For most of its history, America, despite its warts, has been viewed as a stabilizing force in the world. More importantly, America has announced to the world that it would stand up for the little guy.--owenz1

Where in the Declaration of Independence or our Constitution does it state that we were imbued by our Creator with the inherent right to stablilize the world and stick up for the little guy.

Our standing in the world will not be improved by neither of these questionable standards. All we need to do in order to regain our standing is to once again believe in the principles laid out by our founders, and to develop them as fully as possible. Ironically, this is a conservative goal, in that we would do best by conservation of these principles.

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Sure, if one equates the little guy with the civil liberties of american citizens, I absolutely agree. But I took the original context to mean a stabilizing force among the world's 'lesser nations'-- with 'little guys' being the really small and pathetic 'lesser nations'.

And thank you for the comment--the way I'm typing today I'm surprised anyone can read what the hell I'm writing.

If I may turn away from the libertarians for a moment, I'd like to ask GG if he's given any further thought to the whole impeachment issue of late. FDL has had a good (and ongoing I guess) discussion of commutation, censure, impeachment and the like. But one can never have enough opinions from counsel on such issues. What do you think, GG?

I very much appreciate this post, but have some questions for whomever would be interested:

Mona mentions a case currently working in Oregon. Does anyone know how many FISA violation cases are out there? Is there any way to know such a thing?

GG mentions that there are methods Congress can employ to force a substantive court ruling--will GG or other elaborate on this?

re: instant standing via leakage--I'm surprised that there has not already been a leak from inside the NSA program, or from inside one of the telecoms. Surely, those on the inside see the same things we are seeing. Are they all facist anti-american bastards?

Finally, I note an article today in which polls show the nation equally divided on impeachment of Bush right now. Results within the margin of error. For Cheney, it's no contest. A simple majority of the country wants him impeached. Now.

Once again, the people are out in front, and the media and legislators are largely way behind.

Mona said The idea that the population has not know for many, many decades that smoking causes cancer, heart disease etc. is preposterous

Not the entire population it seems. Didn't the CEOs of big tobacco swear to congress, under oath, that tobacco smoking was just fine? Perhaps I'm not remembering correctly.

"but I don't see how anyone could subject themselves to such a humiliating display."

I believe the word is profit. Not a dirty or ugly word by any stretch. I'm sure they made Ayn Rand proud.

OO said "Now it's onto a waiting list for a passport. "

The absolute best reason to export democracy--we may well need to go find where it ended up, and live there.

Kinky Friedman, the Texas clown/philosopher who ran for governor during our most recent electoral carnival, had a similar sentiment regarding the infamous fence along the Texas border. He opposed it, as it would hinder residents from escaping Texas when things finally went intolerably bad.

Nice nom de plume, by the way.

After a recent Burns article I fired off a snark-laden email to him, asking if Odierno ever handed Burns a cracker as reward for his work.

I'm sure Burns' spam filter nailed the email, or if it got through, he would not have read it, or if he read it, would have said to himself "yeah, but you still read the article didn't you, jerk".

Doesn't matter--it was more important for me to to send, than him to read.

there is a wall between the news pages and the editorial page

Exactly right. Nor am I surprised that GG chose to continue hammering on certain specific articles, rather than publish some sentiment of relief regarding the Op-Ed breakthrough by NYT. Sub-standard reporting is still bad reporting, regardless of the editorial shift of the paper.

One other thing Sysprog said that is absolutely true--that NYT is a great newspaper. 'Greatness' doesn't mean 'good', but 'consequential'. I'd argue that NYT is 'greater' now than at any time in its history. Not because it is improved over former 'editions' of the company, but rather because the paper exists in an impoverished environment in terms of news content. There are now only a small handful of papers (or other media sources, for that matter) in the world that can produce the content that NYT does, for good or ill.

I'm not sure how your post contradicts mine. Maybe newspapers are doomed. Personally I think announcements of their collective death are premature. Regardless of what that panel determined, it doesn't change the current position of NYT as a content provider/opinion-shaper in today's world.

Just as an example--how many news organizations maintain a permanent bureau in Bagdad? I'll be the answer is an amazingly small number, given the vital importance of Iraq to this country and the world. NYT is there, even if their people can't get out of the emerald palace.

Because other articles are most popular, doesn't mean that the op-eds and news reports aren't being read. And I do believe that the NYT remains a Great and Influential Newspaper, not just in the US, but globally.

This must be the reason its articles are used so widely by bloggers and politicians everywhere, and why it is worth communicating with the NYT regarding its content.