Hi Glenn

Firstly thanks for your blog, it sits alongside TomDispatch, James Wolcott and Juan Cole as my "must reads".

A point on your question "whether the President has the power to imprison U.S. citizens without charges or process of any kind": As an Australian who watched the kangaroo court that convicted David Hicks (not to mention the obsequious toadying by 'my' own government that helped enable it), surely the question should be extended to "whether the President has the power to imprison ANY citizens without charges or process of any kind". I would imagine your average American wouldn't take too kindly to a foreign power doing the same to them.

Cheers

David

if Clinton had a $200 haircut and a blowjob, and Edwards had a $400 haircut, what's next? An $800 blowjob? A $1600 ass-reaming?

I can't wait for the 2112 campaign.

Here's one way to address the "photo or not" conundrum for Glenn: post a link to the person's press photo in your article and then if someone wants to see the subject of the column, they can click on it; if not then they don't have to. It seems like that would address the desires of both the "no photo" and "yes, let's see what they look like" groups here.

I was trying to combine my agreement about asking the Rapture question with a humorous observation... but not to make light of the importance of the question.

Rather, the second part was a commentary on our even having to ask that question. I was merely stringing together a series of comments, one of which did include the 2007 date (and I inferred that it included the other two points), and, well, the absurdity of it all just bubbled up and... there you have it.

I can see how that might be jarring in print without the benefit of tone.

I think you meant your comment for the other thread, the one from today...

I take some issue with the idea that Harvey C. Mansfield is that intellectually honest. In his WSJ article he writes:

The president takes an oath "to execute the Office of President" of which only one function is to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

Incredibly, Mansfield quotes 6 words from the presidential oath of office (this is as intellectually dishonest as you can get), but declines to quote the full oath as it would immediately devastate his argument:

This is the oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

This oath makes clear that, above all else, the president's duty is to preserve and defend the Constitution, i.e. the rule of law. The framers went out of their way to explicitly place this extended statement of duty to the Constitution in the oath while making no explicit mention of other duties (i.e. defense of the nation) that Mansfield considers should override the rule of law. The framers' intent, in any case, is clear as is the fact that any president who behave as Mansfield advocates must violate his oath of office.

By the way,as long as we are suggesting questions for presidential candidates I would like to see them asked this:

"Can you today accurately quote (or even paraphrase) the oath of office which you would have to take if elected, and would you stand by that oath?"

I agree that asking the GOP candidates whether they believe the Rapture is imminent is a great idea.

However, there were a series of comments that work independently but if strung together make no sense...

that believers in the Rapture think it will happen in 2007;

AND, that a GOP candidate who does not believe cannot win the primary;

AND, that a GOP candidate who does believe cannot win the general election.

It's that time gap that bothers me; I have to agree with the second and third points

That's why I just asked about the End Times. It's not necessary to believe that the Rapture will come next year in order to believe that environmentalism is a waste of time and that the U.N. is a tool of the Antichrist.

Harper's has now put their entire archive online, available to subscribers only. I'm just waiting for my renewal to start up.

It seems some people are submitting the same questions rather than simply voting. It will be easy for Politico to omit the question because the same question was submitted more than once. In the case of the Jose Padilla question, the same questions appears 3 times on the front page alone.

I agree that asking the GOP candidates whether they believe the Rapture is imminent is a great idea.

However, there were a series of comments that work independently but if strung together make no sense...

that believers in the Rapture think it will happen in 2007;

AND, that a GOP candidate who does not believe cannot win the primary;

AND, that a GOP candidate who does believe cannot win the general election.

It's that time gap that bothers me; I have to agree with the second and third points.

This is where Heinlein could lend a hand. ;~)

[I will defer to the higher-road-takers re: Glenn using photos. Perhaps I was too flippant.]

1) On the pictures: I think those who say that using them would be prejudicial are on the right track. Would we judge the value of Stephen Hawking's contribution on the basis of a portrait? Abraham Lincoln's? Emily Dickinson's?

2) On the idea that full citizenship should be reserved to those who served in the military: Do we really think being Spartans is preferable to being Americans? Robert Heinlein was a decent sci-fi novelist, but as a political philosopher, he left a lot to be desired. What's next, Patton's save the fucking for the fighting men?

It's true the Viking is not a hi-perfomance fighter AC. It is a full fledged multi-role combat jet AC. It carries all types of munitions when not in use as an overhead mission tanker.

It's a subsonic ASW/tanker/attack plane:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/s-3.htm

Not much in terms of AA weaponry.

Hey, I got an idea. Let's let Dubya fly the S-3B in a dogfight mano a mano with an Iranian fighter..... ;-)

Cheers,