for the first time a group of fellow students who were war advocates, Goldwater supporters to a man (I don't remember any active women in the political process, but I'm sure there were some), all of whom advocated sending more and more soldiers to Vietnam.

I was close enough to also see their reactions to stressful events, not so much how willing they were to throw the Constitution out at the first sign of danger, but just assuming this was the only and proper course of action, as if they believed the totalitarian model were the superior one when the chips were down.

And how did they react when their time came to serve? They all found ways to duck their service where idiots like me, against the war, still felt it important to serve if we were called. And we were called. And we served. Bolton's reaction isn't unusual or atypical, just another neocon baked and popped out from the common pattern.

is in thinking anything other than this might have come up and out of a political system like Chicago's.

operate without transparency is they quite quickly fall into unethical and illegal behavior. It doesn't much matter how well intentioned they start, without transparency, without being held to account, "things" happen. The longer the period of secrecy, the worse the result. So I'll be curious to see what this "audit" turns up. If there is an audit, of course.

swell new thirty thousand pounders on unmanned drones? Take that, Mr. Osama bin Laden, wherever you are, as wherever you are doesn't much matter anymore unless it's a mile or more underground!

liberal versus conservative, but about the playing field as defined in our Constitution and how the game should be played (to guarantee we remain a democracy with a diversity of opinion and power).

Glenn's comment seemed obvious, although seeing Media Matters and the DNC jumping on the "shut your filthy terrorist mouth" bandwagon is a little disconcerting. "Speak truth to power and keep your eye firmly on their every action" seems a good recipe if not a guarantee for survival.

The Nobel Peace Prize for Obama? Sure, why not? It's at least generated a lot of steam and attention to this peace business, something that's been really needed these last many decades (and centuries). Then again, the Nobel for Peace? Maybe not. Let's hear both sides.

to the health and survival of the country butt heads in a situation where those same actions can be considered detrimental to the short term health and survival of the party in power.

Shutting down Guantanamo and the related black sites, for example. Another terrorist attack would obviously be used by Republicans to say Democrats can't be trusted with national security. Holding other than a hard line on Iran opening the administration to debilitating attacks for their "derelictions" in defending Israel. Add most of the issues discussed here: dumping habeas corpus, wire taps without warrants, torture. Better to let sleeping Constitutional conflicts lie, maybe. Don't rock the boat.

Perhaps too obvious to state, but worrying.

Eighty percent to you and Krugman, twenty percent to the rest of the rabble. Tends to make me testy and difficult for those around me, but no complaints, keep the heat on. Winter, I'm afraid, is coming.

in his asking the Wall Street crowd to change their ways for the benefit of the country. I can believe Obama may be a lot of things, but naive is not one of them. Certainly not in these specific matters of the Constitutiona and the law. What have we got on our hands here with this president? Where do his core values lie?

Lung cancer? Just another socialist plot.

with this no liability for breaking the law business? As far as you want as long as you don't "disappear" any pundits or publishers in the process? Then again, if it's the "right" (as in left) pundit or publisher I suspect not and that anything goes.

to "crimes" that can't be prosecuted because of the political turmoil it might cause the nation? Not that torture and the subversion of the Constitution aren't bad enough, but for even more heinous acts, wouldn't the "turmoil to the nation" increase correspondingly and still preclude possible prosecution?

How about if you were "disappeared" one day and turned up in one of those prisons with a not to be disclosed location, Mr. Broder? Would that be another one of those crimes it's best not to prosecute because it would "cause the nation consternation"?

that I was taking an oath to serve/defend the Constitution as a 2nd lieutenant in the Infantry rather than to the president. The concept was not alien, the distinctions were clear, as anyone with even a bit of education understood recent history and the taking of an oath to say "The Fuhrer" rather than to the German constitution.

Still, we're talking lawyers looking to serve the nation in the DOJ here. Can't expect them to know these finer distinctions, to have any knowledge of precedents set, say, at Nuremberg.

of the extent to which they'd gone to alter their correspondents reporting from Vietnam to more closely follow the then current administration's line on how that "very necessary to our survival" war was going. Haven't read it since.

In reading of Klein and Time through your reporting I see very little has changed other than they seem to have slipped even further. I hadn't thought that possible.