I believe that waterboarding was torture," the president said. "And I think that the -- whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake."

How bold! How daring! What decisive, inspirational leadership! What a fucking man!

I have to admit, I didn’t think Obama had the capacity to come up with something as weasely and insipid as “This is a time for reflection, not retribution,” but this sure comes close. See, if you really give a fuck about torture, you don’t say you ”believe” waterboarding was torture, or that "it's the opinion of many who've examined the topic;” what you say is that “waterboarding has been acknowledged as torture by civilized human beings since the Spanish Inquisition, which is why we prosecuted Nazis and Japanese war criminals for it after W.W. II.” And you sure as shit don’t call it a ”mistake,” you state it’s a practice used by sadistic, morally deformed savages that should spend the rest of their lives in a fucking cage.

Now I couldn’t agree more that ”Obama's response was probably as close to a "yes" as he can get without actually crossing a line that might force him into a path he very clearly doesn't want to take.” But you don’t “move the debate about torture in a different direction” with this sort of this gutless equivocation, but by having the balls to stand up for a moral principle. Accordingly, for those of us who give a shit about civil liberties, human rights, and the rule of law, the only appropriate course of action is to force Obama onto “the path he doesn’t want t o take” with every resource at our disposal, whether he damn well likes it or not. Specifically, it's time Obama be made to decide whether he wants to fight a war against Republican criminals or the progressive base of his party, and we need to make that choice as stark and immediate as humanly possible.

Former President Bush and the Bush administration clearly didn't understand the effects that a government's endorsement of torture would have on the psyche of the innocent people that it governors. By authorization of torture, Dubya caused a lot of Americans to become skittish and fearful of everyone around them, including their neighbors.

Here's an alternative you may want to consider, Svutlov: i.e, that Bush and his gang understood -- indeed, counted on -- precisely the effects that their endorsement of torture would have on the psyches of the innocent people that they governed.

It'll be truly something to celebrate when Democrats and progressives embrace the fact that the appropriate response to this kind of Republican filth isn’t “taking the high road,” or a mournful expression of disappointment, or a dispassionate analysis of its untruth, or – God forbid – an earnest plea for more “bipartisanship.” The only effective strategy – one that requires unwavering consistency – is to denounce the Republican Party as an aggregation of illiterate halfwits and treasonous, bloodthirsty fanatics wallowing in their own ignorance and praying for deadly terrorist attacks that will kill thousands of innocent Americans.

Time to force the craven opportunists that populate the Democratic Party to start fighting fire with fire. Who knows, Obama might even find the balls someday to denounce murder and kidnapping and torture and shitting on the U.S. Constitution as transgressions more serious than unfortunate boo-boos.

An absolutely superb place to start would be the commercial outlined by Ijon Tichy.

it's likely that the actual confirmation vote will be fairly easy, unless Republicans decide to break with their previous stance on using the filibuster of judicial nominees.

Oh, well that really is just silly now, isn't it? I mean, is it even plausible that a major American political party would treat the electorate like a bunch of half-witted rubes, or so transparently cover themselves with the stink of naked hypocrisy? C'mon, it's not like the Republicans are that bad, after all.

I’m sorry, but this is absurd!

I mean, just yesterday, you made it abundantly clear that you were an ally of AIPAC:

Bush DOJ's prosecution of these [AIPAC] employees (as opposed to its prosecution of DOD employee Larry Franklin) was abusive, dangerous and wrong,

while today, you suddenly purport to be their enemy:

Just ponder the depths of irrationality and pathological persecution complex -- the desperate need to self-victimize -- necessary to claim that AIPAC, of all entities, is "demonized" and treated unfairly by the U.S. Government.

My God, man, do you seriously expect us to accept the notion that you embrace the truth of both of these propositions? At the same time?

Ridiculous! This must be what Orwell had in mind when introduced the insidious concept of Doublethink in 1984.

Sorry; my sarcasm and sneering contempt are usually fairly apparent, but I may have expressed them this time with a bit more subtlety than intended.

I feel pretty confident in predicting that it's not likely to happen again soon.