I live in Orange County, California, long considered a bastion of die-hard conservatism and related wackos, most recently in the news for things like Pastor Rick Warren and those "Real Housewives". It was momentarily kind of encouraging that the University of California system, when starting up a law school at UC Irvine, had the guts to hire Irwin Chemerinsky as the Dean -- and the integrity to withstand the right wing petty firestorm that "liberal" appointment engendered.

But now it appears the reactionaries have won out again. John Yoo is NOT teaching at Boalt right now, he has been invited to use a sabbatical to be a "visiting professor" at Chapman University Law School in Orange. "Invited" by a Dean who was Yoo's co-clerk for Clarence Thomas. And actively being touted as some kind of great legal scholar whose presence is good for the students, good for the community and good for America. And when the Libertarian-oriented Orange County Register published a "feel good" interview with Yoo explaining how much more comfortable he is here, local residents wrote in to praise this guy for making it possible for us to torture people and encouraging us to torture more.

There are many people objecting to Yoo's presence in Orange County in a non-tenured yet paid position, but the Dean won't relent nor does it appear the school is reconsidering the engagement of a man who could write the kind of secret memos most recently released. Maybe when he's disbarred or indicted, but so far it appears his old friend(s) want to allow him to hang out here, maybe even encouraging him to write from the perspective reflected in this recent "what's the problem?" piece in WSJ.

He's not in Berkeley. He's being glorified by people in Orange County California. It's a real shame.

So we bent a few rules and some "international watchdog" types with French-sounding titles are peeved? Yeah, but in so doing, Bush kept the whole world safe from Terra since 9/11, remember? Well, maybe not Spanish train stations. Or London buses. Or nightclubs and whole cities in Asian-ish places. Or Mumbai. But other than that, certainly America had no Terra instances after 9/11/01. Well, maybe if you could the anthrax.

Can you get John Yoo to be interviewed by you? I'd love to hear that. Maybe you might ask him some questions about whether he thought about whether there might be any international principles implicated by what he was secretly writing up for Bush.

Jefferson is, well, dead, not to put too fine a point on it. And his words all were uttered pre-9/11, weren't they? Not really fair to hold Today's Valiant Press to such archaic standards, is it?

Is there any other response that these folks could be expected to muster to this indictment of their apparent principles? Well put, again.

I have to say, I am finding it more and more amusing to hear anyone suggesting that Obama is failing because the stock market doesn't seem to be responding ecstatically to the administration. Let's see, that would be the stock market that has been sailing along artificially inflated by the very Wall Street machinations that have nearly collapsed the economy, and the stock market may actually have to adjust to becoming predicated upon production rather than manipulation -- yep, certainly the administration is the cause of the market's dislocation and the administration's failure to shore the market back up to the "manipulation levels" without regard to the balance of the economy is blameworthy...

Focus of attention upon the press' blatant failure to do its most important job is much appreciated.

And that was what George W. Bush said in 2004.

So as we all watch Obama's first 100 days unfold, isn't it kind of fun to see how the Rethugs have gone from "Just Say No/Tax Cuts Only", to "He's trying to do too many things at once", to "I've fallen and I can't get up"? Really, can their marginalization of themselves get any more pathetic than the time spent in a national side-debate over the role of Rush Limbaugh and the current debacle of Steele?

It's like watching Mike Meyers trying to "not look at the mole" in the Austin Powers movies.

Meanwhile, Obama should proceed to try to fix everything simultaneously. Who in the Republican Party will be seriously listened to in opposition? And for those who think that's undiplomatic of him, quote GWB's wholly unhinged arrogance back at them. All Obama did was win a decisive victory as the Rethugs imploded, crashed and burned. Now, in the words of Crocodile Dundee, "THAT'S a knife."

Every AIG executive who thinks he or she should receive a bonus should be required to appear before the congressional oversight committee and explain the transactions he or she was involved in, who the parties were, what the terms were, what the result has been, and why they believe they should get a bonus out of that package of deals.