John Cusack and Jonathan Turley Support Hideki Tōjō for President. They Want You To, Too.
I like Truthout. I’m on its email list and so I receive daily notices about newly posted articles on the site. I don’t read them all, but the ones I read usually are worth the time. And I was deeply flattered when, two years ago, on the basis of two lengthy articles I posted here on AB on complicated legal issues, I was invited to blog for them, mainly on legal issues, through a new forum they were at the time planning for a small set of invited bloggers. (The forum never got off the ground, much to my disappointment.)
So I suppose that this is, in a sense, a family quarrel. But earlier today Dan emailed me with a link to a Truthout article and asked my opinion of it, and I obliged. And hours after I first read the article, I’m still seething enough to repost those comments here.
The article is titled John Cusack Interviews Law Professor Jonathan Turley About Obama Administration’s War On the Constitution. Turley is the Someone and Someone Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington Law School. Good for him. He’s also the Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center there. And the Executive Director of the Project for Older Prisoners. Verygood for him. And he’s one of those omnipresent law-prof. presences whose byline is everywhere, or seems to be, and whose quotes also regularly appear in articles under other people’s bylines because, I think, his contact information comes already printed on the Rolodexes of legal-issues journalists when purchased. This is especially so in recent years, because, as his GW faculty page says, “[h]e has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, and is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation.” Very, very good for him.
It also says, “He also is a nationally recognized legal commentator; he ranked 38th in the top 100 most cited ‘public intellectuals’ in a recent study by Judge Richard Posner and was found to be the second most cited law professor in the country.” I know. That’s my point. He’s eminent.
John Cusack, the article’s actual author and Turley’s interviewer, is, well, a movie star. Star, being the operative word here. As it is with Turley himself.
The point of the interview was to elicit Turley’s assertion that it is the obligation of principled liberals to not vote for Obama this time, because of Obama’s stances and actions on Patriot Act and other War on Terror questions and in Afghanistan. Which Cusack did, bracketed and interspersed between Cusack’s own musings on the subject.
Hyperventilating after reading the article, I responded to Dan (OK, slightly edited here):
Wow. I don’t even know where to begin. I too have been baffled and stunned by the Obama administration’s positions on Patriot Act-related and other War on Terror prisoner civil rights issues. And on some lower-profile civil liberties issues unrelated to war or to Patriot Act matters, too—particularly certain positions as amicus at the Supreme Court, from time to time; cases in which the federal government is not actually a party but in which the Court has asked the Solicitor General’s office to way in anyway, or in which the administration has decided on its own to way in. And on Afghanistan, well, the situation speaks for itself.
But only liberals like John Cusack and Jonathan Turley—people who can, literally, afford the luxury of putting “principle” above the realities of the effect of Romney/Ryan vs. Obama on so many, many, many other critically important public-policy and legal issues—are anything but insane to engage in the absurd conceit that they are principled in helping elect Romney/Ryan. Anyone else who takes that “principled” stance is crazy.
I know all too well the specifics of the profound harm done by the Federalist Society judges—at all three levels of the federal bench, not just the Supreme Court. And the courts are only one of so many parts of this.
There is, truly, almost nothing that makes me angrier than reading this kind of garbage from people who themselves will never actually be directly impacted by the outcome of this election.
Japan’s kamikaze pilots during WWII were principled, too—or at least their prime minister and military commanders were.
To people of that ilk, I say: Drop dead. Or vote for Ralph Nader. And then drop dead.
The Romney campaign should have put Cusack on that stage last Thursday instead of Clint Eastwood.
It really doesn’t matter which party wins the election. Both candidates are warmongers and spendthrifts.
This still leaves unanswered the question of what to do about the “ratchet to the right” that the Democrats perform every time they receive the benefit of the “lesser of two evils” vote. It’s not just Cusack and Turley (or Ralph Nader) who promote the election of Romney and Ryan by default but the actual policies of the Obama administration. The really odd thing about the Clint Eastwood chair pantomime is that his actual jibes at Obama were “objectively” from the left, not from the right. That is, whether he intended it or not, Eastwood attacked Obama for being too right-wing!
So, given that you have been “baffled and stunned” by the Obama administration’s positions on civil liberties and War on Terror shenanigans, what do you propose people do about them other than hold their nose and ratifying those positions?
Ah, but only one party wants to disassemble the entire social safety net, dramatically reduce taxes on the wealthy even further,
Increase defense spending, and ensure that the Federalist Society controls the Supreme Court for the next three decades.
And only one party is funded by the Koch brothers.
You’re off the hook, Anonymous. You live in Texas. Your vote doesn’t count.
There’s actually an easy answer to that, Sandwichman. The Democratic Party has primaries, just as the Republican Party does. There’s been enough frustration about Obama’s attempts at “triangulation” and his failure for most of his term to explain to the public and aggressively argue for Keynesian economic policies (not even to mention Obamacare and, while that was being drafted, the “public option), and some other important things, that I think it will be a very long time before the Dems nominate another presidential candidate who doesn’t have an extensive record on specifics (either in published writings or in Congress or as governor or whatever) and who campaigns on vague, generic-type promises.
I’m not sure why so many people think otherwise.
so, beverly, if given the choice between a hitler and a tojo, we should hold our nose and support the best one, irregardless of his crimes?
Beverly
seething with rage is not a good position to start thinking from.
it is almost certainly true that RnR are evil and far worse for the country than O.
nevertheless a vote for O is a vote to ratify his nullification of the Bill of Rights. i don’t think i would want to have to answer my great grandchildren for why i knowingly voted for a man who turned “due process” into a meaningless noise.
as for the Social Safety net, it seems to me that the “liberals” are doing a pretty good job of destroying the best part of it by trying to turn it into welfare.
seems they can’t understand the point of “the workers pay for it themselves.”
as for “way” and “weigh”, i find that interesting considering the equivalence of “inertia” and “gravity” (speaking loosely). still…
I know I am really upset that Obama got us into Afghanistan. What was he thinking?!
We can’t just vote for someone and expect him to follow his party platform. Whether we vote for republicans or democrats or any third party we need to go the extra step and proactively put pressure on our elected officials. This is very difficult but in a democracy it is essential.
-Jason
I’m sorry, Beverley. There are many reasons never to vote for Obama again.
The top reason I will never vote to Obama again is that he has given himself the power to assassinate American citizens and their children by drone attack.
That is so illegal and immoral that it outweighs every other consideration in my view. I’m quite aware that Romney would gleefully adopt the same power. However he has not yet done so, and Obama has.
I’m with Cusack and Turley on this one.
Bev,
It’s hard to get people to understand the need to play defense. They complain, as some do above, that the Democrats shift further right when they are elected as the least worst thing. Of course they forget how different the world would be had Al Gore been elected and how much better off we all would be. Naderites voted against the two parties whose policies and practices were “indistinguishable”. Of course they were in fact very distinguishable just as Obama and Romney are now. There’s no point in trying to persuade the purists. They will do what they will. Then, if things turn out badly, of course, they will bitch. In the meantime, a good ground game may keep the barbarians from the gate, at least for a while. Go ring some door bells. Michigan, for reason I don’t understand, is apparently close.
Jack:
The economy improved and Michigan is not running a budget deficit. Low and behold, the Republicans cast the bones and were able to win while the economy was on the increase. Everyone, the same as the 2001/2003 tax breaks wiped out the budget surplus, forgets how Engler did the same and our next egg for rainy days disappeared.
“Of course they forget how different the world would be had Al Gore been elected and how much better off we all would be. Naderites voted against the two parties whose policies and practices were ‘indistinguishable’. Of course they were in fact very distinguishable just as Obama and Romney are now.”
Bingo, Jack. Bingo.
As for the problem of the Dems shifting further to the right when elected, I don’t see how electing Republican wingnuts will make Dem politicians think they’d have a better chance if only they were more liberal. That’s Alice in Wonderland logic on the part of the purists. It’s nonsense.
Yes, the polls supposedly show that Michigan is close. I’m not sure I believe it, but, who knows? In AA, the only bumper stickers I see are for Obama, and I do see a lot of them, suddenly. And I think that by November Romney’s virulent hostility toward unions will be widely enough known that Obama will win Michigan comfortably. But it just shouldn’t be close here at this point.
Bev
maybe if the Dems lose because the liberals sit home they will think next time that they might have a better chance if they don’t spit on the people who vote for them.
i think i can still tell the difference between “it’s nonsense” and “i don’t agree with that.”
“…had Al Gore been elected…”
What do you mean “had” he been elected?
While I understand everyone’s point about the Patriot Act and then some, you’d have to be a fool or a man to think there would be no difference between what life would be like under a Obama administration compared to a Romney administration. Congress is not writing laws that doctors can knowingly lie to their male patients, or perform unnecessary medical procedures on them. Vote for Obama, and apply needed pressure on the White House to take care of some of these issues. But do not subject the woman in your life to R&R.
Primary Debbie Wasserman Schultz in 2014 for a start and give her opponent bundles of cash
judy lindholm
i don’t think there would be no difference… so i guess i am either not a fool or not a man.
i do think that if you reward the man who lies to you and beats you up, you are displaying “abused wife syndrome.”
I agree that there is enough of a difference between the two candidate pairs on domestic/economic issues to warrant voting for Obama, but, as I had said in some earlier comment, I’ll be holding my nose as I throw that lever. O’s performance has been lack luster at best, though the Republicans have been so atrocious in their obstructionism in Congress that Os performance is mitigated. The Republican Party is continuing to display its obstinancy by offering the voters R&R, two more vapid apologists for corporate and individual avaricious greed is difficult to imagine.
Possibly a dramatic showing for Obama would be seen by the Republican Party chieftans as a popular repudiation of their choices. It would need to be coupled with a significant change in their party’s control over the Congress. The level of demonstrated political ignorance by voters may, however, maintain the status quo for a long while to come.
In 2000 the Nader people said that corporations had too much influence in politics, and that there was little difference between the GOP and the Democrats.
Bush won, and appointed two Supreme Court judges. Obama won, and appointed two Supreme Court judges.
Then McCain-Feignold is overturned. The Bush judges voted to overturn, and the Obama judges voted to leave the restrictions against corporate donations in tact.
The result: now there is far more corporate money in politics than there ever was.
So tell me again how this ideological purity does anything but bring about the opposite of what it is supposed to achieve?
fladem
it’s not a question of ideological purity. it’s a question of practical politics.
if the democrats can count on your vote whatever they do… then what you want doesn’t matter.
don’t worry about the R’s. they do what money wants them to do and they can fool most of the people most of the time.
you still have some hope of influencing the dems, but not if you just say oh you’ll vote for them no matter what.
it would of course help if we had a “progressive party” that had some ability to organize effectively to get what it wants.
having watched the progressives for a number of years, i don’t expect that.
Nader did not cost Gore the election. Gore did, and Jeb Bush. Obama may have realized that… he certainly played to the progressive vote while he was running. only to call them fools after he got elected.
btw
i find it funny as hell the people who say nader cost the election by taking votes away from Gore…
it never occurs to them that Gore might have won the election by taking votes away from Nader.
i’ll let you think about that. for what it’s worth.
btw2
i voted for Gore.
fladem:
Most certainly Kennedy has found himself to be a decider in the outcome of SCOTUS rulings. Kennedy has played a big role since Alito and Roberts appointment.
coberly:
As usual you have thrown up another strawman argument.
1. Faldem raises the issue of corporations having too much influence in politics and there is little difference between the GOP and the Dems.
2. Fladem points out that the Repubs appointed two justices and the Dems appointed tow justices.
3. Fladem points out that McCain – Feingold is overturned. The Repubs are for and the Dem appointees against.
4. Resulting in the overturning of McCain-Feingold is an abundance of corporate money.
5. Fladem wonders about ideological purity and that it causes the opposite of what is expected.
Coberly answers #1 with this:
“it’s not a question of ideological purity. it’s a question of practical politics.” This is close to fladem’s post theme.
Coberly than goes down a separate path away from fladem’s theme and begins to discuss R&R, influencing the DEms, progressive parties, and that Nader did not cost Gore the election.
Not sure how all of this fits into fladem’s SCOTUS discussion, United Citizen, which justices voted on what, and ideological purity.
I’m not voting for Obama because I have been disgusted with his and the Dems cowardice and refuse to be an enabler.
Don’t be too sure that an Obama election will not lead to a complete sweep in 2016 by the Rs when they will be able to do as they please.
Romney will be a fairly neutered president if he is elected as there will be significant backlash from the overthrow. He will not be able to deliver the cuts to SS/Medicare that Obama is dying to provide as the last piece to make him one of the greatest presidents of all time. The Dems will be happy to walk off the cliff to make that legacy possible.
The Dems were well served by losing to Bush in 2004. The Rs may be equally well served in losing to O’Bomney.
A Romney win would likely be accompanied by a Republican congress. They could and would do what they want.
Not one significant enough to do much damage, especially against a group of mad as hell Dems. Not compared to what they might do in 2016 when the next generation takes over.
Second terms do not go well and Obama could be staring into the abyss. Romney is likely to be cooked in his own juices by the Dems and the economy and thrown out in 4 years. If Obama wins, the Rs are very likely to take total control. That will be assured if Hilary chooses not to run.
Not one significant enough to do much damage, especially against a group of mad as hell Dems. Not compared to what they might do in 2016 when the next generation takes over.
Second terms do not go well and Obama could be staring into the abyss. Romney is likely to be cooked in his own juices by the Dems and the economy and thrown out in 4 years. If Obama wins, the Rs are very likely to take total control. That will be assured if Hilary chooses not to run.
run
as usual you think anything that doesn’t address the issue the way you want it addressed is a “strawman.”
well. i do my best to get you to focus on the real issue, but i already know that if you flash a red flag in front of a bull, he can’t keep his mind on man in the suit with the big knife.
rjs: “if given the choice between a hitler and a tojo, we should hold our nose and support the best one, irregardless of his crimes?”
Tojo, hands down. 🙂
I sort of feel like the same charge could be leveled at you Beverly – you won’t really be affected if Obama is elected, so why should you give a hoot about Obama’s well reported itch to reach a Grand Baragain by implementing the terms of the “Catfood Commission” or y’know for those citizens domestic and abroad for whom Obama has gutted civil rights (murder at his say so, indefinite detention at his say so). Recognizing that there is some space between Obama and Romney and choosing him on that basis is one of a number of strategies, but at some point we must also recognize in practical terms that Obama, as Clinton before him, have done substantial damage to the poor and the middle class by delivering their constituency to their Wall Street contributors than even Reagan managed.
Really, the Nadarite canard still has life! Think, in contrast, to how many people would not have been disenfranchised if Clinton and Gore hadn’t pursued, with might and main, the “war against drugs” – enough no doubt to have pushed several states into Gore’s column, given the convergence between the race of those jailed and the race of the Democrat’s most loyal constituency. But nobody ever says, just imagine an Al Gore who did not urge on the increase of the incarceration rate that happened under Clinton. Or as Feldman, Lisa; Schiraldi, Vincent and Jason Ziedenberg found, in the (2001)
Too Little Too Late: President Clinton’s Prison Legacy.
“in President
Clinton’s first-term (1992-1996), 148,000 more state and federal prisoners were added than under
President Reagan’s first term (1980-1984), and 34,000 more than were added under President
Bush’s four-year term (1988-1992).”
And there is this statistic: “With two million people
behind bars in the U.S., and 4.5 million people on probation and parole, America ends the
Clinton-era with at least 8.5 million people who are either under the control of the correctional
system or working for the criminal justice system.”
So instead of Nader, perhaps one should look at who couldn’t vote, and why, and whose policies subtracted them from the total.
Roger:
I am the one who wrote “One in 31” on Angry Bear (google me) which spoke of the numbers of imprison (~50%) who are there for nonviolent crimes such as drugs, white collar crime, three shoplifts you are out (Chemerinsky’s greatest regret was not being able to get a new trial for someone who was sentence to 10-30 years for the 3rd time shoplifting), etc. I had a crack head attorney who stole $20,000 from me, ran a drug house where one person died (and he blamed his mule), absconded with fee from ~500 clients, and drove on a suspended license and was caught with 50 grams of cocaine. He got probation (2nd offense and was out on bond), his mule got prison time, and his dealer went to prison. He knew someone.
You are right the prison population has swollen well beyond what it should have been allowed to. The prosecutors love it and so do the communities. It is a business for both and they make money.The laws and apparatus existed well before Clinton though.
“The Drug War legacy of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush included property forfeiture, expanded police powers and a zero- tolerance policy, along with an expanded prison system to accommodate all those who bucked the law. President Bill Clinton inherited these. But when he first took office, many in the drug-policy-reform movement were optimistic that the man demonized by his right-wing opponents as an ex-hippie draft dodger would reverse this legacy.
Instead, doomed by his politically disastrous “I did not inhale” campaign line, he has cravenly allowed federal, state and local law enforcement to expand all the tools left to him. His record might be worse than those of Reagan or Bush.”
Still time to fix it though; although, it is like the military. Cutting either is heresy!
via naked capitalism, the broken democratic party promises of 2008