[um...well...I was infuriated]

You call yourself a journalist? You praise a president for asserting the state secrets privilege to stop an entire court lawsuit challenging illegal wiretapping and extraordinary rendition. You support the administration's claim that prisoners abducted via extraordinary rendition to Afghanistan have no right to their day in court. You like the idea of the US government threatening the British to keep secret what they know about torture of prisoners. In general, you like the idea of government operating above the law and in secrecy. Exactly how does your attitude comport with the standards and ethics of journalism? Answer: it doesn't.

That kind of thing is is polar opposite of what journalists are supposed to do, which is to dig under the surface of government claims and behaviors and expose the truth - all for the purpose of public service and the right of the people to know what their government is doing in their name.

You're not a journalist; you're a mouthpiece. In your column under your name should be the words, "Ruth Marcus is a spokeswoman for the Obama administration." Shame on you. I see you're a lawyer, not a journalist, not that that makes any difference. You're worse than just an inadequate journalist; you're a danger and a disgrace to the profession on a level much worse than Janet Cooke ever was. Have fun at the White House parties and access to anonymous sources that such party-line Pravda-style "reporting" gives you.

"If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am) . . ."

His grandpa Norman must be turning over in his grave.

I like that - Summers taking "bribery in advance." About time we start calling it what it is. Same with "campaign contributions." What are they if not bribes? Bribes for specific legislation or rules, maybe, but most of all bribes for access.

For me this sentence was the crux of the Post article on Obama's attempts to evade Congressional rules on the bailout:

In private meetings with officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations, firms' leaders have pushed back against pay limits.

Well hey! I wanna private meeting with the Obama administration, too! I wanna push back on the pay limits push back.

What are my chances? I'll write a check, whatever it takes. OK, so I have only $700 in my account - that's still enough for maybe one leg of the slacks for one of Obama's suits.

The bad news is endless and beyond depressing. Obama's participation - leadership, really - in this sleaze is pretty much burying any feeble hope I had that he would be truly (as opposed to stylistically) different. Regardless of what he does in the wars (more troops - right!), reform of some of the worst of the Bush crimes (and that reform is by no means assured), or health care (um...private insurance? still? four major illnesses in one year - 2008 - and the resultant chaos generated by insurance companies have made me want Medicare for all more than I ever have) - regardless of what he does, what I'm seeing is mere style, a bit of polish, good syntax, and beneath all that spin just more of the same. Somebody here - show me some hope. Please!

I mean, it's obvious, right? Obama has merely transferred Yoo's execrable legal theories from Guantanamo to Bagram.

Isn't it something that Obama, a constitutional law professor, subscribes to the theories of Yoo? Yoo is now back to teaching constitutional law to students - i.e., teaching them how to write and justify legal opinions that do nothing less than subvert the Constitution and laws they're supposed to be learning and ultimately vowing to uphold.

To these guys, the Constitution is the enemy, and the Yoo-Obama strategy is classic: Know thine enemy.

after the lawyers discuss the torture methods in detail among themselves, and then write drafts of the opinions, discuss them further, then write the final opinions...

...they all go home and kiss their spouses and play with the kids and watch a little TV.

This is not the country I was born into. This is a nightmare.