Mr. Roberts says that you don't really have any civil liberties if you're dead. You might also say that you're not really alive if you have no civil liberties.

Let me keep my civil liberties. I'll take my chances with the terrorists, since I have a much better chance of dying in a automobile accident.

The Republicans won in the public's mind (not you and I, generally, but an "almost" majority) because they have succeeded in framing debate in a certain light and implying things without saying them. The Republicans are constantly talking about how we need to listen in on al-Qaida, but never about how they can under the current law . I can only hope that the press didn't forget this significant fact during the news conference.

What a blatant waste of taxpayer money. What are we paying these people for?

Lynx, you took the words right out of my mouth. Hey, let's just put all the federal laws in the constitution. Maybe throw in a tax cut or two.

The constitution is a short document, relative to all the other stuff congress spews out. Crowding the good stuff with unneeded garbage really just reduces its meaning as a whole. If we throw in flag burning, gay marriage, and the jello-smearing of national treasures, how seriously can people take the rest of the constitution?

"Countless men and women have died defending that flag," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., closing two days of debate. "It is but a small humble act for us to defend it."

Did all those men and women die to defend the flag? Really? Did they think, "Go ahead, screw our freedom, just don't touch that flag?" I hardly think so. It's so ironic that many on the right want to use their sacrifices to deny the very freedom they died to defend.

Does the rhetoric you hear recently from our government and from certain members of the media remind you at all of the former Soviet Union? If I understand correctly, in this great country with such a great constitution full of rights, people are suggesting locking up and/or killing people for writing news stories? Are our soldiers fighting to maintain our rights or merely protect our lives and precious flag? (And by "life", I mean a body with a beating heart.)

Perhaps next they'll suggest curfews. We're less likely to get killed if we're locked up in our houses. "What were you planning to do while you're scurrying around in the middle of the night anyway? And where are your PAPERS?!?!"

It seems the Republicans, who represent themselves as the great defenders of the constitution, are trying to remove its most important protections.

The standard answer from the Bush Administration to any question regarding this sort of thing is something like, "Why would we want to give classified information to terrorists?" or "Why wouldn't we want to find out why terrorists are calling someone in the U.S.?" This seems a lot like Groucho Marx's "Have you stopped beating your wife?" They are framing the arguments with presumption of guilt. Unfortunately, they catch a lot of people off guard, who just agree. Why yes, it would be pretty silly to give a terrorist the means to commit more hideous acts, wouldn't it?

But how do we know that they are in fact guilty of these crimes? Are they guilty just because George W. Bush says so? He doesn't exactly have the best track record over his 5 1/2 years in office for being right all the time. Giving him the right to detain anyone he chooses indefinitely without a fair trial certainly doesn't sound like anything that was established in our constitution. Frankly, that sounds a bit more like something King George II would do. It's much too much power for any one man to possess.

My guess is that the Republicans have decided that they can’t be honest about the whole thing; they can’t effectively lie; the only remaining option is to not say anything at all. And voila! The investigation begins, one that they are not in charge of, so they cannot be blamed for how absurdly long it takes. I can already hear it: “I’m afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation”. Fox News, in the interim, will mention the name Gerry Stubbs as often as they can in the interim.

All too often, I hear people around me reacting to these stories with replies such as "But these are really bad people". The two problems with this line of thinking are that (1) Not all of them are guilty; and (2) Even if they were guilty, we really should be above beating the crap out of people for the mere enjoyment of it.

I just ate dinner ten feet from Mark Warner, and he looked as happy as a guy who just got out of jail. And, in a way, he probably should.

Of course, he is a politician, and who knows why he chose not to run. Perhaps he wanted to spend more time with his family, perhaps it was something else. I'll go ahead and believe him.

If the Republicans only end up with 49 seats, but Lieberman wins, do the Democrats really have a majority? It's hard to tell which way Joe swings these days, and he's going to have to answer to all those Republicans that didn't vote for Schlesinger. I think that pans out to a split.

This is just more evidence that the New York Times has a huge liberal bias... right?

I can hear the big closing line of Rick's speech right now: "Democrats throw like girls!"

Rush is an idiot, a blowhard, and a waste of good medecine.