If all issues exist for you on the same level of abstraction, I can see why Obama's FISA vote might be uppermost in your mind.

On the other hand, if you're the primary caregiver for a sick family member who has lousy insurance, or if you have to walk a gauntlet of assholes screaming, "Don't kill your baby" to get affordable birth control at the Planned Parenthood clinic, other issues may seem of more immediate importance.

The Democrats are far superior to the Republicans in addressing issues that have a direct, day-to-day impact on people's lives. Consider yourselves lucky not to be troubled with such trivialities.

I'm looking for a video of the panel that had Cass Sunstein and John Dean that Ari Melber at The Nation wrote about (see Update II). If anyone knows where to find that, please let me know - I'd appreciate it.

This isn't directed to your comment specifically -- I know you were saying you think it's good to form this coalition -- but I'm just addressing much of the sentiment I've seen here.

-- GlennGreenwald

Thanks for your post. I completely understand why Strange Befellows and the ACLU are including Barr and, as I said, I hope it all works out.

We agree that Barr was one of the worst. My comment was fueled somewhat yesterday by having watched him - twice - on Jane Hamsher's interview of him on Blogging Heads. Seeing and hearing him refreshed my memory and dislike that I've held towards him. His rather unpleasant speaking manner was especially apparent juxtaposed with Jane. He should be careful about appearing with people who outclass him to the umpth degree, ;o).

I must buy a fan. It's humid today.

If on death row, order cold soup.

Have some green cucumber stew.

I am sweating like a piglet. Pooh.

no one knows everything. no way.

pooh bah. No be a real fool. gads.

O fan the tub water if it's too hot.

Glad you said that. He's what the weary wounded, and a bona fide, seasoned `Nam veteran would remark:` Chuck Hagel ETC., is a "snow bird" looking for warmth and limelight. A bad fruitcake. A sundry pack, left over from a old WW2 bad k-ration box.Yesterday on the PA turnpike I heard a upchuck, 501-c-3-group,paid radio advertisement, backed by anonymous GOP money-bags-filth calling themselves: `Vets For Freedom. The SURGE FALSE-FACTS. gads. The killer surge isn't, is not, no way... It's a LIE!

Baloney! Check the Middle East bloody streets!

I've personal reasons for saying that. Thanks.

While living this brief Life? Be honest. Be real.

Sort the verbal tares and the nourishing grain.

Chuck Hagel will ride with the breeze and sniff.

I hate those who crave foul smelling flatulence.

"Whatever else is true, there are people on the Right who believe in the same things people on the Left when it comes to war and civil liberties. Anyone can go read the Cato Institute's writing about these issues over the last seven years and let me know which group has done more to oppose extremist Bush policies than they have." -- Glenn Greenwald

I submit that there are anti-war groups and other anti-government groups that have opposed Bush at least as much as Cato, and I think the evidence shows that a few have opposed his policies even more reliably. I have not read a single thing even close to supporting anything this administration has done at antiwar.com.

Cato does get noticed by the press in the beltway and is very well funded, and that is for certain. So, any anti-war sentiment from them is always appreciated in this commenter's book, and they have a good track record on the anti-war issue.

In fact, we should all appreciate any anti-war, non-interventionist positions from those on the right, left, middle, socialist, communist, libertarian, or anyplace else. It is going to take a broad range of Americans to overcome the bipartisan foreign policy of war and intimidation that we have practiced for a century or more.

If we can obtain peace and a non-interventionist policy, then civil rights become so much easier to defend.

Maybe some umbrella group called "strange bedfellows" or something like that. You can use that suggestion if you want. :-)

It's a beautiful word that comes to Mind. It's from the Greek.

It's a transformation of the inner Life. It's a conversion idea.

The individual has a change of mind, heart, and inner views.

It's a old fashion notion from a worm hidden in a cocoon.

Maybe a person can be in the dark? A sorta 'bagworm'.

The emergence from the inner dark? A pretty butterfly.

I find it nearly impossible to believe that a person could lie as much as Bob Barr did about Clinton on TV and every where else and then suddenly become an honest person just a few years later. Especially since I've never heard him really account for himself.

Nobody needs to explain to me the Evil that was Bob Barr in the 1990s. I devoted a small section of my last book to documenting how hideous he was, the huge disparity between his public posturing and his actual life. His prime legislative achievement -- the odious Defense of Marriage Act -- is the reason I can't live full-time in the U.S. He was one of the most vile people on the political scene. No doubt about it.

But the Left has welcomed all sorts of people like that. David Brock was as bad if not worse, and now he's widely loved as the head of Media Matters. Arianna Huffington spent all of the 1990s in hard-core right-wing circles and now she runs the largest liberal news site/blog on the Internet. Andrew Sullivan was one of the most vicious demonizers of war opponents in 2002 and now he's one of the favorite bloggers of hard-core Obama fanatics. Barack Obama travels around with the still-right-wing, pro-life Chuck Hagel, and Obama supporters cheer.

Bob Barr says he changed, that the radicalism of the last seven years changed his views. Is he telling the truth? Who knows? Did David Brock change? Huffington? Sullivan?

Whatever else is true, there are people on the Right who believe in the same things people on the Left when it comes to war and civil liberties. Anyone can go read the Cato Institute's writing about these issues over the last seven years and let me know which group has done more to oppose extremist Bush policies than they have.

That's why the ACLU -- in the wake of the 9/11 hysteria -- hired Barr as a privacy consultant. They saw that much of the Democratic establishment was joining with the Bush administration in these policies, or would at least fail to oppose it, and they wanted to create a coalition as large and diverse as possible to work on those issues.

I agree with what the ACLU did, and I don't see how anyone can say that there are other options after witnessing what the Democrats have done with their control of Congress over the last 2 years.

This isn't directed to your comment specifically -- I know you were saying you think it's good to form this coalition -- but I'm just addressing much of the sentiment I've seen here.