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Over the last week, the American press has been filled with drip after drip from smug, generally anonymous Bush Administration clones who promise that when Barack Obama is saddled with…

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Charm me asleep, and melt me so With thy delicious numbers, That, being ravish’d, hence I go Away in easy slumbers. Ease my sick head, And make my bed, Thou…

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What makes a bad prosecutor? It’s simple: Does the prosecutor’s longing for the public limelight, his aspirations for public office, come to overwhelm his dedication to justice, to simply doing…

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Although the roads to human power and to human knowledge lie close together, and are nearly the same, nevertheless on account of the pernicious and inveterate habit of dwelling on…

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In September 2007, I posted “The Remarkable ‘Recusal’ of Leura Canary” reviewing one of the many strange aspects of the Siegelman case. The prosecutor who brought this case is the…

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Gene Burns is one of the nation’s most popular talk radio hosts. For years he has dismissed accounts of torture; America, he has said, does not torture. But last night,…

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Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligthum. Deine Zauber binden wieder, Was die Mode streng getheilt; Alle Menschen werden Brüder, Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.…

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Lebe mit deinem Jahrhundert, aber sei nicht sein Geschöpf; leiste deinen Zeitgenossen, was sie bedürfen, nicht was sie loben. Ohne ihre Schuld geteilt zu haben, teile mit edler Resignation ihre…

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Election Day did not go off without a hitch, but compared with the last two general elections, 2008 seems to have functioned well–even given the historically high voter turnout. Moreover,…

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Italian prosecutors continue to build their case against 26 American diplomats and CIA agents accused in absentia of kidnapping and assault. For the Bush Administration, which refuses all cooperation with…

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As Ken Silverstein and others offer their election predictions, I’d like to contribute one of my own. This will be a transformative election. The focus, appropriately, is on the likely…

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There is a new America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not. The new America is the sum of many small…

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Wer sind wir? Wo kommen wir her? Wohin gehen wir? Was erwarten wir? Was erwartet uns? Viele fühlen sich nur als verwirrt. Der Boden wankt, sie wissen nicht warum und…

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Our nation’s current problems started with a whiff of sulfur on Election Day 2000. Americans went to the polls in substantial numbers and voted, by a margin of over a…

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History has an important role in our political discourse. It can be used to induce fear, to intimidate. It can also offer inspiration and a sense of common purpose. It…

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Here is some music for a pre-election Sunday. Listen to Michael Praetorius’s Der Tag vertreibt die finster Nacht, a motet in four parts, from the Muses of Zion (Musae Sioniae),…

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Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders: They tell me you…

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Dick Cheney has shocked the nation by announcing his endorsement of John McCain and Sarah Palin this afternoon in Wyoming. Here’s the video: Barack Obama responded by immediately sending his…

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What is the rule of honor to be observed by a power so strongly and so advantageously situated as this Republic is? Of course I do not expect it meekly…

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When Bill Kristol wrote, in a recent New York Times column, that McCain should fire his entire campaign staff, surely he had deputy P.R. chief Michael Goldfarb in mind. Which…

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A few years ago, on a visit to the Topkap? Museum in Istanbul, I came across an amazing display of tunics that had been among the most tightly guarded treasures…

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The last weeks of every presidential campaign I can remember bring out the crazies. Candidates are reviled as “racists,” “Nazis,” “Communists,” and the like. But this year the process has…

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Is Sarah Palin a “whack job”? Yesterday, Politico quoted an unnamed senior McCain advisor describing Palin in just those words. Yet there has been little reporting in the mainstream media…

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Following the last debate many pundits reckoned on a McCain rebound–but his numbers actually slipped. And according to conventional wisdom, endorsements rarely have much influence on the course of a…

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In my article “Vote Machine: How Republicans Hacked the Department of Justice”, I surveyed the ways in which the Bush Administration systematically uses the Department of Justice to advance its…

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In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin told the crowd that an Obama presidency would present the specter of a socialist state…

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VIII ? ? ?????? ?????? ? ????????? ?????; ???????? ????? ??????? ??????? ?????; ? ????????? ????? ????? ???????? ??????: ?????? ??????? ???, ?????? ??????? ?????; ????? ? ???????? ?????? ?…

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In a sense, a presidential campaign provides the ultimate test of the mettle of the political punditry. Does the pundit simply disintegrate into political hackery by reciting the talking points…

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