For Your Edification

1. Scott Horton of Harper's on the Guantánamo suicides.

   Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise. Some prisoners there are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

   And on the official response:

   Still, the fact that the Justice Department is unwilling to say who was at these brief interviews speaks volumes. It does not deny that the interviews occurred, nor that the descriptions of the meetings are otherwise accurate, nor even that the lawyers identified were in fact involved in the investigation. It simply insists that the team conducting these interviews not be identified.

2. *shudder* Statistics on the President's first year in office.  (The *shudder* modifies "statistics," not "first year in office.")
   Associated Press, via the Air America website, via Republic of T.
   
   ETA: Air America site has gone byebye, taking the stats with it.