Each of the Senators in favor of immunity for telecoms (or against it but with insufficient fervor to get up and actually do something to stop it) has his or her own reasons for being so. To give them the benefit of the doubt, let's assume that they possess some intelligence - the power to connect facts, to assume premises, and to find where the premises and the facts lead - and let's further assume that they actually believe that the loss of freedom and privacy promoted by widespread, warrantless, criminal spying is justified by some gain in counter-terrorism. Let each such Senator argue that point and present facts to support that proposition, as any high school debater would. The Senate is a debate club, is it not?

But even if such an argument - that actual (not presumed) gain in safety justifies the loss of privacy and freedom - is effectively made, that still doesn't explain how nominally intelligent people could not be aware of the many historical precedents of such blanket (or seemingly so) surveillance. How could these nominally intelligent people not think that the next target, if it is not already a target, is their own communications? If the Executive believes (without any real reason other than partisanship and power-grabbing) that it is a danger to the United States that more members of the nominal opposition party be elected to the Legislative branch, and the Executive has the power to spy on his or her opposition via the telecoms, and the telecoms have no incentive not to go along with the spying, then why in the world wouldn't such spying take place? So it is inevitable that the spying on "ordinary" citizens will lead to spying on legislators, if, again, it hasn't already. In fact, consider how the spying's target was initially said to be terrorists, or as we now find out, targets of the War on Drugs. Then it turned out that the real target was "ordinary" citizens in the first case and people making calls to Latin America in the second.

At the point when spying on "ordinary" citizens morphs into spying on legislators and would-be legislators, when the Executive can spy on his/her opposition (or indeed, members of his or her own party) with impunity, with no accountability, and presumably use the information gathered for his or her own partisan ends, can any of the nominally intelligent Senators now not standing up against this travesty of immunity, retroactive immunity no less, say that they voted in favor of protecting democracy and upholding the Constitution? Of course not.

So at least one of the initial premises, the granting of benefit of the doubt about such Senators' motives, and the assumption that their intelligence is more than nominal, must be flawed.

"The FairTax would add 30 cents to every dollar spent, but since 30 cents is 23 percent of $1.30, the FairTaxers call the rate 23 percent."

Consider the same argument but with different numbers to see how absurd and dishonest this 23% calculation is.

Assume that the tax rate is not 30% or 23% but 1000%. Then, an item that cost $100 pre-tax, would now cost $1100 - $100 plus $1000 tax. But if you described this 1000% tax using the same method the FairTaxers have used to arrive at 23%, the 1000% tax would be $1000 of the $1100, or about 90%. So they would try to convince you that the 1000% tax is really only 90%!! 90% sure feels better than 1000%, doesn't it?

Hey, it's the same math, just different inputs.

Johnskrb makes the point I was about to make - that a comparison of the fuel-consciousness of airlines - buyers and users of a fuel-consuming product using which they provide a service - and car manufacturers is dubious. That's true as far as it goes. But how to explain the following?

Airlines must buy fuel but they pass the costs of the fuel on to their customers. Still, it's in their economic interest to keep fuel usage (therefore cost) down. So they demand fuel-efficient planes from their plane vendors.

But car owners also must buy fuel, so it is in their economic interest to keep fuel usage (therefore cost) down. So why the heck do they not demand fuel-efficient cars from their car vendors?

Suggested answer: The airlines are well-informed about how planes work and how they can be made more efficient. And as they are relatively few in number, their demands are heard by the airplane manufacturers. Car buyers, on the other hand, tend to accept what is shown to them as the best that can be done, don't understand how easily mileage could be made much better, and their great numbers make any large movement toward demanding better fuel efficiency more difficult to achieve. So it comes down to airlines are better-educated consumers and have more pull.

Filthy Harry nails it in "@Is it me?". This is beyond spin or denial.

I am not a great fan of any of the remaining three credible candidates, so I'm not offended because Clinton's campaign is slagging off my candidate.

But what this memo reminds me of more than anything is the arrogant "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes" odor that emanates from just about every pronouncement coming out of the current administration - White House and agencies - and its defenders in the press and Congress. Any sentient being can see through the Orwellian "black is white" crap, so the only possible conclusion is that those spewing it think that the intended recipients are not sentient.

And the only possible way to make it stop is to denounce this crap every time, very loudly, until the disseminators scurry back to their holes.

Umbrage needs to be elevated to outrage, pronto, if we are to avoid drowning in such newspeak. As it is, we're already being newspeak-boarded, to coin an expression.

McCain should learn to avoid this construct because almost any reasonably foolish action will already have been done by GWB or his minions or advocated by his supporters (including McC), forcing embarrassing demurrals and retractions later.