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By Scott Horton

Frost on the KSM Trial

On today’s Frost Over the World, I discuss with Sir David Frost and Glenn Sulmasy the Obama Administration’s plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a group of related defendants in federal court in Manhattan. Watch it through the Internet video link here.

Grappling with Contractor Immunity

A little more than six years ago, Lt. Col. Dominic “Rocky” Baragona was on his way home. He had a long journey ahead, but he was looking forward to it. Colonel Baragona was serving in Iraq, and his tour was up. He had just spoken with his father by satellite phone, telling him that he’d be in Kuwait the next day to board his flight back, “unless something stupid happens.” Hours later, something stupid happened. A private truck carrying supplies on a U.S. military contract careened three lanes across a highway and struck the humvee in which Colonel Baragona was traveling. He died in a gruesome traffic accident. After an investigation, the military concluded that the incident involved serious negligence by the contractor but no criminal wrongdoing. Colonel Baragona’s family filed suit against the Kuwaiti contractor in federal court in Georgia. They secured a default judgment, and then the contractor came back to court to reopen the case.

The contractor got the judgment vacated on the grounds that the court had no in personam jurisdiction to handle the suit. Watching the lawyers for the contractor high-five one another was almost as painful an experience as the first word of his son’s death, Mr. Baragona said. “They bragged, ‘We never even had to notify our insurer.’” The contractor had been required by U.S. contracting rules to take out insurance to cover just such an event–not that it mattered, since no American court could require them to pay. Neither could any court in Iraq, it turns out, because of Order No. 17, issued by Paul Bremer as American proconsul, which had granted contractors immunity from process in Iraqi courts. The contractor, it turned out, had been completely immunized for its wrongful acts.

On Wednesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s contractor oversight subcommittee took a look at the Baragona case with the clear intention of closing this loophole. Dominic Baragona, Sr., the colonel’s father, gave moving testimony about his long struggle for justice. I also appeared and supported efforts to clarify the scope of jurisdiction granted U.S. courts over U.S. government contractors. Read an account of the hearing here. Read my testimony here.

I was impressed by how well the legislation’s sponsors, Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Robert Bennett (R-Utah), had laid the groundwork for the hearing, as well as by the depth of their questioning. Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) also weighed in, probing the scope of immunity. Change is on the way.

Hang 'Em High!

Former Bush Administration Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey addressed the Federalist Society only hours after his successor, Eric Holder, announced his plan to bring a group of Guantánamo prisoners up on federal charges in Manhattan. He offered harsh words, claiming that the trials would prove a “circus.” Such attacks on the nation’s criminal justice system have become routine on the political right.

Take the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, who responded to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s promise to bring the Fort Hood shooter to justice with these words:

I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano’s comment, I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring him to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He is not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death.

This is the attitude of a lynch mob, being disseminated on Fox News. A few days later, the topic turned from Fort Hood to the trials of Guantánamo prisoners, and the language was no less hyperventilating. “Hang 'em high” tweeted Kristol acolyte Sarah Palin. Other prominent Republicans claimed that the trials offered the prospect of terrorists being acquitted and turned loose. The possibility of an acquittal can’t be excluded, of course, but, believe it or not, in our system acquittal does not necessarily lead to immediate release.

One thing that emerges very quickly from a survey of these comments is a dismissive attitude to the Constitution, the criminal justice system, and the need for a careful investigation of the facts and evidence. It’s clear that they’re really focused on politics, not justice. This attitude is not without parallels in the world and in human history. Kristol’s comments perfectly track those of another prominent political figure of the late twentieth century:

There is no reason why a criminal should be tried in the first place … Once his identity is established, he should be killed right away.

That was Ayatollah Khomeini, and the operational demonstration of this principle came in the firing squad execution of thousands of Iranians, especially during the nation’s war with Iraq.

Based on years of studying and dealing with the military’s criminal justice system, I have great confidence in the ability of the CID, working with other investigators, to get to the bottom of the facts surrounding Major Hasan, of military prosecutors to charge him, and of a court-martial to try him and render an appropriate verdict. This process works. It is fair, swift, and renders results that have withstood the test of time. The military justice system is not perfect, but it is far more likely to render justice and uphold our values as a nation than the non-process that Kristol and his friends endorse.

As for the war-on-terror prisoners, most of the commentators seem conveniently to miss the fact that there’s nothing new about trying terrorists in court. Indeed, the Bush Administration, just like the Obama Administration, pursued two tracks—most cases by far went to federal criminal court and a tiny handful went to military commissions. All that is happening now is some fairly minor adjustments in the gate deciding which cases go where, driven by a desire to secure prompt convictions for prisoners believed guilty of serious crimes.

A compelling study completed last week by NYU’s Center on Law and Security looks at counterterrorism prosecutions brought by the Bush and Obama Administrations. It notes 828 indictments by the Justice Department on terrorism charges. Of the resolved cases, 88.2% resulted in conviction. The strongest track record was achieved in the Southern District of New York, which, unsurprisingly, is just where Holder wants to send these cases. How does this record stack up to that of the military commissions? On every criterion–time from indictment to conviction, obtaining a conviction, length of sentence meted out—the prosecutors achieved better results in federal court than they did before military commissions. It’s no surprise that the crticisms of the Holder decision dwell on sweeping generalities and cold fear. A careful examination of the facts dispels all their claims.

Will the trials be a “circus”? No doubt there will be a circus on Fox News and in the pages of the Weekly Standard. But in the courtroom? An example is furnished by the case of the “blind sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman, tried in a New York courtroom in 1995. The government charged that he planned to set off five bombs simultaneously, striking the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge, and a federal building housing the FBI. They showed videotapes of defendants mixing bomb ingredients in a garage before their arrest in 1993. The trial was a major test of the ability of prosecutors to present a terrorism case and of federal judges to manage it. The defendants wanted to use the case to turn themselves into martyrs, but the case was handled with exemplary decorum and fairness, producing convictions in 1995. There was no “circus.” The judge who presided over the case made his reputation through it. His name is Michael Mukasey.

Wyatt—They flee from me

[Image]
Hans Holbein the Younger, Portrait of Margaret Wyatt (the poet’s sister)(1540)

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small;

Therewithall sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, “dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.

But all is turned thorough my gentleness

Into a strange fashion of forsaking;

And I have leave to go of her goodness,

And she also, to use newfangleness.

But since that I so kindly am served

I would fain know what she hath deserved.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, The Lover Showeth How He is Forsaken of Such as He Sometime Enjoyed (ca. 1540) in The Poetical Works of Sir Thomas Wyatt (J. Yeowell ed. 1904), p. 32.

Sir Thomas Wyatt was a diplomat and poet at the court of Henry VIII. He was twice thrown in the Tower of London, once on account of a rebellion launched by his namesake son who sought to put Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I) on the throne, and on an earlier occasion probably because he was suspected of being a lover of Anne Boyeln. This very elegant poem speaks of an illicit affair (or perhaps several) and it has sometimes been supposed to be that with the king’s favorite.

Listen to a reading of the poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt (actually, the voice is Jim Clark’s):

Listen to Julian Bream play My Lord Willoughby’s Welcome Home (mid-16th cen., arrangement John Dowland).

Calvin and Madison on Men, Angels and Government

[Image]
Eugène Delacroix, Jacob Wrestles with an Angel (1852)

If we were like angels, blameless and freely able to exercise perfect self-control, we would not need rules or regulations. Why, then, do we have so many laws and statutes? Because of man’s wickedness, for he is constantly overflowing with evil; this is why a remedy is required.

John Calvin, Sermon on Galatians 3:19-20, “The Many Functions of God’s Law” (1558) in the volume Sermons on Galatians (Edinburgh 1997).

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

James Madison, The Federalist No. 51 (1788).


It’s an article of faith among the religious right that the U.S. Constitution is a vessel of their religious values. On the other hand, the view of mainstream constitutional historians has been pretty consistent to the effect that many of the Founding Fathers were deists and the Constitution itself rested on a firm belief in the separation of church and state designed to create a matrix in which all religions would be equally welcome and the state firmly disentangled from all of them.

Easy as it is to pick apart many of the claims of figures on the religious right about the role of Christianity in the Constitution, it’s undeniable that theological considerations played a vital role in the crafting of the Constitution and in the process of building popular support. This passage from The Federalist Papers might just be the most often quoted because it so forcefully summarizes the key animating principle that drives the doctrines of separation of powers and checks and balances—the essential innovations of the American Constitution. But, as a friend on the faculty of the Army JAG School in Charlottesville recently flagged for me, these lines were not original to James Madison. They were lifted almost without change from a sermon written by John Calvin.

Can we be certain that Madison did not arrive upon this image on his own? Yes. Recall that Madison, though a Virginian, traveled north to Princeton, New Jersey to get his education—at an institution that rested firmly in the bosom of Presbyterianism and made the teaching of Calvinist doctrine an essential part of its curriculum. Guiding the process at this time was Dr. John Witherspoon, a stern son of the Scottish Kirk and simultaneously a Founding Father who served for New Jersey in the Continental Congress. Witherspoon had a favorite student with whom he collaborated closely throughout this period: James Madison.

Calvinist doctrine about the nature of man, about man’s inherent fallibility, had a strong influence on political philosophy as it was taught and discussed in Princeton. And there was a second very practical consideration: unlike its name-brand Protestant competitors Lutheranism and Anglicanism, Calvinism was not, by and large, a state religion. This led Calvinist philosophers, particularly those operating in the English-speaking world, to advance the notion of separation of church and state and ideas of religious liberty–as a matter of pragmatic self-interest. A number of historians, pointing to the overlap between pockets of Calvinism and democracy, convincingly argue that Calvinist thought propelled Enlightenment values including respect for the dignity of humankind and democracy. That argument may be made clearest in the United States, in fact.

But saying that Calvinist theory helped support the architecture of the Constitution is different from saying that it rests on Calvinism or indeed any theology. And indeed, that point may be made most effectively by looking at James Madison himself. Was he the “stern Calvinist” that Witherspoon sought to make of him? Biographers who want to make Madison into a model Presbyterian can scour his life and find some evidence of it, particularly from his younger days. He actually wrote and told friends in 1773 that he had a “transient inclination” to enter the ministry. He was a pewholder in a Presbyterian church. On the other hand, he married in the Anglican church and often attended Episcopal services as well. But as Madison turned to the world of politics and emerged as an important public figure, he seems to have drifted steadily away from organized religion. His religious views were so carefully guarded that his political adversaries attacked him, just as they attacked Jefferson, as an atheist. An Episcopal bishop recorded his sense, following a dinner time conversation with Madison, that he held a skeptical view of organized religion and was probably a deist, like Jefferson. In 1815, a visiting merchant from Boston has Madison expressing enthusiasm for the Unitarian ideas then sweeping New England. On other occasions he bragged about not having attended religious services for “many years.” But overall, Madison is so tight-lipped about his religious convictions that it is impossible to draw any ultimate conclusions about his faith or lack of faith. As to Constitutional politics, by contrast, that task is an easy one.

James Madison may be the most important of the Founding Fathers on questions of Constitutional theory. But he also plays a vital role in helping us understand how theology indeed influenced the United States Constitution—and also in allowing us to chart the limits of that influence.

Listen to the fourth movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5 in D Major, written to mark the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, and the birth of Protestantism, and based on Martin Luther’s hymn, “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott,” here in a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan.

Public Event: Guantanamo and Preventive Detention

Tomorrow at Pace University, I’ll be giving the Blaine Sloan Lecture on International Law, in conjunction with the Pace International Law Review Symposium.

After Gitmo: Obama Grapples with Preventive Detention

Friday, November 13, 2009, 4:00 PM

Robert B. Fleming Moot Courtroom, Joseph & Bessie Gerber Glass Law Center,

Pace University, White Plains, New York

The event is open to the public, but registration is required.

Government to Pay $3 Million in Unlawful Surveillance Suit

Establishing a valuable precedent in a case involving unlawful surveillance and botched state secrets claims, the Justice Department has named its price. Wired reports:

The U.S. has agreed to pay $3 million to a former government worker who accused officials with the CIA and State Department of spying on him with a bugged coffee table. Rather than comply with a court order to provide lawyers in the case with what the U.S. government says is classified information, the government has agreed to settle to end the 15-year-old suit.

A close review of the case suggests that the Justice Department also decided to pay off the plaintiff in order to quash the series of damaging legal rulings issued by the influential judge overseeing the case that would have forced them to disclose the classified information. Those decisions may have a bearing on the “state secrets privilege” that the Bush and Obama administrations have used to try and thwart a high-profile lawsuit in California over illegal wiretapping conducted in the war on terror.

The settlement agreement can be examined here. There are two reasons that the government paid up in this case rather than shouting “state secrets!” First, it ran smack into a prominent conservative judge, Reagan appointee Royce Lamberth, who served as presiding judge of the FISA court from 1995 to 2002. Lamberth smelled something fishy with the government’s state secrecy and immunity claims from the outset, and his inquiries ultimately pressured the government to confess to some serious misrepresentations to the court. Second, the government faces a court order requiring it to turn over to the plaintiff or his attorney certain classified documents, which it considers a horrifying precedent.

The settlement comes in a suit brought by a DEA agent who, correctly, argued he was the victim of illegal U.S. surveillance while serving overseas in Burma. The government tried to brush the claims aside by certifying to the court that a key defendant was a covert CIA agent, and the case could not therefore proceed. Lamberth determined that the government’s certification was bogus because the CIA agent’s role had been disclosed in 2002. The government claims it was an innocent mistake, but not everyone’s buying that account.

The Justice Department’s major concern, however, goes to the judge’s order that classified information be shared with the plaintiff. A Justice lawyer called the decision “an unprecedented departure from the Executive’s exclusive authority to control access to classified information.” In fact, consistent with the shared powers notion of the Constitution, the executive has never exercised “exclusive” control over state secrets. Consider the papers surrounding the negotiation of the Treaty of Algiers from 1793, for instance. Congress asked for the papers, and the White House insisted that they contained state secrets. Congress effectively responded, “Fine, we won’t ratify the treaty until they are produced.” And produced they were. So much for “exclusive” control of state secrets. That pattern held pretty constant for the following two hundred years.

The more immediate concern that the Justice Department has is different: namely that the victims of unlawful surveillance will secure information that will bolster their lawsuit. It’s quite likely that information has been systematically classified with two major objectives in mind, neither of which are legitimate under current law. First, to cover up evidence of the crime, since warrantless surveillance was a felony under FISA. Second, to keep the documents out of the reach of litigants who can use it to make out their case against the government, potentially costing the government much embarrassment and a lot of money. So what’s the value to the Justice Department of getting Judge Lamberth to vacate his order? Now we can quantify it: $3 million. By entering into this settlement, the Holder Justice Department has also fixed the settlement target for dozens of other plaintiffs.

U.S. Attorney Sought Readership Information from Internet News Site

CBS News reports that on January 23—days after Barack Obama’s inauguration, but before his designated senior team had taken charge at the Justice Department—federal prosecutors in Indiana issued a subpoena to IndyMedia, a Philadelphia-based Internet news service.

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site “not to disclose the existence of this request” unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

The subpoena demanded “all traffic to and from” the IndyMedia website on a specific date: June 25, 2008. Moreover, IndyMedia was threatened with obstruction of justice charges if it failed to comply promptly with the subpoena. IndyMedia responded by turning the matter over to attorneys from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who acted on its behalf. They objected to the subpoena on a variety of technical grounds and also noted its probable illegality. EFF also noted that, acting consistently with EFF guidelines designed to thwart government snooping, IndyMedia did not keep the sorts of records the government was requesting. The U.S. attorney involved, Bush-era holdover Timothy Morrison, responded by withdrawing the subpoena.

What were the prosecutors looking for? That remains a mystery. Following the pattern established in earlier efforts to secure Internet data, they may have been looking for someone who read news at the site, posted a comment, or made a submission. The attempt to interfere with news collection efforts is more serious, but whenever law enforcement agencies ask about who is reading a publication, constitutional issues arise, and the very question is viewed as having a “chilling effect” on press freedom.

A number of rightwing web sites including Fox Nation and the Drudge Report, cited the CBS News piece in support of suggestions that “Attorney General Holder” and the “Obama White House” were going after the website. In fact, all of this transpired before the new administration had taken the reins at the Justice Department. But the question remains: on whose authority was the subpoena issued? The Justice Department has declined to comment.

Internal Justice Department rules, taking into account the strong public policy considerations supporting the free press (not to mention the First Amendment), impose a series of limitations on dealings with news media, including this:

no subpoena may be issued to any member of the news media… without the express authorization of the Attorney General.

(28 C.F.R. § 50.10). At the time of the subpoena, a Bush holdover, Mark Filip, was serving as acting attorney general. Did Filip approve the subpoena?

For a number of reasons, it seems highly unlikely that he would have. First, the subpoena is extremely broad, and Justice Department guidelines require it to be narrowly tailored. Second, the Justice Department is required to attempt to collect the information from other sources rather than the media outlet. Third, the Justice Department is supposed to attempt to secure the information through cooperation rather than coercion. In this case, the prosecutors involved actually threatened IndyMedia with criminal charges in the event of non-compliance. Finally, it’s almost impossible to imagine that Judge Filip would have approved the gag requirement. It obviously constitutes prior restraint in violation of the First Amendment—the Justice Department is essentially telling a news organization that it may not report the news (in this case, that it had issued a sweeping subpoena). The law is well settled on that point: the Justice Department can’t do it.

My bet would be that the prosecutors acting to issue this subpoena broke the internal Justice Department rules by not getting the attorney general’s approval—just as they clearly broke the law in issuing a gag order to a news organization. This may explain why the U.S. attorney quietly withdrew the subpoena as soon as he faced opposition.

The question that remains is simple: what happens when Justice Department prosecutors break the law, abusing the prosecutorial powers of the United States in the process? In general, the Justice Department’s reaction is to sweep the whole affair under the carpet. There’s no evidence here that this case has been treated any differently. If prosecutors are able to intimidate and cajole the press in violation of Justice Department orders with impunity, that suggests that the attorney general doesn’t treat his own guidelines very seriously.

Public Event: Grappling with Preventive Detention

On Wednesday, November 11, at 12:15, I will be giving a guest lecture at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. The event is open to the public. Details here.

Coping with Bad Prosecutors

Last week the Supreme Court heard argument in a case that seeks to establish a rule of accountability for prosecutors who run amok. It arises from a gross injustice. In 1977, Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee were arrested for the murder of John Schweer, a retired police officer in Council Bluffs, Iowa. They were convicted and spent 25 years in prison. Then it came out that they were innocent of the crime, and that the prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence and cajoled and possibly offered money to a witness to give bogus testimony. Harrington and McGhee are now seeking compensation from the prosecutors under a federal statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, but they’re running smack into the doctrine of prosecutorial immunity.

No organization has more at stake in this fight than the Department of Justice, and Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal was there in court to make their case. There is no “free-standing due process right not to be framed,” he insisted. Judge Stephen Breyer cut him off with obvious dismay. “There is no free-standing right? There is just a right not to convict a person with made-up evidence.” This framing of the issue of framing puts the emphasis where it belongs. The case will turn less on the rights of the two men who spent most of their lives in prison than on the rights of their prosecutors. The law as Katyal spins it gives prosecutors a right to game the legal system and commit crimes in the process without accountability to their victims. Can that possibly be the law? Dahlia Lithwick gives us an excellent summation of the oral argument in “The Framers on the Framers.”

Promoters of prosecutorial immunity offer predictable arguments that devalue justice. In their world, the Court needs to focus on the “realities” of an overworked criminal justice system, whose success is measured by the number of convictions it cranks out. In 2006, Katyal notes, there were 14.4 million arrests and 1.1 million felony convictions. If the courts have to entertain a suit every time prosecutors fabricate some evidence, how will we cope? Moreover, Katyal argues, “if prosecutors have to worry at trial that every act they undertake will somehow open up the door to liability, then they will flinch in the performance of their duties and not introduce that evidence.” But Katyal forgets the flip side. If prosecutors have absolute immunity, what will stop them from using evidence that they may have fabricated or created through undue influence? Shouldn’t prosecutors hesitate before committing wrongful, possibly criminal acts?

Still, the Justice Department is on a roll. Over the last decade it has successfully advanced doctrines of official unaccountability across the board. The Second Circuit’s decision in the Arar case will stand as a monument to these efforts. Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas have a great appetite for immunity for government actors. They remind us periodically that the Constitution makes no absolute guarantees of justice–unless, of course, we’re talking about corporations, in which case the Constitutional guarantees suddenly become extravagant. Sotomayor, Breyer, and Ginsburg all engaged in questioning suggesting they were taking quite a different approach. As usual, the question is likely to come down to Kennedy, a conservative Californian at the court’s center-right middle ground.

The argument for prosecutorial immunity also rests heavily on the ability of professional organs to regulate themselves. This means the Department of Justice above all others. But the last decade has seen an explosion of prosecutorial misconduct in cases around the country. Some arise from a prosecutor’s natural longing to secure a conviction and close a case, but the U.S. attorneys scandal also ripped the cover off a widespread practice over the last eight years of bringing and squelching prosecutions for purely partisan political purposes. Indeed, in what is now the single most prominent case, involving former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, credible allegations from within the prosecution team itself establish that the same abuses occurred as in the case now before the Supreme Court: bogus evidence was used, and a witness was improperly cajoled to give bad testimony. Yet when this evidence came out, the Justice Department launched a shocking vendetta against the internal whistleblower and quickly swept the matter under the carpet.

The doctrine of prosecutorial immunity may be about to take a hard fall. That would be a curious development in one of the most conservative Supreme Courts of the last century. If so, it will reflect not only concern about the accountability of prosecutors, but also a growing sense that the Justice Department is not doing its job in reining in those who misbehave.

Freiligrath—O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst

[Image]
Joseph-Désiré Court, Woman Lying on a Couch (1829)

O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!

O lieb, so lang du lieben magst!

Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt,

Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst!

Und sorge, daß dein Herze glüht

Und Liebe hegt und Liebe trägt,

So lang ihm noch ein ander Herz

In Liebe warm entgegenschlägt!

Und wer dir seine Brust erschließt,

O tu ihm, was du kannst, zulieb!

Und mach ihm jede Stunde froh,

Und mach ihm keine Stunde trüb!

Und hüte deine Zunge wohl,

Bald ist ein böses Wort gesagt!

O Gott, es war nicht bös gemeint -

Der Andre aber geht und klagt.

O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!

O lieb, so lang du lieben magst!

Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt,

Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst!

Dann kniest du nieder an der Gruft,

Und birgst die Augen, trüb und naß

—sie sehn den Andern nimmermehr -

In’s lange, feuchte Kirchhofsgras.

Und sprichst: O schau auf mich herab

Der hier an deinem Grabe weint!

Vergib, daß ich gekränkt dich hab!

O Gott, es war nicht bös gemeint!

Er aber sieht und hört dich nicht,

Kommt nicht, daß du ihn froh umfängst;

Der Mund, der oft dich küßte, spricht

Nie wieder: ich vergab dir längst!

Er that’s, vergab dir lange schon,

Doch manche heiße Träne fiel

Um dich und um dein herbes Wort -

Doch still—er ruht, er ist am Ziel!

O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!

O lieb, so lang du lieben magst!

Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt,

wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst!

O love, as long as love you can,

O love, as long as love you may,

The time will come, the time will come

When you will stand at the grave and mourn!

Be sure that your heart burns,

And holds and keeps love

As long as another heart beats warmly

With its love for you

And if someone bears his soul to you

Love him back as best you can

Give his every hour joy,

Let him pass none in sorrow!

And guard your words with care,

Lest harm flow from your lips!

Dear God, I meant no harm,

But the loved one recoils and mourns.

O love, love as long as you can!

O love, love as long as you may!

The time will come, the time will come,

When you will stand at the grave and mourn.

You will kneel alongside the grave

And your eyes will be sorrowful and moist,

—Never will you see the beloved again -

Only the churchyard’s tall, wet grass.

You will say: Look at me from below,

I who mourn here alongside your grave!

Forgive my slights!

Dear God, I meant no harm!

Yet the beloved does not see or hear you,

He lies beyond your comfort;

The lips you kissed so often speak

Not again: I forgave you long ago!

Indeed, he did forgive you,

But tears he would freely shed,

Over you and on your unthinking word -

Quiet now!—he rests, he has passed.

O love, love as long as you can!

O love, love as long as you may!

The time will come, the time will come,

When you will stand at the grave and mourn.

Ferdinand Freiligrath, O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst (1845)(S.H. transl.)

Ferdinand Freiligrath was a tireless champion of freedom and civil liberties and a poet who sang the song of democracy in the face of repression. He was repeatedly forced into exile due to his active political engagement for democracy. In his celebrated 1977 address to the German parliament, historian Fritz Stern cited Freiligrath as a model for a little recalled but vital part of German history–the ever recurring popular rising for freedom and against the authoritarianism that held the nation in its lock for so many centuries. But this poem, one of the best known of his works, reflects a sort of sentimentalism typical for the poetry of the age. To modern ears it seems a bit trite and even saccharine. But it has a haunting quality. Franz Liszt composed what might be his best known Lied to this poem.

Listen to a reading of the Freiligrath poem by Marlene Dietrich and Maximilian Schell, from the 1984 documentary “Marlene.” She comments at the end that it is, perhaps, a bit corny and sentimental, but she clearly loves it.

Listen to a performance of Franz Liszt’s setting of the poem in a Lied from 1847, sung by Lia Origoni:

Büchner’s Revolutionary Spirit

[Image]
Jacques-Louis David, La mort du jeune Barra (1794)

Die Revolution muß aufhören, und die Republik muß anfangen.—In unsern Staatsgrundsätzen muß das Recht an die Stelle der Pflicht, das Wohlbefinden an die der Tugend und die Notwehr an die der Strafe treten. Jeder muß sich geltend machen und seine Natur durchsetzen können. Er mag nun vernünftig oder unvernünftig, gebildet oder ungebildet, gut oder böse sein, das geht den Staat nichts an. Wir alle sind Narren, es hat keiner das Recht, einem andern seine eigentümliche Narrheit aufzudrängen.—Jeder muß in seiner Art genießen können, jedoch so, daß keiner auf Unkosten eines andern genießen oder ihn in seinem eigentümlichen Genuß stören darf.

The revolution must cease and the republic must begin.—In the principles of our state rights must take the place of duties, happiness that of virtue and self-defense must take the place of punishment. He might be reasonable or unreasonable, educated or uneducated, good or evil, that is a matter of indifference to the state. We are all fools, none of us has the right to force his particular foolishness upon the others.—Each of us must in his own way be able to live, however, in a way in which no one lives at the expense of another or is able to deprive him of his own particular way of life.

Georg Büchner, Dantons Tod, act i, sc i (1835)(Hérault)(S.H. transl.)

Georg Büchner, a young doctor with revolutionary sentiments who made a brilliant appearance on the literary scene before his premature death, is often viewed as a sort of proto-Marxist. His writings are filled with premonitions of class warfare. On occasion his characters spout atheist sentiments and denounce religion as a tool for class repression. Much of his work seems to build on ideas of historical materialism. There’s no denying that these traces are present in his writing. However, there is also evidence of a rather more conservative Büchner. In fact not a few of the revolutionaries of the first half of the nineteenth century in Germany emerged as something more akin to conservative nationalists as the century wore towards its conclusion.

But this passage, one of the more intriguing speeches in his fiery political play, The Death of Danton, offers some real insights. The words are placed in the mouth of Hérault-Séchelles, who would at first glance appear to be a fairly minor figure both in French politics of the era and in Büchner’s play. But studied a bit more patiently, Hérault really is a key figure who plays a particularly noble role in a tragic play–a role which curiously transcends politics. Here in the early pages of the play, Hérault is positioned as the philosophical counterpoint to Robespierre and his philosophy of terror, and the lines he utters serve that purpose more strikingly than any of Danton’s. But when we stop and ponder his words, they don’t sound particularly French. Hérault’s republic looks distinctly like the one being born across the Atlantic in America. It focuses on individual liberty and it is hostile to the idea of an expansive state. “We are all fools,” he says, but “none of us has the right to force his particular foolishness upon the others.”

As he is composing this play, Büchner is also comparing the French Revolution with the American in terms distinctly to the advantage of the later. “In a just republic,” he says, “things must proceed as they have in America, and each must have a right to one vote without regard to his particular wealth.” But he is equally dismissive of idealists who avoid recognition of the eternal struggle for property. Büchner hopes to motivate the masses to rise in revolt; he despairs of the prospects for a revolution anchored only in the modest numbers of liberals and intellectuals. He argues that the promise of a new state must encompass the right of private property and freedom from the oppressive taxation of the petty German states–and when he alludes to capitalists, it is to a class which should naturally want to support his revolution. Büchner is a revolutionary, surely. But a proto-Marxist? That’s far from likely.


Every revolution needs its heros. That was Maximilien Robespierre’s thought when he rose to praise a young soldier named Joseph Barra in a speech in the Assembly in 1793. Barra, engaged in an action against counterrevolutionaries in the Vendée, had been encircled and told to cry “vive le roi!” to save himself, but instead answered with “vive la république!” and was killed. Modern historians sharply discount this as myth making. But Robespierre knew how to go about myth making in a grand way. He commissioned David to paint a memorial to this young martyr to the republic.


Listen to Ludwig van Beethoven’s salute to the French Revolution, the Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major, “Eroica,” here in a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic under the leadership of Herbert von Karajan.

The CIA’s Drone War

I discuss the CIA’s use of drones, the legal and policy issues, and the points of friction between the CIA and the Defense Department in an interview today at GQ.

More on the Verdict in Milan

I discuss an Italian court’s recent conviction of 23 American officials on kidnapping and assault charges stemming from a 2003 extraordinary rendition operation with DemocracyNow’s Amy Goodman and the Italian prosecutor, Armando Spataro, below:

In responding to Amy Goodman’s question about Interpol, Spataro gives a long answer that will be confusing to those who don’t understand the rather complex law in this area. He says that no arrest request (technically called a “red notice”) has been issued within Interpol, but that he is able to issue at will a European Arrest Warrant. This is because the Italian government, which sought to block the prosecution, has not supported arrest by forwarding the appropriate paperwork to Interpol. Whether the Italian government will hold to this position after a conviction remains to be seen. If they do, they will appear to be undermining the administration of the law. For the 27 nations in the European arrest system, however, Spataro can personally direct the arrest, and no government cooperation is necessary. Outside of the EU, it’s a matter of hit and miss whether local officials would cooperate on a request from the Italian prosecutors without going through the Interpol formalities. Certainly quite a few would do so.

It’s interesting to note the reaction in America to the verdicts in Italy. Telling is the editorial in the Los Angeles Times today: Italy got this right. No fake outrage or indignation, just simple recognition that Italy was applying the law, as we expect of a sister democracy.

A few further observations, largely based on my discussions yesterday with people who are following this matter in Washington:

First, this case helps us understand why the CIA is so vehemently opposed to probes of its operations. In this case almost two dozen covert intelligence operatives have had their cover blown and are now fugitives from justice. Sophisticated law enforcement techniques, many pioneered by the United States, are now being employed to track their movements. While a number of commentators claim this has no serious consequences, no one I have spoken with in the intelligence community feels that. The future utility of these agents is seriously compromised, and they face arrest every time they leave the country.

Second, Spataro makes clear that he took this case as far as the evidence at hand permitted. If he had evidence that higher-level officials at the CIA or NSC or other government agencies were involved, he would likely bring charges against them. I learned in earlier probes that Italian criminal investigators, collaborating with other European partners, have been actively seeking this information. They believe that those who oversaw the extraordinary renditions program should be prosecuted. In fact, Spataro asked for a 13-year sentence for Jeff Castelli, the head of the Rome station, because of his role in the Milan kidnapping. It’s reasonable to infer that he would seek an equally harsh sentence against other kingpins in the conspiracy. The New York Times notes that Stephen R. Kappes, who is said to have played a planning role, is now the number two in the CIA.

Third, this case is engendering a lot of discussion among scholars of the law of diplomacy about the selective decision taken by the United States to invoke diplomatic immunity. Some view diplomatic immunity as a simple process: if the paperwork is done and the diplomat is credentialed and recognized by the foreign ministry of the host country, he has immunity. Others say that if the person really isn’t a diplomat, and this is pure cover for a spy, the assertion is more doubtful, especially when the operative becomes enmeshed in a serious crime. In this case, the State Department pushed diplomatic immunity only for a handful of the defendants, including one (Jeff Castelli) who most obviously was not a diplomat. They scored some success. But the Italian prosecutors also think these claims are vulnerable. Prosecutor Spataro says he will appeal this decision. He is convinced that Castelli’s claim of diplomatic status is so obviously bogus, and his role in the crime is so clear, that the claim should be cast aside. How this plays out may significantly affect the practice of sending intelligence agents overseas under diplomatic cover. The posture taken by the United States suggests a sense of vulnerability about the claims made.

Finally, this case is a monument to the power and lasting influence of American advocacy. In 1946-48, the United States advanced for the first time the view that seizing individuals, holding them for prolonged period without recourse to law, and subjecting them to torture or humiliating treatment was a particularly serious crime–a crime against humanity. United States prosecutors, many of them from the Justice Department, brought charges against government officials who had done this, and secured convictions. Europeans were at first skeptical of these American views, but over time they came to embrace and support them. Today, the view is firmly held around the world that “disappearings” are a crime against humanity and thus not subject to statutes of limitation or capable of being ignored. The CIA just ran into this wall, and this should be a lesson for the Obama Administration: it shows what can happen when the United States fails to abide by the values it espouses.

Judgment in Milan

An Italian court hearing criminal charges against 26 American officials and a smaller group of Italians arising out of a CIA extraordinary rendition has ruled today. The case relates to the CIA’s snatching of a Muslim cleric known as Abu Omar off the streets of Milan in 2003. He was whisked off to Egypt, where he was tortured before being released. Italian prosecutors noted that the American action botched a prosecution they had prepared against Abu Omar for participation in a terrorist conspiracy. Here’s a summary of the court’s decision from Reuters:

The heaviest sentence — eight years in prison — was handed down to the former head of the CIA’s Milan station, Robert Seldon Lady, while 21 other former agents got five years each. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano was also sentenced to five years, despite a request from the Pentagon that the case should be tried by U.S. courts.

[Judge Oscar] Magi dropped the case against three Americans, including a former CIA Rome station chief, because of diplomatic immunity. Charges were also dropped against five Italians, including the former head of the Sismi military intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, because evidence against them violated state secrecy rules. However, the judge sentenced two more junior Sismi agents to three years in prison as accomplices, indicating Italian authorities were aware of the abduction.

A more comprehensive discussion of the decision can be read in La Repubblica.

The case was tried in absentia after the Americans fled and the United States refused to extradite them. The judge’s written decision is now due within forty-five days. The prosecutors have announced that they intend to appeal the decisions acquitting senior Italian officials, and possibly other aspects of the case. The American defendants, who were represented by counsel during the trial, are also likely to lodge appeals, and to contest the fact that the case proceeded in absentia.

The decision came despite strenuous efforts by the American and Italian governments to shut the case down. The Italian government argued that prosecutors were using official secrets to make their case and appealed the matter to the Constitutional Court, which upheld the objection. The Milan court concluded that, even striking the official secrets from the trial record, sufficient evidence existed to proceed. In its final verdict, the court also suggested that a number of defendants were guilty but, once official secrets were extracted, the evidence was insufficient to convict. The court also found that three individuals had diplomatic immunity and thus would also escape punishment desite copious evidence establishing their guilt. Among them was the CIA’s former Rome station chief, Jeff Castelli, whom prosecutors saw as the plot’s ringleader.

The convicted Americans face arrest only if they travel outside the United States, since U.S. authorities have made it clear that they will not cooperate with European authorities pursuing CIA kidnapping cases. However, Italian prosecutors can now issue a European Arrest Warrant for the seizure and removal to Italy of any of the 23 Americans, should they set foot in the European Union.

Most observers, however, view the sentence as largely symbolic. When legal proceedings are concluded, it is widely expected that the United States and Italy will work out a resolution of the matter involving an act of clemency. The case serves principally to establish that the CIA extraordinary renditions program, especially when it involves torture or torture-by-proxy, is viewed as a criminal act, subjecting all who support it to potential prosecution.

The Milan decision offers a useful contrast with the decision of an American appeals court in New York dealing with another rendition case on Monday. In both cases, the courts considered claims of immunity, state secrecy, and a torture victim’s claim to compensation for his sufferings. In both cases, the United States applied enormous political pressure to shut down the case. Yet the outcomes could not have been more different. In the New York case, the Court of Appeals bowed to government pressure to refuse to hear the torture victim’s appeal. The decision, rendered by a group of largely Republican judges, is filled with breezy language openly acknowledging that the case turned on an extraordinary rendition, and suggesting that this was simply a policy choice for the government. The Italian court proved zealously independent of government influence from the beginning of the case down to judgment. It viewed extraordinary rendition linked to torture as a particularly grave crime, taking careful note of the historical precedents that supported that perspective. While the court accepted that state secrecy concerns restricted the court’s consideration of certain evidence, it nevertheless proceeded and rested its conclusions on evidence that was not protected. Similarly, the Italian court gave claims of immunity narrow applicability, so that only a handful of defendants could rely upon them. The court took the view that these highly technical defenses would give government actors some comfort, but it rejected the idea that they could escape accountability for a serious crime altogether.

The most telling difference focuses on the rights of the torture victim. The New York court concluded that the victim’s claims were overwhelmed by the government’s interest in protecting political actors against embarrassment. The Italian court insisted not only on the punishment of the perpetrators but also on the compensation of the torture victim. The Milan court sentenced the defendants to pay compensation to Abu Omar and his wife of €1.5 million ($2.3 million).

The American State Department stated that it was “disappointed” by the decision.

A President Stands Trial for Torture and Disappearings

From the apex of the national security apparatus, he arranged for the torture of alleged terrorists and their sympathizers, and for the “disappearance” of hundreds and perhaps thousands of others. He then assumed office as president and began a rearguard struggle to defend state actors from liability for these acts. His lawyers spun doctrines of immunity, and believed that legal protections like statutes of limitations and wide grants of amnesty would block any efforts at accountability. For good measure, they sorted carefully through state records, destroying documents that might inculpate senior government figures.

But now Reynaldo Bignone, Argentina’s president from 1982-83, faces his worst nightmare: he’s going on trial for charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in prison. The New York Times reports:

General Bignone is accused of holding ultimate responsibility for myriad cases of torture, illegal break-ins and deprivations of human rights from 1976 to 1978, before he was appointed president by the military junta in the waning years of the dictatorship.

As president from 1982 to 1983, General Bignone protected the military as Argentina returned to democracy; he granted amnesty to human rights violators and ordered the destruction of documents related to torture and the disappearances of political opponents before he agreed to transfer power to a democratically elected president, Raúl Alfonsín.

The developments in Argentina point to several international legal trends that should be of acute interest to members of the Bush team who approved torture and ran one of the largest “disappearings” programs since President Bignone’s. First, there is no statute of limitations for torture and disappearings—they can be prosecuted twenty or thirty years later. Second, the doctrine of immunity may be recognized by judges appointed by torture conspirators, but as the gravity of their crimes becomes known and new judges come to the bench, it tends to disappear.

Karl Rove has argued that accountability makes him think of “Latin American dictators in mirrored sunglasses.” The point is valid for precisely the opposite reason that Rove thinks it is. Those dictators in mirrored sunglasses sharply oppose accountability in any form. But as the tradition of the rule of law sets in, advocates of democracy invariably find that the stability of their countries depends on holding those who tortured and kidnapped accountable for their crimes.

Interpreting the Elections

Today, political bloviators of all shapes and sizes will rush to explain the dramatic, nation-rattling and long-term consequences of elections in which a tiny fraction of the voters turned out, mostly driven by local issues. But the elections team at the Daily Show beats them to it, giving the definitive interpretation (before the votes were tallied, of course):

Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Arar

“When the history of this distinguished court is written, today’s majority decision will be viewed with dismay,” writes Guido Calabresi, the former Yale Law dean and a man widely viewed as the most illustrious living member of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He is lodging his dissent in a 7-4 decision of the en banc court concluding that a Canadian software engineer named Maher Arar has no right to sue government officials. What has Calabresi so worked up?

This is “hardly an ordinary immigration case,” as the majority concedes. Arar was apprehended in transit from a Mediterranean vacation to his home in Ottawa at the JFK airport. U.S. agents acting on a tip from the Canadian mounties–that turned out to be completely incorrect–seized Arar and held him for several days. Understandably, they were not going to let Arar into the country. This was fine with Arar, who just wanted to go home to Canada. But because Arar was born in Syria, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, acting on the advice of two political appointees serving in the Attorney General’s office, signed an order to send him back to Syria. That decision was taken after an immigration review panel had concluded, with what turned out to be perfect accuracy, that Arar would be tortured if sent there. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Thompson resigned and departed shortly after learning the full story behind the Arar case.) Arar was turned over to the Syrians with a list of questions, and he was indeed brutally tortured for a year—to no point, of course, since Arar had no connections with any terrorist organizations. The Canadian Government, recognizing that its wrongdoing led indirectly to Arar’s mistreatment, conducted a comprehensive investigation, fully acknowledged its mistakes in a voluminous report, issued a formal letter of apology, and awarded Arar $11.5 million (Canadian) in compensation and reimbursement of legal costs. And the United States?

The United States tenaciously refused to acknowledge ever having made any mistakes—even after its own sources did so. It stonewalled Congressional probes and issued a travel ban to stop Arar from testifying before Congress. The Bush Justice Department made aggressive representations to the courts in response to Arar’s suit that strained credulity at almost every step. As in other cases, their trump card was simple: when caught with pants down, shout “state secrets!”

When the two inspectors general, Richard L. Skinner and Clark Kent Ervin, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify on the matter, I was also invited as an independent expert. At one point, a committee member asked, “Is there sufficient basis to open a criminal investigation based on the conduct of the Justice Department in handling this case?” I stated that the evidence set out in the internal investigation showed that, after the immigration board concluded that Arar would likely be tortured in Syria, senior figures in the Justice Department had directed that he be sent there. This presents all the elements of a prima facie conspiracy to torture under the criminal code. Both inspectors general concurred that a criminal investigation was now warranted. Their own report produced ample evidence of gross departures from established procedures, as well as evidence that the entire case was being politically micromanaged by political figures in the attorney general’s office and in the White House, who repeatedly overrode the decisions of the professional staff. Attorney General Mukasey, however, subsequently declined to direct the investigation. It’s noteworthy that the investigation would have focused on the attorney general’s own office, which raises fair questions about why the attorney general would be the person making this decision.

Typical of the care that went into the majority opinion is this passage: “Consider: should the officers here have let Arar go on his way and board his flight to Montreal? Canada was evidently unwilling to receive him.” Had Judge Jacobs, who wrote for the majority, bothered himself a bit with the record, he would have discovered that Canada confirmed it was willing to accept him home. Moreover, this is hardly a trivial error. The gravity of the government misconduct in this case comes from the decision to send Arar to Syria when he could have been returned to Canada, sent to Switzerland, or back to Tunisia, where he had been vacationing. He was sent to Syria for a reason, and that was torture.

In the Arar case, state secrecy claims are preposterous because the diplomatic and intelligence relationship that would supposedly have been compromised was that with Canada, and the Canadians had already come clean about what had happened and confessed to their own part in it, publishing a report as thick as two Manhattan telephone books. In this process, the Canadians behaved just like a modern democracy should. So it is not damage to relations with our neighbor to the North that is a concern. Rather, it is embarrassment of political figures in Washington.

Calabresi generously accepts the suggestion that the Second Circuit acted out of concern for national security. Still, he delivers an appropriate lashing. The majority, Calabresi charges, “engaged in extraordinary judicial activism.” Its activism was aimed at extricating political actors from a precarious predicament and keeping the door firmly shut on what may well be the darkest chapter in the entire history of the Justice Department. In so doing, the court’s majority delivered an example of timidity in the face of government misconduct the likes of which have not been seen since the darkest days of the Cold War. When the history of the Second Circuit is written, the Arar decision will have a prominent place. It offers all the historical foresight of Dred Scott, in which the Court rallied to the cause of slavery, and all the commitment to constitutional principle of the Slaughter-House Cases, in which the Fourteenth Amendment was eviscerated. The Court that once affirmed that those who torture are the “enemies of all mankind” now tells us that U.S. government officials can torture without worry, because the security of our state might some day depend upon it.

Our Dwindling Email Privacy

What sort of privacy do you expect when you send an email? As Americans increasingly rely on the Internet for communication, Justice Department lawyers increasingly argue that Americans have no right to privacy there—notwithstanding repeated congressional efforts to bolster these rights. A recent case out of Oregon shows how the privacy expectation associated with emails and other Internet communications is being frittered away.

The government sought to subpoena the emails of a suspect in a criminal investigation. It issued a subpoena to Google, but it failed to give notice to the subscriber as the federal rules and statute would appear to require. The purpose of notice is fairly straightforward: it gives the subject the opportunity to contest the subpoena and puts him on notice of the government’s investigation. Implementing the protections of the Fourth Amendment, isn’t the subscriber entitled to notice? Not in the view of Judge Michael Mosman:

The Fourth Amendment protects our homes from unreasonable searches and seizures, requiring that, absent special circumstances, the government obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before entering. This is strong privacy protection for homes and the items within them in the physical world. When a person uses the Internet, however, the user’s actions are no longer in his or her physical home; in fact he or she is not truly acting in private space at all. The user is generally accessing the Internet with a network account and computer storage owned by an ISP like Comcast or NetZero. All materials stored online, whether they are e-mails or remotely stored documents, are physically stored on servers owned by an ISP. When we send an e-mail or instant message from the comfort of our own homes to a friend across town the message travels from our computer to computers owned by a third party, the ISP, before being delivered to the intended recipient. Thus, “private” information is actually being held by third-party private companies.

This feature of the Internet has profound implications for how the Fourth Amendment protects Internet communications-if it protects them at all. The law here remains unclear and commentators have noted that there are several reasons that the Fourth Amendment’s privacy protections for the home may not apply to our “virtual homes” online. First, it is uncertain whether we have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information sent through or stored by ISPs because the Fourth Amendment does not protect information revealed to third parties… the defendants voluntarily conveyed to the ISPs and exposed to the ISP’s employees in the ordinary course of business the contents of their e-mails.

Mosman doesn’t say there is no Fourth Amendment right; he simply concludes that it doesn’t amount to much, because of the intermediate role of the ISPs. Although he couches his opinion narrowly, the result is effectively to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment. Mosman, a Mormon, is a Rove-era U.S. attorney in Oregon appointed to the bench by George W. Bush in 2003.

Did Cheney Lie to the Plame Prosecutors?

In the prosecution that led to the conviction of former Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald famously spoke of a “cloud over the vice president.” His remarks suggested that, while no charges had been pressed against Cheney, the vice president was considered an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to out covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. When, after a long struggle to protect Cheney from “embarrassment,” the Justice Department complied with a court order to disclose the FBI agents’ notes of the interview that Fitzgerald conducted with Cheney in 2004, the reason for these comments became clear. The cloud over Dick Cheney seems to be more of a fog bank engulfing him, however, and the fog is of Cheney’s making.

Cheney has been famous for decades for his steel-trap mind and near perfect recall. Yet in an interview that lasted only a couple of hours, Cheney competed with Alberto Gonzales for the selective amnesia prize. His memory failed him more than seventy times, on virtually every effort to probe anything of substance that had occurred within the prior year. Contemporaneous documents show that Cheney had been obsessing over these matters. Yet even when he was shown documents bearing his own handwritten comments, he had no recollection. His amnesia dovetailed perfectly with Scooter Libby’s forgetfulness on key points. Libby couldn’t recall having discussed Plame with Cheney, and Cheney couldn’t recall having discussed Plame with Libby. Their testimony seems well orchestrated, and the text of those “can’t recalls” is well designed to make a perjury prosecution difficult if the prosecutors should turn up solid proof to the contrary.

Nick Baumann has cobbled together a list of twenty-two major points on which Cheney’s memory suddenly went all fuzzy. A review shows just how programmatic that memory failure was. It covered anything that would have put the investigators on to Cheney’s role in the Plame outing.

The prosecution of Scooter Libby rested on his equally convenient lapses of memory. In the end, a Washington jury concluded that Libby had lied and convicted him. Would this same jury have believed Cheney’s claims of failed memory? They strike me as even less credible than Libby’s. Moreover, the interview notes will fuel suspicion that Libby took the fall for his boss.

There’s another significant nugget in the interview notes, flagged by Marcy Wheeler. Reports had previously circulated to the effect that Bush Administration figures had cooperated with the prosecution by executing release agreements–allowing journalists with whom they had spoken to talk freely with investigators about their discussions. On Friday, we learned that Dick Cheney refused to execute such releases. It’s been widely speculated that Cheney spoke with a number of journalists on the Plame-Wilson matter–probably Bob Novack and Judith Miller, possibly others. In holding his journalist friends to confidentiality, what was he worried about? This is particularly curious in view of the blistering attacks Cheney unleashed on Congress in 2002-06, in which he questioned their tendency to leak information to the press. How many congressmen could compete on that score with Dick Cheney?

Wheeler also points out that Cheney refused to answer Fitzgerald’s questions about his spontaneous declassification of data for purposes of trashing Joe Wilson, Plame’s husband. But just a short while later, Cheney’s attorney leaked all the details of this process to Newsweek’s Mike Isikoff. This perfectly demonstrates how Cheney views executive privilege–it was invoked to a criminal investigation in which he was in danger of being prosecuted, but it didn’t stand in the way of a good leak to the press when he felt it would help him with the Washington punditry. Secrecy in the world of Cheney is wielded for tactical political and personal purposes, not in the lofty national interest.

Cheney and his daughter have been sweating bullets about the prospect of a criminal investigation. These notes make clear that they have plenty to be worried about.

Holder Claims State Secrecy… Again

In the 2008 presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and Joe Biden criticized the Bush Administration’s historically unprecedented invocation of state security concerns to block lawsuits challenging the legality of its surveillance. They promised new procedures that would “tighten up” the “problem” of overreaching claims of secrecy. In time, the Justice Department instituted a new review policy, setting internal standards, requiring a high-level internal review, and promising to present a packet for in camera review by the judge involved who would make the final call. That sounded good, and the suggestion that the government would abide by a judge’s review was more accommodating than the posture Bush-era attorneys general assumed—insisting that judges shouldn’t be in this business at all, since only officers of the executive branch had a good feel for such matters.

In practice, the Obama Administration’s invocation of secrecy is at least as aggressive as its predecessor’s, and sometimes seems even more aggressive. Late on Friday, Attorney General Holder asked a district court judge in California to throw out a suit challenging government surveillance operations. It appears to be the first full-fledged case based on the new policy. Here’s Jake Tepper’s report for ABC News:

The Obama administration invoked the controversial “state secrets” privilege again on Friday, arguing that if U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker were to permit a legal case against the government to proceed, he would be putting national security at risk. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement about the case, Shubert et. al v. Obama, that “there is no way for this case to move forward without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence activities that we rely upon to protect the safety of the American people.”

The case is a class action suit brought by four Brooklynites alleging that the Bush Administration engaged in wholesale dragnet surveillance of ordinary Americans in which they were unjustly caught because they regularly made phone calls and sent emails to individuals outside the U.S., specifically in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Egypt, the Netherlands, and Norway. Obama administration officials argued that even addressing or attempting to refute the plaintiffs’ claim would require the administration “to disclose intelligence sources and methods, or the lack thereof.”

The government’s papers can be examined here. The government tells us that if it were to answer the complaint, it would have to disclose information that would do “exceptionally grave harm to national security.” In reasoning so absurd that it would force a smile from Kafka, the government claims that disclosing whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue (because they were affected by an intelligence dragnet) would require disclosing the methods used in the dragnet system. In other words, the government says the victims of its unlawful snooping are not entitled to know that they are victims of unlawful snooping. It also says it cannot be forced to acknowledge whether telecommunications service providers have collaborated in this process—although the Justice Department has already openly acknowledged that they do in papers filed just a few weeks ago. Essentially, the Justice Department’s brief amounts to a massive “trust us.”

But why should we? In view of the well-documented track record of misrepresentations and downright sophistic legal arguments the Justice Department has made over the past seven years in its efforts to avoid judicial review of the NSA’s snooping programs, the “trust us” appeal is wearing very thin.

The Schubert suit is about accountability, including the accountability of figures at the Justice Department who authorized the illegal sorties into the private lives of millions of Americans. It focuses on a program that the NSA ran with White House authorization which was so absurdly illegal that even some senior Bush Justice Department figures resigned rather than authorize it. Before the first Bush-era FISA amendments, the program was almost certainly felonious. Holder and his senior lieutenants share their predecessors’ strong aversion to anything that would embarrass the department and would expose its past misconduct. But the consequence of this attitude is a Justice Department, which, rather than enforce the criminal law, has set itself up as a criminal defense law firm representing government clients.

The use of state secrecy notions to mask criminal conduct is a serious matter that has badly corrupted the Justice Department. And the Schubert litigation is hardly the only instance. The last major case discussed in this column, the Binyam Mohamed litigation in England’s High Court, followed exactly the same concept. In that case, the subject had been brutally tortured while in the hands of the CIA. Classified information furnished by the CIA to British intelligence was received by the court in order to validate Binyam Mohamed’s claims. The court, noting that a serious crime had obviously been committed, pushed for and received a commitment from prosecutors to investigate the matter. It also ultimately decided that the materials would have to be made public notwithstanding the state secrecy claims advanced by the government. In the Binyam Mohamed case, the United States advanced exactly the same arguments as in the Schubert case—and it was equally clear that the real motivation for the government was to cover up evidence of criminal conduct.

The tendency of these cases is clear: towards ever more sweeping invocations of state secrecy, designed time and again to disguise the government’s warrantless and unlawful invasion of the privacy of its citizens or to cover up evidence of serious crimes such as torture, assault, and kidnapping. Any hopes that the Obama Administration would at least engage in some modest retrenchment have now been dashed. That leaves the issue in the hands of the courts. Up to this point, they have largely bought in to the government’s “trust us” mantra–but what the situation requires is serious inquiry and a healthy dose of skepticism.

Archive

November 2009

Arriaza—the Colossus7:29 AM

Nov 1

October 2009

Plato—Leontius’s Corpses7:11 AM

Oct 31
Hillary’s Tough Love for Pakistan2:36 PM

Oct 30
The White House v. Fox News9:01 AM

Oct 30
CIA Misled Congress, Schakowsky Charges9:05 AM

Oct 29
Stripping Bare the Body—Six Questions for Mark Danner3:10 PM

Oct 28
Lieberman Shills for the Healthcare Industry9:07 AM

Oct 28
Public Event: Judgment on Guantánamo3:19 PM

Oct 27
Chicago Prosecutors Go to War With the Press2:37 PM

Oct 27
Details of CIA Snatch Effort Unfold in a Canadian Courtroom11:00 AM

Oct 27
A Trip to Chon Tash1:30 PM

Oct 26
Is that “Keep America Safe”—or “Keep Cheney Out of Jail”?10:02 AM

Oct 26
Blake—To Autumn 12:10 AM

Oct 25
Copernicus—Faith and Scientific Inquiry5:04 AM

Oct 24
Rethinking the Drone Wars9:25 AM

Oct 23
Putting Political Prosecutions on the Defensive11:54 AM

Oct 22
Is WaPo Opinion Section the Worst in America?9:20 AM

Oct 20
Inside Jung’s Red Book: Six Questions for Sonu Shamdasani3:46 PM

Oct 19
CIA Efforts to Keep Torture Secrets Suffer a Key Loss in British High Court10:05 AM

Oct 19
Hillel’s Silver Rule6:22 AM

Oct 18
I am black and beautiful6:39 AM

Oct 17
Delusional in Dixie4:51 PM

Oct 16
Thirty Republican Senators Oppose Corporate Accountability for Gang Rape3:12 PM

Oct 16
Bybee Avoids Judicial Complaint9:43 AM

Oct 15
The Incredible, Shrinking Chamber of Commerce8:42 AM

Oct 15
DOJ Presses Ahead to Keep Cheney’s Secrets2:44 PM

Oct 14
Keep America Safe9:45 AM

Oct 14
The Great Depression Through Fresh Eyes2:07 PM

Oct 13
Inside Rumsfeld’s Pentagon10:52 AM

Oct 13
Power Shortage for the National Security State3:23 PM

Oct 12
Remembering Carl von Ossietzky9:40 AM

Oct 12
Autreau’s Platée10:52 AM

Oct 11
Voltaire Defines Patriotism6:28 AM

Oct 10
Is the Phone Company Part of the Government?3:21 PM

Oct 9
Rick Perry’s Witch Trials9:47 AM

Oct 9
Executive Immunity Suffers Another Setback3:54 PM

Oct 8
Justice Department Officials Refuse to Testify Under Oath3:35 PM

Oct 8
When Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction2:53 PM

Oct 8
Twittering in the First Degree2:35 PM

Oct 7
The Media and the National Security State11:20 AM

Oct 7
U.S. Most Admired Nation, Poll Finds10:59 AM

Oct 7
Enlighten Us, Please9:38 AM

Oct 6
Philosophers Rumble Over Van Gogh’s Shoes3:03 PM

Oct 5
The People v. The Torture Team: Six Questions for Law & Order’s René Balcer2:46 PM

Oct 5
From the Department of Self-Parody11:21 AM

Oct 5
Arnold’s To a Friend5:42 AM

Oct 4
Forster–What the Great Minds Tell Us in Sad Times8:01 AM

Oct 3
The Case of Fouad al-Rabiah: Airline manager or terrorist?4:01 PM

Oct 2
The Worst of the Worst?1:55 PM

Oct 2
The Generals vs. The Cheneys2:06 PM

Oct 1
The Trouble with Smart Advisors9:43 AM

Oct 1

September 2009

Kafka’s Legacy on Trial3:52 PM

Sep 30
The Village Idiots12:54 PM

Sep 30
Did Bryan Whitman Run the “Military Analysts Program”?8:22 AM

Sep 30
Straussophobia–Six Questions for Peter Minowitz4:38 PM

Sep 29
Of Big Trees and Little ACORNs2:29 PM

Sep 29
Entangled Giant11:31 AM

Sep 29
The Incredible, Vanishing Torture Documents9:58 AM

Sep 29
Hughes—I, too, sing America1:40 AM

Sep 27
Alfarabi—The Quest for Happiness11:57 PM

Sep 25
The Great Pipeline Opera11:45 AM

Sep 25
The Long Journey West12:50 PM

Sep 24
The Business of Occupation3:47 PM

Sep 22
Torture Doesn’t Work, Neurobiologist Says3:08 PM

Sep 22
Afghanistan Impasse4:01 PM

Sep 21
Inside the Red Book2:49 PM

Sep 21
Return to Glenn Beck-istan10:16 AM

Sep 21
Hofmannsthal—Der Kaiser und die Hexe5:23 AM

Sep 20
Burckhardt—Learning from the Past4:03 AM

Sep 19
Pincus’s Double Standard4:09 PM

Sep 18
Bush’s Gilded Age11:20 AM

Sep 18
Rush, Glenn and the G.O.P.4:23 PM

Sep 17
Justice in Gaza3:18 PM

Sep 17
Justice O’Connor Crusades Against Judicial Elections, and Texas Again Provides Exhibit A10:15 AM

Sep 17
Voyage to Glenn-Beckistan5:27 PM

Sep 16
Dear President Bush,4:07 PM

Sep 16
Republican Gomorrah–Six Questions for Max Blumenthal2:27 PM

Sep 16
One Year After the Meltdown, Wall Street Takes Some Lashings10:00 AM

Sep 16
Joe Wilson, Neoconfederate11:46 AM

Sep 15
Why Are Jews So Liberal?4:09 PM

Sep 14
Schlozman Walks2:10 PM

Sep 14
Security Contractors Immune from Torture Charges, Judges Rule10:42 AM

Sep 14
Venus of the Golden Age7:51 AM

Sep 13
Maimonides on Trustworthy Sources6:38 AM

Sep 12
Spanish Criminal Investigators Press Holder for Answers on Gonzales Six4:52 PM

Sep 11
Two Marine Generals Take Cheney to the Woodshed9:44 AM

Sep 11
Cheney the Sith Lord and the Feckless Democrats3:59 PM

Sep 10
Six Questions for Wallace Shawn3:39 PM

Sep 8
Another Senior Bush Justice Official Takes the Fifth?2:11 PM

Sep 8
General Myers and the Torture Team10:33 AM

Sep 8
Did Cheney Undermine Case Against Airline Bombers?9:53 AM

Sep 8
Flecha—War as a Salad5:55 AM

Sep 6
Tirant lo Blanch, the Order and the Book5:59 AM

Sep 5
And Now: Fredo, the Opera2:00 PM

Sep 3
Bush-Era Diplomats Embrace the Nuremberg Defense5:02 PM

Sep 1

August 2009

WaPo: Mystery man says waterboarding works3:10 PM

Aug 31
Gogol’—Those Damned Liberals!7:53 AM

Aug 29
Six Questions for David Cole, Author of The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable5:04 PM

Aug 28
New CIA Docs Describe Brutal Renditions Process2:17 PM

Aug 28
Collect the Torture Team9:24 AM

Aug 28
Was Holder Right?10:55 AM

Aug 27
Once Upon a Coup8:26 AM

Aug 27
Guess What: Cheney’s CIA docs don’t say what he claims they say2:17 PM

Aug 26
D.C. Court Comes Through for Kyle Sampson1:58 PM

Aug 26
Seven Points on the CIA Report10:11 AM

Aug 25
Holder’s Modified, Limited Hangout4:30 PM

Aug 24
Blackwater’s Contracts10:34 AM

Aug 24
What To Look For Today9:37 AM

Aug 24
Rilke—To Music8:26 AM

Aug 23
Rilke—the Duty to Those Who Follow8:12 AM

Aug 22
Rove’s Sorry Victim Act1:46 PM

Aug 21
More Obstruction at Justice9:53 AM

Aug 21
Missing Black Site Located: Vilnius, Lithuania2:28 PM

Aug 20
A Party of Nihilists1:52 PM

Aug 20
Cheney’s Snuff Program Involved Blackwater10:09 AM

Aug 20
Manure for the Garden State12:04 PM

Aug 19
A Culture of Death10:27 AM

Aug 18
Reporting on C Street3:19 PM

Aug 17
Yoo Returns to Berkeley10:34 AM

Aug 17
Freneau—A Political Litany7:50 AM

Aug 16
Jefferson–Pursuit of the Avenues of Truth8:23 AM

Aug 15
Six Questions for Derek S. Jeffreys, Author of Spirituality and the Ethics of Torture2:09 PM

Aug 14
Your Tax Dollars At Work1:15 PM

Aug 14
Karl Rove’s Convenient Memory Lapses9:34 AM

Aug 14
Inside the World of Dusty Foggo4:05 PM

Aug 13
A Political Fragging2:26 PM

Aug 13
The Geneva Conventions at Sixty1:28 PM

Aug 12
Renditions, Obama Style10:13 AM

Aug 12
Special Prosecutor on the Horizon?10:14 AM

Aug 11
Fredo’s New Job12:34 PM

Aug 10
Hugo—Demain, dès l’aube9:59 AM

Aug 9
Camus—The Fall10:18 AM

Aug 8
Blackwater’s Dark Secrets2:39 PM

Aug 6
The Birth of the Atomic Age11:08 AM

Aug 6
Can the Military Commissions Be Salvaged?1:17 PM

Aug 4
Rove’s Mississippi Mud10:59 AM

Aug 4
A Mozart Premiere, Delayed by Two Centuries7:38 AM

Aug 3
Suckling’s The Invocation6:55 AM

Aug 2
Hobbes—How We Make the Future From the Past7:37 AM

Aug 1

July 2009

NYT Punk’d—Twice in One Day5:22 PM

Jul 31
Court Orders Release of Juvenile Prisoner at Gitmo9:50 AM

Jul 31
Prosecutors Under the Loupe2:58 PM

Jul 30
Clinton Intervened to Keep Lid on Torture Account10:23 AM

Jul 30
Ambassadorships for Sale9:50 AM

Jul 29
Musicophilia: Six Questions for Oliver Sacks12:18 PM

Jul 28
Cheney’s Plans for a Military Coup10:00 AM

Jul 27
Catullus—Nothing Endures6:52 AM

Jul 26
Nietzsche—The Dionysian Impulse6:50 AM

Jul 25
The Pickering Diaries9:47 AM

Jul 24
Keeping the Dark Lord’s Secrets3:39 PM

Jul 23
Base Motives9:20 AM

Jul 23
“Witch Hunts,” “Show Trials” and Other Beltway Delusions11:58 AM

Jul 22
Did Americans Watch the Massacre at Dasht-e-Leili?9:53 AM

Jul 22
The CIA Misleads Courts and Congress: What to Do About It7:27 PM

Jul 21
Peering Under the Rock at the C Street “Family”5:08 PM

Jul 21
Sexual Blackmail in the Siegelman Case?11:17 AM

Jul 21
The APA’s Nuremberg Defense4:07 PM

Jul 20
Meet the Torturers1:01 PM

Jul 20
Newsweek on Air Looks at the Assassins12:50 PM

Jul 20
A Prisoner in Afghanistan9:20 AM

Jul 20
Rückert/Mahler—Um Mitternacht8:42 AM

Jul 19
Weber—‘Official Secrets’ and Bureaucratic Warfare8:05 AM

Jul 18
Collateral Damage in Afghanistan and the FCPA in Azerbaijan3:08 PM

Jul 17
Hypocris-C Street2:46 PM

Jul 17
Yoo Must Be Kidding9:49 AM

Jul 17
Six Questions for Jack Balkin on the Entrenchment of the National Surveillance State5:31 PM

Jul 16
WaPo: Snuff Program Was Close to Activation11:39 AM

Jul 16
The Winger Media Shows Its Teeth10:17 AM

Jul 16
Inside the “Christian Mafia”9:48 AM

Jul 16
More on Cheney’s Pet CIA Project12:37 PM

Jul 15
Jeff Sessions’s Big Day9:13 AM

Jul 15
The Ghosts of Dasht-i-Leili3:52 PM

Jul 14
A Funny Thing Happened on the Road to Damascus10:32 AM

Jul 14
Saint-Just—Man is born for peace and liberty5:42 AM

Jul 14
Rep. King Calls for Scorched Earth2:49 PM

Jul 13
Is the Lid About to Blow on the Cheney Snuff Program?11:58 AM

Jul 13
Will Holder Launch a Torture Investigation?9:31 AM

Jul 13
Campanella—Il mondo è il libro5:39 AM

Jul 12
Galileo—Reading the Book of Nature7:22 AM

Jul 11
The C Street Club (Updated)9:26 AM

Jul 10
Calvin—Working for the Common Good5:33 AM

Jul 10
The Justice Department Roach Motel3:07 PM

Jul 9
National Review Hearts Stalinism2:09 PM

Jul 9
A Tour of Gitmo9:39 AM

Jul 9
Public Event: Justice After Guantánamo7:36 PM

Jul 8
Six Questions for Ariel Cohen on Obama’s Efforts to Restart U.S.-Russian Relations3:25 PM

Jul 8
A Renditions Scandal in Britain11:13 AM

Jul 8
Did DOJ Retaliate Against Siegelman Whistleblower?3:51 PM

Jul 7
Shostakovich in Oxford11:05 AM

Jul 7
To Russia With Love9:39 AM

Jul 6
A Lady of Loose Virtues8:50 AM

Jul 6
Frost—The Gift Outright7:06 AM

Jul 5
Jefferson—The Risk of Too Much Confidence in Elected Government6:18 AM

Jul 4
“Just Following Orders”9:45 AM

Jul 1

June 2009

Judges Above the Law10:56 AM

Jun 29
García Lorca — For the Love of Green10:57 AM

Jun 28
Copernicus—Vita brevis6:17 AM

Jun 27
Did a Bush Justice Figure Obstruct the Renzi Investigation?9:47 AM

Jun 26
Political Prosecutions in the Bush Era: A Forum9:49 AM

Jun 25
Lawyers’ Opinions and Crime10:13 AM

Jun 23
Emerson’s Saadi8:51 AM

Jun 21
Rumi’s Green-Winged Longing7:26 AM

Jun 20
Obama Justice Department Loves Secrecy11:34 AM

Jun 19
WaPo Loses Its Top Web Columnist11:00 AM

Jun 19
The Jump Artist: Six Questions for Austin Ratner10:49 AM

Jun 19
Operation Pinwale1:33 PM

Jun 18
A Crisis in Theocracy10:07 AM

Jun 18
Partisan Politics and the Accountability Commission10:55 AM

Jun 17
The Fruits of Torture11:13 AM

Jun 16
The Ghosts of Gitmo4:04 PM

Jun 15
John Yoo’s Reckoning With Justice Draws Closer2:37 PM

Jun 15
Keller’s Iranian Insights10:45 AM

Jun 15
Dryden/Handel—The Warrior’s Revenge7:06 AM

Jun 14
Proust—Memory and the Foods of Childhood6:49 AM

Jun 13
Six Questions for David Beito, Author of Black Maverick9:41 AM

Jun 11
Law Lords Hand British Government Setback on Detentions Policy2:47 PM

Jun 10
The Roberts Quartet and Justice for Sale9:51 AM

Jun 10
UN Rapporteur: Rumsfeld in Trouble3:49 PM

Jun 9
Counterfeiting Washington11:20 AM

Jun 9
Cheney, the DOJ, and Torture: Two Takes10:10 AM

Jun 9
Why Comedians Love Dick Cheney11:04 AM

Jun 8
Emerson’s World-Soul7:51 AM

Jun 7
Plato’s World-Soul7:21 AM

Jun 6
Holder Admits More Prosecutorial Misconduct in Public Integrity Cases1:48 PM

Jun 5
Rebel Yell II: Will Georgia’s Charles Walker Get a New Trial?10:04 AM

Jun 5
The Cairo Speech11:38 AM

Jun 4
Twenty Years Later9:57 AM

Jun 4
Leo Strauss and the Iraq War10:32 AM

Jun 3
Cheney Ran the CIA’s Torture Briefings10:09 AM

Jun 3
Unsatisfactory Answers from General McChrystal4:49 PM

Jun 2
Buchanan Surrenders in Her War With Wecht1:56 PM

Jun 2
The Familiar Face of the New RNC1:52 PM

Jun 2
How Many Bottles Make a Waterboarding?1:50 PM

Jun 2
Questions for General McChrystal9:42 AM

Jun 2
General Sanchez Calls for Accountability Commission3:02 PM

Jun 1
Petraeus: Bush Administration Violated Geneva Conventions9:59 AM

Jun 1

May 2009

Brecht—On Kant’s Definition of Marriage6:37 AM

May 31
Kant—The Crooked Wood of Humankind6:08 AM

May 30
The Neverending Story of the Abu Ghraib Photos9:18 AM

May 29
Six Questions for Rashid Khalidi, Author of Sowing Crisis11:59 AM

May 28
Galileo and Gitmo10:31 AM

May 27
The Nod Goes to Sotomayor5:00 PM

May 26
War Games with the Press4:39 PM

May 26
From the Department of Pre-Crime3:54 PM

May 26
Cheney Prepares the Twinkie Defense11:36 AM

May 26
Ariosto/Monteverdi—Voglio di vita uscir9:36 AM

May 23
Manzoni—History and Politics 12:35 AM

May 23
Federal Judge Spotlights Misconduct by Federal Prosecutors in Siegelman Case12:38 PM

May 22
The Chartist’s Plight: Six Questions for Sha Yexin2:06 PM

May 18
Saint-Amant/Purcell—Solitude5:00 AM

May 17
Mill—Progress Through Contact With the Unknown4:59 AM

May 17
The Cyril Wecht Case Continues to Disintegrate8:28 AM

May 15
The Jay Bybee Question9:21 AM

May 14
Sorenson Takes on the Torture Lawyers1:58 PM

May 13
A Convenient Death1:51 PM

May 12
The Times’s Torture Hypocrisy9:10 AM

May 12
David Frum’s G.O.P.9:52 AM

May 11
Stolberg/Schubert—Auf dem Wasser zu singen5:44 AM

May 10
Rousseau—the Savoyard Abbé6:00 AM

May 9
Did Blackwater Contractors Attempt to Hide Evidence of a Massacre in Iraq?3:41 PM

May 8
Pelosi and the Torture Briefings9:07 AM

May 8
The Bush Era Torture-Homicides4:25 PM

May 7
Bolton’s Spanish Delusions9:51 AM

May 7
The Enemies of All Humankind4:01 PM

May 6
Win One for the Gipper!2:18 PM

May 6
Repeal the USA Patriot Act2:07 PM

May 6
Gauguin Did It10:08 AM

May 6
A Talk with Condi’s Interrogators9:29 AM

May 6
Special Prosecutor Moves in CIA Tapes Case3:17 PM

May 5
Justice Dismisses the AIPAC Case–and That’s a Good Thing1:01 PM

May 5
Lessons Not Learned9:35 AM

May 5
Justice in the Gutter, Continued4:36 PM

May 4
Rice and Bellinger Push Back1:03 PM

May 4
The Scapegoats10:26 AM

May 4
Whitman’s Twenty-Eight Young Men6:37 AM

May 3
Holmes—Life as Art6:04 AM

May 2
Condi’s Really Bad Day12:34 PM

May 1

April 2009

Byron York’s Demographics8:56 AM

Apr 30
Torture Lawyer Probe Back on Track in Spain11:57 AM

Apr 29
Bybee Weighs In8:49 AM

Apr 29
Jackson for the Day4:29 PM

Apr 28
Correction3:07 PM

Apr 28
The Jay Bybee Problem3:34 PM

Apr 27
Broder for the Defense10:17 AM

Apr 27
The Nudge10:12 AM

Apr 27
Opitz—Jetzund kömpt die Nacht herbey8:25 AM

Apr 26
Keller–Clothes Make the Man7:39 AM

Apr 25
“Honest Policy Differences” and Other Lies9:24 AM

Apr 24
Straight to the Top8:54 AM

Apr 24
Accountability for Heads of State9:22 AM

Apr 23
AGs Demand Siegelman Review3:43 PM

Apr 22
Behind the Obama About-Face on Prosecuting Torture9:18 AM

Apr 22
Inside the White House Press Corpse9:18 AM

Apr 22
NATO Allies Preparing to Go After Bush Officials on Torture9:06 AM

Apr 22
Impeaching Bybee—A Rocky Road8:35 AM

Apr 21
A Government of Monsters3:46 PM

Apr 20
Impeach Jay Bybee1:49 PM

Apr 20
The Torture Tango9:49 AM

Apr 20
The Harman-AIPAC-Gonzales Triangle9:35 AM

Apr 20
García Lorca’s Little Viennese Waltz6:11 AM

Apr 19
Revealing the Secrets in Room 10110:35 PM

Apr 18
The New Torture Memos7:27 AM

Apr 18
Polybius on State and Religion5:39 AM

Apr 18
Kudos for the Dark Side and “Torturing Democracy”9:32 AM

Apr 15
Obama Wavering on Torture9:28 AM

Apr 15
Bush Six to be Indicted6:37 AM

Apr 14
Karl Rove’s G.O.P.10:46 AM

Apr 13
The News Anchor10:29 AM

Apr 13
Upholding the Red Cross9:18 AM

Apr 12
Herbert’s Easter Wings6:08 AM

Apr 12
Mason on Seidel9:57 AM

Apr 11
Brillat-Savarin’s Gastronomic Reconciliation5:20 AM

Apr 11
The Crucifixion12:20 PM

Apr 10
Obama’s Got a Secret10:03 AM

Apr 10
Licensed to Kill8:43 AM

Apr 10
Music for Passion Friday5:54 AM

Apr 10
Inside the AT&T–NSA “Secret” Relationship7:34 AM

Apr 9
Lapsed Ethics at Justice7:25 AM

Apr 9
Thursday Lamentations5:28 AM

Apr 9
Left Behind9:22 AM

Apr 8
Presidential Accountability9:19 AM

Apr 8
Obama’s National Security State9:18 AM

Apr 8
Stevens Case Dismissed, Prosecutors Rebuked Again11:29 AM

Apr 7
Lock ‘Em Up9:55 AM

Apr 7
The Torture Doctors9:51 AM

Apr 7
“Investigate and Punish the Perpetrators”8:31 PM

Apr 6
Civil Liberties Villain of the Week8:04 AM

Apr 6
In Brennan, Cheney has a Friend9:51 AM

Apr 5
Eichendorff–im Abendrot5:54 AM

Apr 5
Na Zdorovie3:27 PM

Apr 4
Mill on Coleridge5:11 AM

Apr 4
The Report of My Demise Is Greatly Exaggerated3:20 PM

Apr 3
Universal Jurisdiction Blues1:32 PM

Apr 3
Maddow, Powell, and the Need for a Torture Commission7:12 AM

Apr 3
Justice on Stevens10:50 AM

Apr 1

March 2009

Cheney’s Snuff Squad7:21 AM

Mar 31
The Blogosphere Thriller: Six Questions for Barry Eisler, Author of Fault Line7:12 AM

Mar 31
Five Steps to Fix the U.S. Department of Justice11:39 AM

Mar 30
Giving Cheney Just a Bit More Rope8:56 AM

Mar 30
Information Secured Through Torture Proved Unreliable, CIA Concluded10:23 AM

Mar 29
The Accountability Imperative10:21 AM

Mar 29
Presentation at Stanford on April 110:01 AM

Mar 29
Browning’s Paracelsus6:41 AM

Mar 29
Bush Torture Lawyers Targeted in Criminal Probe1:07 AM

Mar 28
Nietzsche on Curiosity 12:36 AM

Mar 28
Economic Illiteracy8:38 AM

Mar 26
South of the Border6:30 AM

Mar 26
Six Questions for Ian Bremmer, Author of Fat Tail10:12 AM

Mar 25
RIP, GWOT7:59 AM

Mar 25
Dead-Eye Dick Cheney (Mis)fires Again7:46 AM

Mar 24
Lie About How We Treated You and You Can Go Free10:44 AM

Mar 23
Another Political Prosecution Fails8:20 AM

Mar 23
Will the Dollar’s Days of Glory End?12:08 PM

Mar 22
The Prisoner11:30 AM

Mar 22
Donne’s Flea6:18 AM

Mar 22
The Woes of a Torture Lawyer9:50 AM

Mar 21
Augustine on the Illusion and Reality of Time7:45 AM

Mar 21
The Steele-Colbert Rap Battle1:49 PM

Mar 20
Krugman’s AIG Verdict9:44 AM

Mar 20
The Fallout from Gaza9:43 AM

Mar 20
Dereliction of Duty9:42 AM

Mar 20
Global Collapse in Manufacturing9:40 AM

Mar 20
Bush’s Authoritarian Presidency10:40 AM

Mar 19
Bring in the Feds12:59 PM

Mar 18
Gitmo: Colonel Wilkerson Tells It All12:56 PM

Mar 18
When Torture is “Torture”12:54 PM

Mar 18
The Heirs of Father Coughlin7:30 AM

Mar 17
AIG’s Bonuses9:52 AM

Mar 16
The Indelible Stain of the Black Sites9:51 AM

Mar 16
Sor Juana’s Rose12:41 PM

Mar 15
Enemy Combatant, Rest in Peace?12:31 PM

Mar 14
Cervantes—on Wealth4:04 AM

Mar 14
Standing Firm for Injustice9:32 AM

Mar 13
Did Cheney Run a Murder-on-demand Program?9:42 AM

Mar 12
Does Fred Hiatt Read His Own Paper?9:12 AM

Mar 12
More Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Al-Arian Case9:33 AM

Mar 11
A Freeman Post Mortem: This round to AIPAC?8:43 AM

Mar 11
Six Questions for Juan Cole, Author of Engaging the Muslim World2:48 PM

Mar 10
Behind the Curve1:18 PM

Mar 9
All the President’s Lawyers11:26 AM

Mar 9
Keeping Bush’s Secrets11:19 AM

Mar 9
Justice After Bush: Forum at Princeton9:25 PM

Mar 8
The Rovian Judiciary9:25 PM

Mar 8
Dryden/Purcell–”Music for a While”8:40 AM

Mar 8
Yoo’s Boundless Powers of War… and Imagination11:45 PM

Mar 7
Döblin’s Urban Awakening7:40 AM

Mar 7
The Single-Payer Solution3:51 PM

Mar 6
Siegelman Convictions Upheld3:50 PM

Mar 6
The Parallel Regime II7:25 AM

Mar 6
Accountability Debate: Less Amnesty, More Prosecution8:19 AM

Mar 5
The Parallel Regime8:07 AM

Mar 5
Who Is the Real Charles Krauthammer?10:39 AM

Mar 4
Among Experts, Consensus Builds for a Commission10:39 AM

Mar 4
John Yoo Hearts Orange County7:52 AM

Mar 4
George W. Bush’s Disposable Constitution7:16 AM

Mar 3
CIA in Mass Destruction of Torture Evidence1:24 PM

Mar 2
Fair and Balanced, Fox Style8:32 AM

Mar 2
Propping Up a House of Cards?8:29 AM

Mar 2
The Hip-hop G.O.P.7:45 PM

Mar 1
Machaut—Douce dame jolie7:46 AM

Mar 1

February 2009

Lingering Questions About Renditions Plague the U.S.–U.K. Relationship6:21 PM

Feb 28
Human Rights and Military Bases10:31 AM

Feb 28
The Crumbling State Secrets Ploy10:19 AM

Feb 28
Einstein’s Human Cosmos8:59 AM

Feb 28
UK Acknowledges Complicity in Renditions Program12:16 PM

Feb 26
Crimes and Secrets, and Foggo8:04 AM

Feb 26
Momentum Builds for Bush Crimes Inquiry as Pelosi Criticizes Immunity Suggestion7:42 AM

Feb 26
The Absentee School Teacher4:43 PM

Feb 25
When “The Stupid Party” Had Brains10:45 AM

Feb 24
“The Stupid Party”8:36 AM

Feb 24
Scalia Blasts Public Corruption Cases7:47 PM

Feb 23
Rove in Contempt of Congress, Again2:11 PM

Feb 23
From Petrarcha’s Trionfo del Tempo8:06 AM

Feb 22
Department of Bigotry Masquerading as Reporting8:05 PM

Feb 21
Leonardo’s Human Microcosm9:50 AM

Feb 21
Our Voyage to Brobdingnag12:50 PM

Feb 20
The Liberal’s Lament12:48 PM

Feb 20
Gain a Base, Lose a Friend12:45 PM

Feb 20
Six Questions for Karen Greenberg, Author of The Least Worst Place2:28 PM

Feb 19
The Enemy Combatant Canard7:26 AM

Feb 18
Talks in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara8:53 PM

Feb 17
Jurists: War on Terror Tactics Have Undermined Basic Values9:59 AM

Feb 17
Did the White House Dictate the Torture Memos?9:48 AM

Feb 17
Starr Charts Republican Strategy on Obama Judicial Nominees1:57 PM

Feb 16
A Party of Natural Comedians10:41 PM

Feb 15
Former Gitmo Guard Tells All1:07 PM

Feb 15
Halliburton Settlement Leaves Unsettling Questions12:49 PM

Feb 15
Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!”8:43 AM

Feb 15
Internal Justice Probe Lambasts Yoo and Bradbury over Memos10:47 PM

Feb 14
Obama’s Lincoln Day Speech1:48 PM

Feb 14
Vives’s Fable of Humankind6:49 AM

Feb 14
Transitions11:36 PM

Feb 13
Bring the Torture Team to Justice10:57 AM

Feb 13
Remembering the Real War President1:16 PM

Feb 12
British Court Reopens U.S. Torture Case as Obama is Lobbied to Change Course1:15 PM

Feb 12
Lincoln–The Eternal Struggle8:53 AM

Feb 12
Tortured to Death11:17 PM

Feb 11
Why Are Justice Department Lawyers Defending John Yoo?7:57 PM

Feb 11
“Pallin’ Around With Sarah and Bill”7:06 PM

Feb 11
Secret Crimes8:52 AM

Feb 10
Leahy: Create a Truth Commission Now4:08 PM

Feb 9
Ann Coulter Again Faces Voting Fraud Allegations4:02 PM

Feb 9
Heine/Mendelssohn: Upon the Wings of Song6:50 AM

Feb 8
Pentagon Targeted and Mistreated Journalists, AP Head Charges11:52 AM

Feb 7
Thucydides on the Meaning of History8:46 AM

Feb 7
Will Prosecutorial Misconduct Lead to Reversal of the Stevens Conviction?5:27 PM

Feb 6
Injudicious Justice11:21 AM

Feb 6
Dr. Phibes Rises Again11:46 AM

Feb 5
Cooperation, Rove Style2:27 PM

Feb 4
Bush Administration Threatened Britain Over Torture Disclosures11:05 AM

Feb 4
The Mess at Manas10:51 AM

Feb 4
Mendelssohn at 2003:47 PM

Feb 3
More on the Renditions Hoopla11:56 PM

Feb 2
Reversing Course at Justice9:02 AM

Feb 2
Renditions Buffoonery8:44 AM

Feb 2
Rod and Norm and Eliot and David4:36 PM

Feb 1
Lieberman’s Sense of Humor11:49 AM

Feb 1
Goethe’s Quiet Sea7:57 AM

Feb 1

January 2009

Diderot—Liberating God7:49 AM

Jan 31
Yoo for the Defense2:12 PM

Jan 30
The Genius of Karl Rove10:01 AM

Jan 29
Prepare for the Robot Wars: Six questions for P.W. Singer, author of Wired for War3:54 PM

Jan 27
Subpoena Issued to Karl Rove: “Time to talk”9:53 AM

Jan 27
Emerson’s Snow-Storm11:57 PM

Jan 24
First Words and Deeds5:45 PM

Jan 24
Herder on the Origins of Language6:51 AM

Jan 24
Glinda Arrives at State2:19 PM

Jan 22
Did Bush’s Terrorist Surveillance Program Really Focus on American Journalists?8:42 AM

Jan 22
One Good Man Goes to Gitmo11:24 AM

Jan 21
UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now8:21 AM

Jan 21
Langston Hughes—Freedom’s Plow12:53 PM

Jan 20
New Hope for Justice12:30 PM

Jan 20
Forty-Four12:26 PM

Jan 20
Seeger and Springsteen: This Land Is Your Land10:24 AM

Jan 20
Whitman’s Democratic Vistas10:13 AM

Jan 20
The Stars and Stripes Over London9:41 AM

Jan 20
For the Day on Which America Turns a Page9:13 AM

Jan 20
Long Time Comin’8:01 AM

Jan 20
Lincoln on the Need for New Beginnings7:40 AM

Jan 20
Olbermann Makes the Case for Prosecuting Bush and His Torture Team10:22 PM

Jan 19
A Legacy of Political Persecution8:28 PM

Jan 19
Recessional for an Exiting Tyrant7:46 PM

Jan 19
Censored by HBO?2:03 PM

Jan 19
Murder in Moscow2:02 PM

Jan 19
Overseas, Expectations Build for Torture Prosecutions1:58 PM

Jan 19
Keeping the Knives Sharp11:30 AM

Jan 19
A Dream Matures 12:06 AM

Jan 19
The Inaugural Cocktail11:38 AM

Jan 18
Whitman—For You, O Democracy7:42 AM

Jan 18
An Epitaph for the Bush Years6:27 PM

Jan 17
Worst. President. Ever.6:25 PM

Jan 17
Augustine on the Sovereign’s Duty to Do Justice7:41 AM

Jan 17
Six Questions for Edwin Burrows, Author of Forgotten Patriots3:26 PM

Jan 16
Farewells, Then and Now10:15 AM

Jan 16
The Dead-Enders9:29 AM

Jan 16
What to Do About Judge Bybee?7:14 AM

Jan 16
Another Admission: Okay, So We Tortured10:47 AM

Jan 14
DOJ Internal Probe Confirms Politicization, Again11:04 AM

Jan 13
Bush’s Torture Confession3:27 PM

Jan 12
What Would Cheney Do?3:07 PM

Jan 12
New Mexico Delusions9:09 AM

Jan 12
Moltke–The Duty of Conscience12:32 PM

Jan 11
Countdown to End Torture8:55 AM

Jan 11
Prometheus the Bringer of Fire 12:02 AM

Jan 11
A Farewell to Dick Cheney11:15 AM

Jan 10
Gitmo Guard Details Torture11:12 AM

Jan 10
Spinoza—The Essence of Tyranny 12:16 AM

Jan 10
The Baseline12:47 PM

Jan 9
The Hunger Artist9:28 AM

Jan 9
Coming Soon to the Washington Mall: The Bush Memorial3:20 PM

Jan 8
The Case for Prosecutions11:47 PM

Jan 7
Kristol Meth10:31 PM

Jan 7
Blackwater Arraignments3:02 PM

Jan 7
Blair House Mystery Solved12:09 PM

Jan 7
Bush Justice Department Continues Harassment Campaign Against Tamm11:08 AM

Jan 7
Two Inspired Choices for the Intel Community12:47 PM

Jan 6
Herrick for Twelfth Night8:03 AM

Jan 6
More Times-Speak11:11 PM

Jan 5
The Lawless World of John Yoo9:59 AM

Jan 5
Six Questions for Louis Fisher, Author of The Constitution and 9/119:56 AM

Jan 5
L’Arte del Violino4:13 PM

Jan 4
The Smaller-than-life President?10:56 AM

Jan 4
Herbert’s Man9:00 AM

Jan 4
Bush a “Total Failure” Says Former Iraqi PM1:27 PM

Jan 3
Cusanus and Van Eyck: The Eye Behind the Mirror8:58 AM

Jan 3
Justice for Tom DeLay?2:56 PM

Jan 2
None Dare Call it Stupidity2:45 PM

Jan 2
Wilkerson on the Cheney Shogunate9:43 AM

Jan 2
The Insider’s Path to Bush Pardons9:42 AM

Jan 2
A New Year’s Concert11:48 AM

Jan 1

December 2008

Rumi’s Parable of the Three Fish5:22 PM

Dec 31
Fredo for the Defense1:51 PM

Dec 31
The Argus-eyed University12:22 PM

Dec 31
Eyeless in Gaza II9:34 AM

Dec 30
What Lurks Behind Cheney’s Passion for Secrets?11:39 AM

Dec 29
Moscow Murder Mystery10:55 AM

Dec 29
Schubart’s Defiant Trout8:41 AM

Dec 28
Pelikan on Tradition and Traditionalism10:49 AM

Dec 27
Is $40,000 the New Going Rate for Presidential Pardons?11:12 AM

Dec 26
Holiday Readings10:02 AM

Dec 26
John Donne’s Nativity8:39 AM

Dec 25
Góngora’s Nativity8:41 AM

Dec 24
Pardon Time for Cheney?5:45 PM

Dec 23
The Irony of Public Integrity9:15 AM

Dec 23
Bush and the Meltdown on Wall Street11:10 AM

Dec 22
A Troubling Black Box Death10:54 AM

Dec 22
Advent Concert9:01 PM

Dec 21
Shakespeare’s Enduring Brass9:07 AM

Dec 21
What Motivates the Torture Enablers?5:26 PM

Dec 20
Rousseau on Government and the People8:48 AM

Dec 20
John Dean: Prosecute Cheney10:38 AM

Dec 19
FBI Director Calls Cheney on Torture Lies10:37 AM

Dec 19
“The American Public has a Right to Know That They Do Not Have to Choose Between Torture and Terror”: Six questions for Matthew Alexander, author of How to Break a Terrorist4:19 PM

Dec 18
NYT: Prosecute the Torture Team11:34 AM

Dec 18
Levin Discusses Need for Torture Prosecutions11:56 PM

Dec 17
Ludwig Van for a Wednesday Evening4:22 PM

Dec 17
Did Cheney Confess to a Felony?8:46 AM

Dec 17
Shoeless in Baghdad12:04 PM

Dec 16
War Crimes11:59 AM

Dec 16
Tamm: Punished for Defending the Constitution?11:58 PM

Dec 15
Securing the Crime Scene10:31 AM

Dec 15
An Advent Concert4:43 PM

Dec 14
Sakharov—The Challenge for Scientists3:52 PM

Dec 14
The Torture Presidency11:49 PM

Dec 13
Tsvetaeva’s Sleepless Night10:51 PM

Dec 13
Corrupt Prosecutors: Texas, Alabama Take Top Honors10:23 AM

Dec 13
Schumpeter on Political Parties3:04 AM

Dec 13
Politics and the Federal Prosecutor11:15 AM

Dec 11
The Good-Faith Torturers11:04 AM

Dec 11
Sabotage at Gitmo12:14 PM

Dec 9
Milton Turns 40010:09 AM

Dec 9
Brennan’s Press Friends9:17 AM

Dec 8
Benn’s Icarus8:53 AM

Dec 7
Siegelman Appeal Argued this Week1:56 PM

Dec 6
Six Questions for Mary Ellen O’Connell on the Power of International Law9:40 AM

Dec 6
Departure of the Ship of Fools8:22 AM

Dec 6
Where’s Stiglitz?12:46 PM

Dec 5
Generals Demand End to Torture, Calls for Prosecution of Torture Team Mount, AG Clueless11:59 AM

Dec 4
The Gray Lady’s Torture Problem7:46 AM

Dec 4
Making Sense of Mumbai5:26 PM

Dec 2
How Many Americans Died Because of Bush’s Torture Program?10:50 AM

Dec 2
Obama’s First Challenge: A Legacy of War Crimes11:52 PM

Dec 1
Create a Torture Commission11:51 PM

Dec 1

November 2008

Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts 12:02 AM

Nov 30
Pico della Mirandola and the Divine Gift to Humankind9:39 AM

Nov 29
Let Us Be Thankful12:15 PM

Nov 28
John Brennan for CIA? Think Again10:08 PM

Nov 24
William Carlos Williams ‘The Dance’9:37 AM

Nov 23
The Bush Pardons3:22 PM

Nov 22
Plato on the Punishment of the Unjust9:55 AM

Nov 22
Another Black Eye for the Bush Administration’s Detention Policy4:17 PM

Nov 20
Grading Gates12:18 PM

Nov 20
English Judge Says Invasion of Iraq by U.S. and U.K. Unlawful10:26 AM

Nov 19
AP: Cheney and Gonzales Indicted for Prisoner Abuse9:41 PM

Nov 18
AP: Obama Will Not Prosecute War Crimes1:12 PM

Nov 18
Justice ♡ Orwell7:18 PM

Nov 17
The 43rd President’s Dark Legacy9:41 AM

Nov 17
Herrick—To Music, to becalm his Fever1:14 AM

Nov 16
In Praise of a Prosecutor11:25 AM

Nov 15
Bacon on the Roads to Power and Knowledge8:13 AM

Nov 15
One of the Siegelman Prosecution Team Comes in From the Cold1:32 PM

Nov 14
A Ticket to The Hague for Dick Cheney?5:13 PM

Nov 13
Schiller—Freedom’s Hymn 12:14 AM

Nov 9
Schiller’s Rules of Engagement 12:25 AM

Nov 8
Something’s Odd in Alaska3:15 PM

Nov 7
Let Justice Take Its Course11:45 PM

Nov 6
The Southern Strategy Comes of Age1:06 PM

Nov 4
This Morning, Change Beckons7:59 AM

Nov 4
Know Hope7:58 AM

Nov 4
Go Vote!10:17 AM

Nov 3
Best of the ’08 Campaign: The effective use of history10:12 AM

Nov 3
Day Dispels the Dark Night10:16 AM

Nov 2
Sandburg’s Chicago1:10 AM

Nov 2
Hold Everything! The endorsement that will turn this election around3:35 PM

Nov 1
Schurz: The True Americanism8:09 AM

Nov 1

October 2008

Goldfarb Gets a Smackdown10:05 AM

Oct 31
Best of the ’08 Campaign VI: Numerology9:58 AM

Oct 31
The New McCarthyism10:59 AM

Oct 29
Best of the ’08 Campaign V: Northern exposure8:00 AM

Oct 29
Best of the ’08 Campaign IV: The Art of the Endorsement10:07 AM

Oct 27
Will Justice Hack the Vote?9:27 AM

Oct 26
Palin’s Nightmare9:16 AM

Oct 26
Pushkin’s Autumn 12:21 AM

Oct 26
Best of the ’08 Campaign III: Best National Columnist6:26 PM

Oct 25
Tolstoy on the Role of History 12:14 AM

Oct 25
The Best of the ’08 Campaign II: Best local press coverage7:07 AM

Oct 23
The Best of the ’08 Campaign I: Best Speech in a Comic Mode12:50 PM

Oct 21
Justice in the Gutter3:38 PM

Oct 19
Shakespeare’s Quality of Mercy6:27 AM

Oct 19
Niebuhr’s Relationship to the Past10:33 AM

Oct 18
The Wobbly Political Theology of Sarah Palin10:21 AM

Oct 16
The Torture Presidency10:29 AM

Oct 15
Nerval: A Man and His Lobster8:26 AM

Oct 12
Pythagoras’s Human Typology8:58 AM

Oct 11
DOJ Goes Long for Sarah Palin8:00 PM

Oct 8
The Ifill Factor11:55 AM

Oct 5
Lope de Vega’s Judith9:23 AM

Oct 5
Petrarcha’s Ascent of Mt Ventoux9:42 AM

Oct 4

September 2008

Six Questions for Steven Calabresi, Author of The Unitary Executive2:02 PM

Sep 30
Internal Justice Probe Suggests Political Manipulation of Prosecutions, Obstruction11:25 PM

Sep 29
Taxi to the Dark Side: Monday at 9 p.m.10:23 AM

Sep 28
Tansillo’s Wings of Desire7:54 AM

Sep 28
Bruno on Cultivating the Heaven Within7:25 AM

Sep 27
Next Up: U.S. Attorneys Scandal2:43 PM

Sep 26
Goldfarb Plays the Baby Card1:04 PM

Sep 25
A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words6:05 PM

Sep 22
An October Surprise in Pakistan?10:08 AM

Sep 22
Pushkin’s Remembrance8:43 AM

Sep 21
Unexpected Consequences from a Mug of Soda10:16 AM

Sep 20
Sakharov on Scientific Inquiry and Human Crisis7:31 AM

Sep 20
Public Integrity, Redefined1:43 PM

Sep 19
The History We Need1:19 PM

Sep 19
Bush Justice for Sarah Palin and Jack Abramoff8:42 AM

Sep 18
Six Questions for Bart Gellman, Author of Angler9:17 AM

Sep 17
A Brecht Premiere10:14 AM

Sep 14
From Goethe’s Divan8:44 AM

Sep 14
Goethe’s Freedom5:58 AM

Sep 13
Another Political Prosecution Fails?9:47 PM

Sep 8
O Fortuna!3:48 AM

Sep 7
Plotinus: The Contest Between Drugs, Magic and Reason9:51 AM

Sep 6
Update on the Gonzales Report10:12 AM

Sep 3
Has Fredo Dodged a Bullet?10:26 AM

Sep 2

August 2008

Yeats’s Sailing to Byzantium7:51 AM

Aug 31
Lincoln–The Duty to Think Anew8:25 AM

Aug 30
Elder Joseph’s Simple Gifts7:55 AM

Aug 24
Bayle on the Chronicler’s Duty7:23 AM

Aug 23
More Prosecutorial Mischief in Mississippi9:17 PM

Aug 20
In Pursuit of Kafka’s Porn Cache: Six questions for James Hawes7:28 AM

Aug 19
More’s Immortality6:13 AM

Aug 17
Military Judge Finds Political Manipulation in Gitmo, Again6:25 PM

Aug 16
Solzhenitsyn—The Challenge of the Modern Age9:36 AM

Aug 16
The Zero-Calorie Debates7:10 AM

Aug 15
The Mukasey Doctrine3:20 PM

Aug 12
Georgia on My Mind10:37 AM

Aug 11
Milton’s Golden Compass11:16 AM

Aug 10
Shaftesbury on the Meaning of Life7:59 AM

Aug 9
The Justice Department’s Truthiness Problem9:55 AM

Aug 8
Verdict on Hamdan9:03 AM

Aug 7
Mörike’s To a Lamp10:08 AM

Aug 3
Burckhardt on the Duty of Citizens6:45 AM

Aug 2

July 2008

Inside the Pakistan-Taliban Relationship: Six Questions for Ahmed Rashid, Author of Descent Into Chaos3:41 PM

Jul 30
García Lorca’s Guitar7:55 AM

Jul 27
Gracián on the Role of Culture7:17 AM

Jul 26
New Allegations of Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Siegelman Case1:20 PM

Jul 24
Six Questions for Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, Author of In Justice11:55 AM

Jul 23
The Misdirection10:56 AM

Jul 21
Hans Sachs’s Schlaraffenland8:56 AM

Jul 20
Cusanus’s Human Microcosm5:50 AM

Jul 19
Media Alert3:58 PM

Jul 16
Six Questions for Jane Mayer, Author of The Dark Side10:58 AM

Jul 14
D’Alembert—Happiness and the Duty to Fellow Humans11:01 PM

Jul 13
Boileau—Nothing is Beautiful but the True7:22 AM

Jul 13
Montesquieu—The Corruption of Principles and the Decline of the State7:23 AM

Jul 12
On the Peace Born of Faith2:38 PM

Jul 10
Six Questions for Steve LeVine, author of Putin’s Labyrinth2:30 PM

Jul 8
Washington on the Threat of Partisan Entrenchment11:26 AM

Jul 5
Music for the Fourth of July8:58 AM

Jul 4
Mr. Twain Offers a Lesson on Patriotism7:17 AM

Jul 4
Six Questions for Paul Alexander, Author of Machiavelli’s Shadow8:09 AM

Jul 1

June 2008

Williams’s Song7:26 PM

Jun 29
Adam Smith on the Nature of Human Virtue6:02 AM

Jun 28
Assessing Yoo and Addington3:55 PM

Jun 27
Six Questions for Mohsin Hamid2:34 PM

Jun 25
Will the National Surveillance State Prevail Again?6:19 PM

Jun 24
The Addington–Yoo Hearing, Gavel-to-gavel3:04 PM

Jun 24
Schubert/Rückert ‘Du bist die Ruh’7:34 AM

Jun 22
Cicero—Scipio’s Dream6:23 AM

Jun 21
Travel Advisory8:25 AM

Jun 19
Torture from the Top Down9:45 AM

Jun 18
The U.S. Attorneys Scandal Enters the Criminal Prosecutions Phase8:18 AM

Jun 16
Six Questions for Michael Sheehan, Author of Crush the Cell9:13 AM

Jun 15
Empedocles’s Fragment No. 178:26 AM

Jun 15
Plato’s Dialectic of Numbers8:42 AM

Jun 14
Media Alert7:28 PM

Jun 13
A Setback for the State of Exception9:10 AM

Jun 13
Remembering Aitmatov3:00 PM

Jun 11
Nightline Looks at Corruption at Justice4:48 PM

Jun 9
The Calling of Politics9:52 AM

Jun 9
Whitman–Crossing Brooklyn Ferry11:34 PM

Jun 8
Weber on the Political Vocation11:32 PM

Jun 8
More on Maher Arar3:37 PM

Jun 5
Siegelman Prosecution Continues to Unravel4:24 PM

Jun 4
Another Political Prosecution Goes Up in Flames4:51 PM

Jun 2
Pressure Mounts on Karl Rove7:09 AM

Jun 2

May 2008

Rimbaud—What’s It to Us?10:42 PM

May 30
Camus on the Accountability of Leaders10:40 PM

May 30
Ariosto’s Man Who Broke the Mold3:28 AM

May 26
Castiglione’s Renaissance Cool4:27 PM

May 24
A Vital Election-year Initiative Against Torture1:44 PM

May 21
“Main Core”: The Last Round-Up10:48 AM

May 21
Why Does the Wall Street Journal Hate America?10:07 AM

May 20
Hölderlin’s Course of Life5:58 PM

May 17
Hutten’s nobilitas litteraria4:40 PM

May 17
Six Questions for Sidney Blumenthal, Author of The Strange Death of Republican America11:56 AM

May 13
Machiavelli—On Communing with Greatness9:13 AM

May 11
Akhmatova—For the Memory of a Friend8:48 AM

May 11
Taxi to the Dark Side at Princeton on Saturday Afternoon10:26 AM

May 9
Dirty Money1:50 PM

May 5
Loser Take All1:39 PM

May 5
A Discussion with Philippe Sands8:51 AM

May 2
The Afghan Opium Dreams of David Ignatius8:10 AM

May 1

April 2008

An Interview with Tom Farer, Author of ‘Confronting Global Terrorism’1:10 PM

Apr 28
Shakespeare—Like As the Waves6:03 AM

Apr 25
The Decision to Torture Came from the Top11:08 AM

Apr 23
Alice Martin Perjury Update2:44 PM

Apr 22
The Unbearable Lightness of Being John C. Yoo6:01 AM

Apr 21
Bilal Hussein to Be Released Wednesday4:27 PM

Apr 14
Georg Forster’s Recollection of Benjamin Franklin9:40 AM

Apr 13
Marvell—‘The Garden’9:21 AM

Apr 10
Is There Life After Blogging?6:40 AM

Apr 10
Novalis—the Power of Realization

Apr 10
“History Will Not Judge This Kindly”8:53 PM

Apr 9
Political Prosecution in Pittsburgh Collapses5:06 PM

Apr 9
Bilal Hussein Exonerated2:25 PM

Apr 9
Justice Tackles the Corporate Offenders, Or Perhaps Not7:39 AM

Apr 9
Nietzsche—the ‘Historically Educated’ Man

Apr 9
A Tale of Three Lawyers6:41 AM

Apr 8
Tsvetaeva, ‘In My Way’5:37 AM

Apr 8
Burke on Human History

Apr 8
Torture Lawyer in the Crosshairs5:56 PM

Apr 7
Plato—‘Pregnant’ Men and the Role of Beauty in Creation

Apr 7
Justice in Birmingham6:53 PM

Apr 6
Karl in a Corner6:50 PM

Apr 6
Milton—From Paradise Lost8:58 AM

Apr 6
Hyginus–Man and the Gigantomakhia

Apr 6
Media Alert4:08 PM

Apr 5
Worst. President. Ever.12:56 PM

Apr 5
King–Letter from a Birmingham Jail6:56 AM

Apr 5
In the Face of Justice Department Inaction, the Pentagon Moves Ahead on Contractor Accountability9:14 AM

Apr 4
Mallarmé’s ‘Sea Breeze’6:20 AM

Apr 4
Balzac—The Despotism of Small Minds

Apr 4
Monica’s DOJ Makeover7:39 AM

Apr 3
Six Questions for Noah Feldman, Author of ‘The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State’7:21 AM

Apr 3
Yoo Two7:15 AM

Apr 3
Canetti—War and the First Death

Apr 3
The Green Light7:48 AM

Apr 2
Herrick’s Daffodils6:14 AM

Apr 2
Lucretius—The Invocation to Venus

Apr 2
DOJ’s Magnolia Caper12:51 PM

Apr 1
More Corruption at Mukasey’s Justice Department?7:19 AM

Apr 1
Gracián on the Art of Expectations

Apr 1

March 2008

Siegelman and the Fairness Doctrine11:32 AM

Mar 31
Iraq in the Balance8:37 AM

Mar 31
Wang Wei’s Deer Park7:23 AM

Mar 31
The Transformation of Experience into Performance

Mar 31
The House that Karl Built9:39 PM

Mar 30
Lenz on Human Perfectibility

Mar 30
Gitmo and the G.O.P. Election Effort5:53 PM

Mar 29
Mukasey and Public Integrity9:51 AM

Mar 29
Pope—Know Then Thyself5:20 AM

Mar 29
Conrad on the Imperialist Spirit

Mar 29
Media Alert5:23 PM

Mar 28
The Torture Team4:05 PM

Mar 28
Proust on Art as Transcendence

Mar 28
Court of Appeals Sets Governor Siegelman Free As Congress Calls Siegelman to Testify in Continued Probe of Political Prosecutions4:51 PM

Mar 27
Rumi—Dervish at the Door9:07 AM

Mar 27
Oakeshott—On Experience

Mar 27
No Terrors for Me4:46 PM

Mar 26
Judicial Bamboozlement8:11 AM

Mar 26
Melville on Life and Philosophy

Mar 26
In Pakistan, Judges Freed, Pressure on Musharraf Builds8:03 AM

Mar 25
Neruda—a Song of Despair6:12 AM

Mar 25
Lincoln at Gettysburg

Mar 25
The Past Is Not Past. Or Is It?9:07 AM

Mar 24
Kisch and the National Surveillance State

Mar 24
Listening for an Easter Afternoon12:49 PM

Mar 23
Vaughan—Gone Into the World of Light6:37 AM

Mar 23
Kafka on the Need for a Personal God

Mar 23
More Political Taint in the Spitzer Case3:01 PM

Mar 22
Were Karl Rove’s Emails Destroyed?11:41 AM

Mar 22
Edmund Burke and the War in Iraq11:37 AM

Mar 22
Burke—When Politicians Deal in Blood3:13 AM

Mar 22
Donne—Good-Friday 16137:05 PM

Mar 21
The Passion According to Johann Sebastian Bach10:01 AM

Mar 21
The Speech: A Conservative’s Take9:57 AM

Mar 21
Blackwater’s Gray Zone8:17 AM

Mar 21
Wolfram’s Divided Heart

Mar 21
Droste-Hülshoff—On Maundy Thursday8:59 PM

Mar 20
More Rumblings in Los Angeles8:23 PM

Mar 20
The War Over the War Inside the Pentagon11:10 AM

Mar 20
Celan’s ‘Tenebrae’6:13 AM

Mar 20
Cusanus’s Great Continuum6:12 AM

Mar 20
Bell on the Shi’a in Iraq6:29 PM

Mar 19
The Speech12:47 PM

Mar 19
Clarke’s Ultimate Machine12:43 PM

Mar 19
Six Questions for Aram Roston, Author of The Man Who Pushed America to War9:22 AM

Mar 19
House Beautiful Iraq7:13 AM

Mar 19
The Assault on Public Integrity Continues7:11 AM

Mar 19
Lawrence on the Iraq Quagmire, 1920

Mar 19
The Silly Season is Here2:05 PM

Mar 18
Tremors at the Roof of the Earth11:01 AM

Mar 18
What Do Sex Scandals Tell Us About America’s Political Maturity?8:25 AM

Mar 18
Yeats’s ‘Second Coming’6:18 AM

Mar 18
Adams on the Revolution

Mar 18
And Now for the Really Bad News. . .10:40 AM

Mar 17
More Bad Nominees8:42 AM

Mar 17
The Case of the Amazing Vanishing Corruption Investigation7:03 AM

Mar 17
Joyce on the Irishman Abroad

Mar 17
The Gitmo Farce9:59 AM

Mar 16
The Question Behind ‘Goya’s Ghosts’9:56 AM

Mar 16
Media Alert8:53 AM

Mar 16
Yeats—Easter 19166:49 AM

Mar 16
In the Beginning. . .

Mar 16
Six Questions for Garry Wills on ‘What the Gospels Meant’9:20 AM

Mar 15
The Gathering Storm at Justice9:19 AM

Mar 15
Milosz on Being

Mar 15
Public Integrity, Redefined3:02 PM

Mar 14
The Center Holds2:59 PM

Mar 14
Roasting on a Slow Spitz1:16 PM

Mar 14
Crazy in Alabama10:15 AM

Mar 14
Marvell—‘Cromwell’s Return’6:39 AM

Mar 14
Emerson—Science and Religion

Mar 14
The Reality of Life in a Police State8:25 PM

Mar 13
Spitzer Set Up?7:04 PM

Mar 13
Bar Questions Independence of Military Commissions11:31 AM

Mar 13
Farmer’s Folly9:19 AM

Mar 13
Armenia and the Unfinished Business of Ethnonationalism7:30 AM

Mar 13
Maimonides’s Measure of Man

Mar 13
Spitz Out6:17 PM

Mar 12
No More Torture—No Exceptions8:20 AM

Mar 12
Kraus—The Perpetual Peace6:39 AM

Mar 12
Kraus—Humanity on the Way to the Gallows

Mar 12
Remembering Frederick Douglass12:29 PM

Mar 11
The President’s Lawyers12:24 PM

Mar 11
Media Alert9:43 AM

Mar 11
Executive Privilege on the Firing Line8:43 AM

Mar 11
Jefferson on the Utility of Soft Power

Mar 11
The Spitzer Sex Sting: A Few More Questions7:58 PM

Mar 10
King Arthur 2.04:17 PM

Mar 10
Correction2:18 PM

Mar 10
Pasternak’s ‘Black February’6:17 AM

Mar 10
Hayek on the Formation of Free Opinion

Mar 10
Alice Martin’s War7:07 AM

Mar 9
Merton on the Choice Between Good and Evil

Mar 9
Another Milestone on the Road to Serfdom7:58 AM

Mar 8
Dowson’s ‘Vitae Summa Brevis’6:48 AM

Mar 8
Seneca’s Measure of the Human Life

Mar 8
A Brain-Dead Press6:43 AM

Mar 7
Stevens on Emancipation6:27 AM

Mar 7
Six Questions for David Rieff, Author of ‘Swimming in a Sea of Death’4:44 PM

Mar 6
Mukasey’s Law11:18 AM

Mar 6
Mallarmé—the Faun’s Afternoon5:20 AM

Mar 6
Valéry on the Language of Art

Mar 6
Witching Moment4:56 PM

Mar 5
Thoreau—Battling Evil

Mar 5
Eyeless in Gaza2:13 PM

Mar 4
Whitman—‘America Singing’9:04 AM

Mar 4
Mallory–The Apotheosis of Lancelot

Mar 4
Liveblogging2:22 PM

Mar 3
Buckley Questions the Establishment10:00 AM

Mar 3
Thucydides on the Destructive Qualities of the Thirst for Power9:39 AM

Mar 2
How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the (Ticking) Bomb7:46 PM

Mar 1
Akhmatova on Eternity9:35 AM

Mar 1
Law as a Vehicle for Freedom or Repression

Mar 1

February 2008

Time for a Pardon9:58 AM

Feb 29
Siegelman Updates 12:52 AM

Feb 29
Mann on Myth, Psychoanalysis and Literature 12:51 AM

Feb 29
WHNT Blackout Update5:34 PM

Feb 28
Abramoff and the Riley Band of Choctaw Republicans11:05 AM

Feb 28
Six Questions for Ahmed Rashid on the Elections in Pakistan and U.S. Foreign Policy5:04 AM

Feb 28
Apollinaire’s ‘Le Pont Mirabeau’5:00 AM

Feb 28
Tocqueville on Arts and Sciences in a Democracy

Feb 28
Media Alert2:04 PM

Feb 27
The Alternate Reality of the Birmingham News8:15 AM

Feb 27
Broadcast from the Ministry of Fear6:53 AM

Feb 27
Kepler on the Application of Science

Feb 27
B’ham News Dispenses More Koolaid8:38 AM

Feb 26
Rove’s Monday Whoppers6:05 AM

Feb 26
Ronsard’s Ode to His Mistress6:04 AM

Feb 26
Nietzsche’s Pale Criminal6:03 AM

Feb 26
The Great Tennessee Valley Blackout8:44 PM

Feb 25
Media Alert11:46 AM

Feb 25
Bridge in Brooklyn Noticed for Sale10:20 AM

Feb 25
Oscar for ‘Taxi to the Dark Side’7:58 AM

Feb 25
Franklin—When Power Purports to Craft Right6:27 AM

Feb 25
CBS: More Prosecutorial Misconduct in Siegelman Case9:18 PM

Feb 24
Eliot’s ‘Ash Wednesday’5:39 PM

Feb 24
Another Abusive Prosecution by Alice Martin11:14 AM

Feb 24
A Heart of Steel9:54 AM

Feb 24
John on Fear and Love8:53 AM

Feb 24
Department of Malicious Falsehoods 12:02 AM

Feb 23
Cellini’s Approach to Litigation Management 12:02 AM

Feb 23
Rove and Siegelman9:37 PM

Feb 22
Guantánamo Puppet Theater: Intermezzo9:05 PM

Feb 22
Media Alert 12:49 AM

Feb 22
Lovelace’s ‘From Prison’ 12:04 AM

Feb 22
Washington—the Failed Articles of Confederation 12:03 AM

Feb 22
Shorts from America’s Legal Hell-Hole5:41 PM

Feb 21
The Great Guantánamo Puppet Theater8:24 AM

Feb 21
Beowulf’s End Times6:52 AM

Feb 21
CBS 60 Minutes Siegelman Story to Air on Sunday5:32 PM

Feb 20
Are the Gitmo Trials Rigged?9:03 AM

Feb 20
Six Questions for Anthony Lewis, Author of ‘Gideon’s Trumpet’ and ‘Freedom for the Thought We Hate’4:54 AM

Feb 20
Heym’s ‘Umbra Vitae’4:54 AM

Feb 20
Freedom of the Press, Bush Edition4:53 AM

Feb 20
Jackson on Crimes Committed in the Name of Secrecy4:52 AM

Feb 20
Media Alert8:08 PM

Feb 19
Polk Award Recognizes Exposure of U.S. Attorneys Scandal11:48 AM

Feb 19
The Bleak Picture on the ‘War on Terror’ Central Front8:59 AM

Feb 19
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the National Surveillance State7:36 AM

Feb 19
Douglass—Rising Against Oppression7:16 AM

Feb 19
Still Writing as Bad as I Can9:51 AM

Feb 18
Wharton’s ‘Autumn Sunset’9:06 AM

Feb 18
Madison—How Fear of Threats from Abroad is Used to Suppress Liberty

Feb 18
Jonah’s Fascism2:57 PM

Feb 17
Media Alert11:22 AM

Feb 17
Wackenroder on Human Commonality in Art 12:18 AM

Feb 17
No Time for Rest in the War on Teachers7:54 PM

Feb 16
The Valentine’s Day Torture Trifecta10:47 AM

Feb 16
Lorca’s Barren Orange Tree8:27 AM

Feb 16
Hawthorne—The Iron Rule of Our Day8:26 AM

Feb 16
Congress Cites Bolten and Miers for Contempt–But Is the Issue Really Impeachment?8:06 AM

Feb 15
Macbush Comes to Brooklyn8:04 AM

Feb 15
Hegel on Athena’s Owl7:52 AM

Feb 15
Indeed, the Offender May Be Your Boss11:30 AM

Feb 14
A Valentine from the Ministry of Love8:38 AM

Feb 14
Of Crime and Indifference7:24 AM

Feb 14
Donne—‘Love’s Alchemy’7:14 AM

Feb 14
Bernard of Clairvaux on Love

Feb 14
Six Questions for Darius Rejali, Author of ‘Torture and Democracy’12:04 PM

Feb 13
Treating the Constitution as a Doormat8:13 AM

Feb 13
Beccaria on Official Criminality

Feb 13
Nino Scalia, Your Hairshirt Is Showing, and Your Bishop Has a Message for You5:53 PM

Feb 12
Not a Lincoln, But a Fraud1:18 PM

Feb 12
Media Alert11:52 AM

Feb 12
A Lincoln Anecdote8:37 AM

Feb 12
Whitman’s ‘O Captain’7:09 AM

Feb 12
Lincoln’s Whig Credo7:07 AM

Feb 12
Democracy G.O.P. Style in Washington State3:07 PM

Feb 11
The Ecstatic Vision of History in a Dürer Woodcut8:09 AM

Feb 11
Rilke on Beauty in the Perspective of the Child

Feb 11
Corruption in a U.S. Attorney’s Office10:29 AM

Feb 10
Calvin’s Rose with Thorns7:01 AM

Feb 10
Bush Justice Department Goes After Another Democratic Lawyer (And Why This is Bad News for Yoo and Bradbury)4:19 PM

Feb 9
Shakespeare Sonnet 1168:59 AM

Feb 9
Camus’s Plague

Feb 9
Media Alert8:43 PM

Feb 8
Jim Haynes’s Long Twilight Struggle7:29 PM

Feb 8
Schurz on Real Patriotism

Feb 8
“Objectivity” or Spinelessness?9:03 PM

Feb 7
Torture Groundhog Day1:31 PM

Feb 7
Public Presentation10:33 AM

Feb 7
When is a Prosecution Political?8:17 AM

Feb 7
Catullus—Pining for Lesbia5:30 AM

Feb 7
Smith on the Conspiracies of Tradesmen5:27 AM

Feb 7
The Newspaper and the Schoolteacher2:32 AM

Feb 6
Celebrating the Life of Joseph Brodsky 12:35 AM

Feb 6
Can a Surge Strategy Work in Afghanistan? 12:35 AM

Feb 6
Chekhov—the Necessity of Redeeming the Past

Feb 6
Six Questions for Alex Gibney, Producer of the Oscar-Nominated ‘Taxi to the Dark Side’ 12:15 AM

Feb 5
Hamilton on the Balance Between Liberty and Security

Feb 5
Challenging Torture1:34 PM

Feb 4
Hölderlin on Pindar’s Nomos6:36 AM

Feb 4
Pindar’s Nomos

Feb 4
The Case for Impeachment9:10 AM

Feb 3
Hildegard’s Admonition to Do Justice8:38 AM

Feb 3
Hide and Seek With the Justice Department2:26 PM

Feb 2
Góngora—for El Greco4:03 AM

Feb 2
Goldoni’s Bout With Lawyering4:02 AM

Feb 2
Another Election Season, Another Political Prosecution in Alabama1:42 PM

Feb 1
Mogilevich Arrested and Charged 12:35 AM

Feb 1
Harper’s Favorite Son Declares His Race for the Presidency 12:34 AM

Feb 1
Plato—the Præses lupus

Feb 1

January 2008

Department of Saturnine Behavior8:58 AM

Jan 31
‘Reasonable Minds Can Differ’ 12:22 AM

Jan 31
Pope’s Essay on Man 12:21 AM

Jan 31
Blackstone on Torture

Jan 31
‘Trust Us’ Government and Other Lies12:06 PM

Jan 30
An Anniversary to Ponder9:04 AM

Jan 30
Tucholsky’s Liberal Moment

Jan 30
More Obstruction at Justice11:56 AM

Jan 29
Six Questions for Christopher Slobogin, Author of ‘Privacy at Risk’9:05 AM

Jan 29
POTUS in the Well9:04 AM

Jan 29
Mandelstam’s Stalin Epigram7:46 AM

Jan 29
Burke on Terror, Ignorance and Tyranny

Jan 29
Operating in the Dark11:15 AM

Jan 28
Missing News Items Report8:48 AM

Jan 28
Borges on the Challenge of Temporal Succession

Jan 28
The Bubble Bursts5:36 PM

Jan 27
Bulletins from the Ministry for Torture9:39 AM

Jan 27
Vaughan’s ‘The World’7:52 AM

Jan 27
The Temptation of Christ

Jan 27
How Bush’s Fiscal Mismanagement Produced a Recession8:40 AM

Jan 26
Juvenal—Remembering Why We Fight

Jan 26
A Political Prosecution Goes Under the Microscope5:49 AM

Jan 25
Dehmel’s ‘Transfigured Night’5:48 AM

Jan 25
Novalis’s Weltschmerz

Jan 25
The Illustrated President12:54 PM

Jan 24
Six Questions for Mark Crispin Miller, Author of ‘Fooled Again’ 12:14 AM

Jan 24
935 Lies on the Way to a War 12:05 AM

Jan 24
Adorno—When Questions of Truth Become Questions of Power

Jan 24
Here It Comes: The National Surveillance State5:34 PM

Jan 23
Deconstructing John Yoo9:39 AM

Jan 23
Lorca’s Old Lizard7:59 AM

Jan 23
Emerson’s Transcendentalist

Jan 23
The New Keynesians3:24 PM

Jan 22
The Emails that Dick Cheney Deleted8:26 AM

Jan 22
Gide on the Art of Hypocrisy

Jan 22
Will the Real Leo Strauss Please Stand Up?5:56 PM

Jan 21
Wes Teel Suffers a Heart Attack2:22 PM

Jan 21
Will the Rhetoric Be Matched By Action?8:23 AM

Jan 21
Hughes—Stars 12:17 AM

Jan 21
King’s Audacious Faith

Jan 21
Is the Bookworm an Endangered Species?11:58 AM

Jan 20
The Dalai Lama on the Duty to Earth and the Human Family

Jan 20
Blackwater and the Administration of Justice10:43 AM

Jan 19
Hafez—The Angel at the Tavern Door8:07 AM

Jan 19
Forster’s Aristocracy

Jan 19
The Official Story Unfolds8:09 AM

Jan 18
Kepler on How We Learn

Jan 18
Media Alert9:03 AM

Jan 17
The Risk Horizon for 2008: Six Questions for Ian Bremmer8:20 AM

Jan 17
Pound’s ‘The Return’8:20 AM

Jan 17
Thucydides on the Role of Justice in Conflict

Jan 17
Ending a Culture of Impunity for Contract Soldiers3:22 PM

Jan 16
Nietzsche on the Danger of Battling Monsters

Jan 16
Pakistan Loses Control1:22 PM

Jan 15
Lord Shiva’s Dance8:49 AM

Jan 15
Mystery Solved? 12:04 AM

Jan 15
Brecht ‘To Those Who Follow in Our Wake’ 12:04 AM

Jan 15
King on the Importance of Conscience in Action

Jan 15
The Magnificent Contrarian8:21 AM

Jan 14
Less Than Human 12:05 AM

Jan 14
Berlin—Lawyers as Cutlery

Jan 14
Harper’s Magazine as Matchmaker: Charles Dickens and Herman Melville12:44 PM

Jan 13
Melville’s ‘Berg’ 12:11 AM

Jan 13
Melville on the Avenues of Perception

Jan 13
Prosecutorial Ethics Lite 12:12 AM

Jan 12
Suetonius on the Morals of Caesar’s Mistress

Jan 12
Ashcroft’s Sweet Deal3:38 PM

Jan 11
Pushkin—A Feast in the Time of Plague8:25 AM

Jan 11
Frankfurt on Bullshit

Jan 11
Take a Stand Against Injustice Today8:02 AM

Jan 10
Moltke on the Duty to Act in the Face of Injustice

Jan 10
The Other Scandal Involving Destruction of Evidence10:13 AM

Jan 9
Rimbaud’s ‘Righteous Man’ 12:01 AM

Jan 9
Molière’s Religious Hypocrite

Jan 9
Just Desserts?10:20 PM

Jan 8
Three Points on the Elections2:52 PM

Jan 8
Department of Orwellian Excesses 12:13 AM

Jan 8
Madison on Gradual Encroachments Against Freedom

Jan 8
More Incommunicado Detentions in Afghanistan7:52 AM

Jan 7
Heine’s Solitary Spruce7:18 AM

Jan 7
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

Jan 7
The Delusional President7:50 AM

Jan 6
The Vision of Hildegard of Bingen7:19 AM

Jan 6
Dürer’s Perfect Cure for the Common Headache8:34 AM

Jan 5
Dürer on Extracting Art from Nature

Jan 5
The Torture President Wields His Veto8:32 PM

Jan 4
Marcus Aurelius on the Cosmology

Jan 4
In Iowa, the Mending Begins9:41 AM

Jan 3
Frost’s ‘Mending Wall’5:16 AM

Jan 3
Lichtenberg on Observation and Human Nature

Jan 3
The National Surveillance World11:02 AM

Jan 2
Kingfish Agonistes 12:12 AM

Jan 2
Warren on Goodness from Badness

Jan 2
A Vow for the New Year11:46 AM

Jan 1
Calderón—Life as a Dream

Jan 1

December 2007

The Ten Most Preposterous Bushie Legal Arguments of 200710:28 AM

Dec 31
The Forgotten Bicentennial9:26 AM

Dec 31
Politics in a Pennsylvania Courtroom1:41 AM

Dec 31
Opitz’s Poem of Consolation in Time of War1:18 AM

Dec 31
Cicero on the Meaning of Friendship

Dec 31
Judgment and Torture11:59 AM

Dec 30
Kant on the Origins of Right and Wrong

Dec 30
All the King’s Men, Reloaded11:14 AM

Dec 29
Six Questions for Barney Rubin on the Current Crisis in Pakistan 12:08 AM

Dec 29
Lermontov’s ‘Dream’ 12:06 AM

Dec 29
Adams on Government by Fear

Dec 29
Justice in Mississippi: The Judge’s Dilemma 12:02 AM

Dec 28
The Terrible Fourth Day of Christmas 12:02 AM

Dec 28
More on the Lawyerless Utopia 12:01 AM

Dec 28
In the Holiday News. . .9:11 AM

Dec 27
Blake’s ‘Tyger’7:34 AM

Dec 27
Hamilton on the Art of Political Prosecution

Dec 27
Collateral Damage: Is Mississippi Judge Wes Teel the Victim of a Political Prosecution?12:01 PM

Dec 26
The Nature of the Jungian Archetype

Dec 26
Remember Those in Need11:26 AM

Dec 25
Günther’s Christmas Ode7:30 AM

Dec 25
Merton on the Morning Star’s Promise

Dec 25
The Neocons Meet Their Match11:33 AM

Dec 24
Eckehart and the Naked Babe

Dec 24
An Update on the Trial of Bilal Hussein9:30 AM

Dec 23
Frost’s ‘Into My Own’7:33 AM

Dec 23
Dickens on the Common Business of Humankind

Dec 23
It Happened in New Hampshire7:43 PM

Dec 22
Roosevelt on Human Rights in the Small Places

Dec 22
Siegelman Accuser Released5:12 PM

Dec 21
When Does an FBI Investigation Look Like Omertà?11:33 AM

Dec 21
Vladimir Putin: Person of the Year7:56 AM

Dec 21
Klopstock’s No Wars of Aggression!7:00 AM

Dec 21
Voltaire on the Danger of Being Right When Those in Authority Are Wrong

Dec 21
Just Another Day for the Department of Justice8:23 AM

Dec 20
Austen: When a Woman Must Conceal Her Knowledge

Dec 20
What the Jamie Leigh Jones Case Teaches Us12:52 PM

Dec 19
Blake’s ‘Proverbs of Hell’6:57 AM

Dec 19
Blake on Knowledge Through Experience

Dec 19
Obligations Ignored8:32 AM

Dec 18
Jonas on the Duty to Subsequent Generations7:28 AM

Dec 18
Karl Rove, William Canary, and the Siegelman Case5:26 PM

Dec 17
Another Milestone on the Road to Serfdom12:31 PM

Dec 17
Stevens’s ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’7:46 AM

Dec 17
James and the World of Creation

Dec 17
Bush Assails the JAG Corps10:33 AM

Dec 16
A Question of Impeachment1:51 AM

Dec 16
Rumi on the Purpose-Laden Life

Dec 16
The President’s Coming-Out Party10:10 AM

Dec 15
Paz—‘Motion/Movimiento’7:32 AM

Dec 15
Paz: A Poet Lost in Time

Dec 15
Washington Irving’s Legend of the Arabian Astrologer1:02 PM

Dec 14
Siegelman Update7:29 AM

Dec 14
Xenophon on the Use of Force

Dec 14
The Best Justice Money Can Buy1:24 PM

Dec 13
A Strong President Says No to Torture8:45 AM

Dec 13
From Canto IV of Lord Byron’s ‘Childe Harold’7:40 AM

Dec 13
Hazlitt on Byron, the Slaves of Power and the Forces of Liberty

Dec 13
Watch Out for Left Hook: Six Questions for Oregon Senatorial Candidate Steve Novick2:13 PM

Dec 12
Media Alert11:32 AM

Dec 12
Report from the Recording Angel7:55 AM

Dec 12
Kérenyi on Words and Thought 12:15 AM

Dec 12
Lott’s Lament1:08 PM

Dec 11
Undermining Military Justice8:07 AM

Dec 11
Blok’s ‘Night. City Calmed Down’7:11 AM

Dec 11
Sakharov on Humanity’s Challenge

Dec 11
Bush League Justice10:35 PM

Dec 10
What Difference Would It Make?8:26 PM

Dec 10
Media Alert10:12 AM

Dec 10
de Tocqueville on the War in Algeria

Dec 10
The President-Tyrant10:44 AM

Dec 9
Rumi’s ‘The Snake-Catcher’s Tale’8:27 AM

Dec 9
Jefferson on the Tyrannical President

Dec 9
The Scapegoat10:57 AM

Dec 8
Livy on the Rise of the Republic and of Civic Liberty

Dec 8
Secret Torture Memos Disclosed on Floor of Senate1:39 PM

Dec 7
Remembering December 71:03 AM

Dec 7
Dickinson, ‘Liquor Never Brewed’ 12:30 AM

Dec 7
Swift on the Mighty Evading the Law

Dec 7
Obstruction of Justice at the CIA5:46 PM

Dec 6
Vico’s New Science

Dec 6
Imperial Hubris11:34 AM

Dec 5
Six Questions for Fritz Stern, Author of ‘Five Germanys I Have Known’ 12:12 AM

Dec 5
Heine’s ‘Silesian Weavers’ 12:10 AM

Dec 5
Department of Poorly Coordinated and Unbelievable Cover Stories 12:08 AM

Dec 5
Einstein on the Need for Commitment to Justice

Dec 5
Tashkent Paging… Curt Weldon11:22 PM

Dec 4
Krauthammer’s Pseudo-Science8:24 AM

Dec 4
Punishing the Victims 12:30 AM

Dec 4
Forget Shag-Gate 12:29 AM

Dec 4
Madison on Containing the War Power and War Spending

Dec 4
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice9:29 PM

Dec 3
Watch the Ad that Fox Won’t Let You See7:30 PM

Dec 3
The Roll-Out Goes Flat2:35 PM

Dec 3
Who Killed Alisher Saipov?10:17 AM

Dec 3
Goethe’s ‘Zauberlehrling’ 12:05 AM

Dec 3
Austen on the Novel

Dec 3
Kidnapping Not a Crime, Claims Bush Justice Department11:01 AM

Dec 2
The Justice Department’s On-Going ‘State Secrets’ Charade10:02 AM

Dec 2
General Clark Excoriates Justice Department Over Siegelman Case8:45 AM

Dec 2
Eckehart’s Just Man

Dec 2
The Modern Sorcerer10:34 PM

Dec 1
‘Is Barack a Vegetarian,’ ‘Rumsfeld on Chávez’ and Other Stories from a Newspaper in Decline4:44 PM

Dec 1
A Nation That Tortures11:22 AM

Dec 1
Voltaire on the Modern Sorcery8:52 AM

Dec 1

November 2007

A Kinder, Gentler Lawfare4:56 PM

Nov 30
Well, That Settles It8:48 AM

Nov 30
Poe’s ‘The Conqueror Worm’ 12:17 AM

Nov 30
Tax Advice for American Expatriates in Britain, Freely Dispensed by Mark Twain 12:16 AM

Nov 30
Burckhardt on the Historical Might-Have-Been

Nov 30
McCain on Waterboarding6:27 PM

Nov 29
Hagel’s Salvo2:36 PM

Nov 29
Cather’s New Mexico Sky

Nov 29
Mitt’s Muslim Problem11:37 AM

Nov 28
Salon 1, TIME 08:46 AM

Nov 28
Dryden’s ‘Happy the Man’8:02 AM

Nov 28
ibn Khaldūn’s Definition of Politics8:00 AM

Nov 28
Updates on America’s Most Prominent Political Prisoner3:55 PM

Nov 27
Trent Lott’s Resignation3:13 PM

Nov 27
Passion for Penguins10:52 AM

Nov 27
Elections as Art7:30 AM

Nov 27
Strindberg’s Inferno

Nov 27
The Bush Touch: Turning Friends into Enemies 12:07 AM

Nov 26
Mayakovsky’s ‘To his own beloved self the author dedicates these lines’ 12:07 AM

Nov 26
Tacitus on the Costs of War

Nov 26
It’s the Oil, Stupid 12:06 AM

Nov 25
St Anthony’s Book

Nov 25
Threads of Splendor5:20 PM

Nov 24
Did McClellan Accuse Bush of Lying to Federal Prosecutors?3:09 PM

Nov 24
Gracián on the Value of Integrity

Nov 24
A Song for St Cecilia’s Day5:48 PM

Nov 23
Resurrecting the Star Chamber9:08 AM

Nov 23
Macaulay: Milton’s Lesson on the Need for a Government of Limited Powers

Nov 23
Thanksgiving 200710:58 AM

Nov 22
The APA Responds10:20 AM

Nov 22
Jonson’s ‘Inviting a Friend to Supper’ 12:18 AM

Nov 22
Diogenes on the Folly of Feasting

Nov 22
U.S. Seeks to Prosecute Pulitzer Prize-Winning A.P. Photographer9:01 AM

Nov 21
Laozi on the Futility of Heavy-Handed Rule

Nov 21
U.S. Attorneys Scandal: Removal of Canary Sought as Paulose Resigns 12:35 AM

Nov 20
Eliot’s ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’ 12:35 AM

Nov 20
Addison’s Principle of Humanity

Nov 20
Department of Painfully Inappropriate Comparisons3:41 PM

Nov 19
‘Fall of the House of Bush:’ Six Questions for Craig Unger 12:25 AM

Nov 19
Kant on the Price of Justice Foregone

Nov 19
The Two-Front Battle Over Torture3:29 PM

Nov 18
The Psychologists and Gitmo9:08 AM

Nov 18
The Trial of Alberto Gonzales8:38 AM

Nov 18
Hopkins’s ‘Candle Indoors’ 12:18 AM

Nov 18
Nicholas of Kues: the Cosmographer’s Tale

Nov 18
Change or Continuity for the Bush Justice Department?8:28 AM

Nov 17
Froissart on the Dream of Equality Among Men

Nov 17
The Missing IG Report on Maher Arar11:24 AM

Nov 16
Bridge to Nowhere9:39 AM

Nov 16
Milosz’s ‘Faithful Mother Tongue’8:37 AM

Nov 16
Stendhal on Literature and Politics

Nov 16
Mary Jo White, for the Defense8:05 AM

Nov 15
The Cookie Crumbles6:52 AM

Nov 15
Niebuhr on the Ethical Use of Power

Nov 15
Getting Closer to the Truth about the Blackwater Incident7:41 AM

Nov 14
From Akhmatova’s ‘Requiem’6:00 AM

Nov 14
Sophocles’s Momento Mori

Nov 14
About Karl’s Emails. . .8:00 AM

Nov 13
Is the Roll-Out Sputtering?5:27 AM

Nov 13
Freud on the Question of Humankind’s Fate

Nov 13
Veterans Day 20072:43 PM

Nov 12
What Does Putin Want?8:48 AM

Nov 12
Fire Brian Roehrkasse7:10 AM

Nov 12
Whitman’s ‘Dirge for Two Veterans’6:07 AM

Nov 12
Eisenhower on the Opportunity Cost of Defense Spending

Nov 12
Hughes’s ‘The Colored Soldier’11:11 AM

Nov 11
Take a Pilgrimage10:55 AM

Nov 11
Alfonso el Sabio on the Cosmology

Nov 11
Norman Mailer, Remembered12:15 PM

Nov 10
Public Presentation11:43 AM

Nov 10
Siegelman Updates8:58 AM

Nov 10
Hofmannsthal’s ‘Manche freilich. . .’5:59 AM

Nov 10
Sappho’s Exhortation to Learning

Nov 10
The Fox News Prolefeed6:02 AM

Nov 9
DOJ Watch3:58 AM

Nov 9
Does Bush Have a Pakistan Policy?3:22 AM

Nov 9
Burke on Why Men of Good Will Must Unite

Nov 9
Marine Lawyer Gagged by Pentagon1:39 PM

Nov 8
Change or Continuity for Turkmenistan?6:19 AM

Nov 8
Hughes’s ‘Let America Be America Again’5:23 AM

Nov 8
Durkheim on Suicide

Nov 8
Six Questions for Steve LeVine, Author of ‘The Oil and the Glory’ 12:26 AM

Nov 7
DOJ Torture Memo # 6 Identified 12:26 AM

Nov 7
Montaigne on the World of Books

Nov 7
Bush’s Musharraf Envy6:52 AM

Nov 6
The Justice Department’s Culture of Torture1:16 AM

Nov 6
Baudelaire’s ‘The Balcony’1:14 AM

Nov 6
Baudelaire on the Role of Imagination

Nov 6
Media Alert5:14 PM

Nov 5
The Bellinger-Sands Debate5:03 AM

Nov 5
Happy Counterterrorism Day2:11 AM

Nov 5
‘We Do Not Torture’: The Lies Started in 19672:07 AM

Nov 5
Javert’s Amazing Pirouettes2:01 AM

Nov 5
Milton on Liberty’s Sharp and Double Edge

Nov 5
DOJ and Contractor Fraud6:56 PM

Nov 4
Media Alert2:10 PM

Nov 4
The JAGs Set the Record Straight1:02 PM

Nov 4
Tortured Editorials7:18 AM

Nov 4
ExxonMobil’s Alabama Paydirt3:52 AM

Nov 4
Micah on the Fruits of Injustice

Nov 4
Coleridge’s Inner Asian Vision10:57 AM

Nov 3
Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’10:31 AM

Nov 3
Coleridge on the Power of Imagination

Nov 3
The Torture Litmus Test 12:12 AM

Nov 2
Prosecutorial Obstruction of Justice in the Siegelman Case 12:12 AM

Nov 2
Defund the Democrats: Putting Your Law Enforcement Dollars to Good Use 12:09 AM

Nov 2
Avicenna on Humans as Social Animals

Nov 2
Siegelman Updates 12:09 AM

Nov 1
Warren’s ‘A Way to Love God’ 12:08 AM

Nov 1
Rachel Sklar Responds 12:08 AM

Nov 1
Lessing’s Search for Truth

Nov 1

October 2007

Rethinking the War on Terror3:38 AM

Oct 31
Of Foxes, Camels and Unlawful Combatants3:38 AM

Oct 31
Shelley on Dramatic Purpose3:36 AM

Oct 31
Military Lawyers and the Gitmo Commissions2:53 AM

Oct 30
Milton’s ‘On Time’2:36 AM

Oct 30
Boethius on the Rewards of Virtue

Oct 30
Career Prosecutors Opposed Siegelman Case 12:04 AM

Oct 29
Jefferson on the Inevitable Failure of Injustice

Oct 29
Lavengro, or the Value of Learning Languages10:59 AM

Oct 28
Hopkins’s ‘Duns Scotus’s Oxford’ 12:51 AM

Oct 28
Duns Scotus’s Principle of Individuation

Oct 28
The Secrecy Game10:54 AM

Oct 27
Riley Protests Too Much7:49 AM

Oct 27
Wollstonecraft on the Rights of Women

Oct 27
Walter Lippmann, Remembered 12:18 AM

Oct 26
Before there was Blackwater. . . 12:18 AM

Oct 26
Imaginationland 12:17 AM

Oct 26
Lippmann on Honor

Oct 26
Six Questions for Valerie Plame9:20 AM

Oct 25
Death of a Journalist 12:04 AM

Oct 25
Whitman’s ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ 12:03 AM

Oct 25
Emerson on the Ravages of Time

Oct 25
Iraq Purports to Revoke Contractor Immunity3:42 PM

Oct 24
Another Conflicted Prosecutor in the Siegelman Case11:12 AM

Oct 24
A Primer in Political Persecution8:05 AM

Oct 24
Cicero on the Duty to Stand Against Injustice

Oct 24
Media Alert2:08 PM

Oct 23
AFJ Questions Conduct of Siegelman Judge12:41 PM

Oct 23
The Persecution of Lt. Cmdr. Diaz7:46 AM

Oct 23
‘Deliverance,’ Reloaded7:41 AM

Oct 23
Neruda’s ‘Enigmas’7:40 AM

Oct 23
Merton on Justice and Sanity

Oct 23
More from the ‘Bama Press10:52 PM

Oct 22
The Roll-Out Presses On7:45 AM

Oct 22
Criminal Charges Being Prepared Against Gonzales?7:43 AM

Oct 22
A Further Ethics Assessment on Judge Fuller and the Siegelman Case from Prof. Luban 12:27 AM

Oct 22
At Gitmo, No Room for Justice 12:22 AM

Oct 22
Listening Recommendation 12:21 AM

Oct 22
A Nation is What It Tolerates

Oct 22
Rilke’s Last Encounter With an Angel 12:49 AM

Oct 21
Rilke’s ‘Komm Du. . .’ 12:48 AM

Oct 21
Saadi on the Bonds of Humanity

Oct 21
Justice in the Cradle of the Confederacy10:13 AM

Oct 20
The Justice Department Raises a Rebel Yell: The Strange Prosecution of Charles Walker7:55 AM

Oct 20
Mme. de Staël on Wit

Oct 20
Former AG Thornburgh Says Prosecution Was Political11:56 AM

Oct 19
Diego Garcia and the Mukasey Nomination11:10 AM

Oct 19
Nietzsche’s Cosmos

Oct 19
Media Alert3:30 PM

Oct 18
For Justice: A Light at the End of the Tunnel?10:31 AM

Oct 18
A Rumination on the ‘Laziest Son’7:10 AM

Oct 18
Rumi’s ‘Laziest Son’

Oct 18
FISA, the Next Round10:19 AM

Oct 17
Gandhi-ji’s Seven Blunders

Oct 17
2003 Affidavit Raises More Serious Questions About Siegelman Judge12:26 PM

Oct 16
Media Alert11:42 AM

Oct 16
Stevens’s ‘After the Final No’7:18 AM

Oct 16
Aristotle on the Phony Religiocity of Tyrants

Oct 16
Speaking Truth to Torturers, Cont’d10:30 PM

Oct 15
Media Alert12:19 PM

Oct 15
Jaspers on Faith and Globalization

Oct 15
Searching for Meaning in the ‘B’ham News’10:27 AM

Oct 14
Press Alert9:30 AM

Oct 14
Qwest: Another Political Prosecution?8:05 AM

Oct 14
Sappho’s ‘Supreme Sight on the Black Earth’6:52 AM

Oct 14
Kames on Law and Human Sentiment

Oct 14
When Critics Are Really Pumpkins3:23 PM

Oct 13
Dereliction of Duty8:59 AM

Oct 13
Chicago Court Orders Discovery of DOJ Political Prosecutions8:16 AM

Oct 13
Lagerlöf’s Legend of the Soul and the Flame

Oct 13
Media Alert2:35 PM

Oct 12
WaPo’s Continuing Editorial Slide8:36 AM

Oct 12
Speaking Truth to Torturers7:40 AM

Oct 12
More Siegelman Updates 12:59 AM

Oct 12
Herzen on the Persistence of Torture

Oct 12
Karl Rove Linked to Siegelman Prosecution7:52 AM

Oct 11
Warren’s ‘In the Turpitude of Time’6:09 AM

Oct 11
Camus on the Values Worth Fighting For

Oct 11
More from the ‘Bama Press8:46 AM

Oct 10
The Dilemma of the Moor’s Return7:31 AM

Oct 10
Schweitzer on Cruelity and Humanity

Oct 10
Cervantes’s Golden Age6:29 AM

Oct 9
Cervantes on Why History is Like Buñuelos

Oct 9
‘We Do Not Torture’2:51 AM

Oct 8
Abd al-Rahman’s Palm Tree2:50 AM

Oct 8
Levi on Denying Man’s Humanity

Oct 8
More Responses to Javert11:06 AM

Oct 7
Dante on Divine Justice

Oct 7
Javert’s Wailings Grow Louder4:29 PM

Oct 6
Licensed to Kill3:04 AM

Oct 6
One of Nizami’s Pearls

Oct 6
A Minor Injustice: Why Paul Minor? 12:40 AM

Oct 5
TIME Reports on the Political Prosecutions in Alabama 12:39 AM

Oct 5
Dickinson’s ‘To Fight Aloud’ 12:38 AM

Oct 5
Orwell on Delusional Political Thinking

Oct 5
A New Task Order from the Ministry of Love11:26 AM

Oct 4
Macbeth for the Age of Bush7:03 AM

Oct 4
Æschylus on the Tyrant’s Blindness

Oct 4
A Minor Injustice9:11 AM

Oct 3
Dumas on the Art of Finding the Culprit9:10 AM

Oct 3
Doubting Thomas8:29 AM

Oct 2
Auden’s ‘Let History Be My Judge’ 12:14 AM

Oct 2
Machiavelli on the Mercenary

Oct 2
Beating the Drums for the Next War1:34 PM

Oct 1
Grotius on Pre-emptive War

Oct 1

September 2007

‘Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go to War Without ‘Em’: Six Questions for P.W. Singer 12:02 AM

Sep 30
Jeremiah on the Leaders Who Betray Us

Sep 30
Heine and the Battle of the Gods11:39 AM

Sep 29
Heine’s ‘The Gods of Greece’10:09 AM

Sep 29
Welty on the Writer’s Eye

Sep 29
Blackwater Down8:09 AM

Sep 28
Hesse’s World-Historical Vision7:21 AM

Sep 28
Burma in Agony5:45 AM

Sep 27
The Bush-Aznar Conversation5:40 AM

Sep 27
Hutcheson on Human Happiness5:17 AM

Sep 27
A Protection Racket2:04 PM

Sep 26
Alerta de prensa6:12 AM

Sep 26
Seneca on the Crimes of War6:10 AM

Sep 26
Listen to the General(s)8:20 AM

Sep 25
Keats’s ‘The Human Seasons’7:01 AM

Sep 25
Unamuno on Reason and Right in the Struggle

Sep 25
Cheney’s New War Plans7:09 AM

Sep 24
Laozi on the Essence of Good Government

Sep 24
In Alabama, the Smoke of an Emerging Scandal12:28 PM

Sep 23
Media Alert11:27 AM

Sep 23
Rising Up for Justice7:40 AM

Sep 23
Pascal on the Rapport between Justice and Force

Sep 23
More from the World of the ‘Bama Press5:06 PM

Sep 22
Tracking Political Prosecutions8:12 AM

Sep 22
Hesse’s ‘In the Fog’7:25 AM

Sep 22
Varnhagen on Speaking Truth

Sep 22
Media Alert3:08 PM

Sep 21
Sam Adams Award to Sam Provance2:42 PM

Sep 21
The Return of Willie Stark6:36 AM

Sep 21
Rabelais on Science and Conscience

Sep 21
Toobin’s Supremes2:37 PM

Sep 20
Pope Benedict Snubs Condoleezza Rice12:57 PM

Sep 20
Of Two Minds About the Filibuster7:37 AM

Sep 20
Keller on the Wonder and Limitations of Democracy6:55 AM

Sep 20
Bait and Switch in the Attorney General’s Office10:46 AM

Sep 19
Saadi: ‘The Tyrant’s Reward’6:09 AM

Sep 19
Aristotle on Tyrants and War

Sep 19
Department of Election Frauds5:18 PM

Sep 18
U.S. Attorneys Scandal–Minneapolis4:40 PM

Sep 18
Justice in Mississippi 12:01 AM

Sep 18
Wilberforce on Politics and Principle

Sep 18
Confirm Michael Mukasey11:32 AM

Sep 17
The King of Political Prosecutions6:57 AM

Sep 17
The Next War6:56 AM

Sep 17
Hemingway on the Politics of War

Sep 17
Greenspan’s Judgment9:59 AM

Sep 16
Truth and Fidelity, in a Ballad1:36 AM

Sep 16
Schiller’s ‘The Hostage’1:33 AM

Sep 16
Diderot the Romantic

Sep 16
The ‘B’ham News’ Revs Up the Slime Machine11:59 AM

Sep 15
The Michael V. Drake Affair9:33 AM

Sep 15
Chesterfield on the Proclivities of Little Minds

Sep 15
Fredo’s Last Day3:00 PM

Sep 14
Politicians and the Military10:00 AM

Sep 14
The Remarkable ‘Recusal’ of Leura Canary 12:04 AM

Sep 14
Samuel on the Curse of Kings

Sep 14
The Benczkowski-Siegelman Letter8:29 AM

Sep 13
Novus Ordo Seclorum 12:10 AM

Sep 13
Virgil’s ‘Eclogue IV’ 12:09 AM

Sep 13
Virgil on the Laws of War

Sep 13
The DOJ ‘Voter Fraud’ Fraud Marches On12:08 PM

Sep 12
The Next War8:11 AM

Sep 12
A Taste of Things to Come7:36 AM

Sep 12
Tolstoy on the Parade of Human Vanities

Sep 12
‘Betraying Our Troops:’ Six Questions for Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman2:28 PM

Sep 11
Media Alert2:28 PM

Sep 11
The Pakistan Conundrum10:43 AM

Sep 11
Shooting an Elephant 12:02 AM

Sep 11
Keynes and Burke on the Unpredictability of War

Sep 11
There’s No News in the ‘Birmingham News’7:20 PM

Sep 10
Leura Canary’s Stonewalling is Exposed4:01 PM

Sep 10
Exposing a Corrupt Prosecution and Trial in Alabama1:48 PM

Sep 10
Osama bin Forgotten12:31 PM

Sep 10
Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’8:22 AM

Sep 10
Terence on Caring for Humanity

Sep 10
Media Alert3:35 PM

Sep 9
General Hayden Flunks an Interrogation Test10:10 AM

Sep 9
Jackson on the Prosecutor’s Calling

Sep 9
The Alice Martin Perjury Inquiry2:14 PM

Sep 8
The Floundering Department of Justice11:12 AM

Sep 8
The Federal Prosecutor: A calling betrayed8:21 AM

Sep 8
Diderot on the Philosopher as a Musical Instrument7:24 AM

Sep 8
U.S. Attorneys Scandal–Los Angeles and San Diego3:12 PM

Sep 7
A Letter to the Editors of the Washington Post1:18 PM

Sep 7
U.S. Attorneys Scandal–Milwaukee8:06 AM

Sep 7
Gogol describes the Inspector General’s Mission7:21 AM

Sep 7
The Unpredictable Past of George W. Bush9:36 PM

Sep 6
Brontë on Convention and Morality7:27 AM

Sep 6
Terror Arrests in Germany11:28 AM

Sep 5
Team Chertoff and the Art of Political Prosecution 12:15 AM

Sep 5
Benjamin’s Second Historical Thesis and Hofmannsthal’s ‘On the Transitory’ 12:02 AM

Sep 5
Hofmannsthal’s ‘On the Transitory: I-IV’ 12:02 AM

Sep 5
Benjamin on the Philosophy of History

Sep 5
The War President Settles on a New War11:50 AM

Sep 4
Böhme on Time and Eternity

Sep 4
The Inside Track to Contracts in Alabama10:13 AM

Sep 3
Conrad on Betrayal

Sep 3
Another Political Prosecution in Michigan?12:16 PM

Sep 2
The ‘Special Relationship’ on the Rocks9:47 AM

Sep 2
Melville, ‘White-Jacket’ and Military Justice8:40 AM

Sep 2
Melville on American Exceptionalism

Sep 2
Farewell to Fredo—the View South of the Border4:26 PM

Sep 1
The Unfinished Story of Abu Ghraib12:09 PM

Sep 1
The New Rollout11:02 AM

Sep 1
A Politicized Military?8:13 AM

Sep 1
The State Secrets (Public Corruption) Exception 12:13 AM

Sep 1
The Jupiter, Reborn 12:12 AM

Sep 1
Marlowe—Prelude to the Next War

Sep 1

August 2007

Bush Loses His Brain3:39 PM

Aug 31
Mutiny on the USS Justice10:11 AM

Aug 31
Nietzsche on the Manipulation of Prejudice

Aug 31
Don’t Look at the Man Behind that Curtain!8:22 AM

Aug 30
Javert Suffers Another Anxiety Attack 12:36 AM

Aug 30
Bai Juyi’s ‘The Prisoner’ 12:20 AM

Aug 30
Meng Zi on the Need for the Rule of Law

Aug 30
The ‘Farewell to Fredo’ Awards3:43 PM

Aug 29
Media Alert2:26 PM

Aug 29
The Mandate of Heaven, Revoked11:58 AM

Aug 29
Another Verdict on Abu Ghraib7:51 AM

Aug 29
Seneca on Man’s Moral Purpose

Aug 29
Psychologists and the Torture Question9:49 AM

Aug 28
Media Alert9:21 AM

Aug 28
Bacon on Man’s Aspirations

Aug 28
Graceful Exits… and the Other Kind8:10 PM

Aug 27
Media Alert4:23 PM

Aug 27
The Gonzometer Moves to “Gone”8:31 AM

Aug 27
Pamuk’s New Life

Aug 27
The Importance of Being Orhan8:52 PM

Aug 26
Looking Carl Schmitt in the Mirror7:02 PM

Aug 26
Moral Courage and the Officer Corps in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon4:59 PM

Aug 26
A YouTube Dullard 12:35 AM

Aug 26
Albertus Magnus on Justice and Politics

Aug 26
On the Use and Abuse of History3:41 PM

Aug 25
Coups ‘R Us2:06 PM

Aug 25
Military Misgivings Mount over Bush Torture Order1:28 PM

Aug 25
A Soaring Prison Population in Iraq11:04 AM

Aug 25
George Eliot on Troublesome Distinctions

Aug 25
More Departures at Justice11:22 AM

Aug 24
Media Alert10:17 AM

Aug 24
Paul Celan: Return to the Cabin in the Woods 12:29 AM

Aug 24
Paul Celan’s ‘Todtnauberg’ 12:28 AM

Aug 24
Those Thuggish Neocons 12:28 AM

Aug 24
The Purge 12:27 AM

Aug 24
Burke on the Statesman’s Duty

Aug 24
The Weimar President2:49 PM

Aug 23
The Next War Draws Nearer12:29 PM

Aug 23
The Conspiracy to Violate FISA10:49 AM

Aug 23
John Donne’s ‘The Funerall’7:46 AM

Aug 23
ADL in the Wilderness 12:12 AM

Aug 23
Moby Dick Sighted Again 12:11 AM

Aug 23
Media Alert 12:10 AM

Aug 23
Klemperer on Language as Poison

Aug 23
Caesarists of America Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Brains!3:33 PM

Aug 22
Six Questions for Wesley Morgan11:08 AM

Aug 22
Ahmed Rashid and the Bushies1:03 AM

Aug 22
The Pursuit of Heirloom Tomatoes 12:50 AM

Aug 22
Thoreau on the Importance of Cultivating Vegetables

Aug 22
Words of Wisdom12:11 PM

Aug 21
Two Presidents and a Wannabe Emperor11:37 AM

Aug 21
Another DOJ Update1:44 AM

Aug 21
Villon’s Snows of Times Past

Aug 21
Media Alert1:15 PM

Aug 20
A Change in the Offing on Iraq?11:44 AM

Aug 20
Soldiers Slam Pliant Media2:29 AM

Aug 20
The FISA Bamboozlement, Continued2:07 AM

Aug 20
Coffee and Civilization2:06 AM

Aug 20
Balzac on the Dangers of Drinking Too Much Coffee

Aug 20
Jose Padilla and the Unfinished Business of Justice3:53 AM

Aug 19
Kant on the Primacy of Human Rights

Aug 19
Criminality, Surveillance and the State Secrets Fraud2:46 PM

Aug 18
Counting Fredo’s Whoppers2:37 PM

Aug 18
Sévigné on the Nature of Life

Aug 18
The FISA Court Strikes Again5:32 PM

Aug 17
Rudy’s Foreign Policy8:15 AM

Aug 17
Donne’s Poem of Love… and Torture1:14 AM

Aug 17
Two Poems by John Donne1:11 AM

Aug 17
Donne on the Necessity of Laughter

Aug 17
The Paranoid Style in American Politics3:04 PM

Aug 16
Tales from Stasiland: Dangerous Blogs!1:06 PM

Aug 16
Liberate General Petraeus11:06 AM

Aug 16
This Week in Justice: a Round-Up 12:09 AM

Aug 16
Irving on the Mutability of Literature 12:05 AM

Aug 16
John Donne and the Outlawing of Torture12:25 PM

Aug 15
John Donne: Against the Abomination of Torture8:21 AM

Aug 15
Bush and the Art of Breaking Human Beings8:07 AM

Aug 15
The Professions Strike Back6:55 AM

Aug 15
Pushkin on the Magistrate’s Mien

Aug 15
The Shelby-Fuller Connection1:59 PM

Aug 14
The Curious Vacuum Cleaner in Rm. 641A11:00 AM

Aug 14
Turd Blossom: The Flower that Dare Not Speak Its Name9:10 AM

Aug 14
Poor Aster: The Expressionist’s Take on a Flower7:44 AM

Aug 14
Gottfried Benn’s ‘Little Aster’7:34 AM

Aug 14
Proust on the Intellect and the Past

Aug 14
Karl Rove’s Unfinished Business (the Trail Leads, Yet Again, to Alabama)4:28 PM

Aug 13
The Failed Presidency of Karl Rove11:03 AM

Aug 13
The Departure of Karl Rove7:50 AM

Aug 13
A Curious Incident at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs7:32 AM

Aug 13
Diogenes Laërtius on the Philosopher in Exile

Aug 13
Dubya’s Political Sunday School2:29 PM

Aug 12
YouTube of the Day2:20 PM

Aug 12
The O’Hanlon/Pollack Bamboozlement1:26 PM

Aug 12
Assessing the Mess in Afghanistan11:47 AM

Aug 12
Race to the Top of the World!10:00 AM

Aug 12
More Leaked Secrets by G.O.P. Leaders…9:53 AM

Aug 12
A Gonzales Weekend Round-Up9:45 AM

Aug 12
Unaccountable Contractors9:16 AM

Aug 12
Luther on the Lawyer’s Calling

Aug 12
The Michael Gerson Story4:18 PM

Aug 11
The Life of a Paqo9:59 AM

Aug 11
Gryphius, or the Transitory Nature of Humanity8:43 AM

Aug 11
Two Poems by Andreas Gryphius8:39 AM

Aug 11
Lieber on the Need for Rules in Wartime

Aug 11
‘The Economist’ on the Republican Crack-Up3:19 PM

Aug 10
Debray on the West Bank Wall2:40 PM

Aug 10
The Biden Option2:19 PM

Aug 10
Remembering I.F. Stone11:38 AM

Aug 10
Hardy’s ‘In Time of the Breaking of Nations’7:34 AM

Aug 10
Pakistan’s Perpetual Emergency7:32 AM

Aug 10
Seume on Freedom and Justice

Aug 10
‘Haven’t Seen It; We Don’t Torture’2:25 PM

Aug 9
Enzensberger’s ‘The Peace Conference’6:58 AM

Aug 9
Visualizing the Law6:57 AM

Aug 9
YouTube of the Day: Cramer in Meltdown6:56 AM

Aug 9
Wharton on Time

Aug 9
The Partisan and the Judge5:39 PM

Aug 8
Escape for a Day When It’s Too Damned Hot!3:34 PM

Aug 8
Ken Starr’s Little Secret8:08 AM

Aug 8
Rumblings of a Trade War7:55 AM

Aug 8
Death of a (Contract) Soldier7:29 AM

Aug 8
Hayek on a Society Based on Freedom

Aug 8
An Interview with Legal Ethicist David Luban Regarding Judge Mark Fuller4:54 PM

Aug 7
The FISA Bamboozlement1:17 PM

Aug 7
The Return of Comrade Ogilvy10:57 AM

Aug 7
Gingrich: War on Terror is Phony9:53 AM

Aug 7
DOJ’s Political Landscape Briefings6:31 AM

Aug 7
A Bridge Too Far6:25 AM

Aug 7
Enheduanna’s Devotional

Aug 7
The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller5:14 PM

Aug 6
Equal Justice for FISA Leakers4:55 PM

Aug 6
The Darkening4:10 PM

Aug 6
The Art of Political Prosecution9:06 AM

Aug 6
The Boot is Descending8:47 AM

Aug 6
Mallarmé on the Poet and His Language

Aug 6
The ‘Bama Press and a Miscarriage of Justice1:17 PM

Aug 5
Beauty, Death and the Esthetic Movement1:07 PM

Aug 5
Æschylus on Suffering

Aug 5
Gonzales Caught in Another Lie6:52 AM

Aug 4
Siegelman Shorts6:12 AM

Aug 4
The Bush Administration’s Not-So-Secret Secrets6:11 AM

Aug 4
Recruiting Contract Soldiers in Latin America6:10 AM

Aug 4
The Ambiguous Quality of Brecht’s ‘Goodness’6:09 AM

Aug 4
Brecht’s ‘To What End Goodness’6:09 AM

Aug 4
Kelsen on the Unitary Executive

Aug 4
Judge Fuller and the Trial of Don Siegelman11:16 AM

Aug 3
Meet the Author!7:42 AM

Aug 3
A Decision in the Triple Canopy Case7:40 AM

Aug 3
The FISA Bamboozlement7:38 AM

Aug 3
Nietzsche on the Specific Gravity of Personal Morals

Aug 3
Judge Fuller: A Siegelman Grudge Match?12:24 PM

Aug 2
The Death Throes of Dick Cheney8:07 AM

Aug 2
Instructions for Servicemen in Iraq7:50 AM

Aug 2
The Impeachment Dilemma7:06 AM

Aug 2
Mises on the Struggle for Freedom as a Struggle Against Those in Power

Aug 2
A Very Republican Justice: Judge Mark Everett Fuller, Rep. Terry Everett, and others2:35 PM

Aug 1
The Drug-Enhanced Justice of Alberto Gonzales8:18 AM

Aug 1
Brentano, Death and the Dilemma of Romantic Despair7:49 AM

Aug 1
Brentano’s ‘A Servant’s Springtime Cry from the Deep’7:33 AM

Aug 1
Hawthorne on the Power of Truth

Aug 1

July 2007

Mark Fuller and the Siegelman Case5:50 PM

Jul 31
Tancredo’s Revenge5:45 PM

Jul 31
U.S. Attorneys Scandal–Seattle4:27 PM

Jul 31
Majority of Alabamians Believe Siegelman Victim of Politically Abusive Prosecution4:00 PM

Jul 31
Northern Exposure7:53 AM

Jul 31
‘Bama Media Suck-Up Watch: Boot-Licking Good6:37 AM

Jul 31
Mill on Wars, Just and Not

Jul 31
Media Alert12:40 PM

Jul 30
Arendt on Reading History

Jul 30
How Walter Scott Started the American Civil War11:11 AM

Jul 29
Impeach Alberto Gonzales6:42 AM

Jul 29
Euripides on Tyrants and the Law

Jul 29
A Note on Trakl’s ‘Song of Kaspar Hauser’4:29 PM

Jul 28
Trakl’s Song of Kaspar Hauser4:28 PM

Jul 28
DOJ in Default on Siegelman Deadline9:46 AM

Jul 28
1934: The Plot Against America8:18 AM

Jul 28
Trollope on the Qualities of a Good Politician

Jul 28
Media Alert8:30 AM

Jul 27
The Neocon Armchair Generals6:16 AM

Jul 27
FBI Director Confirms Gonzales Perjury2:48 AM

Jul 27
Blackwater Down2:24 AM

Jul 27
The Verdict is In2:23 AM

Jul 27
Conan Doyle on the Need to Contribute to Posterity

Jul 27
Return of the Reaganites5:25 PM

Jul 26
The President’s Torture Order4:12 PM

Jul 26
More contempt citations on the way?11:18 AM

Jul 26
A Congressional Escalation10:00 AM

Jul 26
Carlyle on the Disrobing of Judges

Jul 26
Politicizing the Civil Service8:25 AM

Jul 25
There’s No News in the B’ham News7:46 AM

Jul 25
A Gonzales Recap6:30 AM

Jul 25
Adam Smith—When Businessmen Propose Legislation

Jul 25
Gonzales Speaks (Close-Captioned for the Politically Impaired)10:51 AM

Jul 24
Corporate Corruption and the Bush Justice Department7:32 AM

Jul 24
Scott on Lawyers and History

Jul 24
What Is, and To What End Do We Study History?9:29 AM

Jul 23
Hume on Patriotism and Tyranny6:46 AM

Jul 23
Alabama, The View from “Across the Pond”12:37 PM

Jul 22
Kraus on War

Jul 22
Slowdown Ahead5:24 PM

Jul 21
Melville on Doubt6:34 AM

Jul 21
Media Alert4:49 PM

Jul 20
Dana Jill Simpson Issues Press Release3:28 PM

Jul 20
A Neocon Joke12:40 PM

Jul 20
A Republic, If You Can Keep It7:18 AM

Jul 20
Hand on Humanity’s Challenge

Jul 20
It Started in Texas: Karl Rove’s Political Prosecutions12:46 PM

Jul 19
Lieutenant Gustl Visits Alabama12:38 PM

Jul 19
Neocon Jokes12:30 PM

Jul 19
Dr. Johnson on Oats

Jul 19
Javert’s Wailings10:54 PM

Jul 18
Media Alert9:53 PM

Jul 18
The Cure for Insomnia7:28 PM

Jul 18
Newsflash from the Ministry of Fear8:30 AM

Jul 18
As Contractors Exceed Troops in Iraq, The Dawn of a New Military Culture7:33 AM

Jul 18
Twain’s Ironic Juxtaposition

Jul 18
Congress Moves Forward on Siegelman9:17 PM

Jul 17
Bush and Psychologists Who Abet Torture6:13 PM

Jul 17
The Tide Turns, Decisively10:43 AM

Jul 17
It’s the Oil, Stupid8:41 AM

Jul 17
Obstruction at Justice7:37 AM

Jul 17
Bush’s War on the Rule of Law 12:02 AM

Jul 17
Schiller on the Bubble-Boy Leader

Jul 17
Staging Iran9:28 PM

Jul 16
Making Murder Respectable9:14 PM

Jul 16
I Accuse… 44 Attorneys General Demand an Inquiry Into the Siegelman Prosecution10:00 AM

Jul 16
The Tower Between Being and Time8:00 AM

Jul 16
Patmos7:27 AM

Jul 16
Zola’s Thirst for Justice

Jul 16
Elias Canetti, Pat Tillman, and the First Death in War9:09 AM

Jul 15
A Breakthrough in the Litvinenko Case9:05 AM

Jul 15
The Curious Case of the Dog That Did Not Bark9:00 AM

Jul 15
Hugo on the Ideal

Jul 15
Sir Henry Durand and the Resurgence of Al Qaeda8:51 PM

Jul 14
Montesquieu on Securing Liberty

Jul 14
Noel Hillman and the Siegelman Case1:26 PM

Jul 13
Siegelman in the Iron Mask12:30 PM

Jul 13
A Tyrant’s Justice10:42 AM

Jul 13
The Call of Freedom8:03 AM

Jul 13
A Southern Lady7:07 AM

Jul 13
Called to Account6:54 AM

Jul 13
Between Two Revolutions 12:43 AM

Jul 13
Beaumarchais’s Gift

Jul 13
Swearing an Oath to the Leader 12:05 AM

Jul 12
Sakharov on Intellectual Freedom

Jul 12
Update on Siegelman2:37 PM

Jul 11
The New Lysenkoism7:31 AM

Jul 11
A New Counter-Terrorism Regime7:11 AM

Jul 11
A Knight’s Quest for Humanity4:26 PM

Jul 10
A Credibility Chasm1:12 AM

Jul 10
Further Gonzales Perjury Exposed 12:57 AM

Jul 10
Rustaveli on Love and Friendship 12:36 AM

Jul 10
Putomol12:30 PM

Jul 9
Department of Injustice3:05 AM

Jul 9
Hamilton on the Rule of Law

Jul 9
Cheney and the Libby Pardon5:25 PM

Jul 8
The Curious Omnipresence of Al Qaeda in Iraq Coverage5:04 PM

Jul 8
Congress Presses Towards a Siegelman Probe4:33 PM

Jul 8
The Pity of It All11:19 AM

Jul 8
The Failed Courage of Colin Powell6:36 AM

Jul 8
The Bush Crime Family5:50 AM

Jul 8
Adams on the Right to Knowledge

Jul 8
Cracks in the Dam in the Siegelman Case6:56 PM

Jul 7
Madison on the Dangers of War

Jul 7
Impeachment3:27 PM

Jul 6
The Coming Cold Snap in U.S.-Russian Relations11:29 AM

Jul 6
Washington on Tolerance

Jul 6
Outsourcing Intelligence2:41 PM

Jul 5
The Cabin Between Being and Time7:02 AM

Jul 5
Paine on Preserving Liberty

Jul 5
A Bill of Indictment1:21 PM

Jul 4
A Constitutional Crisis?8:22 AM

Jul 4
The Reign of Witches Is Coming to an End7:00 AM

Jul 4
Jefferson on the Reign of Witches

Jul 4
Getting to the Bottom of This3:33 PM

Jul 3
A Message for July the Fourth2:46 PM

Jul 3
L’Espirit de l’escalier2:16 PM

Jul 3
Curious Crime Spree in Alabama12:05 PM

Jul 3
Superman Scooter8:58 AM

Jul 3
Franklin on Age and Judgment

Jul 3
Karl Rove, Master of Secrecy9:36 PM

Jul 2
Bush Commutes Libby’s Sentence8:36 PM

Jul 2
Javert in Alabama, Continued7:54 PM

Jul 2
Calm Heads vs. Headless Chickens11:40 AM

Jul 2
The 43rd President of the United States, the Honorable Neville Chamberlain8:29 AM

Jul 2
U.S. Attorneys Scandal–Albuquerque7:30 AM

Jul 2
Javert in Alabama 12:15 AM

Jul 2
Macaulay on the Dullard Monarch

Jul 2
Listening Recommendation5:03 PM

Jul 1
The Dark Shadow of Racism3:02 PM

Jul 1
Six Questions for Arthur Schopenhauer11:20 AM

Jul 1
Schopenhauer on Wisdom and Stupidity

Jul 1

June 2007

Chateaubriand on the Degeneration of Aristocracy12:00 PM

Jun 30
The Lost Legacy of Ludwig Börne11:25 AM

Jun 30
Delivering a Verdict on a Corrupt Prosecution9:03 AM

Jun 30
Resignation Friday7:59 PM

Jun 29
The Talented Mr. Cheney4:55 PM

Jun 29
Resegregation 12:05 AM

Jun 29
Börne on Segregation 12:01 AM

Jun 29
Siegelman Sentenced; Riley Rushes to Washington10:06 PM

Jun 28
Gonzales’s Death Cult10:14 AM

Jun 28
Distrust1:27 AM

Jun 28
Iran on 26 Gallons a Month5:07 PM

Jun 27
Fredo the Fraidy Cat2:44 PM

Jun 27
Bush and the Lord of the Steppe11:30 AM

Jun 27
Justice Department Continues to Lie About FOIA7:59 AM

Jun 27
Lautréamont on Plagiarism

Jun 27
Prosecution Continues to Disintegrate in Siegelman Case11:45 PM

Jun 26
Republicans Want Justice, Too4:09 PM

Jun 26
Cheney and the National Security Secrets Fraud11:24 AM

Jun 26
Students Demand that Bush Stop Torture11:19 AM

Jun 26
Defund Dick Cheney11:16 AM

Jun 26
Torturing an American Citizen6:54 PM

Jun 25
The 41 per cent Dilemma6:53 PM

Jun 25
The Cheney Shogunate6:52 PM

Jun 25
Rove Whistles Dixie6:19 PM

Jun 25
Chekhov on Politics

Jun 25
Justice in Alabama6:54 AM

Jun 24
Harper Lee on the Integrity of Courts

Jun 24
Setting the Stage for the Next War12:23 PM

Jun 23
Their Men in Washington9:54 AM

Jun 23
Media Alert: NPR's All Things Considered9:49 AM

Jun 23
Mercer Evades Testimony in Justice Probe10:10 PM

Jun 22
The “Enemy Combatant” Fraud10:08 PM

Jun 22
Self-Transcendence, Education, and the Thinking Machine1:07 AM

Jun 22
Cheney’s National Security State1:04 AM

Jun 22
Bush in the Mid-Twenties 12:59 AM

Jun 22
Main Justice: McNulty Says He Knew Nothing… 12:58 AM

Jun 22
U.S. Attorneys Scandal – Minneapolis 12:56 AM

Jun 22
Brad Schlozman’s “Good Americans” 12:54 AM

Jun 22
What Does Putin Want? 12:51 AM

Jun 22
Letter to the Editor 12:30 AM

Jun 22
Hoffmann on Fantasy and Life

Jun 22
Palace Fit for a Viceroy11:49 AM

Jun 21
Dr. Johnson and Slavery11:48 AM

Jun 21
Come September11:07 AM

Jun 21
The Imperial Presidency and the Law8:54 AM

Jun 21
The Hostage Drama in Iran and Iraq8:31 AM

Jun 21
Write Congress to Right Justice8:22 AM

Jun 21
Contracting for Torture8:16 AM

Jun 21
Re-open the Abu Ghraib Investigation8:15 AM

Jun 21
Johnson on the Humane Treatment of Prisoners

Jun 21
Cultivating Our Garden5:37 PM

Jun 20
France on the Majesty of Law

Jun 20
Providing Accountability for Private Military Contractors: Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on June 19, 20074:00 PM

Jun 19
A Humiliation for Morocco10:43 AM

Jun 19
No Blood, No Foul8:07 AM

Jun 19
The Unitary Executive7:45 AM

Jun 19
Of Missing Emails and 18-Minute Gaps4:56 PM

Jun 18
Nino Scalia: Hollywood’s Justice4:21 PM

Jun 18
The Firefighters and Rudy Giuliani10:31 AM

Jun 18
Garner Points to Disintegration in Iraq8:30 AM

Jun 18
The Painful Truth in Colombia8:29 AM

Jun 18
Fallout from Politicization of U.S. Attorneys in the Courts8:27 AM

Jun 18
Gonzales Plans to Plow Ahead With Politicization of U.S. Attorneys8:26 AM

Jun 18
Pope on Partisan Strife

Jun 18
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Birmingham and Montgomery3:46 PM

Jun 17
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Milwaukee3:45 PM

Jun 17
In Britain, a New Chapter in the Torture Scandal10:57 AM

Jun 17
Troubles in U.S. Dealings With Pakistan, and Cheney in Charge10:56 AM

Jun 17
The War Inside: The Meltdown in the Military’s Mental Healthcare System10:56 AM

Jun 17
The General Speaks9:22 PM

Jun 16
What Exactly Don’t the Republicans Like About McCain?3:20 PM

Jun 16
The Rise of a New Mercenary Industry8:39 AM

Jun 16
Mr. Omertà Resigns8:30 AM

Jun 16
Romero on Torture

Jun 16
General Pace Acknowledges He Was Forced Out3:46 PM

Jun 15
Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them1:00 PM

Jun 15
Travels with My Booshy2:05 AM

Jun 15
Defending Enhanced Interrogation Techniques2:03 AM

Jun 15
American Higher Education and Foreign Policy1:58 AM

Jun 15
Spakovsky Can’t Remember Either 12:45 AM

Jun 15
Gonzales Subject of Perjury, Obstruction Probe5:45 PM

Jun 14
“Civil Rights” in the Gonzales Justice Department10:01 AM

Jun 14
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Birmingham9:59 AM

Jun 14
Arendt on Tyranny

Jun 14
Exposing a Farce in the Middle East1:26 PM

Jun 13
U.S. Attorneys Scandal – Little Rock: All Roads Lead to Rove1:24 PM

Jun 13
The Cost of Rogue Prosecutors10:32 AM

Jun 13
Now Top This, George Orwell10:29 AM

Jun 13
French Lessons10:27 AM

Jun 13
The Gay Bomb10:43 AM

Jun 12
A Conservative Voice9:21 AM

Jun 12
A Vindication of the Constitution9:06 AM

Jun 12
No Confidence in Fredo9:05 AM

Jun 12
Johnson on Hope and Fear

Jun 12
David Broder Grapples With Reality6:53 PM

Jun 10
The Unwanted Immigrant6:46 PM

Jun 10
Colin Powell: Close Gitmo, Restore Habeas12:59 PM

Jun 10
Lessons Learned12:59 PM

Jun 10
From Days to Come12:58 PM

Jun 10
Bush Greets Pontifex Maximus, “Texas Style” 12:23 AM

Jun 10
Twain on Satan

Jun 10
Abramoff and “Justice” in the Heart of Dixie6:39 PM

Jun 9
Ask Not for Whom the Bell Tolls, It Tolls for Fredo6:35 PM

Jun 9
A Swarm in Anger6:35 PM

Jun 9
Mandeville's Bees

Jun 9
A D-Day Lesson9:30 AM

Jun 8
Iran and the Taliban--Less Than Meets the Eye?9:30 AM

Jun 8
The Report from Cloudcuckooland9:29 AM

Jun 8
The Ship of Fools Flounders On9:28 AM

Jun 8
Karl Rove Works His Magic9:27 AM

Jun 8
Media Alert—CBS Evening News3:27 PM

Jun 7
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Birmingham and Montgomery10:09 AM

Jun 7
The Federalist Society, the U.S. Attorneys Scandal, and Mary Walker9:59 AM

Jun 7
Bush’s Lamentable Summitry Skills9:56 AM

Jun 7
Cheney and the Corruption of the Justice Department9:56 AM

Jun 7
Einstein on Freedom of Will

Jun 7
The African Front6:07 PM

Jun 6
Roger Ailes Speaks the Truth5:33 PM

Jun 6
Retired Army General Critiques Bush’s Handling of Iraq2:39 PM

Jun 6
Now we Know11:20 AM

Jun 6
Zalmay Khalilzad—Man of the Hour at the U.N.11:13 AM

Jun 6
Casting for the Brad Schlozman Story9:35 AM

Jun 6
The Gavel of Liberty Falls Again9:22 AM

Jun 6
Strachey on History

Jun 6
The Soulmates9:01 AM

Jun 5
A Blow for Justice at Gitmo7:58 AM

Jun 5
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Kansas City7:57 AM

Jun 5
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—San Diego7:57 AM

Jun 5
U.S. Attorney’s Scandal—Birmingham and Montgomery7:57 AM

Jun 5
Garrick's Prologue to “A School for Scandal”

Jun 5
Another Cold Wave on the Way5:15 PM

Jun 4
The American Media and Global Warming5:13 PM

Jun 4
Coping With the Consequences of Blind Fear8:39 AM

Jun 4
Summer Target Practice8:39 AM

Jun 4
Mr. Tulkinghorn on the Bench8:09 AM

Jun 4
A Vice President Above the Law8:07 AM

Jun 4
Rice v. Cheney8:06 AM

Jun 4
Mr. Beria, Let Me Introduce Your Friend, Mr. Cheney8:05 AM

Jun 4
Department of Headless Chickens8:05 AM

Jun 4
Why Dickens Matters11:42 AM

Jun 3
Listening Recommendation10:14 AM

Jun 3
Rumsfeld’s China Policy10:55 AM

Jun 2
Wonkette on America’s Favorite Marine10:55 AM

Jun 2
The Rise of the Mercenary10:54 AM

Jun 2
VFW Decries Harassment of Iraq Vet10:53 AM

Jun 2
Sacchetti on Messaging

Jun 2
Peggy Noonan Awakes7:39 PM

Jun 1
U.S. Attorney Scandal—Birmingham, Cont’d7:38 PM

Jun 1
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Birmingham5:23 PM

Jun 1
We have met the enemy...12:49 PM

Jun 1
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Little Rock and Kansas City12:48 PM

Jun 1
Intelligent Oversight9:45 AM

Jun 1
The Rhetoric-Major President9:44 AM

Jun 1
A Return to ‘The Age of Scandal’7:12 AM

Jun 1

May 2007

Defining Conservatism Up6:05 PM

May 31
Matthew Diaz and the Rule of Law4:53 PM

May 31
Therapy for Font Sluts11:04 AM

May 31
Progress? What Progress? Troops Vent at Lieberman8:58 AM

May 31
More Partisan Harassment of the Troops8:22 AM

May 31
Will Fredo Be Disbarred?8:08 AM

May 31
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Minneapolis8:07 AM

May 31
Another Suicide at Guantánamo8:02 AM

May 31
Sen. Ted Stevens Subject of FBI Investigation8:02 AM

May 31
The Criminal Case Against Alberto Gonzales8:01 AM

May 31
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Little Rock8:00 AM

May 31
Boeing Subsidiary Tied to Torture-by-Proxy Scheme7:59 AM

May 31
YouTube of the Day2:25 PM

May 30
The Zelikow Speech2:21 PM

May 30
Bush’s Fiscal Incompetence12:59 PM

May 30
Another Rove Aide Resigns in U.S. Attorneys Scandal9:03 AM

May 30
DeLay and God’s Party9:02 AM

May 30
Experts Deride Bush Torture Techniques as Foolish9:01 AM

May 30
Meltdown at DOJ: The Story of the Immigration Judge Scam9:00 AM

May 30
Bush to Allies: Drop Dead9:00 AM

May 30
U.S. Stiffs Allies in Counter-Terrorism Efforts8:58 AM

May 30
Gross Human Rights Violations Charged Against Bush Administration8:58 AM

May 30
Dick Cheney, Unindicted Co-Conspirator8:57 AM

May 30
Military Psychiatrists and Torture7:24 AM

May 30
T.H. White on the Magic of Learning

May 30
Is “American Justice” an Oxymoron?4:25 PM

May 29
The German Experience with Enhanced Interrogation4:23 PM

May 29
Targeting the Celestial Kingdom4:19 PM

May 29
The Looming Tower on Stage12:32 PM

May 29
On Memorial Day: No Photographs of American Wounded, Please7:28 AM

May 29
More Hostages in Tehran7:27 AM

May 29
Fox News and the Iraq War7:27 AM

May 29
The Blackberry Defense7:26 AM

May 29
Did Lord Goldsmith Authorize Detainee Abuse?7:25 AM

May 29
Kafka on a Prisoner's Despair

May 29
YouTube of the Day6:12 PM

May 28
Robert Gates and the Press11:59 AM

May 28
Sending in the Praetorian Guard11:59 AM

May 28
The Brooding Omnipresence of Global Warming11:58 AM

May 28
The Truthiness Party at Work11:58 AM

May 28
Listening Recommendation11:58 AM

May 28
Wolfowitz’s Tomb11:57 AM

May 28
The Corruption Within Justice11:56 AM

May 28
Remembering those Who Served (and Those Who Didn’t)11:55 AM

May 28
Poem for Memorial Day

May 28
The Danger of Being Hated11:52 AM

May 27
Jefferson on Soft Power

May 27
Cheney’s Thirst for War11:36 AM

May 26
Monica, Rove, and Miers2:17 PM

May 25
Fredo, Monica, and the Immigration Judges2:16 PM

May 25
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Minneapolis8:51 AM

May 25
Gonzales Obstructed Justice, Lied Under Oath, Senator Charges8:50 AM

May 25
Taking the Auguries on Alberto Gonzales8:49 AM

May 25
Bush’s Monica Speaks—and DOJ Runs for Cover12:24 PM

May 24
Super Surge Me9:34 AM

May 23
Gonzales’s Contempt of Congress9:20 AM

May 23
Pentagon Does a Poor Job Investigating Detainee Abuse9:20 AM

May 23
GSA Chief Lurita Doan Violated the Hatch Act9:02 AM

May 23
The Next War9:01 AM

May 23
The Talisman of Torture8:21 AM

May 23
The Party of Torture vs. The Party of Lincoln8:20 AM

May 23
Senior Aide to Karl Rove Takes Fifth8:17 AM

May 23
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Think’8:15 AM

May 23
The Most Corrupt Congressman in History8:14 AM

May 23
Secret U.S. Plan to Assassinate Iraqi Leader Revealed8:11 AM

May 23
Camus on Innocence

May 23
Washington Post’s Colombian Snow Job, Revisited3:17 PM

May 22
Russian Secret Service Agents to be Indicted in Litvinenko Murder1:44 AM

May 22
Musharraf Down for the Count?1:31 AM

May 22
Mail Concerning the Diaz Case1:31 AM

May 22
Blackwater Succeeds in Forcing Arbitration of Employee Claims1:31 AM

May 22
More on Gonzales’s National Security Violations1:31 AM

May 22
YouTube of the Day1:30 AM

May 22
The Iraqi Leadership Death Watch5:06 PM

May 21
Governor Spitzer on Gonzales and the Corruption at DOJ3:49 PM

May 21
Another Chapter in the GOP “Voting Fraud” Fraud3:49 PM

May 21
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Seattle3:46 PM

May 21
Green Republicans and Bush Spar Over Global Warming10:55 AM

May 21
Onward, Christian Lawyers...10:55 AM

May 21
Is Plan B an Invasion of Iran?9:08 AM

May 21
Picking a World Bank President9:07 AM

May 21
Why This Scandal Matters8:51 AM

May 21
How the GOP Hijacked the Justice Department to Suppress Voters8:49 AM

May 21
Schopenhauer on Pride

May 21
The Happy Quarter6:12 PM

May 20
James Dobson and the Foreign Policy of the GOP5:53 PM

May 20
Wolfowitz on Iraq5:51 PM

May 20
Intelligence on Iraq5:51 PM

May 20
Immigration Reform5:50 PM

May 20
David Hicks Returns to Australia5:50 PM

May 20
A Tale of Two Lawyers12:51 PM

May 20
Fredo the Yes-Man12:50 PM

May 20
The Republicans and Ron Paul12:50 PM

May 20
Wolfowitz and the Neocon Götzendämmerung12:49 PM

May 20
New British PM to Accelerate Departure from Iraq12:48 PM

May 20
Mail from Diaz’s Counsel12:48 PM

May 20
President Carter: Bush Administration’s Foreign Policy Stewardship is “Worst in U.S. History”10:56 AM

May 20
The Hollow Men

May 20
White House Continues Attacks on Comey5:22 PM

May 19
“I’d Rather Trade Places with Jose Padilla”5:21 PM

May 19
Tragedy in the Horn of Africa5:20 PM

May 19
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Albuquerque5:19 PM

May 19
Bush’s GOP: From Religious Right to “Wille zur Macht”12:35 PM

May 19
In Private Meeting with Gonzales, U.S. Attorneys Vent Concerns12:31 PM

May 19
Commander Diaz Sentenced12:30 PM

May 19
Former Federal Prosecutors Demand Removal of Gonzales12:29 PM

May 19
What Did the President Know, and When Did He Know It?12:29 PM

May 19
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Milwaukee12:29 PM

May 19
The Assault on Comey Begins12:26 PM

May 18
The Creeping Senility of Bernard Lewis9:49 AM

May 18
Comey’s Testimony—The Essential Background9:44 AM

May 18
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Little Rock9:43 AM

May 18
Wolfowitz Out at the World Bank9:42 AM

May 18
The Courage to Stand Up Against War Crimes9:41 AM

May 18
Card and Gonzales Accused of National Security Breach in Visit to Ashcroft9:38 AM

May 18
Dostoevsky on Tyranny

May 18
The Persecution of Lt Cmdr Diaz, Continued7:45 PM

May 17
Another Accountability Moment7:20 PM

May 17
Die Stasi ist mein Eckermann6:19 PM

May 17
Defending the National Surveillance State: Torture, Lies and Secrecy3:43 PM

May 17
The Generals Speak Out on Torture9:30 AM

May 17
Tales from Stasiland: NYPD Spied on “Anti-GOP” Groups9:29 AM

May 17
U.S. Attorneys Scandal Spreads to Colorado and Florida9:28 AM

May 17
Did Gonzales Perjure Himself in FISA Testimony?9:28 AM

May 17
WaPo: Gonzales Sought Dismissal of 26 U.S. Attorneys9:27 AM

May 17
The Washington Post and the Lawless President9:26 AM

May 17
Comey Details Gonzales’s Pressure Tactics on Surveillance Issue8:52 AM

May 16
The Chicago Tribune Gets It8:48 AM

May 16
Bush at 24 Percent8:48 AM

May 16
Gonzales’s Law School Classmates Send Him a Message8:47 AM

May 16
Gonzales Begins His Set-Up of McNulty8:47 AM

May 16
The Torture Party8:46 AM

May 16
Commerce Department Employees Demand Prosecution of Inspector General8:49 AM

May 15
The Verdict is In: Wolfowitz Found Guilty8:48 AM

May 15
Understanding the McNulty Resignation8:47 AM

May 15
Bushies Behaving Badly8:46 AM

May 15
The Persecution of LtCmdr Matthew Diaz6:49 PM

May 14
Musharraf’s Endgame3:11 PM

May 14
Poor Sub-Par Gonzales1:55 PM

May 14
Department of Fundamental Dilemmas1:45 PM

May 14
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Kansas City11:44 AM

May 14
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Las Vegas11:21 AM

May 14
Tales from Stasiland: Homeland Security’s Syringe11:21 AM

May 14
19,000 Iraqis Disappear Into U.S.-Run Prisons6:10 PM

May 13
Sophocles Reborn—the Sea and the Chorus4:03 PM

May 13
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—San Diego10:12 AM

May 13
Karl Rove Directed DOJ Voter Suppression Project10:10 AM

May 13
An Attorney General Without Honor10:00 AM

May 13
Invasion of the Party Snatchers9:59 AM

May 13
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Las Vegas9:59 AM

May 13
Voter Fraud in North Carolina9:58 AM

May 13
From “Antigone”

May 13
No. 10 Downing Street Prepares for a New Tenant11:25 AM

May 12
Bush’s Monica and the Plot Against the Hatch Act11:10 AM

May 12
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—West Virginia11:06 AM

May 12
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Kansas City11:04 AM

May 12
Voting Fraud, Ann Coulter, and the FBI8:50 PM

May 11
Obstructing Congress, Pentagon Edition7:40 PM

May 11
When “the Post of Honour is a Private Station”3:57 PM

May 11
From the Ministry of Truth...1:04 PM

May 11
Gen. Petraeus’s One Word Too Many12:59 PM

May 11
Alberto Gonzales and the Blame Game9:34 AM

May 11
B16 and Liberation Theology9:13 AM

May 11
Beyond Ridiculous9:07 AM

May 11
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Minneapolis7:50 AM

May 11
Former U.S. Attorneys Describe Disgust Over Gonzales, Predict Mass Exodus from DOJ7:44 AM

May 11
Habeas, Gitmo, and Bush’s War7:42 AM

May 11
Those Perfidious Democrats7:40 AM

May 11
About those e-mails . . .5:23 PM

May 10
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind The Curtain8:51 AM

May 10
Faulkner or a Machine Translation from German?8:44 AM

May 10
Condi Rice and Saddam Hussein8:43 AM

May 10
Bush Administration Fails to Brief Congress on Covert Ops8:41 AM

May 10
A Question for the Most Mendacious Attorney General Ever8:40 AM

May 10
The Cheney that We Know and Love2:45 PM

May 9
“Strength is Injustice”2:42 PM

May 9
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?1:37 PM

May 9
Satan Lives! (In Utah)12:05 PM

May 9
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Guam11:34 AM

May 9
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Kansas City11:31 AM

May 9
Omertà: The Gonzales Angle8:10 AM

May 9
Turkey and Iraq8:07 AM

May 9
Voltaire on Miracles

May 9
Scientists 1, Department of the Army 07:58 PM

May 8
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Seattle4:36 PM

May 8
A Poem from the Original Green Evangelical2:52 PM

May 8
Republican Quotes KKK Grand Wizard on House Floor2:48 PM

May 8
Colombia, Political Hackery, and the Washington Post11:16 AM

May 8
Bush Blunder Brings British Broadsides11:07 AM

May 8
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—District of Columbia8:44 AM

May 8
Big Brother Has Free Speech Rights, Too7:07 AM

May 8
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Little Rock7:05 AM

May 8
Doolittle Accuses Gonzales of Playing Politics7:04 AM

May 8
Still More Evidence That David Broder Doesn’t Read the Washington Post3:30 PM

May 7
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Kansas City8:50 AM

May 7
Counterfeiting Churchill4:31 PM

May 6
Churchill on Habeas Corpus4:31 PM

May 6
Heimweh auf Stasiland1:51 PM

May 6
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Kansas City1:50 PM

May 6
Mansfield v. Mansfield1:48 PM

May 6
Murder, Voter Fraud, and Obstruction at the Department of Justice1:34 PM

May 6
The Republican Debate: Battle of the Neanderthals?9:23 AM

May 6
Was Comey the First Purge Victim?9:21 AM

May 6
Omertà: The Finger Points to McNulty7:08 PM

May 5
The Continuing Slide of Time Magazine3:00 PM

May 5
White House at 28 Percent and Pressure on Congress to Get Tough3:00 PM

May 5
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Little Rock3:00 PM

May 5
Playwright Needed5:00 AM

May 5
War on the Habeas Lawyers4:25 PM

May 4
They Won’t Go4:18 PM

May 4
Omertà, Continued4:14 PM

May 4
Poem for a Day in Early May4:14 PM

May 4
And the winners are . . .10:45 AM

May 4
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Seattle10:45 AM

May 4
Comey Takes the Oath9:22 AM

May 4
The McNulty-Rove Meeting9:22 AM

May 4
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Los Angeles9:22 AM

May 4
Mendelssohn on Religion

May 4
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Montana10:30 PM

May 3
Bush’s War Against Journalists10:30 PM

May 3
Central Asia Today3:40 PM

May 3
Evangelical Islam3:39 PM

May 3
George Tenet, Torture, and the Truth3:39 PM

May 3
Chaos at Justice: When Is An Investigation Just Another Roadblock?9:00 AM

May 3
Bush Breaks His Pledge on Surveillance9:00 AM

May 3
Bush in a Bunker3:30 PM

May 2
Billo’s Spin-Factor3:30 PM

May 2
The Ground Commander Speaks3:30 PM

May 2
Omertà: The Story of McNulty’s Enforcer3:30 PM

May 2
Condi’s Really Bad Month (Revisited)3:30 PM

May 2
U.S. Attorney Scandal—Montana2:20 PM

May 2
An Accountability Moment2:20 PM

May 2
Herder and the Mormons2:20 PM

May 2
U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Albuquerque and Seattle2:20 PM

May 2
U.S. Attorney Scandal—Pittsburgh8:30 AM

May 2
U.S. Attorney Scandal—Kansas City8:30 AM

May 2
Insanity and Reason at National Review8:30 AM

May 2
Thoreau on Freedom

May 2
A Passion for Prosecuting Democrats11:00 AM

May 1
Après moi, le deluge11:00 AM

May 1
A Story of People in War and Peace11:00 AM

May 1
Bill Moyers: “Buying the War”11:00 AM

May 1
Mission Accomplished: Year Four11:00 AM

May 1
Happy Law Day7:00 AM

May 1
David Broder for War Czar6:45 AM

May 1
The Gleichschaltung at Justice6:00 AM

May 1
The Moral Philosophy of Michael Scheuer6:00 AM

May 1

April 2007

U.S. Attorney Scandal—Kansas City8:30 AM

Apr 30
Wittgenstein for Monday Morning8:20 AM

Apr 30
“Like Ordering Pizza”8:20 AM

Apr 30
Gonzales Heckled at Harvard Reunion8:10 AM

Apr 30
American Bar Association Joins in Criticism of Justice Department8:00 AM

Apr 30
Condi’s Really Bad Month9:40 PM

Apr 29
David Halberstam, “The Very Expensive Education of McGeorge Bundy”9:00 PM

Apr 29
Tenet on 60 Minutes9:00 PM

Apr 29
Listening Suggestion3:35 PM

Apr 29
Otto Ludwig on Fortune

Apr 29
A Decent Respect: What does international law mean to us today?8:35 PM

Apr 28
DOD Claim of Capture of “Senior Al-Qaeda Figure” Draws Questions8:30 PM

Apr 28
The Department of Justice and “that curious word, Honor”8:30 PM

Apr 28
Swiss Intelligence Confirms CIA Blacksites in Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria9:30 AM

Apr 28
Deputy Secretary of State Resigns in Sex Scandal2:00 AM

Apr 28
Bar Association Criticizes Conduct of Justice Department9:50 PM

Apr 27
Continuing Meltdown at the Department of Justice9:30 PM

Apr 27
Justice Department Continues Obstruction of Congressional Inquiry1:30 PM

Apr 27
Independent Internal Review Concludes Wolfowitz Should Be Fired11:20 AM

Apr 27
Broder Exposed, Again10:20 AM

Apr 27
The Gonzales Eleven10:00 AM

Apr 27
Renzi to Resign10:00 AM

Apr 27
The Courtmartial of Colonel Steele10:00 AM

Apr 27
The One-Party State6:20 PM

Apr 26
Bush Support Tanking2:20 PM

Apr 26
David Broder Embarrasses Himself, Again2:20 PM

Apr 26
Dismissed U.S. Attorney Lam Named “Outstanding Lawyer of the Year”2:20 PM

Apr 26
Congress Requires Presidential Accounting on Iraq, Plus: Newsflash from Ministry of Truth2:20 PM

Apr 26
U.S. Attorney Scandal—Kansas City: Only Republican Activists Need Apply8:00 AM

Apr 26
Fredo’s Follow-Up8:00 AM

Apr 26
Senators Pryor, Specter and Leahy Doubt Gonzales’s “Memory Failure,” McCain Calls for Gonzales’s Departure8:00 AM

Apr 26
Gonzales’s Justice Department Obstructed Investigation of Republican Congressmen8:00 AM

Apr 26
Rep. Renzi and the U.S. Attorney Purge8:00 AM

Apr 26
Department of Injustice—Gitmo Edition8:00 AM

Apr 26
Is It Fascism Yet?6:40 PM

Apr 25
Secrecy, Lies, and the Covert War on the Constitution4:40 PM

Apr 25
All Roads Lead to Rove4:40 PM

Apr 25
The Culture of Lies at Rumsfeld's Pentagon10:40 AM

Apr 25
Firing of U.S. Attorney in Arizona Again Tied to Renzi Probe10:40 AM

Apr 25
The Life of Others9:00 AM

Apr 25
Brecht's Poem from the Life of Others

Apr 25
Halberstam and the Duty of the Press5:05 PM

Apr 24
U.S. Attorney Scandal Spreads to Los Angeles5:00 PM

Apr 24
U.S. Attorney Scandal Spreads to Kansas City5:00 PM

Apr 24
10 Steps to Fascism5:00 PM

Apr 24
Heated Exchange Over Bilal Hussein at Museum of Television & Radio10:00 AM

Apr 24
U.S. Attorneys Scandal: The Pittsburgh to Anchorage Axis10:00 AM

Apr 24
Bush Reviews Fredo: A Tale from Bizarro World7:10 PM

Apr 23
Broder Bumbles Again4:10 PM

Apr 23
Round 2: Sarko vs. Ségo12:37 PM

Apr 23
Recommended Listening12:22 PM

Apr 22
Bernard Rougier Looks at Life in a Refugee Camp11:59 AM

Apr 22
Hegel and the Eternal Struggle for Freedom10:30 AM

Apr 22
Hegel on History as a Force

Apr 22
Dean: Gonzales Will Stay On11:30 AM

Apr 21
The Plot Against the First Amendment10:30 AM

Apr 21
Wolfowitz: The Final Days10:00 AM

Apr 21
A Preposterous Prosecution9:00 AM

Apr 21
The Political Corruption of the Prosecutorial Function4:00 PM

Apr 20
Guantánamo and Medical Ethics12:37 PM

Apr 20
Halliburton and the War in Iraq9:50 AM

Apr 20
Gonzales Assessed9:45 AM

Apr 20
The “Voting Fraud” Fraud: Missouri Division9:40 AM

Apr 20
Is Fredo's Resignation Enough?1:00 AM

Apr 20
The New Herostratus4:40 PM

Apr 19
Gonzales: It Depends On What the Meaning of “Improper” Is4:00 PM

Apr 19
Gonzales is a Disaster3:50 PM

Apr 19
The Gonzales Testimony, A.M. Edition2:30 PM

Apr 19
FBI Raids Business of Rep. Rick Renzi – Linked to Dismissal of Arizona U.S. Attorney Charlton11:40 AM

Apr 19
The Tragedy at Virginia Tech, Viewed From Abroad9:00 AM

Apr 19
Justice Department Ran Massive Campaign to Suppress Vote8:50 AM

Apr 19
Rep. Doolittle’s House is Raided by FBI8:30 AM

Apr 19
British Court Proceedings Establish Bush Threatened to Bomb Al Jazeera8:00 AM

Apr 19
Democrats Need Not Apply2:50 PM

Apr 18
The Talented Mr. Griffin2:00 PM

Apr 18
Tony Blair to Succeed Wolfowitz?2:00 PM

Apr 18
The Real Sodomites2:00 PM

Apr 18
RNC Asserts Executive Privilege2:00 PM

Apr 18
Invitation: Taxi to the Dark Side9:05 PM

Apr 17
Media Alert: Following Fredo's Big Day7:05 PM

Apr 17
A Pulitzer for Charlie Savage7:00 PM

Apr 17
The Meltdown at Justice, Continued7:00 PM

Apr 17
Speaker Pelosi's Popularity Rises, as Does Confidence in Congress7:00 PM

Apr 17
Promoting Democracy, Bush Style7:00 PM

Apr 17
George Washington on Justice

Apr 17
Leading Conservatives Demand that Gonzales Go2:00 PM

Apr 16
Turkey and Iraq2:00 PM

Apr 16
Of Republicans and Banana-Republicans2:00 PM

Apr 16
Tales from Stasiland: The Bubbleboy President2:00 PM

Apr 16
Fredo’s Big Day2:00 PM

Apr 16
The Problem with Mercenaries2:00 PM

Apr 16
U.S. Attorney Scandal in New Mexico Deepens: The President Did It10:00 AM

Apr 16
November 1972: Vonnegut vs. the Republicans9:35 AM

Apr 16
Learning from Ike1:30 AM

Apr 16
The “Nothing Improper” Attorney General1:30 AM

Apr 16
Former Deputy Attorney General Heymann on U.S. Attorney Scandal1:30 AM

Apr 16
George Orwell on War

Apr 16
Rachel L. Brand: Portrait of one of Rove's Political Prosecutors8:10 PM

Apr 15
New U.S. Attorney in San Francisco Under Open Attack from Federal Court8:10 PM

Apr 15
Five Hostages Left Behind, and One G-Man Unaccounted For8:10 PM

Apr 15
Meltdown at the Department of Justice9:30 AM

Apr 15
Torture, Secrecy, and the Bush Administration12:58 PM

Apr 14
The New Nomenklatura12:58 PM

Apr 14
Gonzales Chief-of-Staff Trapped in More Misrepresentations; Suspicions Mount About Milwaukee U.S. Attorney Biskupic 12:58 AM

Apr 14
Rove's Lawyer: He Didn't Intend to Delete Emails5:50 PM

Apr 13
Wolfowitz's Dilemma5:50 PM

Apr 13
Political Profiling: The Smoking Gun3:30 PM

Apr 13
More Accusations Raised Against Milwaukee U.S. Attorney3:30 PM

Apr 13
The One-Party State of Fred Fielding9:30 AM

Apr 13
Bertolt Brecht on the Dilemma of Unpopular Government

Apr 13
The Role of Alcoholism in Human Evolution5:35 PM

Apr 12
How Britain Came to this Sorry Pass5:10 PM

Apr 12
The “Voting Fraud” Fraud11:44 AM

Apr 12
White House Destroys Emails Sought by Congressional Investigators3:00 AM

Apr 12
Pulitzer Prize-winning Photojournalist Completes One Year in U.S. Military Custody in Iraq3:00 AM

Apr 12
The FBI's Criminal Enforcement is Gutted; Con Artists Flourish3:00 AM

Apr 12
A Taste of Texas Justice?4:00 PM

Apr 11
A New Chief of Staff for Gonzales4:00 PM

Apr 11
Cheney in Charge4:00 PM

Apr 11
Were the Problems at Walter Reed identified in 2004?1:40 PM

Apr 11
A Fraudulent Report on Voter Fraud1:40 PM

Apr 11
Karl Rove, Voter Suppression and the Cashiered U.S. Attorneys8:20 AM

Apr 11
Obstruction at Justice8:20 AM

Apr 11
Why the Media Failed8:20 AM

Apr 11
The Fisking of David Brooks8:20 AM

Apr 11
The Washington Post and War Crimes5:00 PM

Apr 10
Another Biopsy for the Department of Justice3:50 PM

Apr 10
Torture and Mind Games: the Takes in London and Tehran3:50 PM

Apr 10
Follow the Yellowcake Road1:20 PM

Apr 10
A Nuclear Threat in the Persian Gulf1:20 PM

Apr 10
Confidence in Congress Rises1:20 PM

Apr 10
Bearing Candy and Flowers?1:20 PM

Apr 10
Heinrich Heine on Forgiveness

Apr 10
Karl Rove Faces More Inquiries6:00 PM

Apr 9
The Guns of April, Revisited9:00 AM

Apr 9
Tales from Stasiland: Making the No-Fly List9:00 AM

Apr 9
Ethiopia and North Korea: Do the Right Thing9:00 AM

Apr 9
Fredo Fails Spring Training9:00 AM

Apr 9
More on Wisconsin U.S. Attorney Biskupic, a "Loyal Bushie"?9:00 AM

Apr 9
How to Break a Terrorist8:00 AM

Apr 9
On Fear: The South in Labor8:00 AM

Apr 9
A Portrait of Bush's Monica5:00 PM

Apr 8
Monica Bids Farewell3:30 PM

Apr 8
Notes on Gonzales3:30 PM

Apr 8
An Easter Sermon3:30 PM

Apr 8
Training Tomorrow's Terrorists3:30 PM

Apr 8
Joe Klein Parts Company with Bush12:00 PM

Apr 8
The Wall Street Journal and Criminal Intent12:00 PM

Apr 8
Syria's Line to Houston12:00 PM

Apr 8
The Times on the Meltdown in the Mini-Apple12:00 PM

Apr 8
Heinrich Heine on Forgiveness

Apr 8
U.S. Attorney in Wisconsin in the Hotseat4:20 PM

Apr 6
Meltdown at U.S. Attorney's Office in Minneapolis11:00 AM

Apr 6
President Carter: Bush Ordered Me Not to Go to Damascus10:45 AM

Apr 6
The Guantánamo Follies9:00 AM

Apr 6
Spring Training for Fredo12:20 PM

Apr 5
The New Monica12:20 PM

Apr 5
A Funny Thing Happened on the Road to Damascus12:20 PM

Apr 5
Andrew McCarthy Discovers the Geneva Conventions9:00 AM

Apr 5
Raban on The Conservative Soul8:45 AM

Apr 5
Thomas Mann on Democracy

Apr 5
An Illegal Plea Bargain?5:56 PM

Apr 4
Outsourcing Gitmo: The Ethiopian Camps5:48 PM

Apr 4
Fox-in-the-henhouse Government1:00 PM

Apr 4
Interim U.S. Attorney in Little Rock Accused of Résumé Inflation1:00 PM

Apr 4
American FBI Alumnus Goes Missing in Iran1:00 PM

Apr 4
Karl Rove's Danse macabre1:00 PM

Apr 4
A Hostage Swap?12:00 PM

Apr 4
The Secret War against Iran9:30 AM

Apr 4
The Easter Vacation Squabble9:30 AM

Apr 4
Zimbardo Discusses Accountability for Torture7:40 PM

Apr 3
Orwell at Guantánamo7:40 PM

Apr 3
Tales from Stasiland: The Perils of Wearing Black4:40 PM

Apr 3
Misc. Items2:40 PM

Apr 3
The Inspector General12:01 PM

Apr 3
Persian Gulf Hostage Crisis Provoked by Failed U.S. Raid9:30 AM

Apr 3
Emerson on Friends

Apr 3
The Plea Bargain of David Hicks6:55 PM

Apr 2
Department of Injustice6:50 PM

Apr 2
Colonel with a Conscience6:25 PM

Apr 2
Timed Out6:25 PM

Apr 2
Credibility and the Department of Justice6:25 PM

Apr 2
Carol Lam, Dick Cheney and Mitchell Wade6:25 PM

Apr 2
Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner6:25 PM

Apr 2
The Torture Transcripts6:25 PM

Apr 2
Before there was Purgegate6:25 PM

Apr 2
The Era of Rove6:25 PM

Apr 2
Gingrich: ¿Español—lingua del Bario?6:25 PM

Apr 2
Listening Suggestion6:25 PM

Apr 2
Petraeus' Secret Briefing, and Growing Rumors of GOP Unrest Over Iraq4:25 PM

Apr 2
Troubles in the Land of Enchantment2:15 PM

Apr 2
Invasion of the Party Snatchers11:45 AM

Apr 2
Harold Hongju Koh on Human Rights

Apr 2
No Comment2:30 PM

Apr 1
No Comment10:12 AM

Apr 1
Montaigne on Belief

Apr 1
The Guns of April

Apr 1

Scott Horton is a Contributing Editor of Harper's Magazine.

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