From Powerline

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This afternoon the Justice Department released Attorney General Holder’s five-page letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the case of Umar Abdulmutallab. The letter is powerful evidence of the damage wrought by the three pillars of Obamaism.

Holder first takes responsibility for the treatment of Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, with the agreement of the Obama administration’s entire national security apparatus: “I made the decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab with federal crimes, and to seek his detention in connection with those charges, with the knowledge of, and with no objection from, all other relevant departments of the government.” He then defends this treatment of the case:

The decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab in federal court, and the methods used to interrogate him, are fully consistent with the long-established and publicly known policies and practices of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the United States Government as a whole, as implemented for many years by Administrations of both parties. Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous Administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security. They are among the many powerful weapons this country can and should use to win the war against al-Qaeda.

I am confident that, as a result of the hard work of the FBI and our career federal prosecutors, we will be able to successfully prosecute Mr. Abdulmutallab under the federal criminal law. I am equally confident that the decision to address Mr. Abdulmutallab’s actions through our criminal justice system has not, and will not, compromise our ability to obtain information needed to detect and prevent future attacks.

Holder doesn’t pass the buck for his treatment of the case, but the letter suggests (without explicitly stating) that President Obama concurred in it:

In the days following December 25 — including during a meeting with the President and other senior members of his national security team on January 5 — high-level discussions ensued within the Administration in which the possibility of detaining Mr. Abdulmutallab under the law of war was explicitly discussed. No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued.

As Daniel Foster points out, Holder also asserts that “without a single exception” (emphasis in original) terror suspects arrested on American soil have been treated as federal criminals, although Holder later notes two exceptions under the Bush administration in which suspects arrested under criminal law were later transferred to military custody by executive order. (Foster had previously pointed out these two case and cited the applicable executive orders here.)

Others more knowledgeable than I will have intelligent and important observations to make on this revealing document. Holder’s confidence that his treatment of the case “has not, and will not, compromise our ability to obtain information needed to detect and prevent future attacks” seems particularly misplaced. For the moment, I note only the clarifying nature of the letter. The whole sorry spectacle of the Abdulmutallab case is Obama’s folly.

also:

Unsustainable

Last week, Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the House Budget Committee. His appearance drew little attention, but what he had to say was of considerable interest. In his initial testimony, Elmendorf described our current federal budget deficits as “unsustainable.” That prompted this exchange:

Q. In the report you use the term “unsustainable,” a term which a number of people use in terms of the current budget deficit track and a term I’ve used myself. …

I’m not sure that there is a complete understanding of the consequences of inaction here in this town. We use the term “unsustainable.” Can you be a little more specific and describe to us what that — what happens? We do nothing; we now look at deficits of $500 billion to $1.5 trillion as far as the eye can see; what happens?

ELMENDORF: I think a particular thing that’s unsustainable is to have federal debt constantly rising as a share of GDP because that requires a larger — ever-larger share of investors’ portfolios to be occupied by treasury securities. And at some point they will refuse to hold them, or will insist on much higher interest rates to do so.

So the thing that’s particularly unsustainable is expecting that investors will just constantly pile more and more of their portfolios — investors here and abroad — into treasury securities.

And what can go wrong is that interest rates can spike up when there is a crisis of confidence, and their sentiment about buying those securities changes.

But even before you hit that crisis point, of course, what’s going wrong in a more subtle — what’s obvious, but still very damaging way, is that the more of those treasury securities are being held, the less that investors will be holding of shares: the ownership of physical plant and equipment; the sorts of things that make our economy more — workers more productive over time and raises incomes over time.

Q: So what does that mean? Does that mean then we have much lower GDP growth? Does that mean that we — the federal government’s debt rating gets reduced, and we’re actually — and perhaps physically — unable to sell the debt at some point? I mean — I mean, what are the — what…

(CROSSTALK)

ELMENDORF: That — that’s all possible.

I think most observers expect that the government will act; that the unsustainability will be resolved through action, not through witnessing some collapse down the road.

If literally nothing is done, then eventually something very, very bad happens. But I think the widespread…

(CROSSTALK)

ELMENDORF: … view is that you and your colleagues will take action.

I think, on the contrary, that it is unlikely that Congress will take effective action–as opposed to seeking political cover–before grave damage has been done. In his written testimony, Elmendorf implicitly explained why:

The country faces a fundamental disconnect between the services that people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues that people are prepared to send to the government to finance those services. That fundamental disconnect will have to be addressed in some way if the nation is to avoid serious long-term damage to the economy and to the well-being of the population.

We need deep and fundamental cuts in federal spending, which means, above all, Medicare and Social Security, because that’s where the money is. The whole concept of an “entitlement” was a mistake–really, a disaster–that must be repudiated. But for the foreseeable future, there will be no political will to make such changes. So we’re going to see a race between political will and economic collapse. It’s hard to be optimistic about the outcome unless a drastic change in our political culture takes place, soon.