Sherman Feels Heat for Reporting on Threat of Martial Law

[davidswanson]

Congressman Brad Sherman said on the floor of the House that a few Congress members had been told there would be martial law in America if they did not pass Paulson's Plunder. Here's video.

Sherman has not retracted that statement. He has not suggested that the Congress members who had told him that didn't really tell him that, or weren't honest, or didn't take it seriously, or that it didn't influence their votes. But he has put out a statement to the media, clearly at the instruction of the leaders of his party, attempting to backpedal. Here's his new statement which begins by quoting his floor comments:

On Thursday, October 2nd, I stated on the floor of the House of Representatives that, “The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. That atmosphere is not justified. Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday, that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no. That’s what I call fear mongering, unjustified, proven wrong.”

There has been significant speculation in the blogoshere and other places regarding this statement.

Speaking during the second House debate on the bailout bill, I was describing what I regarded as the increasingly unbelievable things that had been said while the House considered the bailout package – extreme things put forward as reasons why Congress had to pass that bill right away. I urged my colleagues not to take the extreme statements seriously and urged them to defeat the bill. It should be clear from the context of my speech that I did not believe that martial law would be declared under any circumstances and I did not think that such absurd and outlandish comments should cause members to vote for the bill.

I also want to stress that I have no reason to think that any of the leaders in Congress who were involved in negotiating with the Bush Administration regarding the bailout bill ever mentioned the possibility of martial law -- again, that was just an example of extreme and deliberately hyperbolic comments being passed around by members not directly involved in the negotiations.

It's anyone's guess whether Sherman is claiming that the members who said they were threatened were being deliberately hyperbolic or the unnamed members of the administration or the military who threatened them were being deliberately hyperbolic.

Sherman's press guy sent me his new statement and wrote: "If you have any questions regarding this statement on his Martial Law comment, please do not hesitate to contact me."

So, I contacted him by immediately replying thus:

Thanks.

Yes, I have a couple of questions.

Are you blaming the congress members who said they were threatened with martial law for speaking about it, or are you suggesting they spoke falsely?

Or are you claiming they spoke truthfully but did not take the threat seriously?

Have any of the members involved named anyone who supposedly made the threat?

David

I have yet to receive any response.

[The Magistrate]

1. In Other Words, Mr. Swanson

He passed on hyperbolic rumor. People who paniced gave themselves horrot movie chills with pictures of wild crowds congregating at failing banks, a breakdown in civil order following close on the breakdown of economic machinery, and on the heels of that the traditional remedy of any government in extremis down the ages. He spoke rashly and irresponsibly.

[davidswanson]

2. so he says

and so say you, adding nothing new except your personal indignation

but neither of you speak to the apparent fact, since he does not attempt to retract it, that Bushies made this threat to members of Congress

do you have any indignation to spare for them?

[The Magistrate]

3. What You State, Sir, Goes Considerably Beyond Any Known Facts You Present

Nothing you have written above, and nothing the Congressman has said, signifies in plain English what you have just stated as a fact, that "Bushies made this threat to members of Congress". Even if the specter of martial law was raised officially, there is a difference in kind between a statement of prediction that things might spiral out of control to a point that extraordinary measures might be required against manifest unrest, and a statement of threat that if a certain course is not followed, we will put soldiers into the streets. The first case, while foolish and hyperbolic, is hardly exceptionable. The latter would certainly be pernicious, but you present no evidence whatever that it occurred. It is hard to see any reason beyond its jibing with your preconceptions why you believe it did.

Accusations of my engaging in apologetics for, even defense of, the present administration, would seem to be your next move, and will provide me much-needed amusement on this grey and chilly day: you have my thanks for them in advance....

"Once you have gilded it, it no longer is a lily."

[davidswanson]

5. either sherman lied

or others lied to him

or the threat was made

i can't imagine a fourth possibility or any reason to suspect either of the first two being the case

nor would there be anything surprising or remarkable about the third possibility being true

while the distinction you try to draw between two different ways the threat could have been made seems less than meaningful, i think you should go back and listen to Sherman's comments to see which way he described it

[The Magistrate]

6. Rep. Sherman, Sir, Spoke Without Exactitude, And In the Heat Of A Passionate Moment

It happens often.

Your claim here that a prediction a situation could arise that might require a measure is not materially different from a threat to do something in consequence of something else not being done is interesting. One encounters this sort of thing frequently on the right, when venturing to explain, say, how economic disadvantagement can lead people into criminal behavior: the common response from a rightist is that to say this is just makimg excuses for criminals. But of course, an explanation is not an excuse; the language contains those two different words because the concepts they express are very different. You are engaging in the same sort of fudging and blurring, because a prediction things might go shockingly bad is very different from a threat to do something as a pre-determined reaction to some defiance. If you are genuinely unable to discern that difference, then you are openly confessing you are ill-suited to comment on human behavior in any sphere, and our conversation must come to a close.

"It ain't what you don't know, it's what you know that ain't so will get you every time."

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. Two simple questions: why did Sherman say it in the first place? He must have

known the hostility it would engender from those responsible. And, of course, why has he not retracted it?

As for your legalistic casuistry, it's beyond laughable. As if the first of the threats you hypothesize would have been made in that context, a propos of nothing in particular. Are you simple?

Do you think Sherman would have been unable to distinguish between, arguably, prudently postulating a threat in an academic spirit, and a more directly minatory warning. Or would have been cynical enough to pretend the latter, in the knowledge that the former was really the case?

[The Magistrate]

8. This Is What Rep. Sherman Said, Sir

“The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. That atmosphere is not justified. Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday, that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no. That’s what I call fear mongering, unjustified, proven wrong.”

That statement does not support the weight put on it by Mr. Swanson and others. Any student thirty years from now relying on it to state in a history paper that the Bush administration threatened to put the United States under martial law if Congress did not pass the 'bailout bill' in the autumn of '08 would receive a poor grade indeed, and a stern lecture on sourcing to go with it. You will note that Rep. Sherman does not even claim first-hand knowledge of the prospect of martial law being employed as an argument in favor of the bill; he is simply presenting hear-say from unidentified persons, and we have no way to judge their veracity. Nor does the statement "...a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no...." constitute a clear threat, stating an intention to impose martial law in consequence of the bill's failing. Taking Rep. Sherman's statement as a whole, it is clearly part of an escalating series of 'horribles' projected as things that might flow from rejection of the bill, and it seems from his closing sentence that that is what he took it as, a sort of topper to a presentation of the prospect of a breakdown of civil order in consequence of a tremendous financial panic.

Since Rep. Sherman claims no direct knowledge of the prospect of martial law being employed as an argument in favor of the bill, it is not necessary for me to give an opinion on his capability to discern the difference between the two cases. It is my opinion that if any member of the administration, or for that matter the Congressional leadership, had made to him directly an argument incorporating the prospect of martial law, he would have said "I was told..." and gone on to clarify: he seems a passionate and forthright gentleman.

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. ".... he is simply presenting hear-say from unidentified persons,

and we have no way to judge their veracity."

What do you expect, for crying out loud! These were informal talks, as far as I understand. No secretary would have been taking minutes; none of it would have been voice-recorded. Your arguing from a legal point of view, as if Sherman had to prove the veracity of what lawyers dismiss as "hear-say" with documentation and/or voice recordings is frankly the height of absurdity.

As I pointed out to you, Sherman would have retailed what you insist should be dismissed as "hearsay" in the knowledge that it would elicit a lot of hostility from a notoriously ruthless and vengeful cabal, still calling themeselves Republicans and Conservatives. You make it sound as if he were just an old washer-woman passing on the latest juicy bit of gossip, Chinese whispers. Won't do.

There is absolutely no reason to believe Sherman was trying make a legal case against them, but, rather, merely to indicate to what surreally shameful lengths the Government's agents had been prepared to go, in order to "enforce" their will. Personally, I find it incredible that anyone could imagine that Sherman could not distinguish between an academic postulation of civil disorder in the medium-to-long term if the bill were not passed - particularly bearing in mind that most people understood that it was, at best, a piece of sticking plaster on the gaping wound of, say, an amputation - with an ugly threat for the immediate future.

But I couldn't prove it in a court of law. That is never a substitue for common sense. We have a whole industry built around forensic, physical evidence, but it happens, even in court cases, that circumstantial evidence can be so enormous as to be binding in its implications, since to deny it would be to flaunt the ultimate level of sanity, common sense. There is nothing in this administration's record that would indicate that they would baulk at making such a threat; and endless indications that they would resort to such an expedient. Bush's use of executive orders must the definitive indicator.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. Sir? Stand easy. I was in the ranks myself once.

[dmr]

4. I'm curious as to the answers

After watching the last eight years unfold, I wouldn't be surprise that this might be one of many different and shameful scenarios that might have been put out there by White House aides to those they thought might be easily intimidated. We have heard worse brainstorming scenarios that came out of the Cheney office just to gather American support for the conflicts in the Middle East.

It's hard to imagine it was easy for this, or any Congressman to come forward to make a statement like this on the Congressional floor, which now is documented in the Congressional record, which I bet was why he said it there in the first place. His second statement is to the media, did he also make it in Congress, or does the original statement stand as is on the record?

Something terribly drastic would have to occur for the government to be brave enough to declare Martial Law. The collapse of our economy would be what might do it. They now have the laws and army in place to do just that. If this threat is true, ... I don't even want to imagine. They did get some of the money they wanted, and we got to keep the elections on track.

Edit: grammar

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. Hmm. We already have imposed Martial Law

In some parts of this country.

But the upper middle class who involve themselves in campaigns and post extensively on blogs tend to be part of the overclass, and those campaigns answer only to the political concerns of the overclass, and martial law (when and as it continues to be imposed from time to time) will never affect the professional class in this country nor be considered remarkable by them. Just one of the necessary tools of government to protect them from "bad actors".

[Laelth]

10. Good questions and excellent investigative reporting.

Hats off to you, Mr. Swanson.

:patriot:

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

[davidswanson]

11. Thanks for not calling me Sir

:-)

[Laelth]

12. I am an attorney, not a Magistrate. LOL

No offense intended to magistrates, of course.

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth