PSoTD

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) urged Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on Tuesday to step down from the Senate Appropriations Committee in response to the escalating federal probe of his ties to an oil services company.

Amazingly, Congress is considering giving itself a pay raise.

WASHINGTON — After raising the minimum wage by 70 cents an hour this week, many members of Congress are ready to give themselves a pay increase of roughly $4,400 per year.

That would take their annual salaries to nearly $170,000.

The pay raise debate crosses party lines. It could best be characterized as "the people sensitive to their constituents" vs. "the people who don't want to be in Congress anymore".

Michael O'Hanlon in September 2003:

"... I think the counterinsurgency effort is going fairly well ... one could travel around the country, even flying over contested areas, with relatively confident sense of security ..."

Michael O'Hanlon in March 2004:

".. there is plenty of reason for hope, and much going right today in Iraq as well . . . . one might think the war should be won by summer ..."

Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack today in the New York Times:

"As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq ..."

Glenn Greenwald has about a billion more examples of O'Hanlon's brand of "harsh criticism".

O'Hanlon and Pollack call it significant and surreal.

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Really! This time it's true! Really, really, really!! C'mon, believe us!

WAAAHHH!!!

Update: They couldn't even sell a Serious guy like Joe Klein.

The Corner can't stop talking about them.

But let's be real here. The fact is, Hillary was wearing a fairly low cut summer top. She was not displaying cleavage, as the shot on Drudge indicates. Someone else wearing the same outfit might have done. But Hillary Clinton does not have cleavage to display. Period. Indeed, Hillary never forgave her mother-in-law, Virginia Kelly for pointing this out decades ago to the young Bill Clinton, a cleavage man if ever there was one.

Meow!!

The rhetorical heat is getting to Anne-Marie Slaughter.

It's time, then, for a bipartisan backlash. Politicians who think we need bargaining to fix the crises we face should appear side by side with a friend from the other party — the consistent policy of the admirably bipartisan co-chairmen of the 9/11 commission, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton. Candidates who accept that the winner of the 2008 election is going to need a lot of friends across the aisle — not least to get out of Iraq — should make a point of finding something to praise in the other party's platform. And as for the rest of us, the consumers of a steady diet of political vitriol, every time we read a partisan attack, we should shoot — or at least spam — the messenger.

Kum-ba-ya, baby!

Sorry Anne-Marie, but you can't close your eyes, click your heels three times and wish away Rush Limbaugh and FoxNews.

If you can't defend your ground, somebody will take it. The recommendations of the "admirably bipartisan" 9/11 Commission got ignored.

The top priority of policy debate can't be avoiding ruffled feathers. The best choice between a bad idea and a good idea isn't a half-assed idea.

Splitting the difference doesn't get you anything but a split difference.

Associated Press reports on the possibility. My first inclination is that this is tin foil hat stuff. None of evidence is particularly compelling. Even from only "ten yards or so" it could have been difficult to identify Tillman under some conditions. And while the close spread of bullet wounds may have been unusual from a longer distance, it was not impossible.

Tillman's death by friendly fire was embarrassing enough to cover-up. I doubt he was deliberately killed by his troops.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors _ whose names were blacked out _ said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman's comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman's death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.

The medical examiners' suspicions were outlined in 2,300 pages of testimony released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Among other information contained in the documents:

_ In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop "sniveling."

_ Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.

_ The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman's death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn't recall details of his actions.

_ No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene _ no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.

Freakin' idiot, pay attention to liberal bloggers next time. How many times do we have to be right and you dumfounded before you realize that?

Krauthammer ought to be waxing sentimental about a perceived 2nd strike...

Then again, this column makes it 82 straight times.

Sounds like a good idea.

The Republican Presidential field of cheese-eating surrender monkeys fear the YouTubes!

Run away! Run away!

I know that we have some sort of split-personality belief of them - that they are some sort of criminal masterminds, yet are limited to repetitive mastermindery - but I, for one, really don't believe that the next terrorist attack in the United States will involve airports or planes. We are a nation of soft targets, a land full of horrible opportunities - that is a price we pay to be free. To think that potential terrorists haven't noticed this, or have fixated on air transportation regardless, seems to be an unrealistic expectation.

The 1981 Kiss concept album becomes a reality. Nelson Mandela has been chosen to lead a group of elder statesmen dedicated to saving the world. Producer Bob Ezrin's cocaine problem doomed the original project. Perhaps Mandela will achieve better results.

The former South African president will be the leading figure in the "Global Elders", a group of "12 wise men and women" who will address global problems by offering expertise and guidance.

A frail yet still magnetic figure, Mr Mandela was greeted in Johannesburg at South Africa's Constitutional Court - where he was once held prisoner - by a choir that sang his praises before he outlined the Elders' objectives.

"The Elders can become a fiercely independent and robust force for good, tackling conflicts and intractable issues, especially those that are not popular," said Mr Mandela.

The group will "speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes, working wherever our help is needed". advertisement

He added: "This group derives its strength not from military, political or economic power, but from the independence and integrity of those who are here."

The club's members will comprise former presidents, elder statesmen, leaders and activists and probably five Nobel laureates.

There will eventually be 12 Global Elders - but the exact make-up of the group was in flux right up until yesterday's announcement.

As well as Mr Mandela and his wife, Graca Machel, the group comprises Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town; Jimmy Carter, the former American president; Mary Robinson, the former Irish president; Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations; and Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate economist and founder of the Green Bank in Bangladesh, where he is known as "banker to the poor". All were at the launch in Johannesburg yesterday.

(I know I shouldn't make fun of this but oy vey!)

Looks to me like Congressmen Chris Cannon and Rick Boucher should have their campaign contribution receipts investigated, because this special effort to federally eliminate tax revenues for state and local entities from rental car taxes makes absolutely no sense.

Found at Pax America.

Watched a bit of Alberto Gonzales testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Quite bizarre. They ask him simple questions and Gonzalez refers to newspaper accounts to figure out what he did - as if he wasn't in his body when it happened.

This reminded me of a movie out a few years back titled "Memento". It was a mystery about a man with a rare disease which destroyed his short term memory. He can't even remember ten minutes ago and tattoos important information on his body to make sure he retains it. Surprisingly, this condition actually exists and is called anterograde amnesia.

Anterograde amnesia is a form of amnesia, or memory loss, in which new events are not transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory. This may be a permanent deficit, or it may be temporary, such as is sometimes seen for a period of hours or days after head trauma or for a period of intoxication with an amnestic drug. The deficit makes its sufferers unable to recall an event which occurred only moments earlier when their attention has shifted to something else.

Could Alberto Gonzales be an anterograde amnesia sufferer?

Sen Leahy: Mr. Gonzales, can you tell us what you had for lunch?
Gonzales: Judging from the mustard on my sleeve I believe it was a hot dog. I'm burping up some pickle. But I can't be sure. Let me check my credit card bill.

How does Alberto find his car in the parking lot? Is there someone assigned to make sure he doesn't wander off during the day? Wonder if a blow to the head would cure it.

Then everything you say is suspected to be a lie or wrong.

For national security Purposes, if there's something important that the American people should be told - and expected to believe - it shouldn't be coming from George W. Bush's mouth.

I'm sick of these kinds of comments.

Hillary Clinton, about meeting with various leaders of countries that the U.S. has problems with:

"I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes," she said. Her campaign quickly posted video of her answer online, trying to show she has a different understanding of foreign policy than her chief rival.

This isn't an answer that shows leadership, but fear. Win the propaganda war by positioning the United States favorably. It's not a weakness to be willing to talk - it's an indication of the strength of the message, and the speaker. Do we really give a shit if Castro or Jong-il misrepresents what we say after the fact if we have forcefully and convincingly made our point? Why should we be so afraid of talking to tinhorn dictators?

The audience isn't primarily these leaders - it's the world, and the people of these nations. It's depressing to see any Democrat would take the position of Polypdent Bush on such foreign relations efforts.

Sound bite of the night from the Dem YouTube debate was Obama's apparent willingness to meet unconditionally with the most troublesome American adversaries while HRC says she would not. I must be as naive as Barack because I agree with him. It makes a lot of sense to confront and size up your toughest foes face to face. The Bunnypants strategy of hiding in his room sure hasn't worked.

And if the always wrong Corner thinks Obama's position is "astonishing" then I'm even more inclined to think he has it right!

Thorn-in-the-Republican-side Presidential candidate Ron Paul gets a free pass from Atrios and much of the left thanks to his anti-war position. Dr. Paul may not be an Iraq wacko but let's not overlook that he would be hunky dory with an America dotted by walled enclaves of the wealthy protected by their own private armies.

He's kind of lacking in the "vision thing" for my tastes. 1820 ain't coming back any time soon.

The Washington Post is intrigued by them.

Do women really put this much thought into their cleavage?

Showing cleavage is a request to be engaged in a particular way. It doesn't necessarily mean that a woman is asking to be objectified, but it does suggest a certain confidence and physical ease. It means that a woman is content being perceived as a sexual person in addition to being seen as someone who is intelligent, authoritative, witty and whatever else might define her personality. It also means that she feels that all those other characteristics are so apparent and undeniable, that they will not be overshadowed.

To display cleavage in a setting that does not involve cocktails and hors d'oeuvres is a provocation. It requires that a woman be utterly at ease in her skin, coolly confident about her appearance, unflinching about her sense of style. Any hint of ambivalence makes everyone uncomfortable.

Sigmund Freud would be proud.

The Senate Finance Committee voted yesterday to provide $35 billion in health care coverage for low income children through re-authorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Most of this will be paid for through an increase in taxes on tobacco. The editors of National Review hate the idea.

Why?

Well, the Congressional Budget Office says the program would give new coverage to 2.3 million uninsured children. But National Review grumbles that 1.7 million low income kids with existing coverage might switch from their inferior private insurance plans. Because they believe that poor people deserve inferior insurance plans.

National Review also fears that low wage workers might fail to "work hard to make more money" because they would no longer qualify for S-CHIP. Remember, only hard workers make more money. Nobody poor is working hard enough. And besides, once you've got government subsidized health care for your kids, you've got it made. With S-CHIP, the poor will have no incentive left to do anything but watch soaps all day between joy rides to the doctor. Because the National Review thinks that's how poor people like to spend their days.

But don't think that the National Review is totally without sympathy for the poor. They point out the unfair hardship additional cigarette taxes will place on low-income families. Because they believe if you can't have heath care, you might as well have cheap smokes!

Confidential to K-Lo: Why do you make fetuses your cause and then not care about health care for children? That's fkkked up.

Mark Steyn doubts that Africans have proverbs.

At Andy's place!!

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Joe Lieberman are all flying over New Orleans in a Blackhawk, surveying the progress that has been made in rebuilding the city and the levees. As they fly over the Ninth Ward, Cheney looks out the window, grins, and says, "You know, I could throw a thousand-dollar bill out the window right now and make one of those poor bastards very happy."

Bush says, "Well, I could throw ten hundred-dollar bills out the window right now and make TEN people very happy."

Not to be outdone, Lieberman chimes in, "Oh yeah? Well, I could throw a hundred $10 bills out the window and make a HUNDRED Americans very happy."

Hearing this, the copter pilot rolls his eyes and says, "Man, I could throw all three of you out the window and make 300 million Americans very happy."

Thank you sir, may I have another?!

Q. How many neocons does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A. None. George Bush predicts the light bulb will be fully capable of changing itself within 3 months.

Y'know the Republican Party may be less popular than spam, bankrupt of worthwhile new policy ideas and incompetent at running the government but they still are damned impressive at manipulating the media.

I don't think Kevin Drum is going to approve of this vapidness at all.

Obama didn't look amused when a reporter asked him about the independent music video Monday, just after the Democratic presidential hopeful walked a picket line with striking workers at the Congress Plaza Hotel.

"That's not why we're here," the Illinois senator said. "I've got no comment about something like that."

Featuring buxom actress and model Amber Lee, the slick light-hearted video is the work of the BarelyPolitical.com Web site. Its first installment, titled "I've Got a Crush on Obama," has drawn more than 2.3 million hits since it debuted.

Titled "Debate '08," the sequel went up Monday, drawing more than 11,000 hits by early evening. It features Obama Girl and two, um, like-minded Obama partisans squaring off against three other comely lasses apparently smitten with Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani.

"Giuliani Girl, just stop your fussin.' At least Obama didn't marry his cousin," Obama Girl sings. It's a dig at Giuliani's first marriage, which was annulled after he learned his wife was his second cousin.

You know you want to click on it...

I'm not a cigar smoker but there is some unpleasant news for those of you who are.

As part of an increase in tobacco taxes designed to pay for children's health insurance, the nickel-per-cigar tax that has ruled the industry could rise to as much as $10 per cigar.

...

Cigarettes, which accounted for more than 95 percent of tobacco tax collections last year, are the main focus of the bill. Federal taxes on a pack would jump from 39 cents to $1.

But the legislation has dragged cigars along for the ride. The industry operates under a 4.8 cents-per-cigar tax cap.

Under the proposed bill, taxes on "large cigars," a category that includes all but the tiny cigars sold in 20 packs like cigarettes, would rise to 53 percent.

A U.S. Senate version of the bill under consideration today in the Finance Committee sets the maximum tax per cigar at $10.

Start hoarding.

According to The Politico, G.O.P. Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney spent $300 on makeup 'consulting'.

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden confirmed that the payments -- actually two separate $150 charges -- were for makeup, though he said the former Massachusetts governor had only one session with Hidden Beauty of West Hills, Calif. That was before the May 3 Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., co-sponsored by MSNBC and The Politico.

"We used them once but booked time twice and still had to render payment for the appointment time," said Madden, who said the disbursement was listed as "communications consulting" because it was paid from the communications division's budget.

...

But Stacy Andrews, who made up Romney for Hidden Beauty, said he barely needs makeup.

"He's already tan," she said. "We basically put a drop of foundation on him … and we powdered him a little bit."

Kevin Drum says enough already with such "vapid and half-witted" reporting. But I say, what the hell ... bring it on! You know the Coulters and the Limbaughs and the Fox News clones aren't going to moderate their cheap shots at the Dem candidates. Nice to see the G.O.P. taking some mindless lumps for a change.

Expect a Zoolander- style Romney / Edwards pose-off skit on Saturday Night Live if they are the eventual candidates!

This story both baffles and sickens me.

YPSILANTI, Mich. - Three Eastern Michigan University administrators, including the president, have been forced out, months after top school officials were accused of covering up the rape and slaying of a student by publicly ruling out foul play.

President John Fallon was fired, and Vice President of Student Affairs Jim Vick and Public Safety Director Cindy Hall lost their jobs at the 23,500-student public university, the chairman of the school's governing board said Monday.

Board of Regents Chairman Thomas Sidlik also said the board would put a letter of discipline in the file of university attorney Kenneth McKanders.

The body of the slain student, Laura Dickinson, 22, was discovered Dec. 15 in her dorm room. At the time, university officials told her parents and the media that she died of asphyxiation but that there was no sign of foul play, despite evidence to the contrary.

It was not until another Eastern student, Orange Taylor III, was arrested in late February and charged with murder that her family and students learned she had been raped and killed. Taylor has pleaded not guilty to murder and criminal sexual conduct charges in Dickinson's death, and is scheduled for trial Oct. 15.

How could the President and senior staff of a major American university decide to pursue such a course of action? Imagine the meeting where they decided that a cover-up was the best way to go - to not even inform the girl's parents of the facts!? (Echoes of Pat Tillman.)

Maybe I'm opening myself up to charges of Bush Derangement Syndrome but it sure seems that we are seeing a pattern where individuals in positions of authority try to control and distort reality through the selective release of information. Has the non-stop dissembling of Bush/Cheney become the paradigm for American management?

Or maybe they were just three more overpaid idiots in jobs they couldn't do.

The Republican drum beat to clamber off the U.S.S. Bunnypants and out of Iraq is starting to drown out the Democrats.

After last Friday's Bush press conference, Reagan-era debutante and Republican bellwether Peggy Noonan wrote ...

With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He's the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it's weird.

This week it's Ohio GOP Senator George Voinovich who states simply that Bush "f*cked up the war."

As my pal Andrew likes to say ... "Know Hope"!

It's the latest rage in the wack-o-sphere!

Very similar to scraping dog poop off your shoe.

I hope this quote from today's Washington Post article on confronting the Mahdi Army in Western Baghdad is being presented out of context.

On the decrepit city streets — some dirt, some paved, some drowned in lakes of sewer water — the fighters and bomb-placers seem relentless to the Americans. There are blocks in these neighborhoods that armored U.S. Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles visit only during targeted raids, normally at night. The soldiers avoid main routes, dipping through the dirt alleys to avoid the bombs that fire heated copper slugs capable of piercing armored vehicles.

Last Monday, they pulled up outside a gated school on a tip that someone had launched rockets from the inner courtyard, using the children as cover so the Americans would not fire back. The brigade commander, Col. Ricky D. Gibbs, said later his patience for such tactics was limited: "One of these days, if they keep shooting, I'm going to shoot back and level the whole neighborhood."

Losing patience is not acceptable, Colonel Gibbs. No more My Lais.

Just found out that cartoonist Doug Marlette was killed last week in an automobile accident in Mississippi. Bummer. Kudzu was always one of my mom's favorite comics. Marlette was also a Pulitzer prize winning political cartoonist who took shots at all comers enthusiastically.

R.I.P. Doug.

I see Duncan's whomping up on Andy again. The offense appears fairly trivial - something about repeated use of the phrase "know hope" when criticizing the Iranian goverment. (To be brutally honest, Atrios is probably not the best person to knock someone for attaching tag lines to contextless news items. )

I dig Atrios and have a pretty good idea why he cops this stance. It's fight fire with fire. There are no greys in the right wing wackosphere so the left can't afford them either. I basically agree. It's been proven over and over that nuance doesn't carry. Atrios is the left-wing Id.

But makes me wonder if I'm a traitor to the cause because I'll link to Andrew Sullivan - or even worse, the usually-repulsive Corner? It feels to me that Atrios is dealing with the wackos in the same way that the Bush mob deals with Iran, NK, etc. Just lobbing bombs rather than even attempting constructive engagement.

My position is fine, get out the whomping stick and take Andy to task when he's misguided - as he often is. But Sullivan can also be one of the most reasoned and eloquent voices against the Bush/Cheney junta. Hell, Andy even endorsed Kerry. So why not give him a sugar cube every now and then to try to encourage his better impulses?

Although, with the current asswipery of the Bush Administration, who knows how safe any airport really is?

From the Daily Dish ...

It also seems to me, alas, that when the president speaks spontaneously about the war, he reveals vast amounts of ignorance, denial and deception, self and otherwise. The patronizing soundbites stick in the craw at this point. His formulation that we do not know whether the war can succeed but that it nonetheless must succeed is about as disorienting a leadership call as I have heard. The rank condescension toward the American people is also staggering. Look, Mr President, most Americans aren't as dim as you seem to be. Maybe it's time you realized that.

He's just out of his depth, I'm afraid. And others are sinking - and dying - as a consequence.

The rest is here and worth a click. Thanks for handling this one, Andy.

My arch-nemesis Kathryn Jean Lopez actually managed an interesting post at the Corner this morning. There was a Hindu guest chaplain delivering today's Senate opening prayer and some yahoos in the balcony couldn't keep from expressing their displeasure at religious diversity in the United States. Video of the incident is posted with Bob Casey doing a cameo as the Senate Ringmaster o' the Day. Pretty sure that's the first time I've seen Junior since he was elected. What up, Bob?

Just caught a little bit of Bunnypants' dog and pony show in the car on WBAL-AM out of Bawlimer. When they cut back to the local talk show host, Chip Franklin, his only comment was that listening to more than fifteen or twenty seconds of Bush was painful. Nothing offered on the substance of the speech. And then he changed the subject to an ATM machine in Britain that malfunctioned and was giving away money.

I guess that's that.

Sometimes, you have a President that is just so bad, so out of touch with the American people, that he stigmatizes the political party he's from in a way that takes years to recover from - which is what many people think happened with Herbert Hoover.

What I don't know is whether backers of Hoover - the political backers, the news media backers - were also stigmatized by their behavior during his term, or if it was just the official party and Hoover. Just how long does America remember the political pushers that are so out of step with mainstream America, or that so hurt the American Ideal in the first place?

I think that's an interesting question, and particularly on the Iraq War question, it seems to me that the American memory is not something to be trusted. Political leaders should receive reactions for their political actions and opinions - not just immediately, but in the case of those who even today back Bush's war - forever. If you're backing the Iraq War today, in the same mentally challenged way that the Bush Administration does, then you probably deserve to have that chiseled into your tombstone when you're gone. Because such people should be identified - and known.

It seems to me that a database web site that shows, for any applicable person, the dates and comments or actions of their support of Bush's Iraq Debacle would be a useful thing to keep online permanently. How long has Pat Robertson supported the War? How about Dan Quayle? Dennis Miller? Colin Powell? People could review the database, and determine whether someone was fooled and quickly came to another conclusion about Iraq, if they slowly evolved their opinion about Iraq, or if they just followed Bush blindly because they were scared about the ramifications of following another path. It would be a useful tool for voters as well, as people could determine who would use reality as their guide in determining policy, and those who are so cowardly or so stupid that they can't think for themselves on the major issue of the day.

Somone should build this.

John McCain thinks his Presidential campaign was derailed by "gay sweaters".

Toe sucker Dick Morris yowls in The Hill ...

But Bush faces a stark choice: If he doesn’t begin pulling out, his party will lose the White House, lose Congress by stunning and likely filibuster-proof margins, and his tax cut and education reforms will be repealed. His footsteps will be obliterated from history. It will be as if he never served.

Obliterating Bush from history is a lovely thought. But at the very least, there are several thousand American servicemen and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who would disagree that his misdeeds could be so easily reversed. If they were alive.

The right wing wack-o-sphere is positively giddy over the low television ratings for Live Earth. You get the impression they'd be happy to see nuclear winter if it meant Al Gore (or Michael Moore) got dinged in the process.

Hey, I didn't watch it either, but why would anyone but an oil industry executive be against energy consciousness?

The "Impeach Cheney" Express is rolling! And Andrew Sullivan - along with many others - is on board. As Andrew points out...

... the only language Cheney understands is force. And even if it were to fail, the instructive power of the exercise would be considerable.

Up until recently, I've felt impeachment would be a futile, counter-productive effort - certain to fail while branding Democrats as mere political obstructionists for 2008. After all, with only 18 months left in office it could be smart to wait the term out while pursuing a positive legislative agenda.

But recent developments like the Libby pardon and the various Gonzalez stonewalls have changed my mind. Dangerous precedents are being set and the Constitution is being subverted. The Congress - more specifically the Democratic leadership - has a duty to vigorously confront this scofflaw Administration.

Cheney is the best point of attack. As unpopular as Bush is, the Vice President is even more despised and would draw less of a spirited defense. People who dislike Bush could still rally around the office of the President. The Veep job lacks similar cachet. And Cheney is undoubtedly culpable on a level matching if not exceeding Bush.

Dennis Kucinich has already filed impeachment charges in the House. Nancy Pelosi should bring these or similar charges to the floor and start squeezing Cheney's head in a legal vise. Let's see what kind of slime oozes out. It could be very "instructive".

A lot of the quiet or former Republicans you meet in everyday life don't want to talk about politics these days, or Bush, or Iraq, or anything. It's pretty understandable, because in many ways their party is screwed for a long, long time by George W. Bush and the people who continue to prop up his failed Presidency and foreign policies, as if they really deserve the term "policies". They're more like playground alliances - we like them, we don't like them, and that's that.

Anyways, as I said, it looks to me like the Republican Party is likely to be in the crapper for a long, long time, and one of those things that is going to continue that process is the slow-motion splintering it is going through. There's the Ron Paul splintering, the Rudy splintering, the Ahnold splintering. But the process has just begun, and this fight for the Republican Party's future won't end until there's a determination about what they're going to do about that low percentage of the American population, yet significant percentage of the visible Party, that continues to prop up and support this most abysmal President and the unAmerican policies he has adopted.

Guys like Bill Kristol. Guys like Sean Hannity. Rush Limbaugh. Sleazy conservative media people who repeat the Bush line at the danger of destroying the Party of millions of everyday Republicans.

Frankly, until the silent Republicans denounce these guys, they're going to continue to be screwed by the Party media. And they don't have to do it in the press, but by voting and public opinion. If Republicans support the candidates and politicians that Kristol, or Hannity, or Limbaugh are promoting, then they're likely to be fooled again, and get more of the same. Hopefully Americans in general won't make this mistake again, but the folks that vote for Kristol's losing Republican candidates will. Kristol's hacky pack are leading the Republicans over the cliff - and quickly. Have "real people" Republicans noticed?

I think we're seeing this pushback now. I suspect that part of Guiliani's appeal is that he's a "get lost" to Pat Robertson and crew. Ron Paul's even more of a piss on the Bush Republican Orthodoxy. More's coming, and it's going to get pretty ugly for the Republicans. It will be interesting to see if they can figure out how to cut their losses - such as people like Kristol.

At its simplest for everyday Republicans: if Bill Kristol likes a candidate or politician, they seriously ought to consider abandoning that person.

Kathryn Jean Lopez says right wing mouthpiece Sean Hannity's "Freedom Concert" series is "not meant to be a partisan kinda event".

AP said "invoked".

So which is Bush doing? Our options, from Wordreference.com:

request earnestly (something from somebody); ask for aid or protection; "appeal to somebody for help"; "Invoke God in times of trouble"

Well, Bush certainly is in trouble...

cite as an authority; resort to; "He invoked the law that would save him"; "I appealed to the law of 1900"; "She invoked an ancient law"

I'm sure that's what they think they're doing...

evoke or call forth, with or as if by magic; "raise the specter of unemployment"; "he conjured wild birds in the air"; "stir a disturbance"; "call down the spirits from the mountain"

This is probably the closest to the truth - and it's evil magic.

The latest Jetplane Landing record "Backlash Cop" (you own that, right?) carries the song "Dizzy Gillespie for President". On first listen, I figured it was a fanciful concept along the lines of Fig Bar Man for President. However it turns out that the great jazz trumpeter really did make an aborted run for President back in 1964. Committees were formed for Dizzy in twenty-five states and petitions were filed to get his name on the ballot in California. But not surprisingly, the campaign eventually fizzled out.

The campaign is not taken seriously by political historians even though no black had ever run for President at the time. But Dizzy took it seriously enough to announce some campaign planks and one helluva entertaining cabinet.

Miles Davis was penciled in as director of the CIA, Louis Armstrong as Minister of Agriculture, Thelonious Monk was to be Roving Ambassador Plenipotentiary, and other cabinet members were to include Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Woody Herman and Count Basie. According to Dizzy, the drummer Max Roach wanted to be Minister of War, but was overruled, because, said the candidate, "We're not going to have any." The Library of Congress was to be in the charge of Ray Charles, and Charles Mingus was to be Minister of Peace, "because he'll take a piece of your head faster than anybody I know".

Dizzy's campaign promised that if he was elected, he would fight for civil rights and equal opportunity in the job market. To ensure that employers were truly blind to race, Dizzy proposed that those applying for jobs would "have to wear sheets over their heads so bosses won't know what they are until after they've been hired". He promised to end the war in Vietnam and to give full diplomatic recognition to China (which the US was not to do until 1979). Healthcare and education were both to be free.

In recognition of his most loyal constituency, Dizzy said he would push for the creation of civil service nightclubs where jazz musicians would be guaranteed work as government employees. NASA was also to be instructed to send a black astronaut to the moon. When the Gillespie campaign couldn't find any qualified applicants, the candidate volunteered to go himself.

Not a bad platform at all. Fascinating what you can learn from rock music!

So the effort to rehabilitate Colin Powell's reputation continues. The London Times has a big article today headlined:

Time for this journalistic shit to end. A reporter - a real reporter, apparently not Sarah Baxter, needs to ask a real question, such as:

Did Colin Powell enlist anyone else's help to try to convince Bush not to go to war?

Because if he didn't, he's a dumbass or a liar or both on this. He had to see that Rumsfeld and Cheney kept throwing logs on the fire, more voices, more fake evidence, as to why we had to go to war. Not to convince Bush, but to convince the American people. How in the hell could Colin Powell expect to stop the President's March to War alone?

Of course, as we all know, all he had to do is turn to the American people before that day at the U.N. where he permanently cast his lot with Bush on Iraq, and say what he's saying now, say it with conviction, say it repeatedly. Yes, it would have been brave. Yes, he would be fired from the Administration. But it could have worked. All he had to do was enlist help - from the American people.

He didn't. If he did really try to stop this war, he failed miserably. There's too many lives that have been destroyed for him to get any points - or deserve any better reputation - from the American people. If his point is that he was smarter than Bush, he's wrong, because Bush still got his war.

Think Progress has more.

Joe Lieberman wants us to know that he might back a Republican in the 2008 Presidential Election.

Yes, we know.

What Joe Lieberman also may realize, however, is that he has a very, very short window remaining of relevancy. Two years from now, the likelihood is pretty good that:

1 - Joe Lieberman's "affiliation" won't determine leadership in the Senate.
2 - Another wave of Democrats will wash into the Congress in 2008, leading even the most moronic journalists to realize that Lieberman's 2006 election was an aberration and not a trend.
3 - Joe Lieberman's political enemies, some still hiding because he holds some political power strings due to the partisan breakdown of the Senate, will no longer feel a need to hide.

In short - he's toast, politically, after this term. So what, other than squawking the next year that he may back a Republican, can Lieberman do to remain in the spotlight?

McCain-Lieberman '08. As independents. I wouldn't be surprised if Lieberman starts dropping big public hints about that idea in the very near future.

Can a journalist ask George W. Bush what his standard was? Now the Bushies are berating the Clintons for their pardons, and apparently thinking their criteria is above the Clintons - so why not explain how?

"When you think about the previous administration and the 11th hour fire-sale pardons and issues that were provided, commutations on the last day ... it's really startling that they have the gall to criticize what we believe is a very considered, a very deliberate approach to a very unique case," Stanzel said.

What criteria was used in this deliberate approach? What were the extenuating circumstances? What makes this case so unique?

The press needs to ask Bush these questions. Bush has a big mountain of shit left to shovel on this, and comparing it to some road apples of Bill Clinton's pardons isn't going to cut it as journalism or spokesmanship.

Is Super Ultra Mega Obfuscation. But just plain old lying is really cool to him, too.

I'll celebrate Independence Day today. We have the flag out, we have friends coming over for dinner and we'll do kids' fireworks, and we'll enjoy our day.

But President Bush, by commuting Libby's sentence this week, intentionally crapped on the 4th of July for everyone that was opposed to that action. He hollowed the holiday out a bit - an insistence to celebrate the trappings of the holiday, but does it stand for as much as it did last year? Didn't we just see the highest office in the land argue for regal override of sentencing of the elite, rather than sentencing by judge and jury of one's peers?

It was no accident this happened this week. They're counting on the holiday to provide a buffer for the firestorm they expected this action to cause. They're also relying on vacation schedules - a lot of people use this week for vacation because there's a holiday that saves them a vacation day. It was by design, this use of Independence Day. It was calculated.

For 70 percent of us, George W. Bush squatted and left another giant steamer on the flag, just in time for Fourth of July. Meanwhile, his conservative media cronies kazoo Hail to the Chief, with the conservative blogosphere farting in unison, while the rest of us are trying to listen to The Star Spangled Banner.

Do you know Marty Peretz?

How about Alan Dershowitz?

Do you know a person that has been given the responsibility of being seen as part of the press, support the commutation of sentence for Scooter Libby?

If the answer is yes:

Do you disagree with the commutation? Do you believe that American justice should have been allowed to run its course without the action of the President to protect Libby and himself?

If the answer again is yes, have you told Peretz or whatever published clod that you disagree?

Because if you haven't, and you're not planning to, then you're the biggest problem with this country today. Marty Peretz is entitled to his opinion. Dershowitz too. You are entitled to yours. Peretz can publish his. And he has been, for quite a while, during the continuing decline of this nation, and doing his part to hasten that decline.

And yet, if you sit there, enjoying your position in society, yet disagree with Peretz and/or Dershowitz and can't spare the nerve to tell Peretz or Dershowitz how poisonous they are for the country on this while eating dinner or playing croquet or whatever you do with these people, then you're worse than they are. Politics in this country isn't a game, it never was, and unfortunately, everyone that is sitting on the sidelines as the Constitution is continually used as asspaper by the Bush Administration are the biggest threats to America yet. More of a threat to America than the Soviet Union, more than Al Qaeda, more than the British in 1776 - your wussyhood is killing this nation. Take a stand. If you agree with Peretz, agree with him. If you disagree, then fuck the polite lunches, dump your shit on him. I'm fucking sick of this. Aren't you?

And if you're not sick of it, then I'm sick of you.

Ugh.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

There's absolutely nothing in the Constitution about what America has to provide a President after that person's term in office. Pension, protection, benefits - that is all law, but not constitutionally mandated.

As far as I'm concerned, Americans have the right and responsibility to remove or limit those benefits - all of them - if a President is found to have failed intentionally the oath of office. That is the one promise made at the beginning of the term that trumps all others - we don't accept someone who doesn't make this pledge.

One of the things I think there should be full scrutiny of is the budget for benefits to be provided Mr. Bush when he leaves office. I am for holding the line and making them as least expensive as possible. I do not believe he deserves any more of a detail than Mr. Clinton currently has even though he's much more universally despised than Clinton. I do not believe Americans should have to spend more money to protect, or for travel arrangements, for Mr. Bush. I, for one, think it should be up for public discussion, and it should be up now, before the end of his term. What does a F-grade President deserve in parting benefits?

In addition, I'm absolutely opposed to providing him any more than what the law currently provides. Period. He has already cost America way too much.

Looks like they've pulled off another outrageous caper. They've sprung Scooter! And the bumbling Democratic posse is still two steps behind.

Above the law, beyond the law, in open contempt of the law...

Wonder if they'll turn over the White House in 2009? Who's gonna make 'em?

I really think it's wrong that we're so accepting of what is going on in the executive branch in Washington, DC. I'm not talking about bloggers, but the average American citizen, and the average American politician. There's a "yeah, it's wrong, but whatcha gonna do about it" attitude that is the enabling force for all the crap that continues to happen from the Bush Administration.

We know Bush has no respect for anything other than power. Why we continue to accept that as a presiding standard is one of the great tragedies of our lifetime. We are allowing him to ruin the image - and the concept - of America.

What do I want from Congress? Simple.

That's where Bush and company has driven me.

Our American system of justice is not good enough for the pals of George W. Bush.

Our country, and the American future, will not improve until this President is removed. Please, Congress, do your duty. Do not continue the negligence.