That's what they -- including your allies, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham -- said when justifying retroactive immunity. It's not a surprise to hear you repeat it.

You're such a fraud, Glenn. I'm supposed to reject something because someone I don't like supports it?

Awesome logic, mon frere. Maybe I should convert to Catholicism. After all, Joe Lieberman's Jewish. If I'm Jewish too, then I'm (gasp!) just like Joe Lieberman!!

Is this what they taught you in Law School? The pathetic conflation of person with idea?

Just as was true with retroactive immunity, if the Government will simply change the law any time they don't want to abide by it, the law isn't worth much.

That's exactly what the system is. The Government can do exactly that, and the voters can respond.

For someone who claims to celebrate due process, you piss all over it the moment it leads to a result you don't like. You have the logical consistency of a drunk snail.

Your consuming (and somewhat flattering) personal obsession with me notwithstanding, I'm not the one who blocked the bill from passing. That was the House Democrats who did that, who followed the court's ruling that our 40-year old FOIA law requires disclosure -- much to the chagrin of your neoconservative friends who are as angry as you are about it.

Not at all, I think the blockage is important, and as I've said repreatedly (not that you're addressing it), I believe Graham-Lieberman should be held hostage to get an independent prosecutor to investigate the Bush crimes.

But go ahead and distort my argument some more, clown.

You can go over to Red State and join them in their anger over its not passing.

Ohhh, was the "your momma" joke taken?

I'm sorry you continue to expose yourself as the great fraud of illogic that emerges when the shell of your pseudo-scientific legalese breaks down under scrutiny, Glenn. You'd engender far more respect if you'd just admit to your biases and conclusions, and stop paying lip service to "the rule of law" which clearly bothers you when a law is actually suggested that doesn't tell you what you want to hear.

Well not really no. Congress may very well pass new laws that might govern future cases but it shouldn't be passing a law in order to subvert the due process of a case that is currently before the courts. By so trying to do so they are inappropriately skewering the legal system and as the executive is a party to the case I'd have thought that they could be held in contempt of court.

The legislature does this all the time. An example would be the "Three Strikes" law, which applied to those who had committed the first and second strike prior to the law passing. This retroactively changed their past crimes under a new understanding, as well as shifting cases already before the courts by issuing mandatory sentencing procedure changes.

The Courts are equal to the Legislature, and this is the key difference between Obama and Bush: Bush broke the law illegally. Obama has announced his desire to seek legal remedy with the problematic areas left behind by Bush. Lets hope he does so.

If Lieberman-Graham does not pass, I agree that the law must be followed. But you'd think Greenwald would celebrate the interplay, in the public sphere, between the three branches in trying to resolve this thorny issue.

Just because something can be made legal (by passing legislation) does not mean it is right.

And this is especially true when the new law is effectively cutting far back on a previous, well established law confirmed in its value for democracy over many decades.

Very well said, but it does make it legal. Something the "legal" minded Glenn Greenwald might want to note.

The key is that unlike Bush, Barack Obama is seeking legal remedies as he cleans up the Bush mess. You might not agree with his decisions, and a very clear argument can be made that these photos should be released, but what you can't do is argue that they are seeking legal remedies, such as Lieberman-Graham.

This is why the Obama administration isn't remotely in the "Bush/Cheney mindset" at all, at least in terms of procedure, something the legal Greenwald should appreciate, even if he doesn't like the outcome.