i.e., that our laws always have been, and always will be, selectively enforced.

The fact is that Obama is a pragmatist. Yes, he pandered to the far left by saying how awful Gitmo and cellphone wiretaps are. But, now that he is in power, you can be that he will want EVERY option available to him that Bush had. The courts ruled last week that warrantless wiretaps were fine and dandy, and Team Obama says that it might take a few years to phase out Gitmo (say, maybe four).

Rest assured that, if in the next few years you wake up and see a pile of ash where the Brooklyn Bridge used to be, or that if Obama starts encountering advanced weapons in his surge into Afghanistan, he'll want to reserve the right to use waterboarding as deemed necessary.

Simple as that.

As for those of you who trudge through the legal texts: 9% of people in our prisons have been wrongfully convicted. An even larger percentage of the general population, IMHO, have been wrongfully NOT convicted.

Shakira's got it goin' on. I have her in my workout/skiing selections. She is a Columbian of Lebanese descent. I am very sure Omooex would approve. ;-}

So would the voles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygctbqBijFk

From her wiki:

She is the only child of Nidya del Carmen Ripoll Torrado, a Colombian of Italian and Spanish ancestry, and William Mebarak Chadid who is of Lebanese descent.[7] She has 8 older half siblings from her father's previous marriage. When Shakira was only 15, she decided to take up belly dancing. ...

Shakira means "thankful" (شاكِرة) in Arabic.[8] It is the feminine form of the name Shaker.[9] Her second name, Isabel, is also that of her paternal grandmother, meaning "my god is my oath", "my god's house" or "my god is abundance",...Shakira is widely noted for her keen intellect and is reported to have an IQ of 140.[10]

Shakira wrote her first poem, entitled "La Rosa De Cristal" ("The Crystal Rose") when she was only four years old....

On September 28, 2007 at the Clinton Global Initiative, it was revealed that Shakira donated $40 million to help the victims of natural disasters....

Immensely talented, beautiful, smart and generous.

This may have been Holder's version of--"yes, I agree with you, now make me do it". He needs to be pushed or pulled through the open doorway.

-- casual_observer

Not directed at you personally, casual, but I've seen this argument used in a few threads now, and I am heartily sick of it. I'm particularly puking at the endless deification of FDR in connection with this point, since what it actually says is:

"I have absolutely no morals, and/or no spine such that I would apply any I might stumble across. I will bend to whatever wind blows hardest."

Ironically, this same attitude from Obama is what most of the complaints here are about. But there is an old saying about how we get the government we deserve, and this point illustrates in perfectly.

(I know, I know, you all think you are the good guys and it is all the other apathetic voters to blame for nothing ever changing except to get worse - but this point says otherwise.)

Just a thought ...

Regardless, it just seemed that there was a whole lot of bigoted bashing today. Letting out a little steam?

-- heru-ur

Just mocking faux tough guy 'farragut' who, unless a spoof, appeared to think that he'd issue cowboy-like warnings of militia or lynching uprisings against anyone who dare'd prosecute Maximum Leader Bush Jr., so it seemed pretty much appropriate to mock him in the cowboy / redneck style he thought to either joke or inspire fear with.

International law already addresses this exact issue. States who are parties to these treaties are bound to (shall) establish laws and judicial mechanisms to prosecute war crimes themselves. If, for whatever reason or excuse, the State in question does not or cannot prosecute, then international criminal jurisdiction can be established and the offenders may be prosecuted in The Hague regardless of whether the state has signed on to the ICC. The accused bad actors may even be tried in absentia if they decline to submit themselves to jurisdiction or extradition is refused by the State.

Having said that, there is still one axiom that hovers above all international law: Law is politics. The US still carries a large stick around the neighborhood and it will be a cold day in hell before anyone from this country is tried on the international stage for war crimes. But, if we don’t do it ourselves this time, there may be more international political will to pursue prosecution the next time something like this happens (and there WILL almost certainly be a next time).

Will he [Obama] really want to be the first President in history to prosecute a predecessor [...]No, of course not.

-- Bill Owen

Obama isn't going to prosecute anyone. Are you under the impression - as Bush and Cheney were - that the Attorney General of the United States, and the Justice Department of the United States, work for the President of the United States rather than for the people of the United States?

Yes, and he deserved it.

That is always a problem. How to punish (verbally or otherwise) those who deserve it without also hitting the innocent. This nation, as a whole, has committed grievous crimes against humanity and perhaps we deserve to get a little of what we have dished out over the centuries.

I often think of kids who had no part in our wars, our "Jim Crow" laws, or other wrongs --- they did not do the crimes. The ones who did die off and go unpunished. We can only hope that karma gives them what they deserve in the end.

Anyway, I guess the idea of the USA being a "nation of law, not men" has always bothered me since it is so transparently false.

of the tough folks who kept your knickers safe and made sure you weren't interrupted from your deep thoughts here. NOT going to happen under your guy, The Messiah, nor anyone else. See, Bammo has seen the real National Security Agency-CIA-ETC facts and isn't going to stand up in front of the nation and shoot himself in the nutz. Not for the likes you possessor's of vast testicular leftish concavities.

Get a Grip. Khalid Sheik Mohammad had his poor little nosey introduced to enough water to make him spill massively important information CRITICAL to National Security. Uncomfy..? Oh yeah, Baby. In the same ballpark as Daniel Pearl's head being removed by the same KSM..? Naw, though I wish it was. The SEAL Trainees at Coronado Island go through it too, don'tcha know.