Not Nancy, apparently:
The Politico’s John Bresnahan has written a great story about how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put the screws to her former House colleague, Rahm Emanuel, informing him that she did not need his advice about leadership elections and, most dramatically, demanding that the White House account for every conversation it has with Pelosi’s members.
The story makes Pelosi look formidable and Rahm look like a creampuff.
Christianism may be the common thread between their shared and bizarre views of the First Amendment. Warren somehow believes that the existence of my civil marriage violates his freedom of speech. And Palin, remember, had a similar view:
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."
These people have the strangest understanding of the constitution of the United States – and that strange understanding is rooted in their theocratic view of the world.
Yglesias on Obama appointing Tom Vilsack to secretary of agriculture:
Given the Obama administration’s high environmental aspirations, it seems perverse to just pretend that agricultural policy doesn’t have environmental impact. But that’s the convention in American politics and it looks like something Team Obama is comfortable with.
Ezra Klein also disapproves.
Seriously, we may have a winner:
But for Malkin hathos alone, nothing beats this:
"I have two brothers who served in the Air Force and a number of friends who are either in the military or vets. I honor their service and their sacrifice with all my heart. It is precisely because I do so that I am outraged and must speak when men like George Bush and Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney organize systematic war crimes, command men and women low in the chain of command to carry them out, and then betray them and call them criminals for doing what the Administration wanted.
It is no small part of the bizarreness of the Rubber Hose Right that it is critics of this Machiavellian dealing and not the Administration who are told they "hate the troops." Of all the people involved in this sorry spectacle, the least culpable are probably people like Lynddie England. And of all the unsung heroes of this war, not the least are the guys in the Pentagon who resisted Bush/Cheney’s attempt to rewrite the Army Field Manual so that they could make it easier to do what they ordered done at places like Abu Ghraib," – Mark Shea, Catholic blogger.
A reader writes:
I was an officer that ran interrogator teams in the Marine Corps from 2001-2004.
Reuel Marc Gerecht uses the biggest fallacy in all of the torture debate–the ticking time-bomb fallacy. He assumes that an ideologically driven terrorist like KSM or Abu Zubaydah would answer the questions truthfully even under torture when all he had to do was withstand for 4 days to let 9/11 happen. This is absurd.
They would withstand because they are so close to the "finish line."
Even more likely though, assuming that KSM was captured on 7 September, would be to give us thousands of leads (which he did anyways when he was captured) with a little truth at the core and we would go ragged chasing them all down while the terrorists boarded the planes without a problem.
Bottom line, the ticking time-bomb scenario is just not a justification for torture of an ideologically motivated person who has immense incentive to withstand and disseminate false information. Finally, there are other methods that could "break" KSM in the above scenario like the shock of capture and some thoughtful, sophisticated tricks that are certainly not torture and in the Army manual.
"As my daughter said, ‘This is very awkward, Mom,’" — Kerry Kennedy, on cousin Caroline running against her ex-husband, Andrew Cuomo, "Today," NBC, 12/16.
Duvall, Washington, 11 am.
A lesson in not jumping to conclusions.
Sean Penn is a marvelous actor and his portrayal of Harvey Milk an engrossing disappearance into another human being. But his hard-left politics, and his support for disgusting dictatorships, is worth noting:
"That Sean Penn would be honored by anyone, let alone the gay community, for having stood by a dictator who put gays into concentration camps is mind-boggling."
Jamie Kirchick’s evisceration of Penn’s support for vicious homophobes like Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez can be read here. Cleve Jones’ response can be read here. It’s fair to point out the charity work that Penn does and that his daughter found Castro’s homophobia repellent. But Cleve Jones, for some reason, fails to point out the quarantining of people with HIV in Cuba, which is a little odd coming from an HIV activist.
The Dish 