1. Just a comment on your blog and the last several shows:

Yeah, I still care about this stuff. The state of affairs is sad in this country. I grew up a bay area (CA) punk rocker totaly involved in politics; mostly against the Reagan/Bush Iran/Central America blunders that created Bin Laden in first place. Now it's come to this...and your ticker about days since 9/11 reaches 2000. The saddest thing is that some of my old friends believed the Republican bull about limited government and have supported this intrusion into our rights all the way as good little republicans (they were convinced that Tipper Gore was out to get them with the music issues with the Dead Kennedys and Ozzy Ozbourne). I don't get it. This is what we were fighting for. The loss of habeus corpus is a complete disaster and if you're not outraged, then you must be retarded. Read the constitution for craps sake. Like you Cenk, I'm at a 10 and I need to be at 2. What's going on? They torured this guy Padilla and others have even died! This is not the America I knew growing up or read about in the history books. I have to say your guest host, Wesley Clark Jr., was 100% right and 0% wrong when he said all of these people are criminals; they've broken US and international law and they need to be punished. Each time they've gotton away with it. These are the same people in Water-Gate and the same people in Iran-Contra. Even the same people that brought you Vietnam is a part of the Iraq war and this foolish foreign policy, like Kissinger. Just like Wesley said, if you let they get away with it again, they will do it again. Be sure and make note of the 2000 day mark on your show to share the outrage.

Thanks,
Mr. Spock
aka Sterling

Mr. Spock at 2:26AM on Mar 3rd 2007

2. The 'sensory depravation' (sic) experienced by Padilla bears no relationship at all to the kind that could only be tolerated for 48 hours. Ludicrous hyperbole like that does your argument no good.

Byron Matthews at 10:07AM on Mar 3rd 2007

3. Why do you call him Jose Padilla? His name is Abdullah al-Muhajir.

Diggs at 10:27AM on Mar 3rd 2007

4. And Muhammad Ali is Cassius Clay. What's your point Diggs? Is Muhammad Ali any less an American citizen because he changed his name? Strawman. Belly up to the vat of Kewlaid all you want but don't claim to be a patriotic American O.K? Padilla isn't a blond from the suburbs, so we're not supposed to care. Padilla has been denied fundamental legal rights; being held without access to counsel, without charges. I suppose only Dick, Jane and John deserve fundamental legal protections guaranteed under the Constitution?

chris in sacto at 6:04PM on Mar 3rd 2007

5. "It has become clear to me that we are frogs being slowly boiled to death" - Unknown

Aaron at 7:17PM on Mar 3rd 2007

6. What a completely flimsy argument. It's as if just because you say things they are true.

1037 days of sensory deprivation, that is horrible, but wait, it is completely untrue. The guy was in solitary confinement in a normal size cell, he was not in a 3 by 3 black hole. What do you want to give him, a mansion in Hollywood?

As for his being an American Citizen, so what. This has already been covered and decided in court. The 4th Circuit said he is an enemy combatant. So clearly Bush is right, you are wrong. There is no grey area here. You keep claiming the same things over and over again when they have already been shown to have no merit. If you think this is wrong then write a legal column about the 4th Circuits decision, don't wax poetically about how Padilla is an American Citizen.

There are no open issues here. What is your problem, why are you so resolute in wanting to treat our enemies with the rights of our citizens? For some reason you feel the same inept system that let OJ walk is going to do a good job on terrorists. These are not criminal matters to be taken care of in the US courts, they are military matters to be handled by military tribunals. How in the world is our government going to convict a terrorist in court when they would have to divulge enormous amounts of classified information if they wanted to win their trial?

This column is a joke. It is opinion based on feeling without any fact or intellectual thought. Just write what your heart believes, and of course that is governed by your hatred of our President, so anything he does is wrong, so why care how flimsy your reasoning is.

Peter at 2:40PM on Mar 4th 2007

7. Wow Chris, that's a lot of blowhard that has no relation to my comment. I simply asked why he was being called Jose Padilla when that's not his name. I said nothing about Muhammed Ali, Abdullah's access to, or lack of access to, the US courts, blonds, suburbs or anything else you ramble on about. Are all Lefties like you that unable to understand a one sentence question?

Diggs at 10:16PM on Mar 4th 2007

8. Diggs, please feel free to expound on the importance of the point you weren't brave enough to make more explicitly.

In my opinion, your comment was subtle racism, get the sheeple riled up about an American citizen with a hyphenated name. It's a whispering campaign, the same thing that happened to Al-Halibi in GTMO.

chris in sacto at 10:40PM on Mar 4th 2007