• Publican, I listened to that episode of "The American Life", and over the years have referenced it as an example of the "justice" delivered by the existing courts.

I well understand that Glenn and other critics of existing and proposed post-constitutional, authoritarian Security State "special" courts and "due process" need to make the argument that such extraordinary creations of permanent martial law are unnecessary because established courts can adequately adjudicate crimes involving terrorism and state secrets.

Sadly, though, the degraded existing courts more often than not are showcases for predatory, careerist law enforcers and prosecutors obsessed with their reputations, stats, and prospects for advancement. The "terrorists" are almost invariably hapless schmucks lured into "criminal" conspiracies by sleazy informants, etc.

To mix two song strains together: what's "justice" got to do, got to do with it? Ab-so-lute-ly nothing!

Anyhoo, I didn't realize that Christie was the odious US Attorney I've described in quite a few comments! It really "clicked" when you refreshed my memory-- thanks.

Living just outside Philly means that I get the NJ political ads. Just the sight of Christie's face automatically makes me hum George Harrison's "Piggies". Too bad Obama's coat-tails weren't big enough to hold just one more bankster.

• I'm sure the Ledeen contretemps must simply be a bazaar misunderstanding. Perhaps he simply visited the wrong bazaar! I don't know how that could have happened, since Tom Friedman gave him directions to the bazaar on Arab Street-- and Friedman knows Arab Street like the back of his hand!

You can not nudge your way out of a snake pit.
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Certain commenters have hammered home variations of this theme with kamikaze abandon, intrepid brickpeckers who reiterated the point until their skullbones finally shattered and popped like a Speed Graphic flashbulb.

It may prove to be an insuperable obstacle to achieving reform by incremental change.

I'll put up this "win"-- damn it, I keep putting those quotes around the word before I even realize it-- against Tammany's best!

He got the big thumbs-up victory call from the Emperor himself, and that Secretary lady practically blew Karzai a kiss!

It's a mandate, I tell ya! And strictly legit! Who'll say different?

And the beauty part is, all those funds budgeted for the runoff were transferred to the Hospitality Fund! Have a cigar!

You left out "Gorgon".

If she could smell the putrescence of the moldering remnants of her own soul, she'd have to add "gas mask" to the collection.

Or maybe not. I've always thought that the observation that some people think their excrement is odorless is inaccurate; I think it's more the case that they know exactly how odorous it is, and find the scent, above all else, pleasing in their nostrils-- they inhale.

I'm well aware, albeit from osmosis, that civil litigation routinely imposes non-disclosure of settlement terms by parties, and further sets forth terms restricting the parties' rights to address the merits of the matter being litigated, requiring that records be sealed, etc.

Although even tried-and-true pragmatic principles are apt to give me the fan-tods, I reluctantly accept, arguendo, that they are generally necessary and-- gack-- beneficial.

Without researching the question, I presume that these principles are founded to most expeditiously establish a "bottom line". That is, the litigators are bound by the straightforward logic that a justiciable dispute or conflict exists in which a party may have been wronged by another party, and that the litigation itself exists to establish the fact, extent, etc. of the "wrong", reach a consensus that remedies the wrong, and buttons up the exercise with legal finality: settled means settled. (That's why it's called a "settlement", I reckon.)

As noted, it goes against my grain, but I accept that litigation routinely, purposely, and responsibly creates arbitrary Memory Holes that sacrifice public disclosure in individual cases for the sake of the greater good, i.e. legally binding conflict resolution.

So, even if there's lots of stuff that "should" be disclosed, and that parties may wish to disclose, and the disclosure of which may even serve a salutary purpose, it goes into the Memory Hole as a condition of settling the question.

However, not being of the lawyerly persuasion, I see a nefarious possibility of "settlements" in cases of heinous government wrongdoing, typically related to the government's action or inaction arising from its War on Terror, being used to co-opt (or piece off) its victims and buy their silence.

In short, as a maximally distrustful skeptic and cynic, I suspect that the government will abuse the standard practices of civil litigation to further puncture holes in the Swiss cheese of the Amerikan rule of law, in order for a guilty government to jump through the holes, then pull the holes in behind them.

Fortunately, Glenn's professional expertise and experience, as well as that of the attorneys who comment regularly, will provide insight into these Dark Arts to confirm the extent of the abuse.

(The self-identified spouses of attorneys, not so much.)

...or is that the most specious argument you've ever heard? To my mind the very purpose of the Separation of Powers doctrine is that the courts MUST have the INDEPENDENT power to limit the White House and its agencies from acting against the Constitution or against sound statutory limits. [...]
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Hell no, it's not just you-- although living in an intensifying and iterminable shitstorm of speciousness, which increasingly intrudes even into places like SalonFugly-- makes me hesitate to declare this the "most specious argument" I've ever heard. Even with a liberal use of the Killfile script.

The judiciary here would have it that it isn't really their business to tell the Executive Branch how to run their business. I'm sure there's some impressive-sounding Doctrine of Deference or somesuch cobbled up in jurisprudence that makes it good, sound Law.

Or if there isn't, one will be fabricated to reify this convenient practice of heinous abdication of responsibility.