MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski and Andrea Mitchell are upset about this:

[CBS News' Bob] SCHIEFFER: . . . [Barack Obama has not] ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.

Gen. [Wes] CLARK [former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and decorated Vietnam War veteran]: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

SCHIEFFER: Really?

Yes Bob Schieffer, really. Do you think it is a qualification to be President? Does CBS News think it is? Why? I think Bob Schieffer has some questions to answer on this point imo.

More . . .

To the chagrin of our friend DemfromCt, Paul Krugman chooses to present a clear and fair picture of the Obama campaign, a view you will not find in the blogs for the most part:

It’s feeling a lot like 1992 right now. It’s also feeling a lot like 1980. But which parallel is closer? Is Barack Obama going to be a Ronald Reagan of the left, a president who fundamentally changes the country’s direction? Or will he be just another Bill Clinton? . . . [T]he odds are that this will be a “change” election — which means that it’s very much Mr. Obama’s election to lose. But if he wins, how much change will he actually deliver?

More . . .

Amsterdam without marijuana coffee shops? Is nothing sacred?

On July 1, the Netherlands becomes one of the last European countries to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.

The Health Ministry says the ban will apply to cafes that sell marijuana, known as coffee shops. But this being Holland, which for centuries has experimented with social liberalism, there's a loophole: The ban covers tobacco but not marijuana, which is technically illegal anyway.

It gets more complicated. [More...]

Alex Gibney's new documentary about Hunter Thompson , "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," opened Friday. Gibney's last film was the Oscar winning documentary about torture techniques, "Taxi to the Dark Side" and before that, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room."

The film focuses on Hunter in the 60's and 70's: [More...]

On December 13, 2006, Angel Diaz of Puerto Rico was executed by lethal injection in Florida. It took 34 minutes to kill him.

An autopsy later revealed that the IVs inserted into Diaz were faulty, the drugs were injected into his tissues, not his veins, and they also were released in the wrong order so that Diaz received the last, painful drug before he should have. The autopsy revealed a foot-long chemical blister in his body tissue.

Gov. Jeb Bush ordered an investigation and a moratorium on executions ensued. Fast forward to Tuesday when Florida will resume killing inmates by lethal injection. [More...]

My fanboy moment, General Wes Clark on Face The Nation today:

By Big Tent Democrat

I normally find myself in almost total agreement with Digby but this post just seems wrong to me:

Under the system as it exists today, you can hardly be surprised that the first black Democratic nominee would be reluctant to break much more new ground than he already has. . . . I wish that he would use some of his rhetorical gifts to challenge conservative assumptions more and I'm hopeful that he will, as president, work to redefine the conventional wisdom. . . . [But] [w]e chose serious symbolic change that has deep cultural meaning over serious ideological change that has deep political meaning. . . . But nothing comes free and having a politically moderate president at a time when a more explicit progressivism might have gotten a boost is the price we pay. The Village will only tolerate so much change at one time. If we want real political change, it's time to change the Village.

Excuse me, this is a cop out. There is no reason, none, not to demand "serious ideological change that has deep political meaning." I do demand it. I reject Digby's premise here and I will not settle. Obama owes the country the change it desires. He should not be afraid to run on it and deliver it as President.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Via Atrios, Nancy Pelosi's 2007 promise to have us out of Iraq in 2008:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted Thursday that there would be “a drastic reduction in troops” in Iraq by the middle of 2008, saying Democratic opposition to the war had “changed the debate on Iraq in our country.” In an interview airing Friday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told host Chris Matthews that while Democrats may have failed for now to force President Bush to agree to a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops, their agitation for disengagement from Iraq had backed the president into a corner.

Let me be clear - the Democratic Party has not succeeded, the Republican Party has failed. The current Congress is a travesty. And "grassroots, progressive activists" have gone along and continue to go along for the ride. I for one will NOT shut up. Go try that nonsense on someone else.

Speaking for me only

Seymour Hersh heard this from an unidentified Democratic senator:

Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. ... Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)

Despite warnings from the military and a National Intelligence Estimate "that concluded that Iran had halted its work on nuclear weapons in 2003," Democratic leaders agreed "to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran ... designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership." [more ...]

Barack Obama will receive more grassroots, progressive activist support than any other Democratic candidate in history.

Um, more than FDR? I am sorry, but history did not start in 2004.

Speaking for me only

Who knew the nation had a "leading authority on the citation of popular music in judicial opinions"? The authority turns out to be Alex Long, a law professor at the University of Tennessee. Prof. Long tells us that Chief Justice Roberts' dissent in Sprint Communications v. APCC (a case Adam Liptak accurately describes as "an achingly boring dispute between pay phone companies and long distance carriers") is "a landmark opinion." Not because of the legal analysis, mind you, but because it "was almost certainly the first use of a rock lyric to buttress a legal proposition in a Supreme Court decision."

“The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “ ‘When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).”

Prof. Long reports that Dylan is a favorite of lower court judges, having been quoted 26 times, most often for "You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" (from "Subterranean Homesick Blues"). The professor notes that the Chief Justice (or his law clerk) got the lyric wrong, both as a quotation and as to its meaning. [more...]

I've been MIA this weekend, between having Anita, my first houseguest at my new house and the TL kid moving to a different apartment who brought half of his old apartment here for storage.

Since Anita will be spending the next six Saturday nights with me while she commutes from Owl Farm to attends classes at the University of Denver -- and again during DNC week -- I converted the lower floor of my house into a mini-apartment -- a bedroom/office/bath combo. I forgot how much fun buying beds, bedding and bath stuff is -- not to mention expensive. I'll be paying Crate and Barrel and Macy's for years, but the place looks great. I also put fresh flowers everywhere, something I rarely do when it's just me rambling around.

I'm off to the nursing home now to see the TL Mom, and then to help the TL kid unpack and arrange his new place, so I am still not ready to resume blogging.

Here's an open thread for you -- all topics welcome, from what you did this weekend to food, pets, politics, news of the day or anything else you can think of.