I remember a phrase one of my economics profs used to describe biased research: he said the researchers "drew their curves before they plotted their points."

Once upon a time, that kind of distortion defined the outer bounds of mainstream discussion. What The Politico and the Bush Administration now do on a daily basis goes far beyond such subtlety. If there is a single data point that supports them among a thousand refutations, that is enough to make their position "empirical." If they cannot find even one such point, they can simply deny the need for data in the first place; their definition of knowledge does not require evidence or logic anyway.

This is why our arguments fall on deaf ears; we rely on tools and processes utterly foreign to them. For them, logic quivers when confronted by truthiness.

I am not usually an optimist by nature. But the Democratic Stockholm Syndrome depended on the perception of Bush's omnipotence -- a perception now in tatters. I'm not sure how they can put the toothpaste back in the tube. And so, for now, I smile.

Yes, assuming the Senate falls into line behind our newly emboldened House, I expect Bush to veto this bill. But I don't see how that gets him into his safe house. He can't give legislative immunity. The EFF case is civil, and the government is not a party, right? And wouldn't a pardon (the executive equivalent), assuming he could give one, actually help a civil suit move forward, because there would no longer be any 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination?

Today is a good day. In fact, I count it as the best day since at least November, 2006.

While the right hand of Time Warner(Time Mag) cheerfully aids and abets the extinction of civil liberties, the left (HBO) offers a stirring paenan to John Adams and his fellow founders, who valued civil liberties and the rule of law above all, and sacrificed personal comfort and safety to seek them.

And this, then will bring us to the stark choice Kerry v. Bush could not: are we adult enough as a nation to actually listen to what the candidates say, rather than what our compromised media want to show us? Can America resist the siren song of form over substance offered by the guardians of all that has failed us? And finally, in the battle between reason and instinct, can we as a nation rise above the muck?

If this speech -- perhaps the best and most courageous in a superb and brave campaign -- cannot do it, nothing can. If this speech does not stop the Wright madness, America will then truly be the place Jeremiah Wright accused it of being.

I no longer question whether Obama deserves to be president. The question is whether America still deserves to have him.

I think what unites our primogeniture President and his enablers is their all-out war on meritocracy. They deserve the right to screw up ad infinitum because their parents gave it to them, or because everyone knows a newspaper column is a lifetime appointment, or just because. But what unites the pundit class with the ruling elite is the belief that their sinecures must be preserved. That goal subsumes all others. If keeping track of their incompetence threatens their place in the heavens, then, well, keeping track itself becomes the enemy.

John McCain's "experience" is thus untied from his track record of mistakes, gaffes and appalling misjudgments. The only past that matters is his historic status: experience as "one of us," with all the dispensation against the empirical that status implies.

1. What McCain is dong is a clumsy but effective part of an obvious plan to move the Overton window -- again -- to include the next war (against Iran). The MSM is only too happy to cooperate. Not sure why, but I am beginning to suspect that many of them are like Lieberman's constituency in CT -- they like to think of themselves as "liberal", but do what they can to ensure that the center they are just to the left of keeps moving to the right.

2. Lest we forget, not only is this how we got into the Iraquagmire, it is how we got Dubya in the first place (see, e.g, anything Bob Somerby ever wrote).

3. Barack Obama, wonderful as he seems to be, isn't going to fix this. He has clearly made a conscious decision NOT to take on the dysfunction in the Washington press corpse. I suspect he is right that taking them on now is no way to win an election. He may not kiss up like McCain, but I highly doubt we will be seeing Glennzilla-eque broadsides from him any time soon. The laboring oars will have to remain our own small paddles.

The comment section in the Campos posting has brought out large numbers of venomous Instapunk defenders eager to endorse his racism. It seems to me that they view Instapunk's screed as their permission slip to be broad-daylight racists, and they do not want to be pushed back into their white hoods.

Senator Obama's brilliant speech invited an honest dialog on race in America. We, and he, may regret extending that invitation.

Michael Mukasey has conclusively proven himself to be an exact replica of Alberto Gonazles

Alas, not a clone -- a more effective version. A sort of Rule-of-Law Terminator 2.0. Gonzales never had any credibility or legitimacy to sacrifice. He never had the intellectual horsepower to buffalo the sentient.

Mukasey is far more dangerous than Gonzales ever dreamed of being. That he went from respected federal judge to Gonzo-on-steroids stooge says little for him, but suggests that the Administration's coercive methods (waterboarding? invasion-of-the-body-snatchers?) are actually quite effective.