I'm not aware of a preemptive pardon ever being exercised before in the history of the Republic, are you?

Richard M. Nixon comes to mind.

Pardons is a subject which gets filed under "Things Republicans get outraged about when Democrats do it, in order to cover their own far worse transgressions of same"

That's a bit long for the old index card, so I shorten it to "Rich, Marc"

The pardon power is in dire need of a constitutional amendment. Eliminate it, reform it, make it senate confirmable I don't care, but currently it is a license to each president to order subordinates to commit crimes, then pardon them if they happen to get caught for those crimes.

As more and more people realize they aren't conservatives, they won't continue to vote that way.

That's quite literally how it happened for me. I actually did (slowly) come to realize that I wasn't really a conservative when I looked around and saw what real conservatives were. I account the slowness due to the identity one takes on when you apply a label to yourself. It becomes painful to admit what you had believed was so wrong, and it's tempting to hold on to a few particular issues but eventually as you reexamine the evidence with new eyes, even those no longer make any sense.

I'm probably an example of the phenomenon of converts being among the most zealous of any group, but I really do see conservativism in totality as a bankrupt ideology that boils down to simple elitism and aristocracy, which is probably why the neo-cons found their home there.

I also take those self-identification surveys on Americans with a large grain of salt, as they consistenly show more people calling themselves conservatives than liberals. I expect a good measure of the conservatives were like me, and when confronted with the awful reality of what that label means, make the intellectual jump. Polling has borne this out with a precipitous drop in the number of self-identified conservatives since Katrina and Iraq. "Small government" and "strong defense" can sound good until you see what they really mean in practice.

But I seriously doubt you were a neo-con.

No, thank god for that. But the other day I was arguing against the premise that Hamas or whomever can't be written off as "too crazy to negotiate with" so as much as it's tempting to write off the neo-cons, I must attempt to negotiate with them too. All I can offer is a measure of sanity and they're reluctant to buy, but the pitch must be made. :)

Also, it would be tempting to write off ABAB for this:

You are a silly silly person, go be someone's mommy somewhere else. thank you.

but then a ray of hope in the next ABAB post:

But it IS telling that on the hand he scribbles a whole column detailing chapter and verse of some other person's evil deeds and then sort of backhands Farahkan in the same class without any attribution.

Ah, the mountain moved an inch and I am redeemed!

It's probably futile but who knows? If arguing on the internet never changes anything, then why are any of us here?

My expectation is not to turn ABAB to agree with Glenn's point, or some similar radical epiphany. But if s/he's a little less eager to throw out baseless accusations that confirm his/her own biases about people, then it will be worth it.

Make a wingnut into a regular conservative, and a regular one into a moderate and a moderate into a liberal, and so forth (or whatever ideological destination you might prefer someone arrive at). That mirrors my own trip from conservative to liberal in slightly less than 2 years time, starting in 2003.

Besides, I actually have seen people change their minds about things, "live" on the internet. When Ron Paul voted alone against the Darfur Divestment act, some people I was discussing it with were sufficiently disgusted to disavow him from then on. That was a glaring incident, which certainly helps, but minds are not as closed as we sometimes think.

And of course, I can't deny it is satisfying to rub it in. I'm human too and being right is gratifying for its own sake.

I wouldn't normally re-call you out, but it's been several hours and no reply, while back on page 7 or 8 you were complaining about the "silence" of someone else you replied to, so...what of it?

Will you retract your baseless and counterfactual claim that Glenn's piece is supportive of Farrakhan or that Glenn is some kind of closet admirer of Farrakhan?

You have been proven wrong. Own up and we can move on. Evade, and join the class of irritating trolls that only serve as a foil for witticism and scorn by intellectually honest commentators.