It’s back to the Supreme Court again for the administration’s detainee policy. This time, it might mean the closure of Gitmo as a preemptive measure. And you know how accomplished they are at preemption.
Yesterday David Broder wrote a column which one TPM Reader, more or less fairly, described as Broder’s expression of shock, shock at just what Dick Cheney has been up to over the last six-plus years. And this is a good opportunity to say that the Post’s ‘Angler’ series seems to be becoming the trigger for that transition moment where consensus establishment opinion goes from seeing the vice president as the powerful administration heavy with a sometimes creepy but largely comic penchant for secrecy to an altogether more nefarious force who has used his unprecedented power as vice president to advance an agenda of official secrecy, non-accountability, untrammeled executive power, legitmized torture and general degradation of the rule of law.
But this is far too easy. Because the simple fact is that we’ve known almost all of this for years.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking the series, which is quite good. In journalism, details, the specifics are all. But the story in general has been out there for years, as well as a good number of the specifics, strewn over hundreds, probably thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, online and off.
In other words, when it comes to recognizing Cheney’s profoundly damaging effect on American constitutionalism as well as his guiding role in essentially all of the administration’s most disastrous policies, the train already left the station some time ago.
Sorry.
The new Dem Congress — does the public like it or hate it?
A new poll takes a stab at answering that question in a bit of detail.
Today’s Must Read: Bush is a lame duck president with nothing left to lose — which makes him a formidable stonewaller.
John Edwards uses last night’s debate to rebut Times article alleging he started poverty nonprofit to advance his political career. That and other items in our Election Central Debate Roundup.
Former Gov. Siegelman (D-AL) sentenced to seven years and four months.
Here’s our run-down on the case from this morning and Karl Rove’s alleged involvement in spurring the prosecution …
Here’s our earlier coverage of the case at TPMmuckraker.com.
That should go over well. (from the AP …)
Hed: Bush cites Israel as model for Iraq
President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq, saying Thursday the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.
With his Iraq policy under increasing criticism from the public and lawmakers in both parties, Bush went to the U.S. Naval War College to declare progress and plead for patience. At the same time, his top national security went to Capitol Hill to hear out Republican critics.
We’ll have succeded in Iraq when it’s like Israel.
Where do they come up with these guys? Which speech writer wrote that? Sometimes stupidity rises to the level of a high crime.
Lieberman says surge has enemy “on the run.” That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
Fielding throws a change-up, makes deal with Waxman for security officials’ testimony.