Greenwald's analysis of Wittes' argument, and the role of the judiciary in general, is spot on but there's another common argument contained in Wittes' screed that I wanted to comment on.

Over time, it has grown more generous, by 2006 including all of the rights and obligations of marriage.

Essentially this is saying that if gays already have all of the "rights and obligations" afforded to heterosexuals, why then does anything need to be changed? What is all the fuss about? This is disingenuous at best. If there is in fact, no significant difference between marriage and civil unions, then way raise such a stink about allowing gays to marry?

This actually goes to another important concept that this country was founded on, the notion of liberty. There is only one legitamate reason to restrict the liberty of any person(s) and that is when the greater good of all is at stake. The classic example, one that we've all heard, is the limitation of free speech, one of our most cherished rights. In order to serve the greater good, yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is not allowed nor are slander and libel.

Allowing gays to marry hurts nobody and there simply is no justifiable reason to allow one segment of the population to marry and not another. For all of the uproar over "protecting marriage," there is in fact, no greater good being served.

"Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge."

Has senility finally set in? This wasn't some vague campaign promise to be delivered on sometime after being elected. Obama supported this bill with a speech on the floor and his vote today

If you ask them why McClellan didn't speak up earlier, the answer will be: He was a press secretary, not an ombudsman. If you ask them why he didn't resign, they'll tell you that a good flack, like a good soldier, follows orders. The cause is what matters, not the individual's pangs of conscience.

But this is precisely the point. What's forgotten is that the "cause" is supposed to be loyalty to the constitution and to the American people. The "good soldier" defense just doesn't cut it, or have you forgotten Colin Powell's disastrous U.N. speech. Powell's mistake was exactly the same, his loyalty went to the Bush administration rather than where it belonged.

True enough, but they sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war.

I wonder if he'll feel the same way if a Democrat is elected president.

For example, while on a local talk radio show back in 2005, a caller asked him about the media's role in the runup to the war, specifically as it compared to the Watergate investigation. Russert's answer was very telling. He described how he had Cheney on his show and had asked him some very tough questions to which Cheney's responses were completely innaccurate and useless. Then he talked about the utter silence from the Democrats. And that was it, he blamed the lack of usefull information regarding the need to go to war on the two major political parties and then called it a day.

So like the rest of the useless media these days he felt that the media's only job was to provide a platform for each party's spin and nothing more. What if Woodward and Bernstein had simply asked each party what their take was on the breakin? Would that have brought down a president?

Russert was an embarrasment to journalism, his idea of deep investigation was to browbeat high ranking officials about MoveOn's Patraeous ad.

No question you're right that adolescence is hard on most of us, gay or straight. But can't you just listen to someone's story and find the truth in it for you without playing the "my pain is greater than yours" game?

...but not so much about Greenwald's point.

Churches were not asked to pay for the upkeep of the state as are other institutions and Churches did charitable work in return. It was a fair and practical division of labor that did not require anyone to fund religious activity with which they did not agree and neither did churches have to fund state activity that offended their beliefs.

That churches don't pay taxes is a clear cut violation of the first amendment and giving them this in fact does amount to non-religious people funding church activities as this revenue must be made up elsewhere. And citing the churches charitable work doesn't excuse it. First, much of what's considered charitable isn't. For instance, when the Salvation Army requires you to listen to a sermon in order to get a meal, this isn't charity it's a quid pro quo exchange.

To the extent that churchs do provide actual charity, in a verifiably secular environment, should be tax exempt but the vast majority of money received by churchs is not used for charity.

This is what Abraham Lincoln had to say about liars:

It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.

Abraham Lincoln, chiding the editor of a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper, quoted from Antony Flew, How to Think Straight, p. 17 (h/t Positive Atheism)

As a journalist, Liasson not only has the resources available to verify her assertions, it's her job to do so. To assert something as true that is so easily verified as false is indeed a lie.