Day-um!

Glenn Greenwald does tend to rule. Peggy Noonan? Not so much.

Governor Romney? It's Patrick Henry on line 1...

...something about there being no retreat but in submission and slavery, and you being some sort of rapper, or onion, or whatever a "rapscallion" is...

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Willard "Mitt" Romney, December, 2007:

Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive.

(h/t Glenn Greenwald.)

Yeah, so, um, thanks for the words of inspiration, Willard, although I'm pretty sure you just called me and every other living American a pussy. Yep. You did. Perhaps you need to re-watch the masterpiece that is Team America: World Police, and hearken unto its central message:

Freedom isn't free
It costs folks like you and me
And if we don't all chip in
We'll never pay that bill
Freedom isn't free
No, there's a hefty fuckin' fee.
And if you don't throw in your buck 'o five
Who will?

There's a reason, Willard, that Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, enumerated the rights of life and liberty separately: because they're not the same fucking thing.

BREAKING! DRINKING CAN LEAD TO SEX!

Absolutely stunning news on the Post's website today:

Study Links Drinking With Sex

Tuesday, December 25, 2007; Page HE02

Young adults who drink heavily are more likely than non-heavy drinkers to have multiple sex partners, studies have shown.

This makes such complete intuitive sense ("My god! Drinking can lead to sex?! We didn't know...WE DIDN'T KNOW!!!") that I feel compelled to follow this up with an "Oh you think so, doctor?"

...although apparently my college years were one heckuva statistical outlier...

I really hope Chris Cillizza doesn't write his own headlines.

Currently, on the front page of washingtonpost.com:

The Fix: Someone Has to Win

Friday Line | Despite the negativity about the GOP field, someone will win the nomination.

Chris Cillizza

Oh you think so, doctor?

The "Insight" of David Broder

Okay, so Jonah Goldberg relies on nepotism to get a book deal, I get that...but for the life of me, I can't figure out how David Broder continues to maintain such an exalted place amongst pundits. His column in today's WaPo is not so much wrong as it is pointless. As in there's no point to it. I learned absolutely nothing reading it. The point he tries to make is that, due to all sorts of wackiness on the campaign trail, "life has suddenly become very confusing on the way to the 2008 presidential election."

Wow, because primary season is usually so very, very straightforward, right? Did Broder just take an early vacation and let some intern write today's column?

He sure does have a funny way of showing it...

According to the NYT, Harry Reid apparently "hates" George W. Bush. Huh. I guess he must really love BigTelecom, then because that's the only reason I can see why he keeps giving Bush every thing he wants. (h/t, Froomkin.)

Mike Huckabee *Hearts* Me!

Via David Corn at Mother Jones, Mike "Loving Christian" Huckabee had this to say about folks like me in his 1998 opus, Kids Who Kill:

Men who have rejected God and do not walk in faith are more often than not immoral, impure, and improvident (Gal. 5:19-21). They are prone to extreme and destructive behavior, indulging in perverse vices and dissipating sensuality (1 Cor. 6:9-10). And they—along with their families and loved ones—are thus driven over the brink of destruction (Prov. 23:21)

Wow. I mean, I knew I was prone to "indulging in perverse vices and dissipating sensuality," but I really had no idea I was driving my family and loved ones over the brink of destruction along with me. Sorry about that guys! If only I was a well-behaved Christian lad, like David Huckabee, the pious son of a preacher man. (h/t: Michael D. at Balloon Juice)

Jonah Goldberg is teh stewpid

Via Yglesias (by way of Drum). I'm seriously, you guys, how does this 'bag get paid to spew these nutjob theories? There are times when I'm totally tempted to dress up in drag (blonde wig, natch, to make sure I pull in that Coulter demographic), join the Federalist Society, and start spewing forth the most ridiculous, juvenile, irresponsible, inflammatory bullshit I can dream up. I'm reasonably certain I could do a better job of it than Johan Goldberg. Jeebus.

Too bad I graduated from Wesleyan, which I'm pretty sure automatically makes me one of them thar "Liberal Fascists." Maybe I should've gone to Goucher instead.

Good point, Henry...why didn't you say something 5 years ago?

From today's WaPo Op/Ed section comes this gem of a headline:

Misreading the Iran Report

Why Spying and Policymaking Don't Mix

By Henry A. Kissinger

Seriously, Henry, you're right...so, um, where were you when Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz set up their own special intel office in the Pentagon to make sure that the intelligence they got matched their policy goals?

Maybe he should just say he didn't inhale...

Via Alec MacGillis at WaPo's The Trail:

Clinton N.H. Official Warns Obama Will Be Attacked on Drug Use

I really have nothing to add that could make this more pathetic or more amusing, so I'm gonna let it be.

i can has substance?

Lead story - complete with Doomsday headline - on HuffPo right now:

BILL SHOCKER: I TOLD HILLARY TO DUMP ME

...back when they first started dating.

Wow. Thanks HuffPo. That's so much more topical than that boring old torture/obstruction of justice crap that I've been subjected to lately. Good thing we've got you guys as alternative to that tabloid-style crap the MSM foists on us. Maybe next up you can publish a story about all of the rumors that Obama is a Muslim...

Dear Senator Schumer:

I am saddened and sickened by the news that you will be voting to pass Judge Mukasey's nomination to the full senate. Torture was expressly prohibited by George Washington before the United States even existed as such, and for more than 200 years, General Washington's prohibition stood, and was something we as Americans could be proud of. The current administration has made a mockery of this tradition, and the current congress has done nothing but enable the administration as it guts the Constitution and destroys the rule of law.

I would write to my own senator, but as a native Washingtonian, I do not have one. This, of course, is an issue that is apparently not worth debating on the senate floor (thanks, guys, and you're welcome for my taxes), so since I lived in New York for several years (studying law...you remember "law" don't you? It's what makes torture a crime) prior to returning to the District, I figured you're the closest thing I have to a senator these days.

Anyways, one day you're going to be very, very ashamed of your stance on this nomination. For now, I'm ashamed on your behalf.

Regards,

[EdTheRed]

(Not that the "honorable" senator will actually read this, but sending it to his office via email made me feel at least a teeny bit better.)

Legendary Tough Guy Tom Knott Issues Me a Warning

Well looky here, looks like I've been put on notice not to get in the way of the "Gathering of Eagles" during their counter-protest this weekend. The warning comes courtesy of Mr. Tom Knott of the Washington Times:

This should be taken as a warning to the innocents who live in the region and the unlucky tourists who planned a vacation at the same time the nitwits of the nation planned a celebration of their insanity. Stay away from the downtown part of the city if it is at all possible. The start of the Million Nitwit March is Saturday.

Ooooh, hey, I'm an "innocent," and I "live in the region," he's talking to me! Of course, considering I actually live in the downtown part of the city will make it a bit difficult for me to avoid that area. You know what, though? Mr. Tom Knott's got me fired up about this! I'm gonna write to my senators and tell them to...oh, wait...I forgot, there are too many nitwits living in DC to trust us with representation...oh well, at least Tough Guy Tom is looking out for our best interests. Good thing, too, because otherwise the Bad Guys might win, and take away my precious democratic freedoms...oh, wait, I'm not fucking allowed to participate in this grand democratic experiment of ours, because there are too many nitwits living in DC. Guess I'll just have to leave it to Tommo, then. That's cool, though, 'cuz I hear he's so tough, he gargles with gasoline and chews rusty nails for breakfast...

Richard Cohen is Still an Idiot

Richard Cohen hops on board the Free Scooter Libby Bandwagon today. Let's take a look!

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

For the love of...does Richard Cohen not know that Fitzgerald began his investigation at the request of the CIA? Is it still 2004, where we can point fingers at the bogeymen in the "Liberal Press" whenever somebody does something we don't like? Maybe if the New York Times actually had the power to launch a criminal investigation...maybe then we'd actually get somewhere with torture, secret prisons, and the U.S. Attorney firings. Nice one, Dick.

And saying that obstructing a federal investigation is "not an entirely trivial matter" sure seems like an attempt to trivialize it...and why investigate it at all if it's just "the dark art of politics?" Oh, I don't know, maybe because politics isn't supposed to be a "dark art" in a democratic society? Maybe because in a constitutional democracy, the lights should be kept on, not off? Maybe because obstructing justice isn't supposed to be an acceptable political practice in a democracy? Then again, maybe Cohen is right...maybe we shouldn't have bothered investigating Watergate, either...I mean, after all, Nixon and his cronies were just "practicing the dark art of politics," and what's wrong with that?

Moving on, Cohen whines about Patrick Fitzgerald's bullying of poor Judy Miller and Matt Cooper...oh, pity the poor free press!

Much heroic braying turned into cries for mercy as the government bore down. As any prosecutor knows -- and Martha Stewart can attest -- white-collar types tend to have a morbid fear of jail.

Listen, Richard, I'd feel a lot worse for Judy Miller if she actually were a member of the press, but by 2003, she was barely recognizable as such. She was a mouthpiece for the administration. She printed their stories without questioning them, without performing the least bit of actual journalism to see if what she was printing might actually be true. If you want to be treated like a journalist, you have to behave like a journalist. Judy Miller's inappropriately cozy relationship with the administration is what put her into a situation that led to her incarceration.

Oh, and as for white-collar types "tend[ing] to have a morbid fear of jail," congratulations Richard, you win today's Otis Award! Because I'm sure Otis would agree that "real criminals" don't fear jail the same way that people who are "not what most people would, or should, think of as a criminal" do.

As Fitzgerald worked his wonders, threatening jail and going after government gossips with splendid pluck, many opponents of the Iraq war cheered. They thought -- if "thought" can be used in this context -- that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel and this would show . . . who knows? Something. For some odd reason, the same people who were so appalled about government snooping, the USA Patriot Act and other such threats to civil liberties cheered as the special prosecutor weed-whacked the press, jailed a reporter and now will send a previously obscure government official to prison for 30 months.

Wow, I'm glad that you've got the guts to tell it like it is, Richard! Leaking the identity of a covert agent? Hey, that's just a little gossip! What's the harm in that? It's not like loose lips sink ships or anything like that.

And hey, I'll tell you what I "thought" might be revealed if the thread was pulled: nothing...because we already know that the administration lied the nation into the Iraq War, with a whole lot of help from "journalists" like Judy "WMD" Miller and her colleagues at the "liberal" New York Times.

I'm also glad to know that the top aide to the most powerful vice president in U.S. history is now a "previously obscure government official" to you, Richard. If you didn't know who Scooter Libby was before this case broke, I guess you don't pay much attention to things here in Washington, huh?

This is precisely the sort of investigation that Jackson was warning about. It would not have been conducted if, say, the Iraq war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission had really been accomplished. An unpopular war produced the popular cry for scalps and, in Libby's case, the additional demand that he express contrition -- a vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement. No one has yet explained, though, how Libby can express contrition and still appeal his conviction. No matter. Antiwar sanctimony excuses the inexplicable.

You're right, Richard...if the war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission really accomplished, this wouldn't have happened...because the fucking administration wouldn't have felt compelled to leak a fucking covert agent's identity in an attempt to undermine the credibility of an outspoken critic of the war...but the mission wasn't fucking accomplished, was it, so they fucking leaked, and the C.I.A. asked for an investigation, and then Scooter Libby obstructed that investigation. What part of this don't you understand?

Oh, and there was never an "additional demand that [Libby] express contrition." It's common practice in our criminal justice system that an unrepentant convicted criminal can't expect as much leniency in sentencing as a convicted criminal who accepts responsibility for their acts. I guess Scooter didn't feel like he had to express any contrition, since he's got the whole cozy Beltway establishment (that includes you, Richard) lobbying the President for a pardon or a commuted sentence. The fact that you think that Libby should have gotten some kind of special treatment at sentencing and been granted leniency without accepting responsibility just because he obstructed justice while practicing the "dark art of politics" makes me want to vomit...there, I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks, Dick.

Accountability is one thing. By all means, let Congress investigate and conduct oversight hearings with relish and abandon. But a prosecution is a different matter. It entails the government at its most coercive -- a power so immense and sometimes so secretive that it poses much more of a threat to civil liberties, including freedom of the press, than anything in the interstices of the scary Patriot Act.

Wow. Um, Richard? Investigation and oversight hearings without the prosecution of subsequently uncovered illegal activities is not "accountability." The government investigating potentially illegal activity carried out by the government itself is NOT the government being coercive, and it does NOT pose a threat to civil liberties: it is a necessary function of a free democratic government. I'm going to repeat myself here: investigation and oversight hearings with the subsequent prosecution of subsequently uncovered illegal activities is not "accountability," and it does absolutely nothing to discourage a government that feels free to practice the "dark art of politics" in whatever ways they choose.

I don't expect George Bush to appreciate this. He is the privileged son of a privileged son, and he fears nothing except, probably, doubt. But the rest of us ought to consider what Fitzgerald has wrought and whether we are better off for his efforts. I have come to hate the war and I cannot approve of lying under oath -- not by Scooter, not by Bill Clinton, not by anybody. But the underlying crime is absent, the sentence is excessive and the investigation should not have been conducted in the first place. This is a mess. Should Libby be pardoned? Maybe. Should his sentence be commuted? Definitely.

Yeah, why would the privileged son of a privileged son appreciate the idea of not holding someone accountable for the consequences of his illegal activities? Maybe because Bush has lived his whole life with the appreciation of this concept.

I have considered what Fitzgerald has wrought, and I can tell you that I am personally genuinely better off for his efforts. So that's at least one person, Richard, in case you're actually counting.

And my god, Richard, can we stop with the whole "underlying crime is absent" shit? For starters, Plame actually was covert at the time of the leak. Now, Fitzgerald was unable to prosecute anyone for this...hmmmm...could that, maybe, have something to do with the fact that Scooter Libby lied to investigators and the grand jury, and obstructed justice? Are you suggesting, Richard, that if a person who obstructs justice does so successfully, they should not face any prison time, because there was no "underlying crime?" Or are you suggesting that it's okay to lie to federal investigators and grand juries, and it's okay to obstruct justice, as long as what you're lying to cover up isn't ever prosecuted? Because if that's what you're saying, well, you're an idiot.

Looks Like Somebody Listened to Otis...

Paris Hilton was released from jail today. That's okay...she's rich and white...you know, "not what most people would, or should, think of as a criminal."

Otis...Otis...Wasn't he the town drunk?

I'm sure you've seen this already, but I wanted to draw your attention to a wonderful piece of opinion journalism from today's Washington Post. It's by Federalist Society member William Otis (h/t to Dan Froomkin on the Federalist Society thing...I guess the Post didn't think I'd find that particular piece of information to be relevant as I was reading Mr. Otis' work), and in it, he argues that, while Scooter Libby shouldn't be pardoned, per se, he shouldn't be made to serve any prison time, because he's not someone whom "most people would, or should, think of as a criminal." I was a little confused after my first read, but I took another look, and I think I get what Mr. Otis is saying. As a public service, I thought I would parse it for you.

Scooter Libby should not be pardoned. But his punishment -- 30 months in prison, two years' probation and a $250,000 fine -- is excessive. President Bush should commute the sentence by eliminating the jail term while preserving the fine.

I've always wondered why the President didn't get more involved in the judicial process by tweaking sentences to ensure that justice is properly served. Perhaps the country would be better off if he moved around the country during the year, and set up temporary offices in various cities, he could hear petitioners and then modify the sentences imposed by federal judges as directed by the federal sentencing guidelines...you know, like kings used to do.

There is a legal principle at stake in this case greater than either Libby or the politics of the moment. It is a fundamental rule of law that the grand jury is entitled to every man's evidence. The grand jury cannot survive as the essential truth-finding tool it is if witnesses can lie with impunity. True, Libby committed a "process crime" -- that is, so far as has been established in court or even alleged by the prosecutor, he committed no crime until after the government initiated its investigation of the underlying act (namely, the revelation of Valerie Plame's CIA employment). But for obvious reasons it is not for grand jury witnesses to determine when an investigation is legitimate. As the Supreme Court has noted, there are many ways to challenge questions one believes the government should not be asking, but "lying is not one of them."

This seems clear enough.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton noted that there was ample evidence that Libby intentionally lied. Jurors took care (they did not convict on all counts), and the evidence before them makes it hard to believe that Libby's misstatements were merely a product of poor memory or confusion. The case was proved, and the conviction should not simply be wiped away.

Again, clear enough: in the parlance of our time, Scooter "did the crime."

Yet the sentence is another matter. Neither vindication of the rule of law nor any other aspect of the public interest requires that Libby go to prison.

Hmmm...now I'm getting a little confused. Has Mr. Otis never heard of the use of prison sentences as a deterrent?

He is by no stretch a danger to the community, as "danger" is commonly understood. He did not commit his crime out of greed or personal malice.

Wow, I didn't realize that one could avoid a prison sentence if one believed one's motives to be pure. I also did not realize that lying to a grand jury and federal investigators in an (ultimately successful attempt) to head off an investigation into criminal behavior which one may have been involved in was not motivated at least in part by self-interest. Things are starting to get clearer for me now.

Nor is his life one that bespeaks a criminal turn of mind.

Gosh, I also didn't know that one could avoid a prison sentence if one's life doesn't "bespeak a criminal turn of mind." Hurray! No prison for church-going, God-fearing first time offenders!

To the contrary, as letters to the court on his behalf overwhelmingly established, he has been a contributor to his community and his country.

Oh boy, this is fantastic! This means that if one is convicted of a serious crime, one can avoid prison time completely by getting one's friends and co-workers to write to the court to say what a fabulous contributor to his community and country! "Your honor, Mr. Gacy has been deeply involved in the community his entire life. Why, for years he has regularly dressed up as a clown and entertained the neighborhood children at our block parties!"

And whether or not we agree, we cannot dismiss out of hand the notion that Libby thought he was serving his country by his overall conduct in this episode, specifically by letting it be known, truthfully, that it was not the White House that tapped Joseph Wilson to look into whether Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in Niger.

I think Mr. Otis just blew my mind here...wait, I get it! Because there is a chance that Libby thought he was "serving his country" (and, by purest coincidence, his boss) by engaging in the underlying behavior he was convicted of lying about, it's okay that he lied about it! "I'm sorry I lied when I said I didn't line up those villagers and gun them down, your honor, but you cannot dismiss out of hand the notion that I thought I was serving my country when I pulled the trigger...so you see, you can't possibly send me to prison." Oh, and from now on, I would like to see more newspapers refer to leaking as "letting it be known." It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

A sense of proportionality argues in favor of eliminating Libby's prison term. This was an unusually harsh sentence for a first offender convicted of a nonviolent and non-drug-related crime.

Wow, Mr. Otis is right! A man who lied to federal investigators about the alleged leaking to the press of the identity of a covert agent in apparent retribution for the agent's husband's public questioning of a key piece of evidence used to bolster the administrations causus belli for a preemptive war is far less deserving of prison time than, say, Thomas Grossi, Sr. (2 1/2 years, just like Scooter!) or Mario Pacetti (only a year and a day), a pair of lawless scumbags who were recently convicted of growing (oh, excuse me, "manufacturing") marijuana in an Oakland warehouse and providing it to a medical cannabis dispensary that was licensed by the City of Oakland (I eagerly await Mr. Otis' interpretation of the Commerce Clause, by the way). And Mr. Pacetti actually admitted wrongdoing and expressed remorse! Why should a convict who actually admits he is guilty and says he's sorry be sentenced to less time than a convict who has never admitted any wrongdoing? After all, "we cannot dismiss out of hand the notion" that Libby didn't actually commit the crime he has been convicted of, now can we?

Sandy Berger, national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, was not sentenced to prison for sneaking documents out of the National Archives, destroying them and then lying to investigators. For his actions, Berger received no jail time, a fine one-fifth of that imposed on Libby and 100 hours of community service.

Ooooh, Mr. Otis is a genius! As long as I can point to someone else who was convicted of a superficially similar crime, a court shouldn't be allowed to impose any sentence harsher than what that other person received! I'm so glad that's cleared up!

And of course, Mr. Otis does eventually get to his real point:

To pardon Scooter Libby would not be consistent with the imperative that the mechanisms of law be able to demand, and receive, the truth. But to leave the sentence undisturbed would be an injustice to a person who, though guilty in this instance, is not what most people would, or should, think of as a criminal.

You see, your honor, even though he's guilty, Mr. Libby is a middle-aged, professional white male! Not some criminal! Now where have I heard that line of reasoning before? Oh yeah! After he was caught red-handed breaking into an Alexandria warehouse and stealing 90 handguns, a guy I went to high school with once told a Washington Post reporter: "It's not like I'm a criminal. I scored 1400 on my SAT." Of course, all that got him was a prison sentence and a mention in News of the Weird. Maybe Scooter deserves better...after all, he didn't just do well on the SATs, he also did well on the LSATs!

Commutation offers a middle ground. Unlike a pardon, commuting the prison sentence would not erase the conviction. It would leave Libby with the disabilities of a convicted felon -- no small matter for a lawyer and public figure.

It's so much easier for those no-name convicted felons who don't even have law degrees, isn't it? Why, Scooter won't even be able to vote in congressional elections! He'll be just like any other felon...or DC resident...you know, people like that.

But commutation would alleviate the harshest, and unnecessary, aspects of the sentence. A partial commutation would send the message that we insist on being truthful, but in the name of a justice that still cares about individual circumstances, we will not insist on being vindictive.

It's so true, Mr. Otis. Let's save the vindictiveness for the people who deserve it, like retarded people in Texas.

"Go away! I'm batin'!"

Watched Idiocracy last night. Good stuff, but then I've always been a sucker for Mike Judge's work - he pretty much had me with the George Eliot references in an old Beavis and Butt-Head episode: "Jean Gary Diablo in Silas Murder!" which was either the sequel or prequel to "Jean Gary Diablo in Murdermarch!" I was writing my undergrad honors thesis on George Eliot's novels at the time, so Jean Gary Diablo will always occupy a special place in my heart.

Idiocracy is a bit like a live-action version of Futurama, but even more critical of corporate America and the dumbing-down of modern civilization. Plus it's got lots of fart jokes...so there's really something for everyone. The fact that Fox basically buried the film for mocking both Fox and numerous sponsors only makes the movie more enjoyable.

Schadenfreude

Wolfowitz Apologizes for Role in Salary Scandal.

In hindsight, I wish I had trusted my original instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations," Wolfowitz declared. "I made a mistake, for which I am sorry."

That's funny, I thought trusting his original instincts was what got him into this mess in the first place.

Now if he would just apologize for that whole Iraq thing...

"Didn't you get that memo?"

Via Digby, it looks like somebody forgot to give National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell the memo about the 2006 mid-term results..."McConnell seeks to boost U.S. spy powers."

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has circulated a draft bill that would expand the government's powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, liberalizing how that law can be used.

Question: If the administration has been actively (and unapologetically) violating the FISA for years, why the hell would they care about re-writing it? So they have a brand-new law to ignore?

Sometimes Maureen Dowd Scares Me

Her latest [TimesDelete] is just weird (I guess that's no surprise). Seriously, um, I really don't know what to say about a column that starts with this premise:

It now seems that instead of desire leading to arousal, as researchers once believed, arousal may lead to desire.

And then connects the Republican party's current malaise among women voters to the fact that these women:

...have been deprived of the bristly excitement of hearing their men on the stump delivering great speeches for quite some time now.

Ummmm...is she saying that women are so hysterical (in the old-school sense of the word) that they decide whom to vote for based on how turned on they are by the candidates? Huh? What?
As Commodus (or at least Joaquin Phoenix) once said, "It vexes me. I'm terribly vexed."

Richard Cohen is an idiot

I'm not sure that this is even coherent enough to respond to...Richard Cohen has apparently decided that fear of perjuring yourself is an appropriate grounds for pleading the 5th Amendment. Wow.

Let's start here, shall we?

She knows that in Washington, free speech can cost you a fortune in legal fees.

Ummm, hate to break this to you, Richard, but she's paying those lawyers who told her to clam up plenty. You think Akin Gump drafts letters to Congressional Committees out of the goodness of their heart? Moving on:

More likely, Goodling's problem is probably not what she's done but what she might do. If she testifies before Congress, swears to tell the truth and all of that, she will produce a record -- a transcript -- that can be used against her. If a subsequent witness later on has a different memory of what transpired, then the bloodcurdling cry of "special prosecutor" will once again be heard in the land.

You know what? Cry me a freaking river all you want, but "fear of what she might do" simply is not an actual reason for pleading the 5th. "Oh, sorry, I can't testify because I might lie." What Irving Lewis Libby was convicted of was telling a bullshit story, telling it more than once, and persisting in it even though no one else was telling a similar story. He was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair trial. Believe it or not, they actually took the "different memor[ies]" of "subsequent witnesses" into consideration, and decided that Irving was full of it. These were NOT minor inconsistencies that Irving was peddling under oath - the were bald-faced lies, and he was convicted of telling them. To repeat the lesson: fear of "what she might do" is not a valid reason not to testify. Moving on:

No lawyer is going to be thrilled about letting a client testify in today's political environment. Remember, please, that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was not convicted of the crime that the special prosecutor was appointed to find -- who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame -- but of lying to a grand jury. In fact, the compulsively compulsive Patrick Fitzgerald not only knew early on who the leaker was but also that no law had been violated. No matter.

Richard? Bubby? Lying to a grand jury IS a crime. All by its lonesome little self. And you know what? Federal investigators don't like being lied to. It pisses them off, and proving that someone lied to you is relatively easy to prove, especially if the lie is particularly blatant. You can't lie to a Federal investigator and expect them to just ignore it. News flash for you, pal: Martha Stewart faced zero liability for insider trading in imclone stock - she wasn't an insider...but then she went and lied to investigators...and maybe after her little visit to prison, she now realizes that lying wasn't such a good idea. I'm not even going to go into the whole Clinton impeachment thing...

The fact remains that ordinary politics -- leaking, sniping, lying, cheating, exaggerating and other forms of PG entertainment -- have been so thoroughly criminalized that only a fool would appear before Congress without attempting to bargain for immunity by first invoking the Fifth Amendment. After all, it is a permissible exaggeration to say that in recent years more senior federal officials have had sit-downs with prosecutors than have members of the Gambino family.

I'm gonna type this slow, so you can understand it, Richard: leaking, sniping, lying, cheating and exaggerating are not "PG entertainment" when the person you're lying to or cheating happens to have you under oath. Go ahead and leak lies to the press all you want - woo-hoo! Hours of harmless fun! Watch as we leak and lie the nation into a foolish, unnecessary war! No matter, it's all PG entertainment! - but lie to investigators, including Congress, at your own risk. And what sit-downs with prosecutors are you referring to? Because there's been precious little in the way of investigations and oversight these past six years or so. Remember, Dick, that the Valerie Plame investigation was triggered by the CIA itself (who clearly believed that Ms. Plame was covert enough that exposing her identity was an actual crime), not by some gung-ho committee chairman on the Hill.

Sadly, that's all the time I have for now...maybe I'll update this later...or maybe Dick Cohen will give me a whole new set of material...

Bienveniedo, or something.

This is my blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My blog is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My blog, without me, is useless. Without my blog, I am useless. I must write my blog true. I must write straighter than my enemy who is trying to mock me. I must mock him before he mocks me. I will...
My blog and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit...
My blog is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its code and its template. I will ever guard it against the ravages of comments and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my blog clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...
Before Science, I swear this creed. My blog and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life...
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!