Frank Rich writes an important column on the reality behind the myth of General Petraeus. Some key execerpts:

As always with this White House’s propaganda offensives, the message in Mr. Bush’s relentless repetitions never varies. General Petraeus is the “main man.” He is the man who gives “candid advice.” Come September, he will be the man who will give the president and the country their orders about the war.

. . . Actually, we don’t have to wait. We already know what David will say. He gave it away to The Times of London last month, when he said that September “is a deadline for a report, not a deadline for a change in policy.” In other words: Damn the report (and that irrelevant Congress that will read it) — full speed ahead. There will be no change in policy.

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Ever since I ordered my new Macbook Friday night, I haven't been able to get this song out of my head.

"I've got a brand new pair of roller skates, you've got a brand new key"

So, Mac users out there, what's a good external portable hard drive for backup, what programs do you use to backup and are there any new software programs you especially like for it? I'm thinking of getting Parallel and Data Backup 3. Apple Care seems like a necessity too.

No GOP defenders for Gonzo:

Jeralyn, Glenn Greenwald and Anonymous Liberal take apart the NYTimes leaked defense. And I have a new point on the flip.

Ignatius:

The most sensible comment I heard on Iraq in the past week came from one of the Democratic presidential candidates -- indeed, from the one with the strongest antiwar credentials, Sen. Barack Obama: "I think we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in." Obama is right, and so, for that matter, is President Bush when he says much the same thing. The United States is on its way out of Iraq eventually, but it matters powerfully how we disengage -- most of all to Democrats, who at this point seem likely to inherit the responsibility for America's security 18 months from now.

(Emphasis supplied.) Now that he has discarded the "Politics of Hope," I sure wish Obama would criticize David Ignatius for basically speaking falsely of his views on Iraq.

I'm as perplexed as everyone else in trying to decipher the White House's latest explanation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' seemingly inconsistent statements in his sworn testimony on what was at issue regarding the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program when he and Andy Card went to visit former Attorney General John Ashcroft in the hospital in March, 2004.

A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

....Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program “confirmed” by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining. If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct.

Big Tent Democrat argues that the TSP program and the data-mining program were one and the same -- data mining was part of the TSP program. While there are many data-mining programs run by a host of different agencies, that seems right in this context.

I'd like to examine it from a different angle: Was John Ashcroft ever opposed to data-mining? If not, how could that be the basis of the need to go to the hospital and twist his arm in reauthorizing the NSA's TSP program?

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There are so many amputations required in Iraq that a limb shortage is feared:

Iraq is facing a hidden healthcare and social crisis over the soaring number of amputations, largely of lower limbs, necessitated by the daily explosions and violence gripping the country.

In the north of Iraq, the Red Crescent Society and the director general for health services in Mosul have told US forces, there is a requirement for up to 3,000 replacement limbs a year. If that estimate is applied across the country, it suggests an acute and looming long-term health challenge that has been largely ignored by the world.

[Hat tip Newshoggers.]

Seizing a vehicle is a disproportionate response to the minor social harm (if any) caused by drivers who use their cars and trucks to solicit a prostitute or to buy small quantities of marijuana. The California Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, struck down city ordinances that purport to authorize the seizure and forfeiture of vehicles used to commit those crimes on the ground that state law does not authorize cities to impose that penalty.

The Court invalidated a Stockton ordinance that authorized the police to seize a vehicle if they have probable cause to believe it was used to solicit an act of prostitution or to acquire any controlled substance. The ordinance provided that title to the vehicle would vest in the City, and gave the City a generous year to hang onto the vehicle before starting a forfeiture proceeding. Because the Court found that the ordinance was preempted by the state criminal code, it didn't reach the obvious due process concerns that the ordinance raised.

The decision is here (pdf).

From tomorrow's NYTimes Editorial:

Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

Gleen Greenwald reports on President Bush's radio address today on, get this, amending FISA. What the President said:

[M]y Administration has proposed a bill that would modernize the FISA statute. . . [I]t seeks to restore FISA to its original focus on protecting the privacy interests of people inside the United States, so we don't have to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located in foreign locations.

Did you get that? Bush will protect the privacy interests of people inside the United States by removing the requirement of a court issued warrant. Thank you very much Big Brother. More.

The Bush Administration has leaked the following story to the NYTimes as an explanation for Attorney General Gonzales' seemingly incorrect testimony:

A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program. . . . The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.

The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.

Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program “confirmed” by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining. If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct.

Personally, I am at a loss at how this exonerates Alberto Gonzales. He flatly stated there was no dispute over the TSP. Later, he stated it was about the program President Bush confirmed. Data mining is a search without a warrant. The data mining is part of the same program. The speculation, indeed JUSTIFICATION, from many conservative legal scholars was that President Bush was discussing data mining. In fact, this NYTimes reporting is flat wrong, since in his discussion of the TSP, President Bush expressly referenced "the program" described in news reports, news reports that expressly discussed a data mining program. More.

After deliberating for 30 hours, a federal jury in Milwaukee found three former police officers guilty of beating Frank Jude Jr. and of conspiring to violate his civil rights. A suspended officer was acquitted.

Jude's beating led to the largest single-day purge in Police Department history. In May 2005, Chief Nannette Hegerty fired nine officers, suspended three and demoted one. It also prompted new hiring and training practices.

Two of the former officers will continue to be paid their salaries until they are sentenced, pursuant to a law "that requires fired officers be paid until their appeals of termination are exhausted with the Fire and Police Commission, or they are sentenced on a felony." The third former officer is already serving a sentence for making a bomb threat.

Details ...

Back to law, this is a law blog after all.

Jack Balkin continues his righteous crusade in favor of progressive originalism. Hurrah for Prof. Balkin! His most recent post ties his theory of progressive originalism with the purposes of a Constitution, Our Higher Law:

The American Constitution is far more than basic law in this sense. Americans also view their Constitution as a source of important values, including justice, equality, democracy, and human rights. They view the Constitution’s guarantees as objects of aspiration; the Constitution either offers or refers to a standard that stands above ordinary law, criticizes it, restrains it, and holds it to account. Fidelity to the Constitution requires that we aspire to something better and more just than the political, social and legal arrangements we currently maintain. Hence the Constitution trumps ordinary law not simply because it is legally or procedurally prior to it, but because it represents important values that should trump ordinary law, supervise quotidian acts of governmental power, and hold both law and power to account. Thus, we say that the Constitution is not merely basic law, it is also higher law; that is, it is a source of inspiration and aspiration, a repository of values and principles.

. . . [I]t is not enough that the Constitution serve as basic law– a framework for governance, or as higher law– a source of aspirational standards and values. It must also be our law. The people who live under it– the American people–must understand the Constitution as their law. . . . The Constitution works as our law when we identify with it and are attached to it, whether or not we consent to it in any official or legal sense. The Constitution works as our law when we view it as our achievement and the product of our efforts as a people, which simultaneously involves a collective identification with those who came before us and those who will come after us.

. . . The method of text and principle, I believe, serves the multiple functions of a constitution – as basic law, higher law, and our law– far better than other forms of originalism. An originalism that strongly distrusts delegation to future generations and demands that open-ended provisions must be closely connected to original expected application is defective in all three respects. That kind of originalism makes the most sense if we think of the Constitution only as basic law. It tries to turn open-ended principles and standards into something more concrete and rule-like, something whose effects will hopefully be more predictable and (in many cases) more constraining. But that is not the only way that constitutions could serve as basic law. Constitutions can also channel and give incentives for political stability and adaptation rather than merely block and constrain decisionmaking. In fact, the former is a far better way to understand the basic law function of a constitution. . . .

Please read the entire post. It is a stirring vision of progressive Originalism and how such an approach aggrandizes Our Constitution.