Mentioning neither William Ayers and the Weather Underground nor the Keating Five, the two hot topics du jour of the presidential campaign, President Bush managed nevertheless to quietly slip himself into the campaign today by delving into a secondary issue: What standards a president should apply when picking judges. (*Update: We misspelled Ayers' name earlier but have now corrected it.)
Bush did not have to say about whom he was speaking. He never said "Obama" or "McCain," "Democrat" or "Republican."
But speaking to a conservative legal gathering in Cincinnati, he injected the subject of judicial appointments -- from the district court level up to the Supreme Court -- into the debate, and made it clear that in considering election choices, the president's role in nominating jurists must not be overlooked.
But the president was using a double-edged sword. It is a topic that can energize activists in both parties.
"The lesson should be clear to every American, and that is: Judges matter," he said. (If anyone doubted that, he offered this statistic: He has nominated more than one-third of the judges now holding lifetime appointments on the federal bench.)
No surprise in his instructions: Find judges who will "interpret the Constitution and not use courts to invent laws or dictate social policy."
And no surprise that they fit nicely with John McCain's approach.
And now for something completely different: President Bush, yes, this President Bush--as a liberal.
The Canadian magazine Macleans is making that argument, under the shocking headline "The shockingly liberal legacy of George W. Bush."
The irony that it misses: Could it be that Vice President Dick Cheney is the force behind at least one element of the "liberalization?"
In a lengthy article that addresses the breadth of the Bush presidency and notes that the administration's legacy is more than just the war in Iraq, it says: "In some areas it is the result of hard-line conservative ideology — but in others it is surprisingly liberal."
Consider the seeming contradictions: The tax-cutting conservative who ...
Not for the first time, a federal court has slapped down the Bush administration for going too far to peel back the Clean Air Act.
This time, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out an Environmental Protection Agency rule that exempted major industrial polluters from measuring dangerous emissions at oil refineries and power plants.
The court, in a 2-1 decision, held that the EPA violated the Clean Air Act by allowing the largest air pollution sources to avoid monitoring, recording and record keeping of air pollution emissions. The judges also said states can enact monitoring requirements that are tougher than federal guidelines.
"This is a huge victory for everyone who breathes," said Keri Powell, an attorney for the environmental group Earth Justice. "We can't have strong enforcement of our clean air laws unless we know what polluters are putting into the air."
Eric Schaeffer of the Environmental Integrity Project called the government action part of EPA's "seven-year campaign to unravel the Clean Air Act." "The court understood that emission standards that aren't monitored can never be enforced."
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: Smog covers downtown Los Angeles in September 2006. Credit: Gabriel Bouys / AFP/Getty
It’s never too late to admit a mistake—particularly someone’s else mistake.
Bush administration lawyers took the unusual step today of telling the Supreme Court that one of its recent decisions was “erroneous” and “tainted” and therefore deserved to be reconsidered.
Now you tell us, since the error arose at the Justice Department.
On June 25, the justices struck down a Louisiana law on the death penalty for child rapists, saying in a 5-4 ruling that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment for crimes that did not involve murder.
The court’s opinion failed to note that the Uniform Code of Military Justice was revised in 2006 to authorize the death penalty for soldiers who are guilty of raping a child. The court didn't mention the military code because the U.S. solicitor general's office, which advises the court on all cases and is supposed to inform the justices of all pertinent federal statutes, never pointed it out.
In a 12-page brief, Gregory Garre, acting solicitor general, acknowledged the slip-up. "The United States regrets that it did not" notify the court of the recent change in the military code, he said.
But the rest of his 12-page brief was devoted to arguing why the court should reconsider its "incorrect" ruling. Noting that the error "undermines the foundation" for the court's ruling, Garre argues that a new hearing will “ensure that a decision of exceptional constitutional, moral and practical consequences is not tainted by a significant omission.”
It is still a long shot for Garre and Louisiana’s lawyers. Requests for a re-hearing at the high court are rarely granted. The justices may not act on the unusual request until October.
Articles of impeachment have been filed over the Bush policies on torture and detention. In a new Democratic administration, a special prosecutor may be appointed. And human rights activists are calling on European allies to arrest Bush administration officials on suspicion of war crimes if they set foot abroad.
But can -- or should -- officials who carried out their duties at a time of war be prosecuted?
In a column posted today titled "Our Leaders Are Not War Criminals", Stuart Taylor, the National Journal's legal columnist, argues they shouldn't be.
An excerpt:
Might ["20th hijacker" Mohammed al-] Kahtani have information that could save lives? After months
of gentle questioning, he was mocking his interrogators with obvious
lies. So officers at Guantanamo sent their list of 18 coercive methods
up the chain of command. The attacks on Haynes center on some of the 15
that he and Rumsfeld approved as legal, with the concurrence of Gen.
Richard Myers, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and
then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith:
Isolation for up to 30 days; "use of 20-hour interrogations";
"removal of clothing"; forced grooming and shaving of beards; depriving
detainees of light and sound; hooding them (without restricting
breathing); withholding hot rations; "grabbing, poking in the chest
with the finger, and light pushing"; using "individual phobias (such as
fear of dogs) to induce stress"; and "the use of stress positions (like
standing) for a maximum of four hours."
Human-rights activists view some of these methods as torture. But as
a legal matter, Haynes's advice was reasonable. None of the approved
methods comes close to violating the 1994 U.S. law that makes torture a
crime. That law defines torture quite narrowly, as the intentional
infliction of "severe physical or mental pain or suffering." The law
further specifies that mental suffering qualifies as "severe" only if
it involves "the prolonged mental harm" caused by use of mind-altering
substances or the threat of severe physical suffering or imminent death.
President Bush has never been much of a hunter, leaving to his vice president the dubious distinction of shooting a friend -- and campaign contributor -- in the face while quail hunting.
But today when the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.'s toughest-in-the-nation gun laws, the White House was quick to hail the court's embrace of "the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms." Later in the day, the president issued a separate statement making much the same point, calling himself "a long-standing advocate of the rights of gun owners in America."
The truth is that gun enthusiasts have long viewed the Bush administration with suspicion. Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas who attracted a strong showing among Libertarians in the presidential election, has openly called the Bush administration hypocritical on gun issues.
"The Bush administration recently surprised and angered many pro-gun conservatives by announcing its support for an assault weapons ban passed in 1994," Paul wrote in 2003. In the end, facing a tough reelection battle, Bush allowed the ban to expire, wrote Steve Watson on conservative talk show host Alex Jones' infowars.net.
And former Rep. Bob Barr, once a Republican congressman, now running for president as a Libertarian, has argued that the Bush administration has been more anti-2nd Amendment than the Clinton White House.
Lawyers for Congress argued in court this morning that executive privilege does not give two top Bush administration officials immunity from testifying about the firing of nine U.S. prosecutors. Democrats charge that the prosecutors were removed for political reasons. And they want the testimony and related documents to prove it.
The Justice Department countered, as it has in court papers, that the president is "constitutionally entitled to autonomy and confidentiality" in talking to Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. "The relief sought by the committee is unprecedented and would fundamentally alter the separation of powers," said attorney Carl Nichols.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates is hearing the case. The administration is probably pleased with the judicial draw.
Bates, who worked for Kenneth Starr and the independent counsel's office during the Whitewater investigation into President Clinton, was appointed by President Bush in 2001. As a judge, Bates in 2002 dismissed the General Accounting Office's effort to learn who met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force.
He also dismissed a lawsuit filed by former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson, against Cheney, White House political advisor Karl Rove, former vice presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, accusing them of leaking her identity.
No matter Bates' decision, court watchers expect the case to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: John Bates. Credit: Beverly Rezneck / U.S. District Court
The case of the U.S. Navy's attempts to conduct high-frequency sonar submarine training missions off the California coast -- which environmentalists say can frighten or even kill nearby whales and other marine mammals -- is moving toward the U.S. Supreme Court.
When the justices weigh the case in the fall, a central pillar will be whether the Bush administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision making.
Bush administration officials say military readiness trumps the environmental protection law.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
Lawyers for Congress argued in court this morning that executive privilege does not give two top Bush administration officials immunity from testifying about the firing of nine U.S. prosecutors. Democrats charge that the prosecutors were removed for political reasons. And they want the testimony and related documents to prove it.
