WaPo's Howie Kurtz is, as anyone who has ever read him knows, a joke. Via Digby, he is at it again. This time he makes statements so stupefyingly wrongheaded that it is a wonder he is allowed to publish:

I agree that leakers often get to set the story line, but I also know that Democrats are not unfamiliar with the practice. (Remember the Bush DUI leak just before the 2000 election?) And those who leaked information about domestic surveillance, Abu Ghraib and secret CIA prisons also had an impact.

Digby explains how the timing of Bush's DUI story was actually a function of Media incompetence, not leaking. But the truly stunning assertion from Kurtz is his view that McConnell's office's attack on the Frosts is comparable to this:

You may not remember the name Joe Darby, but you remember the impact of what he did. Darby turned in the pictures of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq – pictures he had discovered purely by accident. Unfortunately for Darby, exposing the truth has changed his life forever, and for the worse.

Comparing Joseph Darby's act of courage to the McConnell false smear of 12 year old Graeme Frost? Are you serious Mr. Kurtz? What a dim hack you are. As for the warrantless surveillance leak, the one the Times held inappropriately for a year, what can one say? It is simply incredible that Howard Kurtz is a reporter, much less a Media critic. He is truly awful.

It didn't make much news last week when Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, resigned. The articles I read said something about his not being happy that another official,Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, was usurping his power and that Hartmann should remain neutral.

Davis abruptly resigned after complaining that his authority in prosecutions was being usurped. He argued that , a new legal adviser to the convening authority for military commissions, should remain a neutral and independent party and should leave prosecuting cases to prosecutors.

Now, the real reason for his quitting comes out.

Politically motivated officials at the Pentagon have pushed for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections, the former lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay said last night, adding that the pressure played a part in his decision to resign earlier this month.

Senior defense officials discussed in a September 2006 meeting the "strategic political value" of putting some prominent detainees on trial, said Air Force Col. Morris Davis. He said that he felt pressure to pursue cases that were deemed "sexy" over those that prosecutors believed were the most solid or were ready to go.

...."There was a big concern that the election of 2008 is coming up," Davis said. "People wanted to get the cases going. There was a rush to get high-interest cases into court at the expense of openness."

There was also a disagreement about use of classified evidence at the detainees' trials:

And rightly so:

With Democrats Like These ...
Every now and then, we are tempted to double-check that the Democrats actually won control of Congress last year. It was particularly hard to tell this week. Democratic leaders were cowed, once again, by propaganda from the White House and failed, once again, to modernize the law on electronic spying in a way that permits robust intelligence gathering on terrorists without undermining the Constitution.

. . . There were bright spots in the week. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon managed to attach an amendment requiring a warrant to eavesdrop on American citizens abroad. That merely requires the government to show why it believes the American is in league with terrorists, but Mr. Bush threatened to veto the bill over that issue.

Senator Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat, said he would put a personal hold on the compromise cooked up by Senator Rockefeller and the White House.

Otherwise, it was a very frustrating week in Washington. It was bad enough having a one-party government when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But the Democrats took over, and still the one-party system continues.

Bump and Update: The case has been dropped and the special prosecutor has been fired.

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Grand Jury Investigation Seeking Phoenix Newspaper's Reader Data

In the department of news ranging from unprecedented to shocking, from the Phoenix New Times, this stands out.

This newspaper and its editorial staff — both current and former — are the targets of unprecedented grand jury subpoenas dated August 24.

The authorities are also using the grand jury subpoenas in an attempt to research the identity, purchasing habits, and browsing proclivities of our online readership.

At the heart of the matter is controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio (think, inmates wearing pink underwear and juvenile chain gangs forced to bury the dead and other bizarre jail programs.) The grand jury subpoena seeks:

More....

The Bush administration would like you to live in fear of terrorism. Shouldn't you be more fearful of this story?

Three senior officers have been relieved of command for their roles in mistakenly allowing a B-52 bomber to fly from North Dakota to Louisiana carrying armed nuclear warheads, top Air Force officials said. .. The bomber took off from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota on Aug. 30 with the nuclear-armed cruise missiles under one wing. The mistake wasn't discovered until after the plane landed later that day at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

Update Oct. 21: The FBI denies seizing currency during the search. Follow-up post here.

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Original Post 10/19

The David Copperfield rape allegation story isn't adding up for me on so many levels.

A Seattle woman has made a rape claim against magician David Copperfield, law enforcement sources tell FOX News. The woman told Seattle police the magician raped her while she was in the Bahamas, sources said. Because the alleged incident happened abroad and the woman did not report it until she returned to the United States, Seattle authorities turned over the case to the FBI.

The F.B.I. raided Copperfield's Las Vegas warehouse, which is more like a museum of his stuff, and seized a camera and $2 million in cash.

What federal crime is being investigated? A rape in the Bahamas is outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. For a rape to go federally, it usually has to occur on an Indian reservation, in a prison or have to do with transporting an underage woman across state lines to commit a sex offense or use of a date rape drug.

Did Copperfield take the woman to the Bahamas? Did he fly her from Seattle to Vegas first and then to the Bahamas? Is that enough to constitute interstate coercion or transporting a woman across state lines for the purpose of committing a sexual offense?

More....

A lawyer reader at TPM writes in to criticize Mark Geragos as counsel for Brent Wilkes.

When is the last time he has been successful in one of these high profile cases? Think Michael Jackson. Wynonna Ryder. Yet people seem to be drawn to his "celebrity" status.

Uh...Geragos didn't try the Michael Jackson case, Tom Mesereau did, and Jackson was acquitted on all counts.

As for Winona, she was acquitted of burglary and convicted on lesser charges for which Geragos got her probation.

He also did a great job for Susan MacDougal. He was no slouch for Gary Condit either.

Murray Waas continues to break new ground in reporting on Justice Department investigations.

Today he reports that DOJ wanted guilty pleas from two New York Times sources over the December, 2005 article disclosing the NSA warrantless wiretapping program.

The sources refused and Murray says government investigators in the case concede the evidence against them was weak. Now comes the next step: DOJ will subpoena the Times reporters to get to the sources.

Unable to obtain guilty pleas, the federal prosecutor in charge of the leak case has now informally recommended that the Justice Department move forward to compel testimony from the Times. He has argued that it will be difficult to bring criminal charges without such testimony.

As a result, one of the first major decisions likely to be made by Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey, if confirmed by the Senate, will be whether to subpoena reporters for the Times to testify.

My bet: He'll authorize the subpoenas. That's what top cops do.

Join Senator Dodd in this fight.

Newsweek debuted a new design this week. I don't know about you, but when I log on to a site and the audio of a commercial loads instantly, forcing me to either search for the button to turn the sound off or exit the site, I exit immediately.

Goodbye, Newsweek unless you dump that feature quick. I also dislike the in-your-face lightbox with huge rotating pictures and headlines.

The site is also crowded as hell. Back to the drawing board, Newsweek, this one's a bust.

Besides voting no (along with Sen. Russ Feingold), Sen. Ron Wyden may have inserted a poison pill in Senator Rockefeller's attempted FISA capitulation bill:

[P]assage in the committee came with one unexpected hitch. In an interview after the closed session, Mr. Wyden said he had succeeded, by a vote of 9 to 6, in adding an amendment that would offer additional protections by requiring that the government get a warrant whenever it wanted to wiretap an American outside the country, like an American soldier based overseas or a business person.

“The individual freedom of an American shouldn’t depend on their physical geography,” he said.

But Mr. Wyden said the administration vigorously opposed that measure and was threatening to veto any final bill if it is included.

Good work Senator Wyden.

Congrats to long-time bachelor and Scooter Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. He's getting married.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, 46, the U.S. attorney in Chicago since September 2001, plans to marry Jennifer Letzkus, 34, a teacher, spokesman Randall Samborn confirmed.

Samborn said the couple plan a "small private wedding" but declined to say exactly when or where. He also would not provide Letzkus's hometown.