On the other hand, long-time devotion to conspiratorial selfishness has to give you tunnel vision. Geithner is so blindered by Wall Street experience and so focused on his Goldman goal that the dangers his course poses are now largely invisible to him.

The problem is that so many are accustomed to perpetual crisis. They fear for their houses and their jobs and their kids and they parents and their health. They have no time for reflection, for getting their heads above the grindstone and looking around. The current economic strategy–falling wages, lost retirement, ARMs, usurious credit-card rates, expensive and fragile health care–create constant insecurity that concentrates power at the top of the income scale and divides have-nots from their fellows.

The above applies to me too. I can’t talk to nieghbors as widely or as often as I feel I should and can’t pester my elected “representatives” and newspapers as often as I should. But if more of us canvassed five neighbors or five people at the coffee shop over the course of a week or two, we might start to see something. People are vaguely angry now. All that is needed for near revolution is a little focus and clarity.

Your insight sheds light on the ongoing torture scandal. Real interrogation and real intelligence gathering–reading lots of dry, boring stuff and thinking about it, the way EW does–is not sexy enough. So no matter what the evidence shows about relative effectiveness and no matter what a normal conscience has to say, Washington wants “24″: short sound clips and some vigorous action.

What the hell was congress doing when Paulson was holding a gun to their heads saying “give us the money”

They continued cowering in fear – as they did when they saw Paulson approach the sink, turn the fawcet and begin filling the red plastic piece with “ammunition.”

did he say that?

Leahy “elite legal office” “misused it’s authority”
“ends justifies the means” “not reasoning that stands up”
“President acted above the law”
“no one is above the law”

Oh Senator Leahy we do want to believe that. Sure not looking like it when it comes to the crimes committed by the Bush administration the last eight years. Millions dead, hundreds of thousands injured, millions of refugees, people tortured, frozen, allegedly KSM’s children treated inappropriately,
How low can we go?

But they left out your book in your mention, so, I wrote a note….Sell more books, more moolah, more research time…yayah.

Hi;
Thanks for selecting Marcy Wheeler for an award. It is deserved. However, I wondered why, in her Bio, you left out her book about the Valerie Plame/Dick Cheney leak, Anatomy of Deceit. It was the only one of its kind at the time and her research on that subject was why her liveblogging at Scooter Libby’s trial was so informed and insightful. She didn’t miss a trick. Seems that a ‘book mention’ would help to further inform people reading about her, and help Marcy get her book out there. You did mention works authored by the other winners and other works by the non-literary winners, why not Marcy’s? You also didn’t list any for Professor Green, but did mention that he has authored many things.

She is an incredible researcher but is also gifted with being able to concisely consolidate her research and put it back out there to inform others. She is a unique talent. Please add her book to her credits. It is another incredibly detailed work product of hers that is still being proven accurate, years later, even as more documents are released by our government.

Sincerely,
d————–