Now that the Dems are in complete control, they don't want to take any particular measure "off the table" like keeping some guy up for 24 straight hours for interrogation. I suppose that is not allowed in the Field Manual becasue it is deemed "unpleasant".

Gimme a freakin' break - the Left are such pussies in this matter; it almost makes me want to vote for Palin the next time around.

Obama is going to have a major problem filling key roles in CIA because the pros can't reconcile the views of the Left to the real world.

Obama knows his presidency is on the line "big time" if there occurs anything even resembling 9/11 while on his watch. Therefore, he will continue most of the Bushies' policies including selective torture, Gitmo, wiretapping, as an insurance policy. Nothing substantive will come off the table and this will drive the Lefties absolutely nuts, but Obama will make the hard calculation that his electability in 2012 is absolutely dependent on keeping Americans safe from a large terror attack. Some of the obvious stuff like Abu Ghraib will not happen under Obama but don't think renditions to places like Egypt will end anytime soon. Why? Because they probably work at some level, even if it keeps the bad guys off-balance. The Lefties want this big purge to occur that wipes out the past 8 years but it simply is not going to happen that way. Obama is much more of a pragamatist in these matters and he does not feel tethered to the Salon readership, unlike Bush, who felt he was a captive of the religious right.

Obama does know his limits on national security and knows the repubs will be back in power for the next 25 years if he cannot prevent a repeat of 9/11.

Obama also has finding and taking out OBL a major objective of his first 100 days in office just like JFK was brazen in the 1961 Bay of Pigs. It's all but a cold calculation of the facts.

The US succeeded in cratering Iraq, but Bush also succeeded in answering the fundamental question of the year 2002: "did Iraq and Saddam Hussein possess WMD?" Bush managed to put the issue to rest 5 years ago and we have not heard much from Hans Blix and his UN crew in 6 or 7 years. In that sense, Bush missed an opportunity. If Bush had stayed on his original message and "declared victory" after concluding that there were no WMD's, he would be hailed today as "decisive and effective", even if things would eventually go badly. It was a missed opportunity to put a different spin on things and Bush got it wrong both then and now.

Bush and the neocons "went off" on this grand idea of a democratic Middle East at gunpoint, which was and remains a "wet dream". If they stayed on message on the WMD argument, they could have at least claimed that they contributed to world peace.

Hey Joan,

You seemed unusually "pissed off" with the choice of Warren, but I thought you were for "change". Maybe, you aren't really that much for change, after all? You just can't get past the "left-right" conundrum, yet maybe Obama is just showing us how to do it.

Would you have preferred Rev. Wright to give the invocation?

Why don't you read ALL of vasamurti's indictment of so-called liberal views on abortion rights before you criticise Caroline Kennedy's slight hesitation on the issue. Maybe Ms. Kennedy is examining her conscience on the issue before she makes her views public and she can't recant. Maybe you should do the same.

Who says either party is going to get fired over an office romance, even if it involves management? It happens all the time and people around them adjust accordingly. There are risks, of course, such as a busted relationship spills over into work, sexual harrassment lawsuits, etc. etc.

But, if the parties "come out" early on and everybody knows what's happening these issues are unlikely and life goes on.

The LW seemed "assured" that their heads are going to roll if their situation becomes public knowledge. I don't think so unless

1. the restaurant industry prohibits such relationships

2. there is a written policy in-place that prohibits such relationships.

3. the owners are wierd and don't have a life.

Try reading something other than the comics. Your analysis is pathetic and your grasp of the historical facts is lame.

I get annoyed with stupid lefty crap like "let's give peace a chance" or "can we all get along". Israel has to make cold and brutal decisions each day based on bits of intelligence or they don't survive. Its neighbors don't have such a dilema because there are 200M Arabs in the neighborhood and 7M Jews in Israel. The lefties want Israel to stop being the "aggressor" to use an overused label and then to do exactly what? I think the lefties would support a more "proportionate" response like setting up artillery batteries outside the Gaza and lobbing artillery shells into the Gaza as long as Hamas is doing the same thing to Israel. I wonder how long Hamas and its supporters would put up with a taste of their own policy? As an added incentive, the media frenzy would not take notice because the whole thing is low-grade.