"The president should pre-empt any long-term investigations," said Victoria Toensing, who was a Justice Department counterterrorism official in the Reagan administration. "If we don't protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances."

Isn't that the point? Isn't that why Qwest Communications refused to take part in what was clearly a violation of federal law, on the chance that they might actually be successfully prosecuted? Are we through the looking glass yet?

$50 to the ad campaign. This has got to be the most effective use of political donation money -- aimed directly at the most vulnerable traitors to American ideals. Thanks for taking the lead on this, Glenn -- it's easy to imagine that the travesty of amnesty would have already passed were it not for your intelligent and tireless efforts to shine light on the cockroaches. Now let's see how they like a bit o' Raid!!!

Just thought I'd mention his name, as I haven't read it in recent months. All the rationales being bandied about for why we can't leave Iraq are pathetic rehashes of Viet Nam. The Best and the Brightest is one of the most entertaining and educational history books you'll ever read. I can't recommend it highly enough. The parallels to our present quagmire are so self-evident you'll marvel and despair. We, the people, truly learned nothing from Viet Nam, at least with regard to the depths that political and military egomaniacs will sink to in order to convince the citizenry that an overseas war is critical to addressing America's geopolitical situation. Will we ever learn to be appropriately skeptical about war?

One of the more striking aspects of the book is that, back then, politicians seemed to have been extremely troubled by the prospect of making such a serious blunder. There's little evidence of that today (see Cheney's recent "So?" remark, for example). We'll be left with unreadable tracts like that of Doug "stupidest f***ing guy on the planet" Feith. Feh.

Glenn, as much as I love your analyses, the comparison between Dukakis and Obama is strained. Dukakis failed because it was easy to portray him as a douchebag, or at least douchebaggish. I just don't think Willie Horton had all that much to do with it.

Obama clearly is not a douchebag, and with this speech he demonstrated with shocking clarity that he, and only he, has the ability to inspire this country in 2008 -- and Lord knows most Americans are craving us some inspiration these days. I mean, who wants to turn on their TV or radio and hear Hillary or McCain droning on about political crap when they know they could be hearing Obama saying something that makes us feel like a Great Nation again? I'm serious. This is the reason Obama will win, and win big.

The disgust I felt for Obama for lauding Ronald Reagan last week has dissolved to nothing after the Clintons' performance in South Carolina. Bill has just undone the best part of his reputation and put the future viability of Democratic politics at risk by purposefully and systematically playing the race card there.

This morning I listened to Hillary's communications director trying to explain away Bill's post-election comments -- all the poor guy could do was try to change the subject to the pressing needs facing our great nation at this critical juncture in history. I hope there's a lot more whities out there like me who are ready to put Hillary and her race-baiting spouse out of our misery.

Dear Mr. Stengel,

I'm sure you know better than I do that Time's brand of propaganda relies on maintaining a veneer of credibility so that your readers think they're learning something of value rather than being fed a diet of complete bullshit. Now that Klein's veneer has been shattered so completely, how can you keep him on? You must see that it's in your own best interest to throw him overboard. Just wait a few months, so that it will be less obvious that Glenn Greenwald and other fact-based bloggers capped his ass.

I love everything you write, Glenn, but I still think you're off base with your repeated assumptions that people like Klein don't know what they're doing when they write their power-serving garbage. You wrote:

If Klein really does know what the NSA is doing -- rather than throwing around the phrase "data mining" because it seems complicated and smart -- then he ought to write about it, since that would be a major scoop.

What makes you think that Joe Klein, of all people, is looking for a "major scoop"? He's looking to hold on to one of the least demanding, most ego-boosting, highest-paying gigs in journalism. Shouldn't we assume by now that he's not looking to do the serious work that it would take to really figure out what's going on, expose it, and then deal with the fallout when the vicious wingers try to make his life hell?

Another oft-ignored precept of Christianity is stewardship of the earth. As with true "family values" and other matters of principal mentioned in the comments, all Christian Republicans should be all for it, and would be all for it, except that it doesn't come free.

As always, the League of Conservation Voters highlights the stark difference that exists between Republicans and Dems with regard to environmental policy:

http://www.lcv.org/scorecard/