Women's vote in the Early Republic period in the US

Gordon Wood in his 2009 history, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, wrote this about voting in the early days of government under the Constitution in the United States:

Perhaps the most radical change resulting from the Jeffersonian election of 1800 was in politics. Popular voting took on a significance that it had never quite had before, and the increased numbers of contested elections for both federal and state officials sent the turnout of voters skyrocketing. In many places, especially in the North, the participation of eligible voters went from 20 percent or so in the 1790s to 80 percent or more in the first decade of the nineteenth century. At the same time, states that had not already done so began to expand the franchise by eliminating property qualifications or transforming the requirement into the mere paying of taxes. Of course, the enhanced importance of voting and the increase in electoral competition made suffrage exclusions as important as suffrage expansions. Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and New Jersey, which earlier had had no racial restrictions, now confined voting exclusively to white adult males. With the exception of a brief period in New Jersey (1790-1807) no state granted women the suffrage. By modern standards the system was far from democratic, but by the standards of the early nineteenth century America possessed the most popular electoral politics in the world.

Its always both frustrating and fascinating to see how political progress and political retrogression can happen at the same time within the same political entity. Jefferson and his supporters in the Republican Party (the party that later became today's Democratic Party) called his election in 1800 "the revolution of 1800." Jefferson's party wasn't nearly so squeamish at using the word "revolution" in a positive sense in those days, in dramatic contrast to today's corporate Democrats. Today's Republicans with the Reagan Revolution and the Gingrich Revolution and so on has not been nearly so squeamish in that regard in recent decades.

One of the things that strikes me in this passage is that Wood cites the fact that "[p]opular voting took on a significance that it had never quite had before" was "the most radical change" that manifested itself in the 1800 election at all levels. If you're someone who believes that democratic participation and popular interest in public affairs are desirable in a democratic republic, that was a good thing.

I would also note that increasing democratic participation is at the core of what Bernie Sanders refers to as the kind of revolution he wants to see.

Another striking point in that paragraph is that women had the franchise for nearly two decades around the start of the nineteenth century. But as voter participation expanded for white men, the one state that recognized women's right to vote put an end to it. A similar backward step from the standpoint of democracy was that there was also a trend to remove the franchise from free blacks in some places. This is a case where democratic progress (a huge increase in popular participation) happened simultaneously with democratic regression.

The trend toward disenfranchising women had begun earlier, with New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire having withdrawn women's suffrage prior to 1800. (See Wikipedia's Timeline of women's suffrage in the United States.) This is evidence that some men and women even in the late 18th century in the US thought that women voting was a good thing. Not only was the idea talked about at the time. It had actually been practiced to a limited extent in the United States.

But since Wood has a realistic and evidence-based approach to history, he reminds us that "by the standards of the early nineteenth century America possessed the most popular electoral politics in the world."

The egocentric American Exceptionalism is happy to use alleged American superiority in all things as an excuse to make war against foreign governments that displease us.

But it is important to remember that the US in 1800 was at best only a partial democracy by the standards of 2017 - women in Iran also have the right to vote today - it still at that time had the most popular electoral politics in the world. And it really was an inspiration for people in Europe and Latin America that wanted to move in a democratic direction in their countries' governance.

And if we believe democracy is a desirable and necessary for a free people, that was a good thing. And understanding that is an essential part of understanding the history of the Early Republic and antebellum periods.

Confederate "Heritage" Month 2017, April 12: Missouri Compromise and the three-fifths clause

Returning to William Freehling's 1990 The Road to Disunion, Vol. 1: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, he explains some critical ways in which the Missouri Compromise marked a new stage in the argument over slavery, a stage that differed notably from previous such controversies. And it framed later controversies over slavery, including the annexation of Texas and Texas statehood, until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 exploded the Missouri Compromise's pact that slavery would not be allowed in new states above the 36°30' parallel.

One key element of the situation in 1920 was the growing northern concern about the disproportionate representation of slave state whites due to the infamous "three-fifths clause" of the Constitution of 1789. That was part of another famous Compromise. I'll let the reliably stodgy Britannica Online explain, from the article Constitution of the United States (internal links omitted):

The Constitution was the product of political compromise after long and often rancorous debates over issues such as states’ rights, representation, and slavery. Delegates from small and large states disagreed over whether the number of representatives in the new federal legislature should be the same for each state — as was the case under the Articles of Confederation — or different depending on a state’s population. In addition, some delegates from Northern states sought to abolish slavery or, failing that, to make representation dependent on the size of a state’s free population. At the same time, some Southern delegates threatened to abandon the convention if their demands to keep slavery and the slave trade legal and to count slaves for representation purposes were not met. Eventually the framers resolved their disputes by adopting a proposal put forward by the Connecticut delegation. The Great Compromise, as it came to be known, created a bicameral legislature with a Senate, in which all states would be equally represented, and a House of Representatives, in which representation would be apportioned on the basis of a state’s free population plus three-fifths of its slave population. (The inclusion of the slave population was known separately as the three-fifths compromise.) [my emphasis in bold]

This created a bonus number of Congressional Representatives for slave states. As Sanford Levinson comments, "That compromise gave slave-owning states a bonus in the House of Representation and the Electoral College by counting slaves among those 'represented,' even though this was obviously a complete fiction." (Three-Fifths Compromise Was an Understandable Deal on Slavery New York Times 07/01/2015)

As always, it's important to keep in mind the extent as well as the limits of what American democracy was at this time. When the Constitution was written, the Framers were setting up a government for a democracy of white men, whose ability to vote could be and was subject to property requirements if states and localities so decided. Neither black men nor women or Native Americans were considered to eligible to vote by right.

Judith Wellman in The Road to Seneca Falls (2004) notes that New Jersey's 1776 constitution had extended the vote to women and blacks, subject to age and property requirements. "In 1807, however, the legislature used the occasion of widespread fraud in one local election to exclude women from voting. At the same time, they virtually eliminated property qualifications for adult white males." A great example in which an important step of progress (eliminating property qualifications) came joined at the hip with a huge step backward for the rights of women. It's also a reminder that real mischief can be done in the name of combating "voter fraud."

But it was also the case in 1789 that the Constitution envisaged a wider access to male suffrage and democratic control of government than European governments. This Getting the Vote website from the UK National Archives explains suffrage rights in Britain:

In early-19th-century Britain very few people had the right to vote. A survey conducted in 1780 revealed that the electorate in England and Wales consisted of just 214,000 people - less than 3% of the total population of approximately 8 million. In Scotland the electorate was even smaller: in 1831 a mere 4,500 men, out of a population of more than 2.6 million people, were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. Large industrial cities like Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester did not have a single MP between them, whereas 'rotten boroughs' such as Dunwich in Suffolk (which had a population of 32 in 1831) were still sending two MPs to Westminster. The British electoral system was unrepresentative and outdated.

By 1820, the premium representations the slave states were getting from the three-fifths clause were looking more and more "unrepresentuive and outdated."

The Senate itself was set up to give each state equal representation, which gave power in the Senate to less populated states equal to that of the most populated ones. And still does, for that matter. In 2017, California with its population of 39 million has the same number of Senators as Wyoming has with its 586 thousand. An individual voter's vote in Wyoming counts for a lot more in the Senate than one in California.

Democratic trends in American history have ebbed and flowed. Often at the same time. But the trend toward more democracy and equality was there. And as time went on since the ratification of the Constitution, the slavery bonus in representation from the three-fifths clause was looking less and less democratic to the voters of the free states. Freehling describes the initial arrangement established by the Constitution as "aristocratic Union." He writes, "Both North and South had to give in a little if aristocratic Union was to begin. Hence the resulting compromise, with each white counting as one soul and each slave as three-fifths of a human when apportioning each state's share of House seats."

It would be misleading to think of the ruling elite of 1787 as an aristocracy like those of Europe in the sociological-economic sense. But if we take "aristocratic" as a description of style and attitude, it gives us a useful perspective. Freehling argues that initially, "The three-fifths clause only slightly boosted the Slavepower's power." But he also points out, "If no three-fifths clause had existed and House
apportionment had been based strictly on white numbers, [John] Adams would have likely squeaked by, 63-61" in the Presidential election of 1800. It's understandable that even a "slight" boost that could make the difference in a Presidential election would be cause for concerned by the disadvantaged parties.

But the time, they were a'changin':

The nineteenth-century change from elitist to egalitarian republican sensibilities·best explains why the first mainstream northern assault on the Slavepower came not after the American Revolution but 40 years later, during the transition from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Jackson. The three-fifths clause, which seemed republican according to aristocratic assumptions of the Age of the American Revolution, became anti-republican according to egalitarian assumptions of the Age of the Common Man. In state legislatures, city councils, and national presidential elections, leaders and followers insisted that the people, not the propertied, must rule. "The people" meant adult white males, ruling on a one-citizen, one-vote base. The three-fifths clause, awarding the Slavepower extra representatives for enslaved noncitizens, was the most anti-republican relic of a repudiated political outlook.

As we'll see in later posts, the rising hostility to slavery and the slave power in the free states was not exclusively, or even primarily, a matter of moral concern, though that concern was real for many whites, as well. But as we see in this look at the three-fifths clause, the existence of slavery was diminishing and inhibiting democracy among the white males who were its only full citizens at that time. And the contradiction between slavery and democracy became stronger and more evident as the years went on.

Democrats on the road to self-destruction and/or irrelevance

Digby earlier this week in Protection Racket Hullabaloo 04/10/2011 stated well the unpleasant situation in which progressive/liberal politics now finds itself in the United States. Noting that polls show that Democratic voters are more impressed with the idea of the Democrats compromising with the Republicans right now, she observes that it's possible that the Obama and the Democrats will get a short-term political lift for their latest defeat, this one on the budget deal. Then she writes:

While the Democratic Party very well "win" from time to time and the party will play its role in the kabuki dance -- that of "protector" of an ever dwindling handful of ever smaller signature programs to keep the desperate progressive faction on board --- liberalism itself has suffered a terrible and perhaps mortal blow. To have a Democratic president of the United States adopt austerity and extol it as an historic victory the midst of ongoing high unemployment and a moribund economy means that the argument is basically over. This is not Franklin Roosevelt's puny GOP opposition and the Democratic Party does not have the middle class loyalty it had in 1937 to withstand making this kind of monumental error. Neither are we likely to be rescued by a war machine --- it's already cranked. No, the Democratic Party is formally relinquishing its historic claim to represent the economic interests of working families. The best we can hope for is that they "protect" us from a full blown Theocracy or a return to Jim Crow. (After all, they need to get elected somehow or they won't get a share of the spoils.)

Part of me believed it could never come to this. But it's happening right now.

It's worth noting that polls asking in a general way for people's opinions on the value of "compromise" may give ambiguous results. One person's idea of what compromise means may be very different from another's. But if we use as a standard what "liberalism" has meant in the United States since the New Deal, the reality is that President Obama is a conservative leader. If the Democratic Administration goes after Medicare and Social Security, most people in the United States will be facing economic regression even more serious than what has been occurring since 1981.

Tags: democracy, democratic party

How bad is the drift in American national government? Is Minerva's Owl flying yet?

The drift that I mean is the domination of both parties, especially the Republican Party, but what in Andrew Jackson's day he called the Money Power. Turning points look more clear in retrospect. The Owl of Minerva flies at dusk, as Hegel famously said.

Owl

Minerva

But it seems to me that a long "democratic moment" (as Jerry Brown might call it) that started around the time of the Katrina hurricane and flood in 2005 and peaked in Obama's election as President in 2008. The labor activism this year in defense of workers' rights against aggressive, reactionary Republican Governors is a sign that there is plenty of popular energy and fight left. So I actually hope we're a long way from the "dusk of this "democratic moment."

The idea of the democratic moment would be difficult to define in social-science terms. But it is a useful concept to understand situations like the ones Juan Cole defines in Hundreds of Thousands of Arabs Protest their Governments Informed Comment 04/09/2011:

On Friday, the US Congress endeavored to decide whether American democracy has irretrievably broken down because the representatives of the Billionaires refused to compromise with the representatives of the People ("cutting spending" while "cutting taxes" means "shifting the cost of running society to the middle class from the filthy rich"). The answer was that it had not, as long as the representatives of the People showed sufficient deference to the Billionaires, shuffling, keeping their eyes down, and obediently emptying their pockets. The middle class, successfully distracted by racial and religious hatreds and by attempts to impose patriarchal fundamentalism, was wreathed in vapid smiles as the billionaires sent movers to their homes to pick up the belongings they had just fleeced from them via their enforcers, the tea baggers.

As Americans rushed to surrender their constitutional rights, the peoples of the Middle East rose up from Libya to Iraq to demand those very rights for themselves– freedom of speech, religion, the press, and assembly, as well as safeguards against a secret police state that engages in routine unreasonable search and seizure and imposes cruel and unusual punishments while keeping prisoners hidden, denied habeas corpus, and often denied a speedy civil trial or even a trial at all.

Something's got to "give" in this situation. Democracy and the Constitution seem to be "giving" an awful lot to make our plutocrats wealthy whiners who don't pay their taxes investors who create all wealth happy.

Tags: democracy, juan cole, us economy

My suggestions for post-election reading for Democrats

John Amato and David Neiwert, Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane (2010) Dave Neiwert’s journalistic speciality for the last two decades or so has been following the Radical Right in the US. In this book, he and John Amato look at the flourishing of Radical Right activity and the continued mainstreaming of such ideas into the Republican Party. At present, there seems to be every prospect that this process of radicalization will continue, at least as long as Obama remains President. John Amato is the creator and manager of the blog Crooks and Liars, Dave is the editor, and they both post there regularly.

Andrew Bacevich, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War (2010) Bacevich is an historian and former career military officer who has been writing for years about the military overreach of the United States. In this book, he analyzes a development that happened without a lot of people noticing that something remarkable had taken place. During the Cold War, we had a permanent war economy and something very much like a permanent state of psychological war mobilization. But with the Afghanistan War now in its tenth year with no end in sight, the Iraq War still going on also with no end yet in sight, with war in everything but name in Pakistan and now expanding combat operations in Yemen, war (in Bacevich's words) "not a cold war; but engagement in actual hostilities - [is] establishing itself as the new normalcy".


Max Blumenthal, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (2009) The Christian Right – essentially white conservative Protestants – are the main voting base of today’s Republican Party. But long after that became a reality, most of the traditional media still does a pitiful job reporting on that movement and the organizations and individuals who lead it. Max is a good example of how a journalist can be both partisan and an excellent reporter. This recent study of the Christian Right focuses on Republican Party politicians closest to that movement but he also looks at the rank-and-file, coming up with a provocative observation about the role that the "politics of personal crisis". plays with Christian Right voters.


Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (2000) Investigate, slander, pimp pseudoscandals: the Republicans pursued these methods throughout the Clinton Presidency. From their point of view, they were successful and justified. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently explained that the problem was that they didn't focus single-mindedly enough on wrecking the Democratic Presidency. We’ll see more of the same, much magnified by the Republican Noise Machine including FOX News, but also by a mainstream media happy to play along. Perhaps the most important aspect of this book is the way it explains how the traditional media outlets took a serious dive in quality circa 1992. And they haven’t hit bottom yet, e.g., ABC News inviting white racist propagandist Andrew Breitbart to be an election commentator. Joe's work appears in Salon and the New York Observer. Gene's column normally appears on Thursday in the Cagle Post.


John Kenneth Galbraith, The Culture of Contentment (1992) This book by the late Kenneth Galbraith is nearly two decades old. A lot has changed in American politics since then, not least of which is the appalling drop in quality of the traditional news media, especially TV news. But a lot remains the same, including the central framing concept of this book: in a political system where only about half the eligible voters actually go vote even in Presidential election years, and those voters are demographically considerably more affluent on average than non-voters, American politics revolves largely around comforting the comfortable. The main difference in that regard is that the Republicans focus on comforting the already very comfortable. This results in considerable neglect of consequential problems of both the short-and long-range kinds. Galbraith’s rather pessimistic conclusion on the immediate prospect of breaking out of that framework are even more sobering now with the experience of two disastrous wars and an economic collapse that looks like the beginning a depression having occurred, our politics appear to be even more locked in the comfort-the-comfortable mode - even though the teapartiers theatrically claim to be more than uncomfortable. In fact, the outrage of affluent older whites at the policies of the Obama Administration is exactly the sort of attitude he discusses in this perceptive work.


James Galbraith, The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too (2008) The subtitle provides a short summary of the theme. Conventional wisdom – a phrase popularized by his father J.K. Galbraith – insists that in the early years of what looks a lot like an economic depression, we should be applying Herbert Hoover remedies: slashing government outlays, balancing the federal budget, phasing out Social Security, etc. Galbraith the Younger explains why those are terrible ideas. His discussion of the relation of the federal budget deficit, private savings and the trade deficit is especially interesting.


Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (2006) A clear-headed journalistic account of the Christian Right based on extensive interviews and field work. As the subtitle suggests, she focuses heavily on the nationalism and militarism of the Christianists, but also on their theocatic ambitions. The degree to which forms of Christian dominionism influence the Christian Right and the Republican Party today are not generally well understood. Michelle writes, "The things so many Islamic fundamentalists hate about the West ... are what the Christian nationalists hate as well. And so, in a final grotesque irony, we come full circle and see defenders of American chauvinism speaking the language of anti-American radicals."


Al Gore, The Assault on Reason (2007) The late astronomer Carl Sagan used to worry that as American society became more and more dependent on science and technology, that we might wind up with a huge portion of the population walking around clutching their crystals and trying to read their auras while lacking even a basic understanding of the science on which our civilization increasingly depends. Al Gore has a similar worry. But his focus in this book is how pseudoscience, bad information, irrationality and the manipulation of religious fundamentalism affect important areas of public policy and represent a real threat to American democracy.


Chris Hedges, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002) After the First World War, there was a famous exchange of letters between Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein that was published under the title, "Why War?" Chris Hedges looks at that question in this thoughtful and provocative book. Chris has the unusual combination of experiences of having been a war correspondent and also a trained theologian. His book is a reminder that war is a chronically seductive weakness of the human race.


Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., War and The American Presidency (2004) A collection of essays from the late historian's last years. In one of them he quotes Hegel, "People and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." Schlesinger himself doesn't go that far. But he does argue that people need to keep both a sense of skepticism and hope for the future, based on a realistic understand of what we know about ourselves. A large part of the book deals with the issues of war and Presidential power and the danger they represented to American democracy. "The American president as the world's self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner? - the road that lead straight to Abu Ghraib." Sadly, Obama has claimed Executive power in foreign and military affairs that in some cases exceed those of his immediate predecessor.


Tags: 2010 elections, democracy

Today in plutocracy: the Koctopus, the Supreme Court and the future of American democracy

A report this week by Kate Zernike, Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead New York Times 10/19/2010, has understandably received quite a bit of attention from progressive writers. It tells the story of a present-day version of the Liberty League of the 1930s. Because of the heavy involvement of the oil billionaire Koch brothers of Kansas, Joe Conason is calling it the "Kochtopus".

I wrote about the Liberty League three years ago in The American Liberty League and coup plotting 10/07/2010:

When Franklin Roosevelt came to power in 1933 and it quickly became apparent that he didn't plan to restrict his economic recovery measures to balancing the federal budget and preaching optimism, a lot of the most wealthy Americans got very nervous about this whole "New Deal" business. In August, 1934, some of them formed a lobby group called The American Liberty League to defend the interests of the "economic royalists", as FDR came to call them.

The most dramatic event involving the Liberty League, at least indirectly, was a charge made by antiwar retired Gen. Smedley Butler, who was a popular figure at the Bonus Army protest during the Hoover Administration which had been put down by troops under the command of Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur. He testified before a Congressional Committee about being approached by a representative of wealthy plotters wanting him to front a military coup against the federal government. He claimed that it was the some of the same people who went on to form the Liberty League that were behind the plotting.

Apparently, there is no hard evidence that the people guiding the Liberty League were directly involved in the plot testified to by Butler. And it's not clear how serious the plot was, although the people directly involved seemed to have taken the idea very seriously.

The Liberty League's main influence was in its anti-New Deal propaganda and its support for legal action against pro-labor legislation, primarily from its founding in 1934 through the Presidential election of 1936.

Lee Fang adds some important reporting to the story in MEMO: Health Insurance, Banking, Oil Industries Met With Koch, Chamber, Glenn Beck To Plot 2010 Election Think Progress 10/20/2010.

I was particularly struck by the attendance at one of their major events of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. It strikes me as very inappropriate for Supreme Court Justices to be attending what is not only a partisan strategy and fundraising event (even though officially it wasn't done under Republican Party auspices). But also a number of major corporations were represented there, companies which could well have cases coming before the Court.

Thomas' wife is also active in Tea Party Republican politics. The following bloggers commented in particular on the Justices' attendance:

Digby, Tilling The Soil With Big Bucks And Beck Hullabaloo 10/20/2010

Sam Stein, Justices Scalia And Thomas's Attendance At Koch Event Sparks Judicial Ethics Debate Huffington Post 10/20/2010

Joe Conason, Secret memo displays corporate and media tentacles of the Kochtopus Salon 10/21/2010

Since the Democrats couldn't even manage to pass the public option for health care insurance when they had solid majorities in both Houses of Congress for it, it's way too much to hope they would even considered impeaching and removing these two partisan operatives from the bench.

But they could at least hold Congressional hearings - I'm assuming they will hold on to the Senate, at least - to investigate more details of this event, and in particular how it relates to these two Justices.

Liberals for decades have defended the federal courts against Republican attacks and should continue doing so, when appropriate. But it's the responsibility of the Courts to uphold the Constitution, too. And there have been times in American history when they failed to do so, most spectacularly in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which seems to have made the Civil War inevitable and was an infamous racist piece of bad jurisprudence.

Two of the biggest blows against the democratic and Constitutional system in the US in the last 10 years were delivered by the Supreme Court: their installation of George W. Bush as President in 2000 in Bush v. Gore, and this year's Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgates to the secret corporate money which the Kochtopus is now pouring into this year's elections.

Robert Reich in The Perfect Storm That Threatens American Democracy Alternet 10/20/2010 characterizes the effects of Citizens United as follows: "We’re back to the late 19th century when the lackeys of robber barons literally deposited sacks of cash on the desks of friendly legislators. The public never knew who was bribing whom."

Progressives and the Democratic Party have to explicitly addressed the corporate capture of the Supreme Court as a threat to our democratic system, a threat which President Obama explicitly recognized after the decision was handed down - recognized in words, at least.

The Democratic Congress, or what's left of it after Election Day, should take this as an opportunity to look at these two dubious partisan players on the Court through a serious Congressional investigation into their ties to the Kochtopus.

See also Joan McCarter, Kochs, Chamber, Beck and big business plot to steal it all Daily Kos 10/20/2010

Tags: citizens united decision, democracy, democratic party

What the US communicates under the Cheney-Bush administration

Sid Blumenthal, who is the exective producer of a film (Taxi to the Dark Side) on the Cheney-Bush torture policy that is due in US theaters this coming January, writes An open letter to Karen Hughes (the czarina of "public diplomacy") Salon 10/11/07.

The issue of torture is a special case. Torture is state-sanctioned deviant behavior. It is degrading, arbitrary, cruel and illegal. As all responsible intelligence officers know, torture is the least productive technique of all, and torture yields inherently tainted information. Torture destroys the humanity of more than those tortured. It destroys the souls of those performing the torture. When Americans torture, Americans are shattered. Torture feeds secrecy. It undermines democracy. And it is shameful. Even the Gestapo and the KGB tried to hide their torture. Torture is considered uncivilized by most of the world's nations. At the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals, the U.S. tried, convicted and executed Nazi leaders for engaging in torture. Those that do not adhere to international treaties against torture are rightly branded rogue nations. Torture is the mark of tyrannies.

As long as that remains American policy and state-sanctioned practice, all the "public diplomacy" propaganda strategic communication we can finance isn't going to do much good.

Blumenthal doesn't rate Hughes' job performance very highly:

So far, to be honest, you have earned a reputation for being out of touch, for spouting platitudes without understanding the underlying issues. You are seen as oblivious to the concerns and sensibilities of groups of foreigners with whom you have met. However noble the abstractions of your rhetoric, your speeches are uniformly received as irrelevant propaganda. Even after objective observers have called attention to this pattern, you have done little to adjust. While it would be unfair to put the entire burden of transforming the image of the United States on you, it is a sad fact that your actions have deepened cynicism about American motives. And your inability to change has been consistent with the administration's unwillingness to shift course in the face of demonstrable failure.

One reservation I have about this otherwise excellent piece is that Blumenthal evokes the long-standing American conceit that we are a "special nation". He uses it in a positive way, to say that the government should live up to our own basic values and obey our own laws.

But America is not a "special nation" in any kind of moral sense. The flip side of saying that we're a "special nation" in that way is the view of the Cheneys of the world that the US is "special" in that the rules don't apply to us. Rules are for chumps in their world.

I'd settle for the United States being a functioning democracy that respects the rule of law and doesn't torture people as a matter of state policy. That's not special. That's the basic norm of the modern democratic world. The United States is not living up to it. To use a Biblical image, it's time for the US to give up our self-assumed prophetic "special" leadership role and become "like the nations". Like the democratic nations that follow the rule of law.

Greg Sargent at TPM/Horse's Mouth seems to have caught the Washington Post sloppily and wrongly misrepresenting Hillary Clinton's position against torture. According to the transcript Clinton's office provided to Sargent, here was how she stated her position:

Q: Can I ask you a follow up? You mentioned Blackwater, you’ve said that at the beginning of your administration you’d ask the Pentagon to report. When it comes to special interrogation methods, obviously you’ve said you’re against torture, but the types of methods that are now used that aren’t technically torture but are still permitted, would you do something in your first couple days to address that, suspend some of the special interrogation methods immediately or ask for some kind of review?

HRC: Well I think I’ve been very clear about that too, we should not conduct or condone torture and it is not clear yet exactly what this administration is or isn’t doing, we’re getting all kinds of mixed messages. I don’t think we’ll know the truth until we have a new President. I think once you can get in there and actually bore into what’s been going on, you’re not going to know. I was very touched by the story you guys had on the front page the other day about the WWII interrogators. I mean it's not the same situation but it was a very clear rejection of what we think we know about what is going on right now but I want to know everything, and so I think we have to draw a bright line and say ‘No torture – abide by the Geneva conventions, abide by the laws we have passed,' and then try to make sure we implement that.

Tags: bush administration, democracy, hillary clinton, sidney blumenthal, taxi to the dark side, torture