We have a government that will throw away hundreds of billions of dollars and the lives of thousands of men and the broken bodies of thousands more in order to demonstrate the "will" and "resolve" of the United States.

What about demonstrating the "will" and "resolve" to keep the federal courts open and safe?

The federal court system stands at the core of our system of government. If some foreign enemy threatens it or wants to shut it down, we should literally be willing to pay any price or bear any burden to keep them open and functioning and unafraid to try any suspect.

Bolton is the gruesome face of what the teabaggers hated most about the Bush presidency. He is what they are reacting to.

When the teabaggers decided to knock over Lindsey Graham's town meeting, the loudest heckling came in response to Graham's statement that he would do whatever he could to block war crimes investigations of Bush-era officials.

Not exactly something Bolton would heckle.

I'm not a fan of Bolton or anyone else who advocates unnecessary wars while they swagger.You called him a coward so that must mean you're not one.Tell us which branch of service you were in and tell us about your heroic exploits.

To not be a coward relative to John Bolton, all that is necessary is to not be afraid to bring accused terrorists into the continental US for trial.

Nothing else is required.

The problem is that nobody cared.

The media didn't care. They said, "All of this is old news!"

The opposition party didn't care. They said, "We want to look forward and not back!"

And the voters didn't care. Half of the voters are perfectly happy that the Bush Administration routinely lied, either because "They needed to keep us safe!" or because "You can't let Democrats get the advantage!" The other half is perfectly willing to forget all about the lies, because Obama wants them to forget and if Dear Leader says to forget that's good enough for them.

Another party surfaces to tell us that we have to allow the Fed to operate in secrecy because if we don't, those evil ultrapowerful Randists will use the information uncovered in the audit to...undertake political activity in support of their ideological goals.

Horrors!

This is the same cowardly and dishonest argument - exactly the same argument - offered by Red State conservatives in debates with libertarians about war on terror policy. "Oh no!" the Red Staters tell us. "We can't release any of the war on terror secrets, because if we do those damn liberal democrats will take advantage of that to run campaigns against Republicans!"

It's really interesting being a libertarian, because it seems no matter which side you talk to you run into people who openly advocate deception and secrecy in public policy for purely partisan reasons. And maybe you don't think that's what you're doing, but it is. You can't stand the fact that "the other side" get its hands on any information that they might use to argue for their policies, so you're happy to say, "Screw it, the public should be kept in the dark."

NRI1969, there are aspects of the bill specifically that I oppose, and those are outlined in @clone's letter above: the aspects of the audit that would interfere with areas where the Fed requires independence.

Nope, I want to hear the mechanism.

Explain to me the mechanical way in which the current bill takes away the Fed's independence.

"Interfere" is the slippery verb here. The mere fact that I know about the Fed's operations does not interfere with them. And the fact that if I know about the Fed's operations, I might agitate for additional legislative changes in Fed oversight, also does not constitute interference.

I want to hear a description of how the bill empowers some official or official to overrule the Fed and tell it what to do. If the bill does not do that, it does not actually impact the Fed's independence.

The reason why I think Paul's long-term goals are important is because they should lead us to exercise skepticism about his short-term goals.

You don't just think we should exercise skepticism. You are arguing that we should reflexively oppose his short-term goals, regardless of their merits and regardless of whether we share those goals, because of what Paul might do in the future. And that's a hell of a way to decide what policies to support.

You saw this before the Kelo decision. Many progressives said, "We don't care about the merits of this case, or if supporting the state here requires us to support an absurdity. We can't let the libertarians ever win because of what they might do in the future if we encourage them, or allow them to create precedents." And so we had people who would otherwise pride themselves on being primarily concerned with justice openly advocating the opposite in order to protect future political advantage. And if that's how you roll, I have to consider you just another Karl Rove. Sorry.