ah, yeah. abandoning all pretense of remotely plausible reason-giving is striking. I wonder, is it really diff from the torture memos? I'd like to believe Ryan is right (about a new baseline demand for accountability); certainly seems the pendulum is going to swing that way, at least for a minute

see, e.g., a NYT headline in response to today's news

of course, one can (and should) ask both whether the admin's actions are legal and whether they are immoral. but I hear Joe writing against a real tendency for the former to box out and cloud the latter, as a tool of consent manufacturing

can't claim to speak for Joe (Margulies, author of the piece we published), but I don't read him—in this piece, or his broader work—as denying that power shouldn't account for itself.

I think his concern here is how legality debates suck the oxygen out of so much public discussion (con'd)

thanks for the life raft!