Addington's legacy: we're "one bomb away"

By now, much of the astounding information unearthed by Jane Mayer in The Dark Side has been replayed in media accounts and augmented by the release of documents including the torture memos and the ICRC's report on U.S. treatment of prisoners held in the "black sites."

The book remains indispensable, however, in documenting the extent and means by which David Addington and John Yoo hijacked the Justice Department and for at least two years cowed, silenced or marginalized their colleagues and superiors to ram through binding opinions that authorized the executive branch to abrogate the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers stipulated in the Constitution.

To my mind, the most telling passage in the book comes in the account of how Addington and Yoo green-lighted the NSA's violation of the Foreign Service Intelligence Act (FISA) through domestic spying in the Terrorist Surveillance Program. According to Mayer, with reference to the FISA Court:

Addington had been heard to mutter, "We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court."

We were one bomb away, and ultimately perhaps remain one bomb away, from getting rid of not only FISA, but perhaps all the civil liberties and Constitutional protections that Americans have enjoyed for 200+ years. This was my constant thought in early 2008 as I listened to the thug's gallery of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination strive to outbid each other in promises to continue torturing those held in US custody and otherwise reaffirm the Bush Administration's twisted concept of the "unitary executive."

It's true that antibodies in the US political system did kick in to a degree -- in the person of Justice Department and Pentagon attorneys including Goldsmith, Comey, and Mora; in multiple reports by the military and later by the Senate detailing the extent of abuse; in Supreme Court decisions; and ultimately at the ballot box.

But taboos and norms, once violated, will be violated again under stress if the violations are not unequivocally repudiated. Which they haven't been.

Make it thirteen...accomplishments of George W. Bush

As media and electorate kick W. unceremoniously out the door, thoughts turn to a perhaps misguided thought experiment I posted in July, "11 accomplishments of George W. Bush," reposted below. At this late date I'd make it a baker's dozen, adding the auto industry stopgap and close collaboration with the incoming Obama Administration on the transition. Without further ado:

Eleven accomplishments of George W. Bush

July 10, 2008

Like most Americans, I think of George W. Bush as a failed President. Worse than that, I think him not simply as a President who chose unwise policies but as one who assaulted the foundations of American democracy and federalism -- by institutionalizing torture, suspending habeas, violating FISA, corrupting intelligence, and politicizing the Justice Department, the CIA, the EPA and probably every other federal agency.

Nonetheless: our institutions are strong, though weaker when he took office; good people have served during his tenure; and not all of his own impulses and goals were warped. After seven and a half years, the Bush Administration has some accomplishments under its belt. Arrayed together, they look like the pillars of an impressive presidency -- if you discount the incoming missiles of multiple disaster. Here's an equivocal list:

1. Disarmament deal with North Korea - five years and maybe 10 bombs late, but there would seem to be at least a reasonable chance that this rogue will be effectively disarmed. After poking the polecat Kim Jong II and stimulating North Korea's successful weaponization, the Bush Administration has patiently tread a multilateral path that's yielded at least the potential of a good outcome.

2. Bringing Gaddafi in from the cold: a long process with an array of carrots and sticks, but the invasion of Iraq may have concentrated this dictator's mind.

3. Massive increase in AIDS aid: perhaps thanks to Christianist prodding, Bush has showed admirable focus and follow-through on one of the greatest threats to global prosperity.

4. Prescription drug benefit: too expensive, the donut hole is inefficient, private insurers have too great a role, and the drug companies got a giveaway. But seniors do have substantial help in paying their drug bills.

5. No Child Left Behind: the mandate's unfunded and the loopholes in assessment are ridiculous. But we have the halting beginnings of assessing where we're at, state-by-state and district-by-district, in educational achievement.

6. No terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11: no one will ever know all the reasons why, and many of Bush's "antiterror" measures have come at a dreadful price. But preventing another attack was probably Bush's top priority -- quite a heartfelt one. And there has not been another attack -- here -- on his watch.

7. The FISA bill he wanted: Bush has to know that he's gone all out on this front probably to hand expanded capabilities to a Democratic President. He's probably been motivated partly by the need to obtain cover for his own crimes in breaking FISA. But again, he's doubtless convinced that the intelligence agencies need the powers he's obtained for them. And they probably do need most of them.

8. Decent stewardship of the China relationship: China-bashing on the economic front is mostly demagoguery; it's in everyone's interest that China continue on a peaceful path to first-world economic stature and attendant global influence. The Bush crew has maintained trust and cooperation; it's doubtful whether more pressure could have shaped Chinese economic or geopolitical decisions more to our liking.

9. Deposing the Taliban: yes, the caveats outweigh the accomplishment: we let bin Ladin escape, we took our eye off the ball, we allowed al Qaeda to regroup and left a foundling government in a shattered country to its own devices. But who's to say the initial campaign couldn't have been botched? The Taliban went down swiftly, with a minimum of blood.

10. Deposing Saddam: again, the price paid and the terms chosen were catastrophic. This was not a job to be undertaken on false pretenses, without winning our chief allies' assent or the world's acceptance; it was the wrong war at the wrong time, and it gave new life to our worst enemies. But Saddam was a threat to stability in the middle east and therefore in the world. Iraqis would have had to cope with his end at some point, and who's to say the transition would have been better without the heavy hand of the hegemon? There is now at least a reasonable hope that a non-monstrous national government will assert control over Iraq. Which suggests another accomplishment:

11. The Surge: if a hedge fund manager loses $700 million out of a $1 billion, do we credit him with decisions that bring the balance back up to a half billion? A poor analogy. Money is easily accounted; lives can't be, and actual historical outcomes can't be compared with might-have-beens. Nonetheless, whatever you think of the decision to go to war or of the first four years of its execution, the surge was an extraordinarily difficult decision that's worked better than basically anyone expected. It was also something of a reversal for Bush, who had lived and died by the Rumsfeld doctrine to that point. I don't think anyone can deny that the opportunity for a decent outcome in Iraq is far greater now than in fall 2006; to deny the surge's centrality in the turnaround is deep denial. Yes, those who designed and executed it got lucky - but they made their own luck. The surge enabled the Sunni Awakening, the Sadr rope-a-dope, and the long-delayed beginnings of legislative progress.

So there you have it. I have not convinced myself that Bush was a good President, or even not a monstrous President -- I consider the institutionalization of torture as established U.S. policy a truly monstrous legacy. So what exactly is the point of this exercise? Perhaps its this: in a long-established democracy, there's almost an institutional inertia toward some constructive action. After a Rumsfeld, institutional pressures and norms will push up a Gates. While stalwart nonpolitical appointees like Richard Clarke may get pushed out, others, like Christopher Hill will remain. Even a bad crew remains accountable to a large degree to voters. As long as people don't vote away their civil liberties or other Constitutional protections, the system self-regulates and self-corrects.

Eleven Accomplishments of George W. Bush

Like most Americans, I think of George W. Bush as a failed President. Worse than that, I think him not simply as a President who chose unwise policies but as one who assaulted the foundations of American democracy and federalism -- by institutionalizing torture, suspending habeas, violating FISA, corrupting intelligence, and politicizing the Justice Department, the CIA, the EPA and probably every other federal agency.

Nonetheless: our institutions are strong, though weaker when he took office; good people have served during his tenure; and not all of his own impulses and goals were warped. After seven and a half years, the Bush Administration has some accomplishments under its belt. Arrayed together, they look like the pillars of an impressive presidency -- if you discount the incoming missiles of multiple disaster. Here's an equivocal list:

1. Disarmament deal with North Korea - five years and maybe 10 bombs late, but there would seem to be at least a reasonable chance that this rogue will be effectively disarmed. After poking the polecat Kim Jong II and stimulating North Korea's successful weaponization, the Bush Administration has patiently tread a multilateral path that's yielded at least the potential of a good outcome.

2. Bringing Gaddafi in from the cold: a long process with an array of carrots and sticks, but the invasion of Iraq may have concentrated this dictator's mind.

3. Massive increase in AIDS aid: perhaps thanks to Christianist prodding, Bush has showed admirable focus and follow-through on one of the greatest threats to global prosperity.

4. Prescription drug benefit: too expensive, the donut hole is inefficient, private insurers have too great a role, and the drug companies got a giveaway. But seniors do have substantial help in paying their drug bills.

5. No Child Left Behind: the mandate's unfunded and the loopholes in assessment are ridiculous. But we have the halting beginnings of assessing where we're at, state-by-state and district-by-district, in educational achievement.

6. No terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11: no one will ever know all the reasons why, and many of Bush's "antiterror" measures have come at a dreadful price. But preventing another attack was probably Bush's top priority -- quite a heartfelt one. And there has not been another attack -- here -- on his watch.

7. The FISA bill he wanted: Bush has to know that he's gone all out on this front probably to hand expanded capabilities to a Democratic President. He's probably been motivated partly by the need to obtain cover for his own crimes in breaking FISA. But again, he's doubtless convinced that the intelligence agencies need the powers he's obtained for them. And they probably do need most of them.

8. Decent stewardship of the China relationship: China-bashing on the economic front is mostly demagoguery; it's in everyone's interest that China continue on a peaceful path to first-world economic stature and attendant global influence. The Bush crew has maintained trust and cooperation; it's doubtful whether more pressure could have shaped Chinese economic or geopolitical decisions more to our liking.

9. Deposing the Taliban: yes, the caveats outweigh the accomplishment: we let bin Ladin escape, we took our eye off the ball, we allowed al Qaeda to regroup and left a foundling government in a shattered country to its own devices. But who's to say the initial campaign couldn't have been botched? The Taliban went swiftly, with a minimum of blood.

10. Deposing Saddam: again, the price paid and the terms chosen were catastrophic. This was not a job to be undertaken on false pretenses, without winning our chief allies' assent or the world's acceptance; it was the wrong war at the wrong time, and it gave new life to our worst enemies. But Saddam was a threat to stability in the middle east and therefore in the world. Iraqis would have had to cope with his end at some point, and who's to say the transition would have been better without the heavy hand of the hegemon? There is now at least a reasonable hope that a non-monstrous national government will assert control over Iraq. Which suggests another accomplishment:

11. The Surge: if a hedge fund manager loses $700 million out of a $1 billion, do we credit him with decisions that bring the balance back up to a half billion? A poor analogy. Money is easily accounted; lives can't be, and actual historical outcomes can't be compared with might-have-beens. Nonetheless, whatever you think of the decision to go to war or of the first four years of its execution, the surge was an extraordinarily difficult decision that's worked better than basically anyone expected. It was also something of a reversal for Bush, who had lived and died by the Rumsfeld doctrine to that point. I don't think anyone can deny that the opportunity for a decent outcome in Iraq is far greater now than in fall 2006; to deny the surge's centrality in the turnaround is deep denial. Yes, those who designed and executed it got lucky - but they made their own luck. The surge enabled the Sunni Awakening, the Sadr rope-a-dope, and the long-delayed beginnings of legislative progress.

So there you have it. I have not convinced myself that Bush was a good President, or even not a monstrous President -- I consider the institutionalization of torture as established U.S. policy a truly monstrous legacy. So what exactly is the point of this exercise? Perhaps its this: in a long-established democracy, there's almost an institutional inertia toward some constructive action. After a Rumsfeld, institutional pressures and norms will push up a Gates. While stalwart nonpolitical appointees like Richard Clarke may get pushed out, others, like Christopher Hill will remain. Even a bad crew remains accountable to a large degree to voters. As long as people don't vote away their civil liberties or other Constitutional protections, the system self-regulates and self-corrects.

Hillary threads her own FISA needle

The FISA battle is over, for now. Bush and Rockefeller have their telecom immunity, basket warrants, weakened FISA oversight. Perhaps Obama opened the floodgates with his about-face. Stand in the breach he didn't.

Hillary Clinton voted against the bill today. Not only the political calculation but also the merits of the case may look different to one who may be President in a few months (though Hillary doubtless still hopes/intends to be President in a few years). Nonetheless, if you ask which of the two rivals showed the greater political courage, consistency, commitment to civil liberties on this defining issue, I must say the answer is not what I would have expected -- or, once I'd made my primary choice, wished.

Back in the primaries, Obama hammered Clinton's Iraq vote as essentially a political calculation; she was in his sights on March 19, when he charged, "there were too many politicians in Washington who spent too little time reading the intelligence reports, and too much time reading public opinion." If the nomination fight were still on, imagine what Clinton might say about Obama's FISA choice. Instead, to her credit, she soft-pedaled the split within the party:

I applaud the efforts of my colleagues who negotiated this legislation, and I respect my colleagues who reached a different conclusion on today’s vote.

Perhaps in keeping with that gesture towards those supporting the bill, Hillary emphasized the relative knowledge void in which the Congress was forced to act as one reason to vote against the bill:

What is more, even as we considered this legislation, the administration refused to allow the overwhelming majority of Senators to examine the warrantless wiretapping program. This made it exceedingly difficult for those Senators who are not on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to assess the need for the operational details of the legislation, and whether greater protections are necessary. The same can be said for an assessment of the telecom immunity provisions. On an issue of such tremendous importance to our citizens – and in particular to New Yorkers – all Senators should have been entitled to receive briefings that would have enabled them to make an informed decision about the merits of this legislation. I cannot support this legislation when we know neither the nature of the surveillance activities authorized nor the role played by telecommunications companies granted immunity.

Hillary also cited telecom immunity and the limited power accorded the FISA court to review the government’s targeting and minimization procedures as reasons to reject the bill. But in keeping with her moderate tone, she allowed that the bill "does strengthen oversight of the administration’s surveillance activities over previous drafts," affording Obama and others some cover for supporting it.

I still believe that Obama and other senators may have voted on the merits as they see them -- if, indeed, you can separate the fear of being painted soft on terror from the fear of actually enabling terror (even if you suspect that a contemplated course is unlikely to crimp antiterror efforts, you might still fear that it might). If the calculation was not mainly political, it would seem that proximity to the Presidency changed (concentrated?) Obama's mind, because change he did.

He's still got a lot of explaining to do. His blog statement to supporters was barely a beginning.

Obama, you can do better

Obama, you can do better.

I'm not referring to your position on the pending FISA bill, though I don't believe it should be allowed to pass in its current form. I'm talking about your explanation of your shift in position.

There may be good reasons for your support of a FISA "compromise" that you characterize as imperfect and in need of correction. However you have not yet adequately explained to your supporters why, having opposed the Protect America Act last summer and the surveillance orders it authorized, you now feel that there is danger in letting those orders expire, and that this danger creates enough urgency to make you support a bill granting telco immunity and "basket" surveillance warrants without strong oversight outside the executive branch.

Your posting to the Obama-please-vote-no-on-FISA group on MyBarackObama.com was a nice gesture, but lacked any explanation as to what new information led you to conclude that U.S. intelligence agencies need the major reductions in FISA oversight provided by "compromise" legislation that is by most accounts weaker than the "compromise" you opposed in February.

Disillusioned supporters have assumed that your shift was prompted either by political calculation or by fear of crossing the telcos. I don't entirely buy that. Back in February, Democrats opposed to gutting FISA had no rhetorical difficulty countering the fear-mongering of a President with approval ratings in the twenties. Opposing this bill would not be a political loser for you. And while telecommunications is an enormously powerful industry, you will have no problem outraising McCain with or without their support.

My own best guess is that you, like other Democrats supporting telco immunity and basket warrants, are swayed less at this point by fear of Bush than by deference to Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and his claims that intelligence efforts will be crippled if FISA's individual warrant provisions are preserved. But that assumption still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. The individual warrant requirement for communications that include a U.S. participant or that are monitored from the U.S. could have been eased with more stringent oversight preserved.

As a prospective President, you may feel that you should first secure these powers and then worry about how to refine Constitutional protections. In fact, that's more or less what you've said. It's the shift that remains unexplained. Was it new information that swayed you? Constitutional protections in this bill that were lacking in February's? Or simply the impending likelihood that you will become President and will therefore be responsible for preventing the next terror attack?

You have raised high expectations, not only for your performance should you become President, but for your willingness to treat the American people as adults and explain your thinking on complex issues. Supporters troubled by your FISA reversal await the next round.

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A Senator's sum of all fears
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A Senator's sum of all fears

Back in February, I began to wonder why House and Senate Democrats who did not like the idea of weakening FISA would continue to be cowed by a President with approval ratings in the twenties. Those who opposed the FISA bill passed by the Senate, which pretty much gave the Bush Administration everything it wanted (telecom immunity and "basket"warrants), seemed to have no rhetorical trouble countering the President's charges that they were putting lives at risk by allowing the warrants granted by last summer's Protect America Act (PAA) to expire. Here, for example, is Ted Kennedy:

Think about what we’ve been hearing from the White House in this debate. The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no new FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he is willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.

So why, four months later, is a new bill on the brink of passage that grants telecom immunity and guts pre-PAA FISA requirements? And why is Barack Obama among those who have dropped resistance?

A tentative hypothesis: it's not Bush or the remaining Rovian Republican operatives that Democrats are afraid of. It's Mike McConnell. A critical mass of Senators and Congressmen may believe that the Director of National Intelligence is telling the truth when he insists, repeatedly and categorically, that the intelligence agencies' ability to track and foil terrorist plots will be crippled if the spies are forced to seek individual warrants for suspects abroad whose calls and emails they want to track.

I don't know how credible McConnell is. Some of his specific talking points -- e.g, that each FISA warrant requires 200 man-hours (El Paso Times, 8/22/07), or that a German plot allegedly foiled last September could not have been cracked without the powers granted by the PAA (New York Times, 9/11/07)-- have been contradicted or forcefully debunked. His more sweeping claims -- for example, that without the PAA warrants the country would lose “50 percent of our ability to track, understand and know about these terrorists, what they’re doing to train, what they’re doing to recruit and what they’re doing to try to get into this country” (NYT, prior link) -- are impossible to verify; if there's any evidence in support, it's classified. Let's say that the man does not seem immune to overstatement.

On the other hand, McConnell was for years head of the NSA, the country's main electronic intelligence dragnet. He is by all accounts highly competent. He claims to be nonpartisan, says he's voted for people in both parties (though he doesn't say for what offices or in what proportions). He also says that he has spoken to over 260 Senators and House reps in his advocacy for the FISA bill he wants (El Paso Times, link above). Presumably, the information he gives at least the top echelon is more specific than what he tells the public. And he certainly doesn't equivocate.

The gist of what he's told those 260 lawmakers-- in groups, one-on-one, at whatever level of classification -- is surely exactly what he's told all of us: that intelligence capability will be crippled if we weaken the orders granted by last summer's PAA; that al Qaeda has reconstituted itself and is working flat out to attack us as destructively as possible; and that those who don't give him what he wants will be enabling the next attack.

My guess is that a Senator might imagine only one thing worse than having been painted "soft on terror" after the next attack. And that's to have been soft on terror before the next attack. ("Soft on terror" may be a stupid phrase for having preferred preserving civil liberties to allowing effective if perhaps unconstitutional antiterror activities. But whatever you call it, the fear of enabling the next attack must be powerful.)

Is it credible to think that by insisting that our intelligence personnel seek individual warrants to listen in on foreign-to-U.S. phone calls, Congress might enable plotting terrorists to evade detection? I don't know. But even a suspicion that such might be the case might be enough to convince many senators and congressional reps to give the intelligence chiefs what they want. Including a presumptive President.

Of course, whether McConnell is right or wrong has no bearing on whether the kind of non-particularized warrants he wants are Constitutional. What if he's right, and they're not?

Not Dead Yet: Democracy in America

At the risk of stating the obvious, there has never been a Presidential election like this. That's not hyperbole, it's simple fact. Many have pointed out that this year is unusual in that there's no incumbent or sitting veep on either side. Just add that that has never been the case in the era when nominations are decided by popular vote. Add too the surprise that the much-decried front-loaded primary schedule has actually worked quite well (more by accident than by design), with the early states showing the candidates from different angles and winnowing the field by maybe 50% -- but leaving the ultimate decision to a broad swath of the electorate on Super Tuesday and beyond.

Also throw in the mix the huge number of debates in a broad menu of formats that have given anyone interested a chance to assess and re-assess the candidates. Finally, note that money has not been decisive so far, and that candidates who have not been particularly well tied in to existing power structures (Obama, Ron Paul) have been quite successful raising money through grass-roots, online channels.

No doubt that democracy in America needs fixing. The flood of special interest money and lobbying influence; our creaky electoral machinery; the ever more scientifically deranged gerrymandering; the flood of negative, manipulative advertising; the massive media exposure of every personal failing and foible; the bitter partisanship; the current administration's shocking mismanagement of foreign and fiscal policy; and, most important, this administration's assault on civil liberties and the balance of power between branches -- made me, for one, wonder whether the power of the people to effect change through voting was slipping away as fast as our position in the world. And it's still possible that future shocks, like say a major terrorist attack, will generate enough fear to induce Congress and people to acquiesce in another major power grab by the next president, as the Democrats have rolled over before Bush's institutionalization of torture, suspension of habeas, and eviscerating of FISA. But can anyone doubt that we have real choices in this election? Democracy's defining power -- the ability to change course -- is not dead yet.

Obama's message is often derided as gauzy. I think it's substantive - the fruit of twenty years of ripening thought -- on the largest issue of all: how to make democracy function better. The elements include restricting the power of lobbying; a well articulated approach to bipartisanship; and -- most recently, developed in response to the double-barreled Clinton assault -- restoring trust by insisting on a high standard of truth in political discourse. It's the last, with the Clintons as foil, that could be the game-changer in the nominating battle.

Many who have succumbed this season to a modicum of idealism will turn bitterly disillusioned if we end with, say, a Romney-Clinton election. That shouldn't be. When the choice is open, we should trust the electorate. I would still more than half expect Hillary to be an excellent president, angered though I've been by the assault on Obama. Romney has the smarts and managerial skill to be effective, repellent as I find his positions and his position-shifting. The worst danger is another electoral malfunction of the kind that brought us Bush. It's the failures of democracy -- rather than electoral outcomes that we may not like -- that is the true danger.

Rolling over for Rove?

Watching a Jan. 16 speech by Karl Rove to a Republican group on C-Span tonight, I got a sense of why the Dems keep rolling over for Bush on the FISA bill. Rove said that the leading Democratic candidates, Hillary and Obama, were in favor of preventing US intelligence from listening in on the conversations of terrorists if their phone calls passed through the US. That is of course a gross distortion of the position of those who are trying to maintain a modicum of FISA oversight over unchecked monitoring of Americans' phone and Internet communication. But the way it was framed - they want to keep those who are trying to keep us safe from tuning in on those who are trying to kill us -- seems to make the Democrats quake in their boots. Here's one more 'nod to Dodd,' who's vowing again to filibuster any bill that guts FISA and grants telecom immunity.

On the whole, Rove's criticisms of Hillary and Obama were so limp and familiar that I began to wonder if the Republican attack machine might be as tired as the party's policy precepts. But I wouldn't count on it.

Nod to Dodd

Those of us who consider the rollback of unchecked executive power essential to the survival of democracy in America owe a nod to Dodd, the only candidate to put 'restoring the Constitution' at the center of his campaign. Last night, his farewell email to supporters included this pledge:

The fight to restore the Constitution and stop retroactive immunity does not end with my Presidential campaign. FISA will come back in a few weeks and my pledge to filibuster ANY bill that includes retroactive immunity remains operative.

Neither Obama nor Clinton nor Edwards has devoted enough attention to ending torture, indefinite detention, warrantless spying, and the Bush Administration's insanely expansive 'interpretation' of the 'unitary executive' theory, which boils down to a free pass to the President to violate any law at his discretion.

I watched Obama's "closer" speech before the Iowa caucuses, and it included a couple of brief gestures toward the importance of restoring "American values" and our place in the world, i.e. ending torture and unlawful imprisonment. Those were the largest applause lines in the speech. He needs to do more on this front.

Upholding Dodd-ering Civil Liberties

Chris Dodd has pledged to filibuster any FISA bill that grants retroactive immunity to telecom companies that have colluded in the Bush Administration's illegal and unchecked spying on Americans' phone traffic. Here is one response to Dodd's call for statements of support:

While America sleeps, our core Constitutional liberties are being stripped away as the Executive claims power to do whatever it wants to whomever it wants. Astonishingly, the Democrats continue to roll over and ratify the President's right to spy at will on Americans, hold suspects indefinitely without trial, and torture those deemed rightly or wrongly to have information about future terrorist attacks. Chris Dodd has been the only Presidential candidate with the courage not only to speak out in general terms against these outrages, but to take time out from campaigning to arrest the capitulation of the party he wants to lead. Anyone who acts effectively to check the steamrolling of the spineless Democratic leadership on this front deserves the support of all Americans who value the rule of law and the separation of powers.