Gov. Rendell (D-PA): Some whites “not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.”
It’s looking more and more clear that we’re heading into a heated debate over the role of Super Delegates at the Democratic Convention since it there’s at least a very real possibility they could decide the nominee against the majority of the pledged delegates.
But I think it’s worth drawing at least a mild distinction amongst the almost 800 Supers who are going to show up in Denver. We looked into this last week. And it turns out that the Supers are divided roughly evenly between elected officials and members of the Democratic National Committee.
To give a little more detail, all Democratic members of Congress are Supers; all Democratic governors are supers; former Democratic presidents, vice presidents, Speakers and Majority Leaders and a few others are all supers. The rest are party functionaries from across the country, most of whom are roped in as members of the Democratic National Committee, the governing body of the national Democratic party.
To me it seems like there’s at least much more of a rationale for the officeholders to be super delegates, though the rationale might not be sufficient in any case. Basically, if you’re a national Democratic officeholder, you’ve been elected by (mostly) Democrats at a very high level, often many times. The number who voted for you are probably substantially more than vote in most primaries. And you also have the real world experience to know what it takes to run and win as a Democrat in your state.
Again, I think it would be very questionable if the Supers as a whole decided the nomination against a clear (and ‘clear’ is important here) majority of the pledged delegates. But I can see the rationale for having officeholders like these in the mix as a leavening.
On the other hand, you’ve got a bunch of people from party offices who’ve in most cases never been elected to any actual public office and who aren’t clearly accountable in any way. For instance, if my senator votes in a way that I don’t like or I think is illegitimate, he or she is up for reelection again in two years. But the assistant Deputy Treasurer or whatever of the Democratic party in my state? I really doubt people are going to mobilize to get involved in internal party politics to signal their disagreement with that person’s decision.
The rules we’re playing under now are the rules. So I’m not sure this has any particular relevance to what’s coming down the pike over the next couple months. But I think it’s a distinction worth keeping in mind if you’re giving this issue some thought.
And one other point: this debate is going forward with what appears to be the strong implicit assumption on both sides that the Supers will break strongly for Hillary. But I’m not sure there’s really an basis for that assumption.
TPM Reader RL throws in the towel:
I actually like the idea of a unitary executive, because it implies that there could be a unitary citizen. I have begun to consider myself a unitary citizen. I am allowed (by virtue of the definition of a unitary executive) to pick and choose the laws I would like to follow, kind of Thoreau like.
I also like the idea of retroactive immunity paired with the unitary citizen. I could decide not to follow a stupid law and then forgive myself afterwards.
But it begins to sound like (horrors) anarchy. Maybe that’s what we now have as a form of government: unitary anarchy. I like it. It works for me!
Richard Parker in the Book Club: The political power of Christian Conservatism isn’t on the wane, it never actually existed!
This just out from the AP:
Iran is gaming its future in Iraq on three fronts, the most public of which has been face-to-face meetings between U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi Qomi. Another session could be held in March.
While Crocker has insisted the talks have not veered from topics surrounding Iraqi security, the Iraqi officials, some of whom sat in on the meetings, say their scope has expanded.
The result, the officials said, was Iran’s pledge to stop backing the Mahdi Army in return for the Bush administration lowering its rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear program. The Iraqis who spoke about the talks said they believed the release of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in December was a quid pro quo to Tehran for it having turned its back on the Mahdi Army.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The NIE, in an about-face, said Iran had halted its secret attempts to build nuclear weapons in 2003, contrary to White House claims that Iran was using a civilian nuclear energy program as cover to build nuclear weapons.
Since then, Washington’s pronouncements have softened significantly.
The Potomac Primary (Maryland, DC and Virginia) is today. And we’ll start reporting live results here at 7 PM Eastern. If you want to know what to expect and what the surprises might be, we’ve got it all in today’s Potomac Primary Preview episode of TPMtv …
Saying that the Senate had “just sanctioned” the “single largest invasion of privacy in the history of the country,” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has promised to filibuster any bill that emerges from conference committee containing telecom immunity.
There’ve been a lot of assumptions about the Ohio primary next month. But now we’ve got what I believe is our first poll. SurveyUSA: Clinton 56%, Obama 39%.
Interestingly, they’ve also got the GOP side: McCain 50%, Huckabee 36%.
Late Update: Seems there was an earlier poll. February 3rd in the Columbus Dispatch: Clinton 42%, Obama 19%.
In an extraordinary interview with the BBC, Justice Antonin Scalia dismissed what he called the smugness and self-satisfaction of torture opponents:
In the interview with the Law in Action programme on BBC Radio 4, he said it was “extraordinary” to assume that the ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” – the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment – also applied to “so-called” torture.
“To begin with the constitution… is referring to punishment for crime. And, for example, incarcerating someone indefinitely would certainly be cruel and unusual punishment for a crime.”
Justice Scalia argued that courts could take stronger measures when a witness refused to answer questions.
“I suppose it’s the same thing about so-called torture. Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the constitution?” he asked.
“It would be absurd to say you couldn’t do that. And once you acknowledge that, we’re into a different game.
“How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?”
We are indeed into a different game.
Apropos of Antonin Scalia’s simplistic analysis below, it can’t be said often enough that the torture techniques authorized by the President have not been used only in ticking time bomb scenarios (and it’s not clear they were ever used in that situation).
Here for example is how they were used on one of the six detainees charged yesterday in the 9/11 attacks:
Qahtani’s case drew condemnation in June 2005 when Time magazine published leaked portions of his interrogation log showing that U.S. forces had him bark like a dog and left him to urinate on himself in isolation.
In the log, U.S. interrogators describe how they ratcheted up techniques on Qahtani during 50 days starting in November 2002 to extract a confession — by using sleep deprivation, leaving him strapped to an intravenous drip without bathroom breaks and having him strip naked.
Monday, he was one of six men named by the Pentagon to face a complex six-defendant war crimes trial for the suicide attacks that slammed aircraft into the Pentagon, World Trade Center and a Pennsylvania field — killing 2,973 people.
The six men could be executed if they are convicted, and if a Bush administration official approves their trial as a death-penalty case.
The Pentagon has since said that Qahtani’s interrogation tactics were personally approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Qahtani’s civilian attorney said the captive has since recanted any confessions he made during those interrogations.
Extracting a confession is a whole different ballgame, as Justice Scalia might say. And note the date the torture started, November 2002, more than a year after 9/11. So even granting some legal or moral authority to the ticking time bomb argument, it doesn’t appear to apply here.