If Rehnquist was the worst Chief since Taney, Roberts has to be running the intellectually laziest court since, well, since ever. And I include smart-aleck Scalia.

Besides swapping out the zombies running low on batteries, it's time to blast the court with some real problems coming from all sides. The terrorism and torture cases are just what they need to get beyond simply punching the clock, coffee breaks, and chit chat from the bench.

In fact, the terror cases are the only time this court has bothered to furrow its brows at all. Otherwise, they're like pre-Einstein scientists claiming that all the basic problems in physics have been solved.

We need an Einstein or two on the court now. No, not a corrupt idealogue like Hillary Clinton. I mean, fer cripes sake. Or her husband or anyone like those fakes.

The current Big Lie from elite pundits is that people did not speak out against torture, that therefore we're all just as guilty as Rummy and Cheney, or at least as guilty as a highly paid, highly educated CIA operative knowlingly violating the law by performing waterboarding.

Actually, people on the street DID speak up. Torture opposition was certainly part of anti-war demonstrations, "torture is terror" bumper stickers, and any number of letters/posts for years now. Most people who did not speak up were still appalled if asked about specifics, or at least about torture/murder of adults and children likely innocent. Did we do enough? No. Did what we do and say matter? Well, yes, actually.

One key to refuting the Big Lie is to open up government files on who was (and perhaps is) watched, or perhaps more accurately, what words were watched. It's very likely that the government was not just spying on individuals thought to be potential terrorists, they were data mining for words and concepts in a broadly based program. If the government was worried enough about public opinion about torture to monitor it (and interfere with its expression, as I suspect), then that monitoring would present a refutation of the argument "everyone is guilty."

I suspect that Obama caved on telecom immunity precisely because he felt that it would be a much larger can of worms than he had known. I think it's time to open the telecom can of whup ass and see what it reveals. Even if the telecoms have immunity, a congressional truth commision for this seemingly non-torture issue might provide much relevant background for prosecutorial effort on torture.

Check out this story

http://www.salon.com/5things/2009/05/01/gitmo_detainees_coul/index.html

"What do we do with the 50 to 100 -- probably in that ballpark -- who we cannot release and cannot try?" Mr. Gates said in a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

There is only one answer: try them anyay, and try Bush torturers at the same time.

It's not an easy answer, it's a messy answer, but it is the only answer. To untie the Gordian knot, create the ends by force and pull.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02gitmo.html?_r=1&hp

Obama lied. Now considering bogus Bush military tribunals.

Fascism marches on.

If this buried story in the Times is true:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02gitmo.html?_r=1&hp

Then it makes far less difference who Obama appoints to the Court. We will not be a nation of laws, but a nation in which the President determines law at will.

It also means that the nominee is probably someone with a deal with the President to go along with his circumvention of the Constitution.

Dark times continue for average Americans as the elites, including Obama, scheme to break the law.

Now more than ever.

Woman or man or whatever else, practicing or not, we need a Muslim on the Supreme Court.

The new litmus tests are torture, terrorism, and the rule of law.

I think the health question is a fair one, though not the only one.

I'd be fine with a genius jurist who would write the opinions, or even the dissents, that eventually guide us out of the terrorism and torture morass, and with the fortitude to stand up to the President, even if that jurist was on death's door.

Sotomayor isn't that sick (I assume), but she'd better have more to offer than her "Puerto Rican roots." If we're playing the ethnic game, the logical choice is a Muslim.

And yes, the fact that Clinton-puppet Conason endorses this Clinton-elevated judge is a caution against taking her seriously.

If we don't prosecute, Bush and company will quickly say: See, there was nothing illegal or there would have been prosecution.

Look at how Condi Rice, torturer(and torturer of children), is ickily allowed access to our schoolchidren, to even touch them. Yuck--it's like the propaganda portraying Hitler with children on his knee.

There can be no copromise while the torturers still wander freely among us.

...school officials allow known sadists like Condileeza Rice in the school's front door.

Those who tortured last year could be teaching our children this year.

Torturer Bybee is a cub scout leader.

Remember how Obama said it wasn't the fault of those peforming the actual physical torture? How they were heroes and acted in good faith on legal opinions?

Now Obama announces that the people giving those opinions weren't guilty either.

Turns out, no one is responsible.

As long as the torture victim is a Muslim.

Hey, was this article a reprint? It sounds familiar. Hasn't he done the "Larry brother" thing before? And Larry was the protaganist in a novel, I think.

He's awfully big on "Larry."

You can have Jacob Weisberg at Slate, Tom Friedman at the Times, David Broder at the Post. Forget NPR, Fox, all those TV talking heads. They've done their best.

But does anyone make you feel better about beating shackled Muslims, and preventing justice for them, than Salon's own LarryGary?

Our rough man of choice!