THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 3/8/12

SUPER TUESDAY DECIDED NOTHING LITTLE: On Tuesday, Republicans in ten states went to the polls, with Romney pulling out six wins (Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia [where only Ron Paul and Romney were on the budget], Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, and [very, very narrowly] Ohio), Santorum three (North Dakota, Tennessee, and Oklahoma), and Gingrich one (his home state of Georgia). The nail-biter of the night was Ohio, which was not called for Romney until after midnight, when over 90% of the vote had been counted. He won by one percentage point, 38% to Santorum’s 37%. More ominously for Romney, he failed to build his coalition, losing among voters without college degrees, voters making less than $100,000, and voters under 65. He also lost the independent and the evangelical votes. As Steve Benen put it, “Romney performed just well enough to remain the frontrunner, and just poorly enough to look weak and keep the Republican race going indefinitely.” The slog continues. Coming up next we have the Kansas caucus on Saturday; then Mississippi, Alabama and Hawaii next Tuesday; then Missouri on the 17th (the earlier vote, which Santorum won, was just a pretend caucus), Illinois on the 20th, and Louisiana on the 24th. So Romney may be looking forward to at least four losses out of six in the next couple weeks. Now comes word that Gingrich seems likely to drop out if he does not outright win Alabama and Mississippi -- making the next month potentially very, very rough for Romney. Until then, though, Romney has a big, and possibly insurmountable, lead in the delegate race.

THE BIG STORY LAST/THIS WEEK: Since I am sure you all have heard something about this story, I am hoping to keep it brief (but since it dominated the news over the last few days, it is incumbent on me to at least mention it). So remember that mostly-male hearing that Rep. Issa held two weeks ago to discuss Obama’s contraception coverage mandate? And remember how there was a Georgetown law student who was prevented from testifying -- and who planned to discuss her friend’s use of contraception to regulate ovarian cysts? So that woman’s name was Sandra Fluke, and when the Democrats finally staged their own “hearing” in order to hear her testimony, the right wing freaked out, as is their wont. Late last week, Rush Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” who was asking to get paid for sex -- who is having so much sex that she can’t afford her own contraception. His misunderstanding of the mechanisms of birth control pills is literally mind-boggling, but we’ll set that aside (he’s hardly the only right-winger to somehow have no idea whatsoever how contraception works -- or that a health insurance mandate would have nothing to do with condoms). So then he declared that, if she wanted “us” to pay for her contraception (again, Limbaugh is struggling with the whole private-health-insurance-coverage vs. taxpayer-funded-benefits thing), she should have to put up the videos of her sexual escapades online, “so we can all watch.” Yeah. I’m not making that up. So this turned into a huge story for a few reasons: 1) Even before Limbaugh, the contraception mandate/Issa hearing story was big; 2) Rush Limbaugh has an absolutely, mind-bogglingly enormous audience; 3) Democrats knew this was a political winner, and so they milked it; and 4) Under the logic of #3, President Obama himself called Sandra Fluke to offer his support and encouragement. So over the weekend, Limbaugh issued a written “apology” in which he said he used the wrong words but that Fluke was still an idiot asking for absurd hand-outs. (The insults hardly stopped with the word “slut.”) And when the leading GOP candidates were asked about Limbaugh’s remarks, they signaled their enormous fear of Limbaugh’s scorn: Santorum called the comments “absurd” but quickly explained that “entertainers” like Rush are allowed to be absurd. Romney was even more pathetically evasive; “I’ll just say this, which is, it’s not the language I would have used.” (He once again refused to condemn Rush this week -- perhaps because he and Limbaugh share some financial interests?) And -- shocker! -- Gingrich railed against the “elite media” for manufacturing the story to begin with. In the meantime, over 40 advertisers and counting have abandoned Limbaugh, and there is a campaign to get him off the air entirely. But really, all of this was just a set-up to encourage you to watch Jon Stewart’s take on the whole thing, here. (Conservative writer David Frum also had a good piece explaining why this story was such a big deal.)

LEGAL AUTHORITY TO KILL US CITIZENS: This week, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech at Northwestern Law School on national security. After detailing the successes that the Administration has had in capturing and trying terrorism suspects in federal court, and defending the use of military commissions in certain instances, Holder turned to the issue of targeted assassinations of American citizens abroad. Americans have been waiting for an explanation of the legality of such a tactic, as well as for details of the decision-making process behind it, since American-born Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen last September. Holder began by insisting that the U.S. government’s legal authority to wage war on a “stateless enemy” is “not limited to the battlefields in Afghanistan.” Although America’s reach is constrained by “international legal principles,” Holder suggested we can still pretty much act wherever we want: “The use of force in foreign territory would be consistent with these international legal principles if conducted, for example, with the consent of the nation involved – or after a determination that the nation is unable or unwilling to deal effectively with a threat to the United States.” Next, he asserted that it is “entirely lawful” to target specific individuals for killing, noting that the concept is not “novel” and that we did such targeted killings during World War II. Legal authority for such killings appears to be limited “self defense against a leader of al Qaeda or an associated force who presents an imminent threat of violent attack.” But in detailing exactly when such killings would be lawful, Holder offered only the vaguest of generalities:

Let me be clear: an operation using lethal force in a foreign country, targeted against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or associated forces, and who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans, would be lawful at least in the following circumstances: First, the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; second, capture is not feasible; and third, the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.

And the President can act withoutcCourt permission because, Holder asserted simply, “the Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.” Holder agreed that such executive determinations must be subject to “robust oversight,” but then declared only that the executive branch “regularly informs the appropriate members of Congress about our counterterrorism activities.” Since when is “informing” the same as subjecting to oversight? Is there any indication that members of Congress could object, or intervene in any way if they felt the Executive’s determination was legally erroneous? There was no further discussion of the mechanism by which the Executive selects a target, or the process by which the Executive balances the interests of the government against the risk of error. No explanation of who is making that decision, when Congress is “informed” about it, and whether there’s any attempt to first capture the person without killing. And Holder gave no explanation for when and in what other circumstances the Executive can decide that due process means something less than judicial process. In my view, this was not one of his finest moments.
Spencer Ackerman’s take is here, including the responses of some people on Congress and civil liberties advocates. Emily Bazelon reminds us that the Administration has still refused to release the legal memo that provided the legal basis for the targeted killing program, making it impossible for the public to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments. Adam Serwer sums it up: “If the standards for when the government can send a deadly flying robot to vaporize you sound a bit subjective, that's because they are.”


Must Read of the Week: What happens when an entire party is taken over by anti-abortion and anti-family planning zealots? A lot of low-income women lose their primary source of medical care.
Must-Watch Video of the Week: This is one of the most brilliant, inspiring things I’ve seen in a long time. Oscar-winning writer David Ian Black pieced together pieces of the transcript of the Proposition 8 trial (the one where Dream Team David Boies and Ted Olson brought a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Prop 8) into a play, which was performed and streamed live over the weekend. It has a star-studded cast: Martin Sheen plays Olson, George Clooney (swoon!) plays Boies, Brad Pitt plays Judge Vaugh Walker, etc etc. It is a moving and fantastic piece of civic theater. I really, really urge you to take 90 minutes and watch it. If you don’t have time for that (but you really, really should -- watch it in 10 minute chunks like I did!), then at least watch the final 15 minutes, starting at 1:43:30. And if you can’t do that, then watch Sheen-as-Olsen’s closing argument, starting at 1:46:00 and ending three minutes later. You have time for that, surely.