Lithwick: No More Kabuki Theater.

“Holder has fallen prey to the sort of magical legal thinking that seeps through the whole CIA report: the presumption that if there’s a legal memo, it must be legal…In other words, we are now protecting the good-faith torturers. That isn’t just wrong, it’s outrageous. It ratifies the most toxic aspect of the whole legal war on terror: that anything becomes permissible if it’s served up with a side of memo. Paper your misconduct with footnotes and justifications–even after the fact–and you can do as you please.“

Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick explains the fundamental problem with the Justice Department’s new inquiry into Dubya-era torture: “Pretending we are investigating and curtailing a torture program isn’t all that different from pretending we didn’t torture in the first place.“

Meanwhile — hold on to your hats, people — Slate‘s Tim Noah discovers that Dick Cheney hasn’t been entirely truthful about what’s in the theoretically exculpatory CIA memos. “Portions have been redacted, so perhaps the evidence Cheney claims that enhanced interrogation saved American lives has been blacked out. But judging from what’s visible to the naked eye, the documents do not provide anything like the vindication that Cheney claims.” (Of course, even if they did provide said vindication, the question of whether or not torture is effective — 24 notwithstanding, we’re pretty sure it isn’t — is a completely separate question from whether or not torture is legal — it isn’t.)

Now It’s Ridge’s Turn.

Following in the footsteps of Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Department of Homeland Security head Tom Ridge becomes the latest ex-Bushie to pen a troubling tell-all: The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…and How We Can Be Safe Again.

According to US News: “Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was ‘blindsided’ by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.” Good of you to bring this all up years down the pike, Gov. Ridge — truly a profile in courage.

Before Birthers, Birchers.

“So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers — these are ‘either’ the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube?…They are both. If you don’t understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can’t understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.“

In the WP, historian Rick Perlstein puts the latest incarnation of the stark raving right-wing in historical perspective. The difference this time? The media is completely failing at its job. “The tree of crazy is an ever-present aspect of America’s flora. Only now, it’s being watered by misguided he-said-she-said reporting and taking over the forest. Latest word is that the enlightened and mild provision in the draft legislation to help elderly people who want living wills — the one hysterics turned into the ‘death panel’ canard — is losing favor, according to the Wall Street Journal, because of ‘complaints over the provision.’ Good thing our leaders weren’t so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill — because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites.”

Karl: Get Iglesias.

“‘Under the Bush regime, honest and well-performing US Attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horse trading and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the US Attorney corps — that of US Attorney Iglesias — because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections,’ Conyers said. ‘When Mr. Iglesias said his firing was a ‘political fragging,’ he was right.‘” The House Judiciary Committee releases the information they’ve collected on the US Attorney scandal, and — hold on to your hats, people — it looks like Karl Rove has been less than truthful with Congress about his role in the illegal firings. A huge surprise, I know.

So…are political firings and lying to Congress still against the law these days, or is the plan to treat these particular criminal offenses like we do torture? In the meantime, I’d expect Rove is on the phone right this very moment, imploring his good friends at FreedomWorks and the like to dial up the crazies for the next few news cycles.

Update: More comes to light on Harriet Miers’ involvement as well.

Snake Oil Salesmen.

“The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they’ve given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.“

You know the GOP has gone too far when they start ticking off the business columnists: The WP’s Steve Pearlstein reads Republicans the riot act for their shameless lying on health care reform. (See also USA Today‘s attempt to set the record straight this morning, and Politifact’s evisceration of Sarah Palin’s bizarre “death panel” claim.)

I’m not going to get into all the current Democratic in-fighting over health insurance reform here (although I will say that I’m none too happy about this Billy Tauzin deal.) But, notwithstanding the Republicans’ recent penchant for astroturf (see also the 2000 Brooks Brothers riot and last April’s teabaggery), we already watched them road-test this reprehensible strategy — riling up scared, angry, and occasionally nutty people to alarm with hatred and patent untruths — last October. This is just more of the same, and I have every expectation it will backfire massively as it did then — hopefully before any serious violence breaks out.

It’s So Cold in Alaska.

“Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me – sports… basketball. I use it because you’re naive if you don’t see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket…and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I’m doing that – keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities – smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it’s time to pass the ball – for victory.“

Sarah says that she wants to know, why she’s given half her life to people she hates now… Or, in other words, members of the press, you won’t have a certain maverick to kick around anymore…or will you? With a rambling farewell speech that probably won’t be remembered as a model of the form, former veep nominee Sarah Palin resigns the governorship of Alaska. Whether this is due to 2012 calculation or impending scandal is yet to be determined, although the hurriedness of the preparations would seem to suggest the latter.

Inside Men at the FEC.

“That’s happened with increasing frequency at the FEC lately. Election-law experts, supporters of campaign-finance regulations, and even some members of the commission itself are expressing growing concern about a string of cases in which the three Republicans on the commission — led by Tom DeLay’s former ethics lawyer — have voted as a block against enforcement, preventing the commission from carrying out its basic regulatory function.” Pete Martin and Zachary Roth of TPM Muckraker delve into how Republicans antithetical to campaign finance reform have effectively sabotaged the FEC. “The FEC, he said, has been made ‘ineffective’ — and not by accident. ‘This is what McConnell had in mind.’“

“Of course, the one person who could do the most to get the commission back on track is President Obama…Most experts believe that the White House supports stronger campaign-finance laws as a goal, but, with a host of other issues on its plate, is reluctant to pick a fight with the GOP Senate leader. ‘They’re picking their priorities, and they don’t want to take on Mitch McConnell right now,’ said Hasen. ‘I consider that unfortunate.‘” Anyone else sensing a pattern?

Blue Sky Mining.

“One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), said: ‘The American people wanted change in our energy and climate policy. And this is the change that the people are overwhelmingly asking for.’ He called it ‘the most important energy and environment bill in the history of our country.‘” After much wrangling and a half-hearted GOP attempt at filibuster (which is only a prerogative of the Senate), the House passes the Waxman-Markey climate bill, 219-212. (Eight Republicans voted for it, 44 Dems opposed.) The “cap-and-trade” bill “would establish national limits on greenhouse gases, create a complex trading system for emission permits and provide incentives to alter how individuals and corporations use energy.” [Key provisions.]

There is some concern that the bill has been watered down too much out of political necessity: “While the bill’s targets may seem dramatic, they are in fact less than what the science tells us is required to avoid catastrophic warming. The 2020 target in particular is far too weak and quite easy and cheap for the country to meet with efficiency, conservation, renewables and fuel-switching from coal to natural gas.“

Still, environmentalists remain hopeful. “It is worth noting that the original Clean Air Act — first passed in 1963 — also didn’t do enough and was subsequently strengthened many times.” And, while the bill — which (sigh) gives away 85% of the new emission allowances (the heart of the “cap-and-trade” market hopefully soon to emerge) to interested parties — looks to “set off a lobbying feeding frenzy,” groups like the NRDC seem to agree that “[t]his is the best bill that can actually get through committee.”

Of course, now the bill has to get through the Senate, where the usual lions lie in wait. “”Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma said ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he declared flatly, ‘because we’ll kill it in the Senate anyway.'” And even some Dems are fatalistic about its prospects. “Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor (D) voted against the measure that he says will die in the Senate. ‘A lot of people walked the plank on a bill that will never become law,’ Taylor told The Hill after the gavel came down.” Looks like Sen. Reid has his work cut out for him.

Atlas Hemmed and Hawed.

“Somewhere in literary-character hell, John Galt is spending an eternity getting beat down by Tom Joad & his pick handle.” Ah, Ayn Rand…come for the vaguely kinky sex, stay for the self-serving, thoroughly reprehensible philosophy. Salon‘s Andrew Leonard asks if the recent economic downturn has discredited Rand’s Objectivism once and for all, prompting — as you might expect — a war in the comments section between the true believers and the gleeful cynics.

Among the many funny comments, this one, reposted from here: “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

Forty Years and Counting.

“The cultural climate is far different today, besides. Now, roughly 75 percent of Americans support an end to Don’t Ask, and gay issues are no longer a third rail in American politics. Gay civil rights history is moving faster in the country, including on the once-theoretical front of same-sex marriage, than it is in Washington. If the country needs any Defense of Marriage Act at this point, it would be to defend heterosexual marriage from the right-wing ‘family values’ trinity of Sanford, Ensign and Vitter.”

The NYT’s Frank Rich reflects on the gay rights movement on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. “No president possesses that magic wand, but Obama’s inaction on gay civil rights is striking. So is his utterly uncharacteristic inarticulateness…It’s a press cliche that ‘gay supporters’ are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be.“