Notes on Sacramento Trip

David at Books Not Bars says he hopes to be in touch with Renee Nunez. Hopefully, he’ll connect with her, and she’ll consent to meeting me. That would do a lot to bring the story to a human level. Why Don Specter isn’t returning my calls I have no idea. Perhaps he’s too busy? Or he’ll deal with it when he has to? The conversation we had a few months ago would suffice as backup, which might be preferable, because I wouldn’t necessarily need to set a scene in his office. It’s his authority that counts, and that will be clear when I get into the lawsuit he filed against the state.

Sarah Ludeman at the state correctional department said she’ll get back to me with an itinerary after she has a chance to talk to Bernie Warner. I’ve got a Monday afternoon, tentatively, with Gloria Romero. 4:30, Sacramento. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, likely, are spent inside the facilities. Chad, definitely, and perhaps Preston. I have no idea what to expect. But that, of course, is why I need to see it.

New Mandate for the New Mandate

After nearly a year without posting any entries, I've suddenly, and without warning, decided to bring this blog back to life.

Following the recent round of New Year's resolutions, it occurs to me that a renewed effort at disciplined writing -- in the form of regular updates -- can help me develop ideas and formulate thoughts more efficiently. The difference for me between typing into an online journal and "crafting" an argument for publication is entirely psychological, of course. When I jot down ideas for this blog, I can do so knowing that I don't have an audience, and that's liberating. I can play around, tease out possibilities, follow a train of thought, collapse into cliche or indulge in grandiloquent prose. I can ramble on and on, in a string of sentences or one big run-on, without fretting about loose strands or dangling participles.

But when I set to work on a piece that I know will see the light of day -- like the three assignments I've got on my plate right now ... more on that later -- I often (and often immediately) find myself blocked. Dunno why. It's been a chronic problem for years, one I'd like to work through and hopefully conquer. That's a major reason I started this blog in the first place, and the main reason I'm resurrecting it now.

Of course, another reason I started this blog was to keep a record of developments at home and abroad and to articulate (or discover) my perspective on them. I wrote the first entry the day after Kerry conceded defeat in 2004 and proceeded to track the first few months of Bush's second term, until I left Details for The Nation and suddenly found myself with much less time on my hands, not to mention an entire staff filled with opinions more articulate than my own. Because of my aspirations and ideological bent, I was drawn toward the 'major' headlines--Bush's illusory mandate, the November assault on Fallujah, the death of Arafat, the Gonzales hearings--and sought to express a progressive point of view on them. It was a modest form of dissent, a way for me to feel like I was 'actively' taking part in the counterspin day by day. And it was good practice, though I tended to assume a formality that wasn't required of me, perhaps because I thought I might develop a small audience and perhaps because I thought the subjects were best served with a tone of moral seriousness. At times I think I recapitulated received opinion instead of exploring my own, or pretended to post by linking to other news sites without original commentary. At other times, when I wasn't being so lazy, the blog entries really did help me arrive at an original perspective on a particular item in the news, or at least send me down a certain path. At its best, the blog was a sort of scratch pad for ideas I might want to develop into published pieces.

That's something I intend to continue doing in Version 2.0, though with a more casual (more honest) voice. This time around, I no longer have aspirations or delusions that this is, or could grow to become, a public forum. Toward a New Mandate is now a private blog, though the door will remain unlocked. If others stumble upon it, they should feel free to come in and poke around. But I will not track viewers to the site, nor encourage those in my personal or virtual network to check out my latest update. And if I decide to scrap the project all over again after a few weeks, nobody will be the wiser.

Kerry in 2008?

Barbara Boxer was one of two senators in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who voted against Condi Rice in today's 16-2 vote. The other senator was John Kerry, who sent the following email to his subscriber list explaining his protest:

Dear Mark,

Earlier today, I voted in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State. This vote is an expression of my determination that we hold the Bush administration accountable.

Dr. Rice is a principal architect, implementer, and defender of a series of Administration policies that have not made our country as secure as we should be and have alienated much-needed allies in our common cause of winning the war against terrorism. Regrettably, I did not see in Dr. Rice's testimony before our committee any acknowledgment of the need to change course or of a new vision for America's role in the world.

On Iraq, on North Korea, on Iran, to name just a few of the most critical challenges, it seems to be more of the same. I hope I am proven wrong. I hope the course will change. And I hope that the Administration will recognize the strength of a foreign policy that has bipartisan support.

I am prepared to work with Dr. Rice and others in the Administration to try to reach agreement on policies that will truly strengthen our security and restore America's credibility on the world stage. And I am confident colleagues on both sides of the aisle are prepared to do so as well.

But, we've got to remain firm in our insistence that those who create policies that don't work have the courage to admit their mistakes and the wisdom to change course. Our johnkerry.com community has been expressing that determination in huge numbers.

Over 700,000 people have called on President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

If you haven't signed the Rumsfeld petition, please do so immediately.

Replace Rumsfeld

Rice: Guilty As Charged

Wow! Check out this heated exchange between California Senator Barbara Boxer and Condi Rice, during today's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (John Kerry laid into her, too):

SENATOR BARBARA BOXER I personally believe - this is my personal view - that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. ... You don't seem to be willing to, (A), admit a mistake, or give any indication of what you're going to do to forcefully involve others. As a matter of fact, you've said more misstatements; that the territory of the terrorists has been shrinking when your own administration says it's now expanded to 60 countries. So I am deeply troubled.

MS. RICE ...Senator, I have to say that I have never, ever lost respect for the truth in the service of anything. It is not my nature. It is not my character. And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before and what went on before and what I said, without impugning my credibility or my integrity. ...

SENATOR BOXER Well, you should read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, but most of my colleagues did. It was W.M.D. - period. That was the reason and the causation for that, you know, particular vote. But, again, I just feel you quote President Bush when it suits you but you contradicted him when he said, "Yes, Saddam could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." You go on television nine months later and said, "Nobody ever said it was" --

MS. RICE Senator, that was just a question of pointing out to people that there was an uncertainty. No one was saying that he would have to have a weapon within a year for it to be worth it to go to war.

SENATOR BOXER Well, if you can't admit to this mistake, I hope that you'll --
MS. RICE Senator, we can have this discussion in any way that you would like. But I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity. Thank you very much. ...

Avnery on Abbas

Sharp analysis from Uri Avnery on Mahmoud Abbas's swearing-in last weekend, illustrative comparisons between Abbas and Egypt's Sadat, and trenchant commentary on the challenges he will face as head of the Palestinian Authority. First and foremost, how should Abbas set out a strategy vis a vis Hamas? Excerpt follows:
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Anyone who says that Abu-Mazen is ready or able to start a civil war against Hamas does not know what he is talking about. Palestinian public opinion would not stand for it. Most Palestinians believe that without the armed struggle, Sharon would not be talking of withdrawing from Gaza. They are ready for a cease-fire in order to give Abu-Mazen a chance. But they do not want the liquidation of the fighting organizations, because it may be necessary to renew the armed struggle if Abu-Mazen can't convince the Americans and the Israelis to enable the Palestinians to realize their national aims.

In his dealings with Hamas, Abu-Mazen, like Arafat, will prefer a combination of negotiations, political pressure and mobilizing public opinion. He will have to convince the armed factions to accept the national strategy that is adopted by the leadership. In return, he will have to welcome Hamas into the political system, the PLO and the parliament.

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Sharon Cuts Ties w/ Abbas

This is infuriating. It's been five days since Abbas was elected PA Chairman, and already Sharon has frozen relations with him.

And to think I was in the middle of writing a piece about how Sunday's election in Palestine, followed by Monday's vote in the Knesset to approve a withdrawal coalition, had dramatically shifted the political dynamic in the Middle East. I thought the two elections amounted to a new moment, one that presented an opportunity for hope -- or at least an occasion to reconsider prospects for reconciliation, statehood, a lasting peace. But following yesterday's attack in Gaza -- carried out as a direct challenge to Abbas and a sort of "hell, no, we won't go" cry in response to plans for a cease fire -- Sharon dispensed with any illusions that the rules had changed. If Sharon won't negotiate with a moderate like Abbas until all terrorism stops, it doesn't matter who leads on the Palestinian side. How can he honestly expect Abbas to clamp down on militants before he's even had a chance to be sworn in?

Sullivan on Torture

Andrew Sullivan's comprehensive review of Mark Danner's Torture and Truth is a must-read. Here's a particularly damning paragraph:

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A president who truly recognized the moral and strategic calamity of this failure would have fired everyone responsible. But the vice president's response to criticism of the defense secretary in the wake of Abu Ghraib was to say, ''Get off his back.'' In fact, those with real responsibility for the disaster were rewarded. Rumsfeld was kept on for the second term, while the man who warned against ignoring the Geneva Conventions, Colin Powell, was seemingly nudged out. The man who wrote a legal opinion maximizing the kind of brutal treatment that the United States could legally defend, Jay S. Bybee, was subsequently rewarded with a nomination to a federal Court of Appeals. General Sanchez and Gen. John P. Abizaid remain in their posts. Alberto R. Gonzales, who wrote memos that validated the decision to grant Geneva status to inmates solely at the president's discretion, is now nominated to the highest law enforcement job in the country: attorney general. The man who paved the way for the torture of prisoners is to be entrusted with safeguarding the civil rights of Americans. It is astonishing he has been nominated, and even more astonishing that he will almost certainly be confirmed.

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Intelligence Ordered Torture

Interesting development in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Graner says he was ordered by several higher-ups in intelligence to brutalize the prisoners on his watch ...