We will have approximately 60 Democratic Senators. Should we take away Liarman's committee chairmanship of Homeland Security and Governmental affairs at that point and ignore the possibility that we might need his vote to get to 60?

I would say that he should lose his chairmanship, but be able to keep his committee assignments, but I don't believe that Harry Reid will do that. I believe that Reid would let Liarman keep his committee chairmanship. That is just one of the reasons I believe that we need a new Senate Majority Leader - either Chris Dodd or Hillary. Reid just won't be effective enough at getting Obama's program passed.

This is really amazing. I have also seen today a web ad (not recent)which shows Obama's face on Mount Rushmore(4 times), on currency, and on the Statue of Liberty. The McCain campaign really is the scum of the earth. It will be interesting to see if the MSM will start stringing these ads together and pointing out how wrong this all is.

The good news is that Feinstein will be up for re-election in 2010 and will be replaced by Schwarzenegger. This will mean one less Democratic seat, but won't change very many votes. The really good news is that she won't be chairperson of any committee after 2010.

Some appointments are more important than others. I would expect State, Commerce, NSC, Treasury, EPA, and so on to carry out the policies of the President. The really important appointments are to agencies that are more independent, like the Justice Department and the head of ANY intelligence agency. If the law is violated in either of those two places, or the President's policy is not implemented thoughtfully, the results can be very bad and difficult to remedy. Personally, I would like some really capable people to re-examine the structure of the intelligence agencies. The Directorate of Operations at the CIA is the President's secret army. Should the President HAVE a secret army? Not only are they used for illegal and impolitical operations, they have engaged in operations which were unsupervied by any outside authority. And the DIA supplied a lot of the false information used by Powell at the UN. We all know about the illegal NSA spying.

Wanker of the week: Rep. Reyes. Seriously, this is the best we can do for head of the intelligence committee? I would just as soon have a competent Republican as an incompetent Democrat (remember, this guy didn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia when Speaker Pelosi appointed him because she hates Jane Harmon). Don't let our country get in the way of your personal vendettas, Ms. Speaker.

We have been asked to forgive people for torture and other war crimes who have neither admitted that they have committed such crimes or asked for forgiveness. They have said that they were entirely justified in their actions, and would commit the same actions again under the same or even similiar circumstances. So if they did, should they be forgiven a second time - a third? Is there any limit to the number of times a person who willingly commits a crime should be forgiven if they never admit the crime and never ask for forgiveness? If they admitted their crime, laid out all of the evidence for how and why they committed the crimes, admitted that it was wrong, and said that it should NEVER be done again, THEN I would consider forgiveness. I don't believe that will EVER happen.

Always remember and never forget that the Mulkasy nomination would never have made it out of committee except for Senators Feinstein and Schumer.

I would argue that most of our committment in the Middle East is to protect our oil supply. If we didn't need to protect the oil, we wouldn't need air bases or fleets in the Middle East - we could just continue to give the Israelis the most potent weapons in the world for them to use against civilians. I would also argue that it is possible that Obama is accepting and supporting the Bush deal as a short-term solution to the Hamas problem. A real solution is going to take a while - there needs to be economic opportunity in Gaza, for one thing. Israel needs to stop creating/enlarging their illegal settlements and road system, for another. We need to give Iran another entry to the Middle East settlement besides support for Hezbollah and Hamas.

I really don't understand why Obama has two tax cheats in his cabinet. The Bush administration committed almost every crime in the book, but none of them were tax cheats. Why do we have to have the tax cheats? Clinton couldn't have a competent Attorney General because of nannies, but Obama gets to have TWO tax cheats?

That's exactly what renditions are for - that and nothing else.

"[H]as invoked a legal tool known as 'state secrets' more than any other previous administration" (sic). The Obama administration intends to us the 'state secrets' tool exactly as the Bush administration did, only less often. Specifically, it will only be used to protect actions taken during the Bush administraion, since the Obama administration won't provoke these kind of lawsuits.

The soft underbelly of the Bush-Cheney crime family was always the OLC. Those guys got their orders from Addington, and Addington is the key. If Yoo, Baybee, and Bradbury are indicted, I am sure that they are going to cut a deal to testify against Addington. Addington is a tough guy, but if he is indicted and is facing a long prison term, he might cut a deal to give up Cheney. If we get Cheney, I'll be satisfied. I would like to see Bush and Rumsfield convicted, but I will easily settle for just Cheney.