Chris in DC (DCLaw1)

When we last saw the Republican Superfriends, former Vice President Dick Cheney, in the form of “4-BAD,” was steadily and stealthily protecting Our Country from the unbridled socialist dominion of the unspeakably wicked Dr. Baracko!  But a new threat to Real Americans everywhere had arisen!  With the ceremonial descent of the ancient arch-liberal judicial gnome John Paul Stevens back to his magical, hidden realm of mushrooms and moss, Dr. Baracko was poised to anoint a new JUDICIAL ACTIVIST to the Supreme Court of High Wizards!  Whatever could the Republican Superfriends do to prevent the ascent of a socialist sorcerer who might finally impose forced abortions and Sharia Law upon the land that had originally been delivered to white Protestants by God Himself?!

As I perused the various articles and opinions about the final Justice Department report on the ethical culpability of John Yoo and others for preparing torture-justifying memos, I came across law professor Jack Balkin’s very fine – perhaps singular – take on the subject.  Here is an excerpt, although it was hard to determine what not to highlight from the outstanding summary:

I was inspired by Monatana Maven’s diary about the myth of FDR’s “Make Me Do It” to revisit a famous speech the president gave in 1936, which shows the kind of man and truly great leader he was.

Reading and listening to the speech, I was absolutely blown away by the striking parallels to the current times, and, sadly, the glaring contrast with our current leadership:

That was supposed to be us, right?

The Guardian has the story of a recent British high court decision to release previously withheld details about the torture of Binyam Mohamed:

In a ruling that will cause deep anxiety among the security and intelligence agencies, they rejected [British foreign secretary David] Miliband’s claims, backed by the US government, that disclosure of a seven-paragraph summary of classified CIA information showing what British agents knew of Mohamed’s torture would threaten intelligence sharing between London and Washington, and therefore endanger Britain’s national security.

One of the key paragraphs states that there “could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Binyam Mohamed by the United States authorities“.

Rachel Maddow had another spectacular show last night, and one segment in particular had me absolutely riveted. She just listed one-by-one, like a relentless drum beat, some of the many instances of Republicans embracing and taking credit for federal stimulus funds after voting against that exact same stimulus legislation and demonizing it as worthless and exorbitant.

The FBI interviews underpants bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the same way as just about every other terrorism suspect in its custody, in line with its constitutional obligations, and what do the geniuses on Hardball have to say about it? “Both sides” of the manufactured partisan squabble over this issue “may have an argument” over whether the Obama administration is intolerably soft on terror. Well knock me over with a feather.

Witness the below exchange, coming after the most offhanded observation that Abdulmutallab was given Miranda warnings just like nearly every other terrorism suspect captured within the United States (and even later in the interrogation than shoe bomber Richard Reid under Bush). The critical point that Abdulmutallab had been interrogated in the same way as practically all others before him was treated as the most inconsequential tangent to Andrea Mitchell’s central contribution to the segment, that “the Republican argument is having a lot more resonance.” (She also adds, weirdly, that the government “didn’t brief the 9-11 families” – since when did this become required of every response to an attempted terrorist attack?)

What is the surest sign that one’s ideology is utterly, hopelessly bankrupt? When, increasingly, manifestations of that ideology take the form of hobgoblin obsessions with the most inconsequential, paper-thin minutiae, folded into intricate, hollow origami of false meaning.

When we last saw the Republican Superfriends, they thought all was lost, as the terrible Blue Plague had consumed most of our Great Nation, portending a dark era of socialist terrorist unAmericanisms! Little did they know, a hidden force lay dormant and waiting, like radon gas, cocooned in a deep bunker filled to the ceilings with computer processors and digital panels, to emerge in the Republican Superfriends direst hour of need!