Glenn Greenwald: The agenda of Chuck Schumer

Glenn Greenwald
Wednesday March 11, 2009 07:49 EDT
The agenda of Chuck Schumer

It's worthwhile to review the actions of Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer with regard to some controversial appointments of the last few years, as it really reflects where the "center" is in Washington's political culture:



* Michael Hayden as Bush's CIA Director: Hayden implemented, oversaw and was the chief defender of Bush's illegal NSA spying program. Weeks before the Senate vote, his nomination was supposedly "complicated by the disclosure that the spy agency under Hayden's control collected phone records on millions of Americans." The new revelations of massive, secret spying on Americans under Hayden's watch prompted Dianne Feinstein to predict that the new surveillance scandal "is going to present a growing impediment to the confirmation of General Hayden and I think that is very regretted."

Two weeks later, Schumer voted to confirm Hayden.



* Michael Mukasey as Attorney General: During his confirmation hearings, Mukasey refused to say that waterboarding was torture and refused to repudiate the most radical Bush theories of executive power, including the right to detain American citizens indefinitely without charges and to attack Iran without Congressional authorization.

Schumer not only voted to confirm Mukasey, but his early announced support for Mukasey (as 1 of only 6 Democrats to do so) was, along with Feinstein's support, the event that assured Mukasey's confirmation.



* John Bolton as Bush's U.N. Ambassador: Bolton is about as extremist an ideologue as it gets, so much so that even Senate Democrats and even some Senate Republicans joined together to refuse to vote on his nomination. But not Schumer:
...http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/11/schumer/index.html

the people of New York, but primarily the financial district, and Joe Lieberman.

the Golden boy of NYS. Now we have learned that he is just the opposite. Together with Sen. Phil Gram, they are most responsible for deregulating and deregulating Wall Street (NYTimes, 12/2008) to the total economic meltdown in the world, as well as the U.S., that we have devastating to so many people's lives today. Now Sen. Schumer is beating the drum for Obama's Stimulus plan. I hope the voters in NYS won't be fooled and remember the next election cycle comes around for Schumer.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble about "the next election cycle", but Schumer will not face significant opposition in either the primary or the general election.

Schumer is up again next year. Any prominent Republican who wants to be Senator will focus on the special election against Kirsten Gillibrand, who's never run a statewide race. The same is probably true of the Democrats -- there've been rumblings about a possible primary challenge to Gillibrand, but I don't expect to see a Democratic primary for Schumer's seat.

As for Gillibrand, I hope people like Rep. Maloney or Nadler will run against her in the primaries.

:thumbsup: