Morning Must Reads

Writer Siobhan Gorman says it was a capture or kill directive that gave legal authorization to the CIA to assassinate senior members of al Qeada in 2001. The directive, which came from President Bush, was a reversal of President Ford’s ban on assassinations, but was never put into action.

While Holder’s investigation into interrogation techniques will continue, and Congress may hold hearings into why the program was kept secret at the former vice president’s behest, an unimplemented program to do something Americans assumed the CIA was already doing is not likely to stoke the fires of public outrage.

Without another component, killing the top terrorists in the world will be a hard one to prosecute and won’t provide Nancy Pelosi much cover on her assertion that the CIA routinely misleads Congress and may draw Democrats into a destructive trip back in time.

“House lawmakers are now making preparations for an investigation into “an important program” and why Congress wasn’t told about it, said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, in an interview.

On Sunday, lawmakers criticized the Bush administration’s decision not to tell Congress. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, hinted that the Bush administration may have broken the law by not telling Congress.

‘We were kept in the dark. That’s something that should never, ever happen again,’ she said. Withholding such information from Congress, she said, ‘is a big problem, because the law is very clear.’”
 
New York Times — The Sotomayor Hearings: What to Watch For
 
All of the coverage of the opening of the Supreme Court hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor are focused on one question: so what?

The judge is all but guaranteed confirmation to a seat that has been held by a liberal for almost two decades and everyone agrees that she is qualified.

Will it be a battle for Hispanic votes? A trap for Republicans? A battle over retributive racial preferences? A retrying of the New Haveb firefighter case?

And sure, Democrats will be trying to make Republicans look like racist ogres. The nominee will be flanked by family and friends and may have already considered if having one’s voice crack just so during a mean question will be the right play or too much.

What Republicans are looking for is a chance to point out that the Obama version of equal justice for all comes only after the sins of our fathers have been rectified by preventing white people from having jobs, etc. But barring a bombshell, this is looking like a two-day story: one when the hearings begin and another when she is confirmed.

But the Times has a handy roundup of their national reporters’ takes on how the hearings will actually shake out. And Charlie Savage has one angle that has gotten precious little attention and could be a real powder keg given the current climate:

“I will be watching to see whether any senator raises questions about the constitutionality of preventive detention for terrorism suspects. This could be an important issue for the Senate’s evaluation of Judge Sotomayor for two reasons:

First, as President Obama grapples with how to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, he has proposed creating a system of prolonged detention without trial on United States soil for detainees he says are be too dangerous to release and too difficult to prosecute. If that plan is undertaken, the question of its legality is certain to reach the Supreme Court and would be a landmark case on the balance between civil liberties and security.

Second, while Judge Sotomayor is unlikely to alter the court’s balance on most issues because she generally appears to share the same judicial philosophy as Justice David H. Souter, the legality of indefinite detention without trial for terrorism suspects may be an exception to that rule.”
 
Wall Street Journal — Stimulus Aid Is Said to Be Moving Faster

 
Writers Louise Radnofsky and Christopher Conkey look at how mounting unemployment and the failure of the first phase of the Obama stimulus – checks to the elderly and disabled, a small payroll tax cut and some $60 billion in new spending – are pushing the administration to push the remaining $500 billion of the spending plan out with the precision of sacks of cash being dropped from a low-flying plane.

The next round of problems in getting the money out is coming from states ill-equipped for quickly ramping up programs, especially when there is only a promise of money for one year. Now, the administration is pressuring states to get with the program. Check back here for the best stories on waste, fraud and abuse after Labor Day.

“The Department of Education, for example, scrapped the idea of giving $8.8 billion of general aid to states in two phases and decided to send them all the money after their application was approved.

The Department of Labor said it had distributed the bulk of its $38.5 billion in stimulus money within 30 days of the law’s enactment, but that ‘it takes time’ for states, in turn, to move the money.

The White House told agencies to find ways to cut red tape, both for making large transfer payments to states and running big competitions for grants. Agencies were also instructed to work more closely with states to help them spend the money once they received it.”
 
USA Today — Obama begins health care push
 
For what is probably the fifth time, it falls to President Obama to try to reboot his health care plan after lawmakers became mired in the details of how to raise and spend the $1.3 trillion needed to cover some of the uninsured.

The question that writer Mimi Hall raises is whether he will even try.

The deadlines for the August committee work and October passage of a plan have now been officially blown off and the profusion of spending and coverage plans are not gathering around consensus but showing increasing factionalism among Democrats and unity among Republicans.

With so much else competing for lawmakers’ attention – Supreme Court, the economy, the deficit, torture, terror, etc. — is now the time when Obama will make another plea for cooperation? Not likely.

The president instead is hitting the road for events in New York and Michigan designed to sell the plan to ordinary Americans. But there is no plan to sell, suggesting the president is willing to let Congress off the hook.

“Near the end of last week’s trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana, Obama told reporters that he doesn’t consider August a “do-or-die” deadline. But “I really want to get it done by the August recess.”

That doesn’t mean he’ll try to dictate the terms of the deal.

Despite a lack of consensus over cost, funding and whether to provide a “public” government insurance plan that would compete with private companies, Obama’s Health and Human Services secretary said Sunday that the White House will not micromanage Congress. Any plan to overhaul the system “needs to be owned by the House and the Senate,” Kathleen Sebelius told CNN’s State of the Union.

Some analysts question that strategy. “The White House has trusted delegation as their political strategy; they’re leaving it to the legislators,” says Darrell West, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution think tank. ‘I think the White House really needs to show leadership, and I think if they did that many Democrats would follow.’”
 
Washington Post — In West Wing: Grueling Schedules, Bleary Eyes
 
Writer Michael Shear looks at the human toll of an over-large agenda on the Obama team – loss of sleep and long hours that may cause mistakes and poor judgment:

“It has only been six months for Obama’s team, but almost all of the president’s top and mid-level aides took their posts straight out of the longest presidential campaign in history.

Obama is now testing the limits of his staffers’ endurance. So far, there is a palpable sense of pride in the West Wing that treaties are negotiated, complex legislation is crafted and banks are bailed out — all on very little sleep.

“We stay late every night, work weekends — basically on 24/7,” Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council, wrote in an e-mail while on a recent trip abroad. “Not sure what example to give you but here I am at 12:30 am in Islamabad with General [James L.] Jones and answering your email,” he wrote, referring to the national security adviser.”