Evolution Happens In The Unlikeliest Of Places

Caption: A rotary printing press that looks to be from the early 20th Century. It's now an exhibit in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, in Paris.

Image credit: Carol Guillaume/Photopedia

Glenn Greenwald published an interesting article yesterday on an opinion piece by CNN reporter LZ Granderson. Granderson's essay extols the virtues of government secrecy, and the respect that journalists like him, apparently, have for it:

We are a nosy country.

Though to be fair, it's not entirely our fault. Between the 24/7 news cycle, social media and reality TV, we have been spoon fed other people's private business for so long we now assume it's a given to know everything. And if there are people who choose not to disclose, they must be hiding something. Being told that something's "none of your business" is slowly being characterized as rude, and if such a statement is coming from the government, it seems incriminating.

Times have changed. Yet, not everything is our business. And in the political arena, there are things that should be and need to be kept quiet.

Don't be nosy about Fast and Furious

Greenwald referred to this as a "self-mocking" column. What he meant by that isn't that Granderson is being sarcastic writing what he did. Rather, he thinks that Granderson really believes it. I've read the column in its entirety, and I have to agree that it looks like Granderson is serious. If what has actually happened here is that we've ventured into Poe territory, where it's impossible to tell the difference between an honestly expressed opinion and parody, then it probably makes little difference, because, as Greenwald points out, there are so many other journalists who clearly do believe this with all their hearts:

Recall that on the day that WikiLeaks began publishing diplomatic cables — revealing all sorts of deceit, corruption and illegality — CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was completely indifferent to the revelations themselves, but was furious that the U.S. Government allowed these disclosures to take place and thus forced him and his viewers to learn what the U.S. Government and its allies were doing in the dark. Or recall the debate I had with CNN’s Jessica Yellin and Fran Townsend in which both insisted that WikiLeaks should be criminally prosecuted for the leaks it enabled. Or just survey the bizarrely personal, unprofessional and falsehood-filled expressions of contempt for Assange that have been spewing forth from the British media class, many of whom (not coincidentally) were and are ardent, public supporters of the war policies he helped to expose and subvert and, more generally, religious believers in the inherent Goodness of the West and its governments’ conduct in the world.

CNN journalist: don’t be nosy

The sad fact is that journalists like Granderson, or at least, the LZ Granderson who wrote that column (see Afterword), are the successful products of the journalistic ecosystem in which they find themselves. They certainly are not an aberration, and given the way things work in DC and America generally, no one should be surprised.

To see why, let's sidestep for a moment into the question of what evolution really is. Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould once wrote that evolution was the spread of excellence.

A Bit Of Fresh Air

Besides its changes to science policy, there's one other thing I can now say unequivocally is better under the Obama Administration than the previous one:

The air inside the Los Angeles Patients and Caregivers Group was pungent with the aroma of premium hydroponic marijuana, but the proprietor, Don Duncan, said on Thursday that he was breathing a bit easier.

A day before, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had said that the federal authorities would no longer take action against medical marijuana dispensaries if they were in compliance with state and local laws.

While 13 states, including California, have laws allowing medical use of marijuana, they had not been recognized by the federal government.

Dispensers of Marijuana Find Relief in Policy Shift

The Bush Administration's position was that medical marijuana was illegal despite local laws to the contrary. This led to a lot of wasted time in court, and, as the article indicates, made dispensing marijuana according to local laws a hazardous enterprise.

While the best solution would be federal legislation that legalizes marijuana use, this at least will allow the Department of Justice to spend more time doing something useful in court.

Holder: Waterboarding Is Torture

As contrasts between Attorney General candidates go, you can't get much more stark than this:

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's choice for attorney general broke with the Bush administration to call waterboarding "torture" and vowed to fight financial fraud at his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Eric Holder also addressed a major criticism by Republicans and acknowledged that he had erred when, as a deputy attorney general, he supporting a pardon by former President Bill Clinton for a fugitive financier, Marc Rich.

Obama Justice Pick Breaks With Bush On Waterboarding

At least, I hope it doesn't get any more stark, because when one guy who's been a judge and a prosecutor can't be bothered to look up court precedent on torture, while another can, it's as different as I ever wanted things to get. Contrast that quote with what I wrote about Bush's pick to replace Abu Gonzalez, Michael Mukasey:

It's hard to imagine anyone could have studied law, been a judge for eighteen years, and have not formed an opinion on whether waterboarding is torture. Yet, the current nominee for the post of U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has said just that before the Senate Judiciary Committee. As a lawyer, he should be familiar with the fact that we tried people as war criminals after World War II for using waterboarding, among other forms of torture:

Within the legal and academic community there has been a good deal of discussion of water torture in various forms under the general rubric of “water boarding.” See, generally, Karen Greenberg, Ed., The Torture Debate in America, Cambridge University Press (New York, 2005). There has been no mention, however, of past American government pursuit and prosecution of individuals who inflicted such treatment on U.S. military personnel (the trials of Japanese war criminals after World War II) or of American service members who indulged in the technique (the Philippine insurgency hearings).

Drop by Drop: Forgetting The History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts (pg. 5)(PDF)

That's an excellent title, because we do seem to have forgotten all about what is and is not torture recently.

Mukasey And Torture

No doubt, Holder's critics will point out that he was stating the obvious when he admitted that the Rich pardon was a mistake. That's certainly true. In contrast to his predecessor, though, at least Holder can recognize the obvious.

Hearings On Holder Thursday

Image credit: National Archives This is the Constitution. It's going to need some help in the coming days, and you can be a part of it.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold hearings on the nomination of Eric Holder to be President-Elect Obama's Attorney General on Thursday. Apparently, Arlen Specter and other Senators had a trip planned (PDF), or committee chairman Pat Leahy would have scheduled it earlier. In return for that consideration, it appears that Specter is promising to resist the nomination.

In an e-mail to my real-world self, People For The American Way wrote:

You may have seen some of the news coverage already. Holder's critics are citing his role in some of President Clinton's last-minute pardons. But even Holder's Republican supporters -- of which he has many, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, Solicitor General Ted Olsen and James Comey, the former Bush administration deputy attorney general who tried to fight DOJ approval of the NSA's warrentless domestic spying program -- acknowledged that even if Holder made some mistakes in the past, he learned from them and will be a good attorney general.

The real opposition to Holder comes from those who want to use his confirmation process as a proxy fight for future judicial confirmation battles, including for the Supreme Court. And in the last few weeks, leading right-wing voices like Karl Rove, Vice President Cheney and many on FOX News have been making the case that broad surveillance powers and loose restrictions on detainee treatment and interrogation techniques (that's a euphemism for torture) are the only way to protect America from terrorists. Holder is with us in resisting those objectionable arguments, and we're confident he will fight for our values and our rights as Americans if confirmed as attorney general.

I share some of the reservations about Holder. Nevertheless, he's on record as being against torture, rendition, and unlimited surveillance of the sort that the Bush Administration have been engaging in. That the folks who brought us the last eight years of darkness are against him strikes me as a great recommendation.

Karl Rove and the other apologists for torture and the violation of our rights keep insisting that this is what's necessary to keep us safe. Frankly, I'm far more worried that we won't be safe from our government, and unless the Attorney General is willing to stand for the rule of law on these issues, we won't be.

With that in mind, and the thought that no nominee is likely to be perfect, I encourage folks to sign PFAW's online petition and, if your Senator is a member of the Judiciary Committee, write him with your concerns.