alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

July 23, 2008

Cass Sunstein is Creeping Me Out

by AltHippo @ 12:21 pm. Filed under Life in D.C., 2008 Elections, impeachment

Prof Turley is without doubt one of the most admired legal eagles in our fair city, the People’s Republic of DC. In this case, though, I’m hoping he has mischaracterized the relationship between Obama and Cass Sunstein, aka Mr. Samantha Powers. As far as I can tell, Sunstein is a creepy dude.

This quote from Sunstein has been going around lately. You may have seen it:

Prosecuting government officials risks a “cycle” of criminalizing public service, [Sunstein] argued, and Democrats should avoid replicating retributive efforts like the impeachment of President Clinton — or even the “slight appearance” of it.

It’s kind of ironic that Sunstein wrote a book called Republic.com 2.0. If he had read the slightly older Republic.com 1.0, he would have recognized that Justice is a fundamental attribute of the ideal city. Ideal, of course, in the Platonic sense. The idea that the Executive branch should not be accountable for crimes, high or low is so offensive to our notion of justice that I find it hard to believe that a Harvard Law professor would broach the subject. Well, Harvard, maybe. They can be kind of weird.

As one of Turley’s commenters asks:

Sunstein is a lawyer? Where’d he get his degree? Costco?

Look, Sunstein: there is public service, and there is crime. They are not the same thing. It’s apples and oranges. Public service simply cannot be “criminalized.” A person holding public office who uses that office to commit crimes is not in public service but in self service.

I’ll note that Sunstein doesn’t refer to himself as a “close advisor” to Obama, as Glenn Greenwald had put it: (Salon)

You’re sounding a bit like Barack Obama. He was your colleague for a while, right?

Yes, 10 years. And I’m an informal, occasional advisor to him.

I’ll tell you what I like about Obama, which is connected with the book. He really doesn’t like to surround himself only with like-minded others. He really is someone who has never lived and wouldn’t live in an echo chamber.

While I’d prefer “he thinks I’m an idiot” to “informal, occasional advisor” at least it’s something.

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October 15, 2007

Compare and Contrast: Accountability Edition

by AltHippo @ 2:37 pm. Filed under impeachment, democrats

Nancy Pelosi:

In an interview Oct. 9 with nationally syndicated liberal radio host Ed Schultz, Pelosi defended previous statements in which she had promised that “impeachment was off the table.”

“I don’t see a connection between this and impeachment,” Pelosi said, asked about a newly released secret memo on US interrogation tactics. A moment later, she side-stepped a repeat of the same question by elaborating on her goal to “bring the country behind a return to an America that honors the vision of our founders.”

“I don’t see that impeachment is in furtherance of bringing the people together in that way,” she said.

General Ricardo Sanchez (retired):

Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leaders involved in the management of this war? They have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these type of leaders would immediately be relieved or courtmartialed.

What Pelosi calls “bringing the people together” is a favorable Democratic outcome in 2008, at whatever price that entails. She doesn’t understand that people have a fundamental need to live in a just and equitable society. To betray that need is just the opposite of a “return to an America that honors the vision of our founders.” The effect of her inaction is that the Chief Executive can do whatever he wants without consequence.

That is not what our founding fathers had in mind.

Update: Sanchez quote lightly stolen from Dan Froomkin’s column.

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95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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