I'm not sure El Cid's analysis fits here. After all, the Democrats are being depicted as "bowing" to Bush, not to their base.

I'm a bit confused by two of the passages here. The article's first paragraph indicates that the court rejected the Bush position about the transcripts, while a latter paragraph indicates that, procedurely, the plaintiffs still can't use the transcripts.

What gives? What am I missing here?

What Judge Walker said was that FISA provides a mechanism for the review of secret evidence (in camera, ex parte), and therefore claiming State Secrets on something doesn't mean it can't be shown in secret to the judge. FISA has a framework for evaluating secret evidence so we need not dismiss the case just because the evidence is secret.

However, I think this only applies to the defendants using state secrets as part of their defense. The plaintiffs are not trying to use secret evidence to dismiss the suit (which is what the State's Secrets privilege is for - dismissing suits) but rather as evidence.]

OK, I think I get this now. Thanks, Silash.

It's funny that conservatives took the exact opposite approach towards the Justice Department and the AG during Clinton's time in office. I seem to recall it was conservatives loudly emphasizing, with the media's full support, that Janet Reno shouldn't be Clinton's lawyer but should be independent (which I think she mostly was, but not enough for Republican tastes at the time).

I read the NYT and Wash Post articles on the case yesterday (Saturday) and neither included ANY reference to the ABC news reports from their "four sources" concerning the bentonite-Iraq connection, or to the ABC news reports at all. And needless to say, NEITHER included any mention of how the anthrax-laced letters contributed to the hysteria that rapidly emerged after 9-11 to invade Iraq.

If other countries do it, especially Muslim ones, its inhumane and uncivilized, even if they charge the person and hold a trial.

If "we" do it, even if we don't make any charges or allow any access to the person or communication from the person to friends, family or lawyers, and continue to hold them or practice enhanced interrogation techniques against them, then by definition it is right and "we" are civilized.

Can someone explain to me what Harry Reid meant by saying that tranfering the Gitmo prisoners to prisons in the U.S. amounted to "releasing" them in the U.S.?

I just need to find a building to jump off of.

I especially love the "no moral equivalence" line. It's a corrolarly of the right's new found moral relativism. It's a way of trying to pre-empt any challenge to American barbarity by a priory claiming that any attempt to subject American actions to the normal moral judgment we make on others is out of bounds.

But Saddam Hussein was a Very Evil Man who said lots of really bad stuff about us Americans.