good (or at least fair) points

Ahh, well - I try my best.

-- I realize it's just speculation, but do you have any thoughts about who the actual target might be if it's not Tamm? The NYT and reporters and editors? Recall that Alberto Gonzales openly speculated about such a prosecution, though it's very difficult to imagine -- is it not?

I really don't. Jebbie correctly points out that NYT had other sources, but Tamm appears to have acted alone, so I can't see how he could be a competent witness against them.

I also find it hard to believe DoJ could actually be considering moving against the NYT reporters and editors at this point. For one, don't they have a fairly iron-clad free press First Amendment affirmative defense? This is an aspect I think you know more about than I.

For another, the gov't has all but conceded that the program -- in its form at the time Tamm leaked -- was illegal; hence all the post facto revisions and legislation. So, even if Tamm violated federal law, seems like a tough case to make to a jury at this point. Especially a D.C. jury, where the pool is, what? 90% liberal Democrat? I think the fact they've decided to push off the decision on whether to indict Tamm to the Obama admin reveals their lack of passion about it at this point.

I'm just really uneasy with a lot of things here. I won't dismiss out of hand national security concerns. I would have preferred Tamm thought of some way to halt the illegal aspect of the program without publicizing it, such as going to Congress (I know, I know...). I thought he had the right idea by going to a former colleague who was then with the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I think that person had a duty to refer the matter to the Committee (or someone on the Intelligence Committee) rather than tell Tamm to shut up.

And, to lastnamechosen's point - no, I don't know that people like Feingold and Conyers didn't first learn of the program the way we did, via the NYT. Do you know, Glenn?

And, is Frances Townsend right when she says that there was a whistle-blower complaint process that Tamm should have followed?

I'm also wary of a statement such as it's an "hysterical accusation" to say that national security was jeopardized by what Tamm did. I can just hear someone say "it's an hysterical accusation to say that our Iraq WMD intelligence was compromised just because Robert Novak revealed what Joe Wilson's wife's job was." I think both miss the point - I think the CIA had a right to protect its personnel's integrity the same way the NSA has a right to protect its secret programs. I think with hindsight we can now say the Libby prosecution was just, and perhaps DoJ should at this point just let Tamm alone, but I don't think the original impetus for either investigation was illegitimate.

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.

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.

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?