Dean Esmay Goes Off The Deep End
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Law, Media, The War On TerrorismI missed this last month.
No doubt about it, he called for the death of the NSA wiretap leaker, Russ Tice, and quite possibly the NY Times reporters who wrote and researched the story. The reason I say “quite possibly” for the reporters is it’s just a touch murky, but I’d err on the side of thinking he does want them tried for treason too.
That’s right treason. And treason means death.
Now, given that this whole warrantless wiretaps could actually be illegal (meaning the President may have broken the law), I’m having an extremely hard time with Esmay likening Tice to the Rosenbergs, who knowingly conspired with the enemy.
In short, his anger is causing him to make extremely clumsy connections. Like when he assumes that wiretapping is “a perfectly legal, perfectly sensible government operation that has undoubtedly helped round up hundreds of members of Al Qaeda and saved the lives of countless Americans.” …and you have WHAT evidence of that Dean?
Listen, Esmay is a smart guy and a good blogger. I don’t really agree with him that often, but that’s cool. However, today I’ve lost a great deal of respect for him.
Too bad.
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January 6th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
I think that Dean is off the rails on this one. Although IANAL, my reading of the relevant passages of the Constitution, Statutes and case law ruling this unAmerican mess, along with what’s available about what they were doing, leads me to find only a few alternatives:
1) either they were individual wiretaps, in which case FISA is the ruling law, and don’t hand me any of this Authorization of Force nonsense giving him the authority. If that was the case, how come they even needed to pass, let alone debate, the Patriot Act provisions that were regarding just such types of surveillance?
2) if they were more widely cast, machine processed, pattern matching type of technologies, as has been implied by some sources, they seem to be remarkably similar to the things the Total Information Awareness program was developing, in which case the Congress already put the kibosh on such shenanegans.
or
3) it was just trolling through connection information looking for who was talking to who patterns, in which case as some have pointed out, it was merely a glorified “pen register” type system, and clearly legal.
Cases 1) and 2) cannot be trumped by an Executive Order, as they are barred by Acts of Congress, which trumps Executive Orders. 3) is already legal, so why hide it in the first place, and make such a fuss if it’s divulged?
I just don’t buy the arguments of the apologists for this madness, as all of the legal hairsplitting ignores the fact that it’s just UnAmerican in every way, and freakin’ WRONG.
January 6th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
It’s at least theoretically possible that the wiretapping is illegal AND that revealing it is illegal. Why not? A lot of strange laws have been written over the years in Washington, laws anticipating one situation, but applicable to others.
I don’t recall the term “freakin’ wrong” being in the Constitution. Perhaps some of the overnight legal experts can investigate the possibilities.
January 7th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Dean’s been off the rails for some time. You’re just now noticing it.
January 7th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
Since Sept. 11, America has developed a split personality. There are those who believe we are in a serious, protracted, and dangerous war with a powerful enemy, and that we ought to behave appropriately. Then there are those who see the attacks against us, and the hatred against us, as extreme expressions of an ongoing situation that is perhaps inevitable and insoluble, but which can be dealt with mostly on a diplomatic or legal level. I perhaps misrepresent the second position, since it is not mine, but I do not think I am wrong about the split.
The split has consequences. Like the split over whether a fetus is a human life or not. To those who think we are at war, those on the other side can easily appear as appeasers, useful idiots, and deliberate traitors. To those not at war, those on the other side easily can appear as bloodthirsty bigots and would-be dictators.
If you’re going to lose respect for people every time they get passionate on this issue, you won’t have many left.
January 7th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Cal:
I disagree with your dichotomy. It isn’t that simple.
I believe we are in a protracted war with Islamicists. But I was around for the cold war and know something of even earlier wars, so I don’t quite see the need for hysteria. Yes, these are bad people. Yes, we need to defeat them. No, we don’t need to burn the constitution or start flailing around wildly. We lived for 40 years with Soviet fingers on a button that could have ended all life in North America. These bad guys aren’t in that league.
Besides, I cling to a certain perhaps British sense that we should should display sang froid.
As for losing respect for Dean, he has habitually abused anyone who disagrees with him, often in obscene terms, and he followed up this over-the-top fatwa on the New York Times with a hysterical claim that a blogger satire of him was a death threat.
January 8th, 2006 at 2:05 am
As Michael mentioned, here’s a post about the whole thing over at The Moderate Voice.
Whoa…
And no, I hadn’t just realized Dean was going off the rails, but I was willing to give him a pass for the most part. After all, it is JUST a blog. But this latest thing was simply the last straw and I felt I had to post.
January 8th, 2006 at 2:23 am
I remember the Cold War, too. Rank unpulled.
January 8th, 2006 at 2:29 am
Whoa, indeed. I’ve had someone state that, in writing, on the Internet because of my political/historical beliefs, it would be better of my son was killed instead of growing up. Satire? Sarcasm? Want to take that chance? Be a parent and tell me if you wouldn’t go “off the rails,” or find it incomprehensible that someone would.
January 8th, 2006 at 2:30 am
You’re talking about burning the constitution. I’m talking about wiretapping overseas phone calls of people with suspected al Qaida connections. Tell me we’re not living in different worlds.
January 8th, 2006 at 8:28 am
Cal:
That was obviously a bit of deliberate hyperbole on my part. As for Esmay, the man is issuing fatwas on New York Time’s reporters then screeching when someone does a goof on him. He’s a bully, and like so many bullies, he can’t take what he dishes out. I believe his exact comment on the NYT reporter was that he should be hung by the neck until “dead, dead, dead.” And now Dean’s crying over a suggestion he be given a Stalinist show trial? Come on. The guy is nuts.
January 8th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
I believe you are a parent Michael, right? Two times over in fact?
And by the way Cal, you don’t need kids to go off the rails on a death threat. That’s the whole chickenhawk argument you’ve throughly dismantled on this site before. If anybody in my family were threatened, I’d look at it seriously until it was obvious it was just a goof. The “threat” on Dean’s family looks like a pretty transparent goof that’s satirizing his own posts. However, Dean has every right to feel however he wishes. But should he also expect people to question whether he thinks it’s a real threat or not. Yep.
I mean…why blog about it first if he really thinks his family is in danger? I’d call the cops. But that’s just me.
January 8th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Dean’s been polite and courteous to me in the few times we’ve crossed paths. So I won’t trash-talk him. I have seem him involved in some unseemly rows that I didn’t understand.
Personally, if I were the reporters or editors in this case, I’d be inviting someone to file a charge. Not treason; it’s not the right charge in this case, though it’s the one opponents always will seek. But if they feel certain they didn’t break a law, then invite a test of it. The Billy Mitchell/Anthony Wayne way to dispell a cloud of ignominy.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Does anybody really think that if we were to lose a significant chunk of a city, or even an entire city, that Dean’s position wouldn’t be considered mainstream? I’m incredibly angry at a lot of what the media’s doing too. I don’t think that they should hang for it, Alger Hiss didn’t after all. I think we have a very fuzzy definition of enemy combatants when it comes to infowar (purposefully so). If we were to have substantial losses, those definitions would be cleared right up and I think that a few journalists might find themselves on the wrong side of the line that gets drawn. This isn’t a matter of my howling for journalists blood but simple analysis of where the american polity’s gut is likely to take our society if we have that many funerals.
There are plenty of public libraries all over the nation that carry back issues of papers and transcripts of shows are generally available. The media is painting themselves in a difficult corner that depends on us not ever having an order of magnitude worse event than 9/11. That’s not a place I’d be comfortable in.
January 9th, 2006 at 10:41 am
I think that’s basically what Russ Tice is doing, and I agree that the reporters should follow suit.
January 9th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Yes, Justin’s right, I do have kids. And if someone included them in a satire of the sort we’re discussing I’d probably tell them to leave my kids out of it. But I wouldn’t start screaming “death threat.” Dean has admitted in the comments section of The Moderate Voice that he knew it was a parody. He responded at first with an appropriate snarky note. Only then did he decide to start freaking out.
Out here in blogworld we are always quick to criticize politicians, and to criticize the mainstream media for their every failing and peccadillo. If we are granting ourselves license to criticize the MSM, don’t we have an obligation to apply some level of self-criticism as well? If a blogger makes false accusations, for example, shouldn’t we call him on it? If a blogger lies, don’t we have a right to point that out, as we would with any part of the MSM or the political world? Aren’t we as subject to questioning, satire, criticism, second-guessing as anyone else?
It troubles me when a blogger doesn’t allow comments, for example, or attacks perfectly polite commenters for the sole crime of disagreement. We demand that newspapers publish opposing views and print letters from critics. Don’t we have the same obligation to open ourselves up to disagreement? In fact, aren’t we supposed to represent a new openness? Aren’t we supposed to be part of a no-walls, no-boundaries, self-correcting medium? Are we entitled to attack the arrogance of the MSM and then behave arrogantly ourselves?
TM Lutas: The job of the media is to keep us informed. We’re the voters. We’re the jury, the tryers of fact, in effect. But if we don’t have facts we can’t make informed decisions. If a president can decide unilaterally which laws to obey and which to disregard, and can stop the courts from judging the correctness of those actions, and can keep the legislative branch from exerting any controls, and then can keep the media from informing the voters of any of the above, how exactly do we maintain a functioning democracy?
January 9th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Well…possibly, but that certainly hasn’t happened. Now, I do see your point, but you’re simply playing scare tactics and what ifs. I respect your fears, but I’m not going to live my life based simply on fears and what ifs.
But let me just say this for the record, what Dean is describing is NOT treason. Maybe in a communist or fascist state it is, but not in a free society like ours.
January 9th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Bingo. And that’s his right, but he shouldn’t be surprised people are speaking up now.