Marcy Winograd took out her first campaign ad for 2010 in Random Lengths News this week. We're the only publication distributed in the ILWU's hiring hall other than union publications, and we've already run a front-page article on Harman's about-face on the evils of wiretapping (her), so it's fitting that this ad is running in our current issue:
Her Act Blue page is here, just getting launched. I know nothing about those cool thermometer tools, and Chris is on a rare vacation, so I'm just going to say she's got $730 now, and it would be cool to see if we can double that. We've talked a lot here about Democrats not delivering, and what can be done about it. Well, supporting Marcy is something tangible we can do right now. Howie Klein wrote about her a couple of weeks ago at Firedoglake:
Let me start with the obvious, that yes, if Pelosi knew there were war crimes being committed by the administration, and failed to try to stop it, even at risk of prison time for violating secrecy laws, then that deserves condemnation, loss of her Speaker's gavel and perhaps even prosecution. I certainly think her and the other members of Congress who were at all briefed on these activities should be part of any investigation that takes place. That said, let's not get carried away and equate people who merely know about a crime, and those who actively plan and execute that crime. Morally there is a significant difference there.
However her predicament highlights a lesser feature of multiple Bush Administration intelligence scandals that needs more attention: Bush's penchant for only having the Gang-Of-Eight briefed, rather than the full Intelligence Committees of the House and Senate. This decision was quite deliberate, and legally it is highly consequential in so far as it eviscerates Congress' ability to conduct meaningful oversight or legislative check on the Executive branch.
Marcy Winograd, Co-founder of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, is establishing an exploratory committee to challenge incumbent Jane Harman (CA-36) following explosive new revelations about Harman's involvement in potentially illegal obsctruction of justice, which the Bush Department of Justice overlooked because of her political support. Winograd won almost 38% of the vote in a 2006 primary challenge.
Following Jeff Stein's initial revelation of the the Jane-Harman/Alberto-Gonzales/AIPAC scandal last weekend, Harman whipped herself into a frenzy of denial, whilst simultaneously transforming herself into the least believable champion of civil liberties outside the Republican Party.
And speaking of the Republican Party, what may have been the most significant news of the week was the revelation that--totally fulfilling Fredo's expectations--Harman was such a staunch defender of Bush lawlessness that she weighed in to help stop the NY Times from publishing the NSA wiretap story before the 2004 election.
It was known before that Harman had offered to interfere with an investigation into alleged spying by two AIPAC staffers. What wasn't known was the real reason the Bush Justice Department dropped the investigation into what she did: they needed her political support. And now it seems that they got it, too.
On April 21, NYT spokesperson Catherine Mathis emailed a statement from NYT executive editor Bill Keller to Greg Sarget, stating, in part:
Congresswoman Harman spoke to Washington Bureau Chief Phil Taubman in late October or early November, 2004, apparently at the request of General Hayden. She urged that The Times not publish the story.
It doesn't appear that Harman played a major role--such as talking directly to Keller--but she clearly did weigh in. And that could be just one step too far to keep her in the good graces of her party brethren and sistren.
"I think her credibility with fellow Democrats is going to be strained at best," said grassroots activist Marcy Winograd, co-founder of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles--who ran a strong campaign against Harman in 2006--just before confirming that she was forming an exploratory committee for another primary challenge in 2010.
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
I don't buy that this stuff is new or restricted to our political leadership. In all honesty, I don't know that if I were in Pelosi's position at that time that I would have objected. Fear is powerful and I don't assume that I would have done well in that environment, though I like to think that most of us have learned enough to change our relationship to human rights and authority in the last few years.
Nevertheless, our collective failures, and Nancy Pelosi's specific moral albatross, is to address this country's use of torture. We keep 2 million people in prison, in violent conditions where many of them are tortured, and we do it because it makes a certain fear-based lifestyle easier to manage. Atoning for our moment of overt lunacy in 2002 means acknowledging where it came from, and working to build a different society.
UPDATE: It's easy enough to blame Pelosi for this, and yes, what she did reveals a breathtaking lack of moral clarity and responsibility. My point is simply that state-sanctioned torture was not new in 2002, and the public failed to deal with it.
In 2002, I was 24 years old, and it will always be seared into my memory how full of fear the whole country was and how willing to tolerate anything we were. It's what made me a liberal. In other words, I can understand and sympathize with why Pelosi did nothing in 2002, though it was obviously wrong. Today, there is no excuse and atonement is necessary.
Here's Jane Harman on why she's looking for a FISA compromise.
For those like me who insist that the President's domestic surveillance program must comply fully with the Constitution and the 4th Amendment, the only way for Congress to get there is with a veto-proof majority. That's why I'm working with Republicans. Got a better idea?
I opposed the FISA-gutting Protect America Act last August and supported the much-improved H.R. 3773, which did not include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. I call on the White House to do more than share selected documents with a handful of Senators - how do we know what the White House is not providing? In my view, the question of retroactive immunity cannot even be considered until Congress is fully informed about what happened and under what authority.
Harman's arguments are just weird. The President is breaking the law, and the solution is to... change the law so that he's no longer breaking it? I don't get it. Either way, whether he breaks the law and Congress does nothing or whether he breaks the law and Congress excuses all his lawbreaking and gives him authority to do so, the law is pretty meaningless. So who cares?
And the 'we need to see the document' document excuse is also weird. The court is already going over whether the telecom companies were breaking the law. That's what courts do. Why can't Harman consider letting the structures we have for mediating the rule of law - ie. the courts - actually function?
