I'm not at all sure that we want the same things.

-- Jonathan Hoag

I think you will be surprised.

As a moderate liberal I distrust corporations as immortal and amoral entities that need to be closely regulated due to their vast power from their economic clout.

Certainly some regulation is required. On the other hand, laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley have the unintended effect of fueling Globalization. One can regulate as much as one wants if it's understood that everything is mobile including the benefits corporations provide.

I do not believe that corporations are citizens, in my view only human beings can be citizens. Only citizens should have the right to influence government policy through the exercise of their franchise.

If one wants to sue a corporation, should all 6 zillion shareholders be called into court? Corporations can't vote and would still contribute to lawmakers no matter what form the business takes. I think you are more concerned with the bad actions of some corporations than the form.

The situation we have today is corporate lobbyists actually writing the bills which effect the corporations for which they lobby. I'm quite sure that the founding fathers did not have this sort of arrangement in mind when they wrote the Constitution.

I agree, yet expecting Sen. Blowhard to be conversent about topics from surgical procedures to electronic radiation spectrums is asking a lot. OTOH I wish there were some way to ensure legislators actually read what they are voting on.

Also, I believe that any government largesse should go only to citizens, not corporations.

Even if it were to fund cures for cancer or hydrogen energy research?

In politics as in life, everything is a matter of degree.

WaPo poll 9/13/01 (two days after).... 78% of respondents think Saddam was responsible. Now where do you think that idea came from? It certainly wasn't Bush.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/vault/stories/data082303.htm

If this is the outrage of the day, things are going well in the world.

Kamiya is absolutely right that it was "one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media." And he's also right that this collapse is so well-documented that it ought to be beyond dispute.

If what Glenn says is true, then certainly our media should be able to give us the definitive state of Iran's nuclear program, and the relationships between Ahmahdinejad, the Mullahs, and the Iranian people. Where is the call for better information today?

After all Glenn seems to think media should have known exactly what the situation in Iraq was.

What's the real story in Russia, Norh Korea, or Saudi Arabia, that we aren't hearing from the administration? C'mon Glenn, fighting the last war doesn't help anyone if you are going to give a pass on the media today.

Now that you've beat up on ABC, who is next? How about Couric's recent plagiarism? The injustice of the Duke Rape case? Maybe the years long Plame case abuse?

Glenn:

Even the glorious sounding power of "Commander-in-Chief" is, as Scalia noted, nothing more than the power, when Congress decides to fund a military and when it authorizes the use of military force, to act as top General directing troop movements and the like. In all other respects, those powers are checked, regulated and limited by the people through their Congress.

I'm pretty sure that the previous administration bombed Bosnia and Iraq into "submission" with nary a congressional vote. East Timor, or Haiti possibly? No? Congress didn't authorize Korea or Vietnam either. In fact the Congressional resolutions passed by a Democratic Senate supporting Afghanistan and Iraq incursions may be the first approvals granted in half a century.

I guess Glenn is wrong.

"I suppose the defense for Bush followers who want to claim that all of this is completely innocent is "extreme ineptitude."

Ah yes the eternal lefty debate.... are the Bushies terminally stupid, or criminally and corruptly competent? Both and neither?

Actually this would be easier to be concerned about if the House weren't fighting the search of Jefferson's (D-La) office for the marked money he was hiding. You know, they are immune from scrutiny by the Executive Branch? Do they think they are the princes of the Potomac? Kings of the country? Regents of the republic? Apparently.

Thank Goodness this administration learned something from the last one. Heh.

GPanos...

...but it seems, shooter, your current scapegoat for Democratic malfeasance seems to have some fairly prominent Republican friends too:

You've never heard the expression about politics making for strange bedfellows? Hastert sided with Jefferson too. which I thought odd as well. Looking a bit farther I can see why Representatives who have claimed immunity from the law are worried. Think about that. Immunity from the law. From Wiki...

The Speech or Debate Clause (found in Article I, Section 6, Clause 1) is a clause in the United States Constitution which states that members of both Houses of Congress

“ ...shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same, and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

This would seem to be an open and shut case for the upcoming judgement on what can be used against Jefferson. Goodness knows I'd like to see some Democrat chairmen investigated. These days everything is a felony, and there are worse things than having Government tied up in trial after trial. It could be the beginning of real bipartisanship.

Considering how much of law seems to depend on custom, precedent and tradition, that may indeed be true. If Clinton gets away with doing something, it sets a standard for following Presidents. They should be able to emulate their predecessors, with the support of the same people that supported it previously. Anything else is rank hypocrisy.