Now, in order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a "liberal," regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more "liberal" one is. Whether one is a "liberal" -- or, for that matter, a "conservative" -- is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Do Bush followers have a political ideology?

Believe it or not, Dr. Seuss was a political cartoonist in the early 1940s.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Pheezer the Appeaser:

"That's the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break."

"But you would have to be an idiot to believe that," Scalia said. "The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things."

I'm growing a little sceptical of "strict constructionalism." I like strict constructionalism, I just don't think these federalist guys are strict constructionalists.

To begin with, the words "cruel and unusual" do not mean the same thing that they meant 200 years ago. But it goes beyond that. The 14th amendment changed the nature of the Constitution, and amendments which were written as restrictions on the federal government became individual rights. In order to accept the "strict constructionalist" view one must claim that the 9th amendment is a "garnish" that has no real legal force or meaning. I think thats clearly insane and hypocritical. The Constituion established a very limited federal government. The 14th amendment made the state governments limited too. Liberals and Conservatives who wish to use government power in new ways to control what people can do ought to amend the consitution to do it.

Honestly, I think the government likes the tension that this has wrought. They like having a second amendment and gun laws at the same time. It allows them to regulate while having strong pressures against regulation. They like having a right to an abortion while having this dialog about whether or not its real. It creates a legal safe ground without creating an ethical one. Its an environment where abortion can be simultaneously legal and immoral. If you reversed Row people would be hurt. If you accepted Row people would be more comfortable with getting actual abortions. There is wisdom in the way these extremes have been set up against eachother, but it makes our legal system a very delicate balance that constantly threatens to implode.

Scalia Dismisses 'Living Constitution' - Yahoo! News

The ironies abound. If this is how defenders of the NSA program must proceed in order to argue for its legality, they well fit the caricature of judicial activism that generations of conservatives have tarred liberals with when liberals argue for extensions of civil rights and civil liberties protections. That is, instead of being constrained by law in the first instance, defenders argue that a program would be good policy and therefore strain to find that it is not illegal or unconstitutional.

The conservative infighting begins.

Legislating from the bench

My opinion of Sheehan dropped considerably after she appeared with Chavez. "I'm pissed off because my son died in your war" is an understandable position that a lot of people identify with. "I'm hanging out with a foreign government because they've taken an anti-american stance and I think thats cool" is not understandable. She now really is the left wing nut that the right wing nuts accused her of being all along.

Nevertheless, I don't think she should have been arrestted for wearing a t-shirt. If they didn't want her there they should have just un-invited her.

Cindy Sheehan arrested for... wearing a shirt!

By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone will be almost 60
percent of the entire federal budget. And that will present future Congresses with impossible choices -- staggering tax increases, immense deficits, or deep cuts in every category of spending. Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security -- (applause) -- yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not
going away. (Applause.) And every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse.

There were a few swipes in here that jarred me but much I agree with too... I didn't see this on TV. This passage is interesting. Were they applauding the fact that Congress did not act? Is lower case applause democrat applause? How loud was the applause after the obligatory paragraph on the NSA surveillance? Was it as captial 'A' Applause as this passage was capital 'A' Applause...

They should augment these transcripts with direction and sound level data from a sensor.

I agree, BTW, that the entitlement problem needs to be addressed. I am unimpressed with the Democrat's position that there is no problem, or that no one can predict whats going to happen in 40 years. We absolutely can, and there certainly is. We've known about this for 20 years. Its time to start talking about what to do about it. That dialog cannot happen until the left offers an actual proposal instead of simply offering that the emperor is fully clothed and there is no need to discuss it. If the Republican's are the only ones at the table with a solution, I'll take it. Its better then nothing.

President Bush Delivers State of the Union Address

Kerry, Clinton, and Kennedy are now "blogging" on the Daily Kos.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Kerry & Kos

Washington has been in a furor over the National Security Agency's wiretapping, particularly President Bush's assertion that he has the executive authority to order the program, but scholars disagree over whether he is on solid legal ground.

U Sorry, this comes from the Washington Times. I guess that means I still haven't seen an independent legal analysis that supports the President's perspective. If you've got one, lemme know.

Some references to independent lawyers who support the President's perspective on NSA wiretapping...

I've read some of the cases Hewitt references in this discussion, and some of his positions are totally irrational... JA raises the crux that this issue places conservatives in... Are you really a strict constructionalist when it means sacrificing your own power to make war?

HH: Okay, just for the benefit of the audience, the Truong Court, as did all other courts that have decided the issue, held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence information. We take for granted that the president does have that authority, and asserting that is so, FISA could not encroach on the president's Constitutional authority. So I mean, you can argue that, but it's just simply wrong, Jonathan....

JA: ... Look, this is a basic question of whether one is a traditional, a limited government conservative who believes in James Madison, and what an originalist, what the founders wanted, or whether one's an authority conservative. Now I know you're an authority conservative. It's the difference between a Goldwater conservative and a Nixon conservative. And I know you're in the latter camp. But for you to deny that there's a kind of philosophical distinction here, it cuts very deep. I was at the Cato Institute in Washington on Monday, interviewing them. They are more upset about this than I am.

Rumblings of the conservative backlash I harkened?

Bush, whose aides said they consider the issue a clear political winner, is resurrecting tactics from the last campaign to make the NSA spying program a referendum on which party will keep the United States safe from terrorists. He has dispatched top White House officials almost daily to defend the program and has sent a message to party activists that he considers fighting terrorism with tools such as NSA eavesdropping the defining issue of the November elections

Worth reading. Troublesome.

The story here is not whether or not it ought to be authorized but whether or not is was authorized. Almost no one understands this distinction. The Republican talking points are:
1. Its legal.
2. Its needed to defend America.
3. People raising questions about its legality are partisan hacks who don't care about the safety of the American people.

The problem is that its probably not legal. I haven't seen a legal analysis coming from outside the administration that jives with the position of the administration. But the common man is not going to understand subtle Constitutional questions. The Democrats have to fight this fight, because its a basic separation of power issue. They can't just leave it on the floor. However, they are going to loose the political dialog because you really have to think about this in order to understand it, and most people are incapable of doing that, and many who aren't are partisan enough to be unwilling to do it objectively. If the Republicans loose in court they are likely to be able to spin that its another example of judicial activism and the ACLU hates America, etc...

What it really comes down to is the honesty of the Republican Party at large. They are being told, via this message, to tow the line on this. They are trapped in a position where if they disagree on this issue they must risk the support of the party and their political chances in November in order to take a stand. This issue will not fly if enough Republicans take a stand on it, but its going to be a very, very difficult decision for them to make (which is why Rove is putting the above sort of pressure on them).

On the balance is the entire idea of the rule of law. If the President can simply violate the law at will, argue that the court system is biased, and pressure the legislature into towing the line for political reasons, there effectively is no law. Or, in particular, there is no law with regard to minority interests. As long as the President is capable of garnering popular support for something it can be pursued irrespective of the checks and balances in our system.

The Miers nomination demonstrated that the Conservative legal community is capable of fighting the President when it wants to. This is a time and place where it ought to. We'll see if it has the guts. If it doesn't, we'll have slipped quite far down the slope toward an unravelling of the rule of law...

Rift Between Parties Over NSA Wiretapping Grows