Once again, Glenn Greenwald has framed the issue so clearly that even Stevie Wonder could see it with his shades on. And thank you, Salon, for giving him this platform and exposure.

My greatest fear, at this point, is that the Supreme Court has been so corrupted by the appointment of obvious authoritarians that they will rule against Congress, and for the Administration, when the issue of executive privilege inevitably comes before them. I'm afraid we've seen the construction of a new Taney court, and it could be a generation before the damage is undone.

Matthews said:

"...that Democrats would be in big trouble if they really went after Gonzales because he's Hispanic."

A bit myopic, don't you think? The fired prosecutor who initially raised the stink that made all this news was David Iglesias. What we've got here is actually dueling Hispanics. One is a sycophantic little fixer for the Bush family, and the other is a distinguished lawyer and public servant. I can't speak for Hispanics, but it I don't see a race issue here. This is about honesty and competence.

I think our house troll is trying to lull us into thinking that our opposition are all simple-minded

I agree that what those initials stand for is no longer literally accurate. But everybody knows what you mean when you use them. Personally, I think of it as the "Millionaire-Owned Media". That hints at their agenda, but getting people to change terms at this point is like pushing a rope.

Matthews is no longer the "Washington Bureau Chief" for the SF Examiner, which was a fancy name for a guy with an office and an apartment in DC. He's always been a climber, and even then he was unabashedly pushing to be a pundit. Russert is no longer the working class kid from Buffalo that he poses as. With a big house in Nantucket and a multimillion-dollar salary, he's got too much to lose if he rocks the boat, and the Dan Rather mugging was intended to be instructive to these people. They know they're part of the system.

They have no idea what the voters want. They're as isolated from the lives of ordinary American people as GHW Bush was when he was amazed at the sight of a supermarket scanner. And when Andrea Mitchell (Mrs. Alan Greespan) mistook 18% of the public for "everybody", it was the perfect illustration of the problem. She meant "everybody I know".

My wife was reading you over my shoulder this morning, Glenn, and said, "You know what scares me about this the most? It was so methodical. Somebody was planning this at least a year and a half ago. It all depended on that little clause slipped into the patriot act."

She's right. This was a classic Rove plan to affect the outcome of the 2008 election, laid out years in advance. And these highly paid clowns go on television and laugh about it. And it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that the whole lineup of Sunday discussion shows is to distract people while pretending to inform them. These shows actually circumscribe the terms of the debate, leaving the truth outside the circle.

That clause was slipped in by somebody in Arlen Specter's office. Do you really think he was unaware of it? I swear to you, Specter's a mole. His act, as head of the Senate Judiciary Commitee, was to shake his fist and threaten to take action, and then cave on Friday afternoon after the major news people had gone home for the weekend.

Now he's the guy who wants to compromise. I'm telling you, he's part of this thing.

Santa writes: "Is it just me... or is the whole aspect of how the US attorney renomination clause was silently slipped into the Patriot Act being totally ignored in the media coverage of this?"

I posted about that way back before the trolls signed on and made the discourse about them. We now know that this was slipped in surreptitiously by someone in Arlen Specter's office. I sincerely doubt that Specter was unaware. Let me back up a bit...

One of the big mysteries of the last few years is why Specter has consistently allowed himself to be made the fool. He continually made big noises about getting to the bottom of things and getting to the truth, but at the last minute, usually on a Friday afternoon, he quietly caved in. Every time. This bit of political kabuki was the hallmark of his time as head of the Senate Judiciary Commitee.

The adminstration appeared to make a fool out of him time after time. It was like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, and yet each time he'd be back expecting something different. Specter should be absolutely livid by this time. And yet, he remains the voice of conciliation and compromise even now.

This plot has been in the works for years, and that provision in the Patriot Act was the first overt move. Now we find out that the prosecutors who were removed were the ones who wouldn't make bogus prosecutions on voter fraud. Now stay with me here. Classic Karl Rove is to go after his opponent's strengths, and one growing Democratic strength is that the public is always hearing stories of Republican voter fraud. Prosecuting Democrats just before an election would be an excellent way to eliminate that strength. Stopping prosecutions of high level Republicans would be an extra added benefit.

Specter is a mole. He's been giving these guys cover for years while pretending to oppose them. And that's why it was his office that slipped the provision into the act. Rove's only miscalculation was that he never expected to lose the majority in Congress. But this is how he works. Compared to him, Machiavelli was an amateur.