Sen. Ben Nelson (D- Neb.) gives a fine summation of what would be the ideal Supreme Court nominee: “I don’t care whether they’re liberal or conservative. I just want to make sure they’re not activist. . . Quite honestly, I think we want to read the law. We don’t want to have to read judges’ minds. So I think that’s the test — will they be an activist or not — and I — I would hope that there wouldn’t be any circumstances that would be so extreme with any of the president’s nominees that the other side would feel the need to filibuster or that I might feel the need to filibuster in a case of extraordinary circumstances.”

North Korea is reported to have conducted a nuclear test. They seemed not to be interest in Obama’s nonproliferation invitation.

Another fraud investigation, another Jack Murtha story. At what point do the Democrats stop protecting him?

Not much impressed by Maureen Dowd’s “friend” email excuse, Politico’s Michael Calderone writes that “the problem wasn’ t just Dowd’s lifting of words, but in how The Times handled the situation, quickly brushing off what I believed to be some worthwhile questions in the face of the writer’s version of events.”

Sen. Jon Kyl  on Obama’s claim that Guantanamo served to recruit more terrorists than it kept in custody: “9/11 hijackers didn’t do their deeds because of Gitmo. The people who … blew up the (U.S.S.) Cole or the Kolbar Towers or the first World Trade Center didn’t say, ‘There’s Gitmo down there,’ because it didn’t exist. And even after that I don’t think you saw guys sitting around in some coffee shop in Saudi Arabia, saying, ‘You know, those Americans have this prison called Gitmo, I think I’ll become a terrorist,’ . . .I mean, it’s palpably false to suggest that the existence of Gitmo created terrorism, and yet the president gets away with that.”

Marty Peretz agrees: “No, I simply don’t believe it. They need nothing so superficial as pictures to deepen the hatred of those who hate us. Let us be frank: nearly every Arab country and most Muslim countries do not protect against torture. It is, I would say, assumed by anyone in prison for political crimes, at least, that they will feel the lash of the whip, many times over. And more.” And what about increased use of rendition? “Why do you think Arab terrorists were sent to Jordan? To have tea with Abdullah and Rania? Or to Egypt? To smoke a hookah with Mubarak?” Let’s be clear: all the moral preening means more detainees will be diverted from a perfectly decent facility to places which aren’t. I am missing how this serves our “moral values.”

The Hill has the “duh” headline: “Guantanamo not going away anytime soon.”

Even the New York Times has had it with Obama’s straw men.