Blog The Bloggers

Now they care about competence.

When Bush could hardly name foriegn countries, it was a charming populism.

"Ditto" with regard to an inability to think with complexity or speak in a way that indicated a familiarity and comfort with and lack of resentment towards multisyllabic words.

Now, with regard to Harriet Miers, they all scream for "competence."

Why is it that I have the sneaking suspicion that if Miers were clearly and unequivoically known to be pro-life, pro-school prayer, and hard right, it wouldn't matter if her J.D. was from Joe's Law School and Sheet Metal repair? Conservatives would embrace her roots emerging from the people, and liberal critiques of her competence would raise a hue and cry of "elitism" and anti-feminist inconsistency.

Have you noticed that most political bloggers only comment upon those stories that readily have a handle to support their point of view? If the it's a debatable flashpoint--if it can cut both ways--the issue is, of course, commented upon by both sides of the street--but few step up to take on those stories that clearly hew against their own values and beliefs.

So, the story of a mother of a soldier in Iraq coming out for Bush is only commented upon by the likely conservative suspects--Captain Ed, Outside The Beltway, Michelle Malkin, etc., whereas falling poll numbers for Bush are virtually ignored by this crew, though liberally (yeah, yeah) expounded upon by progressives.

People--step up. Of course you are here to advocate your point of view--but to do so, you have to demonstrate its strength and resilence with regard to issues that, at first glance, do not provide support for your beliefs. In addition to commenting upon those stories that clearly and easily reflect your viewpoint, comment on the others as well. Do the hard work--not just the chip shots.

I told you so.

From MSNBC:

From today's WaPo:

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

And we didn 't really win Florida. And, by the way, Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory. And maybe the term "last throes" deserved further consideration...

On Pennsylvania Avenue, on the way to the bank.

A Boy Scout troop, obviously visiting Washington, walks up to the main entrance of the FBI, which is closed. The guards are gone, the door is covered by a thick, imposing iron grating.

One runs around in a circle. "Terrorists!" he shouts, as if in battle.

The Scoutmaster calls for them to line up for a picture in front of the entrance.

"Osama! another one shouts, in a boy's imitation of a voice of seriousness, of war.

In today's WaPo Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule have offered such a remarkable analysis on the topic of judicial statements on terrorism that it deserves to be examined argument by argument.

First they set the premise:

Last week U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour sentenced a defendant to prison for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport. In the course of the sentencing, the judge criticized the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 policies, such as the use of military tribunals and the detention of enemy combatants. He said that "the message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart." Some people, the judge said, believe that the terrorist threat "renders our Constitution obsolete. . . . If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won."

Ok. So far, some might respond to the first paragraph with a vague sense that the Judge is behaving in some unpatriotic way, if one believes that criticism of the Government by judges is inappropriate.

Now let's look at the analysis:

First they say:

That's a little hard to follow. That courts can handle terrorists who are caught with explosives in their possession doesn't mean they are capable of handling the terrorists who manage to evade detection until the moment they immolate themselves with their victims.

However, Judge Coughenour hasn't claimed that, by this action, Courts are addressing those who evade detection. In fact, he in no way even suggests it. He simply says that by this conviction to prison, the courts have not abandoned their commitment to United States ideals. A pure straw man, never mentioned or implied, purely extracted from their own priorities.

Next, they go on to say:

But worse than the judge's logic is the underlying sentiment that yesterday's law enforcement procedures are adequate for today's security threats -- and that any deviation from them is a betrayal of the Constitution.

Again, there is no mention, discussion or implication of adequacy. Indeed, as above, the trying of this one individual would be a completely inappropriate forum for the expression of such claims of adequacy for dealing with all of the nation's security threats. The place for that is not during the trial of a single man, but in the construction of Administration policy. Is the trial of this man supposed to in some way deal with the entire, vast set of national security problems? Of course not, and--read it again--Coughenour never makes or even suggests such a claim. He simply says that in the face of terrorism, we will not give up on what we, as a nation, believe in.

Next:

It recalls the now notorious statement by Lord Hoffman, a British law lord who said, "The real threat to the life of the nation . . . comes not from terrorism but from laws," such as a statute authorizing detention of foreign-born suspected terrorists, which the law lords invalidated under the European human rights charter in December 2004. It also echoes Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's quotation, in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, of a precedent stating that it "would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties . . . which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile."

Here, Posner and Vermeule, lacking the necessary statement from the Judge himself, now reach for statements that "recall" what they have already (erroneously) cast as the Coughenor's words and beliefs. " However, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps their comparison is reasonably astute--if Coughenor is saying that terrorism is not the real threat, and that laws are. Coughenor:

"the message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart." Some people, the judge said, believe that the terrorist threat "renders our Constitution obsolete. . . . If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won."

Hmmm. The judge seems to be saying that terrorism isa threat, to those very ideals and values that distinguish us as a nation. And he seems to not only be protecting the sanctity of law, but regarding it as a primary value, as a first priority--why, you might even say that he is regarding the Constitution as having...supremacy. What other "notorious" figures did that...hmmm...right! The Founding Fathers, who wrote the document.

Next, again unable to find what they are looking for in the actual words of Coughenor, the authors purport to analyze a series of "judicial cliches" (no cites here), making the characterization that "they" are absurdities. As Posner and Vermeule provide no actual judges who have uttered the cliches they describe, it gives them room to select and construct these as they would like, consistent with the above. Let's examine them anyway:

For example, consider the statement that the terrorists will "win" if legal rules and policies are changed in ways that restrict the package of civil liberties in place before the terrorist threat emerged. Whether such restrictions count as a victory for terrorists depends on what terrorists are trying to achieve. Although al Qaeda's ultimate goals are to drive American troops from the Middle East and, more broadly, to establish a Muslim caliphate in the region, its proximate goal is to kill ordinary people to bring pressure to bear on democratic governments. A change in policy that reduces the chance that more people will be killed does not hand the terrorists a victory; it frustrates their plans. A failure to alter any policies in response to a successful terrorist attack is, by contrast, a sign of weakness and paralysis; that would be a victory for the terrorists. Osama bin Laden was right to say that people will back the strong horse. But he was wrong about which horse will prove stronger.

First: "Its proximate goal is to kill ordinary people to bring pressure to bear on democratic governments". Read it carefully. Cause. Effect. One might disagree about what the proximate goal of al Qaeda is, however, even taking the authors' premise as valid, the proximate goal would then be to put pressure on democratic governments. Changes in policy that represent restrictions on fundamental liberties as embodied in the supreme law of the nation may arguably represent greater evidence of bringing pressure to bear on democratic governments than a failure to maintain liberty in the face of such pressure.

Secondly, note the very careful wording: "A failure to alter any policies in response to a successful terrorist attack". Is Coughenor, are any judges stating that we should not alter anypolicies in response to the terrorist threat? Or are some are expressing a concern that, while we must take necessary steps to respond to and prevent terrorism, that some of these actions are not necessary to that laudable outcome or purpose, and may even harm it? Sadly, the authors provide no judges amongst this putative cliche cabal who have said: "Alter no policies whatsoever in response to terrorism".

Now, Posner and Vermeule are dug in deep, and truly flounder:

Some theorize that terrorists hope to provoke the target government into cracking down on civil liberties, in the further hope that the crackdown will, in the long run, increase disaffection among the population from which terrorists recruit. This is a remote and uncertain effect that has to be balanced against the immediate security benefits of adjusting civil liberties. A policy of static defense might increase terrorist recruitment as well, by suggesting that the target government lacks the will or capacity to take the fight to the enemy. The best course is to ignore such speculative long-term considerations in favor of choosing policies that make sense in the short run.

Yet those who express concern that somepolicies may be ineffective in and/or unnecessary to fighting terrorism do not and need not call for "static policies". Another straw man, a false mutual exclusion--as if, by examining antiterrorism tactics to ensure that they work and do not restrict liberty, they must by their nature be static. And again, the authors simply assume that restriction on civil liberties = less pressure brought to bear on democratic nations, rather than examining, for example, what balance of civil liberties and protections might bring a dual protective influence to a democratic society.

Now, deep in the hole, it is becoming rather dark, and the logic twisted and painful:

A second cliche is this: that a nation that permits incremental reductions in its civil liberties in response to threats to its citizens is not worth defending. The truth is that few people have accepted Patrick Henry's call to "give me liberty or give me death" -- this was a rallying cry, not a policy paper -- and in any event nations are rarely faced with such a stark choice. An incremental reduction in civil liberties is not equivalent to their elimination.

Correct. And, indeed, as the authors, apparently now just trying to fill space to attempt to evidence more judicial cliches, almost immediately note, "few people have accepted this call". Let's put it more plainly--I think you would be hard pressed to find a collection of judges so wedded to cliche that they would be on the other end of that call--a group of judges that would claim that, with incremental reduction in civil liberties--we should just give up. Let the enemies in. Just let them conquer the nation. The authors fail to provide a list of this exclusive, cliched few. It certainly is nowhere in Coughenor's statement, which even in the authors' abstracted form speaks to the desire to protect our nation and maintain our ideals in the face of threat.

British and American traditions are two-sided: They acknowledge that governments have an obligation to protect people's lives as well as their liberties. No nation preserves liberty atop a stack of its own citizens' corpses, but if one did, it would not be worth defending.

Yes, I'm looking forward to the quote that the authors must have left out from Coughenor, where he said that there should be utterly no protection against terrorism. Perhaps it was cut in final editing.

The spurious assumption behind both cliches is that whatever package of civil liberties happens to exist at the time a terrorist threat arises must be maintained at all costs; adjustments that reduce liberty are bad even if they produce greater gains in security, potentially saving people's lives. This is a virulent form of the fallacy of the status quo -- that whatever exists must be good. In fact, the balance between security and liberty is constantly readjusted as circumstances change. A well-functioning government will contract civil liberties as threats increase. A government that refuses to adjust its policies has simply frozen in the face of the threat. It is pathologically rigid, not enlightened.

Let's try a translation. "The spurious assumption behind the straw men we have set up to knock down is that all Coughenor and other judge have advocated that all civil liberties must be protected, regardless of outcome. The spurious assumption behind this spurious assumption is that the authors have demonstrated that Coughenor and "they" hold this belief."

Note that the authors, by the end of the article, are aware of the above:

The two cliches about terrorism are familiar from debates among commentators and politicians. What is new and surprising is their citation by judges as self-evident truths. Judges do badly when they appeal to speculative causal theories about terrorism or to the romantic ideals of civil libertarianism. Both are incompatible with the kind of balancing that is so much a part of the judicial function. That ideals have a tendency to explode on the rock of fact was spectacularly demonstrated in Britain, where terrorist carnage occurred just a few months after the detainees in Lord Hoffman's case were released under legal compulsion. It is too soon to tell whether there was a causal connection between the two events, but Lord Hoffman's casual dismissal of the threat to citizens' lives now appears grotesque.

See? Even if we haven't provided a list of judges who have adopted the positions as we have described them, they have been expressed in "debates between commentators and politicians." And, that's almost evidence of a group of judges stating these cliches as we have described them. Then, as a final acknowledgement of the twisted logical wreck that lays behind them, the authors manage to slip in near the end: "Both are incompatible with the kind of balancing that is so much a part of the judicial function."

However, didn't the authors state above that the judicial cliche they are arguing against is the position that one should not "alter any" civil liberties policies under threat of a terrorist attack? Of course, they come forward with no list of these judges, and Coughenor certainly hasn't said it either. That's because he, and they, are much more likely to be...balancing.

MSNBC/Newsweek reports that "the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen" has stated that the CIA knew that Osama Bin Laden was at Tora Bora in the last days of the Afghani conflict, and could have been captured.

MSNBC/Newsweek also reports that Berntsen "criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora."

Kevin Drum rather neatly hits the nail squarely on the head:

Members of the Bush administration have claimed for years that we didn't know in December 2001 whether or not Osama bin Laden was really trapped at Tora Bora — and still don't to this day. Today, Newsweek reports that the CIA commander on the ground says bin Laden was there, and they knew it at the time:

Attaturk is frankly pissed off at the newest unravelling of the Fantasy Based Community, and should be:

Dear Leader got all huffy when during the election Kerry pointed out how he fucked up at Tora Bora. Yet again, somebody who knows better, can tell you that Bush lied and people died

Armando at Daily Kos recognizes the bizarre circumstance that presidential lies are now as unremarkable as a dog biting a man:

Look! Bush Lied! By now the reaction to Bush lying is Ho and hum. A dog bites man story. Now why did the military not go in for the kill on bin Laden? Are conspiracists right? Is bin Laden a paid operative for Bush? Of course not. The more likely story would be that Bush is a paid operative for bin Laden. (Uh oh? Did I just insinuate treason by the President? Is this the New Left McCarthyism? Of course not. Bush is not a paid operative for bin Laden, but he might as well have been.)

And Norbizness sees a case of Deja Vu all over again:

This update in the War on Pentagon Press Releases is brought to you by the phrases "the Taliban is no more," "the insurgency in Iraq is in its last throes," and "hell no, we don't have any many (ed.: men?) for public transportation or port security."

Salman Rushdie calls for an Islamic Reformation amongst traditionalists, as well as extremists.

Some good insights, although likely to be selectively read and/or distorted by some on the Right. For example, they are likely to fail to register the import of this:

It is high time, for starters, that Muslims were able to study the revelation of their religion as an event inside history, not supernaturally above it.

Send your votes as to those who will be most likely to be blind to the above point to blogthebloggers@yahoo.com.

David Franklin has an interesting article in today's Post that would be easy to miss--but it may turn out to be important.

Franklin managed to get past the turgid title-- "Article III Limits on Statutory Standing"--of a comment that Roberts wrote for the Duke Law Review in 1993, and recognized that it contained Roberts' views at the time on the extent to which plaintiffs should be allowed standing in Federal cases.

Standing, in simple terms, refers to having a right or basis at issue in a matter which allows you to be considered by the Court as a person in the case who has a legitimate claim or injury, and therefore (at least on that basis), a legitimate plaintiff. The basic idea: If you aren't standing in the store, you can't buy the ice cream, and if don't have standing, you can't bring the case.

Franklin notes that limitations on standing, although putatively apolitical, have tended to be used to restrict liberal plaintiffs, and have been adopted by the conservative jurist Antonin Scalia.

Now, it gets a little complicated here, but stay with me.

In the 1992 Supreme Court case Lujan vs. Defenders of Wildlife, the plaintiffs sought standing on two bases. One was apparently easily shot down--the claim that members would be harmed if they could not view animals in the wild--as "speculative".

However, the rejection of the other claim for standing by Defenders was more controverisal. They noted that the law under which they sought standing, the Endangered Species Act, had, according to Franklin "authorized "any person" to bring suit alleging a violation of the ESA."

Thus, under the ESA, a citizen could sue to make a claim that the ESA had been violated. This was an explicit provision, passed by our legislative body (Congress--for god's sake, wake up, people), regarding standing. You could do it--or so would say one reading of the ESA.

However, not according to one Antonin Scalia. In Lujan, Scalia. Franklin describes the stance:

The court also rejected this claim of "citizen-suit standing" -- but here's where things get interesting. Scalia's rejection was grounded in a sweeping theory of presidential control over the administrative state. If Congress could authorize mere citizens to sue to ensure that federal agencies followed the law, it would interfere, wrote Scalia, with the president's constitutional duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

However, Anthony Kennedy understood the Lujan position on standing differently:

Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurrence, on the other hand, rested on much narrower grounds. While Congress has the power to define new forms of legal injury, wrote Kennedy, it had not done so in the ESA.

So: Scalia, in Lujan, was arguably defining standing--the right of citizens to claim a basis to be a plaintiff in Federal Court, people--narrowly, because of his concern that standing would infringe on Presidential power. Kennedy seems to be denying that Congress had the intent to define a new basis for standing in the ESA (and, thus, perhaps, to protect standing from the Scalia-ish consequences of such an incursion).

How does Roberts then handle this issue of citizen standing vs. Presidential power. Franklin:

In his article, Roberts walks a fine line between the minimalist Kennedy approach and the maximalist Scalia approach. On the one hand, he judiciously notes that the citizen-suit ruling was "more problematic" than the rejection of the speculative affidavits. On the other hand, much of Roberts's article echoes Scalia's bolder approach both in tone and substance. "The one thing [Congress] may not do," he writes, "is ask the courts in effect to exercise [legislative] oversight responsibility at the behest of any John Q. Public who happens to be interested in the issue." By insisting upon standing, Roberts wrote, the court ensures that it "is carrying out its function of deciding a case or controversy, rather than fulfilling the executive's responsibility of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed." While the lyrics of Roberts's article follow Kennedy, the music is pure Scalia.

As Franklin notes, this was twelve years ago. People, including Supreme Court justices, change their minds. However, Franklin suggests that, with regard to the issue of citizen standing to bring a case before a Federal court vs. Presidential power, the Roberts comment indicates a stance at that time much closer to that of Scalia.

Watching the "Today Show" while working out this morning. This leads to certain observations:

+"campbell brown" +seems +aroused = 49 hits

+maybe +its +"lester holt"= 792 hits

+"campbell brown" +looks +tired +but +eager = 98 hits

"we're all human" = 29,500 hits

Just noticed this on Jay Rosen's site.

Jay is quoting from an interview that Scott Heiser, described as a "reporter/intern" for the Financial Times, did with Robert Novak this past Wednesday--as Rosen notes, "after the Aug. 1 column" in which Novak, after having long maintained that he could not talk about the Plame case, talked about the case, "and before the Aug. 4 meltdown on air":

Q: Alright, let’s just get to the meat here - you’ve been maintaining silence throughout the grand jury investigation, but you just published a column on Monday —

A: My third column total on it

Q: Well, right, but…

A: I’m not going to answer any of it. Not at all.

Q: But don’t you have an obligation to explain your role?

A: I’m not a public figure.

Q. Except isn’t that self-serving?

A. You can say what you want…”

Q. Wait, you need to -

A. I think this interview is over!

Novak. Not a public figure. Every Saturday on "The Capital Gang" for how long? "Crossfire" for how long? The "Novak Zone"? Additional commentary on CNN? Evans and Novak? As noted by Atrios via Rosen: "To me the most disturbing part is his claim that he’s 'not a public figure.' I’m curious - do many other people who have been on television every day for the past couple of decades consider themselves to not be public figures?"

As I was walking from my home at 6th and D yesterday, I walked past the FBI building. Passing by its cold, gray, buttressed, forbidding exterior--the FBI building should have some sobriquet like "The Gray Lady" or the "The Iron Maiden" or the "Big, Ugly, Imposing Building Across From Au Bon Pan, to indicate its closed off, locked down, don't mess with me presence--the sounds of the Ray Charles’ recording of "Hit' The Road Jack" were blasting--and I mean blasting--from somewhere inside the building. Examining the building, I attempted to determine why. It was just as gray as ever. There were no streamers on the outside. No dancing could be observed.

As I came to the corner of Constitution and 8th, there were, as there always are, two guards stationed in front of the building. I smiled at the closest one and asked her “Where's it coming from?” (meaning “where within the building"). “From inside” she said. Irritated and protective. Perhaps I might be a terrorist planning an R’ n’ B based soul assault. “What's going on?” I asked, pleasantly, using a tone that suggested that I was merely a patriotic citizen, simply interested in the ongoing process of my Government–which I suppose I was..
“It's a function” she said--conveying very clearly--as might be conveyed if I were asking "Why are all those men with flamethrowers marching down Constitution Avenue?" that I shouldn't--shouldn't--be asking.

Why? Was this the song selection party for the next wearing down of prisoners at Abu Gharib? Were they pumping up personnel for the upcoming removal of detainees from Guantanamo? Somehow, the purpose of playing the upbeat, finger-popping 1961 blues shuffle into the Washington air had become “classified”. Maybe FBI Intelligence "Company" was looking for the secret of Ray Charles’ “genius”, which, after all, company loves.

Upon leaving the FBI behind me and entering the CVS, I looked behind the cashiers at the front and noticed the cover of latest “People Magazine” (a publication that I find kind of touching, actually) which said, “Jude Law: New Surprises, Other Women, More Stories From the Nanny. Beneath his usually golden but now, in some perhaps airbrushed way, tired hair, he looked glamorous but slightly drawn.

On the counter to the right of me I then saw the Revlon "Facial Spoon". This spoon for the face is intended to make fine wrinkles lighter or to disappear. The face of woman on the box was shrouded in blue tint, maybe in order to avoid litigation

Finally, near the newspaper rack by the door, there was a child--a boy of ten or so, with a kind, open face. Isn't it better for young boys to be kind rather than cruel?

Elisabeth Bumiller notes in Saturday's NYT that, if Rove did leak to Novak about Valerie Plame, it may not be for the first time:

Whatever a federal grand jury investigating the case decides, a small political subgroup is experiencing the odd sensation that this leak has sprung before. In 1992 in an incident well known in Texas, Mr. Rove was fired from the state campaign to re-elect the first President Bush on suspicions that Mr. Rove had leaked damaging information to Mr. Novak about Robert Mosbacher Jr., the campaign manager and the son of a former commerce secretary.

Since then, Mr. Rove and Mr. Novak have denied that Mr. Rove was the source, even as Mr. Mosbacher, who no longer talks on the record about the incident, has never changed his original assertion that Mr. Rove was the culprit.

James Joyner speculates that the performance of "The Dukes of Hazzard" may wind up being more memorable than Plamegate. Sadly, he may be right

Steve Soto manages to transform Bumiller's very act of reporting of the Rove-Novak relationship into an act of obfuscation.

Joe Gandelman makes the argument that it's not just the journalistic meat cozying up, it's the motion.

Tom Maguire speculates that the Times may be confused regarding the 4-key distance between the letters "H" and "P".

By the way, Jay Rosen also provides a very interesting prehistory of Ed Henry-Robert Novak discussions regarding Plamegate that may have led to the Novak walkout. Worth a look.

As much of America now knows, on CNN yesterday, Robert Novak responded to a James Carville comment by remarking "Bullshit", and walking off the set. This was apparently in response to Carville's statement Novak had to show he was "tough" to the editors of the Wall Street Journal opinion page. It was also reported that Ed Henry was about to ask Novak on air about his involvement in Plamegate, and, I believe, it was also reported that Novak knew this.

I am no fan of Robert Novak. In his appearances on the Capital Gang, he always seemed to evoke someone whose reliance upon certain sources and upon maintaining their good will considerably drove his viewpoint; moreover, it appeared the Novak was aware of this, but manifested a cynical, solipsistic, I've-been-so-long-in-this-town-and-have-seen everything-that-can-happen posture that framed this knowing distortion in the context of "So what? Everyone else does it too."

However, I have to say that given the above, Novak's actions yesterday may have been among his better moments. Fed up, Novak, rather than pumping out more weary steam, as described above, reacted in a way that, even if unjustified, was at least perhaps a genuine, uncalculated reaction, an expression of actual disgust rather than some formulaic simulacrum of an opinion.

But--why now, and why then? Is it possible that it was just a calculation after all--that feeling under the gun with Henry about to ask about Plamegate, and not, perhaps, expecting Henry to logroll or avoid, he had to stage an exit?

Or the heat, and the pressure.

Meanwhile, observations abound.

Nick Gillespie sees the exit as a kind of grand theatrical recognition on Novak's part; recognizing that he "would not top himself", he acknowledges this by simply leaving the stage (or, he suggests, a CNN producer requested it).

James Joyner considers the strain of Plame, and the getting-under-the-skin qualities of Carville.

Michelle Malkin disparages sailors.

Cliff May suggest an educational intent on the part of Novak, only to take it away:

Maybe this will teach Carville to keep a civil tongue in his mouth and to learn that all is not permissible in partisan debate.”

Apparently, that’s not the lesson being taught -- or learned.

Right, Cliff! Carville really stands out as a black mark in an otherwise pristine sea of civil debate on cable news! A balanced observation!

However, I think Josh Marshall (though he may not have been the first) figures it out:

Okay, I had to go out this morning. So maybe this is already old news. But it turns out that was an apparently-menacing copy of Who's Who sitting there on the table as Bob Novak stormed off the set yesterday on CNN.

Oh, that Jimmy Carter, redux. All that truth tellin', and all that.

From today's NYT, by Neil Lewis:

"WASHINGTON, July 31 - As the Pentagon was making its final preparations to begin war crimes trials against four detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, two senior prosecutors complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence."

But...see...they were liberal prosecutors...and they hated freedom...and...um...