Via one of my little communists-in-training, the 237 millionaires in Congress.

Lots of angst today about Obama's DOJ retaining Bush administration policy on state secrets and extraordinary rendition. (Via MeFi; here's a more Obama-friendly take on this than the ACLU's. Here's a rather less one.) I don't like this, and it's a clear early sign that even a government that runs on 100% Pure Love can't be trusted with the sort of extreme executive power that was gleefully handed over to Bush/Cheney by the GOP and the media powers-that-be.

Patrick Leahy's right: we need to set a precedent that abuse will not be tolerated.

We need to get to the bottom of what happened -- and why -- so we make sure it never happens again.

One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process and truth commission. We could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair minded, and without axes to grind. Their straightforward mission would be to find the truth. People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments, but to assemble the facts. If needed, such a process could involve subpoena powers, and even the authority to obtain immunity from prosecutions in order to get to the whole truth.

I've been in favor of (at least) the truth and reconciliation model for some time. There has to be an accounting. What happened has to be aired and expiated. Obama doesn't want to waste his political capital "looking backward" and I don't blame him—that's what Congress is for.

"Burris likely to be seated," says the Page. Here, I suspect, is why: with Franken likely tied up in lawsuits for a while they need Burris to get an extra ten committee slots. However it shakes out, you've got to admire Harry Reid's continued anti-Midas touch; the man can turn anything into a lose-lose situation.

UPDATE: Reid is out in front to prolong the agony. He says there's actually no deal yet and forcefully adds "I have not yet begun to be humiliated." Well done, sir.

Evening linkage.

* George Bush's disapproval rating has hit a historic low of 70%—worse than any president since Gallup changed the wording of this question in 1938.

* Google, amazingly ten years old, is letting people search 2001's Internet.

* The 50 things that every comics collection truly needs.

* Matt Yglesias has your banking collapse brackets and your Galaxy-class starship military tactics.

* Stephen Hawking says it's time to go back to space.

The human race has existed as a separate species for about two million years. Civilisation began about 10,000 years ago, and the rate of development has been steadily increasing. But, if the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before.

* George Will: Palin is "obviously not qualified to be President," he remarked, describing her interview on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric as a "disaster.

* And solar legislation continues to stagnate in Congress. This is an inexcusable failure of leadership.

Congressional approval falls to single digits for the first time ever. Pretty amazing, but just about right: people didn't put the Democrats in charge so they could keep rolling over on everything, they put the Democrats in charge because Bush drove the country off a cliff and they finally got sick of it. To whom is the Pelosi/Reid strategy of perpetual appeasement supposed to be appealing? The activists and party-line Democrats hate it; swing voters don't want it; and Republicans will hate them anyway no matter what they do. I'm surprised they found 9% of people willing to say that they like anything about what's going on.

UPDATE: This impacts the FISA issue, too. The Congressional leadership owns this debacle, not Obama; it's utterly insane to expect a presidential candidate to humiliate himself losing a fight with his own caucus.