Scott Horton: Are Republicans Blackmailing Obama?

[babylonsister]

Are Republicans Blackmailing Obama?

by Scott Horton


Ralph Orlowski / Getty Images


If the president releases the Bush torture memos, Republicans are promising to “go nuclear” and filibuster his legal appointments. Scott Horton reports on a serious threat to Obama’s transparency.

Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

Barack Obama entered Washington with a promise of transparency. One of his first acts was a presidential directive requiring that the Freedom of Information Act, a near dead letter during the Bush years, was to be enforced according to its terms. He specifically criticized the Bush administration’s practice of preparing secret memos that determined legal policy and promised to review and publish them after taking office.

But in the past week, questions about Obama’s commitment to transparency have mounted. On April 2, the Justice Department was expected to make public a set of four memoranda prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel, long sought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy organizations in a pending FOIA litigation. The memos, authored by then-administration officials and now University of California law professor John Yoo, federal appellate judge Jay Bybee and former Justice Department lawyer Stephen Bradbury, apparently grant authority for the brutal treatment of prisoners, including waterboarding, isolated confinement in coffin-like containers, and “head smacking.” The stakes over release of the papers are increasingly high. Yoo and Bybee are both targets of a criminal investigation in a Spanish court probing the torture of five Spanish citizens formerly held in Guantánamo; also named in the Spanish case are former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and three other Bush lawyers. Legal observers in Spain consider the Bush administration lawyers at serious risk of indictment, and the memos, once released, could be entered as evidence in connection with their prosecution. Unlike the torture memos that are already public, these memos directly approve specific torture techniques and therefore present a far graver problem for their authors.

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-05/are-republicans-blackmailing-obama/full/

[redqueen]

1. So they're blackmailing him to cover up crimes?

How is this ok?

[villager]

2. Bring. It. On. And make the GOP blackmail part of the transparency

Release the memos, and tell America exactly what the party of torture is doing in terms of filibustering nominees.

[ellacott]

4. Also bring charges against Woo and the others

They may try to filibuster appointments but they will have to deal with charges being filed.

We can blackmail also.

[atreides1]

3. If they are

Make them filibuster, and let the information out that these are nothing more then Republicans who do not believe in the law and condone the use of torture.

[Jennicut]

5. Typical criminal Repukes

Utterly disgusting but not surprising. They never want this stuff to come out. Let them filibuster.

[sharp_stick]

6. Now might be a good time

to bring up Bill Frists nice little nuclear option with the pukes? I'm getting mighty sick of the pathetic display of obstructionist idiocy being brought forward by this little band of losers.

If the Democrats don't want to do away with the fillibuster they have other equally valid options. Some of which might even be kind of fun. For example, allow the pukes to fillibuster but if they want to do it they have to have every member willing to speak during the fillibuster present in the Senate chamber throughout while the non-fillibustering party need only have one member present to warm a seat. One of the pukes drank too much coffee and has to take a leak, oops you can't get back in.

At the very least this has to be brought out into the open, if they want to do this it will be done in the light of day so everyone knows who is blocking the memo release.

Failing all of that, Obama could do recess appointments even though they suck. The pukes don't control the chamber so they can't block a recess.

[CoffeeCat]

7. someone needs to end this nonsense...NOW!

Call their bluff!

These jerks are bullies. And covering up torture is one of their hundreds of crimes.

When will this nonsense be stopped? Who will have the courage and the integrity to release
our democracy from this vile crime syndicate?

If not Obama, then who?

[AndyA]

8. I say release the memos, and let America know that the Republicans are

threatening these actions. President Obama could go on television and tell America why this is happening. Then let the Republicans just try to explain their actions to their constituents.

Talk about the shit hitting the fan!

[bain_sidhe]

9. Makes you wonder who leaked this...?

A game of chess, anyone?

[ellacott]

13. That's what I was thinking also

I frequently say that the Obama administration is the one playing chess.

[TwilightGardener]

10. Then the Obama administration must reveal to the public what the GOP is doing.

Let the Senate and House GOPers publicly explain why they feel they have to blackmail Obama, and explain why they're acting against the nation's best interests in not having necessary legal appointments filled.

[kestrel91316]

11. If they threaten him in any way, he needs to expose it publically, as in

hold a press conference and tell on them right away. Show them for the evil fucks they are.

[DevonRex]

12. So can't we get them confirmed and then release the documents AND

expose the GOP's blackmail?

[vssmith]

14. Just do what is right--end of story

[Pepe Ronny]

15. Greenwald: "it doesn't matter" if blackmailing allegations are true

"It's unclear whether the claims of Horton's source are true.  It sounds more like a responsibility-shifting excuse than anything else -- a way of blaming Republicans rather than Obama officials for the failure to disclose these memos -- but it doesn't matter in the slightest if the claims are true."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

[bvar22]

16. The on ly way to deal with a blackmailer...

..is to GO PUBLIC.


This sounds like another excuse for Democratic non-performance.
Reminds me of the "We can't do ]anything because we don't have 60 votes in the Senate" excuse.
Never mind that the Republicans NEVER had 60 votes to push through their agenda.

bvar22...cursed with a memory.