New poll: people don't like Gonzales, Bush, or
the Iraq war. Heh.

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 12 April 2007 09:38:00 AM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

The latest LA Times/Bloomberg poll is really fascinating on a variety of topics. The headline is about Gonzales (whom 53% of Americans think should resign, an extraordinarily high number considering how little most people pay attention to the AG; additionally, 74% think Bush aides should testify under oath about the scandal), but there is also great info about Iraq. There is tremendous support for the Dems' supplemental bill, and, unsurprisingly, views are completely split down partisan lines.

The problem for Republicans, though, regardless of the outcome of the supplemental skirmish, is that the war is not getting any better and will likely get worse over the next two years. I hope I'm wrong about that, and I'd happily embrace improvement in Iraq regardless of any electoral implications. I just don't think that's likely given this administration's track record, and in two years people are going to be unbelievably fed up with the war and with five years of Republican rubber-stamping of an out of control executive.

Everyone, that is, except for Republican primary voters, which is why we now have the embarrassing spectacle of all major Republican presidential candidates supporting the president and his pet war, which are both likely to be massively unpopular in the general election. As independents continue to sour on the war, it will be fascinating to see Republicans try to thread the needle, while Dems will simply be able to stand on principle as the electorate increasingly embraces the progressive position.

My only quibble with the Times article is that it claims Democrats who don't hold the line on the war are "likely to face attacks from the party's antiwar wing". Not that I can speak for All Democrats Everywhere (heaven forbid), but I think the entire party is against the war. Being antiwar is no longer a "wing" or "fringe" position, and that shorthand is lazy and inaccurate. In any case, Republicans are seeing the writing on the wall with public opinion, and it's not pretty.

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-gonzales-bush.html

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Open Thread

post from MyDD on 12 April 2007 09:18:26 AM. © MyDD

For morning discussion. Tags: open theads (all tags) [...]

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ThinkFast: April 12, 2007

post from Think Progress on 12 April 2007 09:07:00 AM. © Think Progress

“A bomb rocked Iraq’s parliament building in the heavily fortified Green Zone Thursday, killing at least two lawmakers in a stunning security breach in the third month of a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown on violence in the capital … The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations.”White House [...]

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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/12/thinkfast-april-12-2007/

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Like Dog Crap On A ShoeA Big Fat Slob

post from A Big Fat Slob on 12 April 2007 09:02:00 AM. © A Big Fat Slob

It just won't go away. You scrape it off but then later you get a whiff . . . . From today's in box, Rick Santorum begging for money for his new PAC:Dear Friends, The 2006 election has long been over, and these last few months since departing the[...]

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Postscript to my post about Imus, and a
postscript to it (in which the Taylors are nominated as America's Hottest Couple)--and one last postscript

post from DownWithTyranny! on 12 April 2007 09:00:00 AM. © DownWithTyranny!

Thanks to everyone who's chimed in re. my earlier post. I think we really do need to talk about, well, stuff.

I've pretty well had my say, so I just want to add a couple of notes.

First, I want to put the time frame I was writing about in perspective. By the time there was an Imus show to watch, the end was near for me. The handwriting was on the wall. That already represented an advanced stage in the process of the I-man's self-reinvention as a posh Connecticut right-winger.

Does anyone remember when there was such a thing as an NFL blackout? When we couldn't for love or money get the home games of our home teams on TV? When the true crazies among us actually drove outside the 75-mile blackout radius to someplace where they could watch their local heroes on the tube?

I can hear the young uns out there moaning, "What's the old coot going on about now? Didn't he know how to turn on the damn TV?"

Trust me on this one, young folk, there really was such a time.* And back then it was my habit to listen to New York Jets games on WNBC radio on Sunday afternoons. Which meant that when my clock radio turned on on Monday morning, there was Imus. Of course I remembered him from the even older days, but he was at the top of his form then--long before there was even any thought of syndicating the radio show nationally, let alone simulcasting it on TV.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
*Just for laughs, I looked it up. The NFL's old absolute local blackout policy was changed in 1973. Yikes! Hmm, I notice that I don't seem to be laughing. Not even smiling.

POSTSCRIPT TO THE ABOVE POSTSCRIPT

In case anyone wonders about the reference above to listening to Jets games when I couldn't get them on TV, hard upon my diatribe about the corrosive effect of our worship or athletes, let me make clear: I love sports. Baseball is probably as close as I get to a religion. What I hate is both the commercialization and the mindless deification of the performers.

That's one of the great things about Friday Night Lights. Nobody could love football more than Dillon High coach Eric Taylor, but his love is for the game--the beauty and intensity of it, the pleasure of teaching it to his players and watching them develop. Unfortunately, that gets largely lost in the obsessive, life-or-death worship of the towns fans, and the disfiguring effect it has on the socialization of the school's students, which falls smack in the bailiwick of his guidance-counselor wife Tami. (And the Taylors also have a daughter attending Dillon.)

In addition to being hands-down America's Hottest Couple, Eric and Tami Taylor (Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton) have been engaged in a struggle for the country's soul. Seriously, it's a great show. (And there's so much going on in it that I haven't even been able to touch on.)

OH, AND ONE LAST POSTSCRIPT--ABOUT CLEVELAND

We don't seem to have heard yet from any outraged Cleveland boosters, but I just want to say that, really and truly, no disrespect was intended to what I'm sure is a fine city. My older brother was born there, in fact, though the family had gotten the hell outta there, I mean "moved on," by the time I came along. I'm fairly sure I was once dragged there to visit family friends I'd never met and didn't give a damn about.

Um, say, that's a fine orchestra, that Cleveland Orchestra [above]. Though I can't say I care much for that Franz Welser-Moest fellow. (He's still the music director, isn't he?) I really like that George Szell. I guess he hasn't been there for a while, though. (1970, you say? Oh.)

Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/04/postscript-to-my-post-about-imus-and.
html

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Postscript to my post about Imus, and a
postscript to it (in which Tami and Eric Taylor are nominated as America's Hottest Couple)--and one last PS

post from DownWithTyranny! on 12 April 2007 09:00:00 AM. © DownWithTyranny!

Thanks to everyone who's chimed in re. my earlier post. I think we really do need to talk about, well, stuff.

I've pretty well had my say, so I just want to add a couple of notes.

First, I want to put the time frame I was writing about in perspective. By the time there was an Imus show to watch, the end was near for me. The handwriting was on the wall. That already represented an advanced stage in the process of the I-man's self-reinvention as a posh Connecticut right-winger.

Does anyone remember when there was such a thing as an NFL blackout? When we couldn't for love or money get the home games of our home teams on TV? When the true crazies actually drove outside the 75-mile blackout radius to someplace where they could watch their local heroes on the tube?

I can hear the young uns out there moaning, "What's the old coot going on about now? Didn't he know how to turn on the damn TV?"

Trust me on this one, young folk, there really was such a time.* And back then it was my habit to listen to New York Jets games on WNBC radio on Sunday afternoons. Which meant that when my clock radio turned on on Monday morning, there was Imus. Of course I remembered him from the even older days (like, before the First Cleveland Exile), but he was at the top of his form then--decades before there was any thought even of syndicating the radio show nationally, let alone simulcasting it on TV.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
*Just for laughs, I looked it up. The NFL's old absolute local blackout policy was changed in 1973. Yikes! Hmm, I notice that I don't seem to be laughing. Not even smiling.

POSTSCRIPT TO THE ABOVE POSTSCRIPT--RE. THE TAYLORS

In case anyone wonders about the reference above to listening to Jets games when I couldn't get them on TV, hard upon my diatribe about the corrosive effect of our worship of athletes, let me make clear: I love sports. Baseball is probably as close as I get to a religion. What I hate is both the commercialization and the mindless deification of the performers.

That's one of the great things about Friday Night Lights. Nobody could love football more than Dillon High coach Eric Taylor, but his love is for the game--the beauty and intensity of it, the pleasure of teaching it to his players and watching them develop. Unfortunately, that gets largely lost in the obsessive, life-or-death worship of the town's fans, and the disfiguring effect it has on the socialization of the school's students, which falls smack in the bailiwick of his guidance-counselor wife Tami. (And the Taylors also have a daughter attending Dillon.)

In addition to being hands-down America's Hottest Couple, Tami and Eric Taylor (Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler, above), have been engaged in a struggle for their family's, and I think the country's, soul. Seriously, it's a great show. (And there's so much going on in it that I haven't had a chance to touch on.)

OH, AND ONE LAST POSTSCRIPT--ABOUT CLEVELAND

We don't seem to have heard yet from any outraged Cleveland boosters, but I just want to say that, really and truly, no disrespect was intended to what I'm sure is a fine city. My older brother was born there, in fact, though the family had gotten the hell outta there, I mean "moved on," by the time I came along. I'm fairly sure I was once dragged, er, taken there once to visit old family friends I'd never met and surely didn't give a damn about. That's about as much as I remember about the event.

Um, say, that's a fine orchestra, that Cleveland Orchestra [above]. Though I can't say I care much for that Franz Welser-Moest fellow. (He's still the music director, isn't he?) I liked that George Szell. I guess he hasn't been there for a while, though. (1970, you say? Oh.)

Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/04/postscript-to-my-post-about-imus-and.
html

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BOOK TOUR AND MEDIA SPOTS!

post from FRAMESHOP on 12 April 2007 09:00:00 AM. © FRAMESHOP

Apr 12: Washington DC Drinking Liberally Apr 14: New York City, NY College Democrats of New York...

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http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2007/04/book_tourmedia_.html

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Blair-Imus Axis

post from Connecting.the.Dots on 12 April 2007 08:56:00 AM. © Connecting.the.Dots

After serving most of his time playing a road-company Winston Churchill to George Bush's impersonation of a wartime leader like FDR, Tony Blair now seems determined to go out as a British Don Imus.

In a lecture, he inveighed against political correctness and claimed that a recent wave of knife and gun murders would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it."

As The Guardian pointed out, "Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture."

When he joins George Bush in retirement, the Prime Minister might want to consider hosting a morning talk show in London.

Read The Full Article:
http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2007/04/blair-imus-axis.html

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GOP E-mails Lost Congress Can Find Them, If It
Looks, Now

Reuters via CNN.com reported last night that the e-mails Congress seeks that were sent on the GOP system to avoid the government e-mail system, and, therefore, accountability, were deleted or otherwise lost.

Some White House staff wrote e-mail messages about official business on Republican Party accounts, and some may have been wrongly deleted, the administration said Wednesday in a disclosure tied to the inquiry into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
The White House said it could not rule out the possibility that some official e-mails relating to the firings had been deleted and are lost.

Democrats in Congress have been seeking copies of e-mails from the Republican National Committee as part of an investigation into whether the firing of the prosecutors last year was politically motivated.
"Some official e-mails have potentially been lost and that is a mistake the White House is aggressively working to correct," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters.
Asked whether some of the lost e-mails could be related to the firings of the U.S. attorneys last year, Stanzel said: "That can't be ruled out."
Democrats reacted with scorn.

The FBI's computer forensics teams can recover them. I've got clients in prison who can attest to that.

It does not require the FBI--any competent computer forensics person with access to the server can recover them, or at least most of them. Therefore, Congress should issue a forthwith subpoena duces tecum for the server itself.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime/~3/108506365/5692

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Cheers and Jeers: Thursday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Gonzales in Training

Okay, Al, you're really sucking at this timeline thing, so let's skip the US attorneys for the moment and start out real slow.

Gotcha. I wanna do good, fellas. I really do.

We know ya do, kid, we know ya do. Okay, here's a slow pitch. You were born in...

Nineteen...fifty...uhhh five?

Great! Yes! Perfect! And you got your degree from Harvard Law in...

Nineteen... eighty two?

Hallelujah, we're on a roll! Confidence, Al, confidence! And you got divorced in...

Nineteen eighty five. Hard to forget that...she cleaned me out.

God bless ya! Try this one: you became Attorney General in...

Two thousand and five. The president bought me lunch that day.

Yer battin' a thousand, buddy. Need some water? Anything?

I'm okay, thanks. Feelin' confident...

Stay frosty, pal, here comes a tricky one: you told the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18, 2007 that there was no right of habeas corpus in the Constitution. Was that before or after you called the Geneva Conventions "quaint" in 2001?

Oh, man...

Take your time.

I think...

We're all friends in this room, Al. Breathe and relax...

I know, I know. I think... I'm sorry guys, I think I gotta plead the fifth.

Jesus, Al, no!! What the f... I mean, gosh, every time you get stuck you plead the goddam fifth! You can't do that, Al!!

Sorry.

Let's start again. You were born in...