Obama Open to Prosecutions in Interrogation Abuses  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday left open the door to creating a bipartisan commission that would investigate the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects, and he did not rule out taking action …

Is Cheney Panicking?  —  The one thing you saw most plainly in the Plame affair is how obsessed Dick Cheney is with public image, the chattering classes and spinning stories that might reflect poorly on him.  The act is the elder statesman, authoritatively reviewing the world scene …

GWS  —  I am not angry Mr. York.  I am afraid.  Afraid of the hatred for this President generated by the likes of FOX news and this newspaper.  I know that MSNBC is in the bed with the Democrats, but FOX is married to the Republicans.  Promoting this tea party is a prime example.

CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style Attack on Los Angeles  —  (CNSNews.com) - The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” …

McCain facing 2010 primary  —  Social conservatives tolerated John McCain as the party's nominee, but never trusted him, and he now appears to be facing a serious primary from the right in Arizona next year.  —  Chris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a prominent figure …

The OLC “torture memos”: thoughts from a dissenter  —  I first gained access to the OLC memos and learned details about CIA's program for high-value detainees shortly after the set of opinions were issued in May 2005.  I did so as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's policy representative …

America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire  —  In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers.  Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers, firefighters or even bartenders.

Mark Thiessen: It Was Torture  —  It's right there in the Washington Post - a defense of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques authorized by president Bush, illustrated at Abu Ghraib, and a cause of at least a dozen and as many as a hundred deaths, (according to the Pentagon and many human rights groups respectively).

EXCLUSIVE: Senator's husband's firm cashes in on crisis  —  Feinstein sought $25 billion for agency that awarded contract to spouse  —  On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency …

Obama's Outrageous Sin Against Our Kids  —  As I watch Washington politics I am not easily given to rage.  —  Washington politics is a game and selfishness, out-sized egos and corruption are predictable.  —  But over the last week I find myself in a fury.

Crimes suspected in 20 bailout cases — for starters  —  The special inspector general says TARP is ‘inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse.’ The risk grows as the plan becomes more complex, he says.  —  Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — In the first major disclosure …

Why GOP is devouring one book  —  There aren't any sex scenes or vampires, and it won't help you lose weight.  —  But House Republicans are tearing through the pages of Amity Shlaes' “The Forgotten Man” like soccer moms before book club night.  —  Shlaes' 2007 take on the Great Depression questions …

Feinstein: 'Right now, I don't have a comment' on impeaching Jay Bybee.  —  On MSNBC this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell asked Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to respond to Sen. Claire McCaskill's (D-MO) argument that the Senate has to “look” at the possible impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee …

The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV  —  (updated below - Update II)  —  The New York Times' David Barstow won a richly deserved Pulitzer Prize yesterday for two articles that, despite being featured as major news stories on the front page of The Paper of Record …

Health-Care Dialogue Alarms Obama's Allies  —  As Congress returns to begin an intense debate over reshaping the nation's $2.2 trillion health-care system, prominent left-leaning organizations and liberal House members are issuing a warning to their Democratic allies: Don't cave on us.

The Republicans' Paranoid Style  —  In 1964, historian Richard Hofstadter described “the paranoid style” as a periodic recurrence in American national life, characterized by “the use of paranoid modes of expressions by more or less normal people . . . heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.”

Our Selective Moral Outrage  —  Why does Israel face more opprobrium than Russia?  —  Few places on earth have been as systematically brutalized over the past decade as Chechnya.  So you might have thought that the Russian government's decision last week to declare an end to its …

Dem Rep Harman Did Urge Times Not To Publish Wiretapping Expose!  —  Whoa.  Dem Rep Jane Harman did in fact urge The New York Times not to publish its big expose of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping, apparently before the 2004 election, potentially changing the election's outcome and the course of history …

Obama: ‘Shaka’ hang-loose for Navy  —  Proof that Barack Obama is from Hawaii:  —  At a ceremony honoring the Naval Academy's football team today, the president found some pride in the heritage of the team's head coach - Ken Niumatalolo - as well as that of its starting quarterback - Kaipo Noa Kaheaku Enhada.

Big-Spending Conservative  —  We've all heard liberal speeches on the economy.  The central concern is inequality.  Power and wealth tend to concentrate at the top of society, so government must stand as a countervailing power.  It must defend the people against the powerful to ensure fairness and opportunity for all.

Meghan McCain Gives Rave Review to Eminem's Video Depicting Sex with Faux Sarah Palin  —  Okay, I had wanted to stay away from further focus on the Twitter exploits of Meghan McCain, the daughter of the 2008 presidential candidate.  But sometimes you just can't tear your eyes away.

Obscene: Ahmadinejad entourage screams “Zionazi” at ... Elie Wiesel  —  Kaleidoscopic irony from the UN's Jew-bash bash in Geneva, as the world's most famous Holocaust survivor suffers the indignity of analogy to the people who murdered his family courtesy of the world's most famous Holocaust denier …