I just want to thank you for the research and thought you put into this. I have to confess that I rely on your judgment to a great degree when forming my own opinions. Even on issues that I may disagree with you on, your own thought processes and evaluations are sufficiently open and transparent and your approach of using principles first rather than identities and group membership as the basis for your decisionmaking allows me to use articles such as this one as a good starting point in formulating my own viewpoints.

Besides, after the Liberman fiasco, I was sort of hoping for something to feel good about!

You really think people voted Obama and a significant congressional majority in 2 weeks ago because they want to see bipartisanship?

I'm afraid the constituency for the lack of conflict for its own sake is larger than we'd like to admit. One of the things I couldn't help notice during the campaign is that every time McCain or Palin called Obama a terrorist loving anti-American, their own poll numbers dropped.

For every voter who's sick of Bush because of Guantanamo and torture, there's another one who's sick of the arrogance and name-calling that Karl Rove represents to this day. They care less about details and more about tone. Obama won them over because he ran a less negative campaign.

If recent events have proven anything, its that the American people are capable of learning. First of all there's no such thing as a Center. You either care about issues and have taken a position, or you don't care and represent the 'undecideds' that everyone seems to want to impress with their bland indifference.

People who care about issues are also capable of learning about them and adjusting their views if they discover something that they didn't know before. One of the reasons Obama won is that he treated voters like adults. It worked.

between Congressional Democrats viewing their leftist constituents as folks to be marginalized and ignored and 'Centrist' villager pundits viewing the voters who helped elect Obama as being somehow not to be acknowleged.

Both are examples of entrenched interests resisiting natural change.

Before it sinks in that Obama's election was indeed a signal that we're changing direction. Howie Kurtz had a horrible piece up about the fact that Obama generates a lot of excitement and inspiration and somehow people will have to deal with their disappointment when he gets down to business.

The need to deny the importance of the election and to pretend it doesn't mean anything is leading certain people to downright inhuman contortions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/16/AR2008111602374_pf.html

Our self-loving foreign policy community actually still thinks it's in the position to be the world's leader in defining "justice" when, for much of the world, it's now the living, breathing definition of the opposite.

The ability to adjust your moral compass so that evil always points outward is reasonably universal among humans. How we differ is how we react when confronted with evidence that we've lost our bearings. Few things are more satisfying that watching the spectacle of people like Ted Stevens twisting in the wind, but few things are more frustrating than knowing that events like Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo are taking place and realizing that we lack the self awareness to acknowlege a problem, let alone bring and end to the injustice.

He was one of the most vocal advocates for prohibiting government-proof encryption technology in order to preserve the Government's ability to access people's computer communications as part of criminal investigations, and was part of a Clinton DOJ that very aggressively pursued even garden-variety drug cases and used mandatory sentencing guidelines to ensure harsher sentences for common criminals.

John Ashcroft, defending the Fourth amendment against Clinton-guided encroachment:

http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/1097/ijge/gj-7.htm

My reaction:

http://phd9.blogspot.com/2007/04/re-survellance-state.html

But doing so reminds us that the battle for personal privacy cuts across party lines and that there are no shortage of Democrats who are willing to sacrifice freedom if they think it will give them "law and order" or "war on terror" cred

One of the downsides of technological advancement is that anything that can be done will be done at some point. Does everyone remember the talk of internet-enabled refrigerators?

Needless to say, the more connected we all are, the more irresistable the urge to monitor and control will become. It's just plain human nature.

That we are likely to be disappointed with the Obama administration. It certainly appears to me that he indeed intends to 'play ball' in order to grease his own agenda. But nevertheless, its important that such efforts be in the open and under the glare of public scrutiny.

That is why I appreciate your efforts to apply simple logic to pull away at least one curtain that will be drawn in order to sheild the new administratio'ns 'allies' in Congress and the previous executive Branch from actual scrutiny.

I read somewhere, that there are a whole bunch of CIA types that are just waiting patiently for 1-20-09 at which point they intend to sing like birds. I have serious doubts. If they have an important story to tell, they shouldn't wait. Crime is crime, no matter who is in office ata any given moment.

It would appear that Obama also sees the wisdom of staying out of it......

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obama_spokesperson_he_doesnt_h.php

That he will restore the Constitution and the Rule of Law? End torture, restore Habeas, close the Black Site Detention Compounds, release the captives, hold the torturers and the individuals who ordered it accountable, etc., etc.?

I suspect that he will do exactly half of what you suggest. He will end torure and restore Habeas Corpus - except in those instances where people are being held in Black Sites. He will definitly NOT hold the torturers accountable. He will perhaps offer them a nice path to early retirement.