flyover52 writes:

"You are obviously well-read on your subject, but nobody really wants to be educated or informed by someone who insults and belittles them and you know it, so why are you really here? To show off? If so, that's pretty pathetic."

I haven't noticed many insults or even condescension -- no more than Sirota himself used in his article or other posters here.

You admit he's informative and you're learning, but because the poster isn't kindergarten teacher nice, you don't want to hear it? Where else are you going to learn this, since obviously you don't care enough to read on this subject yourself?

Were all the Founding Fathers really statists? Even Jefferson and Madison?!

If they weren't for Liberty, what were they for?

Perhaps you're thinking of Hamilton. Now he's a statist who would no doubt love where our country is today (eroding of civil liberties, imperialism, etc.), while I suspect Jefferson is rolling in his grave....

Too bad Obama didn't select you for Secretary of State!

Fascinating reading and the way you describe the interview in your post is exactly right. I am pleased to see you being interviewed so much recently as you're giving a view that is not often presented. HH was really trying to get you to equate Hamas with Hitler and you answered him perfectly, always stressing that first trying diplomacy is almost always the best choice. One, and there are many, good quote is below:

HH: To use force, to use military force, to bomb the hell out of him [Hitler] would have been appropriate after the anschluss?

GG: Not without efforts to avert that situation. And had those efforts failed, and those efforts truly exhausted, then it may have been, sure. Would it have been justifiable after only Austria and not before Czechoslovakia or Poland? You know, that’s hard to say. But certainly once a country starts indicating that they are a threat to their neighbors and to world security, and have the ability to carry that out, then force becomes something that is a lot more justifiable.

"So what's the justification for Obama's inflammatory and seemingly baseless claim on national television that Iran is "pursuing a nuclear weapon that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race" when the consensus of American intelligence agencies is that they are not doing so?"

His justification is that he has a "new" centrism and non-ideological philosophy that enables him to accurately, somehow, read in that report what's not there? Or, perhaps he has better, different and more reliable information, that's of course secret, from the Bush administration that shows Iran doing exactly what the American Intelligence agencies say it's not?

The real answer is that there is no justification. And the Obama apologists know it.

I guess we're in for another four years of accepting whatever our leaders tell us.

Sigh.....

I can't decide whether I'm pleased or disgusted by this. Obviously pleased in part because it's a step in the right direction for Obama. But the very idea that a person has so few personal convictions that he's swayed dramatically by political pressure, isn't a person to be admired.

Glenn's absolutely right that we need to continue to put pressure on Obama when he even hints at doing the wrong thing or else the anti-civil liberties, war loving, torture endorcing advocates will indeed win. Again.

I completely agree with your post. I'm hoping that it's simply because it's not, yet, Glenn's interest. Hopefully he and others (I include myself here) will visit the sites you mention to see if reading there can lessen all our spheres of "deviance" and open our "sphere of debate".

Glenn, will you be writing anything regarding Obama's hypocritical Lynn appointment? Continuing Bush policies in the Pentagon is absolutely correct! As Maddow says, not very change-y!

As you've written so many times, it's not merely the political and media elite who support a two tiered system of justice in the country, but also many Obama supporters as well. Seems that they're afraid of being called vindictive by the media and political elite, when really all they urge is justice. And not the imbalanced justice you describe in your post, but true justice -- punishment that fits the crime. We do have examples of that, too.

Are you saying you're not concerned about inflation? Are you implying that inflation is a good thing?

Inflation hurts everyone and helps nobody, and printing money out of thin air causes inflation, especially with the rater the Fed is printing money!

The quick fix doesn't last long.

Since yesterday I've been waiting for the TV news reports and other news organizations to report on Obama's "180-degree reversal". Not one question at his first press conference concerned this matter.

The only thing I can find is an AP report (google "holder state secrets") stating that Holder has merely ordered a "review" of all claims of state secrets, not a definite reversal of the former position.

Why do you say it's a reversal and not simply a review? My first inclination is to accept your version since my trust of the MSM is virtually nil. And yes, I read your articles and your quotes, etc. But I thought I'd ask. Just seems so blatant a "mistake" by the AP.

Simon Johnson's interview with Bill Moyers was excellent for a lightweight constructive critique of our economic “experts”. I disagree that he was "shrill” as he neither used sarcasm nor overly critical adjectives to describe what he's against, and that’s what gets you in “trouble” with Brooks and his ilk. Johnson doesn't go nearly far enough and sounds almost naive in his hopefulness with Obama and our “experts” to eventually get it right. Johnson lets our leaders off easy. You don't. I say, keep up your "shrillness" because you're the one that the Brooks' of the world are noticing and it's not because you shirk from calling a spade a spade.