"By all means, wait to judge Obama based on his decisions and policies, not who he appoints to administer them." I don't understand how appointments aren't examples of decisions. It's true they aren't policies, but they are indicative of which directions policies will most likely take. Obama said he wanted many strong voices in place but there aren't really opposing voices in the group. I don't think these picks look very promising for truly addressing the many dire problems that confront this nation. I also think, if you really look into what Obama said/did during the past, these picks make sense. He has always been a center-right politician and these choices confirm his orientation.

Marc Rich was clearly a tax cheat. What made his case pardon-worthy was that he was singled out for criminal, not civil prosecution, unlike every other similarly situated defendant.

Really? Why was he "singled out"?

The pardon still left him exposed to civil prosecution. If that is "sleazy", the definition is rather exacting. From where I sit, selective prosecution is "sleazy."

What's sleazy is not the pardon itself, but the fact that the normal procedures were thrown in the trash can -- bans on pardons of fugitives, review by the Pardon Office, consultation with the prosecutors -- because he was drowning in hundreds of millions of dollars which he was spreading around to the Democratic Party, Jack Quinn, and influential Israelis of all stripes.

It's the special treatment that makes it sleazy.

Whether his prosecution was just nor not in the first place has nothing to do with that. Some Terrorists at Guantanamo really are bad and violent. That doesn't justify torturing them and keeping them locked up without process.

Glenn should really save his outrage for the actually outrageous, and not another manufactured pseudo-scandal by the Clinton-hating MSM.

Are all scandals relating to the Clintons MSM-manufactured? Or are any of them real?

For some reason I landed back here? It's a sinking computer ship? Pew. The planet Saturn is the farthest visible planet, I read. if we people use our naked eye, it's out there in harmony at this time of the cold year.

It [Saturn] does what it do.

Saturn brought the melancholy blues. A ponderous era, past and present. The old time astronomers advised for all concerned humans to watch the winter galaxies. Think. Listen. Remain quiet. That changes peoples perspectives. It's a cargo ship that is not weighed down with boats of s.h.i.t., (?) and if good fecal manure gets wet, O Dang Boom. The boat ship sinks to a sea bottom. That's a fact. And bad news. But it's reality. so, I'm trying to be silent.

Ay. And Practice Honesty.

I say a renowned politico,

Rove etc., may be a big phony?

Cell-phones, e-mails, o a`just stinky farts?

Facts of Life are in an harmonious orbit rule.

Renowned astronomer can Not change facts.

If a astronomical Judge screams: Stop Idiocy!

Well, maybe we can hold breath and read UT.

Skip the other below 'stuff' ... It's old banter.

What goes on with my half-dead computer?

It's half dead? Yahoo. Great! Silence? I hope.

~

Holding breath for too long makes people turn real blue.

And maybe it's just my opine, I'll not hold my foul breath.

If readers and concerned citizen's just sits?

We People will stop inhales. We can exhale.

Who's a foolish? Well. Hope to remain alive.

Who deliberately wants to prematurely die?

Breath. Then we remain alive. No, o just sit!

To just complain and only sit,

a better humanity will croak.

So, remember to go breathe.

Someone said: `Hope is Life.

Hope. It brings eternal youth.

Greenwald, November 23:

"I've been genuinely mystified by the disappointment and surprise being expressed by many liberals over the fact that Obama's most significant appointments thus far are composed of pure Beltway establishment..."

Greenwald, This Morning:

"This is vintage Washington. This is the filthy, venal sleaze on which both political parties feed. It's what fuels how the Beltway operates....That's what Washington is..."

If you understood so completely (unlike the contemptibly naive, disenchanted former Obama cultists as you essentially characterized any Progressives outraged with Obama's choices and embracement of the entire spectrum of Bush policies) - if you indeed understood so thoroughly that Obama would choose a raft of beltway insiders for his administration, how can you possibly have the hide to now show this moral outrage at the kind of vermin his net drew in? As you say, this is how Washington insiders work! This illustrates either your disingenuousness in ridiculing Progressives who were dismayed with Obama or your own absurd naivete. The choices you proclaimed so sanctimoniously a week ago to be the inevitable ones are also, just as inevitably, certain to operate as Eric Holder did and does (and Biden, and Clinton, and all the other insiders) .

You are the best journalist I know of, but in this you are completely, if unconsciously, disingenuous.

Glenn - I don't get why any of this should be blamed on Holder. Is it incorrect to assume that pardoning Rich was Clinton's idea, and that Holder was merely helping implement it? If that is the case, why should Holder get the rap for this? Conversely, if this was driven from the bottom up and it was really Holder's idea and he sold Clinton on it, doesn't the bottom line still rest with Clinton?

I personally think the pardon power of the president is grossly underused, given the power of the prison-industrial complex, the ridiculous war on drugs, inherent racism in the jusidical system, etc. Way too many people are in prison for stuff they never should have been prosecuted for. Prison should be reserved solely for violent criminals, period.

This is the same BS line the rightwing nuts threw out 8 years ago when Bush became president, especially after 9/11 when they were thanking God that Bush was in charge. What a crock of shit then and now. Obama's appointees appear to all be highly qualified and experienced, but they are just people and it is way too soon to start falling all over ourselves about how wonderful they are.