Adam Serwer

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Adam Serwer is a reporter at Mother Jones. Formerly a staff writer at the American Prospect, he has written for the Washington Post, the Root, the Village Voice, and the New York Daily News.

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Will the New Osama bin Laden Film "Zero Dark Thirty" Rehabilitate Torture?

—By Adam Serwer

| Mon Dec. 10, 2012 9:27 AM PST

Director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal want their cinematic portrayal of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty, to be seen as more than just a movie. "What we were attempting is almost a journalistic approach to film," Bigelow told The New Yorker's Dexter Filkins. The film is a "hybrid of the filmic and the journalistic," writer Mark Boal told New York. Speaking to Matt Lauer on NBC's Today, Bigelow said, "I think the film doesn't have an agenda. I think it just shows the story as, you know, the story of the greatest manhunt in history. And that's part of that history." But the film, according to those who have seen it, shows torture as central to the discovery of bin Laden's location, and this departs from what is publicly known about the raid on Abbottabad. So is Bigelow rehabilitating torture?

According to the New York Daily News, the film, which opens next month, "includes graphic torture scenes, including depictions of waterboarding and sexual humiliation, used to obtain information from detainees which ultimately help pinpoint bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan." Bigelow is no fan of torture, but she says she had to stick with the facts: "I wish that it wasn't a part of history, but it is and was." Not accurate history.

Filkins' fawning piece on Bigelow—he writes that "she feels a little like what she imagines the men and women who chased bin Laden must feel: elated"—points out that the Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) explained that the original information that led to bin Laden didn't come from a CIA detainee. Feinstein's letter was unequivocal: "The suggestion that the operation was carried out based on information gained through the harsh treatment of CIA detainees is not only inaccurate, it trivializes the work of individuals across multiple U.S. agencies that led to UBL and the eventual operation." Nor was Feinstein the only one to say so; a letter from the then-CIA director Leon Panetta sent to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) echoed the same findings.

Defenders of Bush-era enhanced interrogation waged a fierce public relations campaign to rehabilitate torture in the aftermath of the bin Laden killing, in part to award Bush credit for the raid. But the facts kept getting in the way. Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official responsible for the destruction of videos recording the (ineffectual) torture of detainee Abu Zubayda, went on 60 Minutes and was unable to rebut the fact that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed lied when questioned about bin Laden's courier, despite being tortured. The CIA inspector general found that "you could not in good conscience reach a definitive conclusion about whether any specific technique was especially effective, or [whether] the enhanced techniques in the aggregate really worked." Republicans are currently attempting to block a Senate intelligence committee investigation of the efficacy of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Someone attempting to make a "journalistic" feature film on the hunt for Osama bin Laden could be expected to be aware of all this. When Filkins asked Boal about the portrayal of torture departing from the known facts, he replied, "It's a movie, not a documentary." Bigelow and Boal want their film to be seen as a contribution to the historical record, not as mere entertainment. So far they are winning over influential film critics. If you're thinking of giving them an award, Zero Dark Thirty is "history"; if you're a journalist asking a question about a factual error in the film, it's just a movie.

The critical acclaim Zero Dark Thirty is already receiving suggests that it may do what Karl Rove could not have done with all the money in the world: embed in the popular imagination the efficacy, even the necessity, of torture, despite available evidence to the contrary. Whatever the artistic merits of the film, that will be its moral legacy. That's quite an accomplishment, but not a journalistic one.

Correction: This post initially stated Bigelow said the film was "not a documentary," it was Boal.

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Risk to Same-Sex Marriage "Very Great" in Supreme Court

—By Adam Serwer

| Fri Dec. 7, 2012 3:11 PM PST

The Supreme Court has finally decided to take on same-sex marriage. In an announcement Friday, the court said it will hear two cases: One of them will determine the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, a referendum that stripped same-sex couples of marriage rights in that state. The other involves the portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages performed by the states. The risk here for same-sex couples is very great, as EJ Graff explains in a piece for The Advocate, because the two cases differ widely in scope and potential impact. (My colleague Dana Liebelson has a great explainer here.)

The DOMA case asks the justices to strike down the federal law that dictates which marriages are valid. Even better for supporters of same-sex marriage: Of the several DOMA cases the court could have taken, it decided on Windsor v. United States, in which plaintiff Edith Windsor was unable to claim an estate-tax deduction after her female partner died. Between striking down part of a heavy-handed federal statute and helping someone get a tax cut, it's the kind of same-sex marriage case even a conservative justice could love. Most importantly, from the point of view of getting the requisite five votes, striking down that part of DOMA would not prevent states from banning same-sex marriage.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Jim DeMint: 47 Percenter

—By Adam Serwer

| Fri Dec. 7, 2012 12:17 PM PST

Months before my colleague David Corn reported on failed GOP 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney's 47 percent remarks at a Boca Raton fundraiser, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) told libertarian magazine Reason his theory of why American society was careening towards collapse.

"Almost half of Americans are getting something from government, and the other half are paying for it," DeMint said. "And we’re on a track where 60 percent are getting something from government and 40 percent are paying for it. You can't sustain a democracy with that mix."

DeMint wasn't running for president. Soon, however, he will be running the Heritage Foundation, the most influential and partisan of Washington's conservative think tanks. Heritage isn't exactly known for the integrity of its policy shop these days—they produced a magic beans jobs prediction to back Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) budget plan and a laughably bad analysis of the new START treaty—but they've been very successful at helping to enforce ideological discipline within the GOP. DeMint, who spent years orchestrating primary challenges against Republican squishes and blocking potential compromises, seems suited to the gig. Despite the GOP distancing itself from Romney, with DeMint running Heritage, Washington's leading conservative think tanks are now all lead by people who think Mitt Romney's remarks writing off half the country as hopeless parasites are basically correct.

Nevermind that Romney was actually wrong: The largest share of the 47 percent he referred to as not paying federal income taxes are people who pay payroll taxes, while the remainder are retired people who have paid taxes all their lives and people who make less than $20,000 a year, which despite what you may have read at Heritage is not an easy way to live. DeMint's move to Heritage shows that conservatives aren't really interested in reevaluating this worldview, despite what you may have heard about Republican "soul-searching."

After all, most of the think-tank leadership buys into it. The libertarian Cato Institute, by far the most intellectually diverse of these right-leaning DC institutions, settled on former BB&T CEO John Allison, a self-identified objectivist, to lead the organization after a bitter internal battle. In case you've been frozen in carbonite for a while and missed tea partiers holding signs praising John Galt, objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand, whose vision of heroic entrepreneurs held back by a the needs of a parasitic underclass that contributes nothing to society sounds a lot like the America Romney described in Boca Raton. The New York Times reported shortly after Romney's 47 percent remarks that his "thinking on the matter has been shaped in part by Arthur C. Brooks," who is president of the American Enterprise Institute and who at CPAC in February called for a government that will "reward the makers, not the takers."

Whatever impact the 47 percent tape had on Romney's political fortunes, it's hard to argue that he wasn't channeling his party. DeMint's move to Heritage shows conservatives believe that all this message needs is more strident and unambivalent defenders.

Susan Rice: A Victim of GOP Hypocrisy?

Senate Republicans had two very different reactions to administration officials named Rice who were accused of misleading the public.

—By Adam Serwer and Dana Liebelson

| Thu Dec. 6, 2012 4:13 AM PST

Update, 12/13/12: NBC News is reporting the Susan Rice has withdrawn her name from consideration for Secretary of State, citing the possibility of a "lengthy, disruptive and costly" nomination fight. Was she the victim of Republican hypocrisy? Here’s what we wrote earlier in December:

UN Ambassador Susan Rice has been a lightning rod for congressional Republicans, who have clamored to portray her television appearances in the wake of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, as evidence that the Obama administration deliberately misled Americans about the nature of the incident. Rice has been floated as a top candidate to replace Hillary Clinton, who is planning to leave the State Department, and Senate Republicans have threatened to block Rice's hypothetical nomination as secretary of state because of the Benghazi attack.

The outrage expressed by Republican lawmakers—spurred by the ambassador reciting intelligence-community-generated talking points that turned out to be partially inaccurate—is very different from their response to another administration official named Rice who was accused of misleading the American public on a matter of national security. That, of course, is Condoleezza Rice. When George W. Bush nominated Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, some of the same Senate Republicans who are currently attacking Susan Rice supported Condi wholeheartedly, despite her role in helping to make the case for war in Iraq based on bogus intelligence. Back then, Republicans were much more willing to chalk up Condoleezza Rice's parroting of flawed intel to well-intentioned mistakes as opposed to outright deception, even when the evidence said otherwise. Here's how some of Susan Rice's most vocal critics responded to the Bush administration's disastrous handling of pre-war Iraq intelligence and the nomination of Condoleezza Rice.

Sources: Mediaite, ThinkProgress, CBS News, BuzzFeed, NewsOK, Inhofe.senate.gov, The Hill, PBS News, ThinkProgress, Collins.senate.gov

The Republican Who Could Kill Affirmative Action and the Voting Rights Act

—By Adam Serwer

| Wed Dec. 5, 2012 10:36 AM PST

Conservative Activist Edward Blum.

You may never have heard of him, but Edward Blum could turn out to be the nation's most successful opponent of laws designed to mitigate racial inequality. Working virtually alone, this failed Republican congressional candidate has helped orchestrate legal challenges that could polish off affirmative action and a key section of the Voting Rights Act.

According to an illuminating profile from Reuters, Blum, under the auspices of his Project of Fair Representation group, spent three years looking for a white college applicant who had been rejected from her institution of choice despite having adequate credentials. The "former stockbroker" eventually settled on (now) 22-year old Abigail Fisher, who had failed to secure admission to the University of Texas at Austin. Reuters notes that civil rights groups also find candidates to "tee up" cases for laws they don't like, but Blum never actually found the kind of applicant he was looking for, because UT says Fisher's credentials weren't good enough to get into the school in the first place. Blum did find a case: Fisher's challenge to UT's attempt to supplement its color-blind top ten percent admissions policy with race-conscious affirmative action was argued before the Supreme Court this year, and found a slate of conservative justices eager to strike down affirmative action.

The Fisher case is not Blum's only accomplishment. He's also responsible for helping set up two challenges to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights legislation that ensured black access to the franchise after decades of Jim Crow. Jurisdictions covered by Section 5 have to submit their election rule changes to the Justice Department for pre-approval because of a history of discrimination. Most—but not all—covered jurisdictions are in the South. Jurisdictions can "bail out" with a history of good behavior, but many conservatives still consider the law an anachronistic form of federal overreach because racism is over and stuff. In 2009, Blum financed Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One (NAMUDNO) v. Holder, which lead to a Supreme Court ruling that left Section 5 hanging by a thread. He's also financing Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, which may kill Section 5 once and for all.

What motivated Blum's crusade in the first place? Reuters describes him as a former Democrat whom Commentary magazine and Ronald Reagan converted to conservatism, but suggests that the major catalyst for his legal efforts was a failed congressional bid:

After noticing that his heavily Democratic district had trouble fielding a Republican congressional candidate in 1990, Blum decided to enter the 1992 Republican primary. He won it, and in the general election faced an African-American incumbent Democrat. When Blum and Lark walked the district to shake hands with voters, he said, he had to carry a map because the borders zigged and zagged. "Multi-ethnic neighborhoods were split apart," he said. "Block by block. Blacks over here. Whites over here. Hispanics over here."

Blum lost by a wide margin. At the time, court challenges were starting to mount over "majority minority" districts like his that had been gerrymandered to consolidate minorities and maximize their voting power. In 1993, the Supreme Court ruled that districts appearing to segregate voters by race, even if designed to help minorities, violate the Constitution's guarantee of equality. Blum decided to sue Texas officials, alleging the districts unlawfully segregated voters by race.

So Blum didn't just recruit Abigail Fisher, he kind of is Abigail Fisher.

Although incumbents can certainly exploit its provisions on minorities and redistricting to entrench themselves, Section 5 also helps prevent things like Republicans deliberately slicing districts so as to deprive Latinos of their political influence on the assumption that Latinos are more likely to vote for Democrats. The Texas GOP actually tried that in 2012, only to be blocked by the Justice Department. Scrapping Section 5 won't stop racial gerrymandering, but it will make the kind of racial gerrymandering Republicans like a little easier.

If the Blum-financed challenges succeed, colleges will be less diverse—at least while they figure out new ways to foster diversity—and the federal government will be deprived of a key tool for ensuring politicians don't try to disenfranchise voters based on demographic assumptions. Blum's crusade against race-conscious laws may be motivated by his disgust for segregation. But winning at the Supreme Court will have no impact on ongoing racial segregation in American life—although perhaps fewer white Republicans will suffer the life-changing humiliation of losing congressional races to black Democrats.