Month: April 2008

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing

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At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, and put Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would bring an end to the war. This was total war not in terms of killing civilians but rather in terms of destroying homes, farms and railroad tracks. Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the entire Confederacy from multiple directions: Generals George Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near Richmond; General Franz Sigel (and later Philip Sheridan) were to attack the Shenandoah Valley; General Sherman was to capture Atlanta and march to the sea (the Atlantic Ocean); Generals George Crook and William W. Averell were to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks was to capture Mobile, Alabama.

Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase (“Grant’s Overland Campaign”) of the Eastern campaign. Grant’s battles of attrition at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor resulted in heavy Union losses, but forced Lee’s Confederates to fall back again and again. An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was trapped inside the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Grant was tenacious and, despite astonishing losses (over 65,000 casualties in seven weeks), kept pressing Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia back to Richmond. He pinned down the Confederate army in the Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months.

Grant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan defeated Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early in a series of battles, including a final decisive defeat at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Sheridan then proceeded to destroy the agricultural base of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategy similar to the tactics Sherman later employed in Georgia.

Meanwhile, Sherman marched from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood along the way. The fall of Atlanta, on September 2, 1864, was a significant factor in the reelection of Lincoln as president. Hood left the Atlanta area to menace Sherman’s supply lines and invade Tennessee in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign. Union Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield defeated Hood at the Battle of Franklin, and George H. Thomas dealt Hood a massive defeat at the Battle of Nashville, effectively destroying Hood’s army.

Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman’s army marched with an unknown destination, laying waste to about 20% of the farms in Georgia in his “March to the Sea”. He reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah, Georgia in December 1864. Sherman’s army was followed by thousands of freed slaves; there were no major battles along the March. Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Confederate Virginia lines from the south, increasing the pressure on Lee’s army.

Lee’s army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant’s. Union forces won a decisive victory at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, forcing Lee to evacuate Petersburg and Richmond. The Confederate capital fell to the Union XXV Corps, composed of black troops. The remaining Confederate units fled west and after a defeat at Sayler’s Creek, it became clear to Robert E. Lee that continued fighting against the United States was both tactically and logistically impossible.

Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant’s respect and anticipation of folding the Confederacy back into the Union with dignity and peace, Lee was permitted to keep his officer’s saber and his horse, Traveller. Johnston surrendered his troops to Sherman on April 26, 1865, in Durham, North Carolina. On June 23, 1865, at Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nations’ area of the Oklahoma Territory, Stand Watie signed a cease-fire agreement with Union representatives, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down. The last Confederate naval force to surrender was the CSS Shenandoah on November 4, 1865, in Liverpool, England.

Entry into the war by Britain and France on behalf of the Confederacy would have greatly increased the South’s chances of winning independence from the Union. The Union, under Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward worked to block this, and threatened war if any country officially recognized the existence of the Confederate States of America (none ever did). In 1861, Southerners voluntarily embargoed cotton shipments, hoping to start an economic depression in Europe that would force Britain to enter the war in order to get cotton. Cotton diplomacy proved a failure as Europe had a surplus of cotton, while the 1860-62 crop failures in Europe made the North’s grain exports of critical importance. It was said that “King Corn was more powerful than King Cotton”, as US grain went from a quarter of the British import trade to almost half.

When the UK did face a cotton shortage, it was temporary, being replaced by increased cultivation in Egypt and India. Meanwhile, the war created employment for arms makers, iron workers, and British ships to transport weapons.

Charles Francis Adams proved particularly adept as minister to Britain for the Union, and Britain was reluctant to boldly challenge the Union’s blockade. The Confederacy purchased several warships from commercial ship builders in Britain. The most famous, the CSS Alabama, did considerable damage and led to serious postwar disputes. However, public opinion against slavery created a political liability for European politicians, especially in Britain. War loomed in late 1861 between the U.S. and Britain over the Trent Affair, involving the Union boarding of a British mail steamer to seize two Confederate diplomats. However, London and Washington were able to smooth over the problem after Lincoln released the two.

In 1862, the British considered mediation–though even such an offer would have risked war with the U.S. Lord Palmerston reportedly read Uncle Tom’s Cabin three times when deciding on this. The Union victory in the Battle of Antietam caused them to delay this decision. The Emancipation Proclamation further reinforced the political liability of supporting the Confederacy. Despite sympathy for the Confederacy, France’s own seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred them from war with the Union. Confederate offers late in the war to end slavery in return for diplomatic recognition were not seriously considered by London or Paris.

Since the war’s end, whether the South could have really won the war has been debated. A significant number of scholars believe that the Union held an insurmountable advantage over the Confederacy in terms of industrial strength and population. Confederate actions, they argue, could only delay defeat. This view is part of the Lost Cause historiography of the war. Southern historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly in Ken Burns’s television series on the Civil War: “I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back…. If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don’t think the South ever had a chance to win that War.” The Confederacy sought to win independence by out-lasting Lincoln. However, after Atlanta fell and Lincoln defeated McClellan in the election of 1864, the hope for a political victory for the South ended. At that point, Lincoln had succeeded in getting the support of the border states, War Democrats, emancipated slaves and Britain and France. By defeating the Democrats and McClellan, he also defeated the Copperheads and their peace platform. Lincoln had also found military leaders like Grant and Sherman who would press the Union’s numerical advantage in battle over the Confederate Armies. Generals who did not shy from bloodshed won the war, and from the end of 1864 onward there was no hope for the South.

On the other hand, James McPherson has argued that the North’s advantage in population and resources made Northern victory possible, but not inevitable. The American War of Independence and the Vietnam War are examples of wars won by the side with fewer numbers. Confederates did not need to invade and hold enemy territory in order to win, but only needed to fight a defensive war to convince the North that the cost of winning was too high. The North needed to conquer and hold vast stretches of enemy territory and defeat Confederate armies in order to win.

Also important were Lincoln’s eloquence in rationalizing the national purpose and his skill in keeping the border states committed to the Union cause. Although Lincoln’s approach to emancipation was slow, the Emancipation Proclamation was an effective use of the President’s war powers.

The more industrialized economy of the North aided in the production of arms, munitions and supplies, as well as finances, and transportation. The table shows the relative advantage of the Union over the Confederate States of America (CSA) at the start of the war. The advantages widened rapidly during the war, as the Northern economy grew, and Confederate territory shrank and its economy weakened. The Union population was 22 million and the South 9 million in 1861; the Southern population included more than 3.5 million slaves and about 5.5 million whites, thus leaving the South’s white population outnumbered by a ratio of more than four to one compared with that of the North. The disparity grew as the Union controlled more and more southern territory with garrisons, and cut off the trans-Mississippi part of the Confederacy. The Union at the start controlled over 80% of the shipyards, steamships, river boats, and the Navy. It augmented these by a massive shipbuilding program. This enabled the Union to control the river systems and to blockade the entire southern coastline. Excellent railroad links between Union cities allowed for the quick and cheap movement of troops and supplies. Transportation was much slower and more difficult in the South which was unable to augment its much smaller rail system, repair damage, or even perform routine maintenance. The failure of Davis to maintain positive and productive relationships with state governors (especially governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia and governor Zebulon Vance of North Carolina) damaged his ability to draw on regional resources. The Confederacy’s “King Cotton” misperception of the world economy led to bad diplomacy, such as the refusal to ship cotton before the blockade started. The Emancipation Proclamation enabled African-Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army. About 190,000 volunteered,  further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates, who did not dare emulate the equivalent manpower source for fear of fundamentally undermining the legitimacy of slavery. Emancipated slaves fought in several key battles in the last two years of the war. European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers too. 23.4% of all Union soldiers were German-Americans; about 216,000 were born in Germany.

Northern leaders agreed that victory would require more than the end of fighting. It had to encompass the two war goals: Secession had to be totally repudiated, and all forms of slavery had to be eliminated. They disagreed sharply on the criteria for these goals. They also disagreed on the degree of federal control that should be imposed on the South, and the process by which Southern states should be reintegrated into the Union.

Reconstruction, which began early in the war and ended in 1877, involved a complex and rapidly changing series of federal and state policies. The long-term result came in the three “Civil War” amendments to the Constitution: the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment, which extended federal legal protections equally to citizens regardless of race; and the Fifteenth Amendment, which abolished racial restrictions on voting.

Birth Of A Notion Disclaimer

SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper – a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads – highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville.

I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?)

This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America.

So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter.

candorcomment@sfchronicle.com

or

David Wiegand
Executive Datebook Editor
The San Francisco Chronicle
901 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

Freshman Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) is endorsing Obama. That brings Clinton’s lead in superdelegates down to 19. Meanwhile, the Politico reports:

Capitol Hill insiders say the battle for congressional superdelegates is over, and one Senate supporter of Barack Obama is hinting strongly that he has prevailed over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

While more than 80 Democrats in the House and Senate have yet to state their preferences in the race for the Democratic nomination, sources said Tuesday that most of them have already made up their minds and have told the campaigns where they stand.

“The majority of superdelegates I’ve talked to are committed, but it is a matter of timing,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “They’re just preferring to make their decision public after the primaries are over. … They would like someone else to act for them before they talk about it in the cold light of day.”

Obama currently holds an 18-13 lead among committed superdelegates in the Senate, while Clinton holds a 77-74 lead in the House. Asked which way the committed-but-unannounced superdelegates are leaning, McCaskill — who has endorsed Obama — said: “James Brown would say, ‘I Feel Good.’”

That 18-13 lead probably comes from DemComWatch’s chart, but by DemComWatch’s own list, the numbers in the Senate are: 16 for Obama, 15 for Clinton, and 19 undecided. I’m not sure why they list Obama as having 18, but Clinton is listed at 13 because Sens. Stabenow (D-MI) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) are currently disqualified. Sen. Jon Tester confirms that the arm-twisting has pretty much ceased.

Montana Sen. Jon Tester — one of the Democrats who has yet to commit publicly — said the campaigns “haven’t applied much pressure” of late. “I haven’t heard much, and it’s been a few weeks,” he said.

There may be a bit of gamesmanship in Sen. McCaskill’s remarks, but she doesn’t seem the least concerned about an avalanche of supers going to Clinton. After next Tuesday’s contests in North Carolina and Indiana, Obama should have a pledged delegate lead of about 166, and a superdelegate deficit of about nineteen. There will be 217 pledged delegates left to earn. Clinton can cut into that lead a little with wins in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico. Obama will probably offset those losses somewhat with wins in Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota. It’s not unlikely that Clinton might pick up a net gain of 10-20 pledged delegates after Indiana and North Carolina. To do that she will need to win Kentucky and Puerto Rico by large margins, while limiting her loss in Oregon. The contests in Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia (like Indiana) are unlikely to move the delegate count much in either direction, and they will probably offset each other.

It looks like Obama will probably finish with a lead of about 150 pledged delegates. Clinton would need to win the remaining superdelegates by an approximate 223-72 (76%) margin to secure the nomination.

Now that Pennsylvania has gone to the polls and voted (and seemingly validated my 85-73 prediction in favor of Clinton), I’ll be taking a stab at predicting the delegate allocation in North Carolina, the state that has the most delegates remaining. Looking at the polling average from the state, it’s obvious that Barack Obama has been leading in the polls by double digits over Hillary Clinton for some time now. While the most recent polls show some tightening – mostly as a result of Clinton gaining strength among white voters – Obama still holds a double-digit victory and should still win the state handily.

Below the fold, you’ll find by district-by-district breakdown of how I think the delegates will be allocated, accompanied with my commentary…
North Carolina (May 6th primary, 115 pledged delegates)

North Carolina is sandwiched between two states – Virginia and South Carolina – where Obama racked up impressive victories over Clinton (by 29% and 28%, respectively). It has a large African-American voting population, which will certainly help to contribute to Obama’s margin of victory. Given that at least 38% of registered Democrats are African-American, it’s almost a certainty that he will win the state in double digits, at the very least. Obama boasts the backing of 3 of North Carolina’s 7 Democratic House representatives – G.K. Butterfield (CD-01), David Price (CD-04), and Mel Watt (CD-12) – all of whom come from districts where Obama is sure to perform strongly. He also has been endorsed by a bevy of former backers of John Edwards, including Edwards’ national campaign chairman, Ed Turlington. Both major Democratic candidates running to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Mike Easley, Lt. Gov. Bev Purdue and State Treasurer Richard Moore, have also endorsed Obama.

While it is an uphill climb for Clinton to avoid getting blown out in the state, she did receive the endorsement of Easley this morning, which will provide her with a boost. Bill Clinton has also been touring the rural areas of the state extensively, doing up to 7 events a day in support of his wife (who’s running for president again?). This will probably help to drive up Clinton’s percentage of the vote in areas that probably weren’t going to tilt towards Obama to begin with. Still, it’s unlikely to help Clinton overcome the difficulties of winning a primary where a demographic that will make up at least a third of the voting population (African-Americans) will vote for Obama in overwhelming numbers.

NC CD-01: 6 delegates

This is a majority-minority district (it is 50.7% African-American) in the northeast corner of the state that borders Virginia and stretches (in a gerrymandered fashion) down the coastline. Unfortunately for Obama, this district has an even number of delegates (6 pledged delegates) that will make it exceedingly difficult to take away a lot of delegates from the district. He would need 75% to earn a 5-1 split, which makes this unlikely. Obama won 73% in the neighboring district in Virginia (CD-04), but he did manage to get more than 75% of the vote in many of the Virginia counties that border the district – even though it has less African-Americans. That being said, the district is more rural, and with the lowest median income in the state, the white voters are likely to split heavily in Clinton’s direction. Obama should definitely surpass the 58.5% to get a 4-2 split, though.

Allocation of CD-01 delegates
Barack Obama: 4 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 2 pledged delegates

NC CD-02: 6 delegates

Another district that is effectively split between rural and urban areas, there is still a sizable African-American population (30.4%), which may be enough for Obama to win a majority of the votes in the district. However, it likely won’t be enough to vault him over the 58.5% barrier to net an extra delegate. With a median income under the state average, he would need a boost from working-class white voters – which isn’t likely to happen.

Allocation of CD-02 delegates
Barack Obama: 3 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 3 pledged delegates

NC CD-03: 4 delegates

Another heavily gerrymandered district along the Atlantic coastline, it has a fairly scant African-American population (16.8%) in another district that has a relatively even split between urban and rural populations. It’s likely that neither candidate will earn the 62.5% needed to get the 3-1 split from this district, but if anyone were to have a shot, Clinton would definitely have the better shot. Obama has visited Greenville once, which is at the northern edge of the district.

Allocation of CD-03 delegates
Barack Obama: 2 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 2 pledged delegates

NC CD-04: 9 delegates

This district, which has the most delegates of any CD in North Carolina, once again plays to Obama’s strengths. It’s located in The Triangle, a highly educated and affluent region that contains the cities of Durham and Chapel Hill, along with the suburbs and exurbs of Raleigh. The median income is higher than the state average (almost $54,000, compared to the median of approximately $41,700 statewide), and it has two large universities (Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill) in the district. Its representative, David Price, has already endorsed Obama. While the district only has a 20.7% African-American population, the white voters in the district are wealthy and highly educated – a demographic that Obama will perform exceptionally well in. I doubt he will get the 72.22% needed to take 7 out of the 9 delegates, but clearing the 61.11% hurdle for a 6-3 split is virtually assured already.

Allocation of CD-04 delegates
Barack Obama: 6 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 3 pledged delegates

NC CD-05: 5 delegates

This district is towards the western portion of the state, which is the region where Clinton is likely to perform the best. It borders counties in Tennessee and Virginia where Clinton picked up close to 70% of the vote. White voters make up nearly 90% of the population, and in a district that is slightly below the median income and is on the outskirts of Appalachia, Clinton should perform particularly well here. However, I don’t think she will get the 70% needed for a 4-1 split at this time.

Allocation of CD-05 delegates
Hillary Clinton: 3 pledged delegates
Barack Obama: 2 pledged delegates

NC CD-06: 5 delegates

A district to the west of The Triangle, it is similar to CD-05 in that it is predominantly white (87.6% of the population), but it tends more to the middle class than the working class (the median income is slightly higher than the state average). It’s another district that is split between urban and rural areas. Clinton should be favored to net out the extra delegate, but she won’t get anywhere near 70% of the vote.

Allocation of CD-06 delegates
Hillary Clinton: 3 pledged delegates
Barack Obama: 2 pledged delegates

NC CD-07: 6 delegates

In the counties bordering this district in South Carolina, Obama generally performed well, although his performance in the most populous bordering county (Horry) was the only one he lost to Clinton (39-33). With a 23.2% African-American population, it’s possible that Obama can pull out a majority of the vote. That being said, I don’t think either candidate will break the 58.5% barrier for a 4-2 split.

Allocation of CD-07 delegates
Barack Obama: 3 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 3 pledged delegates

NC CD-08: 5 delegates

Obama is likely to net the extra delegate out of this district, given his strong performance in the South Carolina counties bordering the district. They make up a part of CD-05 in South Carolina, where Obama won a solid majority (55%) of the votes. With a 26.8% African-American population, it’s likely that Obama will pull a majority from the district, particularly given that about 69.4% of the district lies in urban areas. If Obama is the nominee, it could very well help put Larry Kissell over the top in his rematch against incumbent Republican Rep. Robin Hayes.

Allocation of CD-08 delegates
Barack Obama: 3 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 2 pledged delegates

NC CD-09: 6 delegates

This also borders South Carolina’s CD-05, where Obama performed fairly well. There are two opposing demographic factors, though: first, the district is much ‘whiter’ than CD-08 or its South Carolinian counterpart. However, it also is clearly an upper-class district (the median income is higher than that in The Triangle), which would seem to favor Obama. I’m going to call it even and say they will split the delegates, although I would give Clinton better odds at reaching 58.5% and getting 4 delegates from the district.

Allocation of CD-09 delegates
Barack Obama: 3 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 3 pledged delegates

NC CD-10: 5 delegates

This is unfriendly territory for Obama; with a small black population and a district that borders on Appalachia territory, Clinton is going to perform well here. It’s home to the odious Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry, and it’s one of the most conservative districts in the state. Given the tendency for conservative voters to go for Clinton in more recent primaries, it’s safe to say Clinton will net the extra delegate here. Obama should be able to surface above 30% to maintain the 3-2 split, but it’s not out of the question that it may not happen.

Allocation of CD-10 delegates
Hillary Clinton: 3 pledged delegates
Barack Obama: 2 pledged delegates

NC CD-11: 6 delegates

Home to the very conservative Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler, this is a district that would be a bloodbath except for the presence of Asheville, a liberal oasis that voted for (wait for it) Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 primaries. The rest of the district is likely to vote heavily for Clinton. However, she needs 75% to earn a 5-1 split, and given that the Asheville metro region will probably have 35-40% of the Democratic primary votes, it won’t happen. I still fully expect Clinton to break 58.5% and get a majority of the delegates, though.

Allocation of CD-11 delegates
Hillary Clinton: 4 pledged delegates
Barack Obama: 2 pledged delegates

NC CD-12: 7 delegates

This heavily gerrymandered district, represented by Obama backer Rep. Mel Watt, stretches from Charlotte in the south to Winston-Salem in the north. An urbanized district with almost a 45% African-American population, Obama is going to win this district big. He should have no trouble reaching the 64.3% needed to get a 5-2 split of the delegates.

Allocation of CD-12 delegates
Barack Obama: 5 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 2 pledged delegates

NC CD-13: 7 delegates

This district, represented by netroots favorite Rep. Brad Miller, was newly-created after the 2000 census gave North Carolina another congressional seat. With the district being solidly middle-class and with a 27.1% African-American population, Obama should be favored to net out the extra delegate. It includes the major urban centers of Greensboro and Raleigh and encircles The Triangle (which, as aforementioned, will go heavily for Obama). That being said, Obama will likely fall well short of the 64.3% needed for 5 delegates.

Allocation of CD-13 delegates
Barack Obama: 4 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 3 pledged delegates

At-Large Delegates (26 delegates) and Pledged PLEO Delegates (12 delegates)

The latest polling averages show Obama with a 16% margin or so on Clinton, although there are a fair number of undecideds. The important thing to note is that Obama has been above 50 in every poll (except for the latest SUSA, which I believe is an outlier), while Clinton fails to break 40 (except, again, in SUSA). Given that Obama cleaned Clinton’s clock in the two states to the north (Virginia, by a 64-35 margin) and the south (South Carolina, by a 55-27-18 margin), he should be expected to do reasonably well. Clinton will perform better because she has been paying attention to North Carolina more than either of those states, but she is still looking at a shellacking in the popular vote. As of now, I’ll give Obama a 16% margin of victory, 58-42. The delegate split is as follows:

Allocation of at-large delegates
Barack Obama: 15 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 11 pledged delegates

Allocation of pledged PLEO delegates
Barack Obama: 7 pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 5 pledged delegates

Conclusion

For now, I forecast Barack Obama to come away from the North Carolina primary with 63 pledged delegates, compared to a haul of 52 pledged delegates for Hillary Clinton. This will wind up virtually erasing Clinton’s advantage from her Pennsylvania victory (where she will net out either 10 or 12 delegates, depending on the final reported results from Pennsylvania’s CD-07). If Clinton picks up 6 delegates from Indiana, as I had previously predicted, Obama will net out 5 delegates for the day – thus extending his lead in the pledged delegate count to 166 pledged delegates (based on his website’s delegate counter). With only 217 pledged delegates in the contests remaining afterwards, Obama will be guaranteed to come out ahead in the pledged delegate count. This victory in North Carolina – regardless of the outcome in Indiana – will likely be the final nail in the coffin for the Clinton campaign.

Before I address the best- and worst-case scenarios, I’d like to talk about SUSA’s latest poll of North Carolina. One reason I feel the results are off is the results from The Triangle. SUSA has Clinton up 9, which seems a bit absurd given the inherent strengths Obama has in the region. Compare it to the results of PPP’s latest poll, and it shows Obama leading by 21 in the area code (919) that makes up the region. While SUSA has a good record this primary season, PPP is based in North Carolina, and I am therefore more inclined to believe their results (after all, if they can’t poll their own state, what good are they?). All of the other polls in North Carolina (reasonably reliable ones like Rasmussen, along with unreliable ones such as ARG) are more in line with PPP’s numbers, so it’s likely that SUSA is using a different voting model that is generating outliers.

The last note is that both SUSA and PPP show early voters coming in heavily for Obama: SUSA has Obama winning those voters 57-39, while PPP has him up 63-31. While these are relatively minuscule numbers (they make up 2% of SUSA’s polling), it means that Obama could build up a pre-Election Day advantage that makes it difficult for Clinton to overcome (similar to what happened to Obama in California).

Best-case scenario for Obama

It’s possible that Obama could pull off a 4-2 split in CD-02 if his campaign can do stellar GOTV with the black vote. PPP’s polling shows Obama with a large lead in the 910 area code (southeast NC), which could mean he will get a 4-2 split in CD-07. If the campaign can also make sure he racks up large margins in Asheville, it is also possible (albeit highly unlikely) that he could force Clinton below the 58.5% threshold, making the district a 3-3 split. If he is able to run up the popular vote to margins closer to what he earned in Virginia (where he got 64%) as opposed to South Carolina (where he got 55%), he can pick up an extra at-large and pledged PLEO delegate. A victory of this magnitude (say, 63%-37%) would result in Obama netting out 21 delegates with a 68-47 margin.

Worst-case scenario for Obama

Clinton is going to lose this state, but the margins could close if Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” voters, combined with the state GOP’s ad featuring Rev. Jeremiah Wright, take their toll on Obama in the next week. I don’t suspect it will have much effect, but it could help drive up Clinton’s numbers in districts favorable to her. If she can pull off 4-1 splits in CD-05 and CD-10 – which are in the western portion of the state – along with narrowing Obama’s vote in The Triangle such that he only wins by a 5-4 margin, it will halve Obama’s delegate lead. Throw in a narrowing of the popular vote margin to single digits (let’s say 54-46 Obama), and she picks up a delegate in both the at-large and pledged PLEO count. This would result in a 59-56 delegate split in favor of Obama – something that the press would be sure to spin as a loss, even if the overall delegate math is largely unaffected by what happens in these contests at this point.

Obama has spent a few days down in North Carolina, seeking to shore up his base of support. While both campaigns are fighting hard in this state, Obama is likely to win it. Given that his campaign has far more offices on the ground compared to Clinton, has been set up in-state for longer, and has favorable demographics, he’ll win the primary here – and it should effectively end Clinton’s realistic chances at the nomination. A blowout would help negate any negative effects of a potential loss in Indiana, and it would reinforce the math – which cannot be avoided – even more.

(Cross-posted from Daily Kos)

This article called Tough Love for Israel will appear in the May 5, 2008 edition of The Nation (requires a subscription to read in full). Here is a fair use introduction. Its author, Henry Siegman, is typical of Nation authors: they have a well-developed habit of telling the truth. In this case it is about politicians who appear willing to pretend that what is going on in Israel-Palestine is not going on.

Pretending about Israel’s intentions is a favorite pastime of American politicians and politicians elsewhere, and that would seem to include all of the current presidential candidates. Says Seigman below, Israel has “never had the intention of allowing a Palestinian state to come into being.” Or, as Jimmy Carter put it a few nights ago on the Charlie Rose Show, “Israel wants land not peace.” And Israel is apparently willing to continue killing and uprooting Palestinians to achieve its goal.

We now have word that Tony Blair, envoy of the Middle East Quartet (the UN, the EU, Russia and the United States), and German Chancellor Angela Merkel intend to organize yet another peace conference, this time in Berlin in June. It is hard to believe that after the long string of failed peace initiatives, stretching back at least to the Madrid conference of 1991, diplomats are recycling these failures without seemingly having a clue as to why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is even more hopeless today than before these peace exercises first got under way.

The scandal of the international community’s impotence in resolving one of history’s longest bloodlettings is that it knows what the problem is but does not have the courage to speak the truth, much less deal with it. The peace conference in Germany will suffer from the same gutlessness that has marked all previous efforts. It will deal with everything except the problem primarily responsible for the impasse. That problem is that for all the sins attributable to the Palestinians–and they are legion, including inept and corrupt leadership, failed institution-building and the murderous violence of rejectionist groups–there is no prospect for a viable, sovereign Palestinian state, primarily because Israel’s various governments, from 1967 until today, have never had the intention of allowing such a state to come into being.

It would be one thing if Israeli governments had insisted on delaying a Palestinian state until certain security concerns had been dealt with. But no government serious about a two-state solution to the conflict would have pursued, without letup, the theft and fragmentation of Palestinian lands, which even a child understands makes Palestinian statehood impossible.

Another thing most of our politicians pretend about is America’s complicity in the human rights tragedy going on today in Gaza. Speaking at the American University in Cairo after his trip to Syria (reported by Reuters), Jimmy Carter again told it like it is:

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive.

Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being “starved to death”, receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.

“It’s an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It’s a crime… I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on,” Carter said.

So not everyone is willing to pretend for Israel’s sake.

Is the Clinton campaign stealing a page out of Karl Rove’s book on “How to Slime Your Opponent in 10 Easy Lessons?” Or is the GOP behind a series of peculiar robo-calls in North Carolina targeting African American households highly similar to ones which occurred during the Virginia primary and in Ohio last year? (h/t to Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend):

As reported yesterday in the Raleigh News & Observer, African-American households are receiving anonymous robo-calls with misleading information about voting. Facing South has now learned that those calls are very similar to tactics recently used in Virginia and Ohio, suggesting they may be linked to a national voter deception strategy.

In one North Carolina call, the caller falsely states that voters must send in a “voter registration packet” before voting. The State Board of Elections released a transcript of the call (you can also listen to it at the Democracy North Carolina website):

“Hello, this is Lamont Williams. In the next few days, you will receive a voter registration packet in the mail. All you need to do is sign it, date it and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return the voter registration form when it arrives. Thank you.”

Facing South has learned that voters in Virginia received calls with the same message before that state’s Feb. 12 primaries — although, the Virginia State Board of Elections curiously viewed it as an attempt at identity theft, not voter disenfranchisement. […]

Something tells me this has nothing to do with identity theft. That it also occurred in the days leading up to the Virginia primary points the finger of suspicion directly at the Clinton campaign. Virginia was another state in which African American turnout was expected to be high, and after the South Carolina results, was expected to break heavily for Barack Obama (which it did). That similar calls were made last year prior to a November election in Ohio is some evidence that perhaps Clinton are not behind this effort.

However, it may just be that someone in her campaign (or acting on its behalf) hired the services of the group that made those earlier robo-calls. Or this may be just typical GOP dirty tricks since we know they would rather run against Clinton in the Fall than against Obama, if only to bolster turnout of their base, who hate Clinton with a passion. We’ll probably never know for certain, but the fact that nearly identical and highly deceitful calls were made in two states in which black support for Obama is critical to his victory is cause for alarm.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination, expect to see a lot more of this type of voter suppression effort this Fall. If Clinton wins, she should also expect to see targeted calls to African Americans reminding them how she sabotaged the Obama candidacy during the primaries, with the intent of degrading her support among black voters as well as suppressing their turnout overall (a message to which the African American community would be highly susceptible after what’s occurred during the primary campaign). This would have a very deleterious effect, not only on Clinton’s chances to win the general election, but also on down ticket races.

And I used to think 2004 was the nastiest election campaign I’d ever seen, one which could never be topped. Silly me.

Eastern Spinebill.

One of our most plain-colored but otherwise lovely nectar feeding birds.  
OK, so I’m a bit early this week.  Luna and I visit a nursing home on Thursday, and since we’re down Hobart way, we also run errands and go for a walk at the Montrose Forshore park (a designated dog park).  Hence the recent spate of late postings. So today (Wednesday evening) I thought I’d get a jump on things.

I just get the feeling that people aren’t going to be too pleased to learn about this:

Two oil giants, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, announced record profits yesterday totaling $17 billion in the first three months of the year. Exxon Mobil is expected to smash its own previous records for quarterly corporate profits tomorrow. Average gasoline prices, meanwhile, have surged to a new high of $3.60 per gallon.

If you thought the war in Iraq would provide us with cheap gas, you were wrong. If you thought the war in Iraq would bring record corporate profits to the oil giants, you were right.

It’s a curious thing. Put a Texas Oil Man in the Oval Office and the same stuff keeps happening. But no matter how many times we try it, land wars in Asia are always a bad idea.

This weekend, we attended a local conference for LGBT parents and families, and I spoke on a panel about interracial couples and intercultural families. At some point, I found myself speaking less as a gay dad and more as a black man raising two black sons, and wondering aloud just how I would prepare them for the reality of what they will likely face as black men, and how I will prepare them for that without catalyzing what I know is an inevitable loss of innocence; the same innocence I love to see in them, and so want to protect as a parent.

But I know that I will be doing them a disservice as their father if I don’t prepare them for the reality I’ve experience myself, and that they will both have to face in their own time. It’s no surprise that in the middle of the panel discussion, I remembered an exchange I had with my own father.

I was in college at the time. I’d been home for a weekend visit, and was heading back to school — at the University of Georgia, in Athens, GA. As I made several trips back and forth, loading up the car, my dad sat on the couch, watching television. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I caught my dad looking at me with what appeared to be concern, as though he was trying to decide whether to say something to me about it.

Finally, I finished loading the car, and said my goodbyes. But my dad stopped me before I could make it out the door and finally spoke his concern.

“Son,” he asked, “is that what you’re wearing to drive back to Athens?”

I was wearing my basic school “uniform” at that time: a ripped pair of old, faded jeans, and a old t-shirt.

“Um, yeah,” I said.

My dad then breathed a sigh that seemed a mix of resignation, exasperation, and trepidation over what he was about to tell me — what he had to tell me, really.

“Son,” he said, “You are going to be driving through a lot of southern counties. Now, I’m not saying you’re going to do anything wrong. But you are a young black man, and if you get pulled over by one of these southern sheriffs or policemen, they are going to take one look at you and get the wrong idea. They’re not going to treat you like they would a white boy dressed like that.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to argue with him, and say that stuff like that may have happened when he was my age, but it certainly didn’t happen anymore. Instead, I unpacked some clothes, and changed into a pair of khakis and a buttoned-down oxford, which met with dad’s approval.

I was still thinking about my dad’s words when I got back to UGA. After unloading the car and carrying everything up to my room, I turned on the television. At some point, the news came on and I saw this.

My father wasn’t even one-year-old when the young black men who became known as the Scottsboro Nine were falsely accused of rape, and plunged into an ordeal that would last decades. My father was about 16 years old when the nation’s last mass lynching happened in rural Georgia. My father was 25 years old and newly married when Emmett Till was murdered.

He lived through times when the life of a black man, especially in the south, wasn’t worth a “plug nickel.” He lived through times when his life as a black man wasn’t’ worth a plug nickel. He lived, like so many men before him, knowing that there were people who would think no more of snuffing out his life than killing a fly, and that there were people who would set them free afterwards. He lived knowing that it could happen, even if he wasn’t doing anything wrong. It could happen just because he happened to be a black man, and happened to be in a particular place at a particular time. Any time. Any place. Any day.

My dad had lived with that reality, and I think he was trying to make me aware that I lived with that reality too. He had to, because he knew — and had probably seen with his own eyes — the danger of not being aware of that; the danger of taking for granted that the world would meet and treat me no differently than anyone else.

My father’s eyes had seen things I had never seen and could not imagine then, or even now. I did not have my father’s eyes, and he knew that. He also knew that I needed them and that I wouldn’t have them unless he spoke. It was a legacy he had to pass on to me, for my own good.

Several years later, I was living in Washington, D.C., and found myself driving home late one night. I was giving a fraternity brother of mine, also a black male, a ride home after a late night fraternity event. My car wasn’t in the greatest shape. I’d been in a traffic accident just a few days before, and hadn’t taken it to be repaired because I needed to drive it that weekend.

We were driving past the Capitol when we got pulled over. I saw the flashing lights, and as soon as I heard the siren I pulled over. By then, I knew the drill. Don’t argue with the officers. Don’t get out of the car unless they tell you to. Get out of the car if they tell you to. Answer any questions with “Yes, officer,” or “No, officer,” give them any information they ask for, and maybe — just maybe — you won’t have any trouble. Still, what happened then was a bit surreal.

As the officer came up to my window, I said a silent prayer that my fraternity brother — Neal, who was known for having a sharp tongue and a willingness let it loose — would keep cool. The officer asked for my license and registration. She asked if I knew why she stopped me, and I said no. She said it was because one of my tail lights wasn’t working, and agreed with me when I said it was probably a result of the accident I had a few days earlier. She seemed to believe me when I told her I didn’t know about the tail light.

I thought maybe she’d give me a ticket or a warning, and give my documents back to me. Instead, she walked back to her car and got on her radio. I wasn’t worried, because it wasn’t like I had an outstanding warrant or anything more than a couple of unpaid parking tickets. But while she was in her car, another police car pulled up, and two more officers got out.

In my rear view mirror, I saw the officer who stopped us get back out of her car, at the same time that I saw yet another police car pull up. At this point, I started to get nervous — after all there we were, two black males, driving through D.C. at 4 a.m., in a banged up car, with the police units and six police officers now at the scene. Depending on any number of factors, including what we said or did, it might not matter if we’d done anything wrong.

“Is this your vehicle?” the officer asked me when she arrived back at my window. “We’ve had some car thefts reported in this area.”

I assured her that it was my car, and she stepped away for a moment to confer with one of the other officers now milling about the scene. At that moment, a police van showed up, and stopped alongside the passenger side of the car. Neal, who hadn’t said a word up to this point, looked at the van, looked at me and just said “What the…”

I finished his sentence silently, in my mind.

The officer, at this point, was back at my window. “Sir,” she asked me, “do you have the title to the vehicle.”

How many people keep the title to their car in the car itself? I didn’t know, but I knew that I did have the title in the car. I knew just where it was. It was in my briefcase, which was in the trunk of the car. I knew that in order to retrieve the title, I’d have to get out of the car — and with at least eight officers now pretty much surrounding us — walk over to the back of the car, open the trunk, open the briefcase, and retrieve the title.

What if, I thought, just one of these officers thought I was reaching for a gun at any point in that series of steps? That I had no gun — had never even owned one, in fact — was and would have been meaningless in that moment. It wouldn’t have mattered.

This was about four years before the Amadou Diallo shooting, but just about two years after the death of Malice Green. So, I knew we were one misunderstanding, one miscommunication, one hesitation, one angry word, one hint of resistance, one moment of frustration away from being another one of those stories.

I told the officer that I had the title, and that it was in my briefcase, in the trunk of the car. I told her I’d have to get out of the car, open the trunk, and open the briefcase to get the title out and show it to her. She gave me the go ahead, and I walked around to the back of the car, opened the trunk, opened the briefcase, and got the title. I don’t remember if the officer followed me, and I didn’t look to see if any of the officers had their hands on their weapons. I couldn’t.

I showed the officer the title. She looked it over, handed it back to me, and told me to get back in the car. The van drove away, and one of other police cars drove away. Finally, the officer came back to my window.

“I’m giving you a warning,” she said. “You take him home, get yourself home, and then I don’t want to see you driving this car again in this condition.”

I assured her that she wouldn’t.

“Alright,” she said. “Have a good one.”

I rolled up my window, and started the engine. To this day, I am eternally grateful that Neal waited until the windows were rolled up and we were driving away from the police officers to exclaim — well out of their earshot — “Have a good one? F___ you!”

I laughed, out of sheer relief, but I understood that there was a moment back there when we could have been “another Rodney King.” We could have been “another Malice Green.” We could have been Amadou Diallo, or even Abner Louima.

And now, as I remember that night, I know we could have been Sean Bell too.

Bell, 23, had just left his stag party at a club in Jamaica, Queens, when he was shot and killed on November 25 2006.

Two of his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were also wounded as the three plainclothed police detectives opened fire on Bell’s car.

All three of the men in the car were unarmed and the shooting – which recalled a 1999 episode in which an unarmed immigrant, Amadou Diallo, was shot dead by police – brought fierce criticism of the detectives.

But after a seven-week trial, Judge Arthur Cooperman ruled that the three police officers, Michael Oliver, 36, Gescard Isnora, 29, and Marc Cooper, 40, bore no criminal responsibility for the death of Bell or the wounding of his friends.

…However, the New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who had been critical of the shooting, said that the judge had followed his duty to decide the case on evidence presented in his courtroom.

“There are no winners in a trial like this,” he said in a statement. “An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief of those who knew and loved Sean Bell.”

Oh, but there are winners in a trial like this. The winners are the officers who walked out of the courtroom, never to bear legal consequences for actions leading to the death of a young man who should be alive today. The officers will return to their lives. However changed those lives will be, they have them to return to.

They will return to their families. They will return to their children. They will very likely see those children grow up and — if they’re fortunate — live to hold their grandchildren in their arms. Sean Bell will not, though there is no good reason why. So, yes, there are winners in this trial. And there are losers. To say “Nobody wins,” diminishes the magnitude of loss experienced by Sean Bell’s family.

Under the right circumstances, I could be Sean Bell and people could be expressing the same outrage.

Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to “close this city down” to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.

“We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians,” Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. “This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.”

Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell — a black man — and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.

The rally at Sharpton’s office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem’s main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out “Kill the police!”

Fifty of the marchers carried white placards bearing big black numbers for each of the police bullets fired at Bell and his friends.

Sharpton urged people to return for a meeting this coming week “to plan the day that we will close this city down” with the kind of “massive civil disobedience” once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Why shouldn’t the city come to a halt? Why shouldn’t they march and shut down the city? Why shouldn’t there be a peaceful demonstration of outrage; justified outrage at an absolute lack of justice?

Sure, depending on your perspective, the system worked just the way it’s supposed to.

The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution ensures that we have the right to a trial by a jury of our peers in a serious criminal case. But as with all rights, you can voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently waive that right and instead have your case tried by a judge.

That is what Michael Oliver, Marc Cooper and Gescard Isnora did. Many thought it was a gamble. It was a gamble that paid off.

Justice Arthur Cooperman, a 74-year-old bench veteran, acquitted all three detectives. The public is outraged. But it shouldn’t be. Cooperman did what we ask every juror to do: consider and determine the facts of the case — that is, what he believed to be the true facts — from among all of the evidence in the case.

Again, that there are “no winners” in a case like this is a misstatement, at best, that serves as an attempt to blunt outrage. It’s the flip side of calls to redirect that outrage at less specific targets.

…The history of policing in America really is the history of race relations. So, if the takeaway from this is that there’s no problem because the police weren’t convicted, then that would be tragic and that would be completely missing the point. This was an operation that was extremely problematic, and every effort has to be made to make sure it never happens again.

This really is a legal case more than your ordinary criminal case, because the law of self-defense is very favorable to the police. I think what they were trying to avoid was the possibility that a jury of individuals might say, well, with so many charges, we have to convict them of something. New York law allows police … to make pretty serious mistakes and still not be criminally liable, because the state has to disprove any justification beyond reasonable doubt–which is a very high standard. A judge has to put himself in the police’s shoes and look at the case through their eyes. With the jury, the concern would be that the jury would say, well, let’s compromise. But this judge saw that if you have doubts about whether the cops are completely justified, then, following the law, you must return a not guilty verdict, which is what he did.

…The larger message is that there’s an over-reliance on the criminal-justice system, and that that has really fallen in a whole host of ways on minority Americans. This is just one example. And it’s really not fair or decent to blame the cops–they’re not the ones who create the system that we have. The outrage that should really be sparked by this event should be over how we have a system where so many minorities end up on the receiving end of our criminal-justice system? Why are they constantly on the receiving end? Can’t we have a more balanced and a more just approach, and a more decent and humane approach?

The problem is that the target for outrage is amorphous, faceless, and too esoteric to inspire the kind of passion — or focus — that a case like this one does.

And it does little to address the specific injustice in this case. Sure, a jury probably would have recognized that injustice. A jury, or at least a significant number of jurors, wouldn’t have felt right about letting that injustice go un-addressed, and probably would have wanted to charge the officers with something, rather than let those responsible for Bell’s death walk out of the courtroom and back to their lives. A wrong was done to someone, and a life lost as a result; circumstances that usually call for

Mayor Bloomberg can say “there are no winners” in a case like this, but there are victims; victims who have not and most likely will not get anything even approaching justice.

Black male lives are meaningless in America,” a female friend just texted me, and what can I say to that? Who’s going to help Nicole Paultre Bell, Sean Bell’s grieving fiancé, explain to their two young daughters that the men who killed their daddy are not going to be punished?

I am willing to bet that at least half of all African American families, somewhere in their history, have a story of at least one male family member who was lynched or murdered, or at least have passed down stories of what happened to young men in their communities. They know, too, where an incident like this probably wouldn’t happen, and who it wouldn’t happen to.

Real talk: this tragedy would have never gone down on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan or in Brooklyn Heights. I am not just speaking about the judge’s decision, but the police officer’s actions. Those shots would have never been fired at unarmed White people sitting in a car. Until we understand that racism is not just about who pulled the trigger in a police misconduct case, but is also about the geography of racism, and the psychology of racism, we are forever stuck having the same endless dialogue with no solution in sight.

My dad never spoke of it, but I’m willing to bet as he was growing up he knew someone, or heard about someone, who met that same fate. He probably thought about that as he saw me about to walk out the door to drive back to school. I couldn’t, in that moment, see myself through my father’s eyes. Instead, he looked at me and saw all the others who’d gone before me, out of their own front door; those who are now just plain gone.

Can my dad be blamed for thinking that so little had changed? Can anyone be blamed for thinking that the more things change, the more they stay the same?

William Bell showed the most frustration. At one point, while everyone stood and chanted, he sat stiff-jawed in his seat, his elbows on his knees and his fingers interlocking. Later, he stepped to the microphone and said, “Is this 1955 Alabama?”

Is it? It’s easy to say “things like that don’t happen anymore.” But we all know better. I was raised on it, and even when my father reminded me that I — as a black male — would not be treated the same as a white male my age, I knew enough not to even try to say he was wrong.

He wasn’t wrong then, and he isn’t wrong now. And if the day comes when I must have the same conversation with one of my sons that my father had with me that day, will I be wrong? Will that marrow-deep intuition — that knowing — finally be wrong?

It isn’t, yet.

Crossposted from The Republic of T.

Actually that should read “Cheney More Powerful than a Donkey Congress!” How do I know this? Because Cheney’s lawyer told me so, and she told the donkeys in Congress, too, in a letter written in response to the House Judiciary Committee’s request that Cheney’s Chief of Staff, David Addington, voluntarily agree to appear before the Committee and testify about his role in promoting the use of torture at Gitmo:

(cont.)

The letter of April 11, 2008 from the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives (“Committee request”) informed the Office of the Vice President that the Committee plans to hold a hearing on May 6 to explore: (1) “issues regarding the nature and scope of Presidential power in a time of war,” (2) “the Administration’s approach to these questions under US and international law;” and (3) “United States policies regarding interrogation of persons in the custody of the nation’s intelligence services and armed forces.” The letter invited the Chief of Staff to the Vice President to appear at the hearing. […]

As the U.S. Supreme Court made clear in Barenblatt V. United States, 460 U.S. 109 (1959), the power of Congress under the Constitution to inquire (which Members of Congress and congressional employees often refer to by the term “oversight”) is coextensive with its power to legislate. The power of Congress to legislate is not limitless and therefore is neither the power to inquire. For example, Congress lacks the constitutional power to regulate by a law what a Vice President communicates in the performance of the Vice President’s official duties, or what a Vice President recommends that a President communicate in the President’s performance of official duties, and therefore those matters are not within the Committee’s power of inquiry. In addition to a constitutional basis for a House inquiry, a particularly committee of the House also needs jurisdiction assigned by the House for the inquiry. It would be helpful to know from the Committee the scope of the Committee’s inquiry and the legal basis for it.

That’s the great thing about lawyers. They know so many different ways to say “F*** you!” without actually coming out and saying it so directly. Certainly more ways than the Vice President himself apparently knows. So I suppose the Honorable John Conyers should count his lucky stars Cheney delegated this response to his legal staff. He could have delivered it personally.

And please, no jokes about torturing Cheney’s staff. This is a family values blog after all.