You may or may not have heard of Bilal Hussein. For the past 20 months, he's been held without charges for allegedly helping the insurgency in Iraq. The Pentagon isn't, you see, keen on photojournalists that aren't embedded on its side of the occupation. Two weeks ago, Hussein finally got a hearing in an Iraqi court, although his lawyers still have not been given copies of the material they need to defend him. Naturally, the usual coterie of right-wing blogobuffoons - including Michele Malkin - had a field day talking about "propaganda photographs" and aiding the insurgents in Iraq, who are, of course, by definition, each and every one a "terrorist."

Hussein works for the AP and was arrested in Ramadi on April 12, 2006. But it wasn't until September 17, 2006, that a public announcement was made regarding his incarceration without charge. A month ago, the U.S. military said they were turning him over to Iraqi judges for trial.

His photograph, on the right, which is possibly  one of those that caused him to be arrested, was part of a package of 20 Associated Press photographs which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. It depicts four insurgents in Fallujah firing a mortar and small arms during the U.S. offensive there in November 2004.

On December 17, Tim Arango of The New York Times wrote about the charges against Hussein:

A spokesman for the military said that Mr. Hussein had been detained as "an imperative security threat" and that he has persistently been "treated fairly, humanely and in accordance with all applicable law."

In a lengthy e-mail message, the spokesman said that Mr. Hussein had been named by "sources" as having "possessed foreknowledge of an improvised explosive device (I.E.D.) attack" on American and Iraqi forces, "that he was standing next to the I.E.D. triggerman at the time of the attempted attack, and that he conspired with the I.E.D. triggerman to synchronize his photograph with the explosion."

If Hussein asked the "triggerman" to delay exploding the improvised explosive device until he adjusted his lens or some similar such action, a case could be made that he went well beyond the bounds of professional behavior as a photojournalist. If he did so. But if U.S. officials thought this accredited, prize-sharing journalist had conspired with the men they're calling terrorists, why has it taken them so long to get him into court? This utter contempt for due process and human rights is, of course, just one more example of the boatload of U.S. actions that the thugs now running our country have visited on the world in the past seven years.

Bilal Hussein's ordeal is not over. Scott Horton at Harper's writes:

America’s first major trial concerning press freedom involved a German newspaper man, John Peter Zenger. He was accused of having libeled the Royal Governor of New York, William Cosby. Andrew Hamilton won a favorable jury verdict in that case that set the tone for American attitudes about a free press three decades before the American Revolution.

Iraq’s equivalent of the Zenger case is being conducted now before an Iraqi investigating judge. In the dock sits the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photojournalist Bilal Hussein. The prosecution is brought by the American Pentagon, under a Secretary of Defense who states – rather unconvincingly – that "the press is not the enemy." I have just been given an update on the handling of the Bilal Hussein case from a Pentagon source who claimed to have been briefed on the proceedings.

Bilal’s case has been assigned to investigating Judge Dhia al-Kinani, who has already conducted a long series of evidentiary hearings in the case. The source said the Pentagon is confident that they will secure a conviction in the case. "Nothing is being left to chance in this case. It’s important and a lot of resources are being thrown at it." The Pentagon isn’t concerned about evidence or legal arguments. I wonder why. ...

The case of Bilal Hussein is sending a distinct message to the government in Baghdad and to the dwindling number of American allies in the region. Persecuting journalists is fine with us, it says. And best to do it in the dark, so that no one sees.

As we've learned the hard way since September 12, 2001, they'd like to do everything in the dark, especially in places like Fallujah, where Hussein took this shot after U.S. air strikes on September 17, 2004. It doesn't have quite the warm-and-fuzzy cachet as photos of a dictator's statue being pulled into the dirt, an event that was, uh-huh, spontaneous and unplanned.

Check out the Overnight News Digest.

And if you want a good Christmas Eve story, see Kid Oakland's reprise at the top of the Recommended Diary list.

Tonight's Rescued Diaries are presented through the efforts of the Rescue Rangers. (SusanG)

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are vcmvo2, Painty Kat, ezdidit, msobel, grog, Wes Opinion and watercarrier4diogenes, with claude manning the Editor's Chair.

Tonight's broad array of diaries is not what you typically find in the tradional media. We have a smorgasbord of seasonal feel good personal writing, and a grinch I agree with, as well as a few of analysis/information pieces and a field report or two.  Enjoy them, and go give the Diarists some love.

• mem from somerville uses personal experience, facts, new reports and a website calculator to start an actual serious conversation about how the MA "universal" insurance: more consequences is working. Like, can't he talk about the candidates' favorite movie? (msobel)
• xrepub reflects on the contrast between our current culture of consumerism versus the limited resources of the rest of the world in Merry Christmas? (vcmvo2)
• huntsu offers a warning to children born yesterday, today and tomorrow, in Hoover, Bush and 58 Year Old Americans. (ezdidit)
• philinmaine offers a great alternative to the dreaded "candidate diary" in How the Democrats will Win-no longer a secret, a very timely and cogent "How To" help your candidate, whoever s/he is. (watercarrier4diogenes)
• In a followup to her "Dispatches From Below the Poverty Line", altruista offers us all a helping hand in this holiday madness in Survival Tactics Strange and Peculiar. (watercarrier4diogenes)
• JDWolverton reports how a pharmacutical company's attempt to jack up a drug's price was thrwarted in NetRoots: We Have Partial Success on Avastin. (grog)
• Did you know that the Lakota Sioux have NOT withdrawn from the US? cos deconstructs the confused national media coverage which has, not surprisingly, not gotten its facts straight. (grog)
• scorpiorising's account, Pepper Sprayed, Tasered and Determined in New Orleans, gives an eyewitness account of this week's protests over the City Council's plans to demolish affordable, public housing. (grog)
• Okay, I'm a sucker for seeing current history through Rome and EmperorHadrian in Hadrian's Forum: Political Enemies in Rome and America; Subversion of Rome's Constitution, Part 5 shows how Hoover trying to lock up 12000 enemies in the 50's was like old times in the First Empire. (msobel)
• White, shmite. Perhaps the color of this carol needs changing in the face of global warming as AnotherMassachusettsLiberal reminds us in ACTION DIARY: I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas... (grog)
• Looking for the perfect last minute present for a little one this year? Dem in the heart of Texas has a great suggestion with the Give One Get One program One Laptop Per Child - donation program extended through year's end. (Wes Opinion)
• Rolling George offers a feel good report concerning the traditions and customs of various peoples around the globe. Though the traditions and customs were different, a common thread "Peace on Earth, goodwill towards fellow man" prevailed throughout the broadcast Merry X-mas? Christmas? Noel? Whatever you call it... (PaintyKat)
• frodolives reflects on the potential for great good to come about and references a black government in South Africa and the demise of Soviet totalitarianism as examples that youth in the 60s would not have believed possible in Hope springs eternal. (PaintyKat)

noweasels has tonight's Top Comments: A War Dog Comes Home.

Use this open thread to highlight diaries YOU think should be noticed, or talk about anything you want.

With the DCCC kicking ass in the fundraising game so far, Chairman Chris Van Hollen has begun to move beyond incumbent protection, and to target a wide swath of GOP-held seats. From Roll Call:

Overall, the DCCC is targeting 40 Republican-held seats in 2008 — both open seats and those where the incumbent is running for re-election, Van Hollen confirmed. Van Hollen acknowledged that the DCCC’s continuing wide cash advantage over the National Republican Congressional Committee was a key factor in his decision to shift his focus to aiding Democratic challengers.

"We don’t have to spend all of our time worrying about what the Republican committee is going to be able to throw at our incumbents. There’s no doubt that allows us some flexibility," Van Hollen told Roll Call. "It has given us some room to maneuver. Definitely."

40 seats! It's good to be on the offensive. I'm glad to see that the DCCC, at least, is willing to take risks when they have capital to spend. It would sure be nice if DC Democrats did the same with legislation, eh?

In addition, the DCCC has identified the first six challengers on their list for fundraising assistance in 2008...and wouldn't you know it, they include two 2006 netroots candidates and one current Blue Majority candidate!

The first six Democratic candidates set to enjoy the largess of the DCCC’s fundraising effort include state Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson in Illinois’ 11th district; state Sen. John Adler in New Jersey’s 3rd; state Assemblywoman and 2006 nominee Linda Stender in New Jersey’s 7th; Franklin County Commissioner and 2006 nominee Mary Jo Kilroy in Ohio’s 15th; state Sen. John Boccieri in Ohio’s 16th; and 2006 nominee Gary Trauner in Wyoming’s at-large.

Van Hollen said these six candidates made the cut for immediate fundraising assistance because they are running in open seats, have no primary challenger, and have proved their mettle as politicians and fundraisers since entering their respective races.

This is just the starting point, of course, but these six are all strong candidates with a real chance of winning their open-seat races. Here's a quick look at each of them

--mcjoan wrote an excellent story  several days ago on Blue Majority candidate Gary Trauner. Trauner lost a heartbreakingly close race to GOP incumbent Barbara Cubin last year, by half a percentage point. I think Cubin's retirement doesn't necessarily help, as she was not an especially popular incumbent. And Wyoming, even now, is a pretty Republican state. Still, this is going to be a very competitive race...and it's nice to know the DCCC sees what we see in Trauner.

--Like Trauner, New Jersey State Assemblywoman Linda Stender needs little introduction to the netroots, having been a 2006 netroots candidate...and like Trauner, she lost by a razor thin margin in 2006, to Rep. Mike Ferguson. With Ferguson retiring at the ripe old age of 37, Stender is in outstanding position for 2008, with some analysts referring to her as a "pseudo-incumbent". There's a large field of GOP candidates (most notably State Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance), but a crowded GOP primary is likely good news for us. With a PVI of R +0.6, New Jersey's 7th District is very much a swing district, and we hope it will be fertile territory for Democrats in 2008.

--Only five Republicans in the entire House represent more strongly Democratic turf than Jim Saxton, who is retiring as Representative of New Jersey's 3rd District. Saxton has managed to avoid tough races during his years in the House, but even if he had chosen to stick around, he would have had his hands full with State Sen. John Adler. Adler is a Harvard Law School graduate who has served in the Senate since 1992, and is considered a skilled fundraiser and politician (he won his State Senate seat in a year when Democrats lost 10 seats statewide). While the Democratic establishment has coalesced behind Adler, the local GOP is apparently at odds over who to send up from their side...and they really can't afford any intraparty squabbling in a Democratic-leaning district with a PVI of D+3.

--Last year's race for Ohio's 15th District (where Bush and Kerry each drew 50% in 2004) was one of the most closely watched in the country, with Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy losing by half a percentage point (just 1,065 votes) to incumbent Deborah Pryce. Rather than run the gauntlet a second time, Pryce chose to retire. Kilroy is in a good position financially (she had raised $383,000 as of Q3) and obviously does not lack for name recognition after her strong 2006 run. She does have a strong Republican opponent in State Senator, Iraq War veteran, and former lobbyist Steve Stivers, who finally entered the race after initially declining (along with the GOP's second, third, and fourth-choice candidates). Still, there's ample reason to be optimistic about this district, where we came so close a year ago.

--Also in Ohio, State Sen. John Boccieri is running in the 16th District for the seat formerly held by 35-year incumbent Ralph Regula. Boccieri, 38, has a fascinating bio; in addition to his service in the Ohio House and Senate, he has 11 years of service in the Air Force Reserves (including four rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan), as well as a stint as a professional baseball player in the independent Frontier League. It's unclear at this point who his GOP opponent will be, although the likely candidate is State Sen. Kirk Schuring. Ohio's 16th is a bit more Republican than the 15th, or either of the Jersey districts; Bush beat Kerry 54-46 here, and beat Gore 53-42. It's hardly out of reach, of course; 31 Democrats represent districts with a higher PVI.

--Finally, Democrats have their first-choice candidate in Illinois' 11th District in Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson, the first woman appointed as Majority Leader in Illinois history. While in the Senate, she worked to provide affordable prescription drugs for seniors, and she has earned the endorsement of EMILY's List. The Republicans, meanwhile, did not get their first-choice candidate, State Sen. Christine Radogno, and will have to settle for New Lenox Mayor Tim Balderman. The district is promising territory for Democrats: Bush defeated Kerry by a thin 53-46 margin here, and beat Gore only 50-48.  

Overall, a promising start for the DCCC as we go into 2008. Let's hope they keep it up.

Another year ending, and still no agreement on every issue of importance in Iraq.  No agreement on how oil revenues should be split among the major factions.  No agreement on how to handle former Baathists.  No agreement on the promised modifications to the Iraqi constitution.

Again and again, even those who laud the fact that violence in Iraq has returned to the levels we found intolerable in 2006, are frustrated by the lack of any political progress.  And the same group that so loudly praises the invasion of Iraq has a ready answer: democracy and Islam are incompatible.  Entire websites are dedicated to this notion.  Quotes are pulled from the Qur'an to demonstrate that Muslims are required to follow the tenets of Islam rather than any secular law.  

Believers, obey God and obey the Messenger and those in authority from among you.

And they give instances in which Muslims are instructed to war against those of other faiths.

Then fight for God's causes, and know that God both hears and knows all things.

There! say those who are convinced that Islam is basically incompatible with democratic society.  How can you have people who believe these things, and still have democracy?  The argument boils down to a vigorous agreement with the assessment made early in the film Lawrence of Arabia in which Arabs are described as "A little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous and cruel."  In fact, that very phrase is resurrected on several sites.  Which has to make you wonder why these people were so intent on "bringing freedom" to Iraq, if they believe that this silly people is unready to handle our precious, elevated, and refined form of government.  

Still, when you consider some verses, there does seem to be a case for incompatibility.  

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life.

This verse quite clearly authorizes the taking, buying, and selling of slaves.

...totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Here unbelievers are subject to the most awful punishment, down to the smallest child, bolstering the case of those who claim this is violent religion.  

If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods," don't give in or listen to him.  Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people.

Any religion that believes that those outside the select can be taken as slaves, that enemies are liable to utter destruction, and that anyone not following the faith not only should be, but must be put to death, does seem to be a poor fit for democracy.  The thing is, those last three pieces of scripture didn't come from the Qur'an, they came from the Bible.  

Are the biblical verses taken out of context?  Yes, as are the ones from the Qur'an.  In both cases, these verses and others have been used by those who wanted to drape God's sanction across violent actions.  You can imagine how often those verses on slavery (taken from that great source of
biblically sanctioned nastiness, Leviticus) were used during the American Civil War.  

For anyone trying to build a case for the basic incompatibility of Christianity and democracy, there is a rich set of scriptures available to bolster their theme.  You can find far more violence, far more intolerance, and far more admonitions that only God can render justice between the covers of the Bible than you will find in the Qur'an -- if only because the Bible is longer.

Does this mean that Christianity or Judaism are incompatible with democracy?  Yes, to the same extent and for the same reasons that Islam is also incompatible.  All three are intrinsically ill-suited to be the source of a democratic government.  They're incompatible because theocracy is incompatible with democracy.  Every step that any government takes in providing either recognition or authority to any religion, is a step away from democracy.  That's unavoidable, no matter the religion involved.  The moment you have a government that acknowledges any religion as the true religion, you have a government in which some animals are far more equal than others.

The Little People, Silly People argument would have it that Islam is particularly poorly-shaped for democracy.  However, anyone who doubts that the principles of Christianity can drive just as much violence and intolerance as Islam is ignorant of both history and world events.  The history of Christianity is replete with holy empires, holy kingdoms, and holy wars of conquest -- and many of them not comfortably ensconced in the distant past.  Everyone who moans that the Ten Commandments should be posted in every school and courthouse, could benefit from contemplating the ultimate fruition of that philosophy in the God's Army militia in Burma.  Under the banner of bringing a "government based on the Ten Commandments" to their country, God's Army has killed more than a million people -- far more than al-Qaeda.  

A theocratic democracy is an impossibility.  That's just as true for Christianity as it is for Islam.

But even if we accept the idea that neither Christianity or Islam provide a government framework for democracy, there's another question: is a democracy a good environment for a practicing Christian / Muslim?  The answer is yes.  However, the answer is also that it's difficult.  Any believer living in a democracy must understand that with some fair frequency, the government will pass laws that may be in opposition to her/his religious beliefs, so that there is a constant friction between the rule of law, and the perceived rule of God.  

There's another important aspect facing believers living under a democracy (and other forms of government) today, and that's the strength of market capitalism.  Both Christianity and Islam started as religions out to upend existing social orders -- it's very easy to see why officials of the day would have been terrified of both Jesus and Mohamed -- and both elevate the status of the poor, denigrate wealth, and emphasize charity.  That's entirely at odds with the messages that we receive every day in our society.

Jesus had explicit advice on this subject when he proclaimed that believers should "give the things of Caesar to Caesar, and give the things of God to God."  But no less than "turning the other cheek," this advice is painfully difficult to follow.  How can Christians practice a religion of peace, in a nation at war?  How can they uphold a message that money doesn't matter, in a society that constantly bellows that nothing matters as much?

The subjects that we look as as being major religious issues, such as abortion, the rights of homosexuals, and the "war on Christmas," are nothing more than comfortable distractions; a means of avoiding the real and aching gap that spreads between what Christians profess, and how most Christians live in modern society.

Trying to resolve that conflict rarely means changing society.  Religions that start off as the hope of downtrodden rebels can all too easily become the instruments of powerful states.  That's happened with both Islam and Christianity.  Both have been pressed into supporting every form of dictatorship and empire, and ultimately every government based on these religions has been harmful not just to believers in other faiths – or to believers in no faith – but to the ruling religion itself.  It was not he nature of the Roman Empire that was radically altered when Constantine called the bishops to his estate at Nicea, it was the nature of Christianity.  

For democracy, it is probably the luckiest of strokes that Karl Marx built his circle of friends among the anti-religious Young Hegelians.  There are few more biblically sound philosophical foundations than "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."  There's little doubt that if Marx was less inimical to religion, he might easily have wed communism and the church.  And if he had, all discussions of democracy today might be held between history professors.  

Is Christianity compatible with democracy?  Let's say instead that there is no other form of government that better supports a Christian's ability to participate, to voice opinions, and to contribute without becoming exactly the sort of oppressor that Jesus railed against.  Exactly the same benefits are available to Muslims, to Jews, and those who profess any (or no) other faith.  In fact, democracy is nurturing to faith not because it freezes beliefs on stone tablets, but because it demands that each religion must test its ideas in the public square.  Democracy forces religions to change or die.   It forces them to evolve.  That's how a religion that grew up with those sentiments from Leviticus became a leading force in ending slavery.

Democracy is not easy for any faith, but it's good for them -- so long as the separation between church and state is rigidly enforced.

So I hope that all of you have enjoyed a Happy Hanukkah.

Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.

A joyous Eid.

In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are signs for those who possess intelligence. They remember God while standing, while sitting, or while lying down.  They think of the creation of the heavens and the earth: "Our Lord, You did not create all this in vain."

A Merry Christmas to come.

Good news for the poor! The kingdom of heaven is yours.

Good news to those who mourn! You will be comforted.

Good news to the humble! You will inherit the earth.

Good news to those who are hungry for justice!  You will have your fill.

Good news to the merciful!  You will receive mercy.

Good news to those who are pure in heart.  You will know God.

Good news to the peacemakers!  You will be called God's children.

Good news to those who suffer because they do what is right!  The kingdom of heaven is yours.

And if you are not looking for the Christmas star, why not go out and look at the stars anyway?

Our contemplations of the cosmos stir us. There is a tingling of the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation as if a distant memory of falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the grandest of mysteries.

...

In the last few millenia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the cosmos and our place within it. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky. – Carl Sagan

Happy holidays.

• One of the original cell networks will be permanently shut down in February and is expected to affect approximately 500,000 OnStar customers and 400,000 home alarms who will no longer have the analog service.
• The mega-advertising agency, J Walter Thompson, was just awarded a $750,000,000 contract for Marine Corps advertising through 2012.
•  The Chinese are buying into Christmas, with "buying" being the operative word as Chinese shopping malls have seen a huge increase in recent years.  The Christian part?  Not so much.  This article also points out that by 2010, China will have 7 of the 10 largest shopping malls in the world.
• A graphic (as in drawn, not grotesque) op-ed in the New York Times shows some of the complex issues of religion, family, and heritage many people deal with during the holidays. - Miss Laura
• United Hollywood is holding a video contest:

  United Hollywood is asking you to shoot a video showing us how you would get the AMPTP to make a fair deal. Videos can be up to four minutes long and any genre from comedy, drama, mockumentary or even commercial-like and must contain the phrase "fighting for the future." The only other stipulation is the last line of the video must be "We're all on the same page."

  The winner of the contest will receive an authentic WGA strike poster with over 150 signatures, autographed by writers, actors, actresses and directors who signed it while on the picket line.

  - Miss Laura

• Think Ron Paul is the man to stand against theocracy in the Republican party? Think again.  According to Paul in 1993, "religiophobia" was a huge threat to America. -Miss Laura
• Nebraska business leaders raised $24,000 to surprise a Nebraska National Guard Unit by picking up their airfare home for the holidays.
• Stephen Colbert may have lost out on all four of his Emmy nominations, but he was named "AP Celebrity of the Year" for having such an impact on pop culture.  JK Rowling was runner-up.  Although Colbert is refusing all interviews during the writer's strike, he did release this statement:

  "In receiving this award, I am pleased that I was chosen over two great spinners of fantasy — J.K. Rowling and Al Gore. It is truly an honor to be named the Associated Press’ Celebrity of the Year. Best of all, this makes me the official front-runner for next year’s Drug-Fueled Downward Spiral of the year. P.S. Look for my baby bump this spring!"

Takeover
The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy
By Charlie Savage
Little, Brown and Company
New York, 2007

[Cheney] hoped to enlarge the zone of secrecy around the executive branch, to reduce the power of Congress to restrict presidential action, to undermine limits imposed by international treaties, to nominate judges who favored a stronger presidency, and to impose greater White House control over the permanent workings of government. And Cheney’s vision of expanded executive power was not limited to his and Bush’s own tenure in office. Rather, Cheney wanted to permanently alter the constitutional balance of American government, establishing powers that future presidents would be able to wield as well.

...The old "inherent power" theory greatly expanded what the executive branch could do, but it was silent about whether Congress could impose restrictions on how the president carried out those responsibilities. The new and improved Unitary Executive Theory said that Congress could not regulate any executive power, but the theory said nothing about the potential scope of such power. When fused, the two theories transformed any conceivably inherent executive power into an exclusive one. The president could do virtually anything, without any check by Congress.

When historians look back at this era in America, Charlie Savage’s Takeover should serve as a primary chronicle of how America went so wrong, so fast. Prior to penning this book, Savage was most widely known as the Boston Globe reporter who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize primarily for his tenacious coverage of the effects and implications of President Bush’s signing statements.

In Takeover, the journalist takes full advantage of having a wider canvas and some intellectual stretching room to connect the dots of the insistent, constant push the Bush administration has launched against the two other branches of government. Savage lays the groundwork by looking backward first, giving an overview of the gradually expanding presidential powers--or executive attempts to expand the power--and demonstrates that this is not a partisan issue.

In previous generations, presidents embracing imperial tendencies had often been Democrats--notably Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Johnson--and their power grabs were opposed by Republicans who embodied a traditional conservative distrust of concentrated government power. But the new generation of conservative activists, who had no first-hand memory of those fights, began to associate unchecked presidential authority with their desire for lower taxes, a more aggressive stance against Communism, and domestic policies that advanced traditional social values. To them, Congress was the bastion of liberal Democrats and liberal values, and the executive branch was for conservatives.

As the new branch for conservatives became an uncompromising Republican stronghold for the current administration, Cheney and Bush began digging in their heels early on, Savage points out. Even before 9/11, there were indications--small and comparatively trivial compared with later sweeping war powers claimed--that Cheney’s long-cherished push to "restore" power to the presidency was going to be a fight this administration wanted to pick at all costs. One of the first fights was over the Energy Task Force and Cheney’s reluctance to turn over notes or attendance records of the meetings. Savage documents GAO head David Walker’s fight over what inside sources labeled "generally uninteresting papers." The eagerness of the administration to engage in an expansion of presidential power precedent over minor issues, Savage speculates, was due to the alliance of Cheney and his henchman, David Addington. "In retrospect," the author writes, "it seems likely that the embryo of the Bush-Cheney administration’s legal strategy began incubating at the moment Cheney’s career-long drive for a policy of expansive presidential power encountered Addington’s theories."

This policy was pushed to a less publicized extent when Bush announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the ABM missile treaty. As Savage notes, "By unilaterally scrapping the ABM treaty, Bush seized for the presidency the power to pull the United States out of any treaty without obtaining the consent of Congress." Yet little attention was paid at the time to the down-the-road implications of this action. It was not until the full flowering of the expansion of the presidential "commander in chief" powers after the terror attacks that the previous wrangling over executive privilege, national security and secrets began to make sense.

It is this portion of the book--when the author lays out the complicated timeline advancing on several fronts--that really shines. Savage constructs a verbal timeline, weaving back and forth between the immigrant sweeps and denial of rights in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, to the setting up of Gitmo and the tribunals, to the unauthorized wiretapping and surveillance, to torture. These are complex and simultaneous pressures that the president and vice president were exerting, on several different fronts. This account by Savage is probably the best I’ve run across in making sense of the timing and strategy of the issues implied by the wedding of unitary executive theory and the vast inherent powers the administration was claiming for the executive branch.

The background of  Dick Cheney, John Yoo, Addington, Jay Bybee, Alberto Gonzales are sketched in, and their self-reinforcing, isolated bubbles of non-mainstream legal opinion bounce off each other and amplify truly dangerous anti-democratic thinking. As Savage puts it:

A former senior member of the administration legal team who did not want to be identified by name recalled a pervasive post-9/11 sense of masculine bravado and one-upmanship when it came to executive power. A "closed group of like-minded people" were almost in competition with one another, he said, to see who could offer the farthest-reaching claims of what a president could do. In contrast, those government lawyers who were perceived as less passionate about presidential power were derided as "soft" and were often simply cut out of the process.

This macho one-upmanship extended, as we now know, to the imposition of political appointees on departments that had long traditions of non-politicization and professional civil service employees. The unraveling of these agencies as doctrinaire Bush appointees began to invade has been well-publicized in recent months in the Department of Justice. Other instances--such as in the JAG corps--are only now making their way into public knowledge. These twin pressures of overreaching executive claims and the seeding of the federal government agencies with ideologues and right-wing loyalists are going to present a challenge to the next president.  The purifying of the professional civil service establishment is going to be difficult to achieve without cries of "political retribution" ringing far and wide; even more improbable to imagine is a president willing to shuck the strengthened powers Bush has seized for the office.

Savage’s book is important in this regard: becoming familiar with the details of how aberrant this administration has become is surely the first step in rectifying the unconstitutional overreach. It also serves as a superb introduction for citizens only vaguely aware of what’s at stake in the executive privilege realm and what that means for the permanent loss of our liberties. As the author notes, it’s all about precedent, and that’s what we need to fight the most:

Each time a problem arose--and many problems would arise in the weeks and months after 9/11--the inner circle of key decision makers at the White House looked at their options and then picked the solution that relied upon the greatest possible assertion of presidential power. These policies, usually enacted in secret, transformed their theory into precedent.

In light of Takeover and its crucial examination, readers should also note Savage’s story published in yesterday’s Boston Globe, in which the current crop of presidential candidates explains views of executive privilege and power. The future of American democracy may depend on getting this choice right, after what the Bush-Cheney administration has done to this country.

David Nabarro, Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, has some bad news, some good news and some more bad news. First (bolded mine):

Bird flu is a problem that will likely be with us for some years to come, according to David Nabarro, senior coordinator for avian and human influenza at the United Nations. [bad] But citing data on the spread of the H5N1 virus from 146 nations, Nabarro emphasized the positive. "The first thing to say is that the situation has changed, between 2004 and 2007, the rate at which new countries are being affected by H5N1 has reduced, we've got a bit of a plateauing [leveling out], the number of human cases, which act as a sentinel, has slightly decreased, and the human deaths have also decreased." [good] He said that broad epidemiological evidence suggests that the H5N1 virus situation is not quite so serious.

Not quite so serious in the sense that we are not seeing more cases and more countries compared to last year. Compare 2007's 77 human cases (so far – pending confirmation of up to 9 people from Pakistan with 2 deaths) with 2006's 115.

Note, however, the bad news. It's still here, still deadly, and still spreading.

The virus, however, is still being actively transmitted in at least six countries, and there are new reports (December 16) of human infection and death in Burma and Pakistan. At the Washington briefing, Nabarro stressed the importance of maintaining focus, funding and political will to keep H5N1 under control.

And John Lange, who leads the U.S. government's avian influenza program, told reporters that the global campaign to stop avian flu goes beyond dealing with individual outbreaks. "What we've really been trying to do, when possible," he explained, "is to build long-term capacity, both on the veterinary side and on the human health side, through increased levels of surveillance, training of veterinarians and epidemiologists, building up laboratories, etcetera."

And Lange observed that international cooperation on bird flu has already had a positive impact on overall public health preparedness. "If there were a new disease that just emerged tomorrow, but it was totally different from H5N1 — maybe something that came out and had the ability for sustained and efficient human-to-human transmission — the best entities able to cope with it in terms of the networks that have been built up would often be those that are now working on the avian and pandemic influenza threats."

Several comments to make about that. Lange is right that a focus on H5N1 and pandemic flu helps public health preparedness in general (and a point that I have been making all along). But the fact that there is now a sense that limited human-to-human transmission has taken place in the recent Pakistan (and maybe China) cases along with the continuing high fatality rates speaks to a continued issue. Some of the drop-off in cases may be to the generous use of 'tamiflu' blankets in exposed individuals and surroundings. That can cut off spread of illness (good) and also perhaps increase false negative testing (bad). Even if that happens on occasion, however, we are not currently seeing an outbreak that suggests the beginning of a pandemic. We are seeing continued (and deadly) outbreaks. In Indonesia:

In 2006, 20% of the confirmed H5N1 cases had no direct contact with poultry.  In 2007, 30% of the confirmed cases have had no direct contact with poultry.  Compared to 2006, Indonesia has had fewer confirmed H5N1 cases this year (40 vs. 55), but the cases have been deadlier -- the CFR has risen from 81.8% in 2006 to 87.5% in 2007 (link).

More worrisome is the Pakistan family cluster we described last week, including one US citizen who tested negative on Long Island (having returned here from Pakistan). Revere at Effect Measure summarizes:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) suspects there has been only limited human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus in Pakistan, but international test results are pending, an official said on Friday.

David Heymann, WHO assistant director-general for health security and environment, said no new suspect human bird flu cases had emerged in Pakistan since Dec. 6, signalling there had been no further spread.

[snip]

"The team feels that this could be an instance of close contact human-to-human transmission in a very circumscribed area and non-sustained, just like happened in Indonesia and Thailand," Heymann told a news briefing in Geneva. (Reuters)

To be clear about continued risk:

The New York Times today reports on one of a batch of newly declassified documents from the early 1950s. The document in question, a memo from then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, is dated July 7 1950 (only two weeks after the outbreak of the Korean War). Hoover was angling for President Truman's permission to implement a plan to suspend habeas corpus, arrest thousands of citizens who were "potentially dangerous", hold them for an unspecified period, and permit the Attorney General to create special tribunals to decide whether to keep them imprisoned.

Hoover was hoping, in other words, for something close to a declaration of martial law.

For some months representatives of the FBI and of the Department of Justice have been formulating a plan of action for an emergency situation wherein it would be necessary to apprehend and detain persons who are potentially dangerous to the internal security of the country. I thought you would be interested in a brief outline of the plan.

Action to Be Taken By the Department of Justice

The plan envisions four types of emergency situations: (1) attack upon the United States; (2) threatened invasion; (3) attack upon United States troops in legally occupied territory; and (4) rebellion.

The plan contains a prepared document which should be referred to the President immediately upon the existence of one of the emergency situations for the President's signature. Briefly, this proclamation recites the existence of the emergency situation and that in order to immediately protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage the Attorney General is instructed to apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous to the internal security.

In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus for apprehensions made pursuant to it. The plan also contains a prepared joint resolution to be passed by Congress and an Executive Order for the President which too will validate the previous Presidential proclamation.

The next step in the plan is a prepared order from the Attorney General to the Director of the FBI to apprehend dangerous individuals, conduct necessary searches and seize contraband as defined in the plan. Together with the order to the Director of the FBI the Attorney General will forward a master warrant attached to a list of names of individuals which names have previously been furnished from time to time to the Attorney General by the FBI as being individuals who are potentially dangerous to the internal security.

It should be pointed out that the plan does not distinguish between aliens and citizens and both are included in its purview. If for some reason the full plan is not put into operation it has so been drawn that the section applicable only to alien enemies may be put into effect.

Hoover goes on to describe an "index" of about 12,000 dangerous people, nearly all citizens, whom the FBI had been watching for some time (since at least 1948). After these 12,000 "potentially dangerous" people were locked up without charge, their dangerousness would be assessed by what are unmistakably kangaroo courts.

The plan calls for a statement of charges to be served on each detainee and a hearing be afforded the individual within a specified period. The Hearing Board will consist of three members to be appointed by the Attorney General composed of one Judge of the United States or State Court and two citizens. The hearing procedure will give the detainee an opportunity to know why he is being detained and permit him to introduce material in the nature of evidence in his own behalf. The hearing procedure will not be bound by the rules of evidence.

The Hearing Board may make one of three recommendations, that is; that the individual be detained, paroled or released. This action by the Board is subject to review by the Attorney General and the Attorney General's decision on the matter will be final except for appeal to the President.

It seems pretty clear that Truman rejected Hoover's plan, or at least refused to give an order to implement it. In retrospect, it may be easy and certainly is pleasant to assume that such a hare-brained scheme would go nowhere. But it's closer to the truth to say that it was far from inevitable during the summer of 1950 that the president would turn down this ridiculously unconstitutional scheme. It's worth pausing to consider how narrowly the nation avoided that fate.

Truman had had a spotty record on civil liberties for years. In March of 1947, for example, he created governmental "loyalty boards" that inquired into the "loyalty" of all federal employees. These pernicious boards eventually got some 400 - 1200 federal workers fired, and another 1000 or more employees resigned. It was one of several ugly marks against a president who was too ready to give ground to anti-communist hysteria in Congress, and too willing to appease several hardliners among his own top officials (such as his Attorney General, Tom Clark, whom Truman described as addicted to "secret police proposition(s)").

In creating these loyalty boards Truman acted to pre-empt the Republican Congress from legislating something even more abusive of civil liberties. Truman also feared that something truly evil might be stirred up by Hoover, whom he loathed. Truman told Clark Clifford on May 2, 1947 that he "wants to be sure and hold FBI down, afraid of 'Gestapo'". Truman believed, rightly I think, that Hoover had assembled enough dirt on members of Congress that they would give in to almost any of Hoover's demands. In fact within hours of taking the oath of office in 1945, the President had his eye on the manipulative Hoover (Hoover had sent over to the White House a young FBI agent from Truman's home town, to chat the new President up).

So the background to this notorious decision from 1947 illustrates that Truman, far from indifferent to the Bill of Rights, instead believed that he was fighting as best he could on its behalf. His profound skepticism of the FBI Director was both a personal as well as a politically savvy judgment. For all his faults (including cronyism, occasional ineptitude, stubbornness), Truman was at least a very sharp, self-reflective, and principled man. Such a person has the potential to rise above his times.

To return to Hoover's plan in July 1950. He was attempting to turn the military crisis on the Korean peninsula to his own aggrandizement by introducing (with little public notice) a policy of illegal secret detentions and a separate, secretive, and illiberal court system--under color of a national emergency. Hoover was trying to achieve something like what Dick Cheney's gang did succeed in creating after September 2001.

Today's NYT report by Tim Weiner draws attention to some of those parallels, but it strikes a false note in setting the political context of Truman's actions:

In September 1950, Congress passed and the president signed a law authorizing the detention of "dangerous radicals" if the president declared a national emergency. Truman did declare such an emergency in December 1950, after China entered the Korean War. But no known evidence suggests he or any other president approved any part of Hoover’s proposal.

In point of fact Truman did NOT sign the McCarran Act in September 1950. Quite the opposite, he vetoed the bill and denounced it as unconstitutional. I quote from Alonzo Hamby's biography, Man of the People:

But on this bill, the president--implicitly comparing himself with Jefferson in 1798 and encouraged in this direction by key aides--was determined to draw the line. He would not, he had told them for months, sign "a sedition bill."

On September 22, he released a long veto message, which he had sent with a personal appeal for consideration to every member of Congress. Its most memorable line asserted: "In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never for the opinions they have."

Congress then overrode Truman's veto and enacted what the American public quickly dubbed the "concentration camp law". Most of the McCarran Act was subsequently ruled unconstitutional, or repealed.

In the long term, Truman emerged from this losing battle looking like a statesman. But in the heat of a mid-term election, with Democrats facing unrelenting attacks from Republicans for alleged weakness in rooting out "subversives", and having too few Congressional allies willing to fight back against the Nixonian mob, it took political courage to veto the McCarran Act. Or was it principle, or 'character', that was required?

Whatever the cause, the country was fortunate to have a real leader when Hoover's vicious scheme for destroying the Writ of habeas corpus needed to be rebuffed. And whatever that trait is, I'm looking for it in the next president. I'm searching for a candidate who can be trusted to take a firm line the next time the crazies try to pull a stunt like this.

In the world of Republican politics, Mitt Romney has struck a low blow against Mike Huckabee:

To hear Mitt Romney tell it, Republican Mike Huckabee shares more with Democrat Bill Clinton than a hometown in Hope, Ark., and a stint as Arkansas governor. [...]

"Governor Huckabee's record is more liberal than our nation needs right now," the former Massachusetts governor said in Iowa last week, seeking to link his GOP presidential rival to the former Democratic president who is loathed by many Republican loyalists.  [...]

Romney himself has stopped short of explicitly saying his rival is simply another Clinton, though he's less shy about it in campaign literature mailed to thousands of Iowa Republicans.

So, you have a Southern Baptist minister who opposes abortion, stem cell research, same-sex marriage and civil unions, and Mitt Romney is comparing him to Bill Clinton?  You have to wonder how this will go over with the Evangelical voters, particularly coming from Romney, who has flip-flopped on all of those very issues:  abortion, stem cell research. and gay rights.  

It seems that Romney is so afraid of Huckabee that he is willing to alienate the dedicated social conservatives in his quest for the presidency.  Those "value voters" might want to ask if that's Romney's plan in the general election too.

digby offers some Christmas cheer:
   

I'm sure most of you all are aware that there was a huge protest in New Orleans over the demolition of public housing the other day. Evidently a lot of people in the city are suspicious that they are going to tear down housing for poor people in the hopes that they relocate to another place. (Why do you suppose they would think such a thing?)

Anyway, CNN was showing pictures of the protest live when police went into the crowd with pepper spray and tasers to push back the protesters. It was the usual stomach churning sight of people covering their eyes in horrible pain, falling to the ground, screaming.

And what did CNN's Kyra Phillips have to say?

It actually got pretty crazy there. About 300 people tried to charge that gate into city hall, and New Orleans police right here had to respond with pepper spray and stun guns. Some of the protesters even kind of dropped to their knees when that happened. But they were pushing the gate, trying to get inside because there is a move now to demolish some of the housing projects there in New Orleans.

As digby noted:

They "kind of even dropped to their knees." Imagine that.

This is just business as usual in the United States. Back in the day they used to hit protesters and strikers with firehoses and batons, so it's not like using violence in these cases is new --- or even necessarily preventable. But with tasers and sprays it's so clean and easy now --- no blood, no bruises --- that when a reporter is narrating the scene he or she doesn't even mention that people are being hurt right before their eyes. The cops "respond with pepper spray and stun guns," the protesters just magically drop to their knees and everything is under control.

I guess that's progress...?

Here's the latest Overnight News Digest.

Dancing, media info, ratings, and more below the fold and in the comments...

The Lineup

• MTP: Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX); CNBC & NYT's John Harwood and NBC News' Chuck Todd on the pres. campaign
• FTN: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL); Mike Huckabee (R-AR)
• This Week: Rudy Giuliani (R-NY); roundtable of WaPo's EJ Dionne, ABC's Torie Clarke, Cokie Roberts and George Will; Caroline Kennedy (author, "A Family Christmas")
• FNS: Gen. David Petraeus on latest Iraq report; pastor Joel Osteen; Worcester Health president Morrill Worcester
• Late Edition: year-end special featuring clips of previous interviews

(Tonight's selections are brought to you courtesy of the Rescue Rangers. SusanG)

This evening's Rescue Rangers are Avila, Got a Grip, grog, jennyjem, joyful, vcmvo2, and watercarrier4diogenes, with srkp23 as editor.

• Continuing an astonishing series from 8ackgr0und N015e, Red State, Slave State (part 2) reports that this terrible institution is, horrifically, still alive and well. (joyful)
• DWG exposes how one wingnut group, an organization primarily involved in promoting defense spending and an aggressive foreign policy, also manages to be a "charitable" organization, in Patriotic Scams: A look at the Freedom Alliance. (grog)
• executedtoday reminds us eloquently that, along with other affiliates of The Petrashevsky Circle sentenced to death for thought crimes, Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Survived a Mock Execution This Date in 1849. (Avila)
• Mehitabel 9 reports on the rich history of our midwinter celebration in Winter Solstice 2007: The True Meaning of the Season. (vcmvo2)
• beckstei discusses music therapy as relief from depression in a continuation of the series, Saturday Morning SAD blogging. (jennyjem)
• Grab a fork and join YatPundit for some luscious YatCuisine - Theological Variation on the Holy Trinity. (joyful)
• Proving that good hearts can help foster intelligent minds, altruista shares her story of personal growth in My Path To Education. (Got a Grip)
• A phone-call from a neocon relative got Gemina13 musing on something the Ghost of Christmas Present said. Result: The New Scrooge of the Human Race. (watercarrier4diogenes)
• danps writes a thoughtful list of the Squanderer-In-Chief's major accomplishments in The Prodigal Man. (jennyjem)
• FightOnDems' Bizarre Aspect of the Iowa Caucuses (part 1) is a helpful explanation of how delegates are determined. (joyful)
• try democracy suggests three simple things that would restore our system of government in Dear Santa: All I want for Christmas is a strong Democracy. (vcmvo2)
• Let's join bmozaffari in A beginner's guide to government for the 3rd millennium, a snarkalicious glossary of all-too-true terms. (watercarrier4diogenes)

taylormattd brings Top Comments: These Should Be Sig Lines, Part IV.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

Coming Up on Sunday Kos ...

• SusanG will review Charlie Savage’s new book, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy.
• MissLaura will consider the question of if, and how, celebrity endorsements matter to candidates.
• As a follow-up to the Pakistan H5N1 cluster reported last week with probable limited human-to-human transmission, DemFromCT reviews the 2007 good and bad news about worldwide H5N1 infections in birds and humans.
• Devilstower will ask whether Christianity and America are, at root, compatible or not.