he mused about how Richard Clarke might have better served his country if he had revealed what he revealed in his book while he was living through it

Richard Clarke got his book out in time for the 2004 election.

Not to put too fine a point on it....

but one doesn't get to be the head of the CIA while entertaining much in the way of sensitivity to the feelings of others.

While I'd hesitate to assert the Tenet doesn't have a conscience, I would be very much surprised if it very closely resembles what we normally mean by the term.

on whether our President can be regarded as a sociopath or not, the label itself remains just that - a label.

I prefer to note that he seems to have less regard for human life than does the average tornado and call it a day.

They can't survive the magnitude of mistakes that we take for granted.

It never pays to underestimate the illusion of safety that our oceans (let alone our vast tracts of farmland) provide. I've personally never been anywhere more dangerous than South Halsted street in Chicago and when we moved to Kankakee ( a small town 60 miles South of the city) we would routinely meet people who wouldn't dare venture into the city alone. I had a close friend who was over 30 years old and had never left his home state.

Its no wonder then that so many people liken warfare to schoolyard fighting and regared backing down or being "chicken" tantamount to devastation. They have no experience with actual danger where the successful diffusion of hostility represents success.

the tone of the article is that the Hiatt quotes are so mind-numbingly stupid, that pausing long enough to state that they are mind-numbingly stupid actually detracts from the effect of simply reading them!

http://www.busybusybusy.com/images/fredhiatt06b.jpg

It's quite easy to google the relevant images....

For instance "commander codpiece" yields:

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/1282/bushcodpiecekm6.jpg

http://www.kwhitaker.com/mission_accomplished.jpg

http://www.political-comedy-central.com/bush/bush_awol.jpg

let alone the thread.....

He has no idea what the post is about or what was said.

But he's nevertheless willing to respond to what he thinks would have been said, if the the world was in fact just like the cartoon he imagines.

Once again, he proves Glenn's point by being a perfect example.

Amazing.

Glenn:

Indeed, while the Israelis who were actually at risk from the Lebanon war wanted it to end, the crazed (and safe) neoconservative warmongers in the U.S. were furious when the war ended. And -- needless to say -- they ran around accusing everyone responsible for the war's end of appeasement and cowardice and all of their other inane war-cheering platitudes that have driven this country so tragically off-course.

Shooter:

So let me see if I've got this straight.....

The proper response to having missiles rained down upon one's cities is to...

* ignore them?

* start discussions?

* have a conference?

* surrender?

What do people think would happen if a group in Mexico decided to shoot missiles at San Diego? Offer them citizenship and a house?

Oh silly me. I think some of you would do exactly that.

Glenn writes a post titled War as reality rather than cartoon and who should show up to prove him wrong but Elmer Fudd!

Those questions will get these people on the record supporting or not supporting the CONSTITUTION

Not to be a stick in the mud but failing to uphold the Constitution is NOT what dragged W down into the low 30's.

Most of the commenters here make it clear that they understand what's wrong with Mr. Mansfield's arguments. What I find interesting is the timing of their publication. Can anyone think of why the WSJ would be putting out an article defending the President's right to ignore the law THIS WEEK?!

Stay tuned........

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/washington/02intel.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

WASHINGTON, May 1 — Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

Would granting unlimited power to the Executive seem less threatening if the executive in question weren't the embodiment of cavalier indifference to the consequences of his actions?

The ommision is significant.

The last time I checked, the CIA was not very much concerned with law-enforcment. But they are rather well equipped to take out terrorists.

You're link didn't want to work. But the post can be pulled up here:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html

-- it's presence, or the media's unforgivable unwillingness to acknowledge its presence

That ones easy. Authoritarianism is a quirk of human nature and has been around quite a while. The nation's founders were quite familiar with it and did their best to prevent it from impinging on the freedoms they had crafted into the founding documents. They saw the danger.

Today's modern press, on the other hand is made up of individuals who have had at least sufficient education to be able to write coherently. They should know better. They hold the power necessary to educate and they refuse to do so.

Appalling is rather an understatement.

Its rather easy to find sections of the Constitution that are already being treated as quaint anachronisms and are being ignored. The most notable example being the one I quote most frequently which supposes that armies would only be formed in time of need and in no case for a period greater than two years.