Far be it for me to promote that book larnin', but perhaps Mancow could have learned the exact same thing by, I don't know, actually reading an account by waterboarding victims of the Khmer Rouge, or the North Koreans, or Japanese Imperial Forces, or the Inquisition, ad nauseum.

Oh, and whoever writes the subheadings? Mancow is ahead of you: it's not "simulated drowning," it's drowning.

"Arrested drowning," perhaps, but there's nothing "simulated" about it.

Wizner says in the interview:

we view terrorism as some kind of mythical threat that is unconnected to the rest of the world.

Hah! As Cheney will tell you, in just about every other sentence, treating terrrists like they're ordinary human criminals will result in bajillions of dead Americans. Any terror threat, anywhere, must automatically flip us into worst-case-scenario mode. Suitcase nukes! Dirty bombs! Smoking-gun mushroom clouds! Never mind issues of nuclear access, or delivery, or that "dirty bombs" are only slightly more destructive than the explosives themselves, or that North Korea has had trouble miniaturizing a warhead small enough that it will fit in a rocket, never mind a suitcase.

Do not be fooled by any "Home of the Brave" stuff you might be hearing today. This is no time for courage or clear thinking!

In fact, anyone with any contact to terrorists is an automatic nuclear--no, thermonuclear threat. As a matter of fact, it's on al-Queda's website: for any donation over five dollars, you can click the button marked "Yes, send me a nuke!" and they'll ship you a suitcase nuke by next-day delivery.

Other Americans have more to worry about than the civil rights of a handful of legacy terrorist suspects. Such as the teetering economy and joblessness, the impending Supreme Court nomination, global warming, health care, drug policy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. etc. etc.

You let Obama cave on permanent detention, you'll let him cave on everything else.

The "Looney Left," as you call us (and who but a dittohead talks like that?), are the people trying to keep Obama to his campaign promises.

You know: the things Americans voted for.

Professor Jonathan Turley, Just Said . . .

. . . that Sotomayor is too dumb to be on the Supreme Court.

No, that's not what Turley says, at least at his website. He says this:

Wood in my view has more intellectual firepower and would have been a better addition to the court.

He says he thinks Wood is smarter. That does not equal "Sotomayor is dumb."

He also says Sotomayor "is given bad marks on temperament." Note the passive construction: he's giving us that "some say..." line.

I generally like Turley, but he doesn't back up either point here. These are crap ways to make an argument, and he should know better.

Sotomayor is an experienced jurist...so she's stoopit!

Please, reallynow, give us some evidence that she's "a dummy."

Oh, and it's a-b-s-o-r-p-t-i-o-n. Dummy.

Does this mean we can look forward to years of wingnuts saying "SO-TO-MAY-ER" just to piss off people? (You know, the way they insisted upon calling Ali "Cassius Clay" for decades?)

Oh, and as for the poster above talking about American assimilation of foreign names and words: point taken. However, language--like history--is, and should be, a political battlefield. If an ethnic group is large and powerful enough, they'll get their words pronounced their way.

Case in point: German, once commonly spoken and taught in the U.S. And then we entered WWI.

I mean, if they're an oppressed minority, then--at least in California--we can promote and pass a referendum on their rights, including the right to marry!

Right?

Snark aside, that, Limbaugh, is the sort of thing that happens to minorities that are actually oppressed.

Some people here and elsewhere are criticizing Sotomayor for being too centrist. If she is, however, I don't care. It's not a judge's job to stand and shout and posture (that is, legitimately, a politician's job: see Kamiya's recent excellent post on how Obama needs to end the War on Terra talk).

This is the one part of the government where I don't feel we absolutely require more people from the Left (up to and including socialists). For the past few decades, the Right has been pushing a strictly ideological vision of jurisprudence via the Federalist Society, and has been placing its members in Federal judgeships during every Republican Presidency. We don't need equally-ideological left wing judges for balance. A technocrat will do just fine.

Why are you, and Gibbs, trying to paint the Daily Telegraph as if it were one of the trashy Brit tabloids like the Sun? It's called the Torygraph, fer Pete's sake. It's no paragon of journalistic excellence, but, outside of the McClatchy papers, neither is any American daily.

Plus, as others have mentioned, you failed to note that they quote Gen. Taguba as directly corroborating the reports of rape and sexual abuse.

Whatever the source, this is one hell of a damaging report. Gibbs failed in attempting to blame the messenger, instead of dealing with the issue. The only way out now: the pictures must come out.

Oh sure, being in the Montana Freeman (in Kansas?), having bomb making materials in his car, that's pretty out there, but the rest of it?

Thinks the tax laws don't apply to him.

Calls doctors performing legal abortions "Mengele."

Is sure he's doing the God's work.

Is utterly lacking any sense of irony.

He could be one any one of half a dozen right-wingers you or I or anyone else here may know, or just your typical poster on Free Republic. We're not talking Hammer Skins here.

So how about it, "movement conservatives?" How do we tell the difference between you and the terrorists?