Don't we all feel better knowing she is looking out for us? I'm wondering if this was the speech she gave:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2F4VcBmeo

Harman devoting herself to now protecting the Constitution? I don't know, it seems to me she would be more suited to dedicating herself to picking up for the now-incarcerated OJ in hunting down the real killers....

Anyone think the Izzy comes with a quarter mil, like the prizes doled out by neocon groups to guys like Kristol who have never been anything but wrong? Leave Glenn and his nice little statuette alone, sheesh!

Ably summarized, DC. But, alas, so very "pre-9/11 mindset". As Condi clarified for us all over the weekend, this kind of principles are subject to the understanding that if the President wants it, then it isn't wrong -- because, as Scalia said, it's a dangerous world out there (and, after all, only 5 of 9 SCOTUS Justices were willing to sign on to "the Constitution applies even in dangerous times"). Oh, and how very "looking backward, not forward" of anyone to revisit what the "standards" are for OLC lawyers when writing secret memos seeking to evade established constitutional and legal rules.

Anyway, thanks for doing so.

OK, Alex, look. It is not your job to hear what you say you have heard leaked about a pending report such as this and announce that this means the "Obama Administration won't prosecute." Do you get that? Have you been listening or paying the slightest attention? Or do you just so have to intone that there is "nothing to see here" before there is anything to be seen?

You are, again, such a tool.

Here's an idea: if the United States Department of Justice may be about to issue a report finding that the actions of Yoo and Bybee violated canons of ethics and recommending sanctions or disbarment, you actually READ WHAT IT SAYS before concluding that the conduct identified by the report would not also justify criminal prosecution? Or is that too inconvenient to your personal world view?

What a tool.

You observed: "Of course, the article has no mention of the systematic gutting of the previously well-functioning oversight system that we had."

Isn't the fact that "the past" has been reduced in public discourse to meaningless white noise -- wiretapping, torture, financial manipulation and disembowelment of the Constitution -- the the most impressive achievement of the Bush Administration and its supporters?

Doesn't anyone care?

The New York Times -- New York Times! -- puts out a stammering editorial laced with anonymous references, criticising... use of anonymous quotes?

What did Governor Mel Brooks say in Blazing Saddles? "I didn't get a harrumph from that guy!"

Progress of a sort, it's true (or is that "twue?). BUT NYT might at least have asked whether Brian Ross was ready to tell us what four government "sources" told him there was bentonite in the anthrax....

Absolutely right. The only thing that would be worse than Obama having taken these recent positions would be for these recent positions to "accepted". If these recent abominations "make it through the news cycle", there is even greater risk that they remain.

It's beyond "chess", it's beyond "yeah, but Obama is good and will use these powers for good, not evil". Maybe Obama is a bad guy and wants to whitewash Bush's evil; maybe he's "hoping" to get "reversed" -- either way, and any variation in between, if these things are allowed to pass unnoticed or are perceived to be OK not only with the right wing but with the nation as a whole, there will be no correction.

Thanks Glenn. Keep at this full bore. What's happening is wrong, immoral, and is not keeping us safe, either.

This person was held by Khmer Rouge, right? Or this is all fabricated? Surely, this could not have been in any way associated with the United States of America, right?

But we are making progress, yes. John Boehner said, just today, that Nancy Pelosi needs to "come clean" about what she knew. And former Governor Ventura opposes torture. Now all we need is for someone to pass a law or a treaty or something, making things like this illegal.

Oh wait.

Oh, Maureen, Maureen, Maureen.... Kind of reminds one of the knife fight scene in Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid: "Let's go over the rules"....

And there also have been documents called "complaints" filed today before several Bar Associations against the legal architects of the Bush torture regime.

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/torture_lawyers/index.php

There are -- and have been -- "terrorists" imprisoned in a facility in Colorado. Where were our stalwart defenders when the Democrats all descended upon Denver to hold their national convention? I didn't hear any right wingers vigilantly warning the Democrats about their great risk from being near such dangerous terrorists.

So, was the Right actively seeking to destroy the Democratic Party by refusing to warn of the imminent danger?