Politicians forthrightly willing to run away from responsibility and surrender in adversity are much more attractive individuals. If one wants to follow the lead of two-faced opportunists willing to use anything to garner power, Harry Reid and company are the gold standard.

Just don't forget they controlled the Senate when the vote for the use of military was passed. With people like that it's always wise to watch your back.

Actually I read the post and the commission's INTERIM report.

Indulge me here for a moment. Coming from a different perspective, I have to point out that everyone was in agreement to retaliate. For good reason. The missiles from Hezbollah came first.

No one seems to address who was the aggressor here. From our perspective it looks like the left assumes a certain number of people and amount of property have to be destroyed before moving to defend the country. Is that true? How many rockets and kidnappings can be acceptable? Do you folks and the commission think we should have assumed it was a one time thing? What's the story?

But the minute your side tries to actually follow through with this insanity--this ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL insanity--is when you lose all legal credibility, and are subject to the fullest wrath of the law....

Which is provided by someone other than yourself or Congress. You got a problem? See you in court, otherwise the bombast above is just hot air.

...I think that you and your friends completely miss the point of the constitution, and of the whole extended debate that took place before it was written and ratified. This is not some arbitrary document that merely suggests how we are to behave in matters legal and political, but a fundamentally binding document that effectively has the force of god on our actions.

I see. You are a strict constructionist then, letter of the law kind of guy? For future reference.

WTF are you talking about? Where did I ever suggest that I or congress get to interpret the law when it appears to have been violated? I have no problem with the courts trying such violations.

Let's go back to the instant replay--"But the minute your side tries to actually follow through with this insanity--this ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL insanity--is when you lose all legal credibility, and are subject to the fullest wrath of the law...."Looks like a threat from the Grand Inquisitor of the Toothless to me.

But I'm glad you agree that you are merely offering an opinion, no matter how rudely offered.

As opposed to your side, which is basically saying that when you don't agree with courts' final rulings, extreme extraconstitutional action is justified. So who's full of hot air here?

From what I've seen, when the Supreme Court rules, the administration conforms. If you think something is in violation of Supreme Court rulings, there are avenues to pursue. Given your level of "outrage" and self-proclaimed smartness, it should be a cakewalk. Heh.

You may well be right that the courts sometimes issue unconstitutional rulings, but what remedy does that same constitution provide to deal with such situations? None that I am aware of.

The remedy is elections and judicial appointments. It may not be the timeframe you like, but it is a remedy all the same. Tsk.

But I was clearly (I thought) referring to a more immediate timeframe, as these measures take years if not decades to take effect--and sometimes entire lifetimes.

I think that was the point of checks and balance. Some ideas take that long to mature into action, abolition for instance.

And the more immediate measures that Mansfield and others here and elsewhere on the right have proposed to remedy such unconstitutional rulings are clearly unconstitutional, deriving their "legitimacy" from either some sort of "higher" law, or an alternative concept of the law that is nowhere to be found in our form of law--i.e. the constitutional one.

Until it is. Such as Prohibition, and the repeal thereof.

But you do not ignore and defy an existing and as-yet not overturned ruling no matter how egregious and unconstitutional you believe it to be. Nor, for that matter, do you ignore and defy existing laws that you similarly believe are egregious and unconstitutional but have not as of yet been ruled to be so by the courts.

Sure you do, in fact it is a time-honored badge of pride for the left. It's called Civil Disobedience.

And that is a power that they simply do not possess, according to the constitution, and I challenge you to demonstrate otherwise. This, of course, was my original point, which you conveniently chose to ignore. All in a day's work for a troll, of course.

-- kovie

I don't have to demonstrate anything. The law is set up to say stop, not go. If you want something Bush is doing to stop, you'll have to do it the hard way, by impeachment. Good luck with that.

One of the marks of civil disobedience is that you willingly accept the penalty imposed for the act. This is of course in sharp contrast to simply pretending that the laws don't apply.

-- Paul Dirks

I'm sure that if you folks can work up an impeachment, Bush won't flee the country.

(3) National journalists wallow endlessly in vacuous, vapid, empty-headed, petty gossip, obsessed with meaningless chatter and snide, personality-based assaults more appropriate for a junior high clique than anything else. And they do so while ignoring the most substantive and consequential political matters.

This is a pretty good description of this post and quite a few others lately. One of many ironies here is that without "journalists", bloggers such as Glenn would have no raw material to write about. Meanwhile partisanship still rules the day. Oh well, maybe tomorrow will be more interesting.