There's absolutely no good reason for Obama not to close Guantanamo immediately and simply try the detainees in our already-extant courts of law.

What if the sole evidence against some of the worst detainees - 9/11 masterminds and such - are admissions coerced by torture, and therefore to try them in a regular US court, where that evidence would be inadmissible, would virtually guarantee an acquittal and their release. You don't think Obama doesn't have a "good reason" to not want to be known as that "liberal president who freed the 9/11 masterminds over a legal technicality"? Because you know that's how it will be portrayed.

The only reason not to do so is a desire to disregard -- violate -- these long-standing American principles and instead create a new process that allows torture-obtained evidence to be used.

I disagree. I don't think Obama is solely motivated by a desire to violate the law. I think he has been put in a genuinely untenable position by the Bush admin's decision to torture. Observe the rule of law, or release people who may very well fly more planes into our buildings?

This is exactly what I was afraid of when it first came to light that we were torturing terrorism suspects. I was saying "Jesus...apart from the fact that torture is morally repugnant and against US law - how the hell are we going to try these guys now?"

Thank you for the substantive response.

Sorry if it's been "cited earlier" - hard to leaf through 55 pages.

I do, though, find absolutely hilarious the idea that...all (members of Congress) happened with virtual unanimity to end up on Israel's side, even as virtually the rest of the world reaches a different conclusion. And best of all...is that he cites Occam's Razor to explain that oh-so-probable scenario.

How, then, do YOU explain that scenario? I know it calls for speculation. But why?

What is it about the discussion of Israel that makes people completely unable to be rational?

I can think of about six million reasons.

I'm not going to do research when I know perfectly well...

Of course not. Why start now? Why bother doing "research"? Why waste valuable time consulting "resources", searching for "facts" to support your arguments, that could instead be used sitting around, sulking and fulminating, hardening those self-righteous, indignant, untainted-by-research views of yours?

Now I feel like a total chump for spending and half hour during my lunch break Wednesday mucking around in the DOJ on-line guidebook consulting use of immunity in federal criminal prosecutions before posting here about Thomas Tamm. Why didn't I just consult my inner bile and spout a whole bunch of uninformed righteous indignation? That way I might of had time left over to hit the gym or something.

And that sysprog guy? With all those "links" and "articles"? What a schmuck.

Show us the way, shoots!

Surely you aren't referring to Bush v. Gore, are you?

If I remember correctly, that decision was 5-4.

To which decision are you referring?

-- NRI1969

NRI is right and Shooter is being dishonest. I am shocked, shocked...

The 7-2 opinion was that the recount method violated the 14th Amend. However, the remedy - the critical decision to stop the recount because it could not be completed under consitutional standards by December 12 - was a 5-4 vote.

Shooter, I am always amazed the way I see so many conservatives cackle and crow about Bush v. Gore, as it seems violative of so many sacrosanct conservative principles.

So, Shooter, I have questions for you: do you consider yourself a conservative?

And, if so, how do you feel about a Supreme Court case that says that a federal court can tell a state how to run its own election process? How does that sit with the theory of states' rights?

When it comes to original intent and strict construction, what do you think of the proposition that a national candidate in a recount has a constitutional right to order the recount state to adopt a statewide standard for interpreting ballots? Even if different counties have different voting methods?

And finally: if Gore had been the one to file such a lawsuit (remember, Bush-Cheney were the plaintiffs, the "greivance" party if you will) and prevailed on precisely the same legal reasoning, do you think the conservative take on the case would be exactly the same today?

Quite frankly, it's my opinion that adolescent desires for revenge and retribution are at work here, for slights real and imagined going all the way back to the 7-2 Supreme Court decision in 2000.

You are completely wrong, at least as it applies to me. After 9/11 I was standing 100% shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush. He fumbled away my support, incrementally, painfully, in his long, slow steady parade of incompetent blunders.

His approval rating track during that time - 90% to 29% - seems to suggest, uh, I'm not unique.

Mooser - agreed with RMP, that was laugh out loud funny.

Re: Bebop-o, I miss him, too, but not at the volume-level he was at when he finally got the boot. I appreciated his perspective, too, but it simply got to be way too much.

I saw it coming, and I think Glenn was admirably patient and fair with him, basically pleading with him to cut down on posting and amply warning him that he would get banned if he didn't cool it. But bebop-o just threw it right back in Glenn's face. He seemed to post more, the more GG pleaded.

This is a great comments section, but I have a very busy job and time spent here is precious. Paging through all those extraneous comments was becoming onerous, and I think Glenn did the only thing he could.