...With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away. -- the NYT

1) The FBI has many, many experts in interrogation. For that matter so do the municipal police forces of our largest cities. Why the hell would the CIA rely on Arab state intelligence services for aught save linguistic help? I haven't heard that Egypt has had much success in eliminating its radical Islamist factions, and the Saudis continue to export the lion's share of the world's suicide bombers.

2) Ondelette is right about 'won't' devolving into 'can't', just as Paul Dirks was right (way back) about the impact of fear on administration personnel and top bureaucrats immediately after 9-11. These organizations and individuals did things in the heat of the moment that weren't acceptable, then a few years of stonewalling and mendacity followed. Now, there is a concerted push to get all and sundry off the hook with respect to civil a/o criminal prosecution, for ever and ever. And virtually no one of influence has discussed this clear pattern, except Paul Krugman, who is readily dismissed as merely a partisan pointy-head.

Whenever can they find the time to govern?

Do they find the time to govern?

Perhaps we should just be thankful that they don't.

We've already lost this war. We actually lost it in 2000 when we allowed this administration to take office in the first place. They're doing whatever they want and there's nothing we can do to stop them. Glenn could write a hundred articles like this every day and it wouldn't matter.

Sooner or later, however, this regime is going down. I'm not going to pretend to say how long that will take or how violent it will be (if at all), but it cannot last. Until that time comes we need to do two things:

1) Continue to work within the political system, as futile as it is, just as a reminder that we still believe in the idea of it, even though it's broken pretty much beyond repair. And yes, keep electing more and better Democrats. No more capitulations.

2) Be ready to fill the vacuum when the regime collapses with a real idea of what kind of world we want to live in. As I see it, we're nearing the end of the days of the nation-states and moving inexorably towards a unified political/economic system. Again, I'm making no predictions on how long that will take, but the reality is that we already have a global economy, and sooner or later we will need a global political structure to regulate it.

(I'm also not saying that such an entity won't become corrupt itself, but let's deal with one problem at a time. And I'm going to be optimistic and discount the idea of a nuclear or ecological catastrophe)

As far as Glenn is concerned, all the bloviating about how evil these people are is just piling on. We know this, some of us have known it since before Bushco took power. But a million posts by a million bloggers decrying it won't mean a thing as long as the people currently in charge of the political/media establishment are still in charge. Let's see more posts about how to get rid of them first and work out the details of what crimes to charge them with later.

Finally, there's more voices out there than Glenn and Markos and Digby and Atrios, maybe we should start spreading the contributions a little wider. A lot of these guys are doing pretty well already (Markos rakes in at least a million and a half a year in ad sales alone), if things get as bad as I, and a few others, are afraid they'll get, the only claim to fame they'll have is being the richest bunch in Gitmo. There are plenty of other bloggers struggling to pay the rent, they can't be of any service of they're homeless. We lost Billmon because of this, he was every bit as good as Glenn is now. Let's try to keep that from happening again.

Now get out there, and get back to work!

-Joe Vecchio

host

The Cup O' Joe Radio Show

www dot headonradionetwork dot com

How about tar, feathers and bus tickets home for congress, beltway media and every political operative that can be found in DC?

Blue tarps too to keep the buses clean.

On the one hand, we have pictures of torture at Abu Graib. On the other hand we have President Bush saying, "We don't torture." Obviously, we'll take the word of the president. He sounds so sincere. Well, his spokesmen sound sincere.

I'm sorry, but the mental image of a long convoy of yellow school busses, filled with black-tarred, chicken-feathered congresspeople all sitting there swathed in blue tarps is really hilarious. Great idea!

Glenn, you seem to be traversing the same arc as many of us (albeit with more force and perhaps effect). But, like many, you seem reluctant to play out the string.

The Democratic cavalry has demonstrated, repeatedly, that they have no intention of rescuing the Constitution. You articulate our outrage. But the tsunami of scandals goes on; what does our sound and fury signify?

I find myself thinking in terms of triage. We can dismiss out of hand the possibility that our nation will recover without intervention. The hard question is this: is this patient so far gone that nothing we can do will save it? I want to keep trying to resuscitate, but what can I do that will have any effect? Voting for Democrats now looks as effective as chanting and burning incense. Protest is the sound of a tree falling with no TV cameras to record it.

You are one of the most important, and one of the best bloggers we have, Glenn. But we are stuck in an endless loop of diagnosis without treatment, and the patient is dying. Your posts indicate your own increasing frustration, yet you (understandably) seem reluctant to "call it."

Dx is obvious; it is Rx that we lack. What can we do? I have no answers. I am to the point that, absent a plausible plan for treatment, I am going to have to start thinking about other patients.

The reason the wingers detest logic is that it leads them to places they do not want to go. Logic is taking me to a sad and lonely place, but the only alternative seems to be self-delusion.