Looks like the right is making a concerted

[Jim Lane]

40. OK, I'll compromise. Russ Feingold.

My mention of Greenwald was mostly metaphorical. My point was that, if Obama wants to handle the political problem noted in the OP, his best path for doing so would be to make significant substantive changes in his policies. One high-profile way to begin would be to appoint the President's Commission on the Restoration of Civil Liberties.

Back here in the unicornless real world, Obama won't appoint such a commission at all -- not with Greenwald, not with Feingold, not with Rand Paul, not with anybody.

If there were a prospect that it might actually happen, then I wouldn't literally favor Greenwald as the chair. I'd be concerned about the point you raise concerning his managerial skills. He'd make a good member of the commission, though. One way to start returning to a more open society would be for government to accept and even strive for a debate that is "uninhibited, robust and wide-open," in Justice Brennan's words, without tossing around words like "bombthrower" about anyone who steps at all outside the conventional wisdom.