Verdictastic!

From Sunday's New York Times comes this editorial, a non-comprehensive list of "things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney." Entitled "The Must-Do List," the article lays out a sort of bare-minimum twelve-step program to set the country on a road to post-Republican-rule recovery.*

Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.

It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law.

The whole article is worth reading, but in the interest of full service to my loyal readers (ha!), here's a quick list of the twelve steps:

• Restore Habeas Corpus; Stop Illegal Spying; Ban Torture, Really; Close the C.I.A. Prisons; Account for "Ghost Prisoners"; Ban Extraordinary Rendition; Tighten the Definition of Combatant; Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively; Ban Tainted Evidence; Ban Secret Evidence; Better Define "Classified" Evidence; and Respect the Right to Counsel.

Hard to argue with any of those.

* - Obviously, that's not how they frame it. But this is the liberal media we're dealing with. That's clearly what they meant.

Lincoln Chafee wrote an op-ed in Thursday's New York Times pointing out the existence, pre-AUMF, of a now-frequently-overlooked "third way":

As someone who was in the Senate at the time, I have been struck by the contours of the debate. The situation facing the candidates who cast war votes has, to my surprise, often been presented as a binary one — they could either vote for the war, or not. There was no middle ground.

On the contrary. There was indeed a third way, which Senator James Jeffords, independent of Vermont, hailed at the time as "one of the most important votes we will cast in this process." And it was opposed by every single senator at the time who now seeks higher office.

The third way in question was the Levin amendment to S.J. Res. 45 (which was later abandoned in favor of the identical H.J. Res. 114 [which is now Public Law 107-243 {which is better known as the Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq}]). Essentially, the amendment encouraged the president to exercise a bit of diplomatic restraint; it didn't bind him to the U.N., exactly, but it certainly reinforced the value of acknowledging the international community. Needless to say, the amendment failed (24-75), and here we are four years later.

As the block quote notes, every senator now running for the White House voted against the Levin amendment four years ago. In fact, a list of the highlights from the "75" side of that vote would include (and this is just a sample): Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold, Bob Graham, Chuck Hagel, Joe Lieberman, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and, alas, my buddy John Edwards. It's entirely possible that each of those guys has an excellent and principled explanation for his or her opposition. Maybe, for instance, the amendment contained some sort of preposterous earmark, or perhaps an egregious spelling error. But as The Linc points out, there's no way to be sure, because none of those guys has ever really been asked about it. And that seems a pity.

John Aravosis at AMERICAblog points out the unsettling lack of media response to Ann Coulter's thoughtful, level-headed critique of John Edwards.

Four of the eight fired U.S. Attorneys have been subpoenaed by the House, and will testify this coming Tuesday.

The Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law approved the subpoenas for former prosecutors in Arkansas, New Mexico, Seattle and San Diego -- all of whom will be required to appear for testimony at a hearing Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee announced plans for a similar hearing on the same day.

The moves mark the latest escalation in the battle between congressional Democrats and the Justice Department over the controversial dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys, at least five of whom were presiding over public corruption probes when they were fired.

Meanwhile, the White House is being unusually candid about its (indifference to? acceptance of? desire for?) the firings.

"If any agency wants to make a change regarding a presidential appointee, they run that change by the White House counsel's office," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "That is standard operating procedure, and that is what happened here. The White House did not object to the Justice Department decision."

As usual, the muckrakers are raking muck.

(Fun with analogies! TPMmuckraker : U.S. Attorneys :: firedoglake : Scooter Libby.)

Robert Reich writes briefly in support of the union bill that passed the House this afternoon. It's probably a moot point, since the House is pretty much the end of this bill's road, but it's worth reading all the same (if for no other reason [ahem] than the fact that it gives me a chance to plug Reich's book, which I enjoyed quite a lot).

(And incidentally, here's a funny thing I just noticed: the book that I linked to is fully titled Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America. Which Amazon's URL handily encapsulates as "Reason-Liberals-Will-Battle-America." Very different messages.)

TAPPED, via Garance Franke-Ruta and Ezra Klein, is collectively pretty sure that Gore's not running.

An interesting op-ed from the founders of TechPresident.com, in which they argue (pretty effectively) that politicians - even the Barack-Obamiest of them - are utterly failing to use online video to its full potential.

Bob Ney went out on a high note this morning, leaving for prison on the heals of a thoughtful and poignant startlingly well-written email to his remaining friends and supporters.

my family and i have lost everything on an economical basis, house, health care, possesions, but so have other people, people in the district, many, have lost all. and yes , that is painful for anyone that has gone through it, but, i am so fortunate to have my wife and children, we are so rich with family, friends like you, loved ones that are there for us, and full of hope for a good future.

That he can profess repentance in one paragraph ("am i sorry for things that happened, absolutely"), and then in the very next paragraph compare himself to former constituents of his who have "lost all," I think, goes a long way toward explaining why he's on his way to prison in the first place.

This U.S. Attorney thing seems to have some serious legs. (I'm even giving it its own tag, on the assumption that I'll write more about it in the future, when I'm not quite as lazy as I am right now.)

TPMmuckraker is all over it.

The Hill's Aaron Blake notes the growing movement among Arkansas Republicans - and to be clear, "growing movement" is entirely my phrase; the actual article calls it something closer to "a couple of overexcited bloggers" - encouraging Gov. Mike Huckabee to abandon his presidential campaign in favor of making a run at Mark Pryor's Senate seat.

I'm of two minds on this one. On the one hand, I've mentioned before my general fear of Huckabee, and I admit that I'd like to see him off the national stage. And honestly, I don't think I'd mind having him as a member of the Senate: he's like Sam Brownback, only jovial.

But on the other hand, I'm not blind to the big-picture expected-value considerations here: [(the likelihood of Huckabee going to the White House) * (the crazy, crazy shit that he'd do the country if he got there)] vs. [(the likelihood of Huckabee going to the Capitol) * (the cost of a power-shift if the loss of Pryor's seat leads to the reversion of Senate control to the GOP)]. Given what I'd estimate to be the considerably greater chance he has to win a Senate race, I suppose I should probably be rooting for Huckabee to continue his White House run.

I tend to suspect, though, that the discussion is moot: considering the very real possibility that Pryor would beat him in the Senate race (Pryor's not fantastically popular, but neither is he a slouch), and further considering that if Huckabee abandons his presidential run only to lose a Senate campaign, his political career is all-but-tanked, I'd have to imagine that Huckabee's feelings about a plan like this one would be, at best, skeptical. Still, fun to think about.

Nick Tosches, the author of a novel called In the Hand of Dante that I once read the first fifty mediocre pages of, tells the entertaining story of his quest to divine the origins of the stock Windows desktop photo called Autumn. Quite worth a read.

(Thanks to Pogue's Posts for the link.)