Interesting, since I've seen two other polls (AP-Yahoo and Newsweek) that both say Obama is widening his lead over Clinton.

From the Newsweek poll:

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Obama_takes_big_national_lead_over__04182008.html

"THE NUMBERS
Barack Obama, 54 percent
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 35 percent

OF INTEREST:
Obama's huge lead in this Newsweek poll marks a big shift from the magazine's last survey in March, when he and Clinton were essentially tied. Besides Obama's usual leads among men, blacks and young people, he leads in this poll among women and older voters and is about even among whites. In a matchup against Republican candidate John McCain, both Democrats are ahead slightly."

Both the AP-Yahoo poll and the Newsweek poll were conducted April 16th & 17th.

Posted at April 19, 2008 1:44 AM in response to Hillary Closes To Within Three Points In Gallup National Tracking Poll

"The point is that so long as legality is our guiding standard, it opens the door to this sort of abuse. The appropriate question for us to ask isn't, 'Is it legal?' but rather 'Was it ethical?'"

Fly, this is so wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start...

First, your entire argument seems to be based on an assumption that "legality" is determined by lawyers dreaming up rationales. It is not. It is determined by judges and juries hearing evidence and comparing the evidence against existing laws. The opinions of lawyers hardly enters into the equation.

Second, a nation runs according to its laws, not what people think is ethical. When enough people feel strongly about the ethics of a given situation, they pass laws codifying it. No one gets convicted of being unethical in criminal court -- that's a tort, not a crime.

"Congress, I think, still doesn't get this. It calls its oversight hearings, and roots around in the muck for some evidence of laws being broken."

Wrong again. The failure of congress to impeach (which is what's called for) is not a failure to find any number of "smoking guns," it's the cowardice of Pelosi, Reid, and those who follow them. There are dozens of smoking guns to impeach this administration and send them to prison, where they belong. It's only the craven cowardice of our Democratic "leaders," who fear (irrationally) a backlash similar to the (well-deserved) one the Republicans took after their show-trial impeachment of Clinton.

The constitution and other laws are perfectly sufficient to deal with these blatant criminals. Asking, "is it ethical?" would be tantamount to writing Osama bin-Laden an angry letter, an exercise that would only produce ridicule and contempt.

Bush & Co. violated the constitution and the Geneva conventions, and a bunch of opinions from a whore lawyer that amount to, "you can ignore the laws and treaties" doesn't diminish that fact in the slightest.

Posted at April 5, 2008 12:57 AM in response to Yoo: I Thought Torture Was A Bad Idea, Really I Did

FOIA, you're missing the inherent illegality of Yoo's opinion: in it, his "legal guidance" amounts to advising the administration to ignore existing laws and treaties. How could such blatantly extra-legal "guidance" protect someone from prosecution?

The very fact that the admin asked for justification to break existing laws and treaties, if anything, makes Yoo guilty of conspiracy to break the law (along with those who asked for the opinion).

The only difficulty in prosecuting Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al would be proving the torture that occurred in Gitmo and/or Abu Ghraib was the result of orders from the White House. But in a genuine investigation (unlike the prosecution of Englund and Grainer, which pointedly avoided investigating the chain of command), it's fairly easy to track the responsibility back to its source. The U.S. Army isn't the Cosa Nostra, and there are plenty of high-ranking people in the Pentagon who'd like nothing more than to see this administration pay for the damage it's done to our military.

Posted at April 5, 2008 12:38 AM in response to Yoo: I Thought Torture Was A Bad Idea, Really I Did

ADad, you had to go and mention the unmentionable. A thieving, lying, sadistic bunch of bastards I can live with, as long as they're the ENEMY.

It's "friends" like the Gutless Wonder I can't abide...

Nancy Pelosi is America's own Neville Chamberlain.

All that's necessary for evil to succeed is for Democrats to do nothing.

Posted at April 5, 2008 12:15 AM in response to Post: Ashcroft Didn't Sign Off on Yoo Pentagon Torture Memo