Is Obama's civil liberties record understandable?
Earlier this week, Kevin Drum said that "nine times out of ten" Obama's policies are "pretty much what [he] expected" but that "the biggest one-time-out-of-ten where he's not doing what [he] expected is in the area of detainee and civil liberties issues."  Similarly, Andrew Sullivan cited "accountability for war crimes and civil rights" as among the very few issues on which he finds fault with Obama.  Matt Yglesias

A key British official reminds us of the forgotten anthrax attack
Britain is currently engulfed by a probing, controversial investigation into how their Government came to support the invasion of Iraq, replete with evidence that much of what was said at the time by both British and American officials was knowingly false, particularly regarding the unequivocal intention of the Bush administration to attack Iraq for months when they were pretending otherwise.  Yesterday, the British Ambassador to the U.S. in 2002 and 2003, Sir Chris

Tough-guy John Bolton, hiding under his bed
(updated below) John Bolton is the prototypical right-wing pseudo-tough-guy:  cheering on every war he can find without ever getting near any of them.  And as usual for this strain of play-acting, chest-beating warrior, all of the belligerence and craving of vicarious power masks a deep and pitiful cowardice.  That is often the principal purpose of warmongering from a distance.  Yesterday, Bolton -- on "Washington Times Radio" -- revealed that he is so petrified of Terrorists that he would not feel safe in New York Cit

Phil Carter's resignation from key detainee policy post
Phillip Carter is a lawyer, a former Army Captain, a veteran of the Iraq War and a very harsh critic of the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies.  He was a vigorous supporter of Barack Obama's campaign, and in 2008, became the Obama campaign's National Veterans Director.  In April of this year, he was appointed the top Pentagon official for detainee affairs, but yesterday, he suddenly "quit without explanation just days after Obama confirmed in an interview with Fox News in Beijing that his administration would miss its Jan. 22 Guantánamo closure deadline."

Greg Craig and Obama's worsening civil liberties record
Over at Daily Kos, Barbara Morrill complains that The Washington Post's Richard Cohen "is Karl Rove dressed up in pseudo-sadness" because -- according to her -- Cohen today "whines that the Attorney General announced that the United States follows the rule of law" by giving trials to 5 Guantanamo detainees.  I don't disagree with Morrill's general assessment of Cohen, but his point today is actually the exact opposite of what she describes.  Cohen wasn't accu