Convictions : George W. Bush

Presidents and poetry: Slam round 6

Diane Marie Amann — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:47:00 GMT

First by picking up the gauntlet I'd thrown down, and then by arguing that President George W. Bush is the most Shakespearean of The 43, Kenji's made 2 immeasurable contributions to this month's Convictions Poetry Slam.

I tend to agree with Kenji that the overt mixing of poetry and law can be ill-advised: adding the former often will not enhance analysis in the latter. Yet the deployment of poetry – or any literary reference, for that matter – serves to reveal something about the legal writer who deploys it. Justice Harry A. Blackmun's homage to Casey at the Bat, no less than Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's tribute to Barbara Frietchie in the 1st flag-burning case, told much about each author's approach to the subject matter at bar. Some observers may not welcome what is revealed; these 2 examples, for instance, might be seen as evidence that a Justice lacked detachment and thus engaged in less than rational reasoning. (That conclusion is not inevitable – consider those studies that refute the commonly held assumption that emotion clouds jurors' judgment.) Adding literature to law may serve, moreover, to make more humanly accessible a process seldom understood by those humans whom it most affects.

Kenji's right, too, that the best law poetry may be those lines that we commit to memory not because of some intentionally catchy cadence, but rather because their simplicity belies a deeper social meaning. The warnings set forth in Miranda v. Arizona surely qualify. Another nominee jumps to mind. It is the essence of another opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren, a line on which Brown v. Board of Education and all its progeny depend. If I may be indulged a bit of verse, it is:

Separate

educational facilities

are

inherently unequal.

As for W., the verbal contributions that Kenji cites link this President with another W. besides Shakespeare. To this ear, the inestimable "misunderestimate" inevitably recalls "normalcy," the once-abnormal word for which America owes a debt to President Warren G. Harding.

Shame Games

Diane Marie Amann — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:18:00 GMT

For three decades now the U.S. Department of State each year has issued a report on the human rights practices of other countries throughout the world. It does so to comply with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, §§ 116(d), 502B(b); that is, at the behest of Congress.

Last week State issued its 2007 Country Reports, assessing the promotion of human rights, or the lack thereof. The reports range from A to Z—Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, with 194 nation-states in between.

"Countries in which power was concentrated in the hands of unaccountable rulers remained the world’s most systematic human rights violators," State's introduction declared. Succeeding paragraphs then cited North Korea, Burma/Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Eritrea, and Sudan as the worst-of-the-worst.

Duly raising eyebrows: the absence of China from this list.

Far from complimentary, the introduction's account of China's behavior included mention of interference with religious freedom and the imprisonment of activists, writers, and lawyers. Still, China was not listed among the worst-of-the-worst, but rather immediately after reference to "authoritarian countries that are undergoing economic reform" and "have experienced rapid social change but have not undertaken democratic political reform and continue to deny their citizens basic human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Among those criticizing this human-rights-upgrade-of-sorts was Sophie Richardson, Asia Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch. According to Agence France-Presse, she urged that the Country Reports ought to be complete and sufficiently critical of the full spectrum of human rights violations, and adding that

if this decision 'signifiies that the State Department is paying less attention to chronic violations of human rights in China, yes, that is a problem.'

Also a problem: what some might surmise are the reasons for the differential treatment.

The worst-of-the-worst list includes those members of the international community with which the United States has its most tense relations. China has a different status. (See posts here and here and here.) It's a huge trading partner and a potential hegemon in its own region and those as farflung as Africa.

Indeed, unlike the United States or Europe, for that matter, China's policy is not to tie human-rights-compliance strings to the considerable foreign aid it hands out; what's more, China lashes out at the United States every year that it's called on America's human-rights-compliance carpet. This year in particular, it's host to the Summer Olympic Games, an Olympics that U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged to attend.

A realist understands that U.S. officials might feel a tension between Congress' human rights command and China's unique status. And yet, with yesterday's post from IntLawGrrl Naomi Norberg, and with headlines like this one in Sunday's Times of London—"Fears of another Tienanmen as Tibet explodes in hatred"—even a realist has cause to question the choice that the United States appears to have made.

(cross-posted at IntLawGrrls blog.)

So Where Is Colin Powell?

Doug Kmiec — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:55:00 GMT

The Republicans have a problem: John McCain.

Oh, he's a military hero and all, and despite a wife who seems to lurk over him—well, everywhere (Spitzer could have used such a mate)—he is our courageous, if economically unschooled, nominee. I say "our" since I am still counting myself a Republican so long as I'm not the last guy in the party who believes in a constitutionally limited government; the defense of all individual rights, civil and economic; and a balanced budget (ha, ha, ha, ha). It's not at all clear to me that McCain is for those things, but I know this: He is the only nominee capable of withstanding physical torture should the next president be taken hostage.

Of course, except for a handful of Navy Seals, few of the rest of us are up to the mental torture of Bush III (or is it WW III?) once we have deployed all those troops that we don't have a la south Korea all over the planet—for how long is it? A hundred years? A thousand?

A nominee whose main calling cards are making the Bush tax cuts permanent, chatting up the surge, and telling long-unemployed Michigan auto workers to forget about working ever again wins the vote of Steve Forbes, General Petraeus, and maybe Mitt Romney, who benefited from McCain's confession of economic dunceness but who would have every Mormon right to sit on his hands if he wants to.

The fact is average Americans never saw the tax cut (or if they did, they don't remember it), the surge works about as well as duct tape, and the economy could use someone who might actually be willing to reduce, not aggravate, the trillions already borrowed and spent for unfunded entitlements like Social Security and an unjust war. Of course, the IRS stimulus check is in the mail (well, once I fire up the TurboTax it will be), and it will no doubt arrive just in the nick of time to buy something frivolous, like a tank of gas.

Yes, the GOP is in great shape. As the defeat of the Republican offered up to succeed the eminently forgettable, one-time Majority Leader Dennis Hastert for the safest of safe House seats in the country revealed, the public can hardly wait to send an electoral thank you. Who wouldn't be grateful for an administration that sullied America's international standing, bungled us into a tragically costly war, and accomplished little other than the firing of its own U.S. attorneys without cause just to prove—well, hey, it's the president's constitutional prerogative to act foolishly.

So, Democrats, take your time. Call each other names, play the race card and the gender card. You're not missing anything important. The only chance the Republicans have of winning any district outside Orange County, Calif., (if that) is to track down Colin Powell. Not because he's black necessarily—though that's helpful when you're likely competing against a Lincoln-esque, Kennedy-esque, Martin Luther King Jr.-esque guy who could teach Benjamin Disraeli a thing or two about political speechifying. FYI, Geraldine Ferraro, it was Disraeli who pointed out that "eloquence is the child of knowledge." So, yes, Mrs. F, whatever was the point of your racial swipe, Obama would still have merited the public's attention. In any event, Powell is the best bet for VP since he had the presence of mind to keep the Persian Gulf War within its internationally imposed limit, to reject (or at least resist) virtually all of the overstated claims associated with the "war on terror" that put us on the wrong side of the Geneva Conventions, and, well, Bush effectively fired him—which, is surely the best credential of them all.

Good luck, Democrats, fielding your own dream team. We've got ours—well, half of it at least, if Alma Powell's cool with it. Maybe we could keep Cindy McCain from making those fascinating faces behind John long enough to make the case.