Hilzoy’s thoroughness really shames the slipshod reporting of the LAT. She read the executive order, which they hadn’t bothered to do.

The “former administration officials” who employed a lot of “mights” in their assertions sent up warning flags for me. Not only, as Hilzoy pointed out, would they not be in a position to know what the Obama administration intends, but I’m sure they were trying to push policy towards their favored positions using what little juice they have left.

Stansfield Turner had trouble with the CIA lifers, who did not like him at all. I hope Leon Panetta (who was my favorite Clinton staffer)is good at snake-handling.

Mrs. Polly, did you know that Hilzoy is Gunnar Myrdal’s granddaughter? Glenn Greenwald linked to her wikipedia page, which is where I noticed that factoid. I am so happy the smart people are on our side.

I am too, pop, but must confess that Gunnar Myrdal didn’t ring any bells for me. So I went to Hilzoy’s wikipedia and got all trembly to find out she’s Derek and Sissela Bok’s daughter! Wow! And a Kantian! You know what that means?

I don’t, actually, because Kant is so impenetrable that a friend of mine once asked his professor to repeat his analysis of one sentence and the professor looked at the sentence up on the board and said, “I can’t.” Which sums up Immanuel for most people: I KANT!

They do say that Kant’s individual sentences are incomprehensible but his philosophy is not, and the reverse is true for Heidegger. I couldn’t tell you, because as is typical, I learned just enough about both to snark them, and no more. But I still can do one amusing party trick:

KANT’s DEFINITION OF AN OBJECT:

“An object is that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united.”

That’s what I remember instead of my social security number.

Mrs. P that is hilarious. In college, I studied Immanuel Kahn, or I Kahn, whose philosophy was based on positive attitude. :)