(We've been on vacation here for a bit, so we have a bit of catching up to do. This essay from Arthur is from the week of April 3rd.)
A lot has happened this week that has me enormously proud of my country, the country that I guess many of us took for granted, we feared that we had lost the essential core of, but that this week we seem to be recovering. Recovering very nicely, thanks.
Attorney General Eric Holder made a decision this week that all Americans should applaud long and loudly. Eric Holder is the "anti-24", the "anti-Fox-News" antidote that our legal system has been so badly needing. What did he do? He released a corrupt Alaska Senator, "Uncle" Ted Stevens, an aging bag-man in the long tradition of American politics where benefits are awarded not according to fairness, but because "back-handers" have or will be paid to someone in government who has the clout to steer a contract, or earmark, or massive public funds to an individual who is almost certainly not the best recipient of our government's money. And worse than that, the amounts paid are tiny compared to the huge amounts of public money pissed down a rathole in such deals. Randy "Duke" Cunningham was selling bogus government defense contracts (often for little or no actual work being done) in return for kickbacks of less than one percent. Sometimes far, far less. What does that mean? It means five million dollars would be wasted, in return for $30,000. Nice.
So there is not a lot to like about Ted Stevens. He clearly was a sleaze. But being a sleaze ought not to permit the government to put into the public record testimony they know to be perjured, in order to make it "easier" to prosecute a bad guy. Why is that so important? Because sometimes government is simply wrong, and it is not up to them to decide. It is up to a court, to a judge, to a jury. That's our system of justice, and it cannot work properly unless the court is given the actual facts of a case. Not fake testimony.
So Eric Holder, when he discovered the extent of "prosecutorial misconduct" decided to do something about it. In the Bush administration it might have called for (a) promoting the prosecution team (b) awarding them the Medal of Freedom (c) helping them run for Congress, or (d) introducing them to your daughters. Things are different now. Holder tossed out the case and will not file it again. He could have asked for a new trial, but stated that the scope of the prosecutorial misconduct was so great that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. Ted Stevens had lost his Senate seat, been dragged through the mud and is 85 years old. Holder felt, and I agree, that he had received sufficient a penalty for his crimes. The question now is, what happens to the prosecutors? This can't be a gold star on their resume, to say the least. And one option is disbarrment. That means losing their license to practice law in this country. That will make other prosecutors think twice before deciding that they "have to break laws to catch lawbreakers" without ever stopping to consider the irony of that statement.
So what does this do to the popularity of the television show "24" and Jack Bauer, who is such a genius that he KNOWS when people are lying and have information, so what he does is always justified. Always. Except we now learn that the government has always known that the overwhelming majority of those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay were never guilty of anything. Most of them were sold to our government in return for $10,000 and $30,000 bonuses that were offered as rewards for turning in really bad Taliban/alQaeda terrorists. And since our government couldn't tell a goat herd from a terrorist kingpin and since goat herds were easier to catch... well you can fill in the rest of the story. Could people really be as heartless and corrupt as to snatch a young man at random off the street and sell it to the crazed American invaders for a pile of money? Oh yes, there really are evil people in the world, trust me.
So that's the bad stuff we are coming to terms with and moving beyond. But at the same time there are wonderfully good things happening that make me just as proud. As they jockeyed for position to take a photo at the end of the G-20 Summit in London I could see Hu Jintao catch President Obama by the arm and help him up the podium in a friendly and familiar way. Three weeks ago Chinese sailors had stripped down to their underwear and were making obscene gestures at an American ship in the China Sea and the Chinese were suggesting that a new International Monetary system be created to replace the Dollar standard. Then Obama mediated in a dispute between France and China and all that stuff has just been forgotten.
And Michelle Obama? A huge hit in London. The Queen put her arm around her! apparently Queens are no very touchy-feely, but somehow, this was different. One strong woman recognizing another? who can say? And then Michelle went to an all-girls school. Nice speech, nice emotion, but watch this video and right toward the end there is a clip that will resonate all across the Middle East. Michelle gave a big hug to a school girl wearing an Islamic scarf/hood thingie. The hug heard round the world.
A big thing? Mmm, in more sane times, no. Right now? a very helpful thing. Not contrived, just something that happened, like other things that will happen in the future. Nicer and smarter people than we've had in the White House for a while. I'm feeling pretty good about things. Sure, there is that threat of a global recession/depression thing, but is it real? our entire economic system is interlinked. The French and Chinese and the Saudis are all part of the same global economy. No one can sneeze without the rest of us getting their cold. That's bad, and it's good. Everyone has a vested interest in trying to sort out this stuff and get things back on an even keel again. Everyone. That's good. And when we've made sense of this bullshit, maybe we can take the momentum on to tackle some other of the "global" things that everyone has been trying to blame on others or ignore. Me, I've always wanted an electric car or motorcycle. I'm ready. It's going to be okay.
Arthur
A lot has happened this week that has me enormously proud of my country, the country that I guess many of us took for granted, we feared that we had lost the essential core of, but that this week we seem to be recovering. Recovering very nicely, thanks.
Attorney General Eric Holder made a decision this week that all Americans should applaud long and loudly. Eric Holder is the "anti-24", the "anti-Fox-News" antidote that our legal system has been so badly needing. What did he do? He released a corrupt Alaska Senator, "Uncle" Ted Stevens, an aging bag-man in the long tradition of American politics where benefits are awarded not according to fairness, but because "back-handers" have or will be paid to someone in government who has the clout to steer a contract, or earmark, or massive public funds to an individual who is almost certainly not the best recipient of our government's money. And worse than that, the amounts paid are tiny compared to the huge amounts of public money pissed down a rathole in such deals. Randy "Duke" Cunningham was selling bogus government defense contracts (often for little or no actual work being done) in return for kickbacks of less than one percent. Sometimes far, far less. What does that mean? It means five million dollars would be wasted, in return for $30,000. Nice.
So there is not a lot to like about Ted Stevens. He clearly was a sleaze. But being a sleaze ought not to permit the government to put into the public record testimony they know to be perjured, in order to make it "easier" to prosecute a bad guy. Why is that so important? Because sometimes government is simply wrong, and it is not up to them to decide. It is up to a court, to a judge, to a jury. That's our system of justice, and it cannot work properly unless the court is given the actual facts of a case. Not fake testimony.
So Eric Holder, when he discovered the extent of "prosecutorial misconduct" decided to do something about it. In the Bush administration it might have called for (a) promoting the prosecution team (b) awarding them the Medal of Freedom (c) helping them run for Congress, or (d) introducing them to your daughters. Things are different now. Holder tossed out the case and will not file it again. He could have asked for a new trial, but stated that the scope of the prosecutorial misconduct was so great that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. Ted Stevens had lost his Senate seat, been dragged through the mud and is 85 years old. Holder felt, and I agree, that he had received sufficient a penalty for his crimes. The question now is, what happens to the prosecutors? This can't be a gold star on their resume, to say the least. And one option is disbarrment. That means losing their license to practice law in this country. That will make other prosecutors think twice before deciding that they "have to break laws to catch lawbreakers" without ever stopping to consider the irony of that statement.
So what does this do to the popularity of the television show "24" and Jack Bauer, who is such a genius that he KNOWS when people are lying and have information, so what he does is always justified. Always. Except we now learn that the government has always known that the overwhelming majority of those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay were never guilty of anything. Most of them were sold to our government in return for $10,000 and $30,000 bonuses that were offered as rewards for turning in really bad Taliban/alQaeda terrorists. And since our government couldn't tell a goat herd from a terrorist kingpin and since goat herds were easier to catch... well you can fill in the rest of the story. Could people really be as heartless and corrupt as to snatch a young man at random off the street and sell it to the crazed American invaders for a pile of money? Oh yes, there really are evil people in the world, trust me.
So that's the bad stuff we are coming to terms with and moving beyond. But at the same time there are wonderfully good things happening that make me just as proud. As they jockeyed for position to take a photo at the end of the G-20 Summit in London I could see Hu Jintao catch President Obama by the arm and help him up the podium in a friendly and familiar way. Three weeks ago Chinese sailors had stripped down to their underwear and were making obscene gestures at an American ship in the China Sea and the Chinese were suggesting that a new International Monetary system be created to replace the Dollar standard. Then Obama mediated in a dispute between France and China and all that stuff has just been forgotten.
And Michelle Obama? A huge hit in London. The Queen put her arm around her! apparently Queens are no very touchy-feely, but somehow, this was different. One strong woman recognizing another? who can say? And then Michelle went to an all-girls school. Nice speech, nice emotion, but watch this video and right toward the end there is a clip that will resonate all across the Middle East. Michelle gave a big hug to a school girl wearing an Islamic scarf/hood thingie. The hug heard round the world.
A big thing? Mmm, in more sane times, no. Right now? a very helpful thing. Not contrived, just something that happened, like other things that will happen in the future. Nicer and smarter people than we've had in the White House for a while. I'm feeling pretty good about things. Sure, there is that threat of a global recession/depression thing, but is it real? our entire economic system is interlinked. The French and Chinese and the Saudis are all part of the same global economy. No one can sneeze without the rest of us getting their cold. That's bad, and it's good. Everyone has a vested interest in trying to sort out this stuff and get things back on an even keel again. Everyone. That's good. And when we've made sense of this bullshit, maybe we can take the momentum on to tackle some other of the "global" things that everyone has been trying to blame on others or ignore. Me, I've always wanted an electric car or motorcycle. I'm ready. It's going to be okay.
Arthur
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