But there’s a time when distrust becomes psychotic.

For example this article says jack about Extraordinary Rendition. The word “Extraordinary” does not appear in the article. At all. Which means Obama was probably talking about simple renditions.

As extradition is a form of simple rendition the most logical conclusion from this article is that Obama will continue to extradite accused criminals, and some goo-goo types are worried that he’ll send them to shady countries. The kind of place where they find somebody the government doesn’t like, charge him with rape, extradite him, torture him into confessing, and execute him on national TV.

I absolutely agree this stinks. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Obama chose vaction time with Congress out of town to announce it. I hope that there are enough spines left among these people to call it the way they see it and demand better.

I agree, these are difficult questions, but we sent Obama to Washington to answer difficult questions. If we wanted and imbecile to be president there were plenty to choose from.

“But please don’t assume he’s gonna do the latter until he actually does it.” – nb

Yeah we all trust Obama to always do the right thing. As a consequence, it is perfectly ok to have a government ruled by the good intentions of men and not by law. Even though I expect the 22nd amendment will be repealed and Obama will President for all of my lifetime, for some of you younger kids – you may want to just consider the possibility that these rules may someday be in effect with a Republican president. I hope you will be as sanguine about it with a President Romney or …. I can’t say it.

Fact is, our government sometimes uses whatever means necessary to covertly identify and locate dangerous characters. And then it sometimes skirts our most idealistic principles concerning civil rights in order to avoid letting such folks go.

And yeah, that’s troubling and disappointing in a sense. But such folks may often be be guilty even if we can’t prove it legally. So it may well in fact keep us much safer. It’s a conundrum.

And I guess my attitude has little bit of fennel in it. IOW, if you like your sausage the way it is now, don’t visit the sausage factory.

Yea, like “fiscal conservatives” or “compassionate conservatism”

If Obama’s gonna give prisoners their day in Court, and demand assurances they won’t be tortured, his policy is a great idea. It’s what every President did before S11. If by transparency he just means telling people their fathers were sent to Syria, good luck, it’s a problem. But please don’t assume he’s gonna do the latter until he actually does it.

At least with a divided government, Congress was exercising some oversight, exposing, investigating and reeling in the worst of the excesses. Think about the reaction in Congress now if a McCain administration promoted these exact policies.

With the Dem majority now embracing the role of congressional lap dog, and Obama embracing and in some cases even expanding the Bush Cheney definition of the Unitary Executive, we are in a much more dangerous situation. Bush/Cheney excesses could have and should have been considered an extreme outlier, something to be rolled back by this administration and Congress. Instead, Obama is institutionalizing and making permanent the Bush/Cheney executive power grabs.

This is bad. This is very bad.

The Supes are the only firewall left. I just hope that Obama will appoint justices that will declare his actions unconstitutional.