Why we're liberals -- an impeachment altercation
Politics & Prose is quite possibly the best bookstore in the country, and I've seen some good ones. We went there again last night, ostensibly to pick up a birthday present for Maddie's friend, in reality to feed our family's book addictions, and just to go to one of our favorite places.

The hook for me: "Eric Alterman will be there, you want to go?" I would have gone anyway, but that made it better: the acute observer of modern media and politics, the pioneering big-time blogger ("Altercation," currently ensconced at Media Matters), the prolific author ("What Liberal Media?", "Sound and Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy"), the American historian made good -- I didn't even know what his latest book was and I wanted to go.

Turns out it's "Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America." From an online blurb:

Alterman examines liberalism's development and demonstrates how its partisans have come to represent not just the mainstream, but also the majority of Americans today. In a crisply argued though extensively documented counterattack on right-wing spin and misinformation, Alterman briskly disposes of such canards as Liberals Hate God and Liberals Are Soft on Terrorism, reclaiming liberalism from the false definitions foisted upon it by the right and repeated everywhere else.

The book looks good -- there's a cover by Tom Tomorrow displaying the pantheon of liberalism -- FDR, Teddy Kennedy, Tom Paine, you name it, with Mr. Alterman in the middle of the crowd. Alterman didn't read from it, but described it to the audience in an entertaining, if somewhat rambling way.

Alterman's point, as I take it, is straightforward: Americans are liberal, by and large, judging by opinion poll majorities or trends pointing to acceptance of liberal goals like health care, ending the war, even gay marriage. But they're reluctant to apply the label to themselves, due to a successful propaganda campaign to make the word and the concept distasteful. American political liberalism in Alterman's view is less a philosophy than a pragmatic outlook; "government might help with this problem; if not, we'll try something else."

The word "handbook" is apt: after a tour of liberalism's antecedents, philosophy, history, and recent retreats in Part I, the book gets down to brass tacks in Part II with a kind of "how to" compendium of 10 to 15 page chapterlets with tongue-in-cheek titles in the form of questions, such as "Why Do Liberals Love Hollywood Smut Peddlers?", "Why Are Liberals Educating Our Children to be Perverts?", or "Why Do Liberals Hate Religion?" It looks to be an entertaining, yet well built set of polemics, or anti-polemics if you will, ready to be used at a moment's notice by those who master its arguments.

My point, however, will not be to shower praise on what looks to be a perfectly serviceable book, but to question its author. In the question and answer session, Alterman was asked about impeachment -- and he kind of went off on the guy, comparing impeachment advocates to Nader supporters in 2000, allegedly blind to the consequences of their actions, indirectly complicit in the disasters that followed.*

So I joined the short line of questioners, and wound up being the last one. I asked where he saw the rule of law and adherence to the Constitution in his definition of liberalism; in the tension between adhering to principles and focusing on winning the next election, where were the bright lines Alterman was willing to draw to say "this far and no further", regardless of the cost? Because, I told him, his answer to the first questioner had me thinking, 'maybe I'm not a liberal after all.'

This tacitly conceded what I shouldn't have -- that impeachment, even a failed impeachment effort, was all political cost and no gain. But the strong form of the question remains, since as I suggested to Eric, "the rap on liberals can be that they have no bright lines", no principles they'll go to the mat for and risk losing elections for -- that they're moral relativists, triangulators, etc., more interested in attaining or keeping power than in speaking truth to it.

Interestingly, Alterman had recounted an example of just the opposite in his remarks: LBJ noting that the Civil Rights Act he'd worked so hard for would cost Democrats the South for years to come. So when he sort of squared up and said that to him principles were a form of moral vanity, what I think he meant was that my principles were that kind of vanity, in the face of the looming election, in the face of people who were struggling to make ends meet. (I paraphrase, but not by much; and the "principles [are] moral vanity" were his words.)

That's funny, though, because to me that particular principle -- rule of law, or "playing by the rules" in 90s Democratic vernacular -- is a core liberal value and is not some kind of luxury item we can do without in tough times. Without it, the little guy has no recourse against the high and mighty, whether they're government officials or CEOs. To me liberalism, plainly put, is saying the little guy should always have a chance to get his grievance heard and to be made whole, and that there's a public sphere where the big guy with lawyers, guns and money can't expect to win.

And it seems self-evident to me that that credo starts at the top; the measure of a country isn't just how it treats its weakest members, but the standards it applies to its most powerful ones. We are plainly failing both tests; I think it's a single test, and that those failures go hand in hand.

I certainly didn't set out to embarrass Mr. Alterman last night -- but I also somewhat worry that I didn't. By now I'm somewhat resigned to the fact that my opinions about impeachment seem to be a minority opinion within the cognoscenti and silverbacks of the Democratic Party; it's not just Alterman, it's commenters at Obsidian Wings, it's the largely silent liberal wing of the legal profession and academia, it's Harold Meyerson, it's Van Hollen, it's Pelosi, it's Conyers.

And it seems shortsighted to me, even -- indeed especially -- by Alterman's own "damn straight I'm a liberal" lights. At the time, I was nonplussed by Alterman's protestations that he wasn't advocating euthanasia or something -- where the heck did that come from, I wondered. But I think he was pre-emptively answering the objection that occurred to me later -- the old saw that "if you don't stand for something, you'll go for anything."

I'll stipulate that Alterman hasn't gone for anything -- but the presumably liberal Democratic Party arguably has. It has to all appearances been running a two year stall, a political "four corners" drill running out the clock to an anticipated win in 2008 -- a strategy that may not be as clever as its authors thought. Late feints notwithstanding, it has effectively stood by -- both before and after 2006 -- and let the corruption of the Justice Department go unpunished; it has allowed the Bush administration to play semantic games about the meaning of torture and whether waterboarding fits the definition; it's doing its level best to find as much as possible about warrantless surveillance to be legal after all -- and it's done nothing meaningful whatsoever to get out of a war built on lies that a majority of us (and a vast majority of self-described liberals) considers to be a disastrous mistake. If that's liberalism, I want off.

I don't think that has to be liberalism -- but the evidence is against me. As it stands, liberalism as practiced by its leaders -- and as hobbled by Alterman with his disappointing "moral vanity" remark -- is in deserved disrepute. Impeachment proceedings would have let the word go forth that these things were crimes, crimes against the people of the United States, and that we weren't afraid to say so and stand for who we are. That word has not gone forth -- and we are thus lessened not just by our foes, but by ourselves and our friends as well, however well-meaning we may be. And people notice; they line up with those who fight, and avoid helping those who won't.

Alterman claims to know "Why We're Liberals." I guess by now I question the premise. I just don't know where that leaves me.


=====
* I wasn't taking notes, and I don't have a recording; however, one may be available in the near future. If so, I'll let you know, especially if it contradicts my account here.

UPDATE, 3/23: I've transcribed Alterman's impeachment-related comments (and the questions by myself and another audience member) from an audio recording prepared by Politics & Prose. The transcript bears out my account above.

UPDATE, 3/24: WorldWideWeber and Mick Arran write about my encounter with Alterman -- and with rather different points. At the risk of oversimplifying their excellent posts -- which you should read -- WWW identifies support for Bush and Cheney's impeachment as true conservatism, while Arran sees Alterman confirming that the Democratic Party isn't in fact liberal. Thanks to both for their thought-provoking reactions. For my part, I retell the story at American Street -- with crisp, fresh new arguments!

UPDATE, 3/26: Another post by Mick Arran on this subject, taking up comments by Nell and Paul here.

UPDATE, 4/1: eRobin takes up the idealism vs. pragmatism elements of the post and the comments about it in "Hardcore Idealism."
posted by Thomas Nephew at 8:30:00 AM -- |  

 
Donna Edwards et al on "A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq"
Donna Edwards and other congressional candidates explain why they've endorsed "A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq" in the video below:

Yes, I know he's not Donna Edwards; I mainly want the leftyblogs Maryland link. Ms. Edwards has made the plan a prominent feature of her campaign web site. From the press release:

The United States has been in Iraq for 5 years now; 3,988 honorable servicemen and women are dead; over 29,000 are injured; as many as 1 million Iraqis are dead; and there is still no legitimate end in sight,” said Donna Edwards, Democratic nominee for Maryland’s 4th Congressional District. “This Administration and its Congressional allies continue to enable the war and defy the will of the American people who demand that a new path be forged. I join military and political leaders in calling for all possible military, diplomatic, and economic strategies to bring an end to the war while protecting American interests. When we enter Congress we will be clear about the expectations of the American people to embark immediately on a responsible plan to end this debacle in Iraq.

I actually happened to speak with plan co-author Lawrence Korb on the Metro yesterday. No, he doesn't know me -- I just happened to recognize him, and thanked him for his work. He said the Obama and Clinton campaigns hadn't responded to the plan yet, which calls for no residual forces in Iraq whatsoever (beyond the minimum needed to guard the embassy). I assume that will change -- but not unless we make them.

PS: Those of you on "facebook" can join the facebook supporters group here; for one-stop support of the candidates involved, go here; to read more about it, scroll down or click here. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:00:00 PM -- |  

 
A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq

Responsibly ending the U.S. military action in Iraq and returning control of the country to the Iraqis is a critical step in enhancing U.S. security. This solution requires that no residual U.S. troops remain in Iraq. The continued presence in Iraq of so-called “residual” forces beyond the minimum needed for standard embassy-protection would be a serious mistake. Any such troops would become a magnet for insurgent attacks and unless they did nothing at all would inevitably become players in Iraq’s domestic political disputes, thus forcing the United States to continue to play referee to Iraq’s civil conflicts. Soldiers tasked with training missions would, to be effective, have to be embedded in Iraqi combat formations necessarily involving them directly in combat, thus continuing to hold American strategic fortunes hostage to events in Iraq that are beyond our control. [...]

While the current administration and its allies may seek to portray a return pre-surge troop levels as the beginning of a military withdrawal, it is not enough to reduce troop levels to pre-surge levels. We must end the presence in Iraq of U.S. troops.

-- from "A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq"(emphases added). The document was drafted and co-signed by ten candidates for the U.S. House: Darcy Burner (WA-8), Donna Edwards (MD-4), Eric Massa (NY-29), Chellie Pingree (ME-1), Tom Perriello (VA-5), Jared Polis (CO-2), George Fearing (WA-4), Larry Byrnes (FL-14), and Steve Harrison (NY-13), as well as Major General Paul Eaton (ret.), Dr. Lawrence Korb, Brigadier General John Johns (ret.), and Capt. Larry Seaquist (ret.)

The 36 page document is really more a declaration of purpose and a legislative/political plan, not a detailed military withdrawal plan.* It relies on Iraq Study Group timelines and statements of purpose -- principally no open-ended troop commitment, a "diplomatic offensive" to secure outside help and guarantees for Iraq, no permanent bases, no goal of domination of Iraqi oil... and also no residual troops in Iraq, which I don't recall the ISG being quite as explicit about.

Given the narrow confines of the Iraq debate at present, that's a breakthrough. And the document isn't just about Iraq; it essentially calls the United States as a whole on the carpet for issues ranging from torture to the blurred boundaries between news media and the administration before the war -- often identifying specific pending legislation that might redress those issues. There's a whole section titled, "Repair damage to constitutional processes and restore transparency and accountability," recommending legislation restoring habeas corpus, ending signing statements, and ending "supplemental" outside-the-budget war funding. Tantalizingly, the declaration even speaks of holding perpetrators of war crimes responsible:

We should work with the international community to hold perpetrators of potential war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide accountable for their crimes. One way this could be done is by working with the United Nations to establish an independent war crimes commission or a special investigator to gather testimonies and investigate war crimes.

The declaration also, of course, directly challenges Clinton, Obama, and McCain to explain why maintaining even "residual" forces in Iraq is so important to them. I'm struck by how to the point it is -- "Current State," "The Desired End State," "Proposals for Operations in Iraq," "Preventing Future Iraqs, " "Conclusion" ... that's it. About a third of it is devoted to end notes and an appendix listing pending legislation -- it's pretty quick reading.

All of the candidates involved deserve a lot of credit for developing this document. It deserves to be widely read and debated -- and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should be challenged to adopt it as their own.

(Via Matthew Yglesias. The rollout is apparently happening at the Take Back America conference underway here in DC; here's a firedoglake post with links to videos from the conference. Naturally, there's a web site: www.responsibleplan.com.)


=====
* For the details of a military plan to withdraw from Iraq, see "How to Redeploy," also co-authored by the Center for American Progress's Lawrence Korb. The page links to the full report, a 28 page .pdf file. From the introductory web page: "an orderly and safe withdrawal is best achieved over a 10- to 12-month period. Written in consultation with military planners and logistics experts, this report is not intended to serve as a playbook for our military planners but rather as a guide to policymakers and the general public about what is realistically achievable." The plan is discussed in brief in the ThinkProgress post "The Way Out of Iraq: How to Safely and Orderly Redeploy in a Year;" it did envision leaving two brigades in Iraqi Kurdistan to prevent the outbreak of Turkish-Kurd violence, but otherwise calls for "phased consolidation" of the U.S. military in Iraq from the periphery to the center.

EDIT, 3/18: Candidate links added, and I've set up an ActBlue fundraising page for them, adding impeachment advocate Robert Wexler to the list.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:03:00 AM -- |  

 
Real News: Winter Soldier clips

Pieces providing an overview of the conference, "Winter Soldier testimonials," testimony by Hart Viges, and commentary on Blackwater are also available, but aren't currently listed above; there may be a 10-clip limit or something.

As eRobin mentions, these conferences and videos cost money. Consider supporting Winter Soldier and Real News Network.


=====
UPDATE, 3/17: Also consider joining the "Iraq Fax-in", set up by Democrats.com: "We elected a Democratic Congress in 2006 to bring our troops home, but they keep giving Bush blank checks. Incredibly, Congress will soon vote on another $102 billion blank check."
Also, there will be a teach-in at American University this Saturday, 10:30 am - 4:30 pm, at the Tavern at Mary Graydon Center, with appearances by Samuel Provance, Ray McGovern, David Swanson, and others. Organized by AU Patriots for Peace. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |  

 
Good for a grin
Eschaton: "When I'm fresh out of things to post about I usually ask myself, 'Self? Did Joe Klein do anything stupid today?' ... Yep." Of course, there's always the option of just not posting anything, but maybe that's why Duncan Black is a big time blogger and I'm not. ... ... ... well, maybe that's one reason why, anyway.

Gavin ("Sadly, No") --- "There ought to be a word for people who are stuck in the late ’90s, like eHippies or iHippies, or something else that’s redolent of NetBuzz and CyberSpace but also suggestive of a fortyish Rod McKuen farting in an Esalen hot tub." I like iHippies. Or maybe iBots? Or iPods? Suggestions welcome.

cscs, at TPMCafe --- "I think one thing is clear this far into the Democratic primary race: Both Obama's and Clinton's supporters must now drop out of the race."

Kevin Hayden ("American Street") on Hillary Clinton's foreign policy claims --- "If I recall correctly, she also stopped a killer meteor, captured an angry tyrannasaurus rex and sealed the crack in Hoover Dam with her weld-a-vision and would have done more if it wasn’t for the kryptonite she was exposed to."

Garfield Minus Garfield --- "Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?

Matt Cooper (Portfolio) ---"Ferraro says she's getting attacked because she's white. No, she's getting attacked because she's stupid."

Roy Edroso ("alicublog") on the Spitzer business--- "One happy side-effect of the affair is that it spurs Jonah Goldberg to deep thought, which is to say it steers a fat kid in a Buster Brown outfit to a banana peel." posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:40:00 PM -- |  

 
Iraq War? How's that going, anyhow?

Via the always excellent Real News Network, Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies summarizes testimony from Winter Soldier: "Abu Ghraib was not an aberration, Haditha was not an aberration." She goes on to criticize Obama and Clinton for apparently envisioning residual forces in Iraq, and I agree with her on that. But the lion's share of the blame for those forces being in Iraq in the first place can not rest with Obama in any comparison between the two. Personally, I think that residual forces will be untenable when that time comes, and that they'll be withdrawn in short order as well.

Bennis's more telling point, and the point of the interview, is how coverage of Iraq in the mainstream media has nosedived:

...in most of 2007, media coverage of Iraq was only 15% of overall media coverage. [...] What's even worse is that in the period from ...November 2007 to the end of February, just a few weeks ago, the number has dropped from 15% to simply 1%.

Bennis understandably misattributes the media finding to Pew Center for People and the Press, because they cite the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)finding in a recent report.* The Pew Center is, however, the source for what Bennis says about mistaken public beliefs about U.S. fatality levels (the largest group, 35%, think there have only been about 3,000, the reality is pushing 4,000) let alone Iraqi deaths. The percentage of the U.S. population getting U.S. fatality levels right, to the nearest 1,000, has dropped from 54% in August 2007 to just 28% in February 2008.

Meanwhile, even "surge" advocates can't point to political gains they said themselves were the point of their military escalation in Iraq. We've essentially been treading water at great expense. That expense can be measured in treasure -- a recent estimate puts the true cost of the Iraq war at $3 trillion dollars -- and of course in thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi ones.

Returning to the Democratic primary campaign seems to trivialize such enormities, but it seems to me that even here, among some of the most activist, progressive, and informed subset of the American political scene, Iraq is being forgotten. What else can explain the pass given to Hillary Clinton on her ill-informed, misconceived 2002 vote for this war? What else can explain accepting her claims to superior foreign policy insights at face value -- when she got the most important call she had to make on her own so completely wrong? Yes, Obama's record has been similar since getting into the Senate -- no, that doesn't prove he's the same if he wouldn't have driven the bus into the ditch in first place. Yes, Obama can verge on fetishizing "postpartisanship"; no, that isn't anywhere near as important as getting Iraq wrong, or getting the next case for war or peace right.

More and more is being made of less and less in this campaign. I'm thinking of things like the so-called "Stepfordization" of big-time bloggers like Josh Marshall, who -- it's true -- more often than not takes the Obama side in the various daily controversies of the primary campaign. But to turn that, or possible pro-Obama mischief by conservative pundits, or the insults of some Obama blogger or other, into issues of any importance -- let alone part of some kind of clinching web of reasons to prefer Clinton -- is to ignore the elephant in her room. To seriously make these the issues affecting our choice for the next President of the United States would break faith with veterans, with Iraqis, and with our country's future.


=====
* While the PEJ figure cited is 3%, the accompanying graph shows that's an uptick from a prior level, so that may explain Bennis's 1% figure.

EDIT, 3/16: "fatality" for "casualty" as per RobertNAtl's comment. Many thousands more are casualties with life-altering brain, limb, or other damage.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:20:00 PM -- |