An appeal to the Spanish Supreme Court by National Court judge Balthazar Garzón was denied last month, and in May he must appear before the Supreme Court itself. The charges? That Garzón violated his jurisdictional authority by investigating mass murder that took place under the rule of fascist dictator Francisco Franco.

I saw Ken Starr, of all people, making the case on ‘Countdown’ that we want to “encourage young lawyers” to follow in the tradition of defending controversial clients like the Guantanamo detainees. Marc Thiessen, upholding his deeply-felt commitment to embarrassing himself and the Washington Post, responds that there was no such backlash among lawyers to the cruel slights visited upon John Yoo and David Addington and Jay Bybee for creating legal pretexts for torture. Well, yes: Lawyers tend to like it when their colleagues uphold the law rather than figure out how to evade it.

As a speechwriter, Marc Thiessen plays with words. His comments to justify Bush’s torture regime on the basis of the teaching of the Catholic Church, however, go too far. He better hope his priest doesn’t read the NY Times.

Well, I don’t know that for a fact. But I do know that the publication of Marc Thiessen’s propagandistic claims about Pelosi on the WaPo’s editorial page says more about the WaPo’s editorial page than it does about Pelosi.