persons used to doing things the "old fashioned" (Republican) way. Oh how I wish Rham would join the Repig Party. Its where he belongs.

But the people he wants to compromise with have snarled back, rather than giving him credit. And the general public, outside Washington, just does not get it at all.

If Obama is smart, he will start snaling back, and instituting investigations and prosecutions, being tough on the side of what is right and true and human. This compromising has not worked. I believe we will see a chnge in strategy next week. If not, we are ficked.

Obama was sent: 1. a DOD redacted letter about Binyman Mohomed's treatment

2. human rights groups in the UK sent Obama a letter about Mr. Mohomed's abuse/torture

3. The prime minister discussed Mr. Mohamed's treatment with Obama

This means Obama should know what is going on in Gitmo. There are JAG/miliatry people who were ready to stop all abuse at Gitmo on a dime. Those people were not put in charge. Instead, people willing to continue torturing detainees were kept in place. This can not be put off onto Bush. The British are pushing hard to get to the bottom of this story. It's time for our press to do the same.

I don't see what any of this has to do with the Oscars.

And refer charges against Barack Obama to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

Okay, so now that we've taken care of that, what's next?

to allow for criticism, yet?

E-dung, haven't you been asked politely to FOAD several times now?

Shapiro ['assistant press secretary'] did say that there are press office numbers to call beside 202-456-2580, which has been the main White House press office number for decades. “You should have used one of them,” he said.

And those numbers are? Shapiro said these numbers would be made public soon.

The guy manning the phone at the Whitehouse press office number provides a comment on the dimwitted level of Elephantman in the above quote.

These allegations that Binyam Mohamed was brutalized at Guantanamo in the last several weeks -- while the Obama DOD was "concluding" that conditions there comported with the Geneva Conventions -- are coming from highly credible sources.

I am beginning to get the idea that when it comes to dealing with the military, Obama is a babe in the woods. He better wise up soon. That paragraph tells me some people in the military or CIA are willing to risk a lot, their careers, possibly jail, to discredit or embarrass Obama. Of course he was brutalised even as the Obama DOD said he wasn't. Did Obama expect anything different.

Occupations corrupt and weaken Armies. Both Afghanistan and Iraq have been, in essence, long occupations. At any rate, the seven years occupying Iraq was sufficient.

And by now, there is a frightening proportion of Military and civilian people in our government who have, unless a completely blind eye is turned to the entire Bush regime, nothing to lose. For many of them, even the most cursory financial accounting will be disasterous, let alone a legal accounting. And every one of them sees as their hope getting the Obama administration as compromised as they are. Or worse, getting the US in so deep in wars that there will be no time or resources for examination and investigation.

Obama is a fool if he thinks those drones will ever hit anything except civilians, for instance. And Obama's experience in dealing with the military-industrial-media matrix? I hope he's a fast learner.

I belong neither to the 'Obama is God' camp nor the 'Obama is no better than Bush camp.' But he does seem to be the best credible choice for President to come along for quite some time, and I find it hard to fathom how we can expect to do better in the near future. Given that, together with his administration's willingness to tolerate, cover up, and perhaps even continue such shameful behavior, it becomes increasingly difficult to see the point of political engagement.

If we could count on the Congress to exercise is oversight responsibilities and legislate meaningful change on this front, that would be great. But Democrats have, even when they've made initial waves, consistently fallen in line when it matters, voting in large numbers for the Military Commissions Act, the FISA ammendment, etc. We pretty much know that key Democrats, those who now occupy leadership positions in both houses of Congress, were more or less directly complicit in the illegal abuses of executive power under the Bush administration.

That leaves the courts as our only serious chance of mitigating this damage.

But his fearlessness is running in the exact opposite direction of that Hope™ he promoted, and the Change*™ he assured us would be his touchstone.

The audacity I'm imagining for myself is currently running in the exact opposite direction of what Obama might Hope™ as, if this persists, I'm likely to dramatically Change™ my voting behavior in 2012.

New words in the American lexicon; truthiness, hope-iness, and change-iness? So, just like The Real Deal™; it was only another advertising slogan after all.

The thought that Binyam Mohamed was brutalized during Obama's first month in office, after Obama signed an executive order prohibiting the same within hours of being sworn in, makes me physically ill. I have no idea how it makes Obama feel, but there is only one response which would be acceptable to me. Some heads had better roll. Publicly.

I occasionally hearken to the phrase "weak sister", much used by post-WWII politicians-- Kennedys and Nixons alike.

It is such an imbecilic characterization, reeking of banal sexism. It's hard to believe-- or it ought to be hard to believe-- that such a primitive, lizard-brained, testosterone-soaked metaphor as "weak sister" was reliably found in the working lexicon of high-status Amerikan grownups: sophisticated professional (male) statesmen and politicians.

I think the spirit of this pejorative epithet persists in the Obama administration-- which, befitting its cautious, conservative, tentative MO, is unwilling to risk any action that may be seized upon by political foes (including a mischievous corporate media) as evidence or proof that Obama is indeed Soft on Terrorism.

Obama is willing, it would seem, to hang the fulsome and putrid buzzard-corpse of his predecessor's depredations around his neck in order to avoid the debilitating and indelible brand of Weak Sister.

The default position seems to be that he'll go along with the Bush status quo on national security issues as, to again return to Jane Mayer's "Democracy Now" comments, he and his administration "feel their way along" a formidable and perilous maze of crises.

Even giving Obama & Co. the fullest benefit of the doubt-- arguendo, since my chassis of cynicism and skepticism has far too stiff a suspension to give Obama much bounce or wiggle room-- his administration indeed remains obliged to proffer a prompt, straightforward, and comprehensive response. In short, a satisfactory response.

Let us hope against hope that the response is not more along the lines of "Yes, We Can!... Blow This Off as Still Another Merry Mixup".