Enjoy your first year.  It is quite a lot of fun, despite the stress and workload.  Read the cases (it will make you smarter and prevent you from getting embarassed in class), but remember: they only actually test the blackletter law.  Learn those rules!  

I recommend the book "Getting to Maybe" as a very fine guide to getting good grades your first year.  We live in a Report Card World, after all...

Out of all the old school liberal pundits, I think EJ Dionne is one of the best at monitoring reality and sneaking out of the old media cacoon.  Today's column on the Democratic boycott of the Fox News debate is an excellent insider take:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041201821. html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Dionne ain't perfect, but in a world of Brian Williams, Joe Klein and Richard Cohen, I'll take his view any day of the week.

So, Josh Marshall has basically led the charge in the whole attorney firing scandal so far.  The scandal has already enveloped a senator, a congress-critter, Gonzales's chief of staff, and probably soon Gonzales himself.  And to this point, the scandal has focused almost exclusively on whether attorneys were fired for failing to prosecute Democrats.

And yet there is a different angle in this tawdry tale, which focuses on San Diego, where Carol Lam - who prosecuted Duke Cunningham, and just indicted Dusty Foggo and Brent Wilkes - was fired.  The media has hardly touched it.  Nor has Congress.  And yet, look what Josh says about it:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archive s/013019.php

According to Josh, "Everything else pales in comparison."

And I have to say...the biggest part of this particular quadrant of the scandal will not be the White House silencing a prosecutor who was about to take down Republicans. The big part - the really ugly and shocking part - is what Lam was closing in on.  Josh offers a hint:

"...the still largely hidden corrupt dealings at the heart of the intelligence operations in the Rumsfeld Pentagon."

This is where things go deep.  Congressional Dems have no clue, nor do the DC press corps.  I'm talking bad ugliness.

After 9/11, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld didn't think Congress should have any oversight over intelligence operations.  So they moved more and more off the books, black-ops programs out of the CIA (which is overseen by Congress) and into the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and the Office of the Vice President.  They used Duke Cunningham and Brent Wilkes to do it.  This is why John Negroponte quit as head of intelligence.  He was spooked by the lack of oversight.  He remembered Iran/Contra and he didn't want to go there again.  

Think: Dick Cheney, unchained and unfettered by oversight or human decency.  We're talking about a dark, dark place.

If Dems keep pulling the string, something big is going to come...

I emailed the authors of the study to ask if they could reproduce the table I linked to above with the names of the prosecuting attorneys included.  

Once we have the names of the U.S. Attorneys who have prosecuted the most Democrats, the story will start coming into more focus.  Reporters can ask these U.S. Attorneys, on the record, why they have targeted Democrats over Republicans.  Were they instructed to do so by the Department of Justice?  Was it common knowledge that in order to get ahead, investigating Democrats was a must?  Did they do so to protect their job?

In addition, reporters can contact U.S. Attorneys who have NOT investigated a disproportionate number of Democrats if they received any threats from the White House, Department of Justice, or Congressional Republicans.

Ok, we have a study that shows that under the Bush Justice Department, 297 Democrats have been investigated by U.S. attorneys, compared to just 67 Republicans.  We even have a handy spreadsheet showing when and where the investigations and prosecutions took place:

http://www.epluribusmedia.org/columns/20 07/Table%201%20375%20Candidates%20and%20 Elected%20Public%20Officials.pdf

So here's my question: did the prosecutor in Hawaii who investigated 7 Democrats and 0 Republicans do so at the behest of the White House or DOJ?  How about the Nevada prosecutor(s) who went after 14 Dems and 0 Repubs?  Or the Michigan prosecutor, who chased 17 Dems and 0 Repubs?  Or the Maryland prosecutor who chased 21 Dems and 0 Repubs?

We know that targetting Democrats is an important part of job security if you are a U.S. attorney in the Bush Justice Department.  Presumably, the more Dems you prosecute, the faster and brighter your star burns.  It stands to reason that for every U.S. Attorney who refused to carry the Administration's water, there were more than a few who did so with considerable zeal.

Can we please identify some of the U.S. Attorneys who focused the majority of their efforts on Democrats and ask them, on the record, if they did so based on a specific request by anyone at DoJ?  

I can't wait for the GOP spin: all US Attorneys are political and there's nothing wrong with asking them to prosecute Democrats.

The old "everybody does it" routine, a GOP favorite.

We shall see about your critique of the harsh side of neoliberal economic policies.  You say it will go the way of the dodo...I say not so fast.  The coming entitlement crunch, the ascendance of India and China, crushing deficits, and the true arrival of global warming (and perhaps peak oil) are going to push masssive amounts of pressure on America.  There really is no guarantee that Americans to react to these developments by acceping higher taxes.

We all saw what happened in New Orleans.  Americans were horrified to see a U.S. city looking like a third world country...for about three months.  And then they forgot.  

Oh, I think the Gulf War was certainly a neoliberal war, even if it was led by the "realists" of the Bush I Administration.  Over time, I think the claims that we invaded Iraq for "humanitarian" purposes (e.g. to save Kuwait) have grown a bit hard to swallow...but the process of gaining UN acceptance and gathering an overwhelming force of allies certainly meets the definition of neoliberalism.

I really don't think neoliberalism morphed into neoconservatism in the Republican Party, however.  The neocons took the Gulf War to mean that US military force was unstoppable, but they never had much use for the international institutions favored by neoliberals or James Baker's "realist" camp.  Neocons view the UN as a tool for creating a cover of legitimacy...but they don't actually believe in it.

I will also say this: it is a HUGE mistake to assume neoliberalism is somehow dead.  Far from it.  Neoliberalism will be revitalized and reinvigorated the second a Democrat wins the White House and liberals are forced to deal with the foreign policy mess Bush has created.

Neoliberalism, before being corrupted by the neocons and the Iraq war, actually stood for something.  In short, neoliberals believed in the international security system.  They believed that American military force should be used when a suitiable consensus of international actors agreed and supported such action.  Take the aerial bombardment of Kosovo.  The UN Security Counsel would not approve the attack because of Russia's veto power (and to a lesser degree China's).  When the US took action, however, neoliberals supported the invasion because the US was able to get the full support of NATO.  The entire Yugoslavian conflict was the quintisenntial neoliberal war - a cautious and meticulously planned military attack undertaken with a large number of allies and a large degree of international credibility.  It was not perfect, since the UN didn't support it, but it was close enough from the neoliberal perspective.

When there is Democrat in the White House in 2008, neoliberalism will resurface.  Hopefully, the neolibs who take charge will have learned a few lessons about allying themselves with neocons by then.  And you know what?  It may not be a bad thing.  For all its flaws, the international security system probably is humanity's (and America's) best chance for maintaining some semblance of global peace.  As long as that remains the case, neoliberalism is here to stay.  The alternatives are neoconservatism or James Baker's "real politic" camp, with its affinity for South American death squads and secret deals with authoratrian regimes.

So, trust me.  Neoliberalism ain't dead.  Just ask that perennial favorite of the netroots, General Wesley Clark.  You think he's a passivist?  Hell no.  He's a neoliberal, to the core.  The Bush years have been a long, cold winter for chaps like Clark, but if Hillary or Obama or Edwards (or Richardson or Dodd or Biden) take the White House in '08, his resume will be at the top of the pile at the DoD.

While the blogosphere certainly has something to do with the decline of neoliberalism, I suspect it was the neoliberal flirtation with neoconservatism that actually sealed the deal.  The late-90's neoconservative movement was led by "intellectuals" like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowicz and Bill Kristol - and to a lesser degree Washington has-beens like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.  There was nothing liberal about this crew.  And yet the neocons tempted many a neoliberal to see things their way.  This was because the neocons, despite their extremely hawkish foreign policy views, were willing to feign moderation on social and economic issues.  Thus, neolibs like Kinsley, Josh Marshall, Fareed Zakaria, Friedman and Beinart were easily seduced by the neoconservative cult after 9/11 - when the projection of American military force seemed both reasonable and necessary.  

The neolibs supported the use of military force in Afganistan and even began parroting a lighter version of the neocon line about transformative democracy in the Middle East as the "issues" with Saddam's UN compliance began to appear in the fall of 2002.  What emerged was a kind of grand, non-partisan coalition between the hardcore neocon wingnuts, who strained to appear moderate while they had America's trust, and the young neoliberals, who were desperate to appear adult and tough and "serious" in the aftermath of the deadly attacks on 9/11.  

Then came the build up to Iraq.  Bush defied the Security Counsel.  He ignored our allies.  He rushed to war on dubious intelligence.  It was all pretty obvious at the time.  Certain neoliberals, like Wes Clark, recognized this early and took a fairly hard stand against the war, despite serious professional and political repercussions.  Most did not.

As 2002 turned to 2003 and the war drew closer, certain neolibs (like Josh Marshall) retracted their support for the Iraq war as it became increasingly clear that the neocon program cared little for the international security system or the views of our allies (both major problems from the neoliberal perspective).  Many neolibs ignored these concerns, however, and supported the Iraq despite the warning signs.  Some neolibs, like Friedman and Zakaria, even identified the warning signs in real time, explaining why the developments would probably lead to catastrophe before proceeding to support the neocon invasion of Iraq anyway.  This was a real turning point for these men.  The neoliberal inside of them clearly rejected the Administration's disasterous rush to war, but they had so internalized the neocon message that they believed the war must be fought regardless.  They turned to the dark side.

Today, Iraq remains the dividing line for neoliberal legitimacy and illegitimacy.  Neolibs like Josh Marshall and Matt Yglesias, who have renounced neoconservatism and realigned their views with reality, remain credible figures (Marshall withdrew his support for the Iraq war about two weeks before the invasion began; Yglesias was slightly later, I believe).  Others, like Friedman and Zakaria and Beinart, have become parodies of themselves as they strain to reject the most extreme elements of the neoconservative program while continuing to support the main underpinnings of the neocon platform.  (And yet it is these fence sitters who continue to get the "liberal" op/ed spots in most major newspapers and magazines.)  

What was the role of the blogosphere in the fall of neoliberalism?  Well, certainly bloggers have kept score.  The neolibs who have renounced their flirtations with neoconservatives have been welcomed back into the fold.  The neocon-lites (i.e. former neolibs who have "gone native" with the neocons) such as Joe Lieberman, Tom Friedman and Zakaria have also been appropriately labeled and compromise.  And finally the neolibs who want it both ways, such as Joe Klein and Michael Kinsley, have been properly rediculed for refusing to take responsibility for their past complicity all while claiming to stay "above the fray."

I can see the netroots getting together with African Americans on Obama.  Not so sure about a truly close longterm coalition, however, since the netroots is not only lily white, but largely secular and generally less concerned with the issues that black America tends to focus on.

Still, there is one area of natural partnership: volunteering and voter outreach.  While the netroots isn't a large voting block, it can muster a lot of volunteers on election day.  This is similar to the black community.  Definitely a potential place for partnering.

I'm confused.  The Democrats finally have subpoena power.  They claimed oversight would be back when they were in charge.  But it's  not.  Dusty Foggo - the #3 guy at CIA - was just indicted.  Porter Goss quit as head of CIA because of the same scandal.  Carol Lam gets fired for investigating.  Where are the subpoenas?

Sy Hersh is publishing articles about how Cheney's office is running black ops programs that even CIA doesn't know about.  And he's saying that John Negroponte quits his post as Intelligence Chief because he's terrified of being associated with Cheney's programs.  Where are the subpoenas?

Dems are sitting there doing a kabuki dance over non-binding Iraq resolutions...why?  The White House is at 29% approval and the filth of the last 6 years is just sitting there, untouched by Congress.  Where are the subpoenas???

Hint to Dems: investigate.  Once the White House is on its heels, the Iraq debate will get a whole lot easier...

Carol Lam is the big one.  Remember, the White House was the one doing the firing here.  And Lam's Cunningham investigation was getting closer and closer to the CIA.  Certainly, her investigation caused some concern among Congressional Republicans.  But the CIA falls under the White House, and Foggo was a creature of Porter Goss and Karl Rove.  Who gave the order to fire Lam?  What does Dusty Foggo know?  Where were these millions and millions of dirty dollars going?  

With Harry Reid struggling with Iraq, I think indicting some White House figures could be just what the doctor ordered for Congressional Dems.  So much of the Iraq debate is about momentum...and if the White House is on its heels, those fence sitting Republican senators are much more likely to kiss Bush and his 29% approval ratings goodbye...

Think about it: just the other day, we heard rumors (from Sy Hersh) that Negroponte wanted out as Intelligence Chief because of black ops dollars flowing to Sunni militants affiliated with al-Qaida.  

Dusty Foggo.  Brent Wilkes.  The CIA.  Black ops programs.  Six years of zero oversight.  Money going to al-Qaida.  Secret prisons.  Assassinations.  Scandal.  What else?

All Dems have to do is pull the string.  If they start using their subpoena power they can win the Iraq debate by sending the Administration's approval numbers into the teens.  Dark, dark things have been going on in this country's name for the last six years.   Pull the string.

Democrats need to get their house in order.  Then they need to set a deadline for withdrawal, which is what 63% of the country currently wants.  Then they need to force a vote on it.  

If they win in the House and have a clear majority in the Senate (i.e. passage is stopped only by a Republican fillibuster), then you look at defunding.

Harry Reid should let Pelosi lead this charge, since Dems can actually win in the House.  Win your House votes, then focus all the pressure Senate Republicans.  

Sound about right?

I think it's important to read Greenwald's full article.  He's not blaming the Democratic Congress alone.  He is also pointing the finger at the netroots:

"[O]ne sees relatively little dissatisfaction, and almost no anger, directed at the Democratic leadership for its refusal even to force a vote on genuine war-ending measures. It is unclear why that is -- perhaps there are good reasons for it -- but those reasons are difficult to discern, and these seem like questions worth examining."

The netroots shouldn't be getting all high and mighty about the Congressional Dems' hesitancy on this issue.  If we want beninding withdrawal resolution or defunding efforts, we need to communicate that to the Democratic Congress.  And as Greenwald's piece makes clear, that hasn't happened...yet.

With that in mind, the netroots should be offering Congressional Dems a mix of pressure and support.  Dems need to know that the Democratic base will have their back if they take these risks.  Candidates like Obama and Edwards deserve credit for talking about withdrawal.  Hillary should receive pressure to do the same.  

If the netroots makes its desire clear, Congress will start to respond.