Via digby, Canadian born David Frum says people like me lack something:

[a] deep attachment to the American nation (and who are thus immune to the most potent of Republican appeals.)

The irony of a Canadian born person stating that he will have a deeper attachment to the American nation than I, a native born Hispanic-American, is deep.

The despicable nature of a WHITE Canadian born person assuming he has a higher capacity for deep attachment to the American nation actually is the BEST explanation of why Republicans are now relegated to a dim political future.

The funny thing is, say what you will about Bush and Rove, they had the good sense to know that darker skinned Hispanic Americans were just as capable of a deep attachment to the American nation as white Canadian Americans.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has responded in writing regarding the apparent discrepancies in his testimony regarding the dispute in the Bush Administration over intelligence activities. My review of the letter leads me to the conclusion that Gonzales has largely abandoned his story about the supposed limited nature of the dispute. It seems entirely different from his previous testimony, though he does weakly cling to the notion that the discrepancies were a result of the different understanding of the term TSP. See for yourself and tell me what you think. Senator Leahy was not impressed:

The Attorney General’s legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is not what one should expect from the top law enforcement officer of the United States. It is time for full candor to enforce the law and promote justice, rather than word parsing.
“The Attorney General has until the end of this week to correct and supplement his testimony. I hope he will take that opportunity to clarify the many issues on which he appears not to have been forthcoming and to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee and the American people the whole truth.”

That seems a fair request in light of this letter from Gonzales. What does it all mean? I think a non-confrontational approach is what the Bush Administration has chosen. I think Gonzo will, in essence, recant his testimony.

While O'Hanlon and Pollack ignore their consistently erroneous track record on assessing the Iraq War, their big claim is that they were "on the ground." But, Michael Ware has been on the ground in Iraq the whole time and he vehemently disagrees with their conclusions. And he has a better track record on the Iraq War:

h/t Think Progress.

Yglesias reminds us of this 2004 TNR article of how retribution in the foreign policy establishment works:

For many in the Democratic foreign policy establishment, Dean was seen as dangerous. . . . No one was more concerned on this score than Daalder's Brookings colleague and occasional co-author, Michael O'Hanlon, who penned scathing op-eds in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times attacking Dean. O'Hanlon, who advises several of the candidates--including Kerry--told me, "More Democrats should have recognized [Dean's] danger and spoken out against him." . . . [N]ow that Dean is done, Rice and especially Daalder may find their career prospects also dimmed. When I spoke with the foreign policy gurus who would likely stock a Democratic administration, they seemed to regard the Dean campaign as a debilitating black mark on one's resumé. . . . "This whole campaign causes me to question [Daalder's and Rice's] judgment . . ."

Now O'Hanlon and Pollack dishonestly claim to have been critics of the war and the Surge. So they are dishonest AND wrong. There should be repercussions for such behavior. No Democrat should consider having them in their Administration. Their judgment AND their word can not be trusted.

Traveling Day here to Chicago and Yearly Kos. I'm not really bringing all that luggage, but close enough.

I'll stop in here at the airport as wi-fi and time allow. In the meantime, here's an open thread.

Barack Obama is speaking today at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. ABC reports in an attempt to "seem more muscular" on foreign policy, he is suggesting we withdraw troops from Iraq but redeploy forces into Afghanistan and Pakistan to hunt down terrorists. From speech excerpts:

There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

What's this all about?

[It seems to be] an attempt by Obama to ramp up his campaign to the next phase, where he hopes to seem not only a youthful idealist, but a president who would pursue a muscular foreign policy and protect the United States from terrorist attack.

....In many ways, the speech is counterintuitive; Obama, one of the more liberal candidates in the race, is proposing a geopolitical posture that is more aggressive than that of President Bush.

It could be just me, but I'm not in favor of sending our troops in Iraq anywhere but home to the U.S.

More from Obama's speech:

C-Span 3 is airing the Pat Tillman hearing live. Go here to watch.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided to show after all.

Today, the Oversight and Govt. Reform Cmte. holds a hearing on Army Crpl. Pat Tillman's death by fratricide. Senior Defense Dept. officials describe what they knew about the incident. Witnesses include; Gen. Richard Myers (Ret.), Gen. John Abizaid (Ret.), Gen. Bryan Douglas Brown (Ret.), and fmr. Def. Sec. Donald Rumsfeld.

Feel free to live-blog in the comments if you're watching.

This seems insanity to me:

Under pressure from President Bush, Democratic leaders in Congress are scrambling to pass legislation this week to expand the government’s electronic wiretapping powers. Democratic leaders have expressed a new willingness to work with the White House to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on some purely foreign telephone calls and e-mail. Such a step now requires court approval.

How many times can the Dems be rolled on this? I hope the Dems are just kabuki-ing this thing. And there is only one hopeful sign that they are in this article:

One obstacle to a deal this week is a disagreement between Democrats and the White House over how to audit the wiretapping of the foreign-to-foreign calls going through switches in the United States. The Democrats have proposed that the eavesdropping be reviewed by the secret FISA court to make sure that it has not ensnared any Americans. The administration has proposed that the attorney general perform the review, but Democrats are unwilling to give that kind of authority to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who is under fire for what some lawmakers describe as his misleading testimony about the dismissals of federal prosecutors and the wiretapping program.

(Emphasis supplied.) There is no way that Dems can give in on this point. Trust Gonzales? On anything? Simply insane.

The New York Times today features Joe Trippi, senior campaign advisor to John Edwards, discussing the importance of the internet for Edwards' campaign.

His role has been to help Mr. Edwards find ways to connect his message to the party’s liberal base in a campaign in which the traditional media channels have been clogged with news about Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, his two main Democratic rivals.

“The Internet is the principal way we are communicating with voters right now,” Mrs. Edwards said in an interview.

I think it's the right way to go for Edwards. I read all his campaign e-mails and really appreciate the way he's moved left of center since the Kerry campaign.

Why this race isn't between Hillary and Edwards as opposed to Hillary and Obama has me stumped. I think Obama needs a lot more seasoning and experience before becoming presidential material.

Which leads me to conclude it's still a three-way race and Edwards is very much in it.

In December, 2002, Mullah Habibullah and a man named Dilawar died while being held for interrogation at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. Their deaths were ruled homicides, caused by blunt force trauma. In other words, they were beaten to death. I describe their awful deaths here.

The military investigated, brought charges against a dozen or more soldiers. No one was held accountable. Here's an account of what happened in court.

Witnesses say a federal grand jury in Virginia is now investigating the killings.

In interviews over the past week, three soldiers and an officer from an Ohio-based 377th military police reserve company told The Associated Press they were called as witnesses to the federal grand jury in northern Virginia near the Pentagon. The 377th ran the jail at Bagram Air Field.

The men said they had been told the grand jury's targets were no longer in the military. Federal law allows the civilian prosecution of service members who have left the military since the crime occurred, even if military authorities previously have brought charges.

I hope it's not too late for justice for Habibullah and Dilawar. But, judging from what the recently subpoenaed ex-soldiers told the Associated Press, don't count on it. Sounds like the "blue wall of silence" is kicking in:

More...

As we suspected, the Bush leak to the NYTimes on Attorney General Gonzales' trouble with the truth was all a setup for this:

[F]rom the letter: It states, “One particular aspect of these activities and nothing more, was publicly acknowledged by the President and described in December 2005.” . . . That is what Gonzales says was the Terrorist Surveillance Program. . . .

We will repeat this again - that is NOT what the President confirmed:

. . . This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. . . .

The news report in question revealed that:

In mid-2004, concerns about the program expressed by national security officials, government lawyers and a judge prompted the Bush administration to suspend elements of the program and revamp it. . . . A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department, according to senior government officials.

This is the program President Bush confirmed. The one with internal disputes. The very disputes Gonzales denies existed. More.

To me, the essential problem, and there are many others, but the essential problem with the proposed FISA amendments, is that it would hand to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales more power to obviate the need for court supervision of government surveillance. And that to me, is sheer insanity.

Personally, as long as Alberto Gonzales is the Attorney General of the United States, no sane legislator can support any amendments to FISA that weaken court oversight of a Justice Department run amok. I think it is time for STRONGER court oversight. Call it the Gonzales Amendment.