Well, you know how it goes:

“In a closely watched case involving rendition and torture, a lawyer for the Obama administration seemed to surprise a panel of federal appeals judges on Monday by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration.

. . .

“Is there anything material that has happened” that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.

“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied.

Judge Schroeder asked, “The change in administration has no bearing?”

Once more, he said, “No, Your Honor.” The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.”

Those that hold that the meaningful differences between our current and immediately former President have been lambasted from all fronts,

Yet it’s hard to see the difference between the fight for this stimulus package and the push for the PATRIOT Act, or the Afghan/Iraq Wars. Both were spurred on by an emergency situation — a financial market (and sense of economic security) downfall in the former, a World Trade Center (and sense of national security) downfall in the latter. The immediate reaction was a shrill, Chicken Little, “We have to do something!” without considering whether or not ‘nothing’ might be the best feasible outcome. So it goes.

This is not a right/left thing — both sides have revealed their authoritarian leanings. What Obama will accomplish is a ‘hipping’ of Caesar, taking the powerful executive crafted by his predecessor and turning it into something that the masses like, rather than loathe. ‘Cause, y’know, ‘YES WE CAN” and all that.

This list, from Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute, is posted without comment:

The president said that he had no choice because he was “concerned
that the credit freeze would cause us to be headed toward a depression greater than the Great Depression.” Even if one accepts that rather contestable premise, one is tempted to ask what caused him to chuck aside conservative and free market principles when he:

• Increased federal domestic discretionary spending (even before the bailout) faster than any president since Lyndon Johnson.
• Enacted the largest new entitlement program since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, an unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit that could add as much as $11.2 trillion to the program’s unfunded liabilities;
• Dramatically increased federal control over local schools while increasing federal education spending by nearly 61 percent;
• Signed a campaign finance bill that greatly restricts freedom of speech, despite saying he believed it was unconstitutional;
• Authorized warrantless wiretapping and given vast new powers to law enforcement;
• Federalized airport security and created a new cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security;
• Added roughly 7,000 pages of new federal regulations, bringing the cost of federal regulations to the economy to more than $1.1 trillion;
• Enacted a $1.5 billion program to promote marriage;
• Proposed a $1.7 billion initiative to develop a hydrogen-powered car;
• Abandoned traditional conservative support for free trade by imposing tariffs and other import restrictions on steel and lumber;
• Expanded President Clinton’s national service program;
• Increased farm subsidies;
• Launched an array of new regulations on corporate governance and accounting; and
• Generally did more to centralize government power in the executive branch than any administration since Richard Nixon.

Karl Rove seemed to have gotten his holidays mixed up last week, since he put on his best Michael Gerson costume for this op-ed:

Altogether now — awwww! A sane man would stop, call the Journal, and cancel his subscription after reading that headline, but alas in these times we must press on.

Meanwhile, his response to the fact that there was no al-Qaeda presence in Iraq before the invasion (while there is certainly a presence after the fact): “So what?” Well played, Mr. President. Books > War in Iraq > The Free Market.

Not this book again! Arghh! Kearns Godwin is the equivalent of Stephanie Meyer for the middle-aged Washington set.

Indeed. Competition isn’t about winning, the free-market isn’t about free-market principles, and the War on Terror in Iraq isn’t about terrorists.

Notice the wonderfully passive “he plays up being.” If I remember correctly, Mr. Rove, as his campaign manager you specifically concocted this identity of a “good ol’ Texan” boy, took the eloquence he exhibited in the Texas gubernatorial debates and beat it to a pulp, brought out this reborn, Texan sonofabitch and won the coveted “most likely to share a beer” award in the election.

If you ever start feeling glum over the winter season, take time to read this op-ed the whole way through, and realize that in a matter of weeks this will, by and large, be over.