(OK, full disclosure: my first diary here.)
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine; and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular… We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. – Edward R. Morrow.
The Gang of 14* (listed below) struck a deal not to use the “nuclear option” to blow up the Senate and to filibuster judicial nominees only under extraordinary circumstances. The nomination of Samuel Alito to SCOTUS now requiresus all to revisit that dubious agreement. Since this bi-partisan coalition did not specify what “extraordinary circumstances” might entail, let’s review some potential, qualifying indicators. So far, at least, the Gang seems to be intact, but still unenlightened about what may constitute the extraordinaire.
The question is this: are “extraordinary circumstances” determined by a single candidate, an issue, an incident, a question, a detail, or a combination of incidents, events, and facts that constitute circumstances. To anyone even remotely engaged in current affairs over the last five years, the times have indeed been extraordinary. The following (roughly in chronological order) seem not only to qualify for that singular designation, but also–in context–to constitute extraordinary circumstances:
READER DISCRETION ADVISED: LENGTHY TIMELINE BELOW
The Election of 2000. A Presidential result literally “on hold” for more than a month, while discussions of “hanging chads, pregnant” chads, and undervotes swirled across media airwaves while the Supreme Court decided who could or could not be considered a “winner.” An unprecedented event.
President Bush formed a task force nine days after his inauguration to develop a national energy policy, with Vice President Cheney at the helm. Members of the task force kept secret from the public, though it was widely known that Bush administration officials sought extensive advice from utility companies and the oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy industries, and incorporated their recommendations, often word for word, into the energy plan.
“Ten days in, and it was about Iraq,” wrote David Suskind, in The Price of Loyalty, reporting for Paul O’Neill, Treasury Secretary and a member of the National Security Council.
“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” said Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.” At cabinet meetings, O’Neill says the president was “like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection,” forcing top officials to act “on little more than hunches about what the president might think.”
President proposes tax cuts. Comprehensive effects here. Timeline of precipitating disasters here:
Vice President refuses to release information about secret energy policies and meetings, despite numerous FOIA requests and filings.
9/11/01
October 7, 2001: A War in Afghanistan (in pursuit of Bin Laden)
In early November 2001, a small group of White House officials worked in great secrecy to devise a new system of justice for the new war they declared on terrorism. Officials bypassed federal courts and their constitutional guarantees, giving the military the authority to detain foreign suspects indefinitely and prosecute them in tribunals not used since
World War II. How Guantánamo and the new military justice system became an intractable legacy of Sept. 11 remains largely hidden from public view.
The President refuses to appoint an independent commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks.
The Age of Enron comes to an end. (And Arthur Andersen, followed by WorldCom, and Global Crossing, and Tyco, and Adelphi, and . . . as the veil lifts on corporate fraud, greed, and accounting practices.)
In the spring of 2002, under order from a federal judge, the U.S. Department of Energy released to NRDC roughly 13,500 pages, heavily censored, relating to previously secret proceedings of the Bush administration’s energy task force.
The President reverses himself on appointing an investigative Commission,then refuses to fully fund the effort, extend the deadline for investigating, and denies the Commission access to PDBs (Presidential Daily Briefings).
Judy Miller–“woman of mass destruction”–runs amok” at the NYT, promoting the Administration’s agenda by publishing false information, along with paid propagandists Jeff Gannon, Armstrong Williams, Margaret Spellings, et. al, . . . . begin promoting the Administration’s agenda (without full disclosure).
White House Iraq Group formed. (August 2002)
In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of the Bush administration gave a series of
speeches and interviews in which they asserted that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. Speaking to a group of Wyoming Republicans in September, Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States now had “irrefutable evidence” – thousands of tubes made of high-strength aluminum, tubes that the Bush administration said were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges, before some were seized at the behest of the United States. The tubes were “only really suited for nuclear weapons programs,” Condoleezza Rice, the president’s national security adviser, explained on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
President makes false claims in his 2003 SOTU Address about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program, including efforts to purchase yellow-cake uranium from Africa.
A small group of House neo-conservatives blocks vote on enacting the 9/11 Commission recommendations.
Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster
A War in Iraq (a pre-emptive attack): March 19, 2003.
War in Iraq timeline.
Three 160,000 year old human skulls unearthed in Ethiopia bridge an important gap in the human fossil record and lend support to the “out of Africa” single origin theory of human evolution.
The World Meteorological Organization publishes a report stating that recent extreme weather conditions worldwide may indicate changes in global climate caused by global warming.
A single-celled microbe, of the domain Archaea, is found to be able to survive at 121°C (250°F), making it the life form that can tolerate the highest temperature. The microbe, temporarily named Strain 121, found 200 miles away from Puget Sound in a hydrothermal vent, may provide clues to when and where life first evolved on Earth.
According to The Center for Public Integrity,a research organization, firms awarded contracts in Iraq have typically been large donors to the United States Republican Party.
The United States Senate passes a defense appropriations bill which explicitly forbids the Department of Defense from spending any money on Terrorist Information Awareness research, effectively putting an end to the Information Awareness Office.
In September, 2003, Scott McClellan denies any White House officials were involved in CIA leak to reporters.
President Bush proposes a change in United States Fish and Wildlife Service regulations which would allow American citizens to travel abroad to capture, kill, and import endangered species. The regulation would not allow Americans to do the same to endangered species inside the United States.
Between 110,000 (according to the police) and 300,000 (according to the organization) people demonstrate in and around Trafalgar Square in London against the war in Iraq and George W. Bush’s state visit.
The November 28 issue of the journal Science reports that the United States is not sufficiently prepared to respond to an influenza pandemic.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself and his office from the CIA leak scandal, in which the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, was leaked by Washington insiders.
The President refuses to fully fund NCLB.
Condoleeza Rice refuses to testify to the 9/11 Commisssion, with the WH claiming compromises to “executive privilege” and national security.
April 7, 2004, the WH reverses itself on Rice testifying.
Torture revealed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in photos released around the world.
The President again cuts funding for the Army Corps of Engineers and levee projects in the flood-prone Gulf Coast (See 2001 budget cuts above). FEMA participates in an exercise simulating a CAT 5 Hurricane hitting New Orleans, but fails to follow resultant recommendations.
The WHIG (White House Iraq Group) and the Vice President’s office aggressively pursue secret, orchestrated attempts to discredit and undermine critics of the war in Iraq, including outing a CIA covert agent.
A General Accounting Office (GAO) report charges that video news releases promoting the new Medicare law and distributed by the Bush administration violated two federal laws. The videos were given to several local TV news stations and featured actors playing reporters and using scripts prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). (May, 2004)
FBI investigates Halliburton being awarded no-bid contracts worth over $7 billion to help rebuild Iraq. The process for awarding this rare and lucrative contract was coordinated by Dick Cheney’s own office in the White House.
The Iraqi interim government reports that nearly 380 tons of the world’s most powerful conventional explosives are missing from a former military installation.
Election 2004: Government of, by, and for Republicans, who gain control of the House, the Senate, and the WH, despite evidence of fraudulent voting machines, methods, and voter suppression. [Fast Forward to 2005: all three branches are under indictment or investigation (DeLay, Frist, Libby, et al.).]
The House changes the rules of the Ethics committee to allow indicted leaders to remain in leadership positions.
President nominates Bernard Kerik for Director of Homeland Security. (12/03/04)
Defense Missile for U.S. System Fails to Launch, an important test of the United States’ fledgling missile defense system.
First Command Financial Services, one of the best-known companies marketing financial products to military families, agrees to pay $12 million to settle accusations that it used misleading information to sell mutual funds to thousands of military officers over the
last five years.
Bernard Kerik withdraws his nomination amid revelations that his household employee is an illegal immigrant and he filed questionable tax returns. (12/11/05)
The President awards the Medal of Freedom to George Tenet, Tommy Franks, and Paul Bremer, for their failed efforts in Iraq.
The President re-nominates 12 appointees to the federal appellate court who have already been rejected by the Senate.
Fall of the House of Ethics: House suspends Ethics Committee oversight responsibilities.
GOP proposes increasing the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
February 10, 2005 – The National Security Archive posts the widely-debated, but previously unavailable, January 25, 2001, memo from counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, the first terrorism strategy paper of the Bush administration. Central to debates in the 9/11 hearings over the Bush administration’s policies and actions on terrorism before September 11, 2001, Clarke’s memo requests an immediate meeting of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee.Despite Clarke’s request, there was no Principals Committee meeting on al-Qaeda until September 4, 2001. The memo bears a declassification stamp of April 7, 2004, one day prior to Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission on April 8, 2004. Responding to claims that she ignored the al-Qaeda threat before September 11, Rice stated in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed, “No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration.”
Terry Schiavo (the name says it all). Congress interferes.
The House forced to reverse itself on suspending the ethics rules.
Republicans attempt to dismantle SS during the first months of the new Administration and continue to push privatization. Democrats dig in and protect the people: this time they WIN.
President appoints John Bolton as Ambassador to the U.N. in a recess appointment,despite two failed efforts to get the nomination through the Senate.
Hurricane Katrina (by any system of measurement, extraordinary).
President Bush suspends the Davis-Bacon act, which guarantees minimum wage for workers re-building on the Gulf Coast.
Tom DeLay indicted on charges of criminal conspiracy and money laundering.
Federal audiors find WH guilty of using covert propaganda to pay reporters to push the Administration’s education policies in “news” releases. (October 1, 2005)
On October 3, the President nominates his White House Counsel, Harriet Miers to SCOTUS, despite lack of qualifications. After considerable conservative backlash, Miers withdraws her nomination three weeks later, on October 27th.
United Methodist Church condemns War in Iraq and calls for withdrawal of troops. President Bush and VP Cheney, both members of this church. Resolution to end the War in Iraq.
2,000 Americans dead in Iraq.
Ocotober 28, 2005: Vice-President Chief of Staff I. “Scooter” Libby is indicted on 5 counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and giving false statements–the first time since 1875 that a sitting White House official has been indicted. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald identifies Karl Rove as another source of reporters’ information provided to reporters covering the CIA leak scandal.
Tom DeLay demands that a Democratic judge be disallowed to judge him. (11/05)
President Bush nominates an activist right-wing judge, Samuel Alito, to SCOTUS.
Rosa Parks, arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus, lies in state with honors in the Capital rotunda, preceding her funeral on November 2, 2005.
U. S. Senate’s oversight responsibility obliges it to hold the Executive branch accountable, but must invoke Rule #21 to go into closed session to do it on November 1, 2005.
November 3, 2005: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has to tell Dick Cheney to clean house.
We are dismayed that you have chosen to ignore bi-partisan calls for a thorough house cleaning after the recent indictments and resignation of your Chief of Staff, and instead promoted two staffers who have themselves been connected with the Plame affair.
The long view disturbingly recalls that well-known Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” Some would also say, they have been extraordinary. Perhaps what ultimately constitutes the extraordinary is simple: individual conscience, courage, and an honest vote.
*Gang of 14: Byrd, Inouye, Landrieu, Lieberman, Nelson, Pryor, Salazar, Collins, Chaffee, DeWine, Graham, McCain, Snowe, Warner
[Note: consider this a work in progress, and add your own examples. Most of these are off the top of my “cortex.” Notable exclusions are the numerous Bush appointments, resignations, continued cronyism, corruption, and multiple versions of official reports.]
Originally posted at Political Cortex
