There are two really disturbing stories in the news in the last few days. The first involves the extent to which religious fundamentalism informs the making of foreign policy in this country by its president, especially in the Middle East. The second, discussed here suggests that both the US and Britain ratified an attack plan BEFORE Hezbollah abducted the two soldiers that served as the causus belli for this incursion, with Tehran and Damascus being the prizes in the end game.

I do not know enough about British newspapers or politics to know how serious this alleged breach of England's laws is, whether in fact this occurred, or what it really means for Blair.  But it does suggest to me that, if true, a lot of this "Anti-Semite/Hezbollah lover" rhetoric is largely beside the point. For whatever reason, these threads suggest that the Bush administration was involved with condoning and possibly encouraging a broader regional war in the middle east.  

TherI don't know what to make of all this.  Does this mean that hawks sold

the president a bill of goods wrapped in fundamentalist rhetoric? I

have no idea.  I just wish someone at a newspaper (whose job it is to

be aware of this kind of thing) would start asking questionse are those who warned (Sy Hersh is one, Murray Waas is another) that, one way or another, we were going to be at war with Tehran as part of this group's strategic vision. 

Talk Left is discussing a law suit against a web site that posts dating histories of certain males. The web site has been sued, based on the comments of women who did not like a certain male (guess who the plaintiff is).

Web sites  operate with near-blanket immunity from defamation liability to the extent that they republish material written by others.  I'd refer that person to 47 USC 230, which states, in relevant part:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

This provision is why ebay doesn't get sued as the publisher of false or defamatory feedback, and why Josh (or TPM Media) can sleep well at night no matter what its bloggers say.  This was a conscious choice by Congress, and the immunity it provides is extremely broad, and web sites receive far greater protection than printed versions.  It may not make much sense now that media has converged so much, but it is what it is.

The washington post today has a long piece out from Ted Kennedy (or rather, his staff) about how Alito and Roberts misled the Judiciary Committee in the course of their respective confirmation hearings.  A couple of thoughts about this:

1.   Anyone expecting anything else was either a fool or an idiot. Having watched how Kennedy et al ask questions, the answer is both.  When you want information, start the question with who/what/when/where/why, and include only one verb and no dependent clauses.  "Why do you think Plessy was a bad decision?"  Speeches give the witness a chance to evade by responding to something that comes before.  And once he answers, interrupt him with the next one.  This requires the guts to tell the chairman to go pound sand when he complains about badgering.  The Democratic response to both of them was appalling.

2.  In my own view, Alito is worse--much, much worse.  He has no experience representing anyone other than the government.  Roberts, at least, has some private practice experience, including representing people on death row.  His performance and mastery of the law entitled him to be on that court--his confirmation performance was remarkable and overshadowed his obvious conservative leanings.  

3.  Alito is not in that class.  Not even close. To me, the creation of the "signing statements" theory, demonstrtated a very flexible notion of what the law should be.  The fact that he came up with it is not damning--the fact that no memo of his ever takes into account the countervailing arguments is disturbing.  The democrats completely dropped the ball with him, and Joe Lieberman's vote for cloture is (to me anyway) the sin that got a check sent to Lamont (albeit a very small one).  

 4.  The Roberts vote made no difference-it was status quo.  O'Connor's retirement meant that the status quo would be shifted, and it shifted drastically.  For moderates (and I consider myself one) that vote was a betrayal, because Alito is young and is in no position to gain any life experiece that will mellow his views.  If the Democrats are not ready to fight when Stevens retires, I'm moving to canada--because that's the adminstration's entire post-hamdan strategy.