JONATHAN TURLEY
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals at Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Northwestern, University of Chicago, and other schools.
After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the George Washington faculty in 1990 and, in 1998, was given the prestigious Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. In addition to his extensive publications, Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades including the representation of whistleblowers, military personnel, judges, members of Congress, and a wide range of other clients. He is also one of the few attorneys to successfully challenge both a federal and a state law — leading to courts striking down the federal Elizabeth Morgan law as well as the state criminalization of cohabitation.
In 2010, Professor Turley represented Judge G. Thomas Porteous in his impeachment trial. After a trial before the Senate, Professor Turley (on December 7, 2010) argued both the motions and gave the final argument to all 100 U.S. Senators from the well of the Senate floor — only the 14th time in history of the country that such a trial of a judge has reached the Senate floor. Judge Porteous was convicted of four articles of impeachments, including the acceptance of $2000 from an attorney and using a false name on a bankruptcy filing.
In 2011, Professor Turley filed a challenge to the Libyan War on behalf of ten members of Congress, including Representatives Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md); Dan Burton (R., Ind.); Mike Capuano (D., Mass.); Howard Coble (R., N.C.); John Conyers (D., Mich.); John J. Duncan (R., Tenn.); Tim Johnson (R., Ill.); Walter Jones (R., N.C.); Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio); and Ron Paul (R., Tx). The lawsuit was before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
In November 2014, Turley agreed to serve as lead counsel to the United States House of Representatives in its constitutional challenge to changes ordered by President Obama to the Affordable Care Act. The litigation was approved by the House of Representatives to seek judicial review of the claims under the separation of powers. On May 12, 2016, the federal court handed down a historic victory for the House and ruled that the Obama Administration violated the separation of powers in ordering billions to be paid to insurance companies without an appropriation of Congress.
Other cases include his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the famous Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy; and four former United States Attorneys General during the Clinton impeachment litigation. In the Foretich case, Turley succeeded recently in reversing a trial court and striking down a federal statute through a rare “bill of attainder” challenge. Professor Turley has also served as counsel in a variety of national security cases, including espionage cases like that of Jim Nicholson, the highest ranking CIA officer ever accused of espionage. Turley also served as lead defense counsel in the successful defense of Petty Officer Daniel King, who faced the death penalty for alleged spying for Russia. Turley also served as defense counsel in the case of Dr. Tom Butler, who is faced criminal charges dealing with the importation and handling of thirty vials of plague in Texas. He also served as counsel to Larry Hanauer, the House Intelligence Committee staffer accused of leaking a classified Presidential National Intelligence Estimate to the New York Times. (Hanauer was cleared of all allegations).
Among his current cases, Professor Turley represents Dr. Ali Al-Timimi, who was convicted in Virginia in 2005 of violent speech against the United States. In 2020, the federal court found that there merit in the challenges raised by Professor Turley and his co-counsel Tom Huff. Accordingly, the judge ordered his release to protect him from Covit-19 while the Court prepared a decision on the challenges. Pursuant to a court order, Dr. Al-Timimi was released from the Supermax in Colorado and the two drove across the country so that he could be placed into home confinement. He also represented Dr. Sami Al-Arian, who was accused of being the American leader of a terrorist organization while he was a university professor in Florida. Turley represented Dr. Al-Arian for eight years, much of which was in a determined defense against an indictment for criminal contempt. The case centered on the alleged violation of a plea bargain by the Justice Department after Dr. Al-Arian was largely exonerated of terrorism charges in Tampa, Florida. On June 27, 2014, all charges were dropped against Dr. Al-Arian. He also represented pilots approaching or over the age of 60 in their challenge to the mandatory retirement age of the FAA. He also represented David Murphee Faulk, the whistleblower who disclosed abuses in the surveillance operations at NSA’s Fort Gordon facility in Georgia.
Professor Turley also agreed to serve as lead counsel representing the Brown family from the TLC “Sister Wives, a reality show on plural marriage or polygamy. On December 13, 2013, the federal court in Utah struck down the criminalization of polygamy — the first such decision in history — on free exercise and due process grounds. On September 26, 2014, the court also ruled in favor of the Browns under Section 1983 — giving them a clean sweep on all of the statutory and constitutional claims. In April 2015, a panel reversed the decision on standing grounds and that decision is now on appeal.
Professor Turley was also lead counsel in the World Bank protest case stemming from the mass arrest of people in 2002 by the federal and district governments during demonstrations of the IMF and World Bank. Turley and his co-lead counsel Dan Schwartz (and the law firm of Bryan Cave) were the first to file and represented student journalists arrested without probable cause. In April 2015, after 13 years of intense litigation, the case was settled for $2.8 million, including $115,000 for each arrestee — a record damage award in a case of this kind and over twice the amount of prior damages for individual protesters. The case also exposed government destruction and withholding of evidence as well as the admitted mass arrest of hundreds of people without probable cause.
Professor Turley also served as the legal expert in the review of polygamy laws in the British of Columbia (Canada) Supreme Court. In the latter case, he argued for the decriminalization of plural union and conjugal unions. In 2012, Turley also represented the makers of “Five Wives Vodka” (Ogden’s Own Distillery) in challenging an effective ban on the product in Idaho after officials declared the product to be offensive to Mormons. After opposing to the ban on free speech and other grounds, the state of Idaho issued a letter apologizing for public statements made by officials and lifting the ban on sale for “Five Wives Vodka.”
Turley has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, including the Florida House of Representatives. He also served as the consultant to the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on the impeachment of Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá.
Professor Turley is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. That testimony includes the confirmation hearings of Attorney General nominees Loretta Lynch and William Barr as well as Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Professor Turley is also a nationally recognized legal commentator. Professor Turley was ranked as 38th in the top 100 most cited “public intellectuals” in the recent study by Judge Richard Posner. Turley was also found to be the second most cited law professor in the country. He has been repeatedly ranked in the nation’s top 500 lawyers in annual surveys (including in the latest rankings by LawDragon) – one of only a handful of academics. In prior years, he was ranked as one of the nation’s top ten lawyers in military law cases as well as one of the top 40 lawyers under 40. He was also selected in the last five years as one of the 100 top Irish lawyers in the world. In 2016, he was ranked as one of the 100 most famous (past and present) law professors.
Professor Turley is one of only two academics to testify at both the Clinton and Trump impeachment hearings. In December 2019, Professor Turley was called as the one Republican witness in the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings. He appeared with three Democratic witnesses. Professor Turley disagreed with this fellow witnesses in opposing the proposed articles of impeachments on bribery, extortion, campaign finance violations or obstruction of justice. He argued that these alleged impeachable acts were at odds with controlling definitions of those crimes and that Congress has historically looked to the criminal code and cases for guidance on such allegations. The committee ultimately rejected those articles and adopted the only two articles that Professor Turley said could be legitimately advanced: abuse of power, obstruction of Congress. Chairman Jerrold Nadler even ended the hearing by quoting his position on abuse of power. However, Turley opposed impeachment on this record as incomplete and insufficient for submission to the Senate. He argued for the House to wait and complete the record by seeking to compel key witnesses like former National Security Adviser John Bolton. His testimony was later relied upon in the impeachment floor debate by various House members and he was cited by both the White House and House managers in their arguments before the United States Senate in the Trump impeachment trial, including videotaped remarks played at the trial.
Professor Turley’s articles on legal and policy issues appear regularly in national publications with hundreds of articles in such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal. He is a columnist for USA Today and writes regularly for the Washington Post. In 2005, Turley was given the Columnist of the Year award for Single-Issue Advocacy for his columns on civil liberties by the Aspen Institute and the Week Magazine. Professor Turley also appears regularly as a legal expert on all of the major television networks. Since the 1990s, he has worked under contract as the on-air Legal Analyst for NBC News, CBS News, BBC and Fox News. Professor Turley has been a repeated guest on Sunday talk shows with over two-dozen appearances on Meet the Press, ABC This Week, Face the Nation, and Fox Sunday. Professor Turley has taught courses on constitutional law, constitutional criminal law, environmental law, litigation, and torts. He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS). His work with older prisoners has been honored in various states, including his selection as the 2011 recipient of the Dr. Mary Ann Quaranta Elder Justice Award at Fordham University.
His award-winning blog is routinely ranked as one of the most popular legal blogs by AVVO. His blog was selected as the top News/Analysis site in 2013, the top Legal Opinion Blog in 2011 as well as prior selections as the top Law Professor Blog and Legal Theory Blog. It was also ranked in the top 20 constitutional law blog in 2018. It has been regularly ranked by the ABA Journal in the top 100 blogs in the world. In 2012, Turley has selected as one of the top 20 legal experts on Twitter by Business Insider. In 2013, the ABA Journal inducted the Turley Blog into its Hall of Fame.
Professor Turley received his B.A. at the University of Chicago and his J.D. at Northwestern. In 2008, he was given an honorary Doctorate of Law from John Marshall Law School for his contributions to civil liberties and the public interest.
For further information: Mr. Seth Tate – 202-994-0537
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I wonder what you Republickans will say when Bush and Cheney are outed…Not that they’re gay, but they are outed as a pair of liars who started a war based on LIES…
Mark Penn is a Zionist, like so many others in the Clinton Administration (I could list Several Dozens of names), who naturally feels that ALL Black people are inferior. But just because the Clintons are racists, doesn’t mean racism from McCain should thus be excused.
I honestly couldn’t say who I think would have a more Zionist/racist Administration, Bill Clinton or McCain, but Hillary Clinton would have won, hands down. The only reason to prefer McCain over Obama is that McCain is much more likely to demoralize the US Military and bankrupt the country and thus make the US a far less dangerous country in the future.
I hope you give McCain eight years to prove me right.
Fear and loathing … in the Democratic Party
posted at 12:00 pm on August 10, 2008
Barack Obama has twiced smeared John McCain and the Republican Party as racist and fearmongering — but perhaps that may be better explained as projection. The Atlantic plans to publish internal memos from the Hillary Clinton campaign in its September edition, and Politico reports that a campaign strategy of xenophobia didn’t come from the GOP. The Clinton campaign suggested painting Obama as un-American:
Mark Penn, the top campaign strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign, advised her to portray Barack Obama as having a “limited” connection “to basic American values and culture,” according to a forthcoming article in The Atlantic.
The magazine reports Penn suggested getting much rougher with Obama in a memo on March 30, after her crucial wins in Texas and Ohio: “Does anyone believe that it is possible to win the nomination without, over these next two months, raising all these issues on him? … Won’t a single tape of [the Reverend Jeremiah] Wright going off on America with Obama sitting there be a game ender?” …
Penn, the presidential campaign’s chief strategist, wrote in a memo to Clinton excerpted in the article: “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.”
Hammering Obama on Jeremiah Wright? Looking for video of the Obamas nodding approvingly to Wright’s demagoguic tirades on race and America? It didn’t start with the Republicans at all; it started with the Clintonites. Furthermore, the Clintonites apparently agreed with Republicans in their assessment of Obama and his long-time association with anti-American radicals like Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, William Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn. They concluded that Obama is “not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.”
Democrats came to that conclusion long before Republicans even worried about Obama. In March 2007, Penn warned Clinton’s team to focus on values-based voters, women, and working- to middle-class families. That strategy finally got adopted in February 2008, when it was just a little too late to help, but Penn saw Obama’s flaws very clearly even in the early stages of the race.
It will have one effect, and that’s to put the race card out of reach for Barack Obama. He can’t call McCain a racist and a fearmonger again without first pointing the finger publicly to the Clintons, who obviously went a lot farther than McCain would ever countenance along those lines. (McCain all but forbid the mention of Jeremiah Wright by his campaign or surrogates.)
This could also rip the veneer of inclusionism off of identity politics and expose it for the tribalism that it is. These memos and the Democratic infighting demonstrate the corrosiveness of identity politics and its eventual outcome — division, bitterness, and loss. That will help improve American politics in the long run as we focus on ideas and philosophy, and not the color of skin, internal plumbing, or ethnicity of our great-grandparents.
GOD BLESS GW BUSH.
GOD BLESS JOHN MCCAIN.
Barack Obama is a piece of crap.
martha:
Yawnnnnnnnnn….
Obama’s 3 AM Breakfast: Waffles
posted at 10:25 am on August 10, 2008
Barack Obama has apparently reversed himself on what John McCain called a 3 AM moment, in reference to Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign ad. Originally, Obama had decided to castigate both Georgia and Russia over the outbreak of hostilities in South Ossetia, even while Russian bombs fell on Georgia itself. Today, Obama has changed his tune, following McCain’s lead in demanding that Russia cease its aggression:
Obama called for direct talks among all sides and said the United States, the U.N. Security Council and other parties should try to help bring about a peaceful resolution.
“I condemn Russia’s aggressive actions and reiterate my call for an immediate ceasefire,” Obama said in a statement.
“Russia must stop its bombing campaign, cease flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia.”
Here’s his original statement:
“I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict,” Obama said in a written statement. “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected.”
McCain responded sooner than Obama and with a great deal more accuracy:
Today news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally-recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory. What is most critical now is to avoid further confrontation between Russian and Georgian military forces. The consequences for Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave.
The government of Georgia has called for a cease-fire and for a resumption of direct talks on South Ossetia with international mediators. The U.S. should immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to call on Russia to reverse course. The US should immediately work with the EU and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course it has chosen. We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia’s security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation. Finally, the international community needs to establish a truly independent and neutral peacekeeping force in South Ossetia.
McCain obviously took time to determine first that Russia had indeed attacked Georgia before demanding restraint from the victim. It’s apparent that McCain has a better grasp of the situation and understood its ramifications as events unfolded. Obama issued a boilerplate statement that generically demanded that everyone start getting along, and had to modify his stance as his 300 foreign-policy advisers had a chance to tutor him on the conflict.
I’d rather vote for the man who gets it right and has spent years studying foreign affairs, warfare, and American strategic needs than the man who makes it up as he goes along. McCain is right; this was a 3 AM moment, and Obama proved himself unprepared and unsuited to answer the call.
Hi Mary Leon; I don’t know who toby is and I don’t bother responding to people who use profanity (another debate disqualifier), but I enjoy reading martha/russ. You can tell that some people like JMark and percy just ‘phone it in’, but that/those other person(s) make a point, albeit an erroneous one.
Mespo and Zakimar,
I really wish Mr. Turley would find out which Insane Asylum martha, russ, percy and toby are living at, so he can tell the doctors in charge to make sure that these people are being monitored for drug usage, because the tripe they find to post here must be coming from the mind of a user of LSD or Crystal Meth or Heroin(Bush’s choice of drug, as I recall).
I know that both McCain and Obama has their positive and negative aspects (I’ve seen McCain on “Saturday Night Live” reruns on YouTube, and I must admit he is a very funny comedic actor), (and Barack Obama knows how to give a speech and draw a crowd to listen to him, like no one else has since Bill Clinton was President).
But as far as Keith Olbermann’s show and Bill O’Lielly’s ‘show’ there is NO comparison. I would much rather spend my time watching Keith Olbermann tell the Truth about this clown in the White House, even if he gets very emotional at times; because what he is reporting IS True, not like O’Lielley’s racist and Neo-Con viewpoints. (O’Lielley should really go back to reporting rumors and half-truths on shows like “Current Affair” or at least admit to his audience that he is really a comedian–a la, “we report, you decide” tripe. Everyone knows that Fox is a Neo-Con Right Wing station that wouldn’t know the Truth if it came and bit everyone there on their asses.)
Martha, Percy, russ and toby:
“Hasta la vista”
(Another Old Spanish Saying)
martha:
“Additionally, the word on MSNBC is that Mr. Turley will NOT appear on any news opinion show where he will be challenged in a debate style forum, so that is why he almost never appears on any TV show except for Countdown.”
***************
Right again, martha h. As we all know most lawyers, especially law professors who do trial work, run from a good debate.
Do you read your comments before you hit “submit,” or do you at least have the night nurse read it to you before she ties own the restraints?
I remember how Billo “relished” having the son of a 911 victim on his show; he’s truly a class act.
And Clan Rallies and WWE draw more people than Shakespeare in the Park and Aida. Popular doesn’t mean Good or Right.
Zakimar: you must be lost again.
Keith Olbermann on Countdown NEVER allows opposing viewpoints whereas Hannity, Oreilly, and every other Fox opinion show relishes in having opposing views on to debate.
Additionally, the word on MSNBC is that Mr. Turley will NOT appear on any news opinion show where he will be challenged in a debate style forum, so that is why he almost never appears on any TV show except for Countdown.
Keith Olbermann fears having a debate style show because it would show his opinions have zero credibility and his “facts” are lacking whereas the Fox news opinion shows, again as I said earlier, RELISH in have opposing views because they KNOW it raises ratings. Olbermann still does not even have as many prime time viewers as Orerilly’s late night RERUN!
I suspect Mr. Turley shows up on Countdown for the same reason you show up on this blog, you’re ALLOWED. Where FOX doesn’t allow free thought, if you don’t speak in unison with President For Life Murdoch, you’ve got to go.
And welcome back and Happy Tisha B’Av.
So Olbermann Expelled Milbank for “Distorting” Obama, when will Olbermann Expell Himself for Distorting the Truth?
August 10, 2008 – 03:23 ET
When Washington Post columnist and, until recently, regular Countdown guest Dana Milbank used an edited quote from Barack Obama that was arguably a distortion of the Illinois Senator’s words, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann suspended Milbank from appearing on his show insisting Milbank correct his transgression against the Democratic presidential candidate.
But if Olbermann’s MSNBC bosses held him to the same standard, the Countdown host himself would have been suspended numerous times during the past four years if he were required to correct either distortions of people’s words or his reporting of stories that turned out to be inaccurate. But while in Milbank’s case the Washington Post columnist’s infraction was against a liberal target in Obama, Olbermann has primarily targeted conservatives. Notably, while it is no secret that Olbermann is very pro-Obama as he conducts his show, on the June 26 show, Olbermann came closest to admitting he hopes Obama becomes President as he defended the Illinois Senator’s decision to vote for a FISA bill opposed by the left. Olbermann: “If you get as hot about the issue as I have, you would rather see a President Obama prosecuting the telecoms criminally, rather than a Senator Obama throwing away a vote to keep open the civil suits when most of the other Democrats already caved in.”
In October 2004, the MSNBC host used selectively edited clips of Vice President Cheney to make it appear Cheney had argued that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks as a justification for the Iraq invasion.
In 2005, Olbermann accused FNC’s John Gibson and talk radio host Janet Parshall of sounding like terrorists from “an al-Qaeda show” as Olbermann distorted Gibson’s remarks about the American tradition of majority religions tolerating minority religions.
On Jay Leno’s show in 2006, Olbermann accused FNC host Bill O’Reilly of defending the Nazis from World War II because of O’Reilly’s mixup of the events of the Malmedy massacre. Olbermann: “On the air in the last year, Bill O’Reilly has defended the Nazis from World War II on three separate occasions. … Yes, I wish I were making this up.” Further explanation can be found here.
This past July, Olbermann picked up on an incorrect account from a liberal blogger which claimed that O’Reilly accused Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler of trying to evade the state income tax of Florida, with O’Reilly being embarrassed at being corrected by his own guest, conservative columnist John Fund. In reality, O’Reilly had not made this accusation at all, as the FNC host had actually pointed out that Florida has no state income tax, and that Wexler was using Florida as his address for tax purposes even though he lives in Maryland. The liberal blogger in question corrected her account of the exchange on her Web site, but Olbermann never corrected the error on his show.
Also in July, Olbermann used a sloppily worded statement about Islamic terrorism by an 83-year-old decorated veteran, retired Colonel Bud Day, a John McCain supporter, to paint McCain as agreeing with what the MSNBC host referred to as Day’s “racism and religious hatred.”
Olbermann slammed McCain: “And you heard him [Day]: John agrees with him. As of tonight, John’s campaign has refused to repudiate Day’s racism and religious hatred. Maybe John needs to get rid of this clown but fast. Bud ‘The Muslims are Going to Kill Us’ Day, today’s ‘Worst Person in the World.'”
Olbermann did not inform viewers that a McCain campaign spokesperson, as was reported that day by Fox News, “said Day intended to say ‘Islamic extremists’ — an important distinction as some Muslims feel inappropriately discriminated against since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”
In December 2006, the MSNBC host, likely picking up on a report by the liberal Media Matters for America, seized on a date mixup by O’Reilly to accuse the FNC host of lying about comments O’Reilly had made in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion from April 2003.
O’Reilly bragged that he had voiced the need for tough martial law early on to keep order in Iraq, but had misstated the date of his prediction as “the night that Saddam’s statue fell” when, in fact, it was a mere two nights later (April 11, 2003, instead of April 9). But instead of entertaining the possibility of a date mixup, Olbermann called O’Reilly a “holy-you-know-what-liar.”
Olbermann has also hinted that O’Reilly’s concerns about a “War on Christmas” by secularists are motivated by anti-Semitism, once joking about O’Reilly supporting a “war against Hanukkah.” In December 2006, while reporting on the controversial decision of the Seattle-Tacoma Airport to remove its Christmas trees from public view rather than display a Menorah, Olbermann joked: “Generalissimo O’Reilly remains upbeat. Look not on this as a defeat in the war on Christmas. This was a dramatic victory in Billow’s new war against Hanukkah.” Ironically, less than 20 minutes earlier on The O’Reilly Factor, the FNC host had spoken approvingly of displaying a Menorah at the airport as he interviewed the rabbi who had requested it.
In September 2006, Olbermann condemned President Bush for an awkwardly worded, off-the-cuff remark made by the President during a news conference that it is “unacceptable to think” the actions of America can be compared to those of terrorists. Not catching on to the President’s likely meaning that it is “ridiculous to claim” the actions of America are similar to those terrorists, Olbermann blew it out of proportion as if the comment were an attack on the right to think, and therefore a grave threat to democracy. Referring to a favorite topic of his, George Orwell’s 1984, he attacked Bush’s words as “chilling.” Olbermann: “‘It’s unacceptable to think.’ Sounds like something straight out of George Orwell’s 1984. Instead, it was something straight out of George Bush’s mouth. … And not only issuing those chilling words, ‘It’s unacceptable to think,’ but doing so in answer to the call to conscience from his own former Secretary of State, Colin Powell.”
In January 2006, after O’Reilly complained that the “network newscasts” had ignored the story of a Vermont judge who initially sentenced a child rapist to only 60 days in jail, Olbermann argued that because his Countdown show on MSNBC had covered the story, that O’Reilly’s statement was false, even though “network newscasts” would only included ABC, CBS and NBC newscasts, not cable news.
In November 2005, after Vice President Cheney gave a speech charging that the Associated Press had misrepresented an earlier speech in which he had attacked Democratic Senators who had accused President Bush of lying about pre-war intelligence, Olbermann characterized Cheney’s complaint as “vitriol” toward the media. The Countdown host proceeded to distort Cheney’s words himself, even editing the Vice President’s words in mid-sentence, to prove his contention that Cheney’s complaints about the AP were unfounded.
Time and again, Olbermann has demonstrated his unwillingness to let facts get in the way of a good hit job.
Yet Mr. Turley continues to go on his show! Why I must ask? How much does Olbermann pay his guests?
So martha or percy is back, I actually missed your humor. People like you are the reason debating was so easy for me in university.
“GOD BLESS ISRAEL. Maybe some day Israel will make glass of the lands of their barbaric & backwards & lunatic neighbors.”
is a fine way to rebut,
“To the Russians, the Georgians are terrorists. And if the Russian response of using war planes to bomb civilians in order to fight these terrorists is a war crime, then Israel has been committing these war crimes for decades. Bush is calling for an end to this violence, but gives $3 000 000 000 per year (plus weapons, plus “loans”) to Israel to continue its violent hegemony in the Middle East. This is hypocrisy at its finest.
BTW, if Bush had listened to Carter’s Zbigniew Brzezinski instead of Nixon’s Henry Kissinger, the US wouldn’t be in Iraq. And I just won another debate.
So JT, who are you cheering for in this war?
“What is most striking about the crisis is how strongly it recalls the bad old days of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin has cast aside any pretense of having given up the reins of power, and is directing the Russian Army. Here is how Pravda is covering the conflict:
War between Russia and Georgia orchestrated from USA:
Russian officials believe that it was the USA that orchestrated the current conflict. The chairman of the State Duma Committee for Security, Vladimir Vasilyev, believes that the current conflict is South Ossetia is very reminiscent to the wars in Iraq and Kosovo.
Russia: Again Savior of Peace and Life:
The international community collectively held their breath waiting for the reaction of Russia after the savage, brutal, criminal attack by Georgia on South Ossetia. After having offered a cease fire in hostilities, the back stabbing Georgians immediately violated the cease fire, invading South Ossetia and causing massive destruction and death among innocent civilians, among peacekeepers and also destroying a hospital. …
Georgian troops attempted to storm the city [Tskhinval] much as Hitler‘s Panzer divisions blazed through Europe. Also noteworthy is the fact that Georgian tanks and infantry were being aided by Israeli advisors, a true indicator that this conflict was instigated by outside forces. …
Relating what has become common practice among war criminals, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reported: “A Russian humanitarian convoy has come under fire. Panic is growing among the local population, and the number of refugees is increasing. There are reports of ethnic cleansing in some villages… The situation is ripe for a humanitarian catastrophe.”
The two-faced, underhanded foreign policy of Georgia:
Ask anyone in the Caucasus region, and they will tell you never to trust a Georgian because they would shake your hand with a smile and then stab you in the back. On Friday morning, we saw a perfect example of this treachery, when hours after declaring a ceasefire, Georgian military units launched a savage attack on the civilians of South Ossetia.
Hours after Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili, the pro-western Washington-backed anti-democratic stooge (attacks on opposition policians in Georgia are rife) declared a unilateral ceasefire, the Georgian army lanched a savage attack on the capital of the province of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, with tanks and infantry, while the air force bombed a village and strafed a Russian humanitarian aid convoy.”
SO:
We appear to be witnessing the resurrection of the Brezhnev era. If so, the news is ominous indeed, for if Vladimir Putin looks like the second coming of Leonid Brezhnev, Barack Obama looks equally like the second coming of Jimmy Carter, whom Brezhnev treated as a lackey. Today the Obama and McCain campaigns both put out statements on the Russian invasion. Politico’s Ben Smith contrasts them:
While Obama offered a response largely in line with statements issued by democratically elected world leaders, including President Bush, first calling on both sides to negotiate, John McCain took a remarkably — and uniquely — more aggressive stance, siding clearly with Georgia’s pro-Western leaders and placing the blame for the conflict entirely on Russia.
In case that wasn’t clear, he adds: “McCain’s initial statement…put him more closely in line with the moral clarity and American exceptionalism projected by President Bush’s first term.”
In another weird echo of the Brezhnev years, Obama adviser Mark Brzezinski– Zbigniew’s son–said, “It’s both sides’ fault — both have been somewhat provocative with each other.” Sure. Just like the Czechs provoked the Germans in 1938.
The Russians, needless to say, are not neutral as between McCain and Obama. Ben Smith recounts that their Washington public relations firm contacted reporters to remind them that McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann has lobbied for Georgia. Unbelievably, the Obama campaign aligned itself squarely with Vladimir Putin, putting out a statement that echoed the Russian PR firm’s:
“John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser lobbied for, and has a vested interest in, the Republic of Georgia and McCain has mirrored the position advocated by the government,’ said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan.
In the common sense-free world of Barack Obama, advocating for a fledgling democracy that is trying to align itself with the West and is threatened by the imperial aspirations of Russia constitutes a “conflict of interest.”
The McCain camp responded with this statement:
The Obama campaign’s attacks on Randy Scheunemann are disgraceful. Mr. Scheunemann proudly represented a small democracy that is one of our closest allies in a very dangerous region. Today, many are dead and Georgia is in crisis, yet the Obama campaign has offered nothing more than cheap and petty political attacks that are echoed only by the Kremlin. The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis, so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn’t merely raise questions about Senator Obama’s judgment–it answers them.
The American people once elected Jimmy Carter to defend their interests against Leonid Brezhnev. It will be interesting to see whether they are willing to do it again.
GOD BLESS ISRAEL. Maybe some day Israel will make glass of the lands of their barbaric & backwards & lunatic neighbors.
To the Russians, the Georgians are terrorists. And if the Russian response of using war planes to bomb civilians in order to fight these terrorists is a war crime, then Israel has been committing these war crimes for decades. Bush is calling for an end to this violence, but gives $3 000 000 000 per year (plus weapons, plus “loans”) to Israel to continue its violent hegemony in the Middle East. This is hypocrisy at its finest.
Russians bomb Georgian city
posted at 11:40 am on August 9, 2008
Wouldn’t this constitute a war crime, if deliberate? The Russians dropped bombs on the city of Gori today, killing civilians, while announcing that they had taken the capital of South Ossetia back from Georgia. Meanwhile, the US struggles to find a response that will contain the aggression and hostilities, but Georgia has war on its mind:
Russian air attacks over northern Georgia intensified on Saturday morning, striking two apartment buildings in the city of Gori and clogging roads out of the area with fleeing refugees.
Russian authorities said their forces had retaken the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, from Georgian control during the morning hours. They reported that 15 Russian peacekeepers and 1,500 civilians have been killed in the conflict.
Georgian forces shot down 10 Russian combat planes over the last two days, according to Alexander Lomaya, secretary of the Georgian National Security Council.
Shota Utiashvili, an official at the Georgian Interior Ministry, called the attack on Gori a “major escalation,” and said he expected attacks to increase over the course of Saturday. He said some 16 Russian planes were in the air over Georgian territory at any given time on Saturday, four times the number of sorties seen Friday.
The US received howls of criticism for its targeted strikes on insurgents who deliberately hid among civilians in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Even Barack Obama criticized American tactics in the latter, saying that all we were doing was “air raiding villages and killing civilians”. Israel got the same criticism during its war with Hezbollah, which also hid among civilians.
So when will we hear criticism from Obama, MoveOn, and the rest of the critics over these tactics by Russia? Georgia is fielding a uniformed army, clearly identifiable and operating under command of the state. Why does Russia need to bomb civilian centers under these conditions?
The US, meanwhile, has tried talking with both sides, but unsurprisingly have not gotten far with either. Georgia claims that Russia started the war by supporting the separatist attacks and then escalated with their own attacks on Georgia proper; Russia claims that they are only fulfilling their role as peacekeepers and would stop if Georgia withdraws from South Ossetia. The Russians claim that the US got taken aback by Georgia’s actions, praising our efforts to defuse the crisis but noting that those efforts proved fruitless.
Update: Here’s the video of Obama ripping American tactics in Afghanistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLlyjGjeZIY
America will wait with bated breath his swift and merciless condemnation of Russian tactics.
August 8th, 2008 4:24 PM Eastern
What Is Obama Talking About?
By Betsy Newmark
Occasionally, Obama has indicated that he has a weak sense of American history. He didn’t seem to know that the Cold War was not a time when the world was standing as one. He didn’t know the history of presidential summits and seems to think that FDR and Truman met with our nation’s enemies. He didn’t know how the Nuremberg Trials worked. And I’m not even talking about his mistake that Americans liberated Auschwitz.
But I think his remark when the little girl asked him why he decided to run for president and he gave this response.
“America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.”
As you watch the video, it’s clear that he formed his words carefully and was thinking about how to answer the little girl.
I’m wondering when is the time that Obama thinks that we were what we could be. It couldn’t have been when we had slavery. So that takes us to 1865. It couldn’t be when we had states divided by terrible Jim Crow laws that segregated society and disenfranchised an entire race. So that takes us to the mid-1960s. It probably wasn’t when we were divided and torn apart by the Vietnam War and racial violence. So that takes us to the 1970s. I doubt that it was when we were suffering devastating stagflation and seeing our hostages being paraded in front of the cameras. So that takes us to 1980. We’re left with the Reagan-Bush years. Is Obama yearning for Morning in America? Many conservatives remember that period with nostalgia; does Obama share that feeling? No, certainly not the 1980s, that decade of greed.
Or is he talking about the Clinton years? Was that the time when we were what we could be? Why then run against Hillary Clinton? And that was a time when we were supposedly being divided by bitter partisanship. Is he yearning for the time when the Republicans controlled Congress? The days of impeachment? Or is he thinking about when we had our heads in the sand regarding the growing development of Al Qaeda terrorism? If that was the one period in our time when we were what we could be, then wouldn’t he have wanted to put that team back in the White House? And we know that he isn’t talking about the Bush years. So what was he talking about?
This matches up with some of the things his wife has said. His wife thinks that we are a “downright mean” country.
Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”
We can narrow down when that better time was as far as his wife is concerned. She says it’s gotten worse over her lifetime and she’s 44. I’m still trying to figure out when in the past 44 years she thinks that it was better. Ed Morrissey reminds us of some other remarks that Michelle Obama has said that indicated her dislike of this country. It now seems that her husband shares some of that disdain. Or does he? She’s also said that this is the first time in her adult life that she is proud of America because America had the good sense to vote for her husband. So does she think that we’re now being what we could be? Or was her childhood during the 1960s and 70s that time when America was so good. It’s all very confusing.
As Jennifer Rubin says, this remark wasn’t a gaffe, but a theme.
But really, it is not just a matter of an off-the-cuff remark. (By the way can you imagine that if Joe Biden is selected as VP he might actually be the less gaffe-prone of the two?) That gloomy assessment and glum world outlook is essential to his message. Remember: if the country is not in dire straits then no ordinary, experienced politician will do. We have to throw away the playbook, take a leap of faith and elect the One Who Is Like No Other. So of course everything must be worse than before — why else would we need Him?
You know, this wasn’t a tough question. She was asking him why he wanted to be president. Ever since Roger Mudd flummoxed Teddy Kennedy, candidates have known how to answer that question. He could have talked about the challenges that our country faces and how he wanted to lead us to a better tomorrow. He was given an opening to talk about how much he loves this country and wants to serve it. If he had to return to his usual solipsism, he could have talked about how proud he is to be the first candidate of a mixed racial heritage to be nominated by a major political party and how far we have come from our grim racial history and how he is looking forward to leading the country as we continued our progress.
Many liberals supporting Obama’s campaign probably don’t see anything wrong with Obama’s reply. But those aren’t the people he needs to convince. If he’s worry about those bitter, clinging voters who voted for Hillary in the primaries, this sort of talk isn’t going to win them over.
And I hope that one day, some reporter, or maybe just another seven-year old child, will ask him. When exactly were those golden, halcyon days? What are all those qualities that he believes represent what we can be and what we once were? And when exactly was that period in American history when we satisfied all those criteria? I hope that those journalists or townhall participants at Obama events who will be trying to think of what questions to ask Obama if they get the opportunity will consider asking him when we were what we could be and if we were waiting for the change that we would be today back then? It all is very confusing, but I’m sure that he can deconstruct it for us.
Percy, russ, martha and toby:
Van a comer sus cojones, culeros.
(An Old Spanish Saying)