Blumner on the high horse

Robyn Blumner had the week off; her editorial did not appear in this week's paper, nor on the St. Petersburg Times' Web site. So, I'm delving into the archives and picking on her July 1 screed on church-state separation.

When President Bush finally leaves office in January 2009, he will leave behind many legacies. One will be a nation stripped of its moral bearings. Where once we did not torture and were a nation of laws, that is no longer true. Bush will also leave us in far reduced international standing and with a disabled military. And he will leave an exhausted treasury with a national debt of many trillions of dollars more than he found it.
(St. Petersburg Times)

Stripped of its moral bearings on the basis of this "torture" issue?

On 60 Minutes, Michael Sheuer, a former CIA analyst who said he helped devise the rendition program during the Clinton presidency, said US authorities did ask officials in the countries to which suspects were taken not to torture them.

"But they don't have the same legal system we have; we know that going into it," Mr Sheuer said. "We ask them not to torture these people, but we aren't there to check on them."

Asked whether the CIA knew people were being tortured and whether this was acceptable, he said: "It's OK with me. Our role was to gather information. My job was to protect American lives."
(Sydney Morning Herald)

Clinton presidency, eh? But we can go back further than that ...

A second document obtained by The Sun, the 1963 KUBARK manual, shows that, at least during the 1960s, agents were free to use coercion during interrogation, provided they obtained approval in advance.

It offers a list of interrogation techniques, including threats, fear, "debility, pain, heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, narcosis [use of drugs] and induced regression."
(Baltimore Sun)

Undoubtedly Bush was president in 1963.

This is just the opening of Blumner's column. She allows this mess of disinformation to tumble out before even getting to her subject!

Reduced international standing? According to whom? The standing of the United States will certainly dip if we do not succeed in transforming the Iraq government in a manner that avoids a genocide. Congressional Democrats have taken the point position in trying to ensure that the Iraq mission fails--but certainly that's not what Blumner is talking about. Apparently, Bush reduced America's standing in the world by acting on intelligence data that our allies supported. By disbelieving the CIA and/or continuing to allow Saddam Hussein to jack the system, perhaps Bush could have maintained U.S. standing.

I doubt it. Let Blumner figure out what would have been minus the Bush presidency and make her case from there. I won't be holding my breath on that one.

An exhausted treasury? What is Blumner thinking, if she's thinking at all? It is normal for a nation to have debt, and standard operating procedure for most governments to run a deficit year by year. The current debt is not at all the highest in US history measured as a percentage of the GDP, and the deficit is likewise within historical norms. Blumner's news editorial could pass for a lie-filled election speech.

If we track every Blumner distortion we may be here all day, so let's try to sift out her point. This seems to sum it up:

In additional to all that, Bush will leave us with a system of church-state entanglements on an epic scale. By pouring billions of dollars into religiously affiliated social service providers, Bush will have accomplished precisely what the nation's founders warned against: a process by which people of many faiths and none at all are forced through compulsory taxation to underwrite other people's religious activities.

Blumner takes issue with the "faith-based initiatives" program instituted under the Bush administration, and the above paragraph contains the reason why her point of view is incorrect.

The founders of our nation would be appalled to see the federal government paying for social services, in fact. The original constitution made no particular allowance for social service programs, leaving such duties to the purview of the state governments.

The federal government has certain expressed powers (also called enumerated powers), including the right to levy taxes, declare war, and regulate interstate and foreign commerce. In addition, the so-called elastic clause gives the federal government the implied power to pass any law "necessary and proper" for the execution of its express powers. Powers that the Constitution does not delegate to the federal government or forbid to the states—the reserved powers—are reserved to the people or the states [1]
(Wikipedia)

The Constitution forbade the federal government from establishing a national religion. In fact, the early congress paid a chaplain from federal funds, establishing an enduring tradition.

The constitutionality of the chaplains’ prayers was upheld in 1983 by the Supreme
Court (Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783) on the grounds of precedent and tradition. The Court cited the practice going back to the Continental Congress in 1774 and noted that the custom “is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country” from colonial times and the founding of the republic.
(Congressional Research Service, pdf)

Blumner doctors history in the name of ax-grinding.

As her column progresses, we find her doing the traditional liberal two-step of finding Supreme Court precedent inviolable unless she finds one of the precedents distasteful.

For this unique and historically portentous harm, the court in 1968 granted aggrieved taxpayers the ability to get into court and object.

But the court in 2007 has shut the courthouse door with a slam. The majority made some nonsensical distinction between the 1968 case that involved a congressional appropriation, and the fact that FFRF was seeking to challenge a discretionary expenditure of the executive branch. The four-member dissent accurately summed up the distinction as lacking any basis in "logic or precedent."

Got it? Precedent she likes good (1968), others bad (2007). And that's the whole problem of liberal interpretation of the Constitution. If the Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means, then that includes the decisions that Robyn Blumner doesn't like.

The adoption of constructionist interpretation, on the other hand, allows a principled objection to the decisions of the Supreme Court. Yet Blumner would rather not see strict constructionist judges on the court.

Convenient, isn't it?

The courts have long been an implicit arm of political action on the left. Lately, that aspect of the liberal judiciary philosophy has been more explicit, as when Charles Schumer announced that the Democrats would permit no more justices in the mold of Roberts or Alito to be confirmed--apparently regardless of their ABA ratings.