After a recap of a TV show.

Simply this, you show absolutely no respect for anyone or anything that goes against your vaulted and high-minded ideals. I'm not talking about me. I couldn't care less about the "verbal" trash you toss out on this board. Calling me a Bush lover? Honest to goodness I never laughed so hard in all my years reading Salon. I wonder how old you are. You sound so much like myself when in my 20's and early 30's. So righteous and cocksure about my every opinion. I bet you are just a joy to be around when any discussion turns to politics.

-- KB4Hire

So, what do we have? You argue by a TV show. You pull the "age card". You claim to be against Bush, even as you seek to protect him. You argue that no one should have principles. (wondering here if you ever had principals)

Simply put (that for PDA), one needs to develop principles. Those who don't end up "playing it by ear" in each situation and usually siding for their tribe.

I, on the other hand, believe that if we want a constitutional republic which is "by the people" then our elected officials need to do their duty and enforce the constitution. The Republicans did not; and then the Democrats, in their turn, did not. The democrats paved the way for Obama to do anything he wants to do: hell, Bush just did.

We will have to pray that *power* does not go to Obama's head because the democrats have OKed almost any damn thing he wants to do. Here in UT, we are reduced to praying that other countries try our former leaders; or, perhaps we can be forced to abide by some treaty. Ha! Ask the native Americans how good we are with treaties.

In sum, you argue that the Democratic Leadership was sent to Washington to defend Bush Jr.

Horse shit. (heifer dust for the delicate ears)

In case the DOJ backs down can you please work with Bob Fertick( of the change.org #1 question) concerning prosecution of the Bush officials. How do we go about pressuring the new administration to proceed ? Can you please make contact ? Is torture the best offense to go after? ( there are so many)

Your persistence and precision are awesome!

Naturally, I'm chagrined that my previous screed did not afford you any insight into the question.

[ http://tinyurl.com/853xyn ]

To the self-identified "pragmatist", the Political Upside is the very ground of political life, its warp and woof, its Cartesian plane in which political action must perforce move along quantifiable, objective coordinates.

The Political Upside is a frozen lake upon which our virtuoso incumbent skaters so gloriously glide.

All that other stuff about duty and principle and whatnot is indeed vitally important-- as the frozen fish and water beneath the ice are important. Every skater speaks respectfully and solemnly about their importance to the ecosystem.

But there is simply no practical way for the skaters to maintain momentum and grace on the pragmatic ice if they foolishly risk skating onto thin ice to muck around with the quaint, cumbersome, and obscure critters below the ice.

Put another way, the successful modern professional politician must concentrate entirely on the crowded swarm of skaters; veering off on some quixotic moral crusade is fatally disruptive to an orderly and convivial bipartisan process, and ultimately undermines the very ice of Political Upside upon which the game is played.

If you don't got a Political Upside, ya don't got nuttin'-- see? Conversely, not until ya get and keep a Political Upside can ya start scattering the salt of Political Capital.

(That's why we gotta stay with Obama through the second term, BTW.)

...."Somebody once told me that every treaty made with Native Americans has been broken...by us."

It was prolly a college professor. And it's wrong. We broke half, and the Indians broke the other half.

We broke half, and the Indians broke the other half.

That should be simple to substantiate. Care to provide a source?

I just wonder what the motivation of this article truly is .Glen Greenwald who spends, by his own admission,alot of time in a country like Brazil.Brazil a country where torture is state sanctioned where hundreds of deaths each year are results of torture committed by the police and where the people live in fear torture and know it as an everyday occurence which is certainly not the case in this country.

Anyone who has held a leadreship position in a time of war knows the awesome responsibility and the passionate feelings one feels to witness horrible things done to those under your command.The expression of Bush was genuine in those few days after 9/11 when he stood at the scene of the twin towers.I sincerly beleive if crimes were committed they were crimes of passion.I beleive the motivation was to keep such acts as 9/11 from happening again.I do not know of one execution from any of these tactics.

If a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link and every country just one link wouldn't it make more sense to bring to light the weaker links and address the far more violent policies of those countries where one choses to live a substantial amount of one's life? .When you compare our country to the rest of the world our policies are some of the most if not the most humane.The selective outrage of Glen regarding this issue makes me wonder.Wouldn't make more sense to learn,improve our policies,clarify them and move on.It makes more sense to me than a partisan witch hunt that hurts how we are viewed by the rest of the world just as much if not more than any mistakes regarding prisoners we may have made.

Glenn,

I followed your line of reasoning perfectly through the US constitution making all treaties the supreme law of the land. However, after that, the authority stops and argument (that US is obligated to investigate and prosecute) begins.

I'm sure there is some US Code somewhere that has implemented the Torture Treaty, and this is the time to bring it forward. After all, any defendant would need to be prosecuted under a specified law that spelled what the punishment would be, X number of years, etc. Without that provision, any prosecution would likely fail for denial of due process and equal protection, wouldn't it?

I'm not saying I like this, but isn't it time to offer up the statutory provision that would hang the culprits? Or is there an alternative way to prosecute a criminal action that I'm not aware of. For example, can you prosecute Bush for "violation of treaty" and let a judge make up a sentence?