I cannot improve on the post at Americablog. OK, people made excuses when the Obama/Holder DOJ continued the Bush state secrets doctrine... And people made excuses when the Pentagon said it didn't have any plans to repeal DADT.... And people made excuses for increased Defense spending.... And people made excuses for the flip-flop on releasing the photos.... And people made excuses for expanding the Afghan war into Pakistan.... And people made excuses for the fact that the stress tests weren't too stressful.... Which leads me to believe that by tomorrow, people will be making excuses for this.

From Delawareliberal : WTF? Obama Defends DOMA Like a Right-Wing Nutjob David Anderson must be loving Obama today (in a totally hetero way). Obama has betrayed same sex rights with his defense of DOMA in court. Obama didn’t need to defend DOMA. He also didn’t need to invoke incest and child marriage in the argument. Read the link. There is some left-wing anger headed Obama’s way now. From Delaware Way : Can't we make them listen to Elizabeth Warren? From C&L ~ (NYT on Banks returning Bailout $$) ...We lend them the money and then let them pay it back - before we've fixed the problems that lead to the crash in the first place? And it won't do much for consumers, since half of them are investment banks. Elizabeth Warren is skeptical, and wants to hear the terms of repayment. She also warns that the stress tests were not as strong as they should have been. From Down With Absolutes : Obama’s turning out to be a bigger war-mongering hawk who could stack up against any o...

This one is apropos of nothing hot or current, but when I was reading something (who knows what?) the other day, a liberal blogger made a statement something to the effect of civilization naturally evolving toward a progressive, secular society . And [ignoring the fact that this is a misuse of the verb evolving , since we're pretty damn sure that natural selection, as a mindless process, is not heading anywhere in particular], that statement made me think about evangelical Christianity and students in a course I teach called Introduction to Historical Methods. Koan for the students: what does my liberal/progressive blogger quoted above and an evangelical Christian have in common? Answer: both believe that history is going somewhere specific. This is easier to explain with the Evangelical. If you believe in Biblical inerrancy, then you believe that the end of the world has already been laid out in detail in the Book of Revelation. That's going to happen, it is the end point ...

Yes. Obviously. Acting in concert with the ideas and rhetoric of radical anti-abortion groups, Scott Roeder allegedly (everybody knows why I have to say that) gunned down Dr. George Tiller in his church, not just to punish him for performing abortions, not just to stop him from performing abortions, but to sustain a climate of intimidation intended to make other doctors cease performing abortions. Was Timothy McVeigh a terrorist? Yes. Obviously, although his motivation to strike fear into government agents was a bit more diffuse and (in an abstract intellectual sense) difficult to pin down. But now let's try a thought experiment: Suppose Tim McVeigh had blown up the Murrah Federal Building with a truckload of fertilizer because he was working for a drug lord about to go on trial and had been ordered to eliminate several key witnesses regardless of the consequences. Would he have been a terrorist then? More difficult question? Well, let's see. Here's the current FBI defin...

... because jason330 (who is such a leftwing extremist that he thinks Senator Tom Carper is a rightwinger) and I actually agree about something. It is only faint comfort that I posted about it a day before he did. But he can feel free to copy more of my observations and insights any time.

From NYT : WASHINGTON — As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system. The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization. While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress. Funny, people keep telling me that all doctors are adamantly on-board for single-payer health care. UPD...

So why aren't they celebrating what appears to be the emergence of a true, rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred democracy in Iran? William Pfaff : The vote takes place this Friday. The battle against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his politically conservative and culturally reactionary backers has turned into an unprecedented brawl. Ahmadinejad’s leading opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi, who led the country during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, attacks Ahmadinejad for "adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism and superficiality," including his notorious Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, all disgracing the country internationally. Ahmadinejad and his supporters attack Moussavi because his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a university professor of politics, has assumed a public role at her husband’s side in the campaign, and demands expanded higher education for women. They are also attacking corruption amid Moussavi’s establishment backers. The campaign has included drama...