How stupid isn't that?
The ad is now removed from eBay but you can she the Xbox below.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Sarah Palin on Xbox 360
Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin grant a man her autograph on an Xbox 360 and now he's selling it on eBay for $1.1 million. And for that price, you're not even getting an Elite, just a plain old Pro.
How stupid isn't that?
The ad is now removed from eBay but you can she the Xbox below.
How stupid isn't that?
The ad is now removed from eBay but you can she the Xbox below.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Dominic Fumusa Nude
Dominic Fumusa, who plays Jackie's husband Kevin on Edie Falco's new amaze-balls show Nurse Jackie, used to do a lot of work on Broadway. Most notably, Dominic took it all off in the show Take Me Out, and you can see the NSFW down below.
Click to enlarge
Monday, August 3, 2009
Jessica Simpson is sexy
Jessica Simpson is getting intimate.
The reality star, 29, opens up about her favorite bras in a new interview about her lingerie line, which hits showrooms in New York City this week.
"Of course I love lingerie. What girl doesn't?" Simpson -- who was dumped by Tony Romo last month -- tells Women's Wear Daily. "My lingerie reflects the way I'm feeling when I wake up and helps me set the tone for my day."
Simpson says "lingerie is a special part of what you wear every day. It's fun to pick different colors and styles. What you wear underneath your clothes helps define the outfit, whether T-shirt bras, push-up bras, different patterns and colors -- you always have to choose what works best."
So what kinds of underthings does she prefer?
"I like to be comfortable and feel good. I wear whatever my mood calls for," says Simpson.
When asked to describe her "signature look," she says: "My intimates are feminine and sweet with a hint of fun."
Simpson says that in addition to her "feminine, sexy, regular and full-figured bras," she is also working on a sleepwear collection that she will "live in."
The reality star, 29, opens up about her favorite bras in a new interview about her lingerie line, which hits showrooms in New York City this week.
"Of course I love lingerie. What girl doesn't?" Simpson -- who was dumped by Tony Romo last month -- tells Women's Wear Daily. "My lingerie reflects the way I'm feeling when I wake up and helps me set the tone for my day."
Simpson says "lingerie is a special part of what you wear every day. It's fun to pick different colors and styles. What you wear underneath your clothes helps define the outfit, whether T-shirt bras, push-up bras, different patterns and colors -- you always have to choose what works best."
So what kinds of underthings does she prefer?
"I like to be comfortable and feel good. I wear whatever my mood calls for," says Simpson.
When asked to describe her "signature look," she says: "My intimates are feminine and sweet with a hint of fun."
Simpson says that in addition to her "feminine, sexy, regular and full-figured bras," she is also working on a sleepwear collection that she will "live in."
Kate Gosselin at home
Kate Gosselin is back home.
After a weekend away, the mom of eight was spotted back at her $1.1-million Pennsylvania house loading up her SUV with camping gear, including a Coleman PerfectFlow Propane Grill.
Kate, who hid her infamous 'do with her fave newsboy cap, also toted an oversized blue cooler.
Kate and the kids went camping in their backyard last month. Tonight's episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 -- the first to air since the couple announced their separation in July -- shows her struggling to set up a tent.
"If I've never grilled before, I'm going to grill. If I've never camped before, I'm going to camp," Kate says in a clip from the show. "It may take me awhile, but we can figure it out. That stemmed out of all of this. My new attitude is, 'I can do.'"
After a weekend away, the mom of eight was spotted back at her $1.1-million Pennsylvania house loading up her SUV with camping gear, including a Coleman PerfectFlow Propane Grill.
Kate, who hid her infamous 'do with her fave newsboy cap, also toted an oversized blue cooler.
Kate and the kids went camping in their backyard last month. Tonight's episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 -- the first to air since the couple announced their separation in July -- shows her struggling to set up a tent.
"If I've never grilled before, I'm going to grill. If I've never camped before, I'm going to camp," Kate says in a clip from the show. "It may take me awhile, but we can figure it out. That stemmed out of all of this. My new attitude is, 'I can do.'"
Rap Rock and Music
The All Points West Music and Arts Festival aimed at separate sides of the brain for the first two of its three days at Liberty State Park here. Friday, headlined by hip-hop from Jay-Z and rock from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Vampire Weekend, was for the left brain: verbal, analytical, conceptual. Saturday, featuring rock from Tool and My Bloody Valentine and Gypsy-punk party music from Gogol Bordello, was for the right brain: intuitive, holistic, more attuned to sound than to messages.
Friday was full of cleverness and constructed personas. (Its three headliners, along with the rappers Q-Tip and Organized Konfusion and the rock band the National, are all New Yorkers.) Saturday, from the three guitars and two drum kits of ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead in early afternoon to the pounding, droning, churning finale by Tool, was about reveling in the power of noise.
It was the second annual All Points West, the East Coast project of Goldenvoice, which produces the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The event, which was accessible from Manhattan by efficient ferries, is a work in progress.
Stages have been moved since last year but still aren’t ideally situated. Performers on the midsize Bullet Stage had to compete with sound from the main stage (the Blue Comet) as well as from a dance-music disc jockey nearby and from a sponsor’s speakers. Magnificent views of the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline were given only to the performers and the video cameras behind them; audiences faced away from the water. Prime viewing areas and the paths between stages became mud pits after the deluges, something Coachella doesn’t have to worry about in the California desert.
Saturday’s concert was, literally, a blast when My Bloody Valentine performed. Its songs, which once layered distortion atop three-chord songs and lovesick lyrics, have turned even noisier since the band reunited last year. Unfortunately at All Points West vocals and melodies were almost completely buried in the exhilarating surge of chords. As usual at a My Bloody Valentine set the music culminated in a sustained roar — about 14 minutes long — as the full band strummed and pummeled the instruments on a chord dissolving into cacophony in “You Made Me Realise.” It conjured some elemental cataclysm, a purely visceral rock experience.
Tool, by contrast, had mapped out every jolt in its music. While video screens showed creepy, death-white anthropoids in constant metamorphosis, Maynard James Keenan sang with baleful melancholy about dread, fury and desolation over music that clanged and churned, melding hard-rock brawn and progressive-rock precision in gorgeous bitterness. St. Vincent, led by the guitarist Annie Clark, had its own eruptions of noise as Ms. Clark’s enigmatic pop songs, tinged by turns with 1960s whimsy and minimalistic patterns, rode upheavals of distortion from her guitar.
Performers facing soggy crowds on Friday worked hard to entertain. Jay-Z was a last-minute replacement for the Beastie Boys; one member of the group, Adam Yauch (a k a MCA), needed surgery for cancer of the salivary gland. But Jay-Z brought his full tour production, including a band complete with rock guitar and horn section, his sidekick Memphis Bleek and a video display with montages of his rise from the Marcy Houses projects in Brooklyn to his current status as a hit maker and mogul.
It’s a triumphal tale that Jay-Z delivered with fastidious variations of meter, vocal tone and backup, whether he was keeping rap-rock alive or bouncing syllables off an exotic sampled vocal. He started the set graciously: rapping the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.”
Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs displayed the words “Get Well MCA” on her arm throughout her band’s set, while other adornments came and went: a glittery shawl that she wrapped around her face like a burqa, a black jacket with “KO” on the back in studs. Although the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ lyrics sometimes hint at strife, loss and longing, the songs were outright romps, with Ms. O skipping, strutting and twirling across the stage. The band socked out its grooves, switching frequently between its older post-punk guitar riffs and its newer synthesizer pulses, and Ms. O was all smiles. “It’s not wet enough up here!” she cackled.
Vampire Weekend remains nerdy and proud of it. In crisp, perky new wave tunes with an occasional hint of African guitar for embellishment, Ezra Koenig sings about collegiate characters, and a few songs that weren’t on the band’s debut album didn’t stray far from it; one was called “Ladies of Cambridge.”
Tucked into Friday’s lineup were two reunited hip-hop groups from the 1990s: Organized Konfusion, in its first performance in more than a decade, and the Pharcyde, which has been reconvened for a few years.
Organized Konfusion, the duo of Prince Po (from “poetry”) and Pharoahe Monch, was a connoisseur’s hip-hop group. Though it was never a commercial success — the reason, Prince Po suggested onstage, was that its songs were “too intelligent and too crazy” — its albums raised the ante on complexities of meter, rhyme schemes and wordplay. Prince Po’s voice has grown raspier, yet both rappers were bouncing syllables every which way in rhymes that were smart, funny and telling — like “Stray Bullet,” written from the bullet’s point of view. Unfortunately pelting rain kept the reunion’s audience sparse.
The Pharcyde’s easygoing beats and earnest aspirations — “I want to kick something that means something,” its members rapped — were neatly performed but soon overshadowed by the rapper who was next on the bill: Q-Tip, whose old group, A Tribe Called Quest, was very clearly Pharcyde’s model.
Friday also featured pensive rock from the National — with elegantly constructed, slow-building songs of disillusionment — and smart, sullen rock from Cage the Elephant, which revs up its sardonic frustration to the verge of hardcore. Friday’s lineup also included the festival’s demographic anomaly: Seasick Steve, a bearded, grizzled, foot-stomping slide guitarist born in 1941 who sings about his life as a hobo, although he also (as Steve Wold) produced indie-rock for Modest Mouse in the 1990s. In recent years he has become a festival regular in England, and a song about running away at 14 from an abusive stepfather — an accelerating, John Lee Hooker-style boogie — had the All Points West audience cheering.
In a more rigorous left brain/right brain separation All Points West might have scheduled Fleet Foxes — who reveled in wordless, cascading vocal harmonies — Saturday. And it might have moved Kool Keith — a rapper with off-the-wall rhymes and multiple personas, including the raunchy Dr. Octagon — to Friday. Ice-T, a fan, joined him onstage, rapping along with Kool Keith and stepping forward for a little gangsta rap of his own.
Sunday’s scheduled headliners were Coldplay and Echo and the Bunnymen. Perhaps, after the left-brain and right-brain stimulation, their kind of romantic pomp was meant for the heart.
Friday was full of cleverness and constructed personas. (Its three headliners, along with the rappers Q-Tip and Organized Konfusion and the rock band the National, are all New Yorkers.) Saturday, from the three guitars and two drum kits of ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead in early afternoon to the pounding, droning, churning finale by Tool, was about reveling in the power of noise.
It was the second annual All Points West, the East Coast project of Goldenvoice, which produces the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The event, which was accessible from Manhattan by efficient ferries, is a work in progress.
Stages have been moved since last year but still aren’t ideally situated. Performers on the midsize Bullet Stage had to compete with sound from the main stage (the Blue Comet) as well as from a dance-music disc jockey nearby and from a sponsor’s speakers. Magnificent views of the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline were given only to the performers and the video cameras behind them; audiences faced away from the water. Prime viewing areas and the paths between stages became mud pits after the deluges, something Coachella doesn’t have to worry about in the California desert.
Saturday’s concert was, literally, a blast when My Bloody Valentine performed. Its songs, which once layered distortion atop three-chord songs and lovesick lyrics, have turned even noisier since the band reunited last year. Unfortunately at All Points West vocals and melodies were almost completely buried in the exhilarating surge of chords. As usual at a My Bloody Valentine set the music culminated in a sustained roar — about 14 minutes long — as the full band strummed and pummeled the instruments on a chord dissolving into cacophony in “You Made Me Realise.” It conjured some elemental cataclysm, a purely visceral rock experience.
Tool, by contrast, had mapped out every jolt in its music. While video screens showed creepy, death-white anthropoids in constant metamorphosis, Maynard James Keenan sang with baleful melancholy about dread, fury and desolation over music that clanged and churned, melding hard-rock brawn and progressive-rock precision in gorgeous bitterness. St. Vincent, led by the guitarist Annie Clark, had its own eruptions of noise as Ms. Clark’s enigmatic pop songs, tinged by turns with 1960s whimsy and minimalistic patterns, rode upheavals of distortion from her guitar.
Performers facing soggy crowds on Friday worked hard to entertain. Jay-Z was a last-minute replacement for the Beastie Boys; one member of the group, Adam Yauch (a k a MCA), needed surgery for cancer of the salivary gland. But Jay-Z brought his full tour production, including a band complete with rock guitar and horn section, his sidekick Memphis Bleek and a video display with montages of his rise from the Marcy Houses projects in Brooklyn to his current status as a hit maker and mogul.
It’s a triumphal tale that Jay-Z delivered with fastidious variations of meter, vocal tone and backup, whether he was keeping rap-rock alive or bouncing syllables off an exotic sampled vocal. He started the set graciously: rapping the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.”
Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs displayed the words “Get Well MCA” on her arm throughout her band’s set, while other adornments came and went: a glittery shawl that she wrapped around her face like a burqa, a black jacket with “KO” on the back in studs. Although the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ lyrics sometimes hint at strife, loss and longing, the songs were outright romps, with Ms. O skipping, strutting and twirling across the stage. The band socked out its grooves, switching frequently between its older post-punk guitar riffs and its newer synthesizer pulses, and Ms. O was all smiles. “It’s not wet enough up here!” she cackled.
Vampire Weekend remains nerdy and proud of it. In crisp, perky new wave tunes with an occasional hint of African guitar for embellishment, Ezra Koenig sings about collegiate characters, and a few songs that weren’t on the band’s debut album didn’t stray far from it; one was called “Ladies of Cambridge.”
Tucked into Friday’s lineup were two reunited hip-hop groups from the 1990s: Organized Konfusion, in its first performance in more than a decade, and the Pharcyde, which has been reconvened for a few years.
Organized Konfusion, the duo of Prince Po (from “poetry”) and Pharoahe Monch, was a connoisseur’s hip-hop group. Though it was never a commercial success — the reason, Prince Po suggested onstage, was that its songs were “too intelligent and too crazy” — its albums raised the ante on complexities of meter, rhyme schemes and wordplay. Prince Po’s voice has grown raspier, yet both rappers were bouncing syllables every which way in rhymes that were smart, funny and telling — like “Stray Bullet,” written from the bullet’s point of view. Unfortunately pelting rain kept the reunion’s audience sparse.
The Pharcyde’s easygoing beats and earnest aspirations — “I want to kick something that means something,” its members rapped — were neatly performed but soon overshadowed by the rapper who was next on the bill: Q-Tip, whose old group, A Tribe Called Quest, was very clearly Pharcyde’s model.
Friday also featured pensive rock from the National — with elegantly constructed, slow-building songs of disillusionment — and smart, sullen rock from Cage the Elephant, which revs up its sardonic frustration to the verge of hardcore. Friday’s lineup also included the festival’s demographic anomaly: Seasick Steve, a bearded, grizzled, foot-stomping slide guitarist born in 1941 who sings about his life as a hobo, although he also (as Steve Wold) produced indie-rock for Modest Mouse in the 1990s. In recent years he has become a festival regular in England, and a song about running away at 14 from an abusive stepfather — an accelerating, John Lee Hooker-style boogie — had the All Points West audience cheering.
In a more rigorous left brain/right brain separation All Points West might have scheduled Fleet Foxes — who reveled in wordless, cascading vocal harmonies — Saturday. And it might have moved Kool Keith — a rapper with off-the-wall rhymes and multiple personas, including the raunchy Dr. Octagon — to Friday. Ice-T, a fan, joined him onstage, rapping along with Kool Keith and stepping forward for a little gangsta rap of his own.
Sunday’s scheduled headliners were Coldplay and Echo and the Bunnymen. Perhaps, after the left-brain and right-brain stimulation, their kind of romantic pomp was meant for the heart.
Modern Love
LET’S say you have what you believe to be a healthy marriage. You’re still friends and lovers after spending more than half of your lives together. The dreams you set out to achieve in your 20s — gazing into each other’s eyes in candlelit city bistros when you were single and skinny — have for the most part come true.
Two decades later you have the 20 acres of land, the farmhouse, the children, the dogs and horses. You’re the parents you said you would be, full of love and guidance. You’ve done it all: Disneyland, camping, Hawaii, Mexico, city living, stargazing.
Sure, you have your marital issues, but on the whole you feel so self-satisfied about how things have worked out that you would never, in your wildest nightmares, think you would hear these words from your husband one fine summer day: “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”
But wait. This isn’t the divorce story you think it is. Neither is it a begging-him-to-stay story. It’s a story about hearing your husband say “I don’t love you anymore” and deciding not to believe him. And what can happen as a result.
Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying my husband was throwing a child’s tantrum. No. He was in the grip of something else — a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did. But I decided to respond the same way I’d responded to my children’s tantrums. And I kept responding to it that way. For four months.
“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”
His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.
He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.
So he turned mean. “I don’t like what you’ve become.”
Gut-wrenching pause. How could he say such a thing? That’s when I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.
Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”
You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.
My husband hadn’t yet come to this understanding with himself. He had enjoyed many years of hard work, and its rewards had supported our family of four all along. But his new endeavor hadn’t been going so well, and his ability to be the breadwinner was in rapid decline. He’d been miserable about this, felt useless, was losing himself emotionally and letting himself go physically. And now he wanted out of our marriage; to be done with our family.
But I wasn’t buying it.
I said: “It’s not age-appropriate to expect children to be concerned with their parents’ happiness. Not unless you want to create co-dependents who’ll spend their lives in bad relationships and therapy. There are times in every relationship when the parties involved need a break. What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”
“Huh?” he said.
“Go trekking in Nepal. Build a yurt in the back meadow. Turn the garage studio into a man-cave. Get that drum set you’ve always wanted. Anything but hurting the children and me with a reckless move like the one you’re talking about.”
Then I repeated my line, “What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”
“Huh?”
“How can we have a responsible distance?”
“I don’t want distance,” he said. “I want to move out.”
My mind raced. Was it another woman? Drugs? Unconscionable secrets? But I stopped myself. I would not suffer.
Instead, I went to my desk, Googled “responsible separation” and came up with a list. It included things like: Who’s allowed to use what credit cards? Who are the children allowed to see you with in town? Who’s allowed keys to what?
I looked through the list and passed it on to him.
His response: “Keys? We don’t even have keys to our house.”
I remained stoic. I could see pain in his eyes. Pain I recognized.
“Oh, I see what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re going to make me go into therapy. You’re not going to let me move out. You’re going to use the kids against me.”
“I never said that. I just asked: What can we do to give you the distance you need ... ”
“Stop saying that!”
Well, he didn’t move out.
Instead, he spent the summer being unreliable. He stopped coming home at his usual six o’clock. He would stay out late and not call. He blew off our entire Fourth of July — the parade, the barbecue, the fireworks — to go to someone else’s party. When he was at home, he was distant. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He didn’t even wish me “Happy Birthday.”
But I didn’t play into it. I walked my line. I told the kids: “Daddy’s having a hard time as adults often do. But we’re a family, no matter what.” I was not going to suffer. And neither were they.
MY trusted friends were irate on my behalf. “How can you just stand by and accept this behavior? Kick him out! Get a lawyer!”
I walked my line with them, too. This man was hurting, yet his problem wasn’t mine to solve. In fact, I needed to get out of his way so he could solve it.
I know what you’re thinking: I’m a pushover. I’m weak and scared and would put up with anything to keep the family together. I’m probably one of those women who would endure physical abuse. But I can assure you, I’m not. I load 1,500-pound horses into trailers and gallop through the high country of Montana all summer. I went through Pitocin-induced natural childbirth. And a Caesarean section without follow-up drugs. I am handy with a chain saw.
I simply had come to understand that I was not at the root of my husband’s problem. He was. If he could turn his problem into a marital fight, he could make it about us. I needed to get out of the way so that wouldn’t happen.
Privately, I decided to give him time. Six months.
I had good days, and I had bad days. On the good days, I took the high road. I ignored his lashing out, his merciless jabs. On bad days, I would fester in the August sun while the kids ran through sprinklers, raging at him in my mind. But I never wavered. Although it may sound ridiculous to say “Don’t take it personally” when your husband tells you he no longer loves you, sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do.
Instead of issuing ultimatums, yelling, crying or begging, I presented him with options. I created a summer of fun for our family and welcomed him to share in it, or not — it was up to him. If he chose not to come along, we would miss him, but we would be just fine, thank you very much. And we were.
And, yeah, you can bet I wanted to sit him down and persuade him to stay. To love me. To fight for what we’ve created. You can bet I wanted to.
But I didn’t.
I barbecued. Made lemonade. Set the table for four. Loved him from afar.
And one day, there he was, home from work early, mowing the lawn. A man doesn’t mow his lawn if he’s going to leave it. Not this man. Then he fixed a door that had been broken for eight years. He made a comment about our front porch needing paint. Our front porch. He mentioned needing wood for next winter. The future. Little by little, he started talking about the future.
It was Thanksgiving dinner that sealed it. My husband bowed his head humbly and said, “I’m thankful for my family.”
He was back.
And I saw what had been missing: pride. He’d lost pride in himself. Maybe that’s what happens when our egos take a hit in midlife and we realize we’re not as young and golden anymore.
When life’s knocked us around. And our childhood myths reveal themselves to be just that. The truth feels like the biggest sucker-punch of them all: it’s not a spouse or land or a job or money that brings us happiness. Those achievements, those relationships, can enhance our happiness, yes, but happiness has to start from within. Relying on any other equation can be lethal.
My husband had become lost in the myth. But he found his way out. We’ve since had the hard conversations. In fact, he encouraged me to write about our ordeal. To help other couples who arrive at this juncture in life. People who feel scared and stuck. Who believe their temporary feelings are permanent. Who see an easy out, and think they can escape.
My husband tried to strike a deal. Blame me for his pain. Unload his feelings of personal disgrace onto me.
But I ducked. And I waited. And it worked.
/Laura A. Munson
Two decades later you have the 20 acres of land, the farmhouse, the children, the dogs and horses. You’re the parents you said you would be, full of love and guidance. You’ve done it all: Disneyland, camping, Hawaii, Mexico, city living, stargazing.
Sure, you have your marital issues, but on the whole you feel so self-satisfied about how things have worked out that you would never, in your wildest nightmares, think you would hear these words from your husband one fine summer day: “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”
But wait. This isn’t the divorce story you think it is. Neither is it a begging-him-to-stay story. It’s a story about hearing your husband say “I don’t love you anymore” and deciding not to believe him. And what can happen as a result.
Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying my husband was throwing a child’s tantrum. No. He was in the grip of something else — a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did. But I decided to respond the same way I’d responded to my children’s tantrums. And I kept responding to it that way. For four months.
“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”
His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.
He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.
So he turned mean. “I don’t like what you’ve become.”
Gut-wrenching pause. How could he say such a thing? That’s when I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.
Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”
You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.
My husband hadn’t yet come to this understanding with himself. He had enjoyed many years of hard work, and its rewards had supported our family of four all along. But his new endeavor hadn’t been going so well, and his ability to be the breadwinner was in rapid decline. He’d been miserable about this, felt useless, was losing himself emotionally and letting himself go physically. And now he wanted out of our marriage; to be done with our family.
But I wasn’t buying it.
I said: “It’s not age-appropriate to expect children to be concerned with their parents’ happiness. Not unless you want to create co-dependents who’ll spend their lives in bad relationships and therapy. There are times in every relationship when the parties involved need a break. What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”
“Huh?” he said.
“Go trekking in Nepal. Build a yurt in the back meadow. Turn the garage studio into a man-cave. Get that drum set you’ve always wanted. Anything but hurting the children and me with a reckless move like the one you’re talking about.”
Then I repeated my line, “What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”
“Huh?”
“How can we have a responsible distance?”
“I don’t want distance,” he said. “I want to move out.”
My mind raced. Was it another woman? Drugs? Unconscionable secrets? But I stopped myself. I would not suffer.
Instead, I went to my desk, Googled “responsible separation” and came up with a list. It included things like: Who’s allowed to use what credit cards? Who are the children allowed to see you with in town? Who’s allowed keys to what?
I looked through the list and passed it on to him.
His response: “Keys? We don’t even have keys to our house.”
I remained stoic. I could see pain in his eyes. Pain I recognized.
“Oh, I see what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re going to make me go into therapy. You’re not going to let me move out. You’re going to use the kids against me.”
“I never said that. I just asked: What can we do to give you the distance you need ... ”
“Stop saying that!”
Well, he didn’t move out.
Instead, he spent the summer being unreliable. He stopped coming home at his usual six o’clock. He would stay out late and not call. He blew off our entire Fourth of July — the parade, the barbecue, the fireworks — to go to someone else’s party. When he was at home, he was distant. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He didn’t even wish me “Happy Birthday.”
But I didn’t play into it. I walked my line. I told the kids: “Daddy’s having a hard time as adults often do. But we’re a family, no matter what.” I was not going to suffer. And neither were they.
MY trusted friends were irate on my behalf. “How can you just stand by and accept this behavior? Kick him out! Get a lawyer!”
I walked my line with them, too. This man was hurting, yet his problem wasn’t mine to solve. In fact, I needed to get out of his way so he could solve it.
I know what you’re thinking: I’m a pushover. I’m weak and scared and would put up with anything to keep the family together. I’m probably one of those women who would endure physical abuse. But I can assure you, I’m not. I load 1,500-pound horses into trailers and gallop through the high country of Montana all summer. I went through Pitocin-induced natural childbirth. And a Caesarean section without follow-up drugs. I am handy with a chain saw.
I simply had come to understand that I was not at the root of my husband’s problem. He was. If he could turn his problem into a marital fight, he could make it about us. I needed to get out of the way so that wouldn’t happen.
Privately, I decided to give him time. Six months.
I had good days, and I had bad days. On the good days, I took the high road. I ignored his lashing out, his merciless jabs. On bad days, I would fester in the August sun while the kids ran through sprinklers, raging at him in my mind. But I never wavered. Although it may sound ridiculous to say “Don’t take it personally” when your husband tells you he no longer loves you, sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do.
Instead of issuing ultimatums, yelling, crying or begging, I presented him with options. I created a summer of fun for our family and welcomed him to share in it, or not — it was up to him. If he chose not to come along, we would miss him, but we would be just fine, thank you very much. And we were.
And, yeah, you can bet I wanted to sit him down and persuade him to stay. To love me. To fight for what we’ve created. You can bet I wanted to.
But I didn’t.
I barbecued. Made lemonade. Set the table for four. Loved him from afar.
And one day, there he was, home from work early, mowing the lawn. A man doesn’t mow his lawn if he’s going to leave it. Not this man. Then he fixed a door that had been broken for eight years. He made a comment about our front porch needing paint. Our front porch. He mentioned needing wood for next winter. The future. Little by little, he started talking about the future.
It was Thanksgiving dinner that sealed it. My husband bowed his head humbly and said, “I’m thankful for my family.”
He was back.
And I saw what had been missing: pride. He’d lost pride in himself. Maybe that’s what happens when our egos take a hit in midlife and we realize we’re not as young and golden anymore.
When life’s knocked us around. And our childhood myths reveal themselves to be just that. The truth feels like the biggest sucker-punch of them all: it’s not a spouse or land or a job or money that brings us happiness. Those achievements, those relationships, can enhance our happiness, yes, but happiness has to start from within. Relying on any other equation can be lethal.
My husband had become lost in the myth. But he found his way out. We’ve since had the hard conversations. In fact, he encouraged me to write about our ordeal. To help other couples who arrive at this juncture in life. People who feel scared and stuck. Who believe their temporary feelings are permanent. Who see an easy out, and think they can escape.
My husband tried to strike a deal. Blame me for his pain. Unload his feelings of personal disgrace onto me.
But I ducked. And I waited. And it worked.
/Laura A. Munson
U.S. pilot found in Iraq
Navy officials announced early Sunday that Marines in the western Iraqi province of Anbar had found remains that have been positively identified as those of an American fighter pilot shot down in the opening hours of the first Persian Gulf war in 1991.
The Navy pilot, Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, was the only American missing in action from that war. Efforts to determine what happened to him after his F/A-18 Hornet was shot down by an Iraqi warplane on Jan. 17, 1991, had continued despite false rumors and scant information.
Conflicting reports from Iraq had, over the years, fueled speculation that the pilot, promoted to captain from lieutenant commander in the years he was missing, might have been taken into captivity either after parachuting from his jet or after a crash landing.
But the evidence in Iraq suggests he did not survive and was buried by Bedouins shortly after he was shot down.
An official statement released early Sunday said that Marines in western Iraq had received information from local residents last month about the crash of an American jet and the burial of the pilot.
“One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Captain Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried,” the statement said. “The Iraqi citizens led U.S. Marines to the site.”
A search of the area last week recovered remains that included bones and skeletal fragments, which were flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for scientific examination.
Positive identification was made by visual and radiographical comparisons of Captain Speicher’s dental records with the jawbone recovered at the site.
“Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be,” said Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, in a statement. “We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Captain Speicher and his family for the sacrifice they have made for our nation and the example of strength they have set for all of us.”
Although the dental records confirmed the identity of the dead pilot, further DNA tests will be conducted to compare the remains with samples previously provided by family members, the statement said.
Cindy Laquidara, a spokeswoman for the Speicher family, told The Associated Press that relatives had learned on Saturday of the discovery. “The family’s proud of the way the Defense Department continued on with our request” to not abandon the search, she said. “We will be bringing him home.”
Ms. Laquidara said the family would say more after being briefed by Pentagon officials, but did not know when that would be.
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s government, a joint team from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency sifted through recovered documents, interrogated prisoners of war and searched possible crash sites to try to determine Captain Speicher’s fate.
Defense Department officials had been skeptical about reports that Captain Speicher was alive. Some of those reports were haunting, including one story that his initials or name had been found scratched into the wall of a cell in an Iraqi prison.
A crash site had been identified as early as 1993, when a group of Qataris that had been on a hunting trip in remote west-central Iraq handed over some materials they found that later were identified as coming from his jet.
In December 1995, the United States, working through the International Committee of the Red Cross, was able to send a team to the crash site to investigate. They found no ejection seat and no signs of a body or bones.
The Navy pilot, Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, was the only American missing in action from that war. Efforts to determine what happened to him after his F/A-18 Hornet was shot down by an Iraqi warplane on Jan. 17, 1991, had continued despite false rumors and scant information.
Conflicting reports from Iraq had, over the years, fueled speculation that the pilot, promoted to captain from lieutenant commander in the years he was missing, might have been taken into captivity either after parachuting from his jet or after a crash landing.
But the evidence in Iraq suggests he did not survive and was buried by Bedouins shortly after he was shot down.
An official statement released early Sunday said that Marines in western Iraq had received information from local residents last month about the crash of an American jet and the burial of the pilot.
“One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Captain Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried,” the statement said. “The Iraqi citizens led U.S. Marines to the site.”
A search of the area last week recovered remains that included bones and skeletal fragments, which were flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for scientific examination.
Positive identification was made by visual and radiographical comparisons of Captain Speicher’s dental records with the jawbone recovered at the site.
“Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be,” said Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, in a statement. “We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Captain Speicher and his family for the sacrifice they have made for our nation and the example of strength they have set for all of us.”
Although the dental records confirmed the identity of the dead pilot, further DNA tests will be conducted to compare the remains with samples previously provided by family members, the statement said.
Cindy Laquidara, a spokeswoman for the Speicher family, told The Associated Press that relatives had learned on Saturday of the discovery. “The family’s proud of the way the Defense Department continued on with our request” to not abandon the search, she said. “We will be bringing him home.”
Ms. Laquidara said the family would say more after being briefed by Pentagon officials, but did not know when that would be.
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s government, a joint team from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency sifted through recovered documents, interrogated prisoners of war and searched possible crash sites to try to determine Captain Speicher’s fate.
Defense Department officials had been skeptical about reports that Captain Speicher was alive. Some of those reports were haunting, including one story that his initials or name had been found scratched into the wall of a cell in an Iraqi prison.
A crash site had been identified as early as 1993, when a group of Qataris that had been on a hunting trip in remote west-central Iraq handed over some materials they found that later were identified as coming from his jet.
In December 1995, the United States, working through the International Committee of the Red Cross, was able to send a team to the crash site to investigate. They found no ejection seat and no signs of a body or bones.
Church picks gay priests
Only weeks after the Episcopal Church ended a de facto moratorium on promoting gay men and lesbians into the church hierarchy, church leaders in Los Angeles nominated two openly gay priests as assistant bishops on Sunday.
The move came a day after a church search committee in Minnesota announced that it had settled on three candidates, one of them a lesbian, for bishop.
The decisions are certain to rekindle the hostilities between the liberal and conservatives factions within the Episcopal Church in the United States and between the church and the Anglican Communion, the generally conservative global network of churches to which the Episcopal Church belongs.
The moratorium on ordaining gays and lesbians into the church hierarchy was adopted three years ago and helped calm conservatives in the Anglican Communion, which was nearly torn apart by the election in 2003 of the church’s first and only openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. But church members voted overwhelmingly on July 14 at a general convention in Anaheim, Calif., to reopen the door to bishops who are openly gay.
The Diocese of Los Angeles, one of the largest and most liberal in the country, announced Sunday the nomination of six priests as candidates for two assistant bishop jobs. The list included two openly gay clerics, the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, 55, who is currently canon to the bishops in the Diocese of Maryland, based in Baltimore, and the Rev. John L. Kirkley, 42, who is rector of St. John the Evangelist Church in San Jose, Calif., part of the Diocese of California.
“I affirm each and every one of these candidates, and I am pleased with the wide diversity they offer this diocese,” the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles, said in a statement.
The two new assistant bishops are to be chosen in December during the annual convention of the diocese.
The nominations of Ms. Glasspool and Mr. Kirkley came after the search committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota announced the names of three candidates for bishop, including the Rev. Bonnie Perry, rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Chicago.
Ms. Perry, who has served as vicar and rector of All Saints’ for nearly 17 years, has for the last 22 years been in a relationship with the Rev. Susan Harlow, who is also an Episcopal priest.
“As we continue to discern God’s call,” Ms. Perry said in a statement on Sunday, “I pray that we will bear witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that changes people’s lives and proclaims the profound inclusivity and hospitality of God.”’
Ms. Perry, 47, was ordained in 1990 and spent two years serving at various churches in New Jersey before going to Chicago. In 2005, she was one of five nominees for bishop of California.
Saturday was the first day of a two-week petition process which allows for open nominations for the next Episcopal bishop of Minnesota.
A full slate, including both search committee candidates and petition candidates, is to be announced on Sept. 25, and the election of the new bishop is scheduled for Oct. 31, during the annual convention in Minneapolis.
The move came a day after a church search committee in Minnesota announced that it had settled on three candidates, one of them a lesbian, for bishop.
The decisions are certain to rekindle the hostilities between the liberal and conservatives factions within the Episcopal Church in the United States and between the church and the Anglican Communion, the generally conservative global network of churches to which the Episcopal Church belongs.
The moratorium on ordaining gays and lesbians into the church hierarchy was adopted three years ago and helped calm conservatives in the Anglican Communion, which was nearly torn apart by the election in 2003 of the church’s first and only openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. But church members voted overwhelmingly on July 14 at a general convention in Anaheim, Calif., to reopen the door to bishops who are openly gay.
The Diocese of Los Angeles, one of the largest and most liberal in the country, announced Sunday the nomination of six priests as candidates for two assistant bishop jobs. The list included two openly gay clerics, the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, 55, who is currently canon to the bishops in the Diocese of Maryland, based in Baltimore, and the Rev. John L. Kirkley, 42, who is rector of St. John the Evangelist Church in San Jose, Calif., part of the Diocese of California.
“I affirm each and every one of these candidates, and I am pleased with the wide diversity they offer this diocese,” the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles, said in a statement.
The two new assistant bishops are to be chosen in December during the annual convention of the diocese.
The nominations of Ms. Glasspool and Mr. Kirkley came after the search committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota announced the names of three candidates for bishop, including the Rev. Bonnie Perry, rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Chicago.
Ms. Perry, who has served as vicar and rector of All Saints’ for nearly 17 years, has for the last 22 years been in a relationship with the Rev. Susan Harlow, who is also an Episcopal priest.
“As we continue to discern God’s call,” Ms. Perry said in a statement on Sunday, “I pray that we will bear witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that changes people’s lives and proclaims the profound inclusivity and hospitality of God.”’
Ms. Perry, 47, was ordained in 1990 and spent two years serving at various churches in New Jersey before going to Chicago. In 2005, she was one of five nominees for bishop of California.
Saturday was the first day of a two-week petition process which allows for open nominations for the next Episcopal bishop of Minnesota.
A full slate, including both search committee candidates and petition candidates, is to be announced on Sept. 25, and the election of the new bishop is scheduled for Oct. 31, during the annual convention in Minneapolis.
Obama brief on State secrets
A Supreme Court filing from the Obama administration last month has set off alarm bells on the left.
The filing was a friend-of-the-court brief, and it mostly dealt with an excruciatingly technical question about the attorney-client privilege. But its last five pages were about the state secrets privilege, which was not at issue in the case. That privilege, a favorite tool of the Bush administration, allows the government to shut down lawsuits by invoking national security.
The administration’s brief argued, though no one had asked, that the state secrets privilege is rooted in the Constitution.
The federal government files friend-of-the-court briefs in the Supreme Court all the time, and it is not unusual for it to alert the court to related issues, usually to make sure that the court’s ruling is no broader than it needs to be.
But the filing has raised eyebrows and suspicions among liberals already disappointed with the Obama administration’s failure to reject a number of legal doctrines associated with the Bush administration.
Jon B. Eisenberg, a lawyer for an Islamic charity in Oregon, said the filing reflects “the good old Bush-Cheney inherent presidential power theory.” He said he suspects the administration is hoping to use the attorney-client case to invite the Supreme Court to say something helpful to it about state secrets.
Mathew A. Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said there is no reason for concern.
“The brief says only that the state secrets privilege, along with other governmental privileges, has a constitutional basis, which is a position that has been taken by the Department of Justice for many decades under administrations of both parties,” Mr. Miller said.
On the campaign trail and in more recent statements, President Obama has indicated that he wants to limit the use of the state secrets privilege. In courtrooms, however, there has been little evidence of a new approach.
The administration’s brief said the government should be allowed to appeal rulings rejecting the state secrets privilege right away, rather than after the whole case is decided. Rulings concerning the attorney-client privilege, on the other hand, the brief said, should not be subject to immediate appeal.
The differing treatments are warranted, the brief argued, because the state secrets privilege is grounded in the Constitution. But that point is controversial, and the brief’s account of the relevant decisions was incomplete.
A federal judge in San Francisco, for instance, last year rejected a version of the constitutional argument in a case brought by Mr. Eisenberg’s client, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. The foundation said it had been subjected to illegal surveillance in the Bush years. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have argued that the charity’s suit must be dismissed under the state secrets privilege.
This is where the issue of the pedigree of the privilege really matters. If the privilege is an ordinary common-law rule of evidence, Congress is probably free to alter it. If it is required by the Constitution, things get more complicated.
The judge in San Francisco, Vaughn R. Walker, ruled that Congress had indeed overridden the state secrets privilege when it enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The judge said that by setting up a secret court to consider requests for intelligence surveillance, and by setting up other domestic regulations of foreign intelligence surveillance, “Congress intended for the executive branch to relinquish its near-total control over whether the fact of unlawful surveillance could be protected as a secret.”The government’s recent brief cited the leading Supreme Court decision on state secrets, United States v. Reynolds in 1953, but it said nothing about Judge Walker’s reading of it.
“Reynolds itself,” Judge Walker wrote, “leaves little room for defendants’ argument that the state secrets privilege is actually rooted in the Constitution.”
The Reynolds case concerned an Air Force accident report. The government refused to turn it over in an injury lawsuit, saying that disclosure of the report would endanger national security by revealing military secrets.
When the report was finally released in 1996, it contained no secrets, but it did show that the deaths of nine men in the crash a B-29 bomber had been caused by the Air Force’s negligence.
Thus, the first case in which the Supreme Court recognized the state secrets privilege illustrated how problematic it can be. By giving the executive branch close to unilateral power to have lawsuits dismissed on national security grounds, the privilege can become a way to conceal government misconduct.
The recent brief from the Obama administration cited just one decision directly invoking the Constitution as the basis for the state secrets privilege. Other courts have said the state secrets privilege is rooted in the common law.
The decision cited in the brief dismissed a lawsuit from a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, who said he had been abducted and abused by Central Intelligence Agency. A report from the Council of Europe substantially confirmed Mr. Masri’s claims.
The state secrets privilege, Judge Robert B. King wrote in 2007 for a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Mr. Masri’s case, “performs a function of constitutional significance.”
Mr. Miller, the Justice Department spokesman, cautioned against reading too much into the recent filing. “The brief says nothing about either the scope of the privilege or the ability of Congress to legislate in the area,” Mr. Miller said.
Experts in legal ethics said the solicitor general, who represents the government in the Supreme Court, was not required to cite decisions from lower courts cutting against its position.
But issues as urgent and important as the state secrets privilege deserve particularly considered treatment, as Judge King of the Fourth Circuit recognized.
“The inquiry is a difficult one,” he wrote, “for it pits the judiciary’s search for truth against the executive’s duty to maintain the nation’s security.”
The filing was a friend-of-the-court brief, and it mostly dealt with an excruciatingly technical question about the attorney-client privilege. But its last five pages were about the state secrets privilege, which was not at issue in the case. That privilege, a favorite tool of the Bush administration, allows the government to shut down lawsuits by invoking national security.
The administration’s brief argued, though no one had asked, that the state secrets privilege is rooted in the Constitution.
The federal government files friend-of-the-court briefs in the Supreme Court all the time, and it is not unusual for it to alert the court to related issues, usually to make sure that the court’s ruling is no broader than it needs to be.
But the filing has raised eyebrows and suspicions among liberals already disappointed with the Obama administration’s failure to reject a number of legal doctrines associated with the Bush administration.
Jon B. Eisenberg, a lawyer for an Islamic charity in Oregon, said the filing reflects “the good old Bush-Cheney inherent presidential power theory.” He said he suspects the administration is hoping to use the attorney-client case to invite the Supreme Court to say something helpful to it about state secrets.
Mathew A. Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said there is no reason for concern.
“The brief says only that the state secrets privilege, along with other governmental privileges, has a constitutional basis, which is a position that has been taken by the Department of Justice for many decades under administrations of both parties,” Mr. Miller said.
On the campaign trail and in more recent statements, President Obama has indicated that he wants to limit the use of the state secrets privilege. In courtrooms, however, there has been little evidence of a new approach.
The administration’s brief said the government should be allowed to appeal rulings rejecting the state secrets privilege right away, rather than after the whole case is decided. Rulings concerning the attorney-client privilege, on the other hand, the brief said, should not be subject to immediate appeal.
The differing treatments are warranted, the brief argued, because the state secrets privilege is grounded in the Constitution. But that point is controversial, and the brief’s account of the relevant decisions was incomplete.
A federal judge in San Francisco, for instance, last year rejected a version of the constitutional argument in a case brought by Mr. Eisenberg’s client, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. The foundation said it had been subjected to illegal surveillance in the Bush years. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have argued that the charity’s suit must be dismissed under the state secrets privilege.
This is where the issue of the pedigree of the privilege really matters. If the privilege is an ordinary common-law rule of evidence, Congress is probably free to alter it. If it is required by the Constitution, things get more complicated.
The judge in San Francisco, Vaughn R. Walker, ruled that Congress had indeed overridden the state secrets privilege when it enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The judge said that by setting up a secret court to consider requests for intelligence surveillance, and by setting up other domestic regulations of foreign intelligence surveillance, “Congress intended for the executive branch to relinquish its near-total control over whether the fact of unlawful surveillance could be protected as a secret.”The government’s recent brief cited the leading Supreme Court decision on state secrets, United States v. Reynolds in 1953, but it said nothing about Judge Walker’s reading of it.
“Reynolds itself,” Judge Walker wrote, “leaves little room for defendants’ argument that the state secrets privilege is actually rooted in the Constitution.”
The Reynolds case concerned an Air Force accident report. The government refused to turn it over in an injury lawsuit, saying that disclosure of the report would endanger national security by revealing military secrets.
When the report was finally released in 1996, it contained no secrets, but it did show that the deaths of nine men in the crash a B-29 bomber had been caused by the Air Force’s negligence.
Thus, the first case in which the Supreme Court recognized the state secrets privilege illustrated how problematic it can be. By giving the executive branch close to unilateral power to have lawsuits dismissed on national security grounds, the privilege can become a way to conceal government misconduct.
The recent brief from the Obama administration cited just one decision directly invoking the Constitution as the basis for the state secrets privilege. Other courts have said the state secrets privilege is rooted in the common law.
The decision cited in the brief dismissed a lawsuit from a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, who said he had been abducted and abused by Central Intelligence Agency. A report from the Council of Europe substantially confirmed Mr. Masri’s claims.
The state secrets privilege, Judge Robert B. King wrote in 2007 for a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Mr. Masri’s case, “performs a function of constitutional significance.”
Mr. Miller, the Justice Department spokesman, cautioned against reading too much into the recent filing. “The brief says nothing about either the scope of the privilege or the ability of Congress to legislate in the area,” Mr. Miller said.
Experts in legal ethics said the solicitor general, who represents the government in the Supreme Court, was not required to cite decisions from lower courts cutting against its position.
But issues as urgent and important as the state secrets privilege deserve particularly considered treatment, as Judge King of the Fourth Circuit recognized.
“The inquiry is a difficult one,” he wrote, “for it pits the judiciary’s search for truth against the executive’s duty to maintain the nation’s security.”
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