(See Wampum, as usual.) Italy arresting CIA agents for kidnapping really is a big deal. Scott Horton concludes:

This case is a monument to the power and lasting influence of American advocacy. In 1946-48, the United States advanced for the first time the view that seizing individuals, holding them for prolonged period without recourse to law, and subjecting them to torture or humiliating treatment was a particularly serious crime–a crime against humanity. United States prosecutors, many of them from the Justice Department, brought charges against government officials who had done this, and secured convictions. Europeans were at first skeptical of these American views, but over time they came to embrace and support them. Today, the view is firmly held around the world that “disappearings” are a crime against humanity and thus not subject to statutes of limitation or capable of being ignored. The CIA just ran into this wall, and this should be a lesson for the Obama Administration: it shows what can happen when the United States fails to abide by the values it espouses.

Indeed. I think the list of values we are acting on is a lot shorter than the list of values we are not acting on. Internationally, domestically, everywhere.

The administration had better hope they can get it together in time, or they're going to lose the mandate of heaven. Just pray gawd a right wing populist doesn't gain it. Give credit, access bloggers like Bowers and Stoller are pushing Grayson forward as an antidote, but until Grayson delivers on more than words, he's a FAIL in the making. The only bulwark against right wing populism is a policy bulwark ("good policy is good politics"). And the Dems, aided by "progressive" access bloggers, already shat the bed on that.