Ah yes, the Judge and Jury has spoken! Heh. The truth is that you have no idea what in all this is illegal or un-Constitutional. Shooter

Shooter, unwittingly, cuts exactly to the heart of the matter. We DON'T know whether what the Executive is doing is illegal or unconstitutional. In a constitutional republic that thrives on transparency, that is not a good thing. The reason "liberals" (I include sensible conservatives and libertarians in the "liberal" umbrella) want to investigate this is to find out whether it IS legal and constitutional. If it isn't, it should stop. If it is, then no problem.

However, what has aroused the suspicions of "the liberals" about the Bush Administration's activities and the legality thereof is the intense stonewalling and obfuscating the B.A. is doing. If they aren't doing anything wrong, what are they hiding?

It's kind of like when you see your kid coming out of the kitchen with chocolate smeared all over his face, a guilty look, and one hand behind his back. Your suspicion, as a parent, is that he's been at the cookies you told him not to eat. If he refuses to let you in the kitchen to check the cookie jar, won't show you what's in his hand and claims it's not chocolate on his face but mud, then he is acting like the Bush Administration. Congress needs to be Mommy and march into the kitchen.

Pollack and O'Hanlon are just left-wing members of the War Party, as is Joe Lieberman, Bobo Brooks, Tommy Friedman, Michael Gerson, Judith Miller, Michael Gordon (is that the right name? Judith Miller's partner in shame at the NYT). There are more and more voracious right wing members of the War Party, but that doesn't make the lefties any less dangerous. The NY Times has fronted and is still fronting many of these people. The difference between the lefties in the War Party and the righties, so far as I can tell, is the lefties are Serious People Who Like the Arts, as opposed to the Serious People Who Like NASCAR. They live in expensive homes on the Upper West Side or in Chevy Chase, attend the opera or the ballet, and send their children to the Right Schools, while espousing their war fantasies. They couch those fantasies in politer terms than their right wing brethren, but they are blood sucking war mongers all the same.

In fact, in some ways, I think the lefties are more dangerous because they're more polite. The fact that only now are some of Glenn's bright readers realizing that the NYTimes often acts as a front for the War Party only underlines the danger.

....just to blather on a bit more.

A friend of ours is one of those lefty members of the War Party. He lives in an expensive brownstone in NY, has a high level job in Wall Street, has the right nanny for his children who are attending the Right School (Packer, in this case), reads the Times, supports the ballet, vacations in a summer home in Normandy and disdains George Bush for his crudeness. He has always voted pretty much a straight Democratic ticket. He recently said the only way to "save" Iraq (for us) would be to send 500-750K troops, which would of course require a draft. When we expressed horror at the idea of a draft he said, "Why? OUR kids won't get drafted."

As for the third-party advocates, or plague-on-both-their-houses, I-refuse-to-support-either-party folks, I have some sympathy for them, but I continue to think that they're paying an awfully high price to retain their moral purity.

-- William Timberman

I know you miss Billmon, too.

I agree with you, which is why I worked my libertarian boonkie off for Kerry, a wishy washy liberal, rather than voting for Nader, with whom I agreed much more, at least on foreign policy. But I don't think EITHER side can go for the moral purity at this point. For me, the most crucial two issues are: 1) the war (whether in Iraq or against Iran/Syria) and 2) the Constitution. It really is time to lay down the other issues -- abortion, immigration, health care, poverty, tax policy, gay marriage, etc.* -- and work together on these two things. Once the emergency is over, we can all get back to bickering over other important issues.

(* Obviously we can't and shouldn't lay these issues down completely. But if you're a liberal organizing an anti-war march and a conservative organization wants to join in, it's time to welcome them with open arms. We allied with Stalin in WWII, didn't we? It's time to look at the big picture.)

Anonymous idiot

"His background is in the CIA and NSC, where they've found satellite photos work best for getting an accurate picture of things."

Stunningly ignorant.

-- Jim Montague

I believe Anonymous was being sarcastic.

and WT, re Hillary vs. Ron Paul. I'd disagree with you there. Hill likes war, so long as it plays in Hill's favor -- i.e., I don't think she'd object to bombing Teheran, so long as she thought it help her in the polls. If it comes down to Hillary vs. Rudy/Mitt/Fred, etc., I think I might just have to bail.

Oddly enough, my NY Times Liberal Friend (who endorses the draft for other people's children and votes Dem all the way) likes Hillary quite a bit -- for her "centrist" and "rational" positions -- but just recently donated to the Ron Paul campaign. The woild's a strange place, innit?

Over at Antiwar.com, Justin has just blogged with links re the backgrounds of Pollack and O'Hanlon. O'Hanlon was a PNAC signatory, and Pollack is involved in the AIPAC spying trial.

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/

It's unlikely that either of these tidbits will be noted in their introductions in the MSM....