Strange:
In response to my post last night poking fun at both sides of the aisle for their (forthcoming) switch in arguments, Glenn Greenwald writes, with my emphasis added:
George Washington University Law Professor Orin Kerr — a leading apologist for many (though not all) of the lawless and radical Bush policies of the last eight years — last night smugly predicted that Democrats who spent the last eight years opposing executive power expansions and an oversight-free Presidency will now reverse positions, while Republicans who have been vehement advocates of a strong executive and opposed to meaningful Congressional oversight will do the same.I suppose if you're going to be labeled an "apologist," it's nice to be a "leading" one. No point in being a following apologist, after all. But does anyone know what "lawless and radical" policies I apparently served as an apologist for? I am genuinely curious. I realize it might just be Greenwald's shtick to throw labels around to describe people who do not always agree with him, but I figured I would ask anyway in case there are some actual examples that I should address.
My advice: don't feed the trolls.
If I gave examples I would be worried someone would label me a leading apologist for Glenn Greenwald.
Best ignored... the Conspiracy is light-years better in terms of quality and content. There's no reason to drive traffic to his site because he took a ridiculous swipe at you.
By the way, I have no intention of participating in rejectthem.com. :-)
I distinguish this blog from the Powerlines and Instapundits of the world who, over the last eight years, have done exactly what Prof Kerr's post was all about -- namely, taken whatever position has supported their side. As to the Bush policies Greenwald sees Kerr as an apologist for, I can only assume he is refering to Kerr's analysis of the FISA from soup to nuts. I have to say I have not always agreed with Kerr's analysis (i.e., the tendency to rely a bit too frequently on "unknowns", when new facts repeatedly dribbled out that could lead to reasonable inferences). But I think the analysis had been fair, citing fact and law and including dissenting views (almost always a link to M. Lederman for example).
Things like FISA are complex, legal issues. I, for one, come down on the side that Bush either knowingly or negligently broke the law and similar laws/constitutional prohibitions. But, like I said, it's complex. And taking the position that Greenwald always takes, with the level of certainty that gives no roomk for dissent, is exactly what got us into this whole mess over the last eight years.
Keep up the good work, Prof. Kerr. Here's one liberal who hopes you ignore such trifles.
I thought he said COULD have violated, depending on facts we don't know. I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first, or last.
I think you should keep posting, but contract out to EIDE_Interface to write all your posts.
That'll give Greenwald something to write about!
How do you think he got to be a "leading" apologist instead of a mere underling apologist?
Concur.
On the one hand, some VC'ers definitely seem to be strict constructionists and thus in favor of narrowly interpreting Congress's Article I powers and, I'd suppose as well, narrowly interpreting Article II.
But then other VC'ers might be fairly taken to favor fairly expansive interpretations of the Bill of Rights, including especially the First and Second Amendments (though I enjoy the Fourth Amendment posts we get from you, Orin; that's just not an amendment we get enough exposure to in law school). These posters might be interested in historical support for their positions (see earlier coverage on Heller), but I don't read them to find such historical support a strictly necessary condition for their support for, say, an individual right to bear arms.
Obama's election suggests that what we're going to have probably the same contour on many of these issues for some time, depending on who ends up getting to name Kennedy and Scalia's replacements. McCain's election, on the other hand, would have indicated a major shift, under which we might plausibly have seen not just a chipping away at Roe and Griswold but on Congressional authority under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, some hardening on the Fourth, and potentially even some adjustments to the First (I'm thinking in particular of the EC, maybe?). A Reagan/Bush/McCain Court would also have been something of a wild card on the developing Second Amendment caselaw that's to come, wouldn't it have been?
On balance, I'd say, Obama's victory (by protecting the liberal minority bloc) will help to ensure something of a status quo on constitutional liberties (if not some minor expansion, say, along the lines of Loving) while the young conservative bloc will help to hold the developing line on state's rights and perhaps push back a bit on Congressional power (this seems to be kind of Scalia's baby, doesn't it?). A McCain victory, on the other hand, while perhaps being a boon for economic liberty and even marking a real victory for states-righters, seems almost certainly also to have threatened a substantial contraction of individual freedoms, particularly in the "penumbra" of privacy. Is that something VC'ers were hoping for?
I weould examine the piece more carefully for strands of wool or cotton...
I have also wondered about such policies. Does that likewise classify me as an apologist?
Just wish him "Happy Guy Fawkes Night" and move on to the next topic.
Hey now! The naked man-stacking was good for America!
Somehow, I think the Bush-haters are still waiting for him to annul the election and seize power.
Bush, I think, is tired and wants to go home.
Cheney certainly seems by contrast to batten upon power, but he would have to hire Blackwater to carry out his coup. I wonder if they take American Express?
Now I can read the Cheney study that Prof. Kerr recommended ... frankly, I was waiting to be sure that it was past history I was going to be reading, and not a story with a sequel impending.
Canada sucks this time of year, but at least it isn't run by communist terrorists and Jihadist apologists like the US will be as of Inauguration day. See Israel before Obama helps Iran nuke it.
Count me amongst those who would not characterize you as an apologist based on your work here. Dude was talking out of his bum.
1. And you're surprised, why? It's just payback time -- obviously at some point Greenwald was doing his usual outrageous flame-trolling under a pseudonym in a thread on one of your posts, and you banned him. Serves you right for trying to enforce minimal standards of discourse (if not the "OK Fairness Doctrine?");
2. I'm still ROTFL at somebody who can non-slanderously be called an "ex-CLINTON/RENO Justice Department attorney" getting called a Bush "apologist." Oh wait... I just outed you right here in front of everybody on VC, didn't I... Oops! Sorry... ;
and/or
3. Not only does Ex-fed win the thread, we need to nominate his comment for the VC Hall of Fame (we can easily bump one of Sarcastro's posts if the HoF is already full)!
It appears Greenwald has answered your question.
Incidentally, I may not stop snickering until bedtime at Greenwald's "update" in which he castigates you for "using professorial and self-consciously cautious language." Apparently he has some difficulty recognizing legal analysis when he sees it. NYU really ought to retroactively revoke this guy's J.D. (then again, given what I've read about Greenwald's involvement with Matt Hale back when Greenwald was in his Hobbesian legal career ["poor, nasty, brutish and short"] maybe NYU already has).
(obviously, it appears prof. kerr has responded in some kind through this blog post)
Ditto. Stuff like discredits Greenwald's worthwhile efforts.
Greenwald doesn't have much other choice. Kerr posted his support for bipartisan laws restricting surveillance. Kerr compared a journalists description of a law to the law and refers to Bush's "very likely unlawful monitoring". Kerr criticized a judge's reasoning in deciding against the DOJ but writes the the "DOJ should have lost anyway, even if for reasons that Judge Taylor didn't expain". Greenwald casts all of these posts as apologizing for Bush's policies, when they're mostly tangential to policy when not critical of Bush's and supportive of biparisan policy.
Sadly, Greenwald is discouraging his readers from understanding the law in technical terms when he insists on presenting Kerr's posts in normative terms.
At least re: OK on these issues, you say blase, I say temperate. Tomato, tomahto? Maybe not. Regardless, it's the dispassionate indictments by people like Orin with no ax to grind that can't be waved off as partisan mudslinging or BDS.
If you don't know, then you're the only one who doesn't. Even if you don't accept that they are lawless and radical, only a fool wouldn't know which policies Greenwald is referring to. But rather than being a fool, you play one.
In case you can't work the link, I'll summarize:
1.Your position on the Protect America Act
2.Your disagreement with Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's decision regarding the NSA warrantless surveillance program
3.Your disagreement with the Fourth Circuit's decision in Al Marri v. Wright
4.Your support of the FISA amendment act of 2008.
That's about it. Of course, anyone reading this thread knows you know very well what GG is talking about.
Also, Greenwald's critique would have had a bit more punch if he had called Orin "venal," "craven," and "corrupt." I find it's always best to throw adjectives like that around when accusing people who don't completely agree with me of bad faith.
Other than that, Greenwald's post was literally 100% spot-on.
Let's see. The man has one of the most popular blog columns on the Internet. His posts routinely attract hundreds of comments. He produces regular podcasts. He's written two best-selling books.
And you think he spends his "spare time" assuming fake identities on other sites? Want to provide some proof of that or should we just assume anyone who defends him -- me, for example -- is a sock puppet?
Man....
The fun of a Gleen post is usually to pick out what name he's posting under, but this is way too easy. He goes around poking people until someone responds in an effort to drive traffic to his site. Although he touts himself as an expert on constitutional law, his short legal career was apparently that of a garden-variety litigator in a non-prestigious firm.
Other than that, Greenwald is totally worth taking seriously.
The evidence for sock-puppetry was already linked above, but here it is again just for you; the evidence seems rather substantial and I've not seen anything to the contrary. Do you have an alternative explanation?
No, that is written in the style of his old sock-puppets.
I would count it unlikely that it is actually him. 1, because it would be trivial to mix it up and write it in a different way and 2, he has alot more readership now and has other people available do his evangelizing for him.
I genuinely appreciate that link with the possible alternative explanation. I had not seen that, and I thank you. That does indeed seem like a plausible alternative, particularly given Greenwald's own oblique comment on the issue.
That said, the alternative explanation (that someone in Greenwald's own household -- specifically his partner -- is responsible for making those comments under multiple false names) is still not very flattering. I would think that most of us would be embarrassed by such support.
It looks like some people are inventing excuses by multiplying factors without facts.
I'd disavow it as inappropriate, but I wouldn't be at all embarrassed by it. I'd only be grateful for expressions of loyalty by a loved one, however misplaced or poorly executed.