Yep. That's my No. 1 concern. Well, that and all those prostitutes and drug dealers threatened with Gitmo via the Patriot Act. No wait. That's network television fiction--Law and Order and it's spinoffs, the Practice and every other left-wing drama. Al Gore can have everyone who faced the Patriot Act up on stage with him when he delivers that Police State speech next week. I mean real folks, not the TV actors. But he might have to get the TV actors if he wants anyone to join him up there. It would make for better TV, if they were in costume.

Terrorism? It's all a myth...Yep. Bush's Imperialism is the real problem. Remember where you heard it.

That naughty, naughty, power-hungry cokehead.

What a shock! The conservative President putting conservative (we hope) Justices on the Supreme Court..

To the victor, goes the spoils.

Yeah, where the hell does that Smirkychimp W. McHitlerburton get off, acting like his party won the 2004 election, or like they control the House and Senate?

Oooh, it makes me so angry that I think I'll go put another smarmy bumper sticker on my car - or maybe key the one next door with the W sticker.

[...] he hasn't approached the liberties FDR took with the system—much less those Abraham Lincoln felt forced to take in keeping the Union together.

Interesting that you should bring this up. Do you think that the Japanese-American internment camps (in FDR's case) and the suspension of habeas corpus (in Lincoln's case) were reasonable, necessary responses to the exegencies of the day?

"No," and "probably not."

"No," and "probably not."

I'm with you there, but claiming that Gitmo isn't as bad as Manzanar doesn't mean Gitmo's fine.

I'm surprised that the right is giving Bush a pass on Gitmo and the related extra-judicial apparatus. This seems directly contradictory to the underlying philosophy of, "The government cannot be trusted to maintain liberty on its own," which is precisely what is being asked of us at Gitmo. If, post-Oklahoma City, the Clinton administration had been hauling armed members of right-wing groups into prisons without clear charges, no judicial review, and no real timetable for what is going to happen to them, I would think that the right would have, uh, sent a crisp letter or something about it.

Sure, I don't fancy nuclear war or any of those bad things, but really, I don't think my choice is quite as stark as: Accept everything the administration wants, or the bad stuff in #1-5 will happen as night follows day.

Are you blurring the line between American citizens and non-American citizens accidentally, or on purpose?

I'm also trying to think of another country whose prisoners of war actualy gain weight during their captivity. I'm not coming up with anything off the top of my head, though.