TheAgitator.com
Wow.
Monday, December 8th, 2008So I sorta’ figured that some folks on the left would abandon the notion of keeping the executive accountable and transparent once one of their own took office. But this op-ed in the Washington Post by Matt Miller is really something to behold. Miller is a former journalist, who now works at the Center for American Progress. Miller first decries tell-all books by people like George Stephanopoulos and Scott McClellan, then proposes an awful idea:
Barack Obama should simply require key advisers and officials to sign a binding contract of confidentiality as a condition of employment. Aides should pledge not to disclose anything they see until, say, five years after their boss leaves office.
The more Miller tries to explain his idea, the more ridiculous he sounds.
It’s a shame, of course, that integrity has to be assured rather than assumed, but the political pre-nup is an idea whose time has come. Hollywood celebrities have required such contracts forever, from every cook, nanny and “personal assistant” they hire. Once President-elect Obama and his transition leaders think about this, they’ll realize that there is no downside to a pre-nup and no shame in insisting on one.
The difference between the president and a celebrity is of course that . . . Jesus, what isn’t different? A celebrity doesn’t work for the country. A celebrity isn’t the most powerful person in the world, with the world’s largest army, nuclear arsenal, and law enforcement force at his disposal. Nondisclosure agreements with celebrities concern things like with whom a celebrity is sleeping, what sort of personal peccadillos a celebrity might have, and other details about the celebrity’s private life. Miller is proposing that public servants on the public payroll promise to never disclose possible abuses of power, law-breaking, or lying by the most powerful person on earth, until well after it’s possible to do anything about it, or prevent further abuses.
Glenn Greenwald, also a man of the left, notes that the blog of Miller’s own organization recently bemoaned the rising level of secrecy in the federal government, and adds:
… it’s staggering that people like Miller, now that there’s a Democratic administration on the horizon, would be plotting and advocating still new presidential powers to further strengthen the wall of secrecy behind which our Government operates. One of the very few reasons that we have learned anything meaningful about what the Bush administration did was because people inside the administration decided, for whatever reasons, to shed light on it, to leak it, and to describe what they saw and heard.
Just imagine the ugly, anti-democratic spectacles that would arise if Miller’s proposal were accepted. If someone like Scott McClellan were about to publish a book that contained embarrassing — though completely unclassified — revelations about what President Obama said or did, then Obama could send lawyers into court seeking to enjoin publication of the book. Or the whistle-blowing author could be sued by the President for damages for having described what he saw. Who could possibly think that’s desirable?
Partisan hacks, that’s who. People whose view of executive power and government accountability wavers depending on which party is in power.
This got me thinking about a recent encounter I had with a “libertarian” law professor at a prominent university. The professor had just finished a stint with a government agency. I happened to be conducting research on some of the agency’s cases and we exchanged a few e-mails. He went on and on about how people at the agency were breaking the law and abusing power . . . then he added this was all “off the record” and could not be repeated, otherwise his career would be ruined.
Since I’m not a journalist and never identified myself as such, I laughed at the notion that saying he’s “off the record” somehow compelled me never to use the information he gave me. But it’s a good demonstration of the “Beltway” mentality that guys like Mr. Miller believe so deeply in.
Lets see the Executive branch and the Judicial branch have NO authority to keep ANYTHING secret. The sole delegation of authority to hold anything secret was given to Congress concerning their journals.
All claims to the contrary, including those of “national security” are total bull.
Dominus providebit!
In high school I despised Clinton. In college, I despised Bush for most of the same reasons. I suspect that I’ll find plenty of related reasons to call Obama a terrible excuse for a President. The one thing I noticed, was that 3/4 of the people who hated one, loved the other. Just proof that American politics are more about rooting for a team than principle.
FWB,
By that logic, the founding fathers would have seen nothing wrong with a newspaper publishing the troop readiness, positions and equipment levels at Valley Forge. Something tells me that Washington would have had a journalist lined up and shot if he caught them trying to publish that sort of thing.
Mike T, you have to admit, the government, for a long time, has been using the pretense of “national security” to protect politically damaging instances of abuse or ineptitude, and not to protect military strategies or locations, from Nixon, to Clinton, to Bush, it has all been a way for our government to declare that they don’t have to explain anything to us.
JCoke,
Absolutely. However, FWB’s argument is rubbish. It has always been a given that the government is entitled to keep certain things secret because failure to do so would undermine its basic duties. Even the libertarian night watchman state requires the concept of state secrets and security clearances to be able to protect the public and private property from foreign attack.
Libertarians are going to have to accept the fact that failure to maintain a robust intelligence apparatus is going to make us a very juicy target for foreign adversaries. Under federal law, as is, this isn’t really much of a loss of liberty, since the IC generally cannot hand over information it gets on American citizens to law enforcement, unless it is very serious stuff like involvement in a terrorist group that is planning to come to American soil.
Personally, I’m a lot more comfortable with that than the more constitutionally sound approach in the wake of a string of terrorist attacks which would be to declare a state of invasion and suspend Habeus Corpus.
On a side note, just so you know where I’m coming from here, I’m not your typical right-libertarian on defense issues. If it were up to me, we would abolish the National Guard and military reserves, reinstate the state militias and Congress would have be legally required to call on the states for militia forces to be trained as full time members of the armed services in a state of war. I’m also of the opinion that Congress should assert its constitutional prerogative, and declare most SWAT forces to be an illegal peacetime military force in most jurisdictions.
Right now, the writing style is the only thing that lets me tell the difference between Radley and Glenn when they show up in my RSS reader.
I wish I could say Matt Miller was the only I’ve seen pulling this garbage, but he’s just the worst. There are definitely people I agreed with 100% before the election are now scaring me by fetishizing secrecy and unanimous support for the incoming administration.
The pres. of US is not the most powerful person in the world,people just think and it seems let him think that he is. Our congress is suppose to be the law makers and deciders here. LOL god I crack me up.
It’s clear enough that FWB was trying for satire.
#3 MikeT
Great post!
“Just proof that American politics are more about rooting for a team than principle.”
One simple sentence that explains SO MUCH (just about everything) that is wrong with the way Americans approach their politics and politicians.
We should market some of those big foam #1 fingers ( I recommend using the middle finger instead of the index finger for this purpose though). And Debate towels in red or blue to be waved wildly! Hat/drink holders with straws! Fat heads. The marketing potential is endless and we could just do away with the pretense and market it for what it really is.
Oh, that was Matt Miller. For a second there I could have sworn that was a piece by Dick Cheney. Boy, I think it’s time for me to re-read my copy of “The Cult of the Presidency” (Gene Healy). Perhaps Mr. Miller should purchase a copy and pass it around at the Center for American Progress.
“People whose view of executive power and government accountability wavers depending on which party is in power.”
One thing is certain — an anarchist’s view of executive power and government accountability never depends on which party is in power.
Anarchism is consistent by definition.
So I just saw this Matt Miller character on Colbert via Hulu, and his interview was so upsetting that I had to search for his name on my Google Reader to hear what my trusty bloggers said about him. He discussed his book “The Tyranny of Old Ideas,” in which he definies old ideas as ideas he doesn’t agree with. Examples: schools are a local matter, high taxes are bad for the economy, and your company shouldn’t be taking care of you healthwise (implying the government should). (And his “new” ideas are: only government can save business and only business can save liberalism.)
I don’t think I have to explain myself on the Agitator as to why these ideas are horrid, I just needed to pass this idiocy on.
COlbert did call him a “take-no-prisoners pussy,” though, which I can fully agree with.
I also found his face to be the most punchable I’ve seen in a while.