Glenn asks: Is it really difficult to understand the concept that being accused doesn't necessarily mean being guilty? Sadly, the answer would appear to be yes, because this country is now overflowing with folks who don't even notice when their public officials ride roughshod over the distinction between a criminal and a suspect. Indeed, they're eager to echo the refrain. The tragic irony is that such folk tend to think of themselves as tough on crime -- indeed, some of them are SO tough as to argue that even if a few innocents are victimized, they fall into the same category of "collateral damage" as all those Iraqui civilians. (You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelot, don't you know ...)

But doesn't it stand to reason -- and elementary reason, at that -- that if an innocent person is presumed guilty of Crime X without sufficient evidence or due process, that those in charge will now stop looking for those who actually ARE guilty of Crime X, since they've already got the bad guy(s) in custody ? After all, once guilt is formally "established," then case closed, right? So even forgetting the injustice of an innocent person being punished for a crime he didn't commit, they're now ENABLING the actual guilty of roaming free. What's so "tough on crime" about that ?

<<It's a common misperception that, in states like California which have passed measures legalizing it, medical marijuana is completely legal. It's not. Federal law takes precedence >>

How can federal law take precedence over the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which make it explicitly clear that federal law MAY NOT take precedence ? Answer: Because the federal courts have interpreted the Ninth and Tenth Amendments out of existence. (And our vigilant citizenry uttered not a peep regarding the bizarre notion that two brief sentences, written in plain, simple, unambiguous English, should require "interpreting" in the first place . . .

It didn't take long for Clinton, following California's 1996 passage of its medical marijuana proposition, to sic his Attorney General, Janet Reno, onto the medical community. I'll never forget the headline the day his administration threatened to arrest doctors who were silly enough to believe that their state's law allowed them to prescribe "the evil weed." I've always thought that the day Clinton threatened to throw DOCTORS in jail -- for trying to alleviate their patients' suffering -- was the day he should have been impeached (instead of for that other nonsense). So hear hear to Obama for a scintilla of sanity, at least.

Greenwald's point is certainly valid, we do need to see more adversarial debate -- but only if it's substantive. Maddow, for example, is polite and civil, so those with opposing ideas should have no qualms about engaging her in debate. SHOULD. But what about those who constantly interrupt their guests, sometimes shouting, such as Bill O'Reilley and Sean Hannity ? During the election campaign, I for one was mortified that Ron Paul would even put himself in that position with O'Reilley, and not just once. Every time Paul would begin a sentence with something like: "When you talk about Iraq or the Middle East, you have to look at the events and policies that have led us to the current situation . . .", O'Reilley would interrupt and say, "Look, we don't have time for a HISTORY lesson (rolling his eyes, as if having to hear about actual facts placed in their historical context was like having to eat brussel sprouts) -- and if Paul tried to continue with his point, O'Reilley would simply raise the volume of his interruption, so as to prevent him from doing so. This would happen so repeatedly and protractedly that it became clear that O'Reilley did in fact have the time, he just didn't have the inclination. (I kept waiting for Congressman Paul to ask: "Just when WILL America have time for a history lesson?")

And Hannity is even worse. So prospective interviewees still have every justification for "picking their spots." But as Greenwald points out, those who avoid mixing it up PURELY on ideological grounds are just cowards.

Progressives relentlessly sound the twin themes that (a) corporations have too much power, and (b) government today is up for sale to the highest bidder. Both correct, but whence do corporations derive such power ? Corporate charters, with their insidious exemptions from various liabilities, are a creation of Big Government. The progressive "solution" has a blind spot; it proposes to vest even more power in the government -- in order to facilitate "reform" -- which will only give the politicians more favors and influence to peddle.

For all the Progressive rhetoric about corporate abuse, it is the Libertarians who recognize that the "abuse of power" is but a symptom of the more fundamental problem; namely, the power to abuse. If we reduced the federal government to its actual Constitutional functions, as enumerated in the body of that document and clarified by the Ninth and Tenth amendments, then corporations would no longer be able to buy favors, for the feds wouldn't have any to sell.

Which is why, incidentally, it is disingenuous for most Progressives to claim that they don't support the war on drugs. YES THEY DO -- for they support the power the government wields in the exercise of such insanities. When you give the feds the power to impose your version of good onto society, you give them the power to impose someone else's. And their version of good might be your version of evil. A society of TRULY free markets -- as opposed to the "crony capitalism" that long ago deposed actual capitalism -- could never force that on us; the politicized version that Demopublicans endorse, can. And already does, every day.