Glenn wrote:

There, they are really flirting with something that the Bush DOJ never did, though they were often tempted: telling a court that they will explicitly refuse to abide by a court order on the ground that courts lack authority.

This undermining of the federal judicial system is scary - especially when put together with the decision to go ahead with military commissions.

Regarding doing what Bush didn't - is that only because the situation hadn't ever got to this point under the Bush DOJ?

The Obama admin seems to be in a much different place than that of the Bush administration. For example, part of Bush's assertions of executive authority and trampling of civil liberties led to years of legislative back-and-forth on FISA, which also seemed have had the effect of slowing down some of the court cases. I remember at one point a court (the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or Judge Walker?) holding off to see what Congress would do.

The situation is different now, unless Congress gets moving on state secrets legislation. But maybe that will be undermined, too? If Obama's goals are the same as Bush's, what else can he do but to move "forward" with new arguments, since the old arguments didn't work?

Jim Webb on the subject of truth commissions this morning:

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s the irony here , Senator Webb, as Speaker Gingrich says, investigate. He wants a separate House investigation. Speaker Pelosi says, fine, let’s have a truth commission, the one that Senator Kyl doesn’t want. Where do you stand on this?

WEBB: I just don’t think it’s that big a deal. [...]

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, no truth commission?

WEBB: I think this will resolve itself without something like that.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/17/webb-right-wing/

The torture discussion in the MSM is, for the most part: transparency & accountability V. safety & security, when it should be: transparency and accountability, AND safety and security. Whether or not the photos are released, it needs to be widely understood that those who approved torture have put US soldiers and citizens at risk. Because, as far as some are concerned, anything else is just "ideology."

For example:

The one-star general almost yells when asked to talk about the infamous Abu Ghraib photos showing U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees.

"If we had had a company commander doing what he was supposed to be doing, a battalion commander doing what he was supposed to be doing ...," Brig. Gen. David Quantock said.

He carried on -- growing more and more angry. So the next obvious question was, "It makes you angry?"

"It does make me angry," he said. "Because I think we lost a lot of American lives because of those photos."...

Obama said he believed the release of the pictures could put American lives in danger. That is Catch-22 situation No. 1: on one hand transparency; on the other, the safety of U.S. troops.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/05/14/iraq.u.s.detainees/

What's not heard often enough:

ROMERO: Well, we’re all concerned about the safety of our soldiers. That’s obvious. What’s also true is that it’s not the photos that put them at risk. It’s the policies that authorize torture and abuse that was authorized at the highest levels and that went down the chain of command across the theaters of war.

CQ Transcript: Rep. King, ACLU Chief Romero on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ (today)

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003119345

------

ThinkProgress: Every time you hear a conservative [or some "liberals"] repeat the canard that torture kept America safe, refer to this report as a handy rebuttal.

I. TORTURE DOES NOT YIELD ACCURATE INTELLIGENCE

II. TORTURE MAKES AMERICANS LESS SAFE

III. HISTORICAL LESSONS CAUTION AGAINST ENHANCED TECHNIQUES

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/11/report-why-bushs-enhanced-interrogation-program-failed/

Report: http://thinkprogress.org/why-enhanced-interrogation-failed/

We care mostly about the safety of America and its citizens...

II. TORTURE MAKES AMERICANS LESS SAFE

Report: http://thinkprogress.org/why-enhanced-interrogation-failed/

Any high school kid caught writing a paper like that Economist article would get a big, fat F.

Plagiarism: Journalists earn their living with words, and plagiarism -- using someone else's words as if they were your own -- is, simply stated, stealing. It can take many forms. At its worst, plagiarism can be copying and pasting an article off the Internet and slapping your own byline at the top. Or subtler: Lifting a quote from a wire service story or taking credit for another person's idea....

Because of the Internet, plagiarism is easier today than ever before; it's also easier to catch. To avoid charges of plagiarism, a writer must paraphrase another's words and state the source(s); credit another person's ideas and theories; and cite any facts that are not commonly known. Be sure to label your notes carefully when consulting material in a library or online. It is possible to inadvertently plagiarize a work this way; if you do, you suffer the consequences nevertheless.

NYU Journalism Handbook for Students: Cardinal Sins http://journalism.nyu.edu/ethics/handbook/cardinal-sins/

The article goes on to give examples of plagiarism and acceptable paraphrasing. The Economist article clearly plagiarized.

It's a small jump from stealing ideas to stealing text.

Stealing ideas is also plagiarism, and unethical.

In the example you provide, though, Jeff Greenwald cites a February article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/opinion/01dowd.html?ref=opinion) in which Dowd equates Obama with Spock. She did not steal his idea in her article this month and he didn't steal hers:

Spock has been on many minds lately, and not entirely because of the new film. Big thinkers in both print media and the blogosphere -- from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to MIT media moguls -- have referenced the Enterprise's science officer in recent months, drawing parallels between the dependably logical half-Vulcan and another mixed-race icon: Barack Obama.

Dowd did not plagiarize Jeff Greenwald. See my letter above (or link @ sig)