Politics 101: Pose With Young People

Sen. John McCain dares to stand near retiring colleagues. No wonder they call him a maverick. (By J. Scott Applewhite -- Associated Press)

"We checked with the airports and found out some had started doing pilot exercises on their own," he said. By that afternoon, the practice stopped.

"We never would have known it was going on" but for the comments, he said. "It's an example of the system working."

Cape Wanted. Will Trade Black Robe.

Supreme Court observers often talk of how the life experiences of the justices inform their views of the law. Might be time to add viewing habits as a factor.

Many of us were horrified by the images of that nuclear bomb in 2007 just outside Los Angeles that killed hundreds people on the hit show "24." Justice Antonin Scalia seems especially supportive of Agent Jack Bauer's heroic efforts to save the big city, which included frequent torture of terrorist types.

At a symposium in Canada in June, Scalia responded to a Canadian jurist's cheap shot at Bauer. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles," Scalia said, according to the Globe and Mail. "He saved hundreds of thousands of lives. . . . Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? . . . Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer?"

"I don't think so," Scalia said. "So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."

And on Tuesday he opined to BBC Radio: "Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited under the Constitution?"

Well, they already hit L.A., so that's not really likely.

Can't Make Him Talk

The dispute simmers between New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell over what McConnell meant when he said waterboarding, "for me, would be torture."

On Feb. 5, McConnell told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that his remarks had been taken "out of context." Wright told us absolutely not, and urged McConnell to release their transcript of the interview.

When we called for a copy, a DNI spokesman said it was "not something we do for an interview with a given reporter."

Now Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has written McConnell, noting the "now public disagreement over your comments" and asking "that you provide the transcript to . . . clarify."