The president gave a rousing, rambling speech before the House Democratic Caucus this afternoon. It wasn't so much a closing argument as it was a summation: of the bill, of the politics, of the moment, of the history, and even of the Democratic Party. When I wrote to the White House's press folks to ask why they hadn't send out the prepared remarks, they said there were none. The president was just talking, which explains the loose structure and the raw, emotional feel of the text. Here's the transcript, one of the final important documents in a long and important debate:

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government.  The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.

Yes, yes, ha ha he just hasn't earned it yet, has he? And, truly, he hasn't. We have 124,000 troops in Iraq. We are considering an escalation -- another one -- in Afghanistan. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beginning to heat up to a slow boil again. We probably won't have a real climate bill in time for Copenhagen. The U.S. still has the world's biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons. Guantanamo Bay is in business. But, as I just wrote at the Washington Independent, all that misses the point.

You may recall that I created the Obama Inauguration cover for The Nation magazine... It's been a while and I've been busy on the poster for that cover. I'm almost finished... (I've added over 30 new figures to the artwork), but I could still use your advice... Updated artwork and more below the fold...

After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.

Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden was fond of saying that when it came to handling high value terror suspects, he would play in fair territory, but with "chalk dust on my cleats." Four legal memos released last week by the Obama Administration make it clear that the referee role in CIA interrogations was played by its medical and psychological personnel.

In his quest to obtain key documents proving that his client was tortured at the hands of the Bush administration, Smith is now involved in a truly bizarre though revealing controversy, first reported last Thursday by The Guardian. In February, Smith wrote a letter to President Obama urging Obama to authorize the release of evidence relevant to Mohamed's torture so that Obama does not become complicit in covering-up crimes of torture (which is itself a crime). Smith attached to his letter to Obama a 2-page memo detailing the facts proving his client's torture. But under the rigid rules of Guantanamo, all lawyers for detainees are barred (under threat of criminal penalties) from disclosing any information they learn from their clients -- even if the subject of the communication is the torture to which their clients were subjected -- without first obtaining the approval from something called the "Privilege Review Team," a secret tribunal of Pentagon officials who monitor and ...