BeldarBlog

Tom DeLay as Brer Rabbit: "Don' make me talk 'bout dat redistrictin', judge!"

Charles Kuffner urges that the lawyers representing various plaintiffs in the Texas redistricting litigation be allowed to take depositions of US Congressmen Tom DeLay and Joe Barton.  The Congressmen are seeking to have their deposition subpoenas quashed, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The familiar standard for deciding whether to sustain or quash this sort of subpoena, as for most civil discovery, is whether it is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.  Generally the proponent of the subpoena has to make some sort of more-than-speculative offering as to how he thinks that's likely to happen. 

If we accept, even reluctantly, the premise that the act of legislative sausage-making must be put under the microscope to satisfy the ever-hungry maw of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, then it seems to me that plaintiffs under that act, in general, ought to be given considerable lattitude in trying to make their case.  Showing that the recent Texas redistricting was motivated by racism is going to be difficult at best — and I believe it will prove to be impossible, since redistricting was motivated by hyperpartisan politics, not racism, and accomplished not even using by race as a proxy for voting probabilities, but by looking at voting patterns directly.  But if it can be done, it would almost certainly have to be done circumstantially.

However, in a legal, causal sense, these particular witnesses are once removed from the action.  Observers of politics can rightly note that both Republican and Democratic members of Congress have long influenced state legislatures and legislators on a variety of subjects (think highway construction for one).  But even if you could get Rep. DeLay to say under oath and on the record something that tended to prove circumstantially that he was motivated by racism in pressing for Texas redistricting — and face it, what is far more likely is an argumentative series of "have you stopped beating your wife" questions that probably will conflate correlation with causation — then you'd have to make the further connection to show how that racism was shared by state legislators who voted for redistricting.  You'd have a pretty good chance of showing from those witnesses (the Texas legislators) that they were motivated at least in part by fear of reprisals from Rep. DeLay, whose effectiveness as a party whip and leader is, like all such politicans, due to his long memory and ability to carry and act on grudges.  But showing, even circumstantially, that their votes in the Texas Legislature were motivated by Rep. DeLay's racism?  Well, good luck.

This strikes me as on the very outer fringes of what's "reasonably calculated" to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, but like all such decisions, it'll be left to the "sound discretion of the trial court" — in this case a three-judge panel of federal judges who all read the papers, who may have been born at night but not last night, and who have not recently fallen off pumpkin trucks on the way into town.  My hunch is they won't find Rep. DeLay's or Rep. Barton's likely testimony terribly surprising or terribly probative.  But they might well agree to "hear" it — that is, to allow the depositions to be taken and written excerpts included as part of the record.  In fact, were I a judge on that panel, I'd probably allow the depositions, with pretty strict time limitations and severe up-front warnings about argumentative questions. 

And were I a lawyer defending the redistricting plan in these lawsuits, I'd treat this as an opportunity, not a liability.  The Republicans have generally been consistent in explaining the reason for redistricting — deliberately creating a map that's likely to produce a Texas Congressional delegation likely to support our favorite-son President instead of one likely to oppose him.  DeLay and Barton surely can provide that testimony.  To quote their intended beneficiary, "Bring 'em on!"  Or to quote the old (and probably now politically incorrect) story, "Don' throw me in dat briar patch, Brer Fox! Anythin' but dat!"

Post-war planning: 1941-1945 vs. 2002-2003

I've just finished Michael Beschloss' new book, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945. 

I wish I could recommend it, but it's written with a stylistic quirk that — completely apart from content — drove me up the wall.  Beschloss includes extensive endnotes and I take on faith his historical accuracy throughout.  But he writes with very extensive — painfully extensive — embedded quotations mid-sentence, packing in phrases and clauses and semi-sentences surrounded by quote marks.  The result is prose that ends up reading like a legal appellate brief that's summarizing a trial record — which is fine when you're working under strict space limitations and there's going to be an advocate writing an opposing brief that challenges your every factual assertion, but which becomes extremely tedious after about the first twenty-five pages of this book.  The jacket liner describes this as "let[ting] us eavesdrop on private conversations and telephone calls among a cast of historical giants," but I, for one, would far rather either read full-bodied block quotations or else pithy summaries in the author's own words.

The book is copyrighted 2002 and Beschloss began work on the book in 1991, but the central subject — the planning that went on during World War II for what to do with Germany after the war — is extremely relevant today.  The description of the actual post-war occupation and reconstruction is extremely brief.  Instead, the focus is almost entirely on the policy struggle between Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. on the one hand, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson on the other, to influence FDR (and indirectly, Churchill and Stalin) during the planning for the post-war period.

Morgenthau was a non-practicing Jew and a close personal friend of FDR who wanted to punish the German people for this war and ensure that they'd never be able to wage another like it.  To accomplish this, he proposed to systematically demolish Germany's entire industrial capability; to give its industrial equipment and markets to the USSR and Britain in lieu of reparations; to forcibly deport Germans with industrial training and skills; and to dismember the country into feudal, agricultural semi-states.  Hull and Stimson opposed such dramatic measures, both on humanitarian grounds and because of their growing concerns that a rebuilt and stabilized Germany would be needed as a bulwark against post-war Soviet expansion.  Apparently, FDR deliberately waffled on this subject — and Beschloss paints this as a characteristic and deliberate management strategy whereby Roosevelt would maintain his own political power by playing off his strong-willed subordinates against one another.  Nevertheless, by Roosevelt's death just before VE-Day, the "Morgenthau Plan" was almost a dead letter, and new President Truman paid it lip service, and nothing more, only as long as he wanted to keep Morgenthau at Treasury — which turned out not to be very long. 

Today, of course, no one would ever dream of arguing for something like the "Morgenthau Plan" for Afghanistan or Iraq; it simply goes without saying that we want to rebuild and improve these countries after defeating their ruling regimes.  And on both broad concepts and the devilish details, America's 2002 and 2003 pre- and during-war planning for post-war periods looks pretty damned sophisticated in comparison to what was done during World War II.

Beschloss does offer this tidbit that is particularly timely and interesting in ways he probably couldn't have predicted when he wrote it:

      At the White House, Truman was surprised to learn that Hitler had killed himself.  He had expected "many high German officers" to "take this way out," but Hitler, "in his fanaticism," to "resist to the very end."

      Accustomed to mistrust what they heard from Nazi Germany, sixty-eight percent of American respondents to a Gallup poll questioned whether Hitler was really dead.  A Michigan animal trainer named Spikehorn Meyer wired Truman, "I am offering $50,000, cash American money, for the capture of Adolf Hitler, delivered to me.... I want to make Hitler a sideline attraction with my bear show, and I will tour Russia, England and other Allied countries."

Herr Hitler's availability to tour with the bears notwithstanding, Americans then seemed to be reasonably sure that we had done a worthwhile thing in that war; they should feel the same now about Afghanistan and Iraq regardless of whether we ever actually account for the bones, living or dead, of those monumental losers bin Laden and Saddam.

TMQ finds a new home

You'll recall, faithful readers, that BeldarBlog duly lamented "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" columnist Gregg Easterbrook's firing from ESPN.com after remarks in a movie-review blogpost that were deemed anti-Semitic (or in the alternative, anti-Eisner-and-Weinstein/Disney-and-Miramax, which I continue to believe was the determinative factor).  My recommendation to him was "to find a better outlet for Tuesday Morning Quarterback," to play the free agent market.

Financial terms are undisclosed, but TMQ has reappeared among NFL.com's weekly features — with the Week 13 report here.  Bless their hearts, the good folks at NFL.com believe in embedded photographs of cheerbabes, with links to same!  And Easterbrook's urbane, smart-ass, and oftentimes astute and funny comments read the same as well. 

Congratulations, Mr. Easterbrook.

Dubya's excellent adventure

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift says that "George W. Bush’s daring secret trip into the heart of Baghdad was such a triumph of political choreography that it left Democratic strategists gasping for mercy."  Clift is incapable of avoiding hyperbole; the Angry Left, those unified by their hatred of Dubya, will find this just another cowboy stunt.

But this was a baby boomer moment, Dubya's excellent adventure:   "Road trip!"

I especially love this quote from the NYT report— a line that was completely unscripted, but that says volumes about whether Dubya's a racist:

Mr. Bush said he even tried to disguise his appearance, as did Ms. Rice. They pulled up a plain-looking vehicle with tinted windows, Mr. Bush told reporters. "I slipped on a baseball cap, pulled 'er down — as did Condi. We looked like a normal couple."

If you "get" the President, if you understand what drives him, then this is so much in character that you say to yourself afterwards, "Duh, I shoulda expected him to want to eat his Thanksgiving turkey with the troops, and I wish I coulda been there." 

If you don't, you'll figure it's all about Rovian politics and photo ops — in which case I feel very, very sorry for you, because it's hard to digest Thanksgiving leftovers when your gut is so full of bitter black bile.

Bohemian Rhapsody

My sons Adam and Kevin share a birthday — five years apart.  Today Kevin turned 16 and Adam turned 11.  To celebrate, they and their two sisters, Sarah and Molly, joined me at the movies.  At my request (insistence, actually) we went to see Master and Commander — a movie that lived up to my high expectations.  The boys both loved it, as did Sarah; Molly, my youngest, got a bit bored/sleepy, but that was okay because it resulted in some cuddly lap time that's growing all too rare for poor Dad.

En route to a birthday shopping trip afterwards, Kevin fired up Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the mp3 player and (without their realizing it) we recreated one of the scenes from "Wayne's World" — complete with head-bobbing and air-guitar licks.  It amazes me to hear the four of them singing along with classic 70s and 80s rock music.  It was one of those moments when you wish the rear-view mirror had a built-in camcorder.  Still, I am a lucky dad, and was reminded of it again tonight.