LuminousVoid

…just confirming my change of address. Boy that was an alarm. It’s too early to get results — those come in November.

Sometimes, pro-administration commentators describe administration critics as supporters of a “cut and run” strategy in Iraq. This is whether these critics want immediate redeployment (I’ve seen few) or whether they want long term plans or goals for withdrawal — an exit strategy.

But today, I find out that the first “cut and run” strategy was actually promoted by Don Rumsfeld. Orin Kerr links us to this story that tells of Rumsfeld forbidding war planners from preparing for post-invasion securing of Iraq. It appears that he did this for two reasons: He thought Americans would not support staying in Iraq for a long time, and he thought that we would simply invade, take out the regime, and withdraw.

“The secretary of defense continued to push on us … that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we’re going to take out the regime, and then we’re going to leave,” [Army Brig. Gen.] Scheid said. “We won’t stay.”

“He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war.”

“In his own mind he thought we could go in and fight and take out the regime and come out. But a lot of us planners were having a real hard time with it because we were also thinking we can’t do this. Once you tear up a country you have to stay and rebuild it. It was very challenging.”

Don Rumsfeld’s plan from the beginning was the “cut-and-run” that pro-administration commentators now falsely accuse their critics of supporting.

It was argued that the various “gay marriage” amendments that right wingers would propose, and then overwhelmingly pass, might affect other relations as well. The thinking was that often these amendments did much more than simply define marriage. They included other language forbidding legal recognition .

For example, one version of the federal marriage amendment contains two sentences. The first defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Which is often what right wingers are complaining about. The second forbids courts from recognizing the “legal incidents of marriage” if they apply to non-married people. Not just gays. But all non-married people.

Via Feminste we get this story that confirms this:

In late August, Ohio’s Citizens for Community Values (CCV), a right-wing organization devoted to promoting “Judeo-Christian moral values,” filed an amicus brief on behalf of an alleged domestic abuser. For the past 25 years, Ohio’s domestic violence law has covered married couples as well as unmarried and divorced individuals. According to CCV, such protections run afoul of Ohio’s DOMA, which bars the state from recognizing any legal status for unmarried people that “intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.” If CCV has their way, “persons living as a spouse” (i.e. unmarried, live-in partners) would no longer be protected under Ohio’s domestic violence statute.

Most people in the legal world know that you have to make extensive disclosures for the purposes of Bar admission. For me, the most mind boggling are having to list every job since I was 21, and every residence since then as well. That’s about 10 years for me. That’s a residence a year, and probably more than 10 jobs — including all the part time, the unemployment and the self-employment

Are they really going to look at all of that? Maybe just feed it into databases of known offenders, etc? I know what effect it’s having on me. In trying to remember what dates I took what jobs, or left what residenses, I’m searching for clues in all of my memories of this time period. It’s making me go over that part of my life with a fine toothed comb. Remembering what 21, 22, 23 etc.. were like. It’s quite interesting to trace the path from Math major working part time, graduating to be a scientist, a programmer –unemployed, self-employed, non-profit, financial analysis — to being a privacy lawyer.

Maybe thats the point. Right before you become a lawyer, you take stock of what adult life has been like so far. And hopefully that helps. Now that you — to the bar examiners — finally decided what it is you want to do with your life