Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

A new school opens today at Amish massacre site. More here.

Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President. And, of course, that is nothing new, since the current Republican President not only believes he has that power but has exercised it against U.S. citizens and legal residents in the U.S. -- including those arrested not on the "battlefield," but on American soil.

What kind of American isn't just instinctively repulsed by the notion that the President has the power to imprison Americans with no charges? And what does it say about the current state of our political culture that one of the two political parties has all but adopted as a plank in its platform a view of presidential powers and the federal government that is -- literally -- the exact opposite of what this country is?

-- GLENN GREENWALD

Federal prosecutors have told Bernard B. Kerik, whose nomination as homeland security secretary in 2004 ended in scandal, that he is likely to be charged with several felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping.

Kerik's indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik's extensive business and political dealings with former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Cabinet. Giuliani, the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination according to most polls, later called the recommendation a mistake.

-- JOHN SOLOMON and MATTHEW MOSK

As it stands now, the performance of Rudy Guiliani on 9/11 is one of unquestioned courage and leadership. . . . But as in all human endeavors – and indeed all human existence – there were mistakes, missteps, bad decisions, and pettiness. And the fact that government was involved means that there were bureaucratic turf battles, political considerations, and bad planning that, when they are examined (and you can count on them being thoroughly looked at during the campaign) will take some of the luster off of Rudy’s performance that day.

-- RICK MORAN

For three decades, U.S. inspectors visited 250 meat processing plants as rarely as once every two weeks despite federal law requiring daily inspection.

-- CHARLES ABBOTT

It's not exactly "Nixon to China" -- it just doesn't have the same ring to it -- but I don't see anything wrong with the Speaker of the House engaging in dialogue, bipartisan dialogue, even with a rogue state like Assad's Syria. The White House opposes her visit because it opposes such dialogue generally. This is seen on the right -- and particularly on the blogospheric right -- as appeasing the enablers of terrorism. Which is to say it is being spun that Pelosi is a supporter of terrorism.

-- MICHAEL J. W. STICKINGS

U.S. efforts to bring the world's great powers together with Iraq's quarrelsome neighbors to stabilize the government in Baghdad have predictably run into strong opposition. Didn't President Bush warn Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton that Syria and Iran were not interested in stopping the turmoil in Iraq?

Well, yes, he did. But the source of crippling opposition to a high-profile international conference in Turkey this month turns out not to have been foreseen by the president or by his critics on the Iraq Study Group, chaired by Baker and Hamilton. The gathering being pushed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been blocked for weeks by Nouri al-Maliki, the surprisingly strong-willed prime minister of Iraq.

-- JIM HOAGLAND