While its true that Reagan served the military during WWII, he served it in Hollywood. He made movies.

According to that Reagan biography I linked to, he was "on active duty with the 1st Motion Picture Unit." That sounds like a satirical term a liberal blogger would have invented.

My point wasn't to try to impugn Reagan as some sort of dishonorable draft dodger (though he did avoid combat in WW2 while the "Greatest Generation" fought), but instead to point out the vast disparity between the right's iconic image of him as Courageous Warrior and the reality.

I really don't want to take issue with this post, because it rocks as usual, but just because people call themselves and others "conservatives" does not make it so. Any true conservative would find this administration every bit as harmful to America as I do. It may not harm my agenda or the progressive agenda to allow "conservative" to apply to Coulter et al, but it does harm conservatives, the people I would rather be debating than this Bush crowd.

I've written a lot about this problem in the past. I used to go out of my way to emphasize that Bush followers are NOT "conservatives" at all. They are really just authortiarian radicals and extremists. And I would never use the word "conservative" to describe them.

I still usually don't, but I have come around to Paul Rosenberg's argument (see my review of Andrew Sullivan's book at the old blog) -- at some point, a political movement becomes defined not by the pretty, abstract principles that comes from their think tanks and fictitious icons, but by what they actually do, the things they support.

Look at the leading "conservative" magazines and institutions in this country -- National Review, Weekly Standard, the Heritage Foundation, etc. -- they were the preeminent supporters of Bush and the Bush movement notwithstanding its continuous departure from their supposed "conservative principles." So I have become more open to applying the term "conservative" to what they are.

It's true that there are traditional conservatives who find the Bush movement anathema to what they believe in, but they are in far too small a minority to lay claim to that term.

I saw a reference at the Hot Air site to tension between Malkin and Powers but never made it through the whole video (there is only so much of Michelle Malkin, Kirsten Powers and Bill O'Reilly I can endure in one sitting), but I will definitely go back, eagerly, and watch the whole thing now.

Whatever else might be true about the commenter using the name "Digby" here, it plainly has nothing to do with the blogger "Digby," and if I had to guess, I would guess that it's not a deliberate attempt to confuse but just an unfortunate accident.

O/T Libby GUILTY

on 4 of 5 counts...

This is really great news, and I think important news in many ways. I just finished an article about it for Salon that will be up soon, the principal point of which is that it is a big boost for the RULE OF LAW and for the principle that even the most powerful Bush officials (and Libby was undoubtedly one) will be convicted and imprisoned for criminal behavior, for breaking the law.

Just on a purely psychological level, seeing one of the most powerful Bush figures turn into a convicted felon in a federal court has to be extremely unsettling for the hubristic rulers who long thought they were too powerful to be held accountable for their actions.

I am curious: won't the clock simply run out on the BushCheney "workarounds" (like you I believe them illegal) in regard to the FISA laws?

Not all of your questions have clear answers. But it is fairly clear that because the Bush administraiton continues to claim the right to eavesdrop without warrants, these matters are not moot. I listened to the Oral Argument in the Sixth Circuit and the judges were fairly unrecepective to claim that because the administration was not voluntarily complying with FISA, the claims were moot (they were much more receptive to the standing objections).

If a subsequent administration continues to claim this right, it is not necessary to re-start the lawsuit. That happens all the time, where officials are sued and then are replaced while the lawsuit is pending. The parties in their official capacities are simply replaced by the new officials.

There are also ways for the issue of the legality of the "TSP" to be raised beyond just seeking injunctive relief - including suits for monetary damages (though that is very difficult against federal government officials), efforts by a criminal defendant to exclude evidence on that ground that it was obtained as part of the illegal TSP, etc. And then there is the possibility of taking steps to trigger a criminal investigation and proceeding, soemthing unlikely to occur until there are hearings or some other change in the political landscape.