In any case, it is a valid point, regardless of how sincere shooter may be about the universality of its application: Those who have sacrificed in the service of their country (in Cleland's case his limbs, in McCain's case his mind) should not be mocked.

-- Frankly, my dear, ...

Are we also agreed that military service is not an automatic qualifier for national leadership (as Senator McCain and proxies appear to believe)?

I hear you. I say I'll stay away from the Salon. Then the Law of attraction kicks in. I awake to hear chirping birds on a lovely July first and I'll declare ~No! I'll not feel like somebody who needs to ask the V.A. for some relaxing sertraline before I go visit my personal town sartorial shop.

Birds.

The secret is to find a calm place. My mind hears you and then hears Mona. Jebbie transforms UT into a bawdy house. He wants Lady readers to put on prom gowns, and bummer buns on the boys.

I'll often agree with some baboon ape about a aspect/perspective, and I'll actually thank them within me, with a quiet nod, and be glad for a dark abysmal insight. ouch. Who was the physician who taught the necessity of looking into the abyss? Serious. It was a man who's named stated with a P? He was a male.

The more I insist i'll Not keep abreast of "weirdo" politico's or punditry?

The more I come back. (it's a Law of Attraction)

Last night I dreamt I was back in high school.

It was a field trip to a scoter duck sanctuary.

Then I dream I wanted to be a law professor.

I was showing a prosthetic leg to law pupils.

People need to see, hear, and listen to all.

There are some days I'll 'hiss' and walk off so I'll not blow a gasket on the farm truck.

(what you said to shooter) Max Cleland was in the First Air Calvary. Well. I was drafted.

That's where I was for 7-jungle months.

I'd get down on one knee now and plead?

I'd ask, Frankly, my deer. You will marry?

I'd never give a deer a ring. And if I bow?

My leg cramps up and I'll scream out loud.

O well. It's a hobble down V.A. lane today.

I do pronounce pro-war folk awful sluts.

My love to the otters, possums, and dears.

That assumes that Bush would be afraid of offering a blanket pardon for anyone involved in the ILLEGAL wiretapping.

He isn't. They would have to have a sense of shame and one thing that’s clear through these 7+ years is that they have no sense of shame, or honor. I expect his pardon list to run into nearly, although I wouldn't be surprised if it ran over, 100 pages. He's the dictator, remember. He's the deciderator and he deciderates that everyone gets a pardon. He has nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, to lose and a whole lot of 'legacy' to gain.

Remember Nixon? Poindexter? Ollie North? Slick Dick Cheney?

There is a bush called a hobblebush.

It's a viburnum bush and has clusters.

The flowers are pretty pink, and white.

The bush bears berries that are purple.

Believe me. I was at Kimbrough Hospital.

Kimbrough is near the NSA compound. huh?

Post war, the NSA invited me to two luncheons.

It's a long story. I'd say` We humped the bush. err.

Speak grunt! `Nam war-lingo was 'crude. What we knew?

Whatever? The anti-war position of mine turned NSA off.

I sure would have never wished to work with those goons.

Snoops.

Maybe I could have been wiser? "Bush" was innocent for `jungle

I wandered the planet for 7-years. I was the dignified homeless?

Was the NSA feeling sorry for me? I should have been less traumatized.

I never was offered a clerk office role. I must have been plain too wacky?

The thought of a presidential blanket pardon makes a great many of us shudder; such a pardon would in effect, as KO claims, validate those who claim that the GWB administration has broken the law at least once in the "fight on terror"...

The tenacity of KO to at least intimate, as he did in his special comment, that embarrassment alone would prevent GWB from issuing such pardons is atrociously naive at best and dangerously complicit at worst.

Couple questions for Glenn:

1. Can a President pardon himself for actions taken? If I am not mistaken, under article 77 of the US Code of Military Justice, the president is considered as part and parcel of the armed forces while acting as commander in chief, which he is claiming all his extraordinary powers from Article II as commander in chief...as well, if the President pardons himself or members of his administration, et al, could he then subject himself to international legal sanctions?

2. While Ford pardoned Nixon for crimes prior to any actual indictment, this was never tested in court. Do you forsee any constitutional problems with a pro-active pardon, a pardon without any actual indictment attached to it?

Also, about FISA in general, what is the exact standing needed to bring FISA to a federal court challenge? If I am not mistaken, there would be no way for an individual to prove he/she had been specifically spied upon or specifically "done harm" and thus bring a case...and finally, one more question (though very important)--

If in a dragnet within the administratively claimed eavesdropping powers, criminal information was dug up about a separate crime unrelated to terrorism (bank robbery, murder, drug related etc), could such evidence be used in a criminal court or does the exclusionary principle apply?

Well put. I'll leave aside speculation about whether Shooter was expressing a double standard or has, since the old UT days, experienced some personal growth. But I appreciate your having brought the Max Cleland episode to my attention as a matter of context.

My comment about John McCain was reflective of the man he is now, not of who he was during his Vietnam experience or of his service. Mocking McCain's service was never my intention. Unfortunately, by using the acronym P.O.W. gratuitously, I muddied my own message and insinuated a slight where I didn't intend one - to the actual meaning of P.O.W. both as it applies to McCain personally and to P.O.W.'s in general. And I'm glad you brought it to my attention in the way you did so I could correct myself.

I'll stop short of thanking Shooter for his part in that process of re-evaluation, and if that's proof of my own double standard, it's one I'm willing to live with.