The NY Times’ Eric Lichtblau, who apparently thought he was blowing the whistle when he first reported on this, now has to report that this was all legal.  You consort with the enemy, you’ll be listened to.  Listening in on international calls or reading international e-mails when the bad guys are involved is legal.

In validating the government’s wide authority to collect foreign intelligence, it may offer legal credence to the Bush administration’s repeated assertions that the president has the power to act without specific court approval in ordering national security eavesdropping that may involve Americans.

UPDATE:  More analysis at Q&O, where a dissenting point of view from the Right is taken on.

Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham, she of the Washington Post and he of Newsweek, have sort of a point / counterpoint set of articles in the "On Faith" section of the paper’s and magazine’s combined website.  Quinn argues that the tag "so help me God" shows "contempt for non-believers, while Meacham argues that the oath to God shows "regard for church and state".  Read Meacham’s piece first, as Quinn responds to specific points in his article.

The foundation of Quinn’s argument is that she thinks that religion should be compartmentalized.

Much good is done in the name of religion and there are many wonderful, intelligent and honorable people who are believers. I simply think that it doesn’t have a place in the public square.

And why is that?

My problem is with God. Actually, my problem is with the concept of God. I don’t know what "God" means.

But it’s not readily apparent that, because of her ignorance, why she might think that discussion of such a topic shouldn’t be allowed in public.  And just because, as she asserts, previous Presidents who invoked God had moral failings, it doesn’t invalidate their God. 

At one point, Quinn confesses confusion over Pascal’s Wager, but her reaction to it only points out her ignorance on this whole "God" thing.

Pascal’s wager never made sense to me. If there is an omniscient and omnipotent God and we believe in him we’re good to go. If there’s not and we don’t believe in him we don’t have a problem. If there is and we don’t believe in him, it’s because he doesn’t want us to and therefore we are following his will.

If you don’t know what "God" means, then how can you possibly draw the inference that if we don’t believe in him it’s because he doesn’t want us to?  How could you possibly assert that?  Isn’t it equally as likely an explanation that we’re not looking for him?  Or perhaps we’re simply on a quest to find out facts about God, but not get to know him.  Or that we’re afraid to find out about him because of what we may find out about ourselves?  Or that we refuse to believe in a God that permits evil in the world?  There are as many reasons to not believe in God as there are human beings. 

Meacham’s argument for "…so help me God" is less about religion and more of a case of "hey, what can it hurt?"  He at least does make a good show of dealing with that Jeffersonian phrase that has been elevated to "founding document" status by some.

The secular nature of the American government is one of its abiding strengths, but moments of prayer or a "So help me, God" here and there are no threat to the wall of separation Jefferson spoke of in his New Year’s Day 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. We can keep church and state separate, and we should. But as a matter of history and human nature, we cannot keep politics and religion separate, and we should not try. For politics and religion are both about people, about their hopes and their fears and their values and their sense of destiny and of duty.

We’re running a poll on this topic at the group blog Stones Cry Out.  Pop over and let us know what you think.

With all the promises of change that Barack Obama got his supporters to believe, we’re now finding out that "promises" are more like "goals".  Or perhaps "hopes".

Close Gitmo on the first day in office?  First week?  First 100 days?  Well, technically, he may only issue an order to do it soon, but it’s "a challenge" to even close it within the first 100 days.  The ACLU wants a timetable.  Good luck with that.

"That’s a challenge," Obama said on ABC’s "This Week." "I think it’s going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do."

It’s not as easy as some on the Left expected it would be.  The "Reality-based community" finds that facing reality isn’t what they thought it would be.

Iraq withdrawal within 16 months?  Well, Biden has said that they’re going to follow the Bush plan instead.  Additional take on this and all the Iraq issues at RedState.

Universal Health Care is being back-burnered.  Indeed, the economic crisis should be one of the top priorities, but I thought this whole scheme was supposed to save us all money.  If it’s such a win-win for the economy and health care, why delay?  Hmmm.  (Perhaps it has something to do with how poorly UHC is working in places like Massachusetts?)

No lobbyists serving in policy areas they have worked to influence in the past year.  So then, September 2008 is technically last year.

Interrogation techniques that Obama campaigned against may actually get a new lease on life.  Newsweek tells us:

Dick Cheney, who will step down as vice president on Jan. 20, has been widely portrayed as a creature of the dark side, a monstrous figure who trampled on the Constitution to wage war against all foes, real and imagined. Barack Obama was elected partly to cleanse the temple of the Bush-Cheney stain, and in his campaign speeches he promised to reverse Cheney’s efforts to seize power for the White House in the war on terror.

It may not be so simple

This could be another entry in my "New They Tell Us" category.  This was so simple during the campaign, but now they tell us it’s complex.  Nuance, anyone?

All this added to Obama’s waffling on tax cuts, windfall profits taxes on Big Oil, and FISA.  Now, I have no illusion that Obama has become some sort of bedrock conservative (though he’s been seen in the company of some), and we’re still likely to see many a liberal policy enacted.  However, underneath all this complaining by the Left that the new boss seems the same as the old boss is one thought; maybe the old boss got some things right.

Yes YOU, if you opposed the auto maker bailout, want the economy to fail.  YOU are a reckless ideologue.  YOU don’t want to solve problems.  YOU want the US to suck up a Depression.  YOU are extraordinarily irresponsible.

So says Harry Reid and the Left side of the blogosphere.  If you want fiscal responsibility out of our government, you’re irresponsible. 

And in January, this line of thinking will hold even more sway in Washington, DC.  Hold on to your wallets, ladies and gentlemen.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Thanks to Senate Republicans, the auto bailout didn’t happen.  For now.  The UAW, et. al. may just be biding their time until there are more Democrats in the Senate (i.e. January).  More analysis (and specific credit to Sen. Bob Corker) from Francis Cianfrocca at RedState.

TChris on the lefty site Talk Left claims that the atheist display outside the Washington state capitol, considered "equal time" for the Christian and Jewish displays, is simply a matter of Constitutional protection.  The outrage that protestors and Bill O’Reilly are expressing somehow proves that they don’t really want freedom of religion.

Except this display of atheism is not simply a display.  It’s scorn and ridicule.  Here’s the text:

At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

Aside from the first sentence, the rest is a denigration of all the other displays.  Indeed the sponsors say so.

"It’s not a religious display; it is an attack on religion,” Freedom From Religion co-president Dan Barker said. His group was behind the atheist display.

How "tolerant".  And it points out the fact that this is decidedly not a case of equal time or freedom of/from religion, in spite of the cover that Washington state politicians are taking behind the Constitution.

Gregoire and the state’s attorney general responded to criticism by citing the First Amendment and releasing this joint statement:

“Once government admits one religious display or viewpoint onto public property, it may not discriminate against the content of other displays, including the viewpoints of non-believers."

The nativity scene is a positive expression of belief, speaking no ill to those who don’t agree with it or believe in it.  The "Solstice Sign" is a protest specifically against those with different beliefs.  They are completely different things.  A nativity scene on government grounds does not guarantee the right to protest against it right next to it, any more than it would somehow guarantee the right for the KKK to put up its own display next to it.  They are completely different things, and those in Washington state who are sponsoring the sign and defending it seem to completely miss the concept.

But it does give us insight into what organized atheism considers "tolerance" towards religion.  They don’t just want equal time; they want additional rights to denigrate it.  That’s not equal.

A few links covering much of the non-change the Obama administration is giving us.

* The Audacity of Patience on RedState, noting status quo in cabinet appointments, the Bush tax cuts, but mostly the closing (or not) of Gitmo.

* The Washington Times:  "Don’t ask, don’t tell"?  Don’t hold your breath.

* The New York Times (yes, that New York Times):  Reality rears its ugly head regarding Iraqi forces.  I like this line:

“I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, with the understanding that it might be necessary — likely to be necessary — to maintain a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect our civilians in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said this week as he introduced his national security team.

Yes, I’m sure that’s the catchy way he said it in all his speeches.

That what the NY Times seems to think.  In today’s editorial (hat tip NewsBusters), we find this sentiment.

Experts say that Detroit’s automakers could achieve 43 m.p.g. by then even without technological breakthroughs. If the companies were willing to make smaller cars, they could achieve 50 m.p.g. Congress could consider demanding that Detroit simply phase out S.U.V.’s and vans by a certain date.

Eight years ago, my family exceeded what I called "critical mass"; we no longer all fit in a sedan, legally or comfortably.  So now when we drive about 1,000 miles to visit my folks or even the 10 miles to visit my wife’s, we should drive 2 sedans?  That’s more economical and green…how, exactly?

This web site hosts a poll of Obama voters who were asked questions about the US government and the presidential candidates in particular.  The level of non- or mis-information is truly amazing.  There is an accompanying video of 12 of those respondents showing how little they knew about Obama or Biden, but how much they did know about negative reports on Sarah Palin (or mistook what Tina Fey said as a Palin quote). 

While the general lack of knowledge about who Barney Frank is, or who controls the US Congress, may indeed cross political boundaries, what I found interesting is that, of the Obama voters asked, 86% did know that the RNC paid $150,000 for Sarah Palin’s clothes, 93.8% knew she had a pregnant teenage daughter, but only 43.9% knew in who’s home Obama kicked off his political career.  Only 1 of the 12 highlighted in the video even knew the name Bill Ayers.  And yet we were told that the public had heard the Ayers/Weather Underground connection and, based on the continued Obama advantage in the polls, must have considered it uninteresting.

Well perhaps they never heard the information in the first place.  Watch the video and find out where these folks gets their news, and that’ll go a long way to answering that question.

From Chuck Asay: