Rafique's blog

"They’re just lawyers doing what lawyers do, presumably for the same weird mix of reasons that lawyers take on other pro bono cases. But that’s the point: There’s nothing exceptional about their decision to represent detainees."

Orin Kerr schools Andrew McCarthy (and by extension, Liz Cheney). HT: Think Progress

The President was will within his rights to do this, and as Justice Alito was well within his rights to respond, so was the Chief Justice.

"It would be the cleanest and least-deadly war in the history of warfare. Even some of Israel’s harshest critics should understand that."

Michael Totten, on the successful op against Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh:

Hamas and Hezbollah use civilians as human shields. Hezbollah uses an entire country as a vast human shield. Some critics, for various reasons, are more interested in lambasting Israel than the terrorist organizations it’s fighting. That’s easy when you live in New York or Brussels. People in the Middle East have to live with (or die because of) what happens. How Middle Easterners fight wars isn’t political or academic to me. I’ve never been inside Gaza, but I once lived in Lebanon, I travel there regularly, and there’s a real chance I’ll be there when the next war pops off. I’d rather not be used as a human shield if that’s OK with those who give Hamas and Hezbollah a pass. And I’d much rather read about Hezbollah leaders getting whacked by mysterious assassins with forged passports than dive into a Beirut bomb shelter during Israeli air raids.

Me too. Read the rest. I get the certain people are vexed that the Israelis didn't follow some sort of protocol, and used forged passports when they decided to successfully take out, without any collateral damage at all, a man whose organization of unrepentant war criminals who deliberately target civilians, among other things, but I fail to see what rules were really broken here, except the rule that seems to be increasingly the norm, in certain circles, per the Goldstone Report, that it is a war crime for sovereign nations to defend their territory, but not a war crime to attack said territory.

I mean, maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't think so...

ADDED: I understand that Australians are not pleased that forged Aussie passports were used, but my argument still stands.

AND: Alan Dershowitz wrestles with the question, and comes to pretty much the same place as Totten does.

and Robert Gibbs is his press secretary, so I think this is on target.

This sort of thing has the problem of not only making you look small (it's the Presidency, for Christ's sake), and making you appear weak (as if the White House sweats Palin so much, that they need to mock her at press conferences).

It's just beneath you. Really.

I agree with this:

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the president’s criticism of the court’s decision, although as Linda Greenhouse points out, he was less than precise in his description of the holding. But there was also absolutely nothing inappropriate about the justice’s reaction to him. Both the president and the justices are political actors, and all are entitled to screw up their faces and grumble in public as they see fit. Anyone who’s watched Alito at oral argument at the high court knows that he screws up his face and mutters to himself all the time.

The suggestion that he was showboating or grandstanding last night is spectacularly unfair. Unlike several of his colleagues, Alito is meticulously polite, balanced, and measured on the bench, and goes out of his way to shun big drama. I’m sure if Alito could take it back this morning he would. I’m equally sure that if he attends the next SOTU at all, he won’t move so much as a muscle.

As I see it, despite it being unorthodox, the President was hardly that out-of-bounds to challenge the Court in such way. That being said, if Obama is going to choose to challenge the justices directly, I think Alito (or any one of them) had the right to respond.

HT: The Daily Dish

TNR's Jonathan Chait takes it further (HT via the Dish again), and as referenced in the above quote, unlike Joe Wilson, Alito was correct.

The Saints have done it.

Unfortunately, so did the Colts, but the Jets were outplayed.

It's over. Coakley has conceded.

Discuss.

[This post is sticky until Monday, January 18th. New posts will appear below.]

This story broke hours ago, but a massive 7.0 quake has rocked the country of Haiti. Power appears to be out all over the country, and casualty reports are unconfirmable at this point. More at the link.

Lift up Haiti and the Haitian people in your prayers. More to follow.

Added [Simon]: the Vatican's ambassador to Haiti offers a first-hand account of what happened. In the wake of a disaster, the victims' material needs naturally rush to the forefront of our minds. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people are now in immediate need of rescue, care, shelter, and sustenance. But man does not live on bread—or bricks—alone, and this disaster is compounded, because as the story reports, "Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot [was killed] as he was buried under rubble along with hundreds of priests and seminarians." 80% of the population are Catholic, so the population may have been deprived of many of the resources needed to tend to their spiritual needs in the long aftermath of this catastrophe. Please pray for the people of Haiti, and please donate; here's a place to begin:

From Christopher Hitchens, part of a must-read interview with Michael Totten.

ADDED: Part II.

In light of the latest media-circus scandal fueled by hysteria and fake outrage, over Harry Reid's inartful, inelegant, and sloppy comments, I just wanted to add some quick thoughts, and this, from the indispensable John McWhorter( HT: The Daily Dish):

First of all, we need not pretend that by “Negro dialect” Reid meant the cartoon minstrel talk of Amos n Andy. After all, why would Reid, a rational human being under any analysis, be under the impression that any black person talks like Uncle Remus, much less be surprised that one of them does not? My guess is that he said “negro” in a passing attempt to name Black English in a detached, professional way, randomly choosing a slightly arcane and outdated term. Or, consider that Negro English was what scholars called “Ebonics” until the early seventies. Reid likely caught wind of that terminology -- he's been around a while, after all.

and this:

Indeed Reid implied that black dialect is less prestigious than standard, such that not speaking it made Obama more likely to become President. That is, he implied what we all think too: Black English is, to the typical American ear, warm, honest -- and mistaken. If that’s wrong, okay – but since when are most Americans, including black ones, at all shy about dissing Black English? And who among us -- including black people -- thinks someone with what I call a "black-cent" who occasionally popped up with double negatives and things like aks could be elected President, whether it's fair or not? Reid, again, deserves no censure for what he said unless we're ready to censure ourselves too.

and he closes out:

Reid implied that Black English is lesser than standard English and that it’s therefore good that Obama doesn’t use it in public. This is not about whether black people have to sweat to speak standard English; it’s about whether Black English is as good as standard English. Most of America black as well as white is at the exact same point in understanding vernacular speech and its proper evaluation as Reid is.

For which reason most of America should leave him alone about this and move on.

Indeed. Read the whole thing. Now for my money, Reid's comments were a messy, inartful, and off-putting way of touching on a debate that Americans of all colors are having to this day. It would be great if that debate could be furthered somehow, yet as usual, that debate has been replaced by the usual sideshow.

Two things: First off, the GOP equation of this with the Trent Lott incident is spectacularly, mind-numbingly off-base. Can someone explain to me, even if you shine Reid's comments in the worst possible light, how acknowledging the fact that Obama is light-skinned, and doesn't speak Black English, compares to waxing poetically about voting for a segregationist in 1948? It's not even close, and what makes this worse, is that I think the GOP leadership knows this.

Secondly, one could ignore all this, and simply do as Liz Cheney does, and simply see this as liberals excusing other liberals. Or one could be sensible, and acknowledge context, much like unhinged left-winger George Will.

Now, make no mistake, politics is surely involved on the Democratic side as well, as I suspect a substantial factor in the rally behind Reid has to do with needing him in the Senate. That being said, the Dems have the benefit of being right on the merits, while the GOP's political cynicism is so obvious as not need pointing out. Michael Steele's own past efforts are proof of that.

In case you were wondering, the terrorist whose life sentence was commuted in order that he could go home and die, because he only had about ninety days to live?

He's still alive.

In responding to this wholly problematic, and downright strange piece by Jennifer Rubin, David Frum explains the problem a number of people have with Sarah Palin:

Let’s start with the cagily phrased claim that Palin “identifies with” working class voters. Obviously nobody can know what goes on inside Palin’s head. But if it’s meant to suggest that Palin actually originates in the working class, well that’s flat-out wrong by almost any definition.

Palin’s father was a high school teacher, her mother a public school administrator. Her mother’s brother was a lawyer, an official of the Texas state bar, and later a judge. In a state where many workers had to fear seasonal unemployment, her family enjoyed the security of a public-sector white-collar salary, benefits, and pension. The Heaths were not rich, but they were comfortable and respectable – much more so than, say, the family of young Bill Clinton, who if I remember right, did quite OK among Jews.

and this, which really nails it:

But even this is not the worst of it. Just guessing, but I think the real and most fundamental problem Jews have with Palin is not her gleeful ignorance, but her willful divisiveness. More than any politician in memory, Palin seems to divide her fellow-Americans into first class and second class citizens, real Americans and not-so-real Americans. To do her justice, she has never said anything to suggest that Jews as Jews fall into the second, less-real, class. But Jews do tend to have an intuition that when this sort of line-drawing is done, we are likely to find ourselves on the wrong side.

Read the rest.

HT: The Daily Dish

There are a great deal of outrageous criticisms against the current health care reform plan, and there are a number of really good ones. This, by Bob Herbert (no foolin') is one of the good ones:

The bill that passed the Senate with such fanfare on Christmas Eve would impose a confiscatory 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, which are popularly viewed as over-the-top plans held only by the very wealthy. In fact, it’s a tax that in a few years will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care.

Which is exactly what the tax is designed to do.

Within three years of its implementation, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax would apply to nearly 20 percent of all workers with employer-provided health coverage in the country, affecting some 31 million people. Within six years, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax would reach a fifth of all households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually. Those families can hardly be considered very wealthy.

Proponents say the tax will raise nearly $150 billion over 10 years, but there’s a catch. It’s not expected to raise this money directly. The dirty little secret behind this onerous tax is that no one expects very many people to pay it. The idea is that rather than fork over 40 percent in taxes on the amount by which policies exceed the threshold, employers (and individuals who purchase health insurance on their own) will have little choice but to ratchet down the quality of their health plans.

Read the whole thing. As much as I want health care passed, this is not a good thing, and it's not the only problem.

HT: Althouse

This is not good:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that "the system worked."

Asked by CNN's Candy Crowley on "State of the Union" how that could be possible when the young Nigerian who has been charged with trying to set off the bomb was able to smuggle explosive liquid onto the jet, Napolitano responded: "We're asking the same questions."

WTF? Shouldn't you have known that beforehand? If you cannot figure out how Abdulmutallab made it on the plane, and failed to keep him off the plane, then the system didn't work, at least not this time. Rather, the attack failed, in spite of the system, and because of alert citizens on the plane.

You know, I'm not prepared to go this far, but (and I don't say this lightly), Jonah Goldberg has a point.

HT: Althouse

UPDATE: Napolitano concedes the error.

I am thoroughly convinced that this new controversy about the suspect ornaments on the White House Christmas tree is, at the end of the day, a non-story with the typical righty pile-on by the usual suspects. I have no problem believing the White House's argument about the community decorating the tree.

That being said, since when does the White House let just anybody put anything on the official Christmas tree? Did they just say "do what you want," and "knock yourselves out?" Didn't someone think to maybe check the tree from time to time, and screen it for, you know, something controversial? You're telling me that the White House Staff couldn't have just walked in and said, "you know, the Mao thing, that's no good," or something like that? Talk about unforced errors.

Like I said, at the end of the day, this is a non-story, as it's entirely plausible that there are Mao-sympathizers, Hedda Lettuce fans, and those drunk on Obama hero worship out there, and if you just let people put up what they want, crazy things will happen.

What happened to normal decorations, like lights, bulbs, and candy canes, anyway?

UPDATE: You know what, total non-story. Apparently, this sort of thing has happened before. I think the Daily Show handles it well.

I mean personally, I prefer a straight-up Christmas tree, with traditional ornaments, and when you allow 80 some-odd community groups to donate ornaments, things can get weird, but clearly this is purely fake outrage. So much so that I'm wondering if I should've even posted on this at all.

"...it's about to launch a major criminal trial for the man who is a walking commercial for the proposition that the benefits of torture may sometimes outweigh the costs."

KSM is a monster. Nobody disputes that he was central to the planning and execution of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. If the trial of a man who was instrumental in killing thousands of innocent Americans becomes the sole forum in which the legality of prisoner abuse is to be litigated, public sentiment in favor of torture will only grow stronger.

Had Holder allowed the various other torture trials to go forward, some of the litigants would prevail and others would lose. We would end up with a fuller picture of the rendition program, CIA abuses, and the legal advice that allowed for water-boarding. We would have a set of courts piecing together a consensus on what the anti-torture statutes require and whether anyone has violated them. Instead, the KSM trial is about to become the only torture game in town. And it's a game the Obama administration cannot win.

Read the whole thing.

Al Gore is embarrassed in Copenhagen. Sigh.

Perhaps Mr Gore had felt the need to gild the lily to buttress resolve. But his speech was roundly criticised by members of the climate science community. “This is an exaggeration that opens the science up to criticism from sceptics,” Professor Jim Overland, a leading oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

“You really don’t need to exaggerate the changes in the Arctic.”

Others said that, even if quoted correctly, Dr Maslowski’s six-year projection for near-ice-free conditions is at the extreme end of the scale. Most climate scientists agree that a 20 to 30-year timescale is more likely for the near-disappearance of sea ice.

“Maslowski’s work is very well respected, but he’s a bit out on a limb,” said Professor Peter Wadhams, a specialist in ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.

Yeah. Commence pile on in 3..2...1...

HT: Althouse

Here's a clue:

The explanation for this vast collective flip-flop is—have you guessed?—politics. Medicare recipients are much more likely to vote Republican than the uninsured who would benefit most from the Democratic bills. In 2003, Karl Rove was pushing the traditional liberal tactic of solidifying senior support with a big new federal benefit, don't worry about how to pay for it. Today, GOP incumbents are more worried about fending off primary challenges from the right, like the one Grassley may face in 2010, or being called traitors by Rush Limbaugh. But what happened the last time they were in charge gives the lie to their claim that they object to expanding government. They only object to expanding government in a way that doesn't help them get re-elected.

Indeed.

"...I found it compelling and very well done."

Discuss.

HT: Althouse

that I continued here, let me first the first here to rebuke Harry Reid for his ridiculous statements. And no, that fact that the GOP has also said outrageous things doesn't make it OK.

That's all for now.