I'll hold my applause until it actually happens, but I'll thank Obama for at least showing us a glass of water in the Saharan desert of potential appointees.

Wouldn't it be nice if she were appointed Attorney General instead - so that she could act on those convictions (and maybe get some?) retrospectively rather than prospectively?

If she had any chance of being confirmed as an AG if something should happen to the Holder nomination it would make it almost worth it to see Holder's nomination shot down. He has said some of the right things (and some of the wrong things) on occasion, but the articles she wrote evince passionate and deeply held beliefs and not the platitudes of the day.

Interesting that he finally threw the progessives a bone on what for most is (or at least was until recently) a relatively obscure position. Ah... if only the tea leaves would tell me if this is political calculation, our dumb luck, or grist for the "don't worry about the appointments, wait and see what he DOES" crowd!

That would only suggest that Obama intends to play by the rules and be bound by constitutional limitations - that position has NO POWER in terms of assessing penalties for past infractions. And THAT's what I'm interested in.

but the problem is that Obama does, or at least wants the cover that bipartisanship provides. To my mind, he's playing the same game that Senators play over and over - feigned anger, finger pointing, mock jostling, all so that you can pretend you had 'no choice' but to do what you really wanted to do all along.

Obama is no progressive. He wants 'bipartisanship' so he can start at a point that makes the lefties happy, and then be 'forced' to where he really wanted to go in the first place. So the annoyance with the Republicans may well be real, but it's not because they're not being 'bipartisan' it's because they're not giving him the cover he wants. Every time he has been forced to tack one way or the other, he has tacked right without fail (FISA as a classic example).

My bet is this: If Republicans hold the line and continue to obstruct for obstruction's sake, we are still going to end up with with centrist legislation and we'll just find some other way to blame the Republicans for the watered-down policies, or "Bush-lite."

What has he REALLY done to this point on the issues of major concern? We're still torturing people. People are still languishing in Guantanamo despite no (or unusable) evidence against them. Obama is still claiming that state secrets should shield the government's illegal acts. We just threatened Britain with compromising their security should they dare reveal what THEY KNOW about what we did. The torture war criminals are no closer to facing any consequence for committing torture (CIA), attempting to justify torture (Yoo, Addington, Bybee), and specifically approving torture methods (Rice, Ashcroft, Cheney, etc.) than they were while Bush was in power.

During his campaign, Obama decried what he called "Scooter Libby justice." Really? Scooter Libby was investigated, charged, tried, and convicted. And he didn't even torture anyone! I would SETTLE for Scooter Libby justice. What I cannot accept everyone walking.

Getting back on topic, my point is, even if Obama decides to hell with bipartisanship - the sad truth is that we're still not going to get anything that resembles a progressive agenda. My .02c.

I don't believe for one second that she's sincere. Thanks to my Greenwald-jaded mind, the fact that Pelosi now is all gung-ho for criminal prosecutions for wiretapping and torture signals to me that she is now absolutely convinced that they will never happen.

While I appreciate the fact that it might add to the drumbeat, she wouldn't be singing that song if she thought it might actually happen.

Beat me to the thought, you did...

Can be completely subverted and undermined by one or two rogue employees in the OLC and some bad legal jiu-jitsu. Makes all that arguing during the constitutional conventions seem like a complete waste of time, no?

Hmm.. who has more abjectly failed at performing the constitutional role the Framers gave them? A fat, lazy, bloated Congress that refuses to check the Executive? The fat, lazy, bloated media that has let themselves become little more than mouthpieces and propoganda-passers? Or is it the fat, lazy, bloated populace that simply refuses to care?

I vote for 3. I've long since stopped waiting for the public outcry I've been expecting for the past 7 years. The fact is that the vast majority of the American people are now perfectly willing to trust the government to look out for their best interests - with no clear idea what their "best interests" are, and completely forgetting that the underlying assumption between quaint documents like the Bill of Rights are that the government can't be trusted.

This will be met with the same collective shrug that has characterized the American reaction to every newly discovered outrage.

Keep beating them drums motherf$%@#$%!!!!