to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants.
Even the most committed progressives generally concede that the United States politically leans slightly to the right, so the poll revealing that 58 percent of Americans support the Arizona law is not surprising. Beyond surprising, downright startling in fact, is that in a country with a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, 57 percent of Americans favor a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Respect for immigrant workers is the only possible way to account for a conservative-leaning nation, reeling from recession and high unemployment, supporting amnesty for undocumented workers in virtually the same numbers that it backs the most restrictive immigration law in the country.
Whether documented or undocumented, Hispanic and Latino workers are pervasive throughout the nation. From our smallest rural villages to our largest cities, they are not hard to find. There is widespread disagreement over whether or not they are accepting employment that no one else wants, or taking jobs from those who really do want them. Rarely disputed, however, is the work ethic and skills Hispanics and Latinos bring to the workplace. It belies the old myth of the so-called lazy Mexican, taking a perpetual siesta in a sitting position against an adobe building, his sombrero and serape shielding him from the elements.
There's little doubt that the poll is testimony to the respect Hispanic and Latino immigrants have gained among Americans wearing either a blue or a white collar. What cannot and should not be respected, however, is the American companies, large and small, that encourage illegal immigration, their under-the-table payments driving down the wage scale for all American workers, to say nothing of avoiding the payment of taxes, health insurance, workmen's compensation and the dispensation of other employer benefits.
When it comes to the question of deportation, as a general rule I'd be much more supportive of shipping all of the sleazy, illegal entrepreneurs who lure immigrants across the borders with their off-the-books jobs to whatever sorry destinations that might welcome them. I'd be only too happy to fling those pathetic parasites to the wolves and keep any and all Hispanics and Latinos who have demonstrated respect for our laws, taken the time and trouble to learn our language, and brought to us a nostalgic reminder of the work ethic and skills that once were matters of national pride.
At the risk of seeming to want it both ways, I am cognizant of the fact that the United States is no longer a repository of infinite natural resources: the sinking water tables of our western states and our reliance on foreign oil are but two of the more chilling examples. This is a situation that ranges from serious to grave and is bound to intensify in the coming years. In deliberations to determine U.S. immigration policy, environmental, economic, labor force and resource projections must be taken into account.
As the son of immigrants who all too vividly recalls the honesty and industriousness of his own parents, as one who bore witness to how much they appreciated and loved their adopted land, how fervently they believed in and eventually lived the American dream, I cannot find it in myself to deny to any other hard-working, honest person the same opportunity to share in that dream of which I am a beneficiary.
As someone who has also witnessed firsthand the deleterious impact of unsustainable population growth in several developing countries, neither can I bring myself to support distributing green cards to anyone and everyone wanting them. Moreover, the path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is troubling because if it is made too easy it is bound to encourage more and more people to enter the country illegally and dream of future amnesty. That is not policy, it is utter madness.
There really is more than one side to the issue that knee-jerk conservatives and knee-jerk liberals may simply refuse to see. But what's wrong with acting on those issues on which virtually everyone can agree? One that pops immediately into mind is securing our borders.
All too many Arizona residents live in fear. When the state's law enforcement authorities tell them the Mexican drug cartel wars have spilled over into Arizona, you'd best believe them. The state's top cops offered convincing evidence to the state's Senate Judiciary Committee last December
Securing our borders is a federal responsibility and I agree with Gov. Brewer that the federal government has done a terrible job of living up to it. President Obama is the first to own up to that.
How a former governor of Texas, a state sharing a significant border with Mexico, who was elected to two terms as President of the United States could allow immigration reform to slip between the cracks, is puzzling to say the least.
He did have a plan that included amnesty for illegal immigrants tied to their meeting specific conditions. But the energy and enthusiasm he put into immigration reform can be fairly questioned. Perhaps he was too busy invading Afghanistan and Iraq, so we wouldn't have to fight the terrorists at home.
Under Bush's very nose the drug traffickers were moving back and forth as though the borders do not exist. But conventient though it may be, it is disingenuous to place all of the blame on George W. Bush. There's more than enough to spread around. There are plenty of Democrats who have served in the White House and in Congress who just weren't paying attention. They are all guilty of, at very least, benign neglect.
Now is the time to get beyond the blame game and resolve to ensure the safety as well as the sustainability of Arizona and the rest of the United States by establishing and enforcing a firm and fair immigration policy. This can be done. And we shouldn't have to wait until after the November election to get it done. The safety and security of Americans shouldn't have to wait for politics to run its course.
The border fence frankly leaves me cold. First, because a poor Mexican with a family to feed is going to find his way over, around or under it. Secondly, it is horrifically expensive. And, finally, if it is to be the enduring symbol of U.S. immigration policy, we've got to do something about tearing down that Lady in the Harbor, the one who beckons to "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses gaining to breathe free."
That particular Lady has inspired many, many people beyond my parents. Generations of immigrants who went on to work hard and be rewarded with their share of the American dream. And don't anyone dare to tell me this is sentimental claptrap. I'm not one to make idle threats, but that Lady has inspired too many people whose names will never make the history books, but who were, in my book, great Americans, who built this country, believed in it, worked to make it better, and who have defended it with their lives. Too much blood has been spilled from Bunker Hill to Antietam to Anzio and Iwo Jima to defend her honor and all that she stands for. Anyone who wants to tear down that Lady in the Harbor and have a border fence stand as our new symbol is going to have to go through me. So bring it on, but I can guarantee you one thing: I won't be alone.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
LIBERTY AND ELENA, FOR ALL
<>by H. N. Burdett
Barring an unforeseen revelation of evidence against Elena Kagan that would cause Caligula or even Lady Gaga to blush, when the Supreme Court opens its fall session its composition will be a religious bigot's nightmare: six Catholics and three Jews.
When the Senate Judiciary Committee completed its interrogation of President Obama's intellectually dexterous nominee, there was no need to mop up any of her blood from the floor, only the sweat and a few tears of frustration left by her befuddled inquisitors.
Behind closed doors, committee members doubtless will grouse about their inability to distract Kagan from her meticulously crafted script: leave no paper trail, swear allegiance to judicial precedence, and refuse to answer any and all questions, including directions to the restrooms, on grounds that they might come up in a future case before the court.
It is a scenario written, produced and originally performed by none other than Chief Justice John Roberts, the self-styled "umpire" whose only concession to liberalism, it turns out, is in the strike zone he generously expands for those of the corporate class who appear before him.
In deflecting virtually every substantive query that might reveal even a microscopic hint of activism, Kagan demonstrated mental adroitness equivalent to the shot-blocking prowess of that seven-foot-six-inch National Basketball Association phenomenon, the late Manute Bol.
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, was reduced to mumbling his displeasure with her decision, as dean of the Harvard Law School, to briefly bar military recruiters from use of the school's counseling office. He said she was "punishing the military" for its "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gay men, lesbians and bisexuals serving in the armed forces. Such small potatoes would be insufficient for a decent salad. Sessions was obviously not up to the task of crossing swords with the likes of a determinedly defensive Kagan.
Better equipped for the task were a former prosecutor, Sen. Arlen Specter, the recently converted lame duck Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Sen. Tom Coburn, the doctrinaire conservative from Oklahoma who believes activists have no place on the nation's highest court unless, of course, their names are Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas.
Specter's moderate Congressional voting record has been the bane of his longtime Republican brethren, ultimately forcing him to switch parties in a doomed effort to salvage his longtime seat in the upper chamber. He will be mostly remembered, however, for the brutal zeal with which he went after Anita Hill, the law professor whose allegations 19 years ago of sexually inappropriate conduct threatened Justice Clarence Thomas's confirmation to the nation's highest court.
But when it came to Kagan, Specter simply had no evidence to pursue, not even an indiscreet memorandum or two, much less a smoking Saturday Night Special. Rather than the relentless bloodhound who barked and growled at Ms. Hill with the obsessive resolve of Javert in pursuit of Valjean, the aging senator appeared to be merely going through the motions for his last televised hurrah.
Though Coburn displayed more spunk and bite than most of his colleagues, the junior senator from the Sooner state was equally unsuccessful in even denting Kagan's impenetrable armor. To him and to all, she averred ad nauseam that she would leave her politics, if any, outside the courtroom door, that her decisions would be rendered in accordance with the law as it applies to the individual case rather than on the basis of ideology, philosophy or her daily horoscope.
In sum, Kagan told the panel what it wants to hear but never believes when it does hear it. Nothing is more exasperating for a Congressional committee than a witness who has a sound reason for refusing to answer its questions. And no reason could be more sound than a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The closest the committee came to evoking forthright replies from Kagan were when questions were posed regarding her treatment of army recruiters when she was a Harvard dean, and having written back in 1995 that Supreme Court nominees should be more forthcoming in answering confirmation hearing questions.
Kagan was well prepared for both. Knowing full well that her answers would not placate conservatives on the committee, she claimed that she did comply with the wishes of the army recruiters and that, by the way, she has nothing but the highest esteem, admiration and respect for those wearing the uniform of our military services. Furthermore, she said she overstated her case about court nominees being more forthcoming and now feels "that was wrong" and "in particular, that it wouldn't be appropriate for me to talk about what I think about past cases. . .because those cases themselves might again come before the court."
She did not back down from discussing the controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision by the Supreme Court earlier this year. In this case, she, as solicitor general, argued in defense of campaign finance rules, but the Court struck down legal limits on corporate spending to influence elections as violations of their First Amendment right. The case has been cited as the textbook example of conservative activism on the nation's highest court. Kagan refrained from so characterizing the decision, but did go so far as to say she felt her preparations on behalf of the Federal Election Commission constituted "extremely strong arguments."
Kagan was so cool during the hearing that she might have been injected with some of Obama's cucumber juice, or whatever it is he uses to maintain his consummate unflappability. Her only display of emotion occurred when Senators Sessions, Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, and John Cornyn, R-Texas, attempted to twist her devotion to the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked, into prima facie evidence that she is somehow an unrepentant,incurable, congenital liberal activist.
In a Washington Post oped article that appeared Tuesday, Stephanie J. Jones, a former executive director of the National Urban League Policy Institute, heroically addressed the aforementioned conservative triumvirate: "Far from being the out-of-mainstream caricature you seek to create, Thurgood Marshall deserves your unyielding gratitude and respect. Among other things, he saved this nation from a second civil war." Jones concluded: "He taught us all what it means to love our country enough to work to make it a little better, a little stronger and a little closer to what it's supposed to be. That's not activism, it's patriotism."
Kagan's most forthright response during the entire adversarial joust was to Sen. Kyle's insistence that Thurgood Marshall was a liberal activist. "I love Justice Marshall," she rejoined. "He did an enormous amount for me. But if you confirm me to this position, you'll get Justice Kagan, you won't get Justice Marshall. And that's an important thing."
As assuredly as the New York accent of this smart, tough, razor-sharp woman from the Bronx hiked the blood pressure of every racist anachronism watching or listening to the proceedings, it would be nice to think that many more Americans were charmed by the pixie sense of humor she blended with her cerebral acuity.
Asked by Sen. Specter how she felt about Supreme Court testimony being televised, she said, "It means I'd have to get my hair done more often." Prior to a question concerning the terrorist airliner bombing plot last Christmas, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., asked where she was on that day. She replied, "You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant." Wit has been defined as the power to give intellectual pleasure and it is most probably the key to both Elena Kagan's popularity and respect among her colleagues.
The letters of endorsement for Kagan, mention of which Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, interspersed throughout her public testimony, included those of conservative legal icons Ted Olson and Ken Starr. To be sure, there will be Republicans on the committee who will vote against her confirmation and others who will oppose her on the floor of the Senate. She will be denounced as an inveterate obfuscator, that she is at core yet another liberal judicial activist. It comes with the territory.
There are others who indeed hope she will be just that. Liberals mourning the loss of the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens would like nothing more than to have him replaced by someone who shares his progressive convictions. Moreover, there is hope that Elena Kagan's incisive legal mind combined with her charm and wit will make the strongest possible favorable impression on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the perennial swing vote on the Roberts court.
Barring an unforeseen revelation of evidence against Elena Kagan that would cause Caligula or even Lady Gaga to blush, when the Supreme Court opens its fall session its composition will be a religious bigot's nightmare: six Catholics and three Jews.
When the Senate Judiciary Committee completed its interrogation of President Obama's intellectually dexterous nominee, there was no need to mop up any of her blood from the floor, only the sweat and a few tears of frustration left by her befuddled inquisitors.
Behind closed doors, committee members doubtless will grouse about their inability to distract Kagan from her meticulously crafted script: leave no paper trail, swear allegiance to judicial precedence, and refuse to answer any and all questions, including directions to the restrooms, on grounds that they might come up in a future case before the court.
It is a scenario written, produced and originally performed by none other than Chief Justice John Roberts, the self-styled "umpire" whose only concession to liberalism, it turns out, is in the strike zone he generously expands for those of the corporate class who appear before him.
In deflecting virtually every substantive query that might reveal even a microscopic hint of activism, Kagan demonstrated mental adroitness equivalent to the shot-blocking prowess of that seven-foot-six-inch National Basketball Association phenomenon, the late Manute Bol.
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, was reduced to mumbling his displeasure with her decision, as dean of the Harvard Law School, to briefly bar military recruiters from use of the school's counseling office. He said she was "punishing the military" for its "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gay men, lesbians and bisexuals serving in the armed forces. Such small potatoes would be insufficient for a decent salad. Sessions was obviously not up to the task of crossing swords with the likes of a determinedly defensive Kagan.
Better equipped for the task were a former prosecutor, Sen. Arlen Specter, the recently converted lame duck Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Sen. Tom Coburn, the doctrinaire conservative from Oklahoma who believes activists have no place on the nation's highest court unless, of course, their names are Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas.
Specter's moderate Congressional voting record has been the bane of his longtime Republican brethren, ultimately forcing him to switch parties in a doomed effort to salvage his longtime seat in the upper chamber. He will be mostly remembered, however, for the brutal zeal with which he went after Anita Hill, the law professor whose allegations 19 years ago of sexually inappropriate conduct threatened Justice Clarence Thomas's confirmation to the nation's highest court.
But when it came to Kagan, Specter simply had no evidence to pursue, not even an indiscreet memorandum or two, much less a smoking Saturday Night Special. Rather than the relentless bloodhound who barked and growled at Ms. Hill with the obsessive resolve of Javert in pursuit of Valjean, the aging senator appeared to be merely going through the motions for his last televised hurrah.
Though Coburn displayed more spunk and bite than most of his colleagues, the junior senator from the Sooner state was equally unsuccessful in even denting Kagan's impenetrable armor. To him and to all, she averred ad nauseam that she would leave her politics, if any, outside the courtroom door, that her decisions would be rendered in accordance with the law as it applies to the individual case rather than on the basis of ideology, philosophy or her daily horoscope.
In sum, Kagan told the panel what it wants to hear but never believes when it does hear it. Nothing is more exasperating for a Congressional committee than a witness who has a sound reason for refusing to answer its questions. And no reason could be more sound than a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The closest the committee came to evoking forthright replies from Kagan were when questions were posed regarding her treatment of army recruiters when she was a Harvard dean, and having written back in 1995 that Supreme Court nominees should be more forthcoming in answering confirmation hearing questions.
Kagan was well prepared for both. Knowing full well that her answers would not placate conservatives on the committee, she claimed that she did comply with the wishes of the army recruiters and that, by the way, she has nothing but the highest esteem, admiration and respect for those wearing the uniform of our military services. Furthermore, she said she overstated her case about court nominees being more forthcoming and now feels "that was wrong" and "in particular, that it wouldn't be appropriate for me to talk about what I think about past cases. . .because those cases themselves might again come before the court."
She did not back down from discussing the controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision by the Supreme Court earlier this year. In this case, she, as solicitor general, argued in defense of campaign finance rules, but the Court struck down legal limits on corporate spending to influence elections as violations of their First Amendment right. The case has been cited as the textbook example of conservative activism on the nation's highest court. Kagan refrained from so characterizing the decision, but did go so far as to say she felt her preparations on behalf of the Federal Election Commission constituted "extremely strong arguments."
Kagan was so cool during the hearing that she might have been injected with some of Obama's cucumber juice, or whatever it is he uses to maintain his consummate unflappability. Her only display of emotion occurred when Senators Sessions, Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, and John Cornyn, R-Texas, attempted to twist her devotion to the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked, into prima facie evidence that she is somehow an unrepentant,incurable, congenital liberal activist.
In a Washington Post oped article that appeared Tuesday, Stephanie J. Jones, a former executive director of the National Urban League Policy Institute, heroically addressed the aforementioned conservative triumvirate: "Far from being the out-of-mainstream caricature you seek to create, Thurgood Marshall deserves your unyielding gratitude and respect. Among other things, he saved this nation from a second civil war." Jones concluded: "He taught us all what it means to love our country enough to work to make it a little better, a little stronger and a little closer to what it's supposed to be. That's not activism, it's patriotism."
Kagan's most forthright response during the entire adversarial joust was to Sen. Kyle's insistence that Thurgood Marshall was a liberal activist. "I love Justice Marshall," she rejoined. "He did an enormous amount for me. But if you confirm me to this position, you'll get Justice Kagan, you won't get Justice Marshall. And that's an important thing."
As assuredly as the New York accent of this smart, tough, razor-sharp woman from the Bronx hiked the blood pressure of every racist anachronism watching or listening to the proceedings, it would be nice to think that many more Americans were charmed by the pixie sense of humor she blended with her cerebral acuity.
Asked by Sen. Specter how she felt about Supreme Court testimony being televised, she said, "It means I'd have to get my hair done more often." Prior to a question concerning the terrorist airliner bombing plot last Christmas, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., asked where she was on that day. She replied, "You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant." Wit has been defined as the power to give intellectual pleasure and it is most probably the key to both Elena Kagan's popularity and respect among her colleagues.
The letters of endorsement for Kagan, mention of which Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, interspersed throughout her public testimony, included those of conservative legal icons Ted Olson and Ken Starr. To be sure, there will be Republicans on the committee who will vote against her confirmation and others who will oppose her on the floor of the Senate. She will be denounced as an inveterate obfuscator, that she is at core yet another liberal judicial activist. It comes with the territory.
There are others who indeed hope she will be just that. Liberals mourning the loss of the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens would like nothing more than to have him replaced by someone who shares his progressive convictions. Moreover, there is hope that Elena Kagan's incisive legal mind combined with her charm and wit will make the strongest possible favorable impression on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the perennial swing vote on the Roberts court.
Monday, June 28, 2010
THE ANGUISH OF PERPETUAL WAR
by H. N. Burdett
When American liberals went ballistic over President Obama's decision to prolong rather than abruptly shut down United States presence in West Asia, their opposition to preemptive war blocked common sense.
Whether one agreed with George W. Bush's constantly changing rationale for the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or deemed them as the sheer lunacy of a son obsessed with completing his father's unfinished business, precipitous withdrawal from the region would guarantee the worst possible outcome -- one featuring hitherto unseen carnage and the triumphal return of the Taliban.
Whenever American troops leave that beleaguered region, there is no assurance that the Taliban or a fundamentalist equivalent will not flood back into Afghanistan, or that a despotic heir to Saddam Hussein will not emerge in Iraq.
If the loss of thousands of young men and women Bush and Obama have sent halfway around the world to defend and promote freedom and democracy is to have any meaning, perhaps we owe it to the memory of this lost treasure to exert a final effort to show that they did not die in vain. Those who contend that it is insanity to even consider the risk of compounding a hideous mistake make the valid case that the senseless bloodshed must end, that allowing it to continue is patently unacceptable.
President Obama has sent the nation's most successful warrior, Gen. David H. Petraeus, to replace the disgraced Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as the head of our military operations in Afghanistan. Still, the odds are not in our favor.
The U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is not the issue and it is not scheduled to change. Gen. McChrystal was cashiered for insolence, not incompetence. One might pause to reflect on how some of our nation's great generals -- from Ulysses S. Grant to George S. Patton -- might have fared had the equivalent of a Rolling Stone reporter been present when they and their staffs were letting off steam.
Petraeus doubtless has the political skills McChrystal lacked, though the latter is said to have gotten along swimmingly with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which perhaps had more than a little to do with their both feeling a longer U.S. presence in that country is required.
Karzai is reportedly making his own deal with the Taliban, which has the earmarks of his willingness to become their puppet just as he is now that of the Americans. What choice does the duly elected but thoroughly corrupt leader of the land "where empires come to die" really have?
If Obama holds to his July 2011 timetable to begin the U.S. troop withdrawal, Karzai's options are reduced to effecting detente with his enemies under their nefarious terms, or returning to exile.
Meanwhile, Petraeus has said the test of strategic leaders is in their ability to perform three enormous tasks: "get big ideas right," "communicate the big ideas throughout the organization" and "proper execution of big ideas."
With the cooperation of American diplomats, the Obama administration and Karzai, the general may well be able to carry out the first two tasks in his new post. The third -- "proper execution" -- is the unknown quantity.
Petraeus is wise enough to understand that conditions in Afghanistan today are not the same as they were in Iraq when he launched his celebrated game-changing surge. For starters, it is foolhardy to even begin to compare the two neighboring countries. Iraq, prior to the invasion by the U.S. and its allies, was among the more secular states in the region; Afghanistan is one of the more fundamentalist.
The "big idea" Petraeus's leadership must "get right" is to convert Afghanistan into, at very least, something far less than a haven where terrorists may train and establish headquarters, and, at best, a democratic nation. As unlikely as the latter proposition may seem, rank-and-file Afghans, exhausted from 30 years of war, may yet embrace it.
For all of his corruption and questionable leadership ability, Karzai is likely correct when he postulates that it will require 10-15 years to complete the change the United States and presumably much of the rest of the world would like to see happen in Afghanistan.
There is also a growing body of opinion that the current problem with the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the American people hardly notice that we are fighting a perpetual war there. This may be at least partially attributable to the distractions of an imploded economy and nearly one of every 10 employable Americans unable to obtain a job. It may have even more to do with a level of detachment resulting from the war being fought by a standing army of professionals rather than citizen soldiers conscripted to fight it.
The bottom line is that the war in West Asia is not receiving the serious attention, much less adequate support, of the American people.
As it became painfully evident in the McChrystal affair, the military has been known to assume moral superiority during protracted wars. This is unlikely to change much under Petraeus. It would be more surprising if disrespect for civilian authorities were not widespread among U.S. military forces today. The problem may not be so much with the generals, their staffs and the fighting men and women they command, as it is with the situation in which their political leaders have placed them.
Former U.S. Army colonel, Vietnam veteran and Pentagon intellectual, Andrew J. Bacevich, now a history and international relations professor at Boston University, is among the few experts looking beyond Afghanistan. He provides us with the following two options for the future and the dismal consequence for failing to choose one or the other:
"The responsibility facing the American people is clear. They need to reclaim ownership of their army. They need to give their soldiers respite, by insisting that Washington abandon its de facto policy of perpetual war. Or, alternatively, the United States should become a nation truly 'at war' with all that implies in terms of civic obligation, fiscal policies and domestic priorities. Should the people choose neither course -- and thereby subject their troops to continuing abuse -- the damge to the army and to American democracy will be severe."
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010
THE GENERAL'S GAMBIT
by H. N. Burdett
There is no conceivable way that Gen. Stanley McChrystal committed a gaffe.
He knew exactly what he was doing when he gave a writer on assignment with Rolling Stone magazine access to himself and his staff. He was fully aware that President Obama would order him to explain his behavior and that his position as top commander in Afghanistan would be at stake. He also knew that the story would dominate the headlines, even pushing aside the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and Congressional efforts to regulate Wall Street. It was beyond the shadow of a doubt a calculated risk.
With his career on the line, McChrystal, who has taken pride in his brashness at least since his West Point days when he was a century man (having chalked up more than 100 demerits), rolled the dice and bet the President wouldn't fire him.
After all, Obama had given him almost everything he asked for to assure the success of his counterinsurgency, namely the 20,000 troops to effect the surge the general feels is critical to his regime change scheme.
What the President has not given McChrystal is the rescission of his pledge to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by July 2011. The general and his staff don't feel this is adequate time to accomplish their mission. Obama administration officials are turning a deaf ear to their arguments, reminding the general that the President was elected to end the war. McChrystal and his staff also want to end the war, but with a victory -- regime change in Afghanistan -- only first the timetable must be scrapped.
Though a timetable for removing U.S. armed presence from that perpetually beleagured country served the political purpose of the tipping point that won the 2008 election for the junior U.S. senator from Illinois, it is not supported by a scintilla of logic.
It does not require the military insight of Carl von Clausewitz to figure out that announcing to your enemy the date when you intend to stop fighting is not such a great idea. Is there anyone who really doubts that the Taliban will be back fighting desperately for control of Afghanistan within days if not hours after American troops leave?
Somehow Bush the Younger sold the preemptive invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan as necessary to prevent the United States and their allies from having to fight Al Qaeda on our home turf. It was as though there would be landing barges in New York, Philadelphia and Boston harbors with Bin Laden's troops pouring out, armed to the teeth, and more of them parachuting into Miami and Atlanta. None of this was the kind of military capability to which Bin Laden has access, or perhaps even wants. Al Qaeda seems perfectly content perpetrating random acts of terrorism.
Though most of the so-called Coalition of the Willing bailed out of West Asia, Bush's salesmanship was sufficient to win re-election to the presidency. Barack Obama, despite his vow to disengage our troops from that incredible misadventure as soon as possible, apparently bought into the Bush administration's faulty premise. Since the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, there have been no major acts of terrorism within the confines of the continental United States. Not that the bad guys haven't tried -- most recently, of course, in Times Square. Our much maligned homeland security capabilities combined with great dollops of good luck have kept us safe.
Meanwhile, the war has dragged on longer than our involvement in Vietnam, which tore the country apart more than any other event since the Civil War. Besides being obviously unwinnable, the preemptive war in West Asia, considering the long and slow recovery from the implosion of the global economy, is clearly unaffordable. Yet it continues. Gen. McChrystal is among a distinct minority who still seems to believe the war can be won and Afghanistan can be converted into a democracy. He appears determined to drive home that point one way or another.
But, as the Rolling Stone article makes clear, the general deplores decorum and diplomacy. If he's unable to buy more time from Obama, McChrystal may try to find a way to take his case to the American people. The nation, however, is weary of this war, which has bogged down to a stalemate. An expensive stalemate that voraciously gobbles down millions of dollars at a time of barely perceivable recovery from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The general may have to resort to showcasing his macho persona. Rather than convince the public that we need a foothold for democracy in West Asia to quench our thirst for oil, he may have to sell himself. Americans love nothing more than a macho hero. In McChrystal, they would have a reasonable facsimile of the second coming of General Patton or John Wayne. He's genuinely tough as nails and outspoken, tough enough to badmouth the Vice President in front of a magazine reporter; no one should bet against him trying to speak his mind to the country's ultimate power figure.
It has been reported that when Obama, who had never served in the military, had his first meeting with the nation's top brass he was intimidated by all those uniforms, ribbons and medals. Indeed this is the reason given for his moving the war to Afghanistan rather than bringing the troops home and restructuring the hunt for Bin Laden and dissolution of Al Qaeda as the international police action it should have been from the beginning.
While it is true enough that President Obama inherited a veritable plethora of unmitigated crises from the previous administation -- from the wreckage of the economy, to energy dependence on foreign oil, to near double-digit unemployment -- the so-called 'war on terrorism' was the issue that got the most attention, along with the resolve for disengagement. It was, after all, supposed to be a slam dunk. Practically in the blink of an eye, the mission was to be accomplished, as the cartoonish leader of the free world announced nine years ago.
Though Abraham Lincoln was frustrated with Gen. George McClellan, who commanded the Union army from a perpetually defensive posture, he declined demands to replace him because he simply had no one better. Finally Lincoln ordered McClellan to stand down, turning his post over to Ulysses S. Grant, who justified the President's confidence by moving aggressively to win the Civil War. When Harry Truman finally had had enough of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's arrogance and insolence, he replaced him with Matthew Ridgway, who had instilled morale and a fighting spirit into the U.S. Eighth Army in Korea which MacArthur insisted was demoralized and weary. McChrystal is risking his career and perhaps his place in history on his wager that Obama has no Grant or Ridgway waiting in the wings.
When MacArthur, a household name who had defeated Japan in World War II, took it upon himself to announce, in defiance of President Truman, his intention to expand the Korean conflict into mainland China, the President relieved him of his command. Truman later said he regarded that decision as among the most important of his presidency and that his biggest mistake in the White House was not having done it months earlier.
Those who agreed with the decision heralded it as an act of great courage, considering the enormous esteem MacArthur had earned as perhaps the most famous contemporary American warrior. "Courage didn't have anything to do with it," Truman said. " General MacArthur was insubordinate and I fired him. That's all there was to it."
Looking back upon it years later, Truman wrote, "If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military. If I allowed him to defy the civil authorities in this manner, I myself would be violating my oath to uphold and defend the Constitution."
Both Gen. McChrystal and President Obama might do well to reflect upon those words.
Monday, June 7, 2010
WHEN TRAGEDY OFFERS OPPORTUNITY
By H. N. Burdett
My friend of some 40 years -- let's call him Ted -- sides with the Palestinians in their every confrontation with the Israelis these days. So it's hardly a surprise to find him absolutely livid about the nine people killed by Israeli commandos who recently boarded a Turkish ship attempting to run Israel's blockade of Gaza.
Ted is emphatically not anti-Semitic. He has solid progressive credentials. There's no one I'd more want fighting at my side in the trenches on issues ranging from civil rights to environmental sanity.
Yet he has something akin to a blind spot when it comes to Middle East politics. It is a blind spot I understand. But first a few words about my own blind spot leading to near knee-jerk support of Israel.
My father and mother emigrated from Russia and Lithuania respectively during the first decade of the twentieth century. Economic opportunity certainly had a role in their abandonment of their respective homelands. But there were other reasons.
Not unlike many if not most young Jewish men in czarist Russia, my father was determined to avoid military conscription which he described as "a life sentence -- once you were in it, you were in it forever." Furthermore, to discourage desertion, he told me, pains were taken to post soldiers as distant from their home villages as possible.
A cousin from my father's village I first met when I was a teenager supplied me with a detail that my father had until then never bothered to share about his earlier life. As a very young man, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian revolutionary leader Alexander Kerensky, who following the 1917 revolution, some eight years after my father arrived in the United States, served as provisional prime minister prior to Lenin's election.
My father recalled that he was initially attracted to Kerensky based on the then young lawyer's brilliant defense of political prisoners in the czar's courts, and, later, because of his vision to recreate Russia in the image of America. Glowing letters from relatives in the United States caused Kerensky's promise to resonate with my father. But, as more and more Jews were conscripted into the Russian army, my father would not be around for the revolution in his homeland
Meanwhile, my mother, then only nine years old, accompanied her aunt and uncle to America to escape the more and more frequent pogroms in Lithuania in which Jewish villages were routinely pillaged, Jewish men routinely beaten or slaughtered and Jewish women and girls routinely raped.
Interminable persecution and brutalization was the plight of Eastern European Jews well before the rise of Hitler. After my father and mother emigrated to the United States, the families they left behind, other than his brother and two sisters he was able, after years of hard work, to bring to the U.S., were wiped out in the World War II Nazi Holocaust.
Though I've never been a supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu -- the attack on the Free Gaza flotilla was precisely the sort of tragedy I feared when he was elected -- I am generally supportive of Israel.
Arguments over whether Israel even has a right to exist I find to be in the same category with those concerning the legitimacy of the United States. The major difference, it seems to me, is less a matter of morality than duration -- one, rightly and wrongly, has been around more than 230 years, the other a little more than 60.
Hamas, the Palestinian fundamentalist organization which has controlled the Gaza Strip since the 2006 legislative elections, has never accepted the Jewish state. They have called for a hudna or truce with Israel, based on the Prophet Mohammed's similar respite with Jews some 1,400 years ago. Hamas's entrenched refusal to fully accept Israel is construed by Israelis to mean that when the Palestinians gain sufficient strength their intention is to overtake Israel.
While Hamas operates mosques, schools, clinics and social programs, its military wing has carried out numerous terrorist acts, including suicide bombings and rocket attacks. Hamas opposed the 1993 accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Authority and its charter dating back to 1988 continues to call for replacement of Israel and the Palestinian Territories with an Islamic Palestinian state.
Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas, said following the April 2006 elections, that he dreamed of "hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel. . .there is no place for the state of Israel in this land."
In my travels over the years, I've visited Turkey twice. I clearly remember a huge banner strung across a main thoroughfare in Istanbul in 1992, proclaiming 500 years of Turkish and Jewish friendship. I recall wondering how many other countries could make a similar claim, much less a predominately Islamic country.
If any country needs every friend it can get, it is Israel. But the commando raid on the Turkish ship has seriously strained relations between the two countries. World opinion, mostly favoring Israel since 1948 when it was reborn as a nation, today favors Palestinians more than it does Israel .
The raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara has engendered a reevaluation of the country's relationship with Israel. Ironically, the fact that Turkey is an Islamic country with a long-term reputation of friendship with Israel would seem to make it an ideal honest broker in negotiations leading to a two-state solution to the region's most vexing problem.
Liberals are preternaturally disposed to supporting the oppressed and dispossessed. When they see Palestinians in displaced persons' camps, they instinctively know what side they are on.
My friend Ted sees video footage of Israeli tanks rolling over Palestinian shelters in the refugee camps where there are women and children, contrasts it with home-made rockets from the Palestinian territories landing harmlessly in fields inside of Israel.
What Ted and many liberals see is Palestinians in ghettoes at the mercy of Jews, and they wonder how this is different from Nazi oppression of Jews sixty-five to seventy years ago. We do not hear Israeli hard-liners calling for mass extermination of Palestinians; in fact, when considering fundamentalist organizations like Hamas, it is just the opposite. But fundamentalist Arabs and reactionary Israelis are motivated by the same emotion: boundless, unswerving distrust.
My only visit to Israel was more than 40 years ago. As a secular Jew, proud of my heritage, I am both wary and weary of the intolerance organized religion, for all of its well-intentioned advocacy of peace, goodwill and harmony, almost invariably fosters.
I came away from that one trip to Israel with the hope that the Jewish state would one day set a positive example for the entire Middle East -- not because it had a surfeit of bullets and bombs, but that the Jewish experience in the diaspora, so much of its population having lived among people of different religious, ethnic and political backgrounds, might serve as a beacon for showing the way toward regional if not global peace. It bode well that Jews, wherever they have lived, have demonstrated leadership in the arts, sciences and culture disproportionate to their numbers. But four decades later that hope remains on tenuous hold.
Meanwhile, Palestinian frustration over being subjected to generations of refugee status is more than understandable; so too is the liberal identification with the suppressed. This time Israel appears to be the aggressor, if for no other reason than it is the Israelis wearing the boots and the uniforms and who are supported by an arsenal of sophisticated weaponry. And the stateless Palestinians are cast as freedom fighters. If one picture is worth a thousand words, what is the worth of one video of a family's home crushed by a tank?
Nor is the retribution ideology of both the Torah and the Quran helpful in the effort to bring about peace. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King observed that an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
History is not without precedence in which hardline leaders have succeeded in advancing a progressive agenda where more moderate ones might not have. There is strong doubt that had liberal Hubert Humphrey won the 1968 United States presidential election, he could have achieved U.S. recognition of the People's Republic of China that came about through the unlikely Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy.
Is it too much to hope that Netanyahu can lead his country to the two-state solution -- the only possibility, fraught with risk though it may be, for creating an environment conducive to peace and prosperity. "From this nettle danger, we pluck this flower safety," Shakespeare wrote. The time for lip service to a Palestinian state has long passed.
It should be evident to Israel that the blockade strengthens rather than weakens Hamas, and that it has now jeopardized more than five centuries of friendship with an Islamic nation. Moreover, the only result that can possibly come from the blockade is not a bridge to a more harmonious future but a treadmill of dismal stagnation.
Israel's continuing blockade of Gaza ensures the status quo. But what nation in a similar position would risk the mass importation of arms to a country controlled by an organization whose founder wants it to vanish from his map? There is an opportunity for the United Nations to repair its own diminished image as a peacekeeping force by assuming security responsibilities and ensuring against weapons pouring into Gaza to be used against Israel.
Considering their long, heartbreaking history of bitterness, animosity and violence, it is long overdue for Arabs and Jews to live side by side, not as suspicious and fearful neighbors but as the brothers they were always meant to be. The risks of the two-state solution may be immense, but no greater than those of the the perpetual standoff that serves only to compound mutual resentment and hostility, and which has proved nothing other than that it is unworkable, untenable and unjustifiable.
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Tuesday, June 1, 2010
THE END OF OBAMA'S HONEYMOON
by H. N. Burdett
Pressed to come up with a specific day when President Obama's honeymoon ended with the liberal chattering class, Sunday, May 30, might do as well as any.
On that day, it appeared that the New York Times's triumvirate of left-of-center opinionators -- Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and Thomas L. Friedman -- had huddled and determined it was time to spit out the mouthpieces, remove the gloves and go after the decider-in-chief tooth and nail.
More to the point, they obviously had had it up to there with what seemed to be the president channeling his inept predecessor with inexplicable inaction regarding BP's inability to plug the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil leak.
The headline over Rich's weekly essay -- "Obama's Katrina? Maybe Worse" -- minced no words in setting the tone for the hymnal that was rendered in three-part op-ed harmony.
Rich recalled that one glaring difference between then and now was that George W. Bush was in his second term when Hurricane Katrina pounded the gulf region relentlessly; the country was more or less prepared for his bungling having already “witnessed two-plus years of his mismanagement of the Iraq war.” He added that W's "laissez-fair response to the hurricane was also consistent with his political DNA as a small-government conservative in thrall of big business.
Lest his readers become fidgety about the audacity of comparing Obama and Bush, Rich reaffirmed his awareness that the two are cut from very different cloth. "Whatever Obama's failings," he writes, "he is infinitely more competent at coping with catastrophe than his predecessor."
With sardonic delight, the column goes on to revisit the horrific late summer of 2005and Bush's emulation of Nero fiddling while Rome was ablaze.By contrast, Rich concludes that the Obama administration was, at least, "engaged with the oil spill from the start" and that "it's still not clear what the president might have done to make a definitive, as opposed to a cosmetic difference in plugging the hole."
Running out of steam after admitting that he hadn't the foggiest idea of what he wanted the president to do other than something, the essay resorted to criticizing as "at least three weeks overdue" the press conference Obama held three days earlier. The president used that occasion to announce the government's response to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and its relationship with BP.
Rich concluded that Obama is "stuck between a rock and a Tea Party" and that his "credibility as a champion of reformed, competent government is held hostage by video footage from the gulf."
Meanwhile, Maureen Dowd typically delights in taking power to task without suggesting, nor even offering a bare hint about what it should be doing that it is not.
She righteously thunders: "For five weeks, it looked as though Obama considered the gushing that became the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a distraction, like a fire alarm going off in the middle of a law seminar he was teaching." An especially nice line for those who enjoy confusing metaphor for substance. Dorothy Parker once said the difference between wit and wisecracking is that the former "has truth in it," while the latter is "simply calisthenics with words." If there were an Olympic medal for those calisthenics, Dowd would be a serious contender.
Dowd took the occasion to scold Obama "and top aides who believe in his divinity" for dismissing "complaints of his aloofness as Washington white noise. He treats the press as a nuisance rather than examining his inability to encapsulate America's feelings." The press seldom embarrasses itself more than when it whines about how it is mistreated by those it routinely skewers. No one bothered to inform Maureen that adversarial relationships -- such as that between the press and politicians -- are two-way streets. The press seems to understand this even less than do politicians.
Dowd closes her column by offering Obama truly bizarre advice. The president, she says, should offer Bill Clinton, who "would certainly know how to gush at a gusher gone haywire," a "cameo" role as "Feeler in Chief" because "the post is open." Her haughtily supercilious reference is to the inability of the "aloof" Obama to publicly display his compassion, which, incidentally, has never been known to plug an oil leak.
I hardly ever read a Maureen Dowd column without shedding a tear of longing for her sisters-in-arms, Mary McGrory and Molly Ivins, may they rest in peace, and thanking the heavens above and each and every star therein for Rachel Maddow.
So it was left to Tom Friedman to once again fill the role of the newspaper’s most consistent, if not only, op-ed page grownup.
He wisely pointed out that the oil leak is not the president’s fault, that it is BP’s responsibility and, moreover, that firm has “the best access to the best technology to plug it.”
But Friedman stressed that Obama has yet to tackle his most important job, which is to exploit the opportunity “to change our national conversation on energy.“ In this line alone, Friedman shows why, though he sometimes may be out-written by his op-ed colleagues, he is seldom out-thought.
"Obama realists” keep telling the president that the Democrats in Congress are suffering from “legislative fatigue” after casting a hard vote for health care, he says, and “they don’t want to be asked to cast a supposedly hard vote for a price on carbon -- the essential first step in getting off oil." Actually lawmakers who feel that way should waste no time seeking employment elsewhere.
Friedman reminds us, as though we need to be, that “the GOP today is so cynical, so bought and paid for by Big Oil, that only a couple of Republican senators would have the courage and vision to vote for a price on carbon. So Democrats would be out there alone.” Score another bulls-eye for Tom. Friedman concludes: ”As you would say, Mr. President, this is your time, this is your moment. Seize it. A disaster is an inexcusable thing to waste.”
Just two days later, a front page off-lead article in The Washington Post announced that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. had been dispatched to the Gulf Coast to meet with federal and state prosecutors. His mission, according to the Post's Joel Achenbach and Jerry Markon, was to determine whether the environmental calamity "might become the subject of a criminal investigation." When power responds to constructive criticism, it is nearly as beautiful as a Beethoven sonata and far more rare.
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