Volokh is a moral midget

In the City of Hudson in the 19th Century, a young woman was hanged from a tree in front of the jail, before a large crowd, for committing a murder. (Today, the jail is home to the local newspaper, appropriately enough.)

But the day after her hanging, the young woman's boyfriend confessed to the crime. She was innocent.

Innocent.

Now, imagine if she had not just been hanged, but tortured first.

And now, imagine if a 21st Century Constitutional scholar were to propose that the U.S. should copy Iran's practice of torturing criminals before executing them.

That's grotesque and un-American, the Union would say. But that's just what supposed Constitutional scholar and moral midget Eugene Volokh is now proposing.

Volokh is an idiot, a coward, un-American, and no scholar if he fails to grasp this point -- or is unable to master his "emotions."

The Union's hunch is that this is a conservative trial balloon, and part of a general effort to normalize the crimes authorized by Gonzalez and Bush. Either way, it's sick and wrong.

See Fox fence. Fence, Fox, fence!

Hudson (that's the Union's moniker over at Daily Kos) posted a full-length diary last week which caught on a bit, titled "Fencing vs. Framing: A post-Lakoff analysis."

A follow-up "FencePost" is now up as well, this one about Fox News' attempts to fence off New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer from its viewership, before his Q rating climbs too high... (The bulk of the item takes off from a smart piece over at Newshounds.)

CLICK HERE for the latest installment. And thanks to everyone who recommended and linked the first time around.

It's funny because it's true

The ever-caustic Steve Gilliard takes the ever-earnest JMM to task for letting his more centrist buddies write his weblog in his absence:

While Josh Marshall is off getting married, to a woman no less (I thought only gays got married these days), he's let his loser friends take over his site for the week. [...] You know, I love my friends, but I wouldn't leave them in my house with a couple of cases of beer to wait for the delivery of a grandfather clock.

The full post is more expletive-strewn; click HERE to read it.