Unless of course, you consider Guinness World Book record level of hypocrisy and cluelessness is worth defending at the risk of one's life. No....it's over, the president had traded his soul and the soul of the nation to avoid the wrath od his own depraved torturing goons and their many supporters inside and outside the government and the military.

"CLEVELAND (AP) — U.S. immigration agents arrived Tuesday at John Demjanjuk's suburban Cleveland home to deport him to Germany, where an arrest warrant alleges the frail 89-year-old was a Nazi death camp guard, his son said.

John Demjanjuk Jr. was returning to the Cleveland area from Cincinnati, where he had filed motions asking the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay of deportation and to reopen the U.S. case that ordered his father deported. He was in contact with people at his father's home.

"He can't stand up and walk out of the house," Demjanjuk Jr. said. "We weren't anticipating anything like this. I was told that a family member could accompany him. We also were told that we would have 3-5 days notice before anything happened."

Around 1 p.m., five men in two unmarked cars arrived at Demjanjuk's home and at least three have been inside the home.

A wheelchair-accessible van arrived after one man was heard saying on a cell phone, "John can't get out of bed."

Two priests who came to the home later went inside and left after a short time.

Demjanjuk Jr. said it's urgent that the appeals court act quickly, because he has been told that immigration agents would depart with his father from Cleveland at 3 p.m.

The U.S. attorney general's office filed a response to Demjanjuk's 6th Circuit motions, saying the court does not have the authority to rule on a previous denial for a stay by the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals...."

The Brass Check (1919) Upton Sinclair

* Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.

* The methods by which the "Empire of Business" maintains its control over journalism are four: First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, advertising subsidies; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry.

Being pragmatic in Washington is the key to advancement, vs sounding "shrill". This is why Pelosi took impeachment "off the table", why Russ Feingold could get no support for his proposal to censure Bush in the senate. It is why the Warren Commission and the 9/11 Commission, and the Silberman-Robb Commission were composed of hacks and fixers, and produced questionable "reports" with "findings" that did not provide answers sufficient to settle the matters the commissions were tasked to investigate.

Obama's pragmatism keeps Bob Gates at DOD and sends a republican "moderate" to represent Obama's state department in China. This pragmatism is a cover for a "one party" political system with two right wings, moving farther to the right, seemingly every moment. Lies and distortions are the main result, but the people mostly think of themselves as centrists, but they mostly are a nice fit to whichever right wing branch of the PARTY, they identify with. Property rules the roost, the two party wings are just window dressing, and "the people" bid up prices of guns and ammunition to previously unheard of levels, just in case "the left" and/or "the poor", decide to move against them....

"The real question one should be asking--if politicians are indeed the craven reeds-in-the-wind equivocators we know them to be--is how can our leaders resist this kind of pressure?"

They can "resist" by trotting out their stenographers in the press corps to back up scapegoating operations of the likes of Porter Goss, while remaining silent while the shill they appointed to run the CIA, joins Goss in shifting the onus onto irrelevant bystander, in this instance, Nancy Pelosi.

It's no different than when it was "all Joe Wilson's fault", remember that "Op", remember the WaPo editorial joining that chorus? Obama has revealed himself to be the Bush/Cheney defense team leader, since he views unrestricted, unaccountable executive power above all else, including the rule of law or the oath he swore to defend the constitution. We knew all this when he reversed himself on Telecom amnesty, a year ago. It's over....on the issues, the transfer of power on January 20, is coming down to a result of as little change as the authority behind the curtain could get away with. We lose....we've gotten used to losing.