if you don't get it, you don't get it

What you missed if you didn't read today's Washington Post: CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu Some Critics See a Plame Parallel Sabin Willet, a Gitmo attorney, reminds us that public trust requires that Detainees Deserve Court Trials

The world has never doubted the judgment at Nuremberg. But no one will trust the work of these secret tribunals.

Fred Hiatt puts Iraq's life-or-death struggle into perspective:

President Bush can lash out at the Democrats, as he did Friday, but ultimately they are mostly exploiting public opinion; he is largely responsible for shaping it. And had he been more honest from the start about the likely difficulties of war, readier to deal with them and then more open in acknowledging his failures, the public likely would be more patient. A true wartime president, Lieberman said, would reach out regularly to congressional leaders of both parties. He would explain strategy, admit mistakes, be open to suggestions. That hasn't happened -- which goes a long way toward explaining why a war that should be understood as life-or-death for Americans too has become, as Mahdi said in more polite terms, a political football.

Sebastian Mallaby's excellent column (Class Matters), helps expose what is truly wrong with most of America's current policies; which seem invariably to favor the rich over the poor.... at any cost. These policies, and the politicians who fight so hard for them, are crippling our Country, and few in Washington seem committed to fighting for what's 'right' anymore.

Two months ago, in his prime-time address from New Orleans, President Bush called upon the nation to "rise above the legacy of inequality." He was joking, obviously. The president's congressional allies now propose to cut Medicaid, food stamps, free school lunches and child-care subsides. They do not propose to save money by undoing the tax cuts that have handed an average of $103,000 a year to people making over $1 million. This is a scandal, and not because every liberal spending program deserves protection. It's a scandal because, whether you support this program or that, inequality is growing poisonous. The meritocratic premise of this country, essential to both its political consensus and its economic success, is starting to ring hollow.

Today's editorial reminds President Bush that 3 years ago he made some promises, that (to this point) have not been kept. And finally, William Arkin's latest: It's the WMD, Stupid

The real truth about WMD is far more difficult for all of these parties: The threat of nuclear war today, or biological war, or chemical war, is no where near what it has been in our lifetimes. The worldwide arsenals of nuclear weapons have declined by more than two-thirds since the late-1960's peak of the Cold War. The likelihood of accidental or unintentional war has virtually diminished. The spread of nuclear weapons -- particularly U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons, which were once deployed in scores of countries at hundreds of sites -- has significantly declined. The roster of countries out of the WMD business far exceeds the numbers who have "gone nuclear" in the past 20 years. ~ If you want to understand how WMD became the justification for war with Iraq, then understand that throughout the 1990's, WMD served so many so well. Saddam's pursuit provided the first Bush administration great Cold War-ish comfort. The massive failure to understand the extent of Iraq's program prior to Desert Storm led to a high point for United Nations inspection and disarmament work and mobilized the minds of an intelligence community otherwise completely bereft in a post-Cold War desert. Disintegration of the Soviet Union kindled a gentleman's non-proliferation salon. The Clinton administration discovered Anthrax and could appear actually forward looking on national security. The domestic WMD consequence management business was born, paving the way for the post 9/11 homeland security industry. ~ WMD was always good for a front page story. ~ There is no question that the White House decided cynically to pound on Saddam's supposed WMD pursuits to justify a war it wanted anyway.