Sorry to beat this to death. Other people seem to understand what you are saying, so please assume I am starting from the assumption that I may be totally misreading you. I'd like to understand what you are saying, either for personal edification or to verify I'm not terribly dense.

i>He's saying, WHEN someone in Iraq who means harm to the US makes a call to the US, the US should not need a warrant to eavesdrop

Are you saying Mukasey is suggesting this is the case "[i]n the post-9/11 world, where Bush has made us safe?" Then why do you then say he is "implying that in the pre-9/11 world, the call to attack the US ORIGINATEED IN IRAQ?" Because I can't see any way to read the statement that way.

"We knew that there has been a call" statement refers to his earlier quote about the call "we didn't know about" in the pre-9/11 world...not in the specific instance of 9/11.

Are you suggesting here that Mukasey meant - or will dissemble by suggesting he meant - that there was some hypothetical call from Afghanistan in the "pre-9/11 world" to the United States not involving the 9/11 plot? If so, I would really love to hear him try to make that case. I don't even think our somnolent media would buy that, although I could be wrong..

I thank for for restating your interpretation. I do think I follow what you are trying to suggest. I think that in order to seriously present such an argument, Mukasey would have to define semantics as did Humpty Dumpty:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

You may think that is how he sees it, and I might agree with you, but it is a novel attitude for the top law-enforcement official of the United States, to say the least.

At least when Clinton said "There is no sexual relationship, it was semantically defensible, if not ethically so...

close your tags next time. :-P

Like "Now go back to bed; your sister will be getting lonely," you mean bile like that, sport?

I love how it's right-wing, authoritarian bullies like you who always affect a tone of such high dudgeon when pointing out the mote in the eye of someone they disagree with.

Good luck digging the beam out of your own eye, fuckface.

pleasure of stirring up this lefty hornet nest

I never met anyone over the mental age of ten that actually enjoyed poking a hornet's nest with a stick to see what happens.

Cartainly, I'm glad to provide what meagre amusement I can for the developmentally challenged.

it does not put anyone's progressive values on display

This is certainly not a goal I aspire towards, and it seems to me that few here have any real desire to ensure that any particular sets of values are "displayed" or discouraged.

For what it is worth, I consider myself an altermondialista with libertarian socialist pretentions. I adore the often-witty anarchy of this comment area. I generally avoid it when it devolves into a pissing contest, though I do enjoy the ripostes of WT and others. I like bear-baiting the trolls when I feel like it, and not when I don't.

I limit my criticism of the tone here to (as a wise man once said) "a quick wink of the eye, and a 'man you must be joking.'" You choose to follow a different path of community scold. More power to you, I see it as an equalitarian option, but if you're unable to rally more people to your banner i wouldn't blame the people if you catch my meaning.

Fucking with trolls is the same as pissing in the street? Really? I mean, really?

No offense - and I genuinely mean no offense by this comment - that level of touchiness is pretty much exactly why I do not call myself a progressive. If I can't be an argumentative asshole on a public comments thread on the Internet, then just where do I get to be an argumentative asshole?

It's just a little odd when someone pulls you up for it and calls you 'fuckface' in the same sentence. The insulting part is perfectly natural; it's most of the poster's blindness to their own behaviour that's such a puzzler.

You expressed great moral outrage at behaviour you yourself habitually engage in. I called you on it, rather than positioning myself as some superior moral judge, added a bit of "bile" of my own. As in, "calling people names is a terrible thing, you fuckface." It's a joke, son.

The only difference between my namecalling and yours seems to be that I used an Anglo-Saxon cussword and you used a pseudo-intellectual phrase (is there really such a thing as a malignant pustule? what if you called us "benign" pustules) to express your contempt.

Welcome to the jungle, fuckface. Ain't nobody here but us pustules.

of my friend the respectable Mr. Mooser, heir to the Mooser fortune.

The artist formerly known as anonymoose - before he was mangled in a rot13 accident - has an almost chimera style of trollery. Sometimes you get the sort of serious intoning of rightwing talking points, other times it's over the top hornet-nest-poking like tonight's offering.

It's hard to dislike someone who doesn't even take his trolling that seriously.

I think one can advocate that torture should be prohibited, both de jure and de facto, without being guilty of excessive Manichaeism. All sorts of things are prohibited by law, for very good reasons.

And while I can't say that I can, really, think of a reason why I would want to create some sort of "emergencies only" exception for tourture in some circumstance, the "Do Not Enter" sign on my front door doesn't apply to the fire department when my house is on fire...