Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's embrace of the Cuban authoritarian leader Fidel Castro is as strong as ever:

Chavez joined some of South America's most left-leaning leaders at a rally of about 3,000 people gathered for a "People's Summit" in a Santiago stadium. Chavez interrupted his speech at the rally to call Cuba's Fidel Castro, who he considers his mentor. . . . "Well Fidel, what a shame that we don't have speakerphone on this mobile, the people wanted to hear you," said Chavez, dressed in a red T-shirt.

There can be little doubt that Chavez garners more appreciation in Latin America than he should, and that most of this sympathy is a direct result of the disastrous policies of the Bush Administration.

A New York Times editorial today explains why the Bernie Kerik indictment impacts Rudy's bid for the presidency.

The men have an extraordinarily close bond. Mr. Giuliani plucked Mr. Kerik from obscurity to make him correction commissioner. He made him police commissioner even though he may have been briefed about Mr. Kerik’s ties to the company suspected of links to organized crime. Mr. Giuliani also made him a partner in his security business and promoted him for the Homeland Security Department post.

Two important questions are precisely what are the mistakes the former mayor thinks he made in trusting Mr. Kerik, and how can voters be sure that he would not make them again as president, when the stakes for a disastrous appointment would be so much higher.

The second question is the most important one. The answer is we can't be sure, and Rudy must be judged by his past actions. He ignored too many red flags about Kerik. Perhaps it's a case of willful blindness, of being the ostrich burying his head in the sand. Perhaps it's classic arrogance. Perhaps Rudy is just a bad judge of character.

Either way, Rudy put personal loyalty to Kerik above the good of the nation in recommending Kerik to Bush for the Homeland Security job. Rudy doesn't deserve another chance. He doesn't get to say "trust me." There's no do-over on this one.

Author Norman Mailer has died of renal failure at age 84.

The ugly side of "populism" is rearing its head in the Democratic Party. Kos writes about Rahmbo's enabling bigotry:

Is Rahm racist, or merely scared?

It's got to be one or the other, because Rahm Emanuel is behind efforts to build Democratic support for the Shuler/Tancredo "enforcement-only" bill currently winding its way through the House.

Think about it -- our House leadership is strong-arming Democrats into backing a bill which is the central agenda of the biggest racist xenophobe Tom Tancredo.

Sadly, as Jane Hamsher documents, Speaker Pelosi is backing these efforts:

Tensions between Hispanic Democrats and House leaders exploded Friday when a bloc of Hispanic lawmakers voted to derail a major tax bill, relenting only after an angry confrontation on the floor with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md. The rebellion was a response to votes by 36 Democrats Thursday night in favor of a non-binding Republican motion Hispanic members called offensive. It instructed House conferees on an appropriations bill to accept a Senate-passed provision prohibiting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from suing employers over certain English-speaking requirements.

This is outrageous AND idiotic. More.

The motive is tragic:

A personal assistant was charged yesterday with using a piece of exercise equipment to fatally bludgeon her boss, Linda Stein, the former punk-rock manager turned real estate broker, in her Fifth Avenue penthouse, the authorities said. The assistant, Natavia S. Lowery, 26, of Brooklyn, said she was driven to violence by the victim herself, who, she said, treated her poorly, “just kept yelling at her” and even made her ill by blowing marijuana smoke in her face, officials said. Finally, Ms. Lowery told detectives, she bashed Ms. Stein six or seven times in the back of the head on Oct. 30 with what she called a yoga stick after Ms. Stein, 62, made a racially demeaning remark, other law enforcement officials said.

I will leave it to the criminal lawyers to explain the legal ramifications. For me, I am struck by the senselessness of it all. I guess quitting was not an option.

But not the way you think:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday that she favors legal immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly shared millions of customers' telephone and e-mail messages and records with the government, a position that could lead to the dismissal of numerous lawsuits pending in San Francisco.

This means the bill will reach the Senate floor and Dodd will get to lead a filibuster of it.

Oh by the way, how bad can Feinstein get?

Anyone expecting a speedy trial in the case of Bernie Kerik is bound to disappointed. The Government today turned over 20 cartons of discovery and the results of a 2005 wiretap on Kerik's cell phone that yielded 2,500 calls.

The defense will challenge the the wiretap and that alone will take many months to resolve. Details of Bernie's phone calls were reported by Newsweek in April, prompting me to ask, who leaked them? Now I'm wondering when in 2005 they got the wiretap, and what was the probable cause for it?

The defense may also need time to conduct an investigation of international scope:

Among the new allegations in the indictment are charges that Mr. Kerik failed to disclose the $250,000 loan from an unnamed Brooklyn businessman in June 2003; Mr. Kerik was in Iraq helping to train a new police force at the time. The indictment alleges he knew that the money had come from “a wealthy Israeli industrialist whose companies did business with the federal government.” The loan was repaid in June 2005.

I don't see this case going to trial for a year -- which would put it after the 2008 elections. That may lessen Rudy's Bernie curse.

Update: Another good read from the past: Bernie in his own words in New York Magazine, Tears of a Cop.

Update: Wiretap mystery solved below.

I'm at the gate at the Las Vegas airport getting ready to board.

Things I'm not a fan of:

• Southwest Airlines
• The airport security procedures when leaving
• AT&T's Edge Network and Treos.

On the other side:

• The Paris Las Vegas hotel was way better than I expected.
• The monorail in Las Vegas
• Blogworld ran smoother than I expected and I enjoyed it, especially seeing Markos, Jerome of My DD, Henry and others from Blogads, Joe of AmericaBlog, Natasha of Pacific Views and Gabe of Memeorandum. On the right, I enjoyed talking to Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, Roger Simon (Pajamas Media), Hugh Hewitt and Dean of Weekly Standard

Links later, gotta board. I'm not finding the Kerik indictment on Pacer, if anyone has a copy and can email it to me, or email me a link, it would be much appreciated.

Update: Links are in and I found the Indictment.

Update: A big thanks to Big Tent Democrat for his posts today and yesterday while I was gone. TalkLeft hit 20 million visitors this week...thanks to all of you for reading.

I have been a Chris Dodd supporter for many months now. The reason why was simple - he was leading on the issues I cared most about.

And, too be fair, he still is on many. But I can no longer ignore a very troubling development about the Dodd campaign - it has been much less about issues and more about attacks of late. His nod to bigoted opposition to Eliot Spitzer's drivers licenses for undocumented aliens initiative was, on the issues, easily his lowest moment of the campaign for me.

But more troubling than that for me is his campaign team probably thinks it was one of his best moments - because he got to zing Hillary Clinton. It appears that the Dodd campaign believes that is a winning formula for him. What else could explain this?

Via Atrios, the Heartland speaks:

“You people are really nuts,” she told a reporter during a phone interview. “There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

That this was said by the person who was wrongly alleged to have not received a tip speaks volumes.

But this is a warning for us all. Too many blogs ignore the issues and go for the so-called "poltics." Too many citizens do the same thing. Of course it starts with the Media, but we do not have to echo it.

If you care about issues, then talk about issues. Despite what the Media thinks:

In the first five months of this year, almost two-thirds of the mainstream media campaign coverage was devoted to the horse race (and subsidiaries thereof, like polls, tactics and fund-raising). Why do we do it? Lots of reasons. I’ll start with the obvious: We can’t help ourselves! . . . Another reason: It’s easier. It takes time and patience to dig through records, to get answers from candidates that go beyond spin.

Only the lazy and stupid think discussing issues is hard or uninteresting. Yes that means the Media. But it does not have to mean us.

Obama:

You know, Senator Clinton says that she's concerned about Social Security but is not willing to say how she would solve the Social Security crisis, then I think voters aren't going to feel real confident that this is a priority for her. And that's the kind of leadership I think that the Democratic Party has to offer in the years to come.

High Broderism as Democratic leadership? As others have said, THERE IS NO SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS!

Yep. He did. And he says Kevin Drum agrees with him. Oh, Brooks starts by the standard unsourced argument that Ronald Reagan really did not mean to send a message to white Southerners on civil rights when he gave a speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi where defense of "states rights" figured prominently. He calls those of us, including his colleague Bob Herbert, purveyors of a "heinous conspiracy theory." But the truth is Brooks has been a pernicious, mendacious apologist for the GOP throughout his career and this is no different.

Brooks provides NO evidence to buttress his claims. Indeed the version he provides buttresses the argument that the Philadelphia speech was in fact an exercise in dogwhistle politics in the Deep South: