A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

Bush administration

DOJ vs AP

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Seal of the United States Department of Justice
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During the Bush administration, I was critical of the misdeeds of government. Being consistent, I apply the same standards to the Obama administration.

While Obama failed to close the infamous prison and has run a drone assassination campaign of dubious legality and morality, his administration  has largely avoided the volume of scandals that have hit previous administrations. While the same Republicans who said very little about 54 attacks on American consulates/embassies under the Bush administration worked tirelessly with the Fox News allies to make Benghazi into a scandal, it would seem that Fox News’ dream has come true: two true scandals on Obama’s watch.

The first involves the IRS which apparently flagged conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for special review. While it has yet to be proven that Obama was directly connected to this, I do hold that leaders are accountable for the actions of those who fall under their authority. This is, of course, can be mitigated by various factors such as reasonable knowledge and the extent to which the leader directly oversees those in question. For example, the CEO of GE is obviously not accountable for a low-level employee stealing office supplies in some office overseas.

While some claim that this scandal has been deflated, this matter probably needs more sorting out.

The second involves the Justice Department obtaining two months of the Associated Press’ telephone records.  As happened so often in the Bush Administration, this apparent violation of rights was  defended by concerns of national security. In this case, the concern was in regards to a criminal investigation of leaked information in a May 7, 2012 AP story about the CIA stopping an al Qaida bomb plot in Yemen.

During the Bush years, I was critical of using appeals to national security to warrant violations of rights and liberties. Being consistent, I must be critical of the same approach when it is used under Obama.

As I have argued before, such apparent violations can sometimes be properly justified by appeals to national security. In the AP case, there do seem to be legitimate grounds for an investigation. However, the handling of the phone records by the DOJ certainly seems to be excessive and unwarranted and it seems to have grotesquely violated the rights of the reporters and editors, not to mention assaulting the foundation of the free press.  This is clearly an unjust act on the part of the department of justice.

Naturally, I cannot help but compare the views expressed on Fox News and by some Republicans when a Republican administration was engaged in violating rights (such as illegal wire tapping, illegal detention and torture) as well as other wrongful and/or incompetent behavior (such as the invasion of Iraq on the basis of lies). This time around, Fox News and I are sort of on the same side in that we are critical of the IRS and DOJ. However, I am acting on the basis of a consistent application of moral principle and the folks at Fox News are presumably following their usual approach of attacking Obama.

 

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War’s End…Sort Of

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Official photograph portrait of former U.S. Pr...
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Yesterday the United States combat mission in Iraq officially ended. Of course, American troops still remain, Iraq does not yet have a fully functioning military or government, and IED explosions are an everyday event.

At this point, the price tag includes 4,400 dead Americans, 100,000+ dead Iraqis, vast numbers of wounded, billions of dollars, and massive property damage. Many of the best educated, professional Iraqis fled Iraq and a strong and influential Iran is right next door.

How this will all turn out is still, obviously enough, a matter of considerably uncertainty. Interestingly enough, one of the main focuses of the media is whether Obama will give the Bush administration credit for this mission accomplished moment. This is hardly shocking since the media folks often have a gift for focusing on what really matters least yet can be used to create controversy that will draw eyeballs.

In the interest of playing ball with the media, I’ll address whether or not the Bush administration should get credit for this.

Obviously enough, there would be no war if Bush had not started it. As such, Bush clearly has a causal role in the end of the combat mission. Of course, this is like saying that the person who drove the car into the ditch has a role in it being removed from the ditch.

Of course, the Bush folks did more than just drive the car into the ditch (with Hillary and many other Democrats yelling “step on it, George!”). His people also came up with the surge which has been credited with the reduction in violence that has made it possible to declare victory  that the combat mission is over. Let it be assumed that the surge was an effective strategy and paved the way towards the official end of the combat mission. Obviously enough, the Bush folks deserved credit for that strategy. To use an analogy, if the people who drove the car into the ditch come up with an idea to get it out and then start implementing that idea, they do deserve some credit when someone else comes along and gets the car out of the ditch.

Of course it might seem a bit silly to debate about how much credit the guy who drove the car into the ditch deserves when you think that the car should have never been driven into the ditch in the first place.

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Who is to blame?

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Democratic political consultant and chief Obam...
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The Daily Show had an interesting segment on the political blame game. When David Axelrod appeared on the show, his comments fired up the fine folks at Fox. To be specific, they took Axelrod as blaming the Bush administration for the problems with the MMS (and other problems).

Jon Stewart responded by playing clips from Fox, in which various fine folks blamed Clinton for many of the problems that the Bush administration faced. From a logical perspective, he was pointing out that these folks do not seem to be operating from a consistent principle of responsibility. To be specific, if Clinton could be blamed for the woes of Bush, then it would seem to follow that Bush could also be blamed for the woes that Obama is facing. Likewise, if Bush is not to blame for what Obama seemed to have inherited, then Clinton would seem to be free from blame.

Naturally, it could be argued that there are relevant differences between the situations. Perhaps Clinton created problems that blossomed during the Bush years and Bush did not create such problems for Obama. However, this seems to be contrary to the known facts.

Turning back to the main topic, the key matter here is sorting out a principle of blame. Fortunately, there has been considerable work in legal theory regarding this and it is reasonable to see if this can be re-purposed for the situation at hand.

One aspect of placing blame is tracing a causal chain. Obviously, if a person had no causal role in bringing about a situation, then she cannot be blamed for that situation. If there is a causal connection between a person and a situation, then this creates the possibility of blame.

In the law, this involves what is known as “conditio sine qua non” (“a condition without which nothing”). This is also refereed to as a “but for cause”:  this would not have happened but for that. For example, the war in Iraq would not be happening but for the invasion during the Bush administration.

One rather obvious concern is that the causal chain for a situation can extend rather far. In fact, the causal chain might very well extend beyond the chain of blame. For example, the spill in the gulf can be traced back to the inventor of the oil well (and way beyond). However, to blame the inventor for the spill would seem unreasonable.

In the law, the usual solution is to address this matter in terms of what counts as a proximate cause. The solution proposed by  H.L.A. Hart and A.M. Honore is that common sense can be used to settle such concerns. To be specific, for a person to be responsible for a harm, the harm must be traceable back to the actions of that person.

By this standard, the oil leak can be traced back to the Bush administration. Of course, as the Fox folks pointed out, the causal chain can also be linked to the Clinton administration. It can also be traced back to previous administrations. However, the strength of the chain presumably diminishes as the chain is stretched out over ever greater distances.

As such, the Clinton administration does get to take some of the blame. However, the blame must be proportional to the causal role the Clinton administration actually played in bringing about the spill.

In the political blame game, it is common to present blame in an all or nothing way. For example, the blame is placed on one administration (or one president). However, blame tends to be more distributed. In the case of the oil spill, it can be traced back to policies (or lack of policy) going back over the years. Likewise, the blame can also be traced back across time and administrations.

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Media Error & Bias

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A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 29% of Americans believe that news organizations get their facts straight while 63% claim that news stories often are lacking in accuracy. This is a change from the results of a similar survey in 1985. In that survey, 55% regarded news stories as accurate while 34% took them to be inaccurate. The change from 1985 to 2009 has been a gradual one with people increasingly regarding the news media as lacking in accuracy.

Another interesting finding is that 26% claim that news organizations are careful to avoid politically biased reporting. 60% of those surveyed claimed that the news organizations are politically biased.

Obviously, the fact that people believe that the news organizations have problems with accuracy and bias does not prove that these problems exist. After all, what most people believe and what is actually true are two distinct things. However, it is interesting to consider why there is such distrust of the media.

One obvious possibility is that the media is prone to error and is also biased. Obviously, folks in the media make mistakes and there have been some rather famous (or infamous) cases of the media fouling up. Perhaps the best known example of this was the incident involving Dan Rather and the infamous memo.

Of course, whether or not the media has significant problems with accuracy is something that can be tested. The method is, in theory, quite simple: take the claims made by the news folks and test them objectively to see if they are accurate or not. Naturally, the implementation of this testing would require an objective testing agency.

In regards to media bias, the natural thing to do is to turn to the experts. Unfortunately, the experts disagree. For example, Eric Alterman argues that the liberal bias is a myth (What Liberal Bias?) while Bernard Goldberg contends that the bias is a fact (Bias). Fortunately, bias can also be investigated. One way to do this is to consider news reports and assess them in an objective manner for favorable and unfavorable slanting. What the news organizations report also can indicate possible bias. For example, if a new organization regularly covers misdeeds by Republicans in depth while providing little coverage of comparable misdeeds by Democrats, then there are grounds for suspecting bias.

It is, unfortunately, well established that the news media is influenced by the government and this results in biased reporting. During its first four years the Bush administration spent a quarter of a billion dollars on fake “news” about Medicare, Iraq, Social Security, and No Child Left Behind. It should be noted that the Clinton Administration was also active in manipulating the media.

In some cases biased reporting is purchased. For example,  between 2004 and 2005 three editorialists were exposed for taking money directly or indirectly from the Bush Administration to promote its policies and programs. Armstrong Williams received $200,000.

Another infamous example of government manipulating the news is how in 2007 FEMA held a “press conference” in which FEMA staff members asked the questions. The White House spokesperson replied by saying that the practice was not employed by the White House and was not something that was condoned. This reply was reported uncritically by the White House Reporters, despite the fact that the White House has done the same in the past. This might indicate incompetence on the part of reporters rather than bias, though.

Thus, the media does make errors and does suffer from bias. Of course, the question remains as to the amount of errors and the degree of bias that each specific news organization suffers from.

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