I don't have a paper copy, either, but am wondering if I could get my hands on one today. And, if I could, would it be the original or the scrubbed version...

It might be worthwhile for a few weeks or months to start saving the online versions as soon as they're posted-- I think that's sometime near midnight for me-- and then compare them later on to see what has changed.

What do you think?

Yesterday, I posted my boilerplate treaty-citing letter to my senators and congressman. Today, I have begun sending it to others in the congress, with annotations. The point is that the Congress no longer has a choice, not to prosecute, in this case impeach, would be a violation of the treaty.

The Congress and the Administration cannot abrogate the treaty either. There's a funny little clause or two in Article 31:

Article 31

1. A State Party may denounce this Convention by written notification to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Denunciation becomes effective one year after the date of receipt of the notification by the Secretary-General.

2. Such a denunciation shall not have the effect of releasing the State Party from its obligations under this Convention in regard to any act or omission which occurs prior to the date at which the denunciation becomes effective. Nor shall denunciation prejudice in any way the continued consideration of any matter which is already under consideration by the Committee prior to the date at which the denunciation becomes effective.

3. Following the date at which the denunciation of a State Party becomes effective, the Committee shall not commence consideration of any new matter regarding that State.

You see, you can't abrogate the treaty while you have an accusation against you, it doesn't absolve the accusation, and this Congress and President won't be around long enough for the 1 year withdrawal period.

I really think they have no choice, unless Speaker Pelosi wants to break the law. They have to proceed with investigations, and those investigations must be impeachment investigations. They cannot be in the Justice department, it is implicated, having written the opinions supporting the system of torture. As Scott Horton has pointed out, in an impeachment investigation, there is no claim of executive privilege.

They'll never impeach this bunch. Kucinich has been trying to get them to do it for a long time.

From the WaPo:

Democratic leaders long ago rejected any consideration of impeaching Cheney and President Bush as an irresponsible move supported only by the far left, so they tried today to table Kucinich's impeachment resolution. After initially having more than enough votes to kill the resolution - the "yea" tally to table impeachment topped out at 291 - Republicans decided they had a chance to politically shame Democrats into a full debate on the sensitive issue. Republicans gleefully said they wanted the debate to show the public how many Democrats would actually support impeaching Cheney, which they consider a move supported only by a fringe element of anti-war activists.

More than 120 members, predominantly Republicans, then switched their votes in favor of holding a one-hour debate on the issue, with a final vote of 251-162 supporting a debate on impeachment. Rather than allow a debate fraught with political risk, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) moved to send the Kucinich resolution to the Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), has publicly speculated about impeaching the president or vice president but has declined taking any action since taking the gavel in January.

By Paul Kane | November 6, 2007

Na. Ga. Happen. Bush could take a copy of the Constitution and set it on fire on the Capitol steps and they'd just wag their fingers sternly at him. The Republicans love him and the Democrats want to run against him. Why would either screw up what they see as a good thing?

I get the Times delivered and have yesterday's paper by my side. I only glance at Maureen these days and so am not up on the flap about her that you're talking about.

Give me an idea of what passage you're concerned about, and I can check for you.

Incidentally, the Times/AP story on the CIA tapes that I just put up here was posted at 2:36 a.m. EST by the Times. That story is not, obviously, in my morning hard copy because it was well past last night's deadline.

Cutting something from a hard copy column for on-line eyes only would seem to be a different kettle of fish, quite possibly, as bystander is suggesting, a different calculation about on-line advertising.

I think you are onto something big. I think you should try to talk to someone on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, preferably the chairman.

AP and NBC are reporting this right now.

I need to express, for what it's worth, a personal thought.

Quite awhile back I read a Wa/Po article about Mr. Negroponte.

I'm somewhat familiar with all the 80's El Salvador, Contra, and Nicaragua scandals...

Mr. Negroponte twirls worry beads.

He really loves his adopted children.

There are 'safeguard' higher level human beings disbursed throughout the world?

If that's not believable,

We'd have been blown to smithereens,

a long time ago under the Bush maladministration.

Nah. I wouldn't bother, unless you were particularly interested, because, even if MoDo's columns were different between the paper and online, you still wouldn't know why the editing was being done.

If the only question were: Has the NYT decided web viewers need to be treated differently from in print readers? it would be a fairly straightforward analysis. But, a confounding question could be: How do you disentangle the readers of the column (print vs online), from the editorial position of the paper (this candidate vs that candidate)? Or, is the paper responding to what it thinks its readers in various mediums is willing to tolerate before they tune the writer out altogether?

You'd have to examine the content and presentation of individual columns, as well as the contents and presentations of other columnists as well. It's a good project for some foolishly enthusiastic graduate student somewhere.