PS Jihad means "struggle", does it? What historical book has that as its title?

I dunno. Probably a large portion of the screeds put out by the Chinese government during the Great Cultural Revolution (Da wenhua geming) had the word douzheng, "struggle" in the title. After all, millions of people went rampaging around the country for ten years looking for things to "struggle against". The whole thing was purposely staged to teach young people how to struggle. 14 million deaths by some estimates. And not a thing to do with Islam.

People struggle to make ends meet. Some struggle to overcome obstacles. Does that make them evil?

while the main reason for Congressional inquiries was due to the call to end the war in Vietnam, it was not any specific investigation into that war or the actions by the administration having to do with that war which actually caused the downfall of the Nixon administration.

Jeb

Easily the most egregious thing Nixon did was topple Norodom Sihanouk, precipitating a reign of terror that killed 1.5 to 2 million people, deleting nearly an entire age cohort from the Cambodian population. I still have images of pencil and paper drawings by five year olds of unconscionable atrocities in my head as clear as the day I saw them.

But he left office for paying hush money over a hotel break-in.

A very interesting point. The people in the Federalist Society that suggested the signing statements argued that since the Supreme Court had ruled that the intent of Congress was part of understanding the laws it passed, the intent of the President in signing the bill into law should be equivalent, and that a record should be made of this, as it is part of the interpretation of the law.

So, does anybody know whether, in light of this, whether, when the Bush administration says "the letter of the law" they mean just the piece that goes into the U.S. Code, or do they also include the signing statement?

The important thing, IMO, that this Congress must assign, as a priority, the effort to expose the actions this administration has taken to subvert our constitution.

It's apparently easy to find things to expose. All the big transgressiona aside, this administration seems to have almost a contrarian obsession with doing things in a way that steps over the line, just to step over the line.

The person who wrote the seminal document on signing statements was named Samuel J. Alito, Jr.

Which is why everybody wanted to know his stance on abortion during his confirmation hearings (!?!)

I personally assume Judge Roberts feels the same way about them, and about unitary executive theory. The abortion battle can be a convenient cover when you know your opponent is too focused on it to notice little stuff like constitutional subversion.

First, these guys appear to be hopelessly inept. Seriously incompetent. It would be hilarious in other circumstances.

Suppose, just suppose, that the long term goal of the Katrina response was to 1) destroy FEMA because they didn't believe in disaster relief given out by the government, and 2) destroy New Orleans, because scattering the New Orleanians would make Louisiana a Republican state.

Was putting Brown in at FEMA a demonstration of incompetence?

Was the purpose of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein or to create endless war as a pretext for presidential authority?

Is letting Gonzales twist in the wind on federal prosecutors a picture of an administration going down, or a diversion that they consider acceptable in the greater scheme of things?

The Republican Party, as the party of the rich for the last 100 years, has become very adept at concealing its real goals behind goals that also fit its image, but are palatable among voters. It also is extremely good at being patient, building necessary constituencies, majorities and paper mills. And its people are more than willing to, as Ollie North put it, "take spears in the chest."

It's always dangerous to underestimate an opponent. As an example, yesterday there were immediate cries of confession and testimony under duress with respect to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, even though the tribunal record clearly shows someone who was alert, oriented, and lucid, not to mention intelligent and purposeful. [Absolutely not. I am not saying he wasn't tortured. I think he was. Just not on or immediately before March 10, 2007.]

By this morning, Adam Liptak was wondering in the New York Times if Mohammed had complicated the proceedings against the other Al Qaeda defendants. Very soon, someone will be wondering if he didn't score big in the PR market. His resume included being a PR officer for Al Qaeda for several years. An opponent had been underestimated.

They started outing her before the public even knew which diplomat had gone to Niger for the CIA to follow up on the Veep's request for information. They were giving her name to reporters when Wilson was still an anonymous source.

Had reporter Judith Miller actually followed up on Scooter Libby's suggestions that she publish the connection between Wilson and Plame and the CIA, people would have gone "Joe who?", because his name had not yet appeared in print.

They told Armitage about it because they knew he was a blabbermouth. They knew damn well it was classified, they knew damn well she was covert. Novak was called by the CIA and asked not to publish it. The BS from Representative Tom Davis that the administration officials didn't know her occupation was classified because there isn't a list they could go to and find out is just that, BS. You ask at the CIA, they tell you to keep a secret, that means no. It means covert. It isn't ambiguous whatsoever.

I guess by 5 PDT there are 3 times as many people worried about the color of American female aureolae as about Afghani women being burnt to death.

I thought President Bush was giving out a Brendan Sullivan Award.