I stand by my earlier statements about 2008, including the fact that it’s way too early to start speculating about who our next president is going to be in any meaningful way. But it’s not too early to take an interest in the potential candidates.

And I guess it would make sense to start with a Republican I like, since that’s an endangered species and I try to be fair and balanced.

There has been some talk about a Chuck Hagel run in 2008. If we absolutely must have a Republican candidate, I think we could do a lot worse.

I particularly like how he’s willing to go on the television and say things like this:

SCHEIFFER: Let me ask you this, Senator. Vice President Cheney says this sort of thing undercuts the troops. What’s your response?

HAGEL: Let me tell you this. I served in Vietnam in 1968. Others did too. Jim Webb, John McCain. John Kerry. Other members in the House. In 1968 when I was there with my brother, worst year, deaths, I would have welcomed the Congress of the United States to pay a little attention as to what was going on. I would have welcomed that. That is complete nonsense to say we’re undercutting the support of the troops. What are we about? We’re Article 1 of the Constitution. We are co-equal branch of government. Are we not to participate? Are we not to say anything? Are we not to register our sense of where we’re going in this country on foreign policy? Bottom line is this: our young men and women and their families, these young men and women who are asked to fight and die deserve a policy worthy of those sacrifices. I don’t think we have one now.

It’s rare to find a Republican willing to be vocal in opposition to the policies of the Bush administration. And he’s been willing to do that for some time now. In other words, he is willing to put country over party.

Now, you shouldn’t take this as an endorsement. There’s no way I could vote for him. He’s still a Republican and he votes like one. But I do think he has wisdom and integrity. And those are two important things we’re lacking in our present-day leadership.

But what kind of president would he make? There’s no way of knowing. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.

Be sure to check out the Tracked in America website, posted by the ACLU, tracing how surveillance techniques have been used to monitor citizens and residents of the United States since World War I. 

It’s a good resource for educators and students, or anyone interested in American history, regardless of where you stand on the privacy issue.

The President has challenged critics of his Iraq War policy to come up with their own ideas:

Speaking in his weekly radio address on Saturday, Mr Bush said members of Congress had the right to express their views but he challenged his critics to propose their own ideas for halting the violence in Iraq.

“Those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance of success. To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible,” said Mr Bush.

It’s a fair point, but one can’t help but be reminded of Homer Simpson’s exasperated line to Marge, “First, you didn’t want me to get the pony. Now, you want me to take it back. Make up your mind!”

President Bush’s request for alternative points of view is heartwarming. But since he doesn’t even listen to his own hand-picked experts on such matters, why take his latest offer to listen to those he has belittled and marginalized for the past six years as anything other than petulant and defensive?

I’m tempted to echo the sentiments in this Tom Tomorrow cartoon from November. If only we could travel back to February 2003 and heed the words of, among many others, Gov. Howard Dean:

I believe it is my patriotic duty to urge a different path to protecting America’s security: To focus on al Qaeda, which is an imminent threat, and to use our resources to improve and strengthen the security and safety of our home front and our people while working with the other nations of the world to contain Saddam Hussein.

Had I been a member of the Senate, I would have voted against the resolution that authorized the President to use unilateral force against Iraq – unlike others in that body now seeking the presidency.

I do not believe the President should have been given a green light to drive our nation into conflict without the case having first been made to Congress and the American people for why this war is necessary, and without a requirement that we at least try first to work through the United Nations.

But in the words of Lady Macbeth, “What’s done cannot be undone.” All we can do now is find the best way forward, and hold the people who blundered accountable.

By the way, in case anybody actually wanted to know, progressives do have a plan for Iraq. It’s called strategic redeployment:

To strike the right balance, expectations must change to fit today’s grim realities. The Bush administration must recognize that Iraq is not yet a real democracy nor will it be anytime soon, and it is not going to trigger a wave of democracy in the Middle East. Americans need and deserve a clear exit strategy for Iraq that spells out how much longer American troops will be involved in large numbers and what it will cost. Iraq’s leaders need to understand that the United States is not going to serve as a crutch indefinitely and that no one is going to solve their problems for them.

The end goals of this strategic shift are clear: to protect the American people at home and abroad; to get Iraq to the most stable position as quickly as possible; to make sure Iraq’s tensions do not spill over into a regional conflict; and to turn the tide against extremist Islamists. To accomplish this, the United States must implement a policy of strategic redeployment that has five parts:

You can read a PDF of the entire plan here.

Despite my many years of training as a Shakespeare teacher, I find myself surprisingly unprepared to evaluate this plan on a practical level, though there’s much in here that I like. But I just wanted to make the point that the progressive movement does actually have a plan. So when President Bush, or his supporters, ask — petulantly, defensively, as they will — “So, what’s your plan?,” it’s worth noting that those who were most against the war to begin with really do have a serious answer. I doubt that anyone in this administration is serious about listening to it.

Glenn Greenwald, an amazing blogger everyone should read, has a post today about Iran, and whether or not the President has the right to invade without authorization from Congress. In the post, he describes an epilogue he had written in his book:

The Epilogue emphasizes that the radical theories of presidential power adopted by the administration (and applied to general lawbreaking, warrantless eavesdropping, torture, indefinite detentions of U.S. citizens) applied clearly and fully to Iran, i.e., that those theories — which were and still are the formally adopted positions of the Executive Branch — absolutely mean that the President has the power to commence a war with Iran, and that not only would he not need Congressional approval to do so, but Congress would lack the power to stop him even if it tried

And therein lies the point. I honestly don’t think we’re about to go to war with Iran. The military is stretched out too thin as it is. And so I wouldn’t read too much into Tony Snow and Condoleeza Rice refusing to answer whether the president needs the authority of Congress to invade Iran. It doesn’t in any way mean we’re about to do it. I wouldn’t expect either of them to say that their boss needs the authority of Congress to do anything. He doesn’t like it when people say that.

For the record, I think Iran is a looming danger, just like Iraq wasn’t, and a confrontation seems inevitable, whether military or otherwise. But what strikes me the most about the video linked above is that Tony Snow and Chris Matthews agreed that Iran’s population was largely young and pro-American. It almost makes one feel there might be some cause for long-term optimism after all. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to be able to wait that long.

Remember Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat who was elected to the House of Representatives in 2006? As the first Muslim elected to Congress, he naturally wanted to be sworn in on the Quran. This caused an uproar among such champions of liberty as Dennis Prager and Representative Virgil Goode (R-VA) who felt that people of all religions should be sworn in on the Christian Bible.

Well, the story flared up for a bit and then seemed to fade away. But when the time came, Ellison ended up being sworn in on a Quran that had been owned by Thomas Jefferson:

“It demonstrates that from the very beginning of our country, we had people who were visionary, who were religiously tolerant, who believed that knowledge and wisdom could be gleamed from any number of sources, including the Quran,” Ellison said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

“A visionary like Thomas Jefferson was not afraid of a different belief system,” Ellison said. “This just shows that religious tolerance is the bedrock of our country, and religious differences are nothing to be afraid of.”

This was the actual front page of the “liberal” New York Times on Friday:

The headline about “Jubilant Democrats” is sitting atop a picture of Nancy Pelosi presiding over a gaggle of small children. The implication here, whether the reader is aware of it on a conscious level or not, is that the “Jubilant Democrats” are just children compared to their predecessors, reinforcing the ridiculous canard that the Republicans are the party of grown-ups.

These things really do matter. And this is the New York Times. We have a right to expect better.

Answer: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rudy Guiliani, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

Question: Who are four people who are not going to be elected president in 2008?

Ignore the polls. At this early stage, the name recognition factor is always going to skew the results. As new faces emerge and old stalwarts define themselves anew, you’re going to be hearing a lot more names than just those four.

Note: The prediction above does not pertain to party nominations, vice-presidential selections, or future presidential elections. Nor does it predict who is going to be elected president. Right now, a Biden vs. Romney contest seems not entirely out of the question. Pataki had an unusually prominent spot in the 2004 Republican Convention, which is usually a tell. And Gore, if he decides to run, will likely be the automatic front runner among Democrats who are still sore from the 2000 election, and would be helped in the general election by swing voters with buyer’s remorse. Plus, he’s a movie star now, and we all know how helpful that can be.

But my whole point is that it’s way too early for this kind of speculation. All I can tell you right now is that none of the first four people I mentioned will be our next president. That’s my prediction, and I’m putting it in the blog.

I’ll also add a new category “Predictions” so if this blog lasts longer than next Wednesday, we can track my predictions and see how I’m doing.

I saw this story on the front page of the local newspapers on my way to work yesterday morning, but haven’t really had time to comment until now.

WASHINGTON – President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a “signing statement” that declared his right to open people’s mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

I don’t want to go on a rant about “worst civil liberties abuse yet” because the phrase is overworn these days, and it will be hard to top the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But I do want to address the broader issue of this and other signing statements that President Bush keeps making to re-define the bills that come across his desk.

A signing statement is a written statement made by the president when signing a bill into law. It is entered into the “Legislative History” section of the United States Congressional Code and Administrative News (USCCAN) and can be used by the courts in interpreting the law.

Just to repeat, the signing statement “contradicted the bill he had just signed” and can be used by the courts in interpreting the law.

This truly isn’t an issue of conservatives vs. liberals, but rather the scope of the powers of any president regardless of political affiliation, though there have been a number of serious concerns raised about this particular president abusing powers he may not actually have:

Presidential signing statements that assert President Bush’s authority to disregard or decline to enforce laws adopted by Congress undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers, according to a report released today by a blue-ribbon American Bar Association task force.

To address these concerns, the task force urges Congress to adopt legislation enabling its members to seek court review of signing statements that assert the President’s right to ignore or not enforce laws passed by Congress, and urges the President to veto bills he feels are not constitutional.

If the president vetoes a bill, Congress has the opportunity to override that veto. These are the checks and balances that have been so carefully built into our system. If the framers of the Constitution wanted the president to be able to modify bills, they would have given the office the power of the line-item veto. But the Supreme Court has ruled the presidential line-item veto unconstitutional, as the Constitution clearly grants all legislative powers to Congress. But President Bush has made it clear that he still wants the line-item veto. Failing that, he will continue to use the backdoor of the signing statement, unless Congress takes the recommendation of the American Bar Association and stops him.

I’m no constitutional scholar, but I’m pretty sure the framers didn’t intend for the executive to be able to make a statement defining what a law was going to mean. If President Bush really has this power, I disagree that he’s been abusing it. If anything, he has shown remarkable restraint. Imagine the many, many things that President Bush can do if he does actually have the power to make a law just by making a statement. But it seems pretty clear that he has no such power. He should not be permitted to behave as though he does.