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Oh lovely. More fear mongering on another Sunday bobble-head show, this time from Bob Schieffer. Pat Leahy sets him straight on why the United States is perfectly capable of prosecuting terrorism cases.

SCHIEFFER: Well, you heard what the congressman said, Senator Leahy. Tell me why you think he’s wrong.

LEAHY: I think that Eric Holder, our attorney general, is right. I think the president is right in holding the trials of these murderers in New York City.

What we’re saying to the world is the United States acts out of strength, not out of fear. I know when I go around Vermont, people say, let’s try criminals. Let’s try criminals like KSM. Let’s get them convicted. We’re very much a law enforcement type of state here.

I was a former prosecutor. I’d like to just see them prosecuted. In the same which way we prosecuted Timothy McVeigh. We’re not afraid to do that. We’re the most powerful nation on earth. We have a judicial system that is the envy of the world. Let’s show the world that we can use that power. We can use our judicial system, just as we did with Timothy McVeigh, and send the people -- and convict the people.

SCHIEFFER: But Timothy McVeigh was an American. He was not what some people would call an enemy combatant.

LEAHY: But...

SCHIEFFER: Won’t this be a circus of sorts, though? That’s what the congressman is saying. He says it’s going to just turn into a propaganda show.

LEAHY: I have a lot of faith in our judges. They know how to run a trial. They know how to keep decorum in their court. If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wants to stand up and say, as he did in Guantanamo, I committed all these murders, I did all these things, fine. If I was a prosecutor, I would just sit there and let that jury hear it, because he’s going to be convicted.

That’s the important thing. And we show the world that our judicial system works. I think that’s why people like Ray Kelly, who is the commissioner of police, one of the finest commissioners of police anybody has ever had there in New York City, said we’re prepared, we can handle this.

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MSNBC Dr. Nancy Snyderman Oct. 21, 2009. Pat Leahy discusses the amendment being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee to repeal the anti-trust exemption for the insurance industry. Leahy said he never understood why the industry was ever granted the exemption in the first place and that they do not deserve to have a special shield.

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During CNN's State of the Union, Pat Leahy tells Jeff Sessions to stop the racial politics when he attacks Sonia Sotomayor's work for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Education Fund. Given Sessions' openly racist background, I'd say Leahy went easy on him.

KING: Senator Sessions, do you have any doubt if a Roe v. Wade- type case comes before the court that she is a vote for abortion rights?

SESSIONS: Well, it does seem that way. The organization she was involved with, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, had filed a number of very aggressive briefs in the case...

KING: Now, she says she was an advocate in those days and that was her job.

SESSIONS: Well, that's all right. But they -- I mean, she voluntarily joined and was on the board and her organization advocated that the federal Constitution required that it pay for abortions and the group also opposed any parental consent laws on abortions. So I would assume that that answer was where she will be.

KING: And...

LEAHY: You know...

KING: Go ahead.

LEAHY: ... first off, let me clear up one thing. No one in the White House suggested to me what questions I should ask or I shouldn't ask. And had they done that, I would have just hung up the phone.

I made it very clear in talking to my fellow Democrats on there, you ask any questions you want. We're not there -- it's not the White House conducting this nomination hearing, it's the United States Senate. So nobody had any restrictions on what to ask.

But I would hope that people would not think we picked a Supreme Court justice on just one issue, the issue of abortion. I voted for Supreme Court justices who I'm sure totally disagree with the idea of having abortion legal, just as I voted for some who disagree with the idea of making all abortions illegal. That should not be the issue.

And the idea of trying to say, well, you know, she was on the Puerto Rican defense thing and so we have to ask some questions about that, I hope we don't go back to the day when we used to have African- Americans up for confirmation and say, yes, but you belong to the NAACP, so, you know, we're really suspicious of you.

Come on. Stop the racial politics. This is a person...

SESSIONS: Well, come on, Pat, you...

LEAHY: No, no, no, but...

SESSION: I want to disagree on that.

LEAHY: ... that's what it comes across. That's what it comes across. It comes across...

(CROSSTALK)

SESSIONS: Make them...

LEAHY: ... that if you belong to a group that tries to help Hispanics, help them in school, help them in other things, somehow you're suspicious. The same arguments were used against Thurgood Marshall and others. I think it's wrong.

The fact is, she has had more experience on the federal bench than any other nominee, and certainly, Jeff, since you and I have been...

(CROSSTALK) SESSIONS: But, Pat, I want to correct something. No Republican leader said she was a bigot. You've overstated that. There's nothing wrong with us asking about her...

LEAHY: I was talking about Newt Gingrich.

SESSIONS: Her (INAUDIBLE) views about positions -- legal positions that she took as a member of any organization. That's a normal thing to do. And I don't think that was unfair. She said that she thought she was fairly treated. Other commentators, objective leaders, civil rights leaders have said that.

We gave our absolute best to make sure this was a fair hearing, but it had to be vigorous. We had to ask about things that people cared about, her speeches, her prior pleadings that she did and some of her decisions, which are troubling.

But, Pat, you gave us a fair hearing. I appreciate that. A lot of people felt we were pretty tight on time, but you -- when the hearing came up, we had an opportunity. And I appreciate that.

KING: Gentlemen, we're about to run out of time.

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Sen. Pat Leahy gave Sonia Sotomayor today the chance to set the record straight regarding the fake controversy over her "wise Latina" remarks:

SOTOMAYOR: Thank you for giving me an opportunity to explain my remarks.

No words I have ever spoken for written have received so much attention.

(LAUGHTER)

SOTOMAYOR: I gave a variant of my speech to a variety of different groups, most often to groups of women lawyers or to groups, most particularly, of young Latino lawyers and students.

As my speech made clear in one of the quotes that you reference, I was trying to inspire them to believe that their life experiences would enrich the legal system, because different life experiences and backgrounds always do. I don't think that there is a quarrel with that in our society.

I was also trying to inspire them to believe that they could become anything they wanted to become, just as I had. The context of the words that I spoke have created a misunderstanding, and I want -- and misunderstanding -- and to give everyone assurances, I want to state up front, unequivocally and without doubt, I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences.

What -- the words that I use, I used agreeing with the sentiment that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was attempting to convey. I understood that sentiment to be what I just spoke about, which is that both men and women were equally capable of being wise and fair judges.

That has to be what she meant, because judges disagree about legal outcomes all of the time -- or I shouldn't say all of the time, at least in close cases they do. Justices on the Supreme Court come to different conclusions. It can't mean that one of them is unwise, despite the fact that some people think that.

So her literal words couldn't have meant what they said. She had to have meant that she was talking about the equal value of the capacity to be fair and impartial.

LEAHY: Well, and isn't that what -- you've been on the bench for 17 years. Have you set your goal to be fair and show integrity, based on the law?

SOTOMAYOR: I believe my 17-year record on the two courts would show that, in every case that I render, I first decide what the law requires under the facts before me, and that what I do is explain to litigants why the law requires a result. And whether their position is sympathetic or not, I explain why the result is commanded by law.

LEAHY: Well, and doesn't your oath of office actually require you to do that?

SOTOMAYOR: That is the fundamental job of a judge.

MSNBC has more.

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Sen. Orrin Hatch on ABC's This Week, discussing President Obama's options for replacing David Souter on the Supreme Court, thinks that if a judge is a person of empathy, that's a code word for an "activist judge". Which is to say, he won't overturn Roe v. Wade. (That's right: the "activists" are the ones siding with the status quo.) Everything has to be about abortion with these people.

Sen. Pat Leahy reminds Hatch that the President doesn't need to use "code words" -- and besides, we've already had an activist court when it comes to discrimination against women in the work place.

Question for Orrin Hatch: Does this mean that Republicans have no empathy?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Gentlemen, welcome to you both. And Senator Hatch, let me begin with you. What did you make of the criteria the president laid out?

HATCH: Well, it's a matter of great concern. If he's saying that he wants to pick people who will take sides -- he's also said that a judge has to be a person of empathy. What does that mean? Usually that's a code word for an activist judge. But he also said that he's going to select judges on the basis of their personal politics, their personal feelings, their personal preferences. Now, you know, those are all code words for an activist judge, who is going to, you know, be partisan on the bench.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now, he did also say he wants someone who respects the rule of law and the limits of the judicial role...

HATCH: He did say that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So it sounds like you're saying that you think there's a tension between following the law and following your feelings when you're a judge.

HATCH: Well, I don't think there should be a litmus test or any set of litmus tests when you pick people for the high court, and I suspect that the president understands that. He's a very bright guy, charismatic, intelligent, likable, and I'm hoping that he'll pick somebody of great dimension.

We all know he's going to pick a more liberal justice. Their side will make sure that it's a pro-abortion justice. I don't think anybody has any illusions about that. The question is, are they qualified? Are they going to be people who will be fair to the rich, the poor, the weak, the strong, the sick, the disabled, and yet give justice to those who may not be...

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(h/t Heather)

In this clip you can see how easy it is for conservatives to have their talking points easily slipped into the traditional media at the drop of a hat. Even when they are meaningless and laughable. Today's accomplice is Bob Schieffer from Face the Nation. Sen. Pat Leahy is getting very adept in catching this from the talking heads that are interviewing him.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, is there the risk? I mean, and you know the argument you-- we’ve been hearing it all that-- that we somehow criminalize our political system. I mean, you know, in banana republics one group throws out the other group and they put them all in jail and then they stay there till somebody else comes along and throws them in jail.

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: (Overlapping) But I'm not--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Are we going down that kind of trail here?

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: No. I think not. And I-- you know, I've heard the talking point that’s-- usually by people who are afraid they may be looked are the ones making that-- making that argument. But I'm not out for some kind of vengeance and, certainly, if you have people in the field who are told here are the orders from the White House, here is a legal memo telling you what to do and how to do it.

Now, nobody is going to prosecute them, although, I would note that when FBI agents were there and they saw what was being done, when they reported back to the headquarters, FBI director Mueller said, "No, you can't do that. That violates our own rules. That violates our understanding of the law. You have to step back" -- and they did, till word got around.

What I want to know is this: Who were the people in the Office of Legal Counsel, in the President's Council office, even in the Justice Department who knew this was against the law and still told people to go and break the law? I am far more concerned about those people than I am going after somebody in the field.

Does Bob Schieffer actually know what the term "Banana Republic" means?
From Wikipedia:

Banana Republic is a pejorative term for a country that is politically unstable, dependent on limited agriculture (e.g. bananas), and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy, and corrupt clique.[1] It is most commonly used for countries in Central America and Africa such as El Salvador, Belize, Grenada, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and South Africa. In some cases, these nations have kept the government structures that were modeled after the colonial Spanish ruling clique, with a small, largely leisure class on the top, and a large, poorly educated and poorly paid working class of peons, though it might have the (fake) trappings of modernity (such as styling itself a republic with a president etc.)

Frequently the subject of mockery and humour, and usually presided over by a dictatorial military junta that exaggerates its own power and importance—"the epaulettes of a banana republic generalissimo" are proverbially of considerable size, usually portrayed in satire with a pair of mops—a banana republic also typically has large wealth inequities, poor infrastructure, poor schools, a "backward" economy, low capital spending, a reliance on foreign capital and money printing, budget deficits, and a weakening currency. Banana republics are typically also highly prone to revolutions and coups.

And then Bob takes what Dick Cheney says as gospel about CIA memos that will exonerate4 him. Isn't it obvious to Schieffer that if there were any of these "memos," Bush would have leaked them already?

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From The Ed Show April 21, 2009. Pat Leahy responds to Dick Cheney's remarks and says if he feels so strongly about what he said, let him appear before his committee under oath and answer some questions.

John Amato:

Sen. Pat Leahy also wants a special prosecutor and a bipartisan commission to investigate the torture issue we've been presented with. He then took a very strong position against Jay Bybee and said that he should do the honorable thing and resign from the bench.

Leahy: If the Bush/Cheney administration told the truth about him, and he told the truth about what he did, he never would have been confirmed by the Senate. He never would have become a judge. I think the only decent and honorable thing for him to do now that these facts have come out is to resign. Resign for the good of the Judiciary. What he's done is a total blot on the and it reflects on him and the rest of the Judiciary and he should do the decent and honorable thing and step down.

The liberal blogosphere has been calling for him to be impeached, but if he was a true patriot he would step down and not bring a scandal to the bench. However, if a man can write a memo like that, then I highly doubt that is a realistic option.

I think Judge Bybee should read Digby's intense post called Torturers In Common, so he can take a hard look at what he has done.