Frank Rich:
The GQ article isn’t the only revelation of previously unknown Bush Defense Department misbehavior to emerge this month. Just two weeks ago, the Obama Pentagon revealed that a major cover-up of corruption had taken place at the Bush Pentagon on Jan. 14 of this year — just six days before Bush left office. This strange incident — reported in The Times but largely ignored by Washington correspondents preparing for their annual dinner — deserves far more attention and follow-up.
[GQ photos – h/t SheriffBart.]
Maureen Dowd: Nancy Pelosi?
Besides, the question of what Pelosi knew or didn’t, or when she did or didn’t know, is irrelevant to how W. and Cheney broke the law and authorized torture.
Philip Zelikow, who was State Department counselor for Condi Rice and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, testified last week before Congress that torture was "a collective failure and it was a mistake," perhaps "a disastrous one."
William Kristol: Keeping my track record for failure intact, herein is an endorsement of Dick Cheney, the modern face of the GOP. He may not be popular, he may make GOP insiders nervous (anonymous cowards, all!), he may chase moderates away and make the party smaller, but by God, he's spunky.
Peter Robinson on the future of the GOP:
Republicans in Washington may have adopted a hopeless, frozen crouch, but out in the states, plenty of Republican governors are displaying self-confidence. Instead of shrinking from the message of limited government and personal responsibility, they're proclaiming it. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. Haley Barbour of Mississippi. John Hoeven of North Dakota. Jon Huntsman of Utah. Rick Perry of Texas. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
And Mitch Daniels of Indiana.
Well, maybe not Huntsman, now part of the Obama administration as the new ambassador to China. Or Palin, who can't get more than 5% in the GOP insider's poll. Neither can Daniels. And Perry wants to secede, so I'm not even sure he wants to be an American, let alone stay in the GOP. Pawlenty is ruining his chances in good-government MN by not seating the winner of the Senate race, Al Franken (and when he does, the GOP wingnuts will hate him.) Well, there's always Haley Barbour. See, the GOP is all about new faces. Barbour. Gingrich. Cheney. God love 'em.
Me:
For all the sturm und drang about Nancy Pelosi, the underlying issue is whether, Cheney and the Bush administration pushed torture to justify Iraq after the fact of the invasion. The questions have been raised by McClatchy (Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link) and suggested by Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell aide says torture helped build Iraq war case). This core issue has huge implications, and needs to be addressed. So far, it hasn’t been. Part of the reason is that it’s much easier for the media to get a Rep-Dem argument going about Pelosi than it is to address underlying core American principles that appear to have been violated. But everyone needs to understand that this question is much bigger than a partisan political argument about the Speaker.
EJ Dionne:
President Obama’s impending appearance at Notre Dame has drawn a right-wing backlash, but it’s also worth following the continuing backlash to the backlash from moderate and liberal Catholics.
James Carroll: Conservative Catholics object to Obama's appearance at Notre Dame, but they do not represent rank-and-file Catholics.
Not even most Catholics agree with such criticism. A recent Pew poll, for instance, shows that 50 percent of Catholics support Notre Dame's decision to honor Obama; little more than one-quarter oppose.
But why does it matter?
In fact, the crucial question that underlies the flap at Notre Dame has enormous importance for the unfolding twenty-first century: Will Roman Catholicism, with its global reach, including more than a billion people crossing every boundary of race, class, education, geography and culture, be swept into the rising tide of religious fundamentalism?