I wish I could think of a better title, but nothing applies more.

Early in the comments, someone made a Al Haig reference...good call, because he's the only other political/establishment figure that I can remember so clearly grasping for power, so desperate to be accepted by the old wise men. Brooks bows and scrapes at their feet in his column almost daily; it's pathetic to read.

I mean, on what other planet could this jos. a banks suit from *Bethesda* of all f*cking places claim at all to speak for the "red" states? In what alternative universe could the old wise (white) men who have run this country for the past 8 or 400 years somehow make a claim to populism?

Brooks can only do his Margaret Mead dance about the red states in the halls of power because on some twisted level, he thinks that his outsider status - he still isn't fully accepted by the old wise men, and never will be, because he is forever their smithers - is comparable to the outsider status of everyone else in the country. Thus he understands and sympathizes with them, in a primitive way. He can almost imagine himself eating at a salad bar at that Applebees (if they had salad bars, of course).

Ruth Marcus had it right about two weeks ago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091602874.html

Typically, within two days she had rescinded the column, confirming the suspicion that reporters operate off the maxim that if they get equal amounts of hate mail from both sides, they're doing their job.

From her clearer moments:

"And it is a phony evenhandedness, comfortable for journalists but ultimately misleading, that equates these failures without measuring the grossness of their deviation from the standard of decency."

The McCain camp has descended into disgusting McCarthyism. And we're at the point where only in editorials can people point out what's so plainly in front of our face. And at the Washington Post, the "liberal" media, infrequently at that.

What's most amazing about this is that in spite of the widespread evidence to the contrary, Republicans think McCain won because he was so aggressive. Seriously, read The Corner. They think that every time he's a dick about Ayers or ACORN an angel gets their wings.

Weirdly, only Ramesh Ponnuru is willing to admit the obvious defeat.

And we wonder why McCain seems out of touch?

It's the popular belief that McCain's pledge not to bring up Reverend Wright was an example of how he used to be, when he once was a noble warrior who has now sunk because he's losing.

I think the more likely explanation, which given these kind of tactics has become increasingly clear, is that if he brings up Reverend Wright he reminds people that Obama is Christian. And it's far more politically expedient and on his campaign's message to have people secretly believe Obama is a Muslim. Recent poll: 23% of Texans already believe this.

I'm writing from the Middle East and let me assure you, they're all too aware of the McCain campaign's belief in how toxic the accusation of Muslim would be.

I wonder if she will air a story about this? I'd love to see Barstow/the Nation/Columbia Journalism Review or others debate Brian Williams about this.

Also, the most amusing falsehood in this story, which Glenn hinted at but didn't even feel the need to point out: they first openly deny the need for any vetting, then later claim they do it? Spare me something written by your PR hack; let's talk to someone with real authority.

From the judgment in the Eichmann trial, courtesy of Hannah Arendt: "the degree of responsibility increases as we draw further away from the man who uses the fatal instrument with his own hands."

It's not an excuse for Charles Graner's behavior, but undoubtedly he has been treated unfairly. The question is, are we imprisoning him because it's the appropriate punishment for he did or because he embarassed the administration and the military? If the answer is anything but the former, no wonder he isn't appropriately remorseful. Hannah Arendt's accounting of the trial shows us how important the answers to these questions are.

has proposed reform of sentencing laws. I'd be interested in seeing a Salon radio interview about it.

I tried to read through comments and get as clear a sense as I could, since I'm as far from an expert as one could imagine. Please correct me if I'm recapping wrong:

- Extradition: host country arrests and transfers to U.S. for trial

- Rendition: U.S. arrests - with host country permission, assuming because host country is unable - and returns to U.S. for trial

- Extraordinary Rendition: U.S. arrests - without host country permission/host country is unwilling - and returns to U.S. for trial

Obviously, and this point has been made before, but often what we object to about the Bush years is not the practice of rendition but the suspension of habeas corpus, where extraordinary rendition is a necessary prerequisite but in reality is a step further: we kidnap a foreign national and return him not for trial, but to a CIA/U.S. government black site.

This correct? I've also not seen any actual international law references about the legality of extraordinary rendition. Seems to exist in a bit of a legal netherworld...that is, truly to be done only in extraordinary circumstances, with both transparency and as much international consensus as possible. That would also be the same sort of general criteria I would establish for declarations of war.