I Really Don't Understand Hillary and the E-mail Thing

Is Hillary Clinton the dumbest person in the world?

Maybe one of y'all can explain this to me.

"Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act."

I don't understand this on any level. Even if you can say that this wasn't illegal, which it clearly appears to be, what's the point of having an unofficial e-mail? I'll tell you: the only reason that you would not use an official e-mail is to hide something. And guess what, campers? That shows a bad intent. In the legal world we call that mens rea. But even if you don't even address the legal issues, from a political perspective this looks like a disaster.

The other thing is that it's not even really hiding something. Even a rookie con-man knows that if you want to keep a secret, you have a false front. Why not have an official government e-mail for the official stuff that is day-to-day, and then have your super-secret, black-site e-mail address for all your nefarious work that you don't want to disclose?

How about don't e-mail at all? Don Corleone managed to run a pretty sizable group of folks and he didn't have to send out family-wide e-mails all the time. But this just having an off-the-book email is such a flagrant disregard for everything, I don't even know where to start.

It seems like Hillary is either really dumb or she doesn't think that the rules apply to her and no one will care if she's found out. I don't think she's dumb.

Do You Need a College Degree to be President?

This guy never got a college degree.

Howard Dean says that Walker's lack of a college degree makes him "unknowledgeable".

Personally, I think it would be refreshing to finally have a President who didn't have a degree from Harvard or Yale. I know this is going to stir up the anti-intellectual debate that's been out there since Sarah Palin, who is always going on about the "elite".

I'm actually ok with saying that some people are "elite". Elite means "the best". It means a subset of a group that is superior to the rest. Certain people are smarter than others. Certain people are better than others at various things. For instance, Jack Nicklaus was an elite professional golfer. Hank Aaron was an elite major league baseball player. There's nothing wrong with being elite, or acknowledging that some people are smarter than others. Face it, some people are dumb.

However, we've gotten to a point where people conflate elite with credentialed. Just because you have a degree from Harvard doesn't mean you're an elite thinker. You have a credential, that's it.

So, do you need a college degree to be President? Nope.

The Senate Report On the CIA Reminds Me of A Movie

There's been a lot of debate about the use of the CIA's interrogation techniques, in the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Report. It's been a chance for everyone to re-litigate the entire issue of whether we tortured detainees, and there's been some good debate on this.

It's certainly an open question, and anyone who conclusively comes down either way without acknowledging the other side may have a point is not a grown-up. This debate about torture is a debate about where you draw the line on what can and what cannot be done to captured combatants in war. Reasonable minds can disagree.

However, what really upsets me about this report has nothing to do with the issue of torture. What I find completely revolting about this report is the the fact that the main findings of the committee are essentially that the CIA didn't tell them about all this, and they are shocked, shocked to find out that gambling is going on in Rick's. But that's not the movie reference I thought of.

Essentially, this report is some Senators trying to avoid the fact that they asked the CIA to do whatever it took to avoid another 9/11. Do you remember how America was after 9/11? I do. 

Everyone was looking at the smoking rubble of the twin towers, a crater in Pennsylvania, and a hole in the side of the Pentagon and saying: We cannot let this happen again. You guys in the CIA need to take the gloves off and make sure this doesn't happen again. Keep the country safe. Stop playing nice - go after these people. Do everything you can.

People who weren't openly saying this were silently happy to go along with those who were. Not a single representative of the people rose up to say Well, wait. Maybe we don't need to change how we deal with the bad guys just because they did something bad to us.

Accordingly, the CIA started turning up the heat - as they were asked to do. They didn't do this on their own accord. We the people, through our elected representatives, asked them to do this. The Senate Intelligence Committee was briefed on exactly what the CIA was doing. And now, they're trying to say: Hey, I didn't intend for you to be mean to those poor souls! I wanted you to do everything possible to keep us safe while being perfect gentlemen! I have no culpability for these things that you did!

I know. Politicians evading their responsibility seems so farfetched. In any event, this whole thing reminded me of the end of Clear and Present Danger. In the movie, the President gets very upset when a Columbian drug cartel kills a personal friend of his who was laundering money for them (and stealing a little bit for himself). Therefore, the President tells his Chief of Staff to get the CIA to start really going after the drug cartel. The CIA basically does what it is told and starts really hurting the cartel - killing people and breaking things.

Eventually, the President decides he's had enough of the operation, simply says it should go away like "It never happened", and hangs all the men out to dry, who are then killed by the cartel. Ryan is neck deep in the whole thing and eventually goes to confront the President. Here's the scene:

The President tries to tell Ryan that he is "just becoming aware" of the certain things that happened, and that he "never ordered any" strike against the cartel. Ryan, having no patience for the cutesy little game of plausible deniability, tells the President: I will not have you dishonor their memories by pretending you had nothing to do with it.

That's the note that the Senate Report strikes for me. They're trying to pretend that they had nothing to do with the CIA's methods, when it's crystal clear that they asked the CIA to take the gloves off. Specifically, the WaPo had an editorial pointing this out:

On May 26, 2002, Feinstein was quoted in the New York Times saying that the attacks of 9/11 were a real awakening and that it would no longer be “business as usual.” The attacks, she said, let us know “that the threat is profound” and “that we have to do some things that historically we have not wanted to do to protect ourselves.”

This report is a purely political document, and its intent is to allow the authors to engage in some moral preening. They're simply engaging in a political act to curry favor with their constituents now that the existential threat from terrorism is a distant memory, and the people who swallow this report are doing the same thing.

I accept that we did some brutal things to people. We the people, asked the CIA to do exactly that. Maybe we made a decision in a moment of weakness that some of us regret. That's fine. However, it's just a damn lie for the Committee to say that they didn't know what was going on.

They all knew and approved. We The People all knew and approved. If you feel regret for what happened, that's fine. If you're ok with what we did, that's fine, too. But for goodness sake, take some responsibility for your actions.

BREAKING: Lying Politicians Lie

The Democratic Senate Report on CIA's methods is just politicians lying about what they knew, what they authorized, and what everyone wanted in the aftermath of 9/11.

CIA didn't conduct this program on some kind of wild notion - they didn't just make this up because they were bored.

CIA did this at the specific request of the American people's elected representatives in Congress and the White House. The Department of Justice was kept in the loop on the program and issued legal opinions on it. Congress was repeatedly briefed. CIA did all this...because we asked them to.

And now, these same spineless politicians want to squirm out of the fact that they asked CIA to these things.

It makes me sick.

Pardon me, but these politicians are lying sacks of shit. CIA does difficult stuff. The easy stuff gets handed off to other agencies. We asked CIA officers to do things, and now we're throwing them under the bus? Well, good luck getting CIA officers to go do anything remotely controversial in defense of the country in the future.

Joe Biden to Speak at USC Commencement

And no one is making a big deal about it. Because it's not a big deal.

I guess that means that USC is more enlightened and tolerant than Rutgers.

Don't Like Extreme Members of Congress?

Most of the folks I know, even if they aren't exactly in line with my political beliefs, and even if they're miles to the left (most of my law school friends) are really reasonable folks. We can all sit down and in in the span of about four or five beers, pretty much agree on how to solve the big problems that Congress can't ever seem to fix. Maybe we can't agree on everything, but mostly, we can.

We also note how Congress simply seems to have devolved into a place where the most partisan and extreme folks dominate the debate (on both sides). The big difference between me and my friends is that no one in Congress actually listens to each other. They don't have to.

Ever wonder why this is? I'm glad you asked. I'll tell you. It's the crazy districts that have been carved out to make certain seats virtual locks for either a Republican or a Democrat.

When you take a group of people with diverse points of view (say the state of South Carolina) and start dividing them up in a gerrymandered way to get certain groups of like-minded folks in the same district, you're going to send the more extreme folks to Congress. Obviously, South Carolina leans pretty heavily towards the Republicans, but chopping it up into weird districts amplifies that.

Right now, both Jim Clyburn and Joe Wilson are going to cruise to re-election. The races won't even be close.

Wilson's second district goes from Hilton Head in a little narrow tunnel up to Lexington, and curls around downtown Columbia (wonder why) and around to Northeast Columbia. It's insane.

Clyburn's sixth district has Charleston surrounded, but avoids the high dollar real estate in Charleston, then goes onto Edisto, oh...and then it goes into the little void of downtown Columbia. It's insane.

These districts look like an acid trip gone bad. Why do we have these? Well, the politicians get to draw them up to put us (the voters) into little groups of what they think are like-minded people so they can get easy elections. When you have these artificial divisions amplified to such an extreme, you're absolutely going to get more extreme candidates. Heck the only way to probably defeat Wilson will be to run to the right of him, and the only way to defeat Clyburn will be to run to his left. And where does that leave the voters? We get the most extreme voices going to Congress who have no interest in actually getting things done. Both political parties are guilty of it. Heck, they probably make deals over it. We'll give y'all this district shape if you give us this district shape. 

It has to end. Show me some nice regular polygons, not an LSD trip. Even the most extreme voices in the US Senate aren't as extreme as our house members. It's because the whole states vote. You get Senators who know they aren't going to go back to their little crazy district filled with their supporters. Whole states moderate out the extremists. The house districts do the opposite, and the only people who benefit are the political parties.

If you claim to be a moderate who is frustrated with Congress' inability to actually solve problems, pass budgets, or you know...do stuff, you need to advocate for an end to all this crazy districting. Brad Warthen, I'm looking in your direction.

You Might Be A True Southerner If...

Native son, Stephen Colbert discusses what you need to do if you're a politician who wants to pander to Southerners.

Cheesy grits? Meh. I like my grits with butter, salt, and pepper. Don't try to get too cute with them.