Docudharma and Democrats.com are sponsoring the following petition:

I'll be out most of the day. We're expecting a huge freeze tonight for the rest of the weekend so I'm going to stock up on necessities in case I decide to hibernate.

What are you up to? Christmas shopping, or something fun?

This is what "redefining the middle" looks like. McCain, Graham and Lieberman, the people who lost the 2008 election in a landslide, write:

Our shared, central task now is to work together to support a responsible redeployment from Iraq . . . [W]e are optimistic that President-elect Obama will be able to fulfill a major step of his plan for withdrawal next year . . .

I think we need to be clear on something though - Iraq is headed for civil war after we leave. This has always been the case imo. But unless we stayed forever, or even if we did, this was inevitable. So when "the commanders on the ground" tell us that this will happen, that should not stop the withdrawal. After all, McCain, Lieberman and Graham now support withdrawal from Iraq.

Speaking for me only

I do not know if they are ingenues or are merely playing ingenue, but Glenn Greenwald's piece ridiculing the basic and blatant illogic of Ruth Marcus' embarrassing (for her) column arguing against holding the Bush Administration accountable for its crimes tell us all that is wrong with the Beltway - they are either fools or knaves. Ms. Marcus would have us either believe she was an idiot or malevolently dishonest.

Read Glenn's piece for the main retort - which, I feel Glenn would admit, is so blatantly obvious that it is humiliating to Ms. Marcus that it need be done. One point Glenn does not make is that the Reagan pardon of two lawbreakers came AFTER they were prosecuted and convicted. To wit, her argument is for clemency from a pardoning power - not for not prosecuting the lawbreakers.

More . . .

Reza Azlan, writing at The Daily Beast, posits that legalizing opium could save Afghanistan:

America's drug war in Afghanistan has been a miserable failure. So why not legalize opium production and let Afghanistan become the Saudi Arabia of morphine?

He makes some good points. Among them:

It is time to admit that the struggle to end poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is a losing battle. The fact is that opium has long been Afghanistan’s sole successful export. Poppy seeds cost little to buy, can grow pretty much anywhere, and offer a huge return on a farmer’s investment. Only the Taliban has ever managed to significantly reduce opium production in the country (as it did during its late-1990s rule)—a feat managed by executing anyone caught growing poppies. It is no exaggeration to say that we have a better chance of defeating the Taliban than putting a dent in Afghanistan’s opium trade. So then, as the saying goes: if you can’t beat them, join them.

It won't happen, of course. Instead, Congress will redouble its efforts to pass "narco-terror" laws which will end up being used here at home against people who wouldn't know a terrorist if they found one in their soup. (Another example of a failed bill that could make a comeback here.)

California Attorney General Jerry Brown reversed course today and asked the California Supreme Court to find Prop 8 unconstitutional.

Brown, who is required to defend state laws unless he cannot find reasonable legal grounds to do so, said after Prop. 8 passed Nov. 4 that he would support the initiative before the state's high court.

"Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification," Brown said. The authors of the state Constitution, he said, did not intend "to put a group's right to enjoy liberty to a popular vote."

The pro-Prop 8 group filed its brief today as well. Their chief counsel? Kenneth Starr.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich issued 22 pardons today.

One went to Marcus Lyons, who served three years in prison before DNA established his innocence.

The "pardon based on innocence" allows Lyons to apply for around $85,000 in compensation for the three years he served, said his attorney, Jane Raley, of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.

But perhaps more importantly, she said, "it begins to address the enormous suffering he's endured."

Update: The spokeswoman for the Alaska Troopers says the drug involved is OxyContin. The prosecutor hasn't even seen the paperwork yet.

*****

In the "you can't make this stuff up" department, Sherry Johnston, soon-to-be grandmother to Bristol Palin's as yet unborn child, was busted at her home yesterday and charged with six felony drug counts.

Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla 18-year-old who received international attention in September when Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, announced their teenage daughter was pregnant and he was the father. Bristol Palin, 18, is due on Saturday, according to a recent interview with the governor's father, Chuck Heath.

Gawker says it sounds like a meth lab.[More...]

Ed Gensen, Gov. Rod Blagojevich's lawyer, can't be happy that his client is going to make a public statement today, but it seems like Blagojevich is just itching to defend himself in the court of public opinion.

“I can’t wait to begin to tell my side of the story and to address you guys and, most importantly, the people of Illinois. That’s who I’m dying to talk to,” he said. “There’s a time and place for everything. That day will soon be here and you might know more about that today, maybe no later than tomorrow.”

No one will be listening more intently than the prosecutors in Fitzgerald's office.

As a general rule, defense lawyers hate it when their clients insist on talking to the media. Our prisons are filled with people who thought if they could only tell their side of the story, the cops would see it their way. It rarely happens.

This morning, Al Franken took the lead in the MN Senate race for the first time. He's ahead a few hundred votes. Counting may be done this evening.

A snowstorm is expected here in New York. How's the weather where you are? This is an Open Thread.

BTW, Franken moves into the lead in the Minnesota Senate race.

Politico asks:

Should the DOJ consider prosecuting Bush administration officials for detainee abuse as the NYT and others have urged?

Republican talking head Brad Blakeman answers:

I would rather see the New York Times prosecuted for their constant and continued abuse of the First Amendment. Their treasonous behavior on almost a daily basis is far more damaging to our country than anything a Bush Administration official past or present is alleged.

This is one of the Serious People of the Washington Establishment. That is why so much went wrong and so much wrong was done in the past 8 years - because people like Brad Blakeman are taken seriously while people who ask that the rule of law be upheld are considered DFHs.

Speaking for me only