Because we can all use a bit of laughter after this week…

• Colbert on the Pottery Barn Rule: “Do you know what happens if you break a lamp at Pottery Barn and leave? Genocide!”
• Colbert:
  

  According to the Washington Post, the President is seeking candidates for a brand-new position they’re calling the war czar. The czar would coordinate between State and Defense Departments; oversee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; and, one assumes, keep an eye on Rasputin….If only the Constitution provided for some kind of—chief commander, or commanderish chief, who could command chiefly these wars!

• Glad our Attorney General was able to articulate a clear explanation of how his department operates.

Despite any hard evidence, from either before the U.S. entrance into the war in Iraq or in the four years since, Cheney still holds to his assertion of an Iraq - Al Qaeda link. Did he miss the Defense Department Inspector General’s report that found insignificant intelligence to justify an Iraq - Al Qaeda relationship?

• This is pretty funny.

• “Good news for the Bush administration. Just one week after the outrageous Walter Reed medical scandal, that story is gone. Because there’s a new kid in town. His name is Outrageous Fired Federal Prosecutors Attorney General Scandal. Yes, in one week it’s been revealed the administration screwed over wounded vets (the most revered people in America), and lawyers (the most reviled people in America), proving they’ve got range.”
  —Jon Stewart (via DailyKos)

John McCain has officially declared his candidacy for President in the 2008 Election, and some have wondered whether “his age may be Mr McCain’s biggest handicap. If he won the presidency, he would by then—at 72—be the oldest man ever elected to the White House.”

I think it’s more likely that McCain’s unpopular stances on issues, especially his support of sending more troops to Iraq, would overshadow concerns about his age in the minds of voters. What do you think?

This story is infuriating:

Shawqi Ahmad Omar is an American citizen who, according to his family, moved to Iraq to help with the reconstruction effort, [but] was detained by U.S. Forces in October of that year on suspicion of having terrorist connections and has been languishing in U.S. military detention ever since. During that time, he has not been charged with any crime and has had no access to a lawyer. In December 2005, Omar’s family filed a habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the legality of his continued detention….While Omar’s habeas petition was pending, the U.S. government notified his family that it planned to transfer him into Iraqi custody—and conveniently out of the reach of the U.S. justice system.

Our federal judiciary is supposed to serve as a check on the power of Congress and the executive branch, ensuring that Americans’ basic rights are protected. But a radical doctrine promulgated by the Bush administration holds that there are virtually no civil liberties which cannot be trampled on if the president claims that doing so is in the interest of national security.

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