What would the Republican response be to a Congressional bill that singled out a defense contractor that over billed the government millions of dollars on a defense contract by passing legislation prohibiting that company, by name, from receiving any new contracts? i suspect the defense contractors would (will) file an amicus brief in the upcoming ACORN appeal.

What possible tactical objective is there in a story line like "Resurgent GOP", and "Perilous 2010 for Democrats"? Why do GOP operatives cultivate this lede at this particular time?

Is it just coincidence that also at this time the Democrats will have to make one of the biggest political decisions of their careers with the passage of a land mark health care plan?

Let's not forget the ability of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. One can't lose the nagging feeling that the Democrats won't feel sufficiently empowered by a veto proof majority in the Senate, a wide majority in the House, and 75% of Americans polling that they want Democrats to pass the healthcare legislation and believing that the Democrats will do a better job of it than Republicans.

Is spineless Democrats a concept that faded from discourse after the last election? I don't think so, and neither does POLICTICO and its GOP operatives

I don't see the problem here.

Dan Froomkin will undoubtedly have numerous opportunities to practice the quality journalism that will draw readers and that sells.

WAPO? Who cares. They made a decision to get rid of, really, the only reporter on the staff that I ever followed. Let them deal with their problems going down this road. It's one more reason to not consider the Washington Post as a credible, fair and balanced world class news source, and another reason not to read the Post.

These news outlets are digging their own graves, and it's certainly another reason why I will shed no tears over the impending demise of the Washington Post.

Those of us who take our news primarily from internet sources have learned to sift through much chaf to understand the truth of a newsworthy event.

As we all know, there are a tremendous number of internet "voices" reporting or opining on what happened and what it means. New "voices" are constantly appearing, old ones sometimes fade away. Over time we learn which voices are most reliable for our understanding of "news", other voices that we learn from experience are not reliable are generally understood as such, and information from them rejected, or simply noted with a large measure of skepticism.

Print and television journalists don't understand this process, and are threatened by it. As professional paid journalists, they believe that once hired by a major publisher such as the New York Times, ABC, or TNR, their credibility is established; the media employer provides the guarantee of reliability; they don't perceive that their reliability must stand on its own based on their own reporting. And they bristle at the scrutiny to which they are subjected on the internet, something not possible in the newspaper, news magazine, or broadcast journalism context. This is how the Rosen matter should be understood.

In this sense, the internet is lightyears ahead of the traditional media sources in imposing journalistic standards on those who step into the reporting and analysis waters of the news world.

This is one reason for the decline of the print and broadcast news businesses: they have no way to process real time critique of their reporting standards into producing a reliable news product, and from experience, it appears they are resisting the internet tool for this purpose.

In the internet, the penalty internet voices suffer for unreliable reporting or analysis is rejection by news consumers. In the print media rejection is registered by canceling subscriptions, or turning the channel on broadcast news. The traditional media sources are now experiencing the dynamic of public rejection from unreliable reporting and analysis, and may not survive as a result.

All of this talk about Preventive Dention, five catagories, military commissions, and the worst of the worst seems to leap over the initial finding: Which of these people are not terrorists and have been wrongfully incarcerated. Once that's sorted out, and these people turned loose (it seems to me that if they aren't terrorists, they could even safely be turned free in the US, if it comes to that), then I don't think most people would have a lot of quibble over which rules are used to try the rest of them, so long as some fundamental fairness rules applied.

This demonstrates why President Obama is not prosecuting torture and wiretapping crimes. He has a Democratic governing majority on the verge of making major policy changes benefiting Americans - a generational change. He needs a governing majority, including the powerful legislators who can stand in the way of this. (Feinstein, Harman, Pelosi, etc) Many of these are potentially compromised by their involvement in these scandals and do not want an Obama investigation, much less a prosecution.

The result - no investigation in return for legislative cooperation. How is this different from the deal Gonzales offered Harmon? It is the fundamental corruption of government that Mr. Stein referred to.

President Obama's compromise is to release the evidence to allow other parties to investigate these scandals, thus the release of the torture memos, and others may be forthcoming.

The Harman scandal can be seen as a power play by the powers that be (here the CIA most probably) that the Obama tactic will come with political costs to those involved, who will try deter future Obama releases.