"Oh, and did I mention that this legislation is intensely unpopular among the political base of the party controlling Congress?"

It's even worse than AL says. Not only is this legislation "unpopular among the political base" of the Democrats, its unpopular with everyone, Democrat, Republican, independent, what have you.

Here is what the ACLU's pollster said:

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/32189leg20071016.html

"Fifty-nine percent (59%) of voters reject amnesty for phone companies that may have violated the law by selling customers’ private information to the government, preferring to let courts decide the outcome...Fewer than 1-in-3 (31%) support amnesty...Opposition to amnesty is also widespread, cutting across ideology and geography."

If you go through the numbers in the memo, you get widespread support no matter the ideology or what part of the country. Only among Republicans is there are substantial support at all and even they are split:

************************************************************

liberals - 67% let courts decide

moderates - 59%

conservatives - 52%

*************************************************************

Democrats - 70%

Independents - 61%

Republicans are evenly split (45% amnesty, 44% courts decide)

**************************************************************

West - 60%

Northeast - 61%

Midwest - 59%

South - 57%

hahaha

Boylan's not even a good liar.

The Republicans in this country have been revealed for what they are: irrational authoritarian nihilists. They have no faith in reason, no goodwill for their fellow citizens, and contempt for the rest of the world.

But every other political institution in this country that is supposed to provide a check on this kind of anti-American extremism has utterly failed to do its duty. The media and, most of all, the Democrats in Congress have demonstrated that their top priorities are maintaining their status among the corrupt Villagers who are the arbiters of the acceptable bounds of discourse in this country.

We need to enforce legal accountability on the war criminals in the White House and political accountability on the Democrats in Congress who refuse to take a real stand.

None of us in the netroots should give a dime to any candidate or party committee which doesn't take a clear and unambiguous stand against the Republican extremists and describe them as they are: anti-American extremists.

Bring on the primary challenges!

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, "Millions for those who go on offense, but not one cent for those who cower in silence."

Jonah Goldberg is an immoral scumbag who will go along with anything if his Dear Leader demands it.

Its funny, after most illegal wars of aggression the perpetrators go into hiding, but in the case of the illegal war of aggression against Iraq the war criminals are going public!

Well, let's just take those names down so the war criminals and their willing, conscious supporters will always be known as such.

"a discussion of the odds against James Bond drawing an inside flush in "Casino Royale."

I can conclusively report that the odds of James Bond or anyone else drawing an inside "flush" are exactly 0%.

Friedman's point may have some limited validity in certain circumstances but those are not the circumstances we are in, largely because we have morons like George Bush and Dick Cheney at the helm. Obviously it is better in a negotiation for your opponent not to be able to assume you will give in, just as in poker it helps if your opponent can't just assume you will fold to any bluff. But in poker to do that you have to actually put money in the pot that is then at risk.

Now in the case of Bush and Cheney there are two live possibilities: either they are bluffing to keep their opponents honest or they really are crazy. The latter is a distinct possibilty as they not only bluffed about Iraq they called an all-in with no hand at all, which is a recipe for disaster as we have seen. Friedman doesn't seem to have considered this possibility.

The other possibility is that they are really bluffing but they just suck at poker. Bush and Cheney are like poker novices who just throw a bunch of chips around, think they are players when everyone else thinks they are idiots, and end up losing their stack. Friedman obviously hasn't thought about this possiblity either.

"You know, Anonymous, even if you have a point, the rude and smug way you write them completely nullifies any sound point you've made.

Oh well. I was responding to people who equate population policy with freakin' genocide.

Plus, I am smug about it. Have you ever talked to breeders about family and whether its worth having children? Breeders are the smuggest motherfuckers on the planet. But its built into the genes so there's only a small chance I can persuade them.

Under the circumstances, I'd rather return smug for uber-smug.