The other day I recommended this Dinesh D’Souza article.

Today, Leah over at Eschaton takes a dimmer view:

Worried that clueless Americans are getting all the wrong clues from the forces of negativity, both left AND right, (he’s nothing if not fair and balanced) Dinesh has prepared sort of a “Patriotism For Dummies”…

And the article is getting thoroughly fact checked in the comment thread.

I still think it is worth reading and thinking about.

• Are the “10 great things” really great things?
• Do they match your vision of where you want to live?
• Do they fit in with ”…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…?
• For those that you think are great things what actions will be necessary to achieve or enhance them?
• Does the current US administration behave in a way that supports these “10 great things?”

Leah also points to this site which has a lot of succinct commentary on their answer to this last question.

The senate is confirming folks like Nathan Chertoff for judicial positions 88-1. From Nate Hentoff:

In his book After, Steve Brill, based on his sources, reports that in the strategy sessions at the Justice Department, Chertoff, agreeing that the detainees should be held for long periods of questioning, said that even if some got a hearing, “the hearings could not only be done in secret, but also could be delayed, and that even after the hearings were held and they were ordered deported [usually for only minor immigration violations], there was nothing in the law that said they absolutely had to be deported immediately. They could be held still longer.”
As for the detainees’ right to contact lawyers, Chertoff and the others in the room, reports Brill, knew that under INS rules, the prisoners “were entitled to call a lawyer from jail, but the lists the INS provided of available lawyers invariably had phone numbers that were not in service.” (Emphasis added.)

Yea, I know what follows isn’t perfect logic. However, if this guy with such callous views of our rights is so easily approved then imagine just how bad the ones currently being filibustered must be.

Via Talkleft.

On the assumption that W is a shoe in for 2004 Unfossilized thinks that in 2008 anyone but Hilory is a good enough reason to support Jeb Bush. If W is indeed it in 2004 then by 2008 Jeb and his fine Florida elections staff will have had plenty of time to figure out how to scrub the national voting rolls…maybe it will even be unanimous.