A Sunday Washington Post article by David Broder discusses calls by a gathering of former federal officials for “a government of national unity.”

“If we don’t see a refocusing of the campaign on a bipartisan approach, I would feel I would want to encourage an independent candidacy,” former Democratic Senator David Boren told Broder. “Until you end the polarization and have bipartisanship, nothing else matters, because one party simply will block the other from acting.”

Boren says none of this has anything to do with their meeting this week with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s been touted as a possible independent candidate. Whether it does or it doesn’t, I think Boren and his associates are way off the mark.

For starters, where were they during the first six years of the Bush administration? When Republicans were announcing that anyone who questioned the will of Glorious Supreme Leader Bush or the wisdom of invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 was a filthy traitor and “objectively pro-terrorist?” I suppose calling for everyone in Washington to do whatever Bush tells them might be considered a unity government (it’s certainly the only concept of unity or bipartisanship Bush himself has ever considered acceptable), but I don’t think that’s what most Americans have in mind.

I’ve read accounts of administration officials rejecting the best-qualified contractor for a government job because he made an “anti Bush remark”; hiring contractors in Iraq based on whether they voted for Bush; of US attorneys fired because they wouldn’t undertake anti-Democrat investigations that Republicans wanted; and multiple accounts of people being thrown out of Bush appearances for wearing moderately anti-Bush T-shirts or simply not being Republicans.

And for that matter, the only party “blocking” things would seem to be Republicans, who’ve set a record in the current Congress for the number of filibusters. Two years ago, Broder, along with other pundits, was lecturing Democrats on the need to stop using filibusters to thwart the will of a country that elected a Republican majority; not a peep out of him on Republicans doing the same now. Why is it that “bipartisanship” is only an issue when Democrats control Congress and have a chance of returning to the White House?

Second, while pundits such as Broder often consider bipartisanship as an end in itself, it only makes sense when there’s genuine agreement or a reasonable compromise. If one party is wrong, there is absolutely no point to the other party going along with it—and under Bush, the Republican party has been very wrong indeed.

The Bush administration has fought to authorize the use of torture by the CIA and the military; eavesdropped on Americans without warrants; abused provisions of the Patriot Act such as National Security Letters; destroyed videotapes of CIA interrogations that allegedly involved torture; claimed it can lock up American citizens indefinitely if the president authorizes it; claimed the president can ignore all laws and constitutional provisions if he decides they conflict with his authority as commander in chief; and despite America’s overwhelming support for getting out of Iraq, recently began negotiating an agreement with the government there for our military to be stationed there permanently.

Oh, and we have a vice president who claims that he doesn’t have to obey the laws normally binding on the executive branch because he’s actually a “Fourth Branch” of government.

Under those circumstances, I think it’s entirely appropriate if Democrats are partisan. In fact, I think they should be more so: Their reluctance to take any steps toward ending the war, and their support for Bush’s illegal eavesdropping — even to the point of granting immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated in turning over information about us — are something to be ashamed of, not applauded.

For Democrats or liberals — and for that matter, for the country — bipartisanship is a bad idea as long as Bush is in office.

After my last post, here’s a less cheery legal story.
Some of you may be familiar with the case of Bilal Hussein, an Associated Press photographer who was seized by the military and held for 19 months without charges, but lots of assertions Hussein had ties to insurgents.
Finally, recently, charges were filed and Hussein will go on trial in an Iraqi court.
Writing at Harper’s, Scott Horton interviews a Pentagon source (anonymous, I should note) who says that the U.S. military is stacking the deck to ensure a conviction: Assigning a team of five American attorneys to the prosecution (even though they have no authority to prosecute in an Iraqi court); telling the judge to prevent Hussein’s lawyer from participating in the trial; refusing to allow the attorney access to his client; and presenting witnesses’ testimony by long-distance camera to prevent cross-examination. And barring the media from the trial to keep all of this under wraps.
Unsurprisingly, the judge said before any evidence had been presented that he favored conviction.
Funny, I could have sworn we said we wanted to introduce the rule of law into Iraq …

Actually, that’s former Lt. Commander, Williams having resigned his duties as a Navy JAG in protest of the Bush administration’s pro-torture policies.
The trigger, Williams said in an interview, was a statement by Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartman, chief legal adviser at the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions. Asked how the “uniformed legal community” should respond if Iran waterboarded a U.S. soldier to learn about possible attacks on us, Hartman’s response was “I am not prepared to answer that question.”
Williams said if the military couldn’t condemn waterboarding as unacceptable, he had to resign on principle.
While I’m at it, I’d also like to salute the many JAGs and officials who’ve protested, fought and struggled to make military tribunals for alleged terrorists as fair as possible, and cried foul when they weren’t. I know plenty of people in this oh-so-conservative area consider them stinking filthy traitors for not accepting that anyone Glorious Supreme Leader Bush’s government designates a terrorist is guilty, but I’m proud to live in the same country as such honorable, decent soldiers.

An article this week in Southwest Florida’s News Press reveals that the money gathered from the state selling Choose Life specialty license plates is piling up in several counties because while they can use it to help out single mothers, they can only do it if the mothers plan to give up their babies for adoption, not if they choose to keep and raise them.

The logic of this completely eludes me.

In her column earlier this month, right-wing pundit Mona Charen uses the discovery of an insurgent torture chamber in Iraq to claim that all the fuss over the CIA using waterboarding (pumping water down your throat to make you think you’re drowning) is overrated—the blowtorch, the knives, the stuff they were doing in this chamber, that’s REAL torture! To say we’re doing anything comparable is an insult to America!
Isn’t that lovely? It used to be Americans could say “We’re the good guys.” Now we have right-wingers who claim saying “We’re not as bad as al-Qaida in Iraq!”is the same thing.
As John McCain says, opposing torture — whether it’s waterboarding, stress positions or sodomizing a prisoner with a light stick — isn’t about them, it’s about us. We’re supposed to be better than that.

Voice is much stronger, and my dinner theater wrapped up for the month last night. By Christmas dinner, I anticipate being fully vocal again.
Very busy week otherwise. Next week’s Wednesday paper will come out on Christmas day instead, so we had to get the writing for both papers done today. Phew!
Bring on the weekend!

Romney, who has claimed to have seen his father marching with Martin Luther King, told CBS that “I speak in the sense of I saw my dad become president of American Motors. I wasn’t actually there when he became president of American Motors, but I saw him in the figurative sense of he marched with Martin Luther King. My brother also remembers him marching with Martin Luther King and so in that sense I saw him march with Martin Luther King … “I’m an English literature major as well. When we say, ‘I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn’t necessarily mean you were there — excuse me, the Super Bowl. I saw my dad become president of American Motors. Did that mean you were there for the ceremony? No, it’s a figure of speech.”

No, that would be a lie, I think. Although admittedly the statement is convoluted enough to obscure the fact.

Emily Yoffe, a writer on the Slate Web site, discussed Islamic honor killings in a recent post–including a case that happened in Canada–and grumbled that feminists don’t seem to care: She’s been to the Web site for the National Organization of Women and can’t find any opposition to such murders.

Amazingly, I found a page condemning honor killing after oh, 15 seconds searching.

Councilor Dewey Destin asked why the city hadn’t done its usual decorating effort on U.S. 98 this year. City Manager Greg Kisela said that because the Main Street business owners had put up with so much over the two-plus years the road was widened (along with new streetlights and sidewalks being installed) that staff decided to focus on Main this year, but would pay more attention to the highway in 2008.

The ordinance on littering passed on second reading, unanimously.