Because if Ackerman’s statements aren’t the top story on every network news program tonight -- and who’s kidding who, they won’t even be mentioned -- it’s pretty clear that the days of our remaining freedoms are numbered.

My God, what have we come to, when an American President calling out a Russian leader on human rights produces pot-calling-the-kettle-black smirks all around…

um, no, its not a sticky question.

its called the rule of law.

thats how it works, thats how its supposed to work.

it is set up that way for a reason...so innocent people don't get screwed.

go back and read about the salem witch trials or what it was like to live under henry the viii....

Well, the gloves are truly off now, eh?

Velvet or otherwise, that's a blue-steel fist tightening around your throat, and it's pretty impossible to mistake that sort of intent.

So, now that we have a completely supine congress, and a totally irrelevant judiciary, I guess that the unitary executive is upon us.

Back in the day, we called them an emperor.

Naked Emperors

H. C. Andersen's pitch-perfect political parable The Emperor's New Clothes has become shorthand to express the eternal frustration with politicians who seem to think us stupid. Although written as a fairy tale for children, it is really a more complex story than sometimes remembered. You might enjoy rereading it, if childhood is the last time you encountered it; translations can easily be found online in many languages. I have taken the liberty to provide a synopsis.

Two swindlers arrive in the capital, where rules an emperor whose only interest is in stylish new clothes. They claim they are weavers who can produce a cloth with wonderful properties: not only is it richly patterned and colored, but for anyone who is unusually dumb or otherwise unfit for their office, the cloth appears invisible. In his lust for fine clothes, the emperor buys this absurd sales pitch, and gives the swindlers a pile of money to begin work.

The emperor sends his most trusted advisor to inspect the work in progress. The weavers point to the nonexistent cloth on the looms they have set up, and extoll its beauty and luxurious hand. The advisor can see nothing, but he reasons that if the swindlers' claims are true, that must mean he is either stupid or unfit for office. Perhaps in his heart he knows he is both; but dare not admit it publicly. So he goes along with the lie, and reports back that the work is progressing wonderfully.

Other officials are sent on follow up inspections; they all fall into the same trap. It becomes harder now for anyone to admit the truth. Note the satanic cleverness of the swindlers' ruse. Everyone now raves about the wonderful cloth. If you say you see nothing, fellow citizens would call you stupid. Yet you know you can't see anything, which might mean you are stupid, so you dare not admit it. But it's also stupid to not admit you are stupid The effect is like a hall of mirrors where the truth recedes into infinity.

The tale culminates in the famous procession, where the whole town turns out to praise the finery of the emperor's new cloths. Everyone at the parade knows they are stupid; they just don't want anyone else to know it. The emperor knows he is stupid; the advisors pretending to hold up his train each know their own failings; the citizens lining the streets are guilty as well. The story was first published with a rather bland ending: the swindlers scoot out of town with their profits, leaving it bereft of prophets; and life goes on. But Anderson then added the ending for which the story is now revered. A small child, not bound by the absurd conventions of political discourse, calls out "but, he doesn't have any thing on"! And the crowd, hearing the truth, takes up the cry, he doesn't have anything on; he doesn't have anything on!

So you see, the emperor is not the only guilty party; the political system, in fact, is the root of the problem. It can be fun, when applying this parable to our current situation, to sort out the roles played by various characters: naked Obama surrounded by his self deluded advisors; the crowds of supporters blinded by trust; but which role do we assign to Glenn Greenwald: is he the innocent child speaking the truth, or one of the "swindlers", the tricksters with the mojo to expose the whole rotten edifice?

"The Guardian" (UK) has a very long article on British intelligence agents being facilitators of torture and this is a topic that will not go away as there's a general election in Britain in the next 18 months, when there is likely to be a "no holds barred" contest. I hope the results don't lead our media into paroxysms of rage as the Iranian election has done but the British Labour Party has been totally discredited first by Blair "standing shoulder to shoulder" with Bush and now Brown becoming Obama's lap-dog.

President Obama doesn't seem to be very eager to become a "victim of conscience" as the sacked UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, claimed he was. Mr. Murray did some terrible things such as getting drunk and having an affair with an Uzbek belly-dancer (shock and awe!) but he was adamantly opposed to torture and was not shy about proclaiming what was going on in Uzbekistan at the behest of "the West". It didn't take long for an outspoken ambassador to get his marching orders as you can't have ambassadors who get intoxicated or who stray from the marital bed. As we all know, Obama is a clean-living family man who,it seems. never had a love-affair until he met Michelle Robinson and blended in matrimony. He's a clean-cut hero, of course, and there are no belly-dancers in his background but, when it comes to torture and CIA dirty tricks, there's a big question-mark over him.