The chief restraint upon those who command the physical forces of the country, in the future as in the past, must be their responsibility to the political judgments of their contemporaries and to the moral judgments of history. - Justice Robert Jackson, dissenting in Korematsu v. US.

Thomas Friedman condones torture today:

President Obama got it about as right as one could when he decided to ban the use of torture, to release the Bush torture memos for public scrutiny and to not prosecute the lawyers and interrogators who implemented the policy. But there is nothing for us to be happy about in any of this. . . . [Y]es, people among us who went over the line may go unpunished, because we still have enemies who respect no lines at all. In such an ugly war, you do your best. That’s what President Obama did.

Justice Brandeis' response:

BTD is watching Game 5 of the Bulls-Celtics series.

At my house, it's American Idol and DWTS. Songs tonight on AI will be from the rat-pack era.

Here's an open thread to discuss whatever you are watching...or any other topic if you're not watching anything.

I have come to a deep realization about Richard Cohen, columnist for the Washington Post. His failings are not so much moral and instead simply result from a lack of brain wattage. His column today demonstrates such a lack of intelligence that it becomes perfectly clear that whatever else one may say about what Mr. Cohen writes, the first principle one should adopt in reading him is to understand he just is not very smart. Today Cohen writes:

[I]t is important to understand that abolishing torture will not make us safer. Terrorists do not give a damn about our morality, our moral authority or what one columnist called "our moral compass." George Bush was certainly disliked in much of the world, but the Sept. 11 attacks were planned while Bill Clinton was in office, and he offended no one with the possible exception of the Christian right. Indeed, he went around the world apologizing for America's misdeeds -- slavery, in particular. No terrorist turned back as a result.

[MORE . . .]

Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham:

[T]o pursue criminal charges against officials at the highest levels—including the former president and the former vice president—would set a terrible precedent. . . . That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case.

True enough - war crimes and torture are not really all that bad in the scheme of things, lawbreaking wise. After all, Presidents and Vice Presidents are usually above the law, Meacham tells us. It's not like having private consensual sex (oh wait, that's not a crime.) The Village is incredible.

Speaking for me only

Predictably, David Broder demonstrates what a foul human being he is:

Obama is being lobbied by politicians and voters who want something more -- the humiliation and/or punishment of those responsible for the policies of the past. They are looking for individual scalps -- or, at least, careers and reputations. Their argument is that without identifying and punishing the perpetrators, there can be no accountability -- and therefore no deterrent lesson for future administrations. It is a plausible-sounding rationale, but it cloaks an unworthy desire for vengeance.

What a mendacious hypocrite Broder is. He urged investigations and attacks on Bill Clinton because "[he] trashed the place" (but torture is a-ok to Broder): [More...]

Just got an advance copy of Bob Dylan's very soon to be released album Together Through Life.

I haven't listened to the album itself yet--I skipped to the second disc on the Deluxe Edition ("Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour") because I was excited to see that Dylan spins Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Don't Take Everybody To Be Your Friend."

After visiting the Stax Museum last year I became obsessed with Tharpe, scouring the Internet for any video footage of her that I could find. Interestingly, on his "Theme Time Radio Hour" Dylan recommends that his listeners do the same--he even commands us to go to Youtube in order to bear witness to the genius of Tharpe. "It'll blow your mind," Dylan counsels.

So, here are some Tharpe clips to get you started:[More...]

Congratulations to Ezra for his new gig. On a related note, I disagree with Matt Yglesias' concern:

I do have some concerns about this. After all, one thing all decent progressive blogs do is point out semi-regularly that the Washington Post opinion section is a pretty rotten operation. . . . People don’t go after their bosses with hatchets. So while hiring Ezra makes the Post less hatchet-worthy, it also means that we’re down a hatchet-wielder.

I never thought Ezra was very good as a hatchet wielder anyway (just as I do not look to Ezra for serious critiques of Democrats.) The job of watchdogging an entity like WaPo could never come from inside WaPo (this is a general rule of course - Howie Kurtz is a lousy Media critic for many reasons, but one of them is he gets paid by WaPo and CNN.) There are plenty of folks to do the job. And let's face it, who really expects the up and comers like Klein and Yglesias to do this job anyway? Not me.

Speaking for me only

Even President Obama’s new director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, wrote in a memorandum to his staff last week that “high value information came from interrogations in which these methods were used[] [. . .] Mr. Obama and most of his top aides have argued that the use of those methods betrayed American values — and anyway, produced unreliable information.” -NYTimes

Via Atrios (whose title is completely misleading in this context), Media Matters attempts to whitewash the outrageous comments from Obama Director of National Intelligence, and in the process, unfairly criticize NBC News' Andrea Mitchell (who, Gawd knows, has received much merited criticism from MM in the past). Media Matter discredits its body of sound work with these contortions on Blair's behalf. MM writes:

Sheriff Joe Arapaio is a national disgrace. Among the Pulitzer prizes awarded today was one to Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Arizona) for its coverage of Arpaio's immigration enforcement policies.

The Pulitzer committee noted that Gabrielson and Giblin received the award for “their adroit use of limited resources to reveal, in print and online, how a popular sheriff’s focus on immigration enforcement endangered investigation of violent crime and other aspects of public safety.“

Arpaio makes a mockery of the Constitution. Here's the five part series that won the Pulitzer. TalkLeft's posts on Sheriff Joe over the years are assembled here.

The NYTimes reported:

The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes [of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah] came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.

(Emphasis supplied.) Cheers to the Times for crediting Marcy with the original reporting. Jeers to Reuters:

CIA interrogators used the waterboarding technique on Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted planner of the September 11 attacks, 183 times and 83 times on another al Qaeda suspect, The New York Times said on Sunday.

The New York Times reported Marcy Wheeler broke the story. Reuters should have too.

Via Jane Hamsher@ Twitter:

So how many times have you watched Susan Boyle?

My answer: At least six, I never get tired of watching it. She was great on Larry King Live tonight as well. I don't know which I like watching more, her singing or the judges' and audience reaction to her when she first started to sing. (Video link here.)

It's great that one person can make so many people in so many countries smile. More than 30 million viewers on You Tube in under a week. I wonder if that's a record.

The reaction among commenters here the other night were terrific. I'm reprinting a few below: [More...]

As many times as I've interviewed my favorite Bachelor, Colorado snowboarder Jesse Csinscak on the phone, I only got to meet and hang out with him in person tonight (photo here).

Jesse was in Denver to help kick off the new season of Denver's Rebuilding Together, an organization of volunteers that renovates homes for low-income disabled and elderly residents at no charge to them.

On Saturday, another 500 volunteers will fan out in cities across the metro area to help 25 other families stay in their homes too. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Denver's Rebuilding Together is one of the nation's largest volunteer-based home-repair organizations, with chapters in 43 states.

[More...]