I have a question for former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been staunchly defending the Bush administration's use of waterboarding and other torture against prisoners in our care. My question: Should Scott Roeder, accused murderer of abortion doctor George Tiller, now be waterboarded? Roeder has just gone on the record stating that further violence is coming, in "many similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal." In other words, Roeder is claiming the now-infamous "ticking time bomb" scenario of what can only be termed domestic terrorism. So, Mr. Cheney, doesn't this mean (following your own "logic") that Roeder should immediately be waterboarded to tell us what he knows? Anything less, by your standards, would be hypocritically picking and choosing which terrorists get a pass, and which don't.

Following Roeder's provacative statements to the Associated Press, this seems like a textbook case of a ticking-time-bomb scenario. Anti-abortion terrorism has a long and sordid history in America, meaning that the threat must be taken seriously. But, so far, it has not been. News organizations have mysteriously shied away from calling Roeder what he is -- a domestic terrorist. Or, to assuage journalistic (and legalistic) sensibilities -- an alleged domestic terrorist (by this rule, he's "alleged" or "accused" until he has been convicted in a court of law). To date, I haven't seen this term used once in any of the news reports about Tiller's murderer. But it certainly fits the description of terrorism, as far as I can tell. Yet there has been no talk of charging him with any terrorism crimes (although by now, the law certainly allows this to happen). Arsonists committing crimes as part of the "Earth Liberation Front" have had terrorism enhancements added to their sentences, even though they didn't kill anyone, because they were trying to effect a change in government policy by violence and criminal actions. Meaning the legal precedent is clear for domestic terrorism cases. And Roeder has already killed someone (OK, "allegedly" killed someone), and has now made dark threats of "more actions" to come by people across the country. This, again, is a textbook description of domestic terrorism. And anyone who thinks domestic terrorism isn't a real concern should go to Oklahoma City and stare at the space where the federal building used to be for a few hours.

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This will be a truncated column this week (which doesn't mean it isn't also a fairly long one). Because every so often I have to devote the entire week's roundup to examining a single speech. And President Barack Hussein Obama's speech to the Muslim world which he just gave in Cairo is important enough to examine without other distractions.

Which means no "most impressive" or "most disappointing" awards this week, sorry. No Democrat really stood out as being overly impressive or disappointing this week anyway, so it's not a great loss. If pressed, I would have given Obama the MIDOTW for his speech, and would have (if the rules did not forbid it) awarded the MDDOTW to myself, for extolling the virtues of the company that made the Hummer, in one of the most outrageously biased columns I've ever written. Bad Chris! Bad! Bad!!

Heh heh.

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This is going to be a seriously politically incorrect column for much of my usual audience, so I thought I'd issue a warning up front here. I am about to get sentimental over a company whose sole remaining purpose in life is to be a military contractor; and, furthermore, one which (together with Arnold Schwarzenegger) is primarily responsible for the poster-vehicle of the excesses of "the SUV era." I speak, of course, of the Hummer. If that sort of thing is not your cup of herbal tea, then I advise you to immediately close this window before your very browser itself is tainted with such leftist unorthodoxy.

Still with me? Supportively, or just "have to rubberneck at the car accident" with me? Well, in the end it doesn't really matter. Read on, and enjoy or be horrified as you will....

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In all the hoopla over Judge Sonia Sotomayor being nominated to the Supreme Court, there is one interesting side story that the media is largely ignoring. His name is Senator Jeff Sessions, and he is now (after Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic side of the aisle) the ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee (that's "minority" in the sense of Sessions being a Republican in a Democratic Senate, and not... you know, "minority"... since Sessions is a white male). And Sessions, as well as having a long enough term on the committee to be the ranking Republican, also has his own history with confirmation hearings before the same committee. Because he was the first of Ronald Reagan's judicial nominees to be rejected (before Bork, in other words), and he was rejected for perceived racial insensitivity. So it will be very interesting to see how he acts on Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation.

From an article in The New Republic from 2002 (which is worth reading in full, to understand Sessions' unique position on the committee), here is a list of statements attributed to Jeff Sessions during his confirmation battle:

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Senator Dianne Feinstein finally said what I've been waiting for someone to say about the whole "reverse racism" charge now being levied by Republicans against President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court pick, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. From this weekend's Face The Nation, Feinstein summed the entire controversy up in her first response to moderator Bob Schieffer:

Well, there's one word, Bob, in the statement. It's the word "better." That a Latina woman who has gone through these experiences, that her views would be better. And without that one word, it's a perfectly fine statement. And I understand what she meant by it.

So you could say the use of that word was inartful. But I think you have to look at an individual in their total context. This is, in fact, an amazing woman. She is, in fact, the American dream.

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As a new month dawns with Al Franken still not seated in the Senate...

No, wait, that's not what I wanted to start with. Let me try again.

As a new month dawns, it is time once again to take a look at President Barack Obama's poll numbers. We kicked off this column series last month, and will be returning at the beginning of every month throughout Obama's term as president to take a snapshot of his approval ratings in the polls. This month, as an added feature, we will also be looking at Obama's poll numbers as compared to Bill Clinton's poll numbers from his first term.

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"Judicial activism" (or, alternatively, "legislating from the bench") is defined -- no matter what your political beliefs -- as "judges not ruling the way I want them to." It's an inherently partisan statement to make, even if it doesn't sound like it. If you are a Republican, using the term means courts ruling for things you don't like. Same for Democrats. The irony is that while the charge is leveled in order to prove some sort of bias or prejudice in a judicial candidate or judge, the only thing it usually winds up proving is the bias of the accuser -- and not the accused. Because it almost always boils down to the accuser wanting the judge or justice in question to rule in a certain partisan way -- before even hearing the facts of any particular case.

Republicans have begun their campaign to derail President Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. And, as usual, the cries of "judicial activism" are loud and shrill.

But what is missing in this entirely predictable debate is an admission of the basic facts involved. Because our government was set up by the Founding Fathers to include a constant power struggle between the three branches. From the very beginning, the courts have struggled with both various congresses and various presidents. And "legislating from the bench" is only part of the story.

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Debates about national security always fascinate me, because almost without exception nobody bothers to define the term itself. This, to me, is a key feature of any debate about national security versus the people's right to know what their government is doing in their name -- such as the one currently raging over whether to publicly release thousands of photographs of detainee abuse. But the definition of "national security" is always conspicuous in its absence in the debate. Which allows the government to get away with using two definitions of the term interchangeably, when only one should be legally allowed.

You may think I am picking semantic nits here, but I don't think that is true. Because the word "security" in the phrase "national security" has two separate dictionary definitions which are vital to understanding how the government uses the term. One of these definitions is physical, and one is mental. Only the physical should legally apply, but the mental definition is used time and again by those whose business it is to classify state secrets.

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It seems these days, Republicans just can't attempt to do anything right without landing themselves in hot water as a result. As a result, they now face a no-win situation politically and racially. The forces of moderation (drastically diminished in the party though they may be) are up against the hardline conservatives. Add racial politics to this mix, and it's easy to see how Republicans have wound up between a rock and a hard place. And although it may sound like it, I'm not talking about Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court.

I wrote yesterday about the political conundrum Republicans (especially those in the Senate who actually get to vote on her confirmation) find themselves in over Sotomayor. But there's another struggle within the party over a Latino candidate with more profound overtones for the party as a whole, down in the race for a Senate seat in Florida.

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With apologies to Dave Barry for stealing his bit, I've always thought that "Signifying Nothing" would be a good name for a rock band. [That previous sentence, by the way, signifies exactly nothing -- it was what, in the theater world, is known as an "aside."]

Which, in the roundest of possible ways, brings us to President Obama's first nominee for the Supreme Court. But before we actually get there, we must detour 400 years to William Shakespeare, for the original quote. Macbeth, just after hearing his wife is dead (and just before his world's foundations crumble by being told that Birnam wood was indeed coming to Dunsinane), utters the following:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

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