I've visited your blog from time to time, as I always find your thoughts worthwhile. The problem is, you don't post often enough. One interested in your thoughts is more likely to find them here than there. But, having been reminded that you have a blog, I went over there again, and MAN Tom Friedman is one crazy motherfucker is all I can say.

I could answer that, but the answer would be derisive, scatological, and perhaps anatomically impossible. :-)

Defecator90?

(Sorry.)

>>>We must understand that as much as we push to have the law apply equally and in all cases, it never will be, and extenuating circumstances may lead to fiascos like what we see now in Gitmo.

But Win, you're not "push[ing] to have the law apply equally and in all cases." That's what Glenn is doing! What YOU are doing is insisting that the law need not be applied equally and in all cases when there are "extenuating circumstances" (however those are to be defined), and (apparently) contending that since the government has broken the law in the past, there is no point in expecting it to comply with the law in the present and future.

Bush violated the laws of the United States, repeatedly and egregiously. That does not mean Obama has to. The only reason there is "now" a fiasco in Gitmo is because Obama is keeping said fiasco going.

"The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion, the public Safety may require it."

-- Article 1, Section 9

Win, do you honestly see this is as allowing the government to break the law? It IS the law. The law allows the government to suspend habeas corpus when public safety so reqires in the event of "rebellion or invasion." I can't imagine how you think this supports any argument you are making.

Now you get it. If you cede to the president the power to violate the law as he sees fit, there is, for practical purposes, "no law" at the highest level of government. For those whose faith in Obama is limitless and whose vision does not extend past the end of his presidency, that is hunky-dory. For others, not so much.

>>>Barack Obama has inherited a legal fiasco of which a significant amount of terrorists have had the legal cases against them so tainted by corruption and abuse, that they will likely be found "not guilty" due to simply to Bush incompetence.

Those of us plagued by that silly rule-of-law fetish recall fondly the traditional American concept that one is innocent until proven guilty. This is called the "presumption of innocence." One needn't be a lawyer or even a first-year law student to know this. In referring to detainees as "terrorists," however, you presume them to be guilty. That is wrong and un-American. Since nothing has been proven, they are at most "suspected terrorists" or "alleged terrorists."

Your speculation about why they are likely to be acquitted is just that -- speculation. As you acknowledge, these people were imprisoned by a grossly incompetent administration -- certainly incompetent enough to imprison someone who did nothing wrong. Perhaps they would be found "not guilty" because they are not, in fact, guilty. In any event, regardless of the reason they can't be found guilty, if they can't be found guilty, THEY ARE INNOCENT. At least, that's how it looks here in my little rule-of-law fantasy world.

On the other hand, it kind of was racist oppression, because Israel did murder a bunch of people and probably would not have done so with such bloody-minded enthusiasm had the people in question not been of a different race. So there's that, too.

>>>until you can explain to me how the mass murder and slaughter of nearly 1,400 Gazans by the Israeli military under the ridiculous claim that isolated unguided missiles forced them to do it, is anything other than racist oppression

You can call them "isolated unguided missiles" if that pleases you, but the operative word, I think, is "missiles." I also think that if you send missiles in someone's direction, you sort of forfeit your right to complain if larger, more accurate missiles make the return flight in your direction.

"Spittin' in the wind only comes right back at you" --Lou Reed.

Of course you are entitled to an opinion, even though it is wrong. :-)

Thanks, and that was a really funny rant. No need to be embarrassed for me, though -- my tribe is big enough for Calamine and Einstein, Goldfarb and Greenwald, Jonathan in TA and Dylan on the Never-Ending Tour. It is even big enough for the Doughy Pantload and the coolest Jew of all time, Lou Reed.

>>>What side are YOU on?

The side of peace, reason, and brisket.

I'm all for tribal loyalty up to a point. Specifically, up to the point where one actually starts believing that one's tribe is objectively superior to other tribes.

I'm all for defending our people Israel, and the nation-state Israel, too. However, I fail to see how these causes are served by incoherent and ignorant assertions that Glenn Greenwald is a twisted self-loathing Jew whose non-adherence to American Jewish orthodoxy regarding Israel is somehow responsible for global anti-Semitism. Because that's some really crazy shit, IMHO.

If you want to disagree with Glenn, that's fine. I've disagreed with him many times, usually about Israel-related issues. Since I don't know him personally, I refrain from presuming to know anything about any inner psychological conflicts he may or may not have. I find ad hominem psychoanalysis such as that engaged in by Maddy or Jon in TA (i.e., "Glenn's views on the Middle East differ from mine because he is a self-hating Jew") to be repellent and presumptuous. (And not presumptuous in a cool way like Presumptuous Insect.)