Cheering for Death and Other Reactions to Last Night's News

Last night, Jacob and I both took to Twitter, as we tend to do these days when big news is released. It was a crazy two hours or so of speculation and confirmation, dark jokes, reactions to the MSM coverage, elation and bloodlust, and odd looks at the elation and bloodlust. I wanted to share a few of my reactions from the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death, its coverage, America's reaction, and what it means going forward.

Clearing out the Browser Tabs - A Recap of News Over the Holiday Break

Happy New Year! While our finals turned into a brief holiday hiatus, strangely, the news did not stop! Therefore, for my first post of the new year, I bring you a hodgepodge of stuff that has accumulated over the last couple weeks in my browser tabs.

From cell phones to torture to Angry Birds! I might actually start doing this occasionally as things happen in my areas of interest, but perhaps do not merit entire posts themselves.

The American Sovereign: Judicial, Political, Press, and Popular Immunity

But where says some is the king of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is. --Thomas Paine, Common Sense

"In America, the law is king." This one line is, quite simply, the single background principle upon which America was founded. It is the very idea that made the United States unique, interesting, and great. This is America's gift to the world. This is also, sadly, simply no longer true in law, in politics, or in media. When we talk about self-government, the conversation must start here, and this principle must underlie all discussions about holding the powerful accountable. It simply must, but it does not. The jurisprudence of the 11th Amendment, the lack of the political will to prosecute political officials for torture or warrantless domestic spying, and the media and popular reaction to Wikileaks all depict an American polity for whom this principle is not merely relegated to the sidelines, but for whom it exists only in the faintest wisps of memory of a fifth grade civics textbook.

I want to illustrate in this post how all the different sections of civic life: law, politics, media, and popular sentiment have embraced a vision of America radically different from anything Thomas Paine might have written over 200 years ago.

Restoring Sanity to "Both Sides"

By now, most of you will have heard about Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity", which coupled with Stephen Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive," will give Glenn Beck's rally the sound mocking it deserves. I just wanted to write a quick note about it right now. A more thorough post on the genesis of this event and what that means generally for media will be coming soon.

Basically, Jon Stewart is great, and I'm a huge fan, but when he announced this rally he did something I believe deeply destructive and have written about before - false equivalences. Glenn Greenwald, however, just wrote the post that I wanted to write, so I'm just going pass it on, quoting him:

I think Jon Stewart is one of the most incisive and effective commentators in the country, and he reaches an audience that would otherwise be politically disengaged. I don't have any objection if he really wants to hold a rally in favor of rhetorical moderation, and it's also fine if, as seems to be the case, he's eager to target rhetorical excesses on both the left and right in order to demonstrate his non-ideological centrism. But the example he chose to prove that the left is guilty, too -- the proposition that Bush is a "war criminal" -- is an extremely poor one given that the General in charge of formally investigating detainee abuse (not exactly someone with a history of Leftist advocacy) has declared this to be the case, and core Nuremberg principles compel the same conclusion.

"Both Sides" Journalism and the Role of Media's Subservience To Government

I'm a little late on this, but I wanted to mention something about the study that came out of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government a couple weeks ago, regarding newspapers' use of the word torture. Specifically, I want to use it to put in context my assertion that unfortunately, the potentially bad results of government funding of journalism are already here, with none of the benefits.

The study documents a "significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboarding." Basically, in the last 100 years, the newspapers discussed waterboarding occasionally and unequivocally called it torture, right up until the government began asserting that it was not torture.Glenn Greenwald sums up the implications well:

We don't need a state-run media because our media outlets volunteer for the task: once the U.S. Government decrees that a technique is no longer torture, U.S. media outlets dutifully cease using the term. That compliant behavior makes overtly state-controlled media unnecessary.

What it also does is make the bogeyman specter of government control irrelevant to the discussion because for better or worse (obviously worse) it's already here.

Sexual Orientation, Sex Life, and Elena Kagan

Glenn Greenwald wrote the following today:

Perhaps it's naïveté, but I've been amazed by the outraged objections of many Good Liberals to the mere discussion of Elena Kagan's sexual orientation. Without realizing it, they've completely internalized one of the most pernicious myths long used to demand that gay people remain in the closet: namely, that to reveal one's sexual orientation is to divulge one's "sex life."

Well, he's got it part right, and part wrong. He explains:

The Race-Based Case Against Elena Kagan

This piece was originally posted on April 28, 2010 upon speculation that Elena Kagan would be nominated to the supreme court. We are reposting it due to news that she has actually been nominated.

Glenn Greenwald has been busily documenting the case against Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court (and for Diane Wood). Essentially, his main case against Kagan boils down to the fact that we (stunningly, since she's been an academic for twenty years) have no paper record of her, and the little we have shows that she has scary leanings on executive power and would move the court farther to the right on that crucial modern-day issue where Obama is as bad as Bush in every respect.

I believe that critique powerful, as we don't want to go in blind, but I want to highlight another, very troubling bit about Elena Kagan documented by Duke law professor (and Michigan Law grad/Michigan Journal of Race & Law founder and 2010 symposium speaker!) Guy-Uriel Charles (and quoted in yesterday's article by GG)

The Race-Based Case Against Elena Kagan

Glenn Greenwald has been busily documenting the case against Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court (and for Diane Wood). Essentially, his main case against Kagan boils down to the fact that we (stunningly, since she's been an academic for twenty years) have no paper record of her, and the little we have shows that she has scary leanings on executive power and would move the court farther to the right on that crucial modern-day issue where Obama is as bad as Bush in every respect.

I believe that critique powerful, as we don't want to go in blind, but I want to highlight another, very troubling bit about Elena Kagan documented by Duke law professor (and Michigan Law grad/Michigan Journal of Race & Law founder and 2010 symposium speaker!) Guy-Uriel Charles (and quoted in yesterday's article by GG)

Obama Puts a Hit Out on a US Citizen He Says is a Terrorist

(Updated below)

I'm exhausted. Too exhausted to muster up my typical righteous anger about this issue, so I'll just send you along to Glenn Greenwald, who has plenty.

Not really sure there's a money quote, so just read the thing, but here's a sample: