The truth is that the Declaration of Independence was both a revolution and a secession. There is little question that American Patriots sought to secede from the British Empire in the sense that they wanted to break off their part of it and form a separate nation. Certainly, they weren't trying to replace the existing British government with a new one, while keeping the empire intact. On the other hand, the American independence movement was also revolutionary in the sense that it sought to institute a radically new political system. The revolutionaries certainly were not trying to gain independence simply for the purpose of establishing a smaller country with a political system that largely copied Britain's. For example, the rebels sought to create a polity with far stronger protections for individual freedom, no hereditary aristocracy, and a much more democratic political system than existed in 18th century Britain (or any other European state). Historian Gordon Wood discusses these and other radical changes sought by the revolutionaries in his excellent book The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Of course, the new United States did not consistently pursue liberal principles across the board, as witness the continuation of slavery in the South. But it did pursue them to a far greater extent than the British government of the day.

In sum, therefore, the revolution-secession dichotomy fails to capture the true nature of the American independence movement, which was an attempt to use secessionist means for revolutionary ends.

President Obama's decision to meet with Russian opposition leaders during his trip to Moscow is, however, a small hopeful sign:

President Barack Obama has invited several prominent members of the Russian opposition, including United Civil Front leader Garry Kasparov, for a meeting in Moscow. Boris Nemtsov, a chair of the Solidarity opposition movement, has also been invited to the meeting, set to take place on July 7th at the Ritz Carlton hotel. The format of the event was still unclear.

“Of course, this will be interesting,” Kasparov said on the Ekho Moskvy radio station. “The previous American administration didn’t dare to do this....”

Obama will travel to Moscow on July 6th for meetings with the Kremlin as well as business and civil society leaders. A meeting with Russia’s leading human rights advocates has been scheduled at the Metropol hotel, the location of a consultation between representatives from NGOs in the US and Russia.

Earlier, Boris Nemtsov argued that it was essential for Obama to meet with opposition forces in Russia. “If the White House agrees to Putin’s suggestion to speak only with pro-Putin organizations… this will mean that Putin has won, but not only that: Putin will become be assured that Obama is weak,” he said.

Falling oil prices and the financial crisis have reduced Putin's popularity and weakened his regime's grip on power. Now more than ever, it is important for the US to avoid putting all of our eggs in the Putin basket and encourage pro-Western liberal opposition forces in Russia.

That doesn't mean we should never cooperate with Putin on issues of common interest. For example, if Putin suddenly shows a willingness to work with the US on Iran, North Korea, and other issues, Obama should pursue any such opportunities that might arise. Effective foreign policy sometimes requires cooperation with unsavory regimes. While the current Russian government is odious, it isn't nearly as bad as its communist predecessors, or as repressive as the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and several other US allies.

So far, however, the Putin regime has done virtually nothing to reciprocate either Bush's many overtures or Obama's more recent efforts to press the "reset button" on US-Russian relations. As opposition leader Boris Nemtsov suggested in the passage quoted above, perhaps Putin will be in a more cooperative mood if we avoid looking weak and demonstrate that we have other options. Even if he doesn't, we have little to lose by working to foster liberal forces in Russia. And if the current regime's popularity continues to decline, we have a lot to gain from working to promote liberal alternatives to the strongly anti-Western communists and ultra-nationalists who are the other main alternative to the status quo in Russia. Obama's meeting with the Russian opposition leaders is a small, but symbolically valuable step in the right direction.

It is increasingly clear that the ICC, like every utopian international institution that preceded it, will not accomplish its mission—to bring international justice to places like Sudan where a genocide is taking place. It is rapidly being downgraded to a development institution, one that can provide legal and judicial capacity to states that request its help in battles with insurgencies, such as Uganda and the Central African Republic.

Yet at the same time, international criminal law is coming down like a juggernaut on Israel. Israeli officials increasingly fear that they will be hauled off to court if they enter a European country. European governments and judiciaries are taking note of claims that Israeli soldiers and leaders committed war crimes in Gaza and elsewhere. (Yet Spain is junking its universal jurisdiction statute, partly because of Israeli pressure.)

Israelis should consider the Sudan example and think about their problem in simpler terms. Their actions have offended people in Europe and so these European countries are issuing what might be called contingent sanctions against Israelis who have used too much violence, in European eyes, against Palestinians. Sudan is in a similar position, but it has plenty of friends in Africa. Israeli officials need to work on their diplomatic relationships with European countries, reduce their use of violence in conflicts against Palestinians, or accustom themselves to taking their vacations elsewhere.

Obama, to put it bluntly, seems poised for a nearly wholesale adoption of the Bush administration's unilateral approach to detention. The attraction is simple, seductive and familiar. The legal arguments for unilateralism are strong in theory; past presidents in shorter, traditional wars did not seek specific congressional input on detention. Securing such input for our current war, it turns out, is still hard. The unilateral approach, by contrast, lets the president define the rules in ways that are convenient for him and then dares the courts to say no.

This seductive logic, however, failed disastrously for Bush — and it will not serve Obama any better. Bush's approach avoided congressional meddling but paradoxically sloughed off counterterrorism policy on the courts. Over time, the judiciary grew impatient with ad hoc detention procedures that lacked clear and specific legislative authorization, and judges began imposing novel and increasingly demanding rules on the commander in chief's traditionally broad powers to detain enemy soldiers during war.

The result has been nearly eight years of unstable policy with no safe harbor for executive conduct and no settled rules for detainees. Ironically, one of the biggest casualties of this misadventure was the executive authority the Bush administration held so dear. At least in detention policy, Bush left a weaker presidency than he inherited, one encumbered by unprecedented restrictions imposed by judges.

One area where the Administration appears likely to take the unilateral route is with regard to detention. The Post and others reported last weekend that the Administration was considering a new Executive Order justifying indefinite detention. If the Administration believes such detention is necessary, it should seek legislation from Congress. Along these lines, Wittes and Colleen Peppard have proposed model legislation on preventative detention. Their aim: not "to argue for a preventative detention regime but, rather, to design one—to pose one set of answers to these questions with sufficient precision to produce actual legislative language." Whether or not this specific legislative proposal strikes the proper balance between liberty and security, the overall undertaking — seeking legislative approval of controversial counter-terror measures — is the proper course.

It seems odd to me that an obviously smart person like Denby - or his editor - would not have noted immediately that when taken in total, snark in his view seems to be correlated pretty much with the right, and not the left. I suppose it might turn out that this is the fact of the matter, but it seems unlikely, and anyway is not demonstrated on Denby's evidence. What is demonstrated on Denby's evidence is that he regards snark in an ad hoc way - if he likes it, it is clever, well-aimed satire, irony, and parody, and if he doesn't, it is snark.

The fundamental problem in defining snark - and in saying that it is bad for the blogosphere - is that no one, least of all me, really wants all high-minded argument on the web, all the time. The problem is how to distinguish, on anything other than the least satisfying ad hoc, subjective, personal or - worse - political criteria satire, irony, parody from ... snark. Whatever exactly it is. We want A Modest Proposal; we don't want ... well, what? One general principle is to be reasonably understanding that humor is both subjective and risky, so as readers one should be reasonably forgiving even of efforts one thinks have flopped. Not everything is as pitch-perfect as the Onion, and even there lots of what I find funny, my mother would not have.

But beyond humor that misses, with some audiences or with all, what characterizes snark? Two things, I think. One is that it is an appeal to emotion - it is a statement with a particular affect, and the affect is an appeal to an attitude in which both writer and reader participate, but they participate in an exclusionary way. This is what makes it a branch of irony. Instead of arguing to everyone on the basis of shared reason so that, at least in principle, everyone could be included in the shared sentiment, snark depends upon exclusion. It is a refusal to offer a public argument, with the possibility of reasoned inclusion, and instead depends upon prior shared views that merely exclude because snark does not make an attempt to persuade. It is 'affectively exclusionary' in the language of moral psychology.

(Note that the greatest satire and irony appears to be exclusionary in this way - but ultimately is not. A Modest Proposal is the bitterest satire, and yet it ultimately is inclusionary, because underlying it is an appeal to a universal sentiment in which all can participate. It is not a reasoned argument, and is not an invitation to inclusion on that basis. It is, rather than argument, an invitation to see the universal moral impulse beneath the satire, and to demonstrate it by a reductio ad absurdum - an invitation to apperceive the universal value. It is a little like the Christian concept of conversion through the bearing of testimony. Despite the surface irony, in other words, truly great satire is actually an invitation to see and join the community of believers, not exclusion from it.)

Two, because snark depends upon a prior shared commitment, it is a form of question-begging argument. Not precisely a form of argument, because it is about affect, not reason. So, more precisely, snark is the affective cognate of a question-begging argument, in which the sentiment of the conclusion assumes the sentiment of the premise. It assumes that one already shares the attitudes necessary to ... share the attitudes.