I take it all back Glenn. Etc. Etc. was funny (and a nice touch.)! [I laughed til I cried. etc. etc.]

[[["...war message management, because the Bush White House is just not good at this."]]]

[etc. etc.] cont.:

HH: yeah, yeah.

MA: You can say that again.

HH: Yeah, Yeah. (eh,who's on first here?)

MA: How true. OBGYN's are not free to practice their great love for women in Iraq (or Canada) and that needs to be a message. Sickos.

HH: Ah. Indeed, it's the great Three Shakespeares tragedy of our time.

MA: {my, how pregnant sometimes his replies are!} Indeed, that is out O' air?

HH: ...[aside] A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delilvered of.

MA: Fare you well, my lord.

HH: If like a crab you could go backward. Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.

MA: Thanks for the reach-around.

Happy trails,

bah.

Fine. The quickest route out of any social problem is through education*. (*Education as distinct from propaganda)

Clear and compelling arguments Glenn.

Sincerely,

bah.

Well, it's Sun. morning and I'm still waiting for y'all (Glenn, D-Claw or some other legal beagle.) to point-out for me where FISA required (past-tense?) a court order for eavesdropping 'in which no person inside the U.S. is involved'- US route-nodes notwithstanding? (of course, I would also like to review the ...uh, secrect FISA court ruling which brought this 'problem' to light, but I realize that may be Top Secret.)

Not that it matters much now. I admit to Moderate drinking late Fri. and Sat. nights and would like to know what I missed re.FISA 'fix' as well>?

In any event, I believe it was either Thomas Jefferson or Chief ten bears who said; 'no paper can hold the iron, it must come men's heart'. (Interesting letter L.W.M.)

...Or course, I'd rather be sailing.

bah.

*an old Manichean proverb Glenn :)

I suspect fear-mongering works to the extent people can be fear-mongered.

(see NYT's 'fear of fear itself' ed. this am.- are they on top of it, or what!)

The FISA fix(es): I have a certain amount of conservative compassion for the Moderate Democrats who voted Aye on the FISA revisions/fixes. I am not so sure they voted on this FISA bill out of sense of their own, personal political expediency (*albeit, I would agree that if they did so, they 'will be' obviously mistaken.).

Never underestimate the depriva'tee of ignorance. After considerable effort (&with a little help from my friends & esp. DClaw1 here-ty kindly), I think NO ONE - certainly not the Moderate Democrats - has a clue what the FISA bill just enacted actually means... legally. The technology and legal clauses (based on unknown/secret 'gap') are so convoluted, as to make any meaningful judicial over-sight well-nigh impossible. As far as I can tell, the FISA 'fixes' essentially repeal the legal basis and standing on which FISA was based - i.e. a legal protection/recourse against *executive* mis-use of power. wth (what the hey?)

...

~Update: Marjorie Cohn! (*Glenns' co-guest on Democracy Now interview yesterday) Whoa back jack - that's what I am talking a-bout. The Iraq war is "not a mistake. It is illegal. ...The UN Charter, also a treaty, also a part of US law..." is exactly correct. I have never understood why the Authorization for Use of Force was not contingent on, or tied to a UN mandate? (*I recall reading where a few members of the Senate desired this?) ...Quick, Condi, somebody hire this person!!! This is the 21st century, no country is an island. Maybe texas.

Opposites attract,

bah.

ps. speaking of opposition: My non-scientific analysis shows that, simply based on past experience alone, if one were to oppose the Bush Adm. on Any given matter, one would be correct 93.9% of the time. Just say no and you can hardly go wrong.

Yes, when ..."When did he realize that as secretary of state he was not the principal foreign policy advisor to the president?" (cheney smirk./)

...And when did he realize who 'is' the principle foreign policy advisor? And who would that be? And when will they tell us, the citizens?

...And when did he learn that what he said at the UN, on that day of infamey, was a crock of crapola?

...And when [etc.etc.]. O' what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!'?

While Powell's silence lo these many years sure is puzzling (to me, anyway), his assistant, Col. Wilkerson, has not, exactly, been shy. I think Col. Wilkerson is pretty much on record as saying Cheney smells like sulfer burning in the morning time. Cerebral, yet a pungent foul after taste.

'So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.'

Fare you well, Sidney.

bah.

White House Fact Sheet

In Focus: The Protect America Act of 2007

The Act...'restores FISA to its original focus on protecting the rights of Amercicans, while not acting as an obstacle to conducting foreign intelligence surveillance of foreign targets located overseas.'

So you see, (Glenn, and other legal professionals who may find the Act hard to follow) the Act first and foremost:

1. Restores FISA to its original focus (from which it had dangerously meandered) on protecting the rights of Americans and,

2. While not acting as an obstatcle to,

3. Urgent, Intelligence Professional Tools... like the end blown fipple flute.

Can you hear that lonesome whistle blow.

Wee slick'it,

bah!