Glenn, I love it when you post pictures of the war-lovers. It's not enough that they look like pudgy wimps who would faint if threatened by Granny wielding a soda-straw. They have to look like the quintessential pudgy wimp. I mean, I know it's not nice to judge a book by the cover and all that...but really.

I've just been turned on to a British anti-religion, anti-"Islamofascism" speaker named Pat Condell. Maybe I'm the last one on board, but I find not so much that I agree with him (though I do on several matters) but that it's a great shame our conservative speakers are such lame bumblers by comparison. Listen to the man: http://www.dotsub.com/home/user/index.php?target=2672

The more I see of the Clinton campaign, the more I wonder who the hell I'm gonna vote for if she gets the nom. After what the Republicans have put us through the last seven+ years, her willingness to trash Obama is despicable.

Have you ever been in a courtroom? Dullest goddam place on Earth. That fact hasn't prevented the movies and television from making some pretty gripping drama (and even comedy) out of courtroom goings-on. And that's only one of a thousand examples of tedious realities that have been transmogrified by the movies for entertainment purposes. You may be right about card-playing movies not working -- I have no example of one that did work to hold up -- but it isn't because the film fails to give us the true story of what it's really like. Movies practically never do that.

We're in worse trouble than I realized.

His post is worth reading in its entirety. The question isn't so much, "Has this administration done evil?"< as it's, "Can we the people, our institutions and our strenuous efforts undo the damage that's been done, heal the wounds, etc." As shocking as the Bush presidency's excesses seem to us who are are living through them, they are not unprecedented. What would be unprecedented is the discovery that this time we've reached a tipping point where a new president, a new congress and new judicial appointments, joined with strenuous activism on the part of "We the People," can't put things right again.

Why is Hillary not being totally shouted down on this? Haven't we had enough Rule Breaking in High Places? What a great way to audition for Bush's job. At least he waited until he was in the White House to start wiping his feet on the will of the people.

Mukasey's words don't appear to have been caught on tape. Since full YouTube disclosure is now the gold standard, he'll be able to claim that those who are quoting him, "Mis-heard." And he will.

...19 guys with box cutters caused us to turn around and attack ourselves, and then a good part of the rest of the world.

Does everyone remember the episode of TZ called "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street?" That's the one where a mysterious power outage gets people thinking there are space aliens coming to do them nasty. In their panic they turn upon one another one by one and pretty soon the whole neighborhood is in a state of violent riot. The last scene -- the Twilight Zone signature moment -- is a pull-back to actual aliens sitting in their saucer, who comment on how easy it's going to be to conquer this planet: all that's necessary is to show up, make your presence ever so slightly felt, and the natives go to work destroying each other for you. How handy.

I'm thinking maybe Osama saw that episode, too...

The papers blame their decreased sales on the internet, Americans' short attention spans and what have you. But perhaps it's something else; perhaps those stupid, ADD citizens really do want to read about the things that shape their lives instead of the drooling nonsense that gets so much coverage.

Is he a recent escapee from some sort of institution where they give you lots of drugs to keep you from seeing and hearing things? Someone ought to pull his license to appear on television until he gets back on his meds.

Obama would have had them really squirming. These guys have gotten away with vague, useless platitudes about "success" for too long. He was able to lay out the question of "What is an acceptable outcome?" but didn't have time to hold their feet more closely to the fire. I so wanted him to be able to ask, "If you're telling us that a reduction of violence to 2006 and 2005 levels is an encouraging sign of progress, then what year's level of violence is our target?" As it was, he pretty much staked Crocker out in the sun, left him umm-ing and er-ing by carefully (Obama very lawyer-like here, leading the witness into a trap) putting him in a position of either stating that perfection is the only acceptable outcome or of having to describe some other "acceptable" outcome. If Obama had had another ten minutes, he'd have had them begging for mercy.

I'm not going to let you get away with calling Al Qaeda the enemy of the United States and the free world I have no reason or evidence to believe that AQ hates Italy, or Switzerland, or Austria, or Denmark (oh, I know, the cartoons, but...no), or France, even. AQ hates the United States because we have soldiers in Saudi Arabia, because we imposed sanctions on Iraq that killed women and children, etc. It's us, David, sir. Not everyone. It's us.

Remember, this is the kid who pulled wings off flies and blew up frogs for giggles. Well-known signs of sociopathy, if not worse. I wouldn't be surprised if someday torture videos are uncovered that were made expressly for the Preznit to watch at beddy-bye time.

...would understand.