| |
|
4. september 2005
|
|
Orin Kerr pays tribute to William Rehnquist, and speculates about his replacement.
My guess is that Bush will want John Roberts to take the Chief slot. For a number of reasons, Roberts is a natural for the job. Lyle Denniston speculates that nominating Roberts for the Chief spot is improbable given the timing of his confirmation hearings, scheduled to begin next week. I look at it a bit differently. My sense is that the Bush team is pretty savvy about judicial issues. They presumably know that whatever the near-term practical difficulties that may come with renominating Roberts for the Chief slot, the long-term impact on the Court will far outweigh them. So I would expect Roberts to end up with the nomination for the Chief position.
I am not exactly sure how this will work process-wise. I assume Bush could change his nomination of Roberts from associate to chief judge without totally upsetting the process. But wouldn't that mean Roberts would replace Rehnquist not O'Connor, thus leaving the outgoing O'Connor serving until another replacement is picked and eventually confirmed? Or is it possible to have Roberts go to the Chief Justice post, while still allowing O'Connor her retirement now? Considering that would leave the court ideologically loop-sided against Bush's wishes for some time, would Bush do that even if he could?
Whatever the case, I expect Bush's second court nominee to be a woman.
Update: Orin was exactly right. John Roberts is now nominated to the Chief Justice post, and Sandra Day O'Connor will remain on the job until another replacement is picked. Thanks to Dennis' tipoff in comments.
11:45:32 PM 
|
|
Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt since 1981, but now he is picking up the baby-kissing, hand-shaking practices of his colleagues around the world. It would have been seen as a dream only two years ago, but on Wednesday Egyptians will go to the polls and elect their president among ten candidates. While everybody is convinced that Mubarak will win by a landslide and everything is far from perfect, this is a significant step forwards for Egypt and the Arab world.
While few think the new dance with democracy will result in Mubarak being removed, many believe the door to change is now open, improving chances that one day someone from outside the military could run the country.
"We have woken up from 24 years of sleep," said a Tanta limousine driver, Abdul Hamid Hassanein, 67. "We are looking for our personal freedoms and democracy."
One of Mubarak's key challengers, the New Wafd party leader Noaman Gomaa, wrapped up his campaign by complaining of minor harassment from the ruling party's supporters and worrying about possible voting day violations.
But Gomaa also praised the coverage his campaign received from state-owned media. "The Egyptian television treated us well and gave us opportunities," he said. "The governmental press was reasonable to a great extent."
Democracy, however, is not one election. It is a long-term process where the rulers are ultimately responsible to the people. It will take years, and several election cycles, to install democracy in the country. The hope is, that once people get a taste for the political process (including the apathy and disgust old democracies struggle with), they want more of it, and are willing to defend it from those who will want to bring the country backwards again.
11:14:28 PM
|
|
Recently leaked CIA videos show how easy it would have been for the CIA to kill Osama Bin Laden two years before 9/11-01, if only the Predator drones had been allowed to be armed.
The pictures were filmed by a Predator unmanned aircraft and show Bin Laden, in white robes, with a small group of followers at a training camp near Khost in eastern Afghanistan at the end of 1999. The drone was one of the first to be used in Afghanistan by the CIA, but because of bureaucratic wrangles it was unarmed.
The pictures, thought to be the first spy plane footage of Bin Laden to be published, have been obtained from American sources by Al-Jazeera, the Arabic language television station. “We had no doubt over his identity. Bin Laden can clearly be seen standing out from the rest of the group next to the buildings,” said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer who headed Alec Station, the agency’s unit which tracked Bin Laden during the 1990s.
He added: “Nobody at the top of the CIA wanted to take the decision to arm the Predator. It meant that even if we could find him (Bin Laden) we were not allowed to kill him.”
The pictures are part of a mass of evidence now emerging of the missed opportunities to kill or capture Bin Laden and his associates before they launched the terror attacks on America in 2001.
It was not as if Bin Laden was an unknown quantity in 1999. A year earlier, on August 7, 1998, hundreds of people had been killed in simultanous bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were known to have been behind the atrocities.
PS: I know. For some reason I tend to quote The Times a lot on Sundays.
7:44:56 PM
|
|
If we are to believe The Times, investigators of the London bombings believed that the terrorist attacks were not really al-Qaeda operations. That is, until bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan appeared in a video from al-Qaeda.
The release by Al-Qaeda of the suicide bomber’s video testimony has forced police and intelligence agencies investigating the July 7 London bombings to reconsider some of their key assumptions.
They are attempting to establish whether the attacks were directed by Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist organisation or whether Al-Qaeda was seeking to lay claim to the explosions.
Last week investigators were sticking to their belief that there was no overseas mastermind behind the attacks. But independent experts were less guarded, stating that the new video bears all the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda production and exhibits striking similarities with previous tapes.
The video, sections of which were broadcast last Thursday on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic television station, is now being examined frame by frame for any clues as to when and where it was made.
Anti-terrorist branch investigators have already noted that Khan’s haircut differed noticeably from its appearance just before the bombings, suggesting that the video was shot months previously. They will now try to identify clues from his clothing and will conduct a forensic examination of the tape to identify the equipment on which it was recorded.
The video’s release restored the aftermath of the London bombings to the heart of Britain’s domestic political agenda. There is a consensus among experts that the tape was given to Al-Jazeera by the Al-Qaeda leadership as new footage of Ayman al-Zawahiri, second in command to Bin Laden, also appears on it.
The intelligence services still tend to believe, according to this article, that al-Qaeda had later obtained this video after the event to bolster its claim of responsibility. I am not convinced.
5:26:21 PM
|
|
Another deadly blaze in Paris:
At least 14 people have been killed and 15 others injured in the third deadly fire in Paris in less than two weeks.
The blaze ripped through an 18-storey building in the southern Val-de-Marne area of the French capital.
The apartment building was not used to house immigrants, as was the case in last month's fires in the city.
Detectives believe the fire was started deliberately and people were reportedly seen setting light to letterboxes. Four people have been arrested.
On August 17, seventeen people died in a fire, and only four days later seven more people died in a similar incident. Scary.
4:51:01 PM
|
|
With John Roberts still not confirmed to the bench, the sad death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist opens up another vacancy on the world's most powerful court.
William H. Rehnquist, the 16th Chief Justice of the United States and a leader of the court's conservative bloc for three decades, died Saturday evening at his home in Arlington, a court spokesman announced.
Rehnquist, 80, has been undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer since October.
His death creates the first vacancy for a chief justice since 1986.
Court spokesman Kathy Arberg said Rehnquist was surrounded by his three children when he died, the Associated Press reported.
Somehow I suspect Bush's second nominee for the bench will be slightly more controversial than Roberts.
I wished this late summer contained somewhat fewer newsworthy events.
Obits already out at CNN, Associated Press, Reuters and the NYT, the latter a 19 page virtual biography.
6:32:34 AM
|
|
|
© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.10.2005; 12:23:06.
|
|
|
