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Here's an interesting link. I'm not sure I buy it all, but I do buy the idea that LBJ appointed Clark AG in order to get his mediocre father off the Supreme Court.
Try a Boolean search like this, and see what comes up:
Hillary AND Waco AND Hubbell AND Reno
You'll get some interesting links.
Name Removed at Poster's Request -
6/20/2004
Interesting.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/20/2004
Van, I don't know what has happened to Clark after being Attorney General. That might be an interesting story for someone to investigate.
Richard Henry Morgan -
6/19/2004
I was just having some fun.
In the aftermath of Waco it came out that Hubbell had been in daily discussions with Hillary -- discussions that Reno was not informed of. In fact, at the time, it was suggested that the order to take the compound had come from Hillary herself. Judge Pat Wald had turned down the AG spot specifically because Clinton had insisted on appointing her deputies -- she could see the writing on the wall. It would be interesting to know just to what extent Reno was managed by Hubbell. Of course, this could all just be stories spread by Clinton enemies.
Name Removed at Poster's Request -
6/19/2004
Why?
Grant W Jones -
6/18/2004
You are both right. One of the most reprehensible things Janet Waco did was to manufacture "evidence" to justify the first attack. Not only child abuse, but there were also the claims of a "drug lab." The "drug lab" lie allowed the feds to move in the tanks, if I remember correctly.
Van L. Hayhow -
6/18/2004
Prof. Luker:
As to Ramsey Clark, he really seems to have gone off the deep end after he left office. It is almost impossible for me to take anything he says now, seriously. Does anyone know what happened to him?
Richard Henry Morgan -
6/18/2004
Can you name five memorable things he did, period?
Ralph E. Luker -
6/18/2004
Chris should still read Gary Farber's reply to John Cole over at Balloon Juice. I suspect you're holding Clark responsible for a weird subsequent life. Can you name the five horrendous things Clark did as Attorney General?
Richard Henry Morgan -
6/18/2004
Go on. Say it. I dare you.
Name Removed at Poster's Request -
6/18/2004
And who can forget the wonderful Meese Commission on Pornography?
chris l pettit -
6/18/2004
My short list would go thusly...
Ashcroft, Meese, Reno, Clark...John Mitchell is definitely in there somewhere
pieces of trash all of them...since I am not one who likes the whole evil and more evil thing lets just say they all were disgraces who had no regard for the rule of law, human rights law, or international law
I like Meese since he seems to have the record for special prosecutor investigations with 4 different ones...another fine Reagan legacy
To explore the analogy, or the disanalogy, I'll call him George Abu Grahib when there is developed credible evidence that he ordered torture, in the same manner that Reno ordered the assault on the Branch Davidian compound.
As for Waco, there was some really bizarre stuff surrounding the incident there. Seems Koresh was seen out and about the town, but the ATF didn't seize him there. Instead they put on a very showy raid, complete with cameras, just as Treasury was going before Congress asking for more money -- and brave guys died.
Seems also that, despite years of denial, the very same FBI sniper (sorry, sharpshooter), Lon Horiuchi, who gunned down Vicki Weaver in Idaho, discharged his weapon at Waco. This was a guy who supposedly could hit a quarter-sized target at 200 yards, but missed a shot at Randy Weaver and put a round through the neck of his wife Vicki -- this despite the fact that Randy was retreating into his house, his back to Horiuchi, and Horiuchi was supposedly under orders only to shoot to protect himself or others.
Of course, we know why Janet Waco got the job -- Bill had promised Hillary a woman for the job. First they tried Judge Patricia Wald, of the DC Circuit, but she refused the job when she realized they were setting her up for the mushroom treatment. Then they tried a corporate attorney making a half mill, whose husband taught Con Law at Yale -- and still they didn't pay Social Security for their maid (I guess they didn't know the law, right?). Then it was another judge who had an illegal immigrant as a maid, and who ended up being named as the adulterous party in a divorce action. Then they landed on the unspectacular Waco, state prosecutor from Dade.
You would think that having shot and killed ATF agents would be sufficient to justify a raid on the compound, but no, Waco had to reach into her bag of tricks and come up with child abuse -- it's not like the death of federal agents really registered all that much with her, apparently.
Oscar Chamberlain -
6/17/2004
I agree that the whole thing was a frightening overreaction. I know that the child abuse allegations turned out to be unfounded. I thought at the time that Reno should resign, and I thought some heads at the ATF should have rolled along with hers.
I simply suggested that the lack of a federal statute against child abuse was not a particularly strong argument against the raid.
One must remember that there was an arrest warrant. Whatever one thinks of that warrant or of the intial ATF tactics Koresh and company should have given themselves up rather than force the feds to choose between a siege and a second assault.
In the seige environment that followed, it was legitimate to wonder what was happening to the children, and I would argue that it was legitimate for Reno to order a raid to rescue the children if "credible" evidence of their abuse emerged.
What angered me then and now was that the management of the siege and the final assualt was utterly incompetent. The siege tactics included things like playing rock music at ear-splitting levels. I cannot think of a better way to convince some Armeggedon minded pepole that Satan is knocking at the door.
Concerning the final assault, all I will say is that, if its primary purpose was to rescue the children, the tactics did not reflect that.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/17/2004
I assume that Richard Morgan and Grant Jones will henceforth refer to the President as George Abu Grahib.
Grant W Jones -
6/17/2004
The issue Oscar, is the presumption of innocence. Janet Waco considered parents quilty until proven innocent. She grossly oversimplified the issue of child abuse and many families suffered for it. Of course, Elian had no such rights. Children are the property of the state in Janet's world. "Fiasco" is not an accurate describtion of mass murder. Janet Waco is one sick puppy.
Texas authorities had already investigated the Branch Davidian community. The original ATF attack had nothing to do with child abuse. If there are no federal laws regarding it, the AG has no business making them up. The ATF enforces non-existent fed child abuse laws. How's that again? The original "raid" was a vicious, military assault on a peaceful community.
Oscar Chamberlain -
6/17/2004
Reno is not one of my favorites, and the Waco fiasco is one of the reasons. However, I think you are taking states' rights a bit far by suggesting that federal officials should not rescue children who are being abused in their vicinity.
Richard Henry Morgan -
6/17/2004
Janet Waco is not mentioned because Paul Krugman doesn't have a case of heartburn about her. Janet is the one who justified the assault on the Waco compound because of alleged child abuse occurring there -- despite the fact that there is no federal child abuse statute. This was a reprise of her less than stellar performance as a state prosecutor in Florida:
There is, indeed, no right to suffrage in the original constitution for the presidency--or for any other branch of the national government. The only requirement is that each state should allow the same people who vote for the state's lower house to vote for the House of Representatives.
However, a pretty good argument can be made that the 14th amendment plus the various suffrage amendments (on race, gender, and age) have changed that and shifted the locus of suffrage rights from the state to the national government. No state has put that to the test by reducing suffrage for any office formally, but if one did, the court fight would be fascinating and the outcome far less certain than Scalia’s statement would suggest.
John E. St. Lawrence -
6/17/2004
What made it personal, for those who may have missed it, was the selective release of information to create the appearance that info from civilian prosecutions could not be used as intel in national defense, when in fact it was the other way around. Much was made of the use of the word 'wall,' substituting for actually considering what happened.
Even the WH cut Ashcroft loose on this one, though I suppose I should consider it heartwarming that he still has fans elsewhere.
I guess the death threats made on Gorelick are beside the point.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/17/2004
It is a good thing that justices are appointed rather than elected, Richard. For all his legal genius, Scalia's point about their being no constitutionally mandated right of suffrage in presidential elections is too clever by half. It bespeaks the arrogance of a Court which ordered the inauguration of a president who has no popular mandate.
Richard Henry Morgan -
6/17/2004
PS
I like that nice touch about the lead counsel for the Sierra Club -- an old friend of Scalia's. Seems he invited Scalia to address his class at Stanford two days before the Sierra Club brief was filed. Was the Sierra Club trying to buy off Scalia? By the Sierra Club's own logic, Scalia should recuse himself from hearing the Sierra Club's brief -- leaving the Sierra Club out in the cold. Too funny.
Richard Henry Morgan -
6/17/2004
Actually, the "Earth is flat" comment was made during an interview conducted at the Harvard Bookstore, ground zero for effete, impudent, intellectual snobs. I would add that, when he thinks it helps his case, Krugman easily qualifies as a snob -- you can read his condescending remarks on others at Donald Luskin's archive at NRO. But the best is not his disparaging and snobbish remarks about Schwarzenegger, but his predictions when a member of Reagan's CEA -- he predicted an inflation bomb coming!! And this is the kind of predictive power that Enron paid over $37,000/hour for?
BTW, I agree that Scalia is a legal genius. I remember the audible gasp when, during Bush v. Gore before the SC, Scalia pointed out that there is no right of suffrage in the Constitution for Presidential elections -- the Florida Supreme Court had jury-rigged a rationale that interposed a state legal requirement on a federal election.
As for the charge of conflict, it is quite ably dispensed with by Scalia -- there is simply no precedent for the recusal that the Sierra Club (yes, the Sierra Club, the great legal authority of our time)demanded. Scalia's response is available here:
http://news.findlaw.com/hdoc/docs/scotus/chny31804jsmem.pdf
David Lion Salmanson -
6/17/2004
For the purposes of vernacular speech, saying the earth is round is perfectly acceptable. Anybody who says the earth is an oblate spheroid on TV while not on PBS or the Discovery channel (or its spinoffs) comes off looking like, an effette, impudent, intellectual snob.
At least she recused, unlike Anton Scalia, who although a legal genius (no, really it's why he infuriates the left so much) seems a little morally shaky right now, quack quack.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/17/2004
Actually, Ramsey Clark was a reasonably good Attorney General. Since then ...
Richard Henry Morgan -
6/17/2004
I did read it Ralph, and he makes a good point. In fact, I can't remember a thing about Ramsey Clark as AG, good or bad. The time since then ...
Ralph E. Luker -
6/17/2004
I don't necessarily defend Krugman's column, Richard, tho you have to admit that Ashcroft's refusal to make documents available to the Senate committee inquiring into Abu Grahib and torture is pretty awful; and Krugman might have gone on and on. Check out what Farber said in defense of Clark as Attorney General.
Richard Henry Morgan -
6/17/2004
Read the Krugman piece -- a rather short list of particulars. He says that Ashcroft engaged in a personal attack on a member of the Commission. I guess that refers to Gorelick. I watched the hearing. He never once mentioned Gorelick by name, nor did he make a pejorative reference to her -- he merely pointed out that she urged approval of a separation of investigators with criminal and national security wiretap access, to protect the viability of criminal prosecution (a requirement not found in the law, but a reflection of her elevating the capacity for criminal prosecution over national security -- a rather foolish thing to do, given the 20-20 hindsight of post-9/11). In fact, Ashcroft was pointing out the obvious -- Gorelick had no business, given her conflict of interest, being on the Commission, and the fact that she recused herself from hearings dealing with her role simply wasn't sufficient.
Now, in Paul "Enron" Krugman's bizarre world, this constitutes a personal attack. Then again, Krugman isn't known for his accuracy. On the Chris Lydon show, he characterized the Fox channel as flat-earthers since, as he claimed, everybody knows the Earth is round. In fact, the Earth isn't round. It's an oblate spheroid, such that the the mouth of the Mississippi is actually further from the center of the Earth than the source of the river (by one interpretation, the river runs uphill). Krugman apparently meets the accuracy requirements of the Princeton economics department and the New York Times. My suggestion is that he before he proceeds to smart-ass, he should stop a while at smart.
