all the rage

"If I understand Greenwald correctly [as an introduction to an expository that shows that you understood incorrectly]

and its popular variant form:

"So what you're saying is [insert the opposite of what you're saying]

Very popular also in the posting section.

This linky (in the post)

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/08/grading-law-professors-apologies-due.html

is a MUST READ for anybody who might've glossed over it.

Glenn, has Kerr ever responded to your substantive criticisms of his oh-so-civil rationalizations? Other than to allow his supporters to summarily dismiss you w/ accusations of hackery?

A longstanding friend of mine was sent by his company, at the invitation of the Carter administration, to a conference where the purpose was debate, discussion, and the presentation of papers, to air information and views for an anti-ballistic missile treaty (ABM treaty).

The discussion, all of it dispassionate and academic in tone, was actually about massive destruction, under the cover of euphemism and clinical and scientific language. My friend first went back to the hotel and read the entire proceedings, so his company would be satisfied that he had absorbed the information, and so that he could be prepared for the sessions in the following days. He found the material appalling.

The next day, during a heated discussion between two bright young academics on whether or not ABMs would lower the total of a first strike against America from 80 to 60 megathanes or not, my friend walked out. Academic dispassionate discussion that does not evoke real human feeling can be unbelievably cruel, and it can allow the discussion of things that should never be, bringing those things closer to existence.

One megathane (coined from the name of the god Thanatos) is one million deaths.

that you and all other bloggers like you, treat Obama with as much scrutiny as Bush was treated.

Glenn, has Kerr ever responded to your substantive criticisms of his oh-so-civil rationalizations?

He responded to that post back then, as I recall, but never to the substantive point that what he was saying -- in many venues -- about Anna Diggs Taylor's decision was completely false, because it was based in an obvious distortion (or ignorance of) Summary Judgment and the implications of the Bush administration's refusal to make its arguments before the court.

In every post he's written about me this week, commenters have his have raised that point and asked why he never addressed it and what his response is. Though he is very active in the comment section and running around the Internet constantly citing the fact that his commenters agree with him and disagree with me as proof that he's right, he is steadfastly ignoring that issue.

That's the point -- Sober, civil tones don't guarantee there is any substance behind it. Conversely, that an argument is grounded in passion doesn't mean it's devoid of substance or is "invective"-fueled.

I hope

that you and all other bloggers like you, treat Obama with as much scrutiny as Bush was treated.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/21/obama/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/24/dodd/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/26/olbermann/

Appears to me that people are unwilling to make the leap from that particular to the general.

If you look at the Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, you may perhaps convince yourself that he is indeed dangerous and there may be some added-value to keeping him locked up, but if you try to justify such a judgement based only on the facts and not on suspicions, then you realize that the line between his actions and that of millions of Americans is totally ethereal.

As I've said elsewhere, the Bill Of Rights and our traditions of Freedom would be entirely unnecessary if the temptation for abuse wasn't present and ongoing.

http://phd9.blogspot.com/2008/10/in-response-to.html

... creating the appearance to a citizenry that relies upon experts and elites to sound the alarm when things hvae [to have] gone truly off track that there was nothing unusual or noteworthy about the powers this administration was claiming and the conduct in which it was engaging.

Otherwise, still reading and absorbing.

one must suppose a priori Superman does exist, that he has flown counter-clockwise around the earth, and taken the planet back in time to 1648, when Charles the I made exactly the same arguments to Parliament. Charles I said (as Bush did when he claimed he had been picked by God to lead us)the King ruled by Divine Right, and further the King Can Do No Wrong (the Unitary Executive in a nutshell).

Parliament famously disabused Charles Stewart of his foolish notion by lopping off his head in 1649.

The Framers of the Constitution were well aware of the history of the English kings; they had just deposed such a monarch, and were in no mood to install another.

As Anthony Kennedy said to the ABA convention in his keynote address in 2006:

The rule of law applies to the government and all its officials.

Glenn, it is a pleasure reading you demolish yet another apologist. Keep up the good work.

In any event, if Greenwald's indictment is that I treated arguments with respect, argued ideas rather than people, and reached the merits without dismissing opponents out of hand, then I happily plead guilty.--Orin Kerr

Is that laughably childish statement any less inane than taking the stand as the defendant in a rape case and throwing up your hands by telling the jury, "She asked for it. She even wanted it. I did her a favor! Raping her was the polite thing to do. I had no choice."?

One of my favorite (satirical) corporate examples of this:

http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/acceptablerisk

Brilliant.

Kerr is just trying to be 'reasonableness'. Its like 'truthiness' only more reasonable-like. He is after all one of the elite. Go read C.S. Lewis 'The Inner Ring'. Thats where Kerr thinks he is when he is really out in Siberia (wonder if he can see Alaska from there?).

A policy difference for instance, is something like, should Treasury buy toxic assets from troubled banks, or should it buy equity stakes?

Torture or indefinite detention (absent the conditions prescribed in the Constitution) are not policy differences. They are illegal under the Constitution as it currently is. At a minimum the defenders of such presidential powers should state that we need a Constitutional Amendment to make these legal. But the call for such an amendment itself would alert the American people that something was flying off the rails.