Atrios and Jim Henley discuss Anne-Marie Slaughter's curious Op-Ed piece in WaPo today and make their points. I was most perplexed by this paragraph:

In the blogosphere, pillorying Hillary Clinton is a full-time sport. Her slightest remark, such as a recent assertion that the country needs a female president because there is so much cleaning up to do, elicited this sort of wisdom: "Hillary isn't actually a woman, she's a cyborg, programmed by Bill, to be a ruthless political machine." Obama has come in for his share of abuse as well. His recent speech to Call to Renewal's Pentecost conference, in which he called on Democrats to recognize the role of faith in politics, earned him the following comment from the liberal blogger Atrios: "If . . . you think it's important to confirm and embrace the false idea that Democrats are hostile to religion in order to set yourself apart, then continue doing what you're doing." Left-liberal blog attacks on moderate liberals have reached the point where "mainstream media" bloggers such as Joe Klein at Time magazine are wading in to call for a truce, only to get lambasted themselves.

As Hillary has made great strides with the blogs lately, as Conn Carroll of Blogometer has noted, one wonders if Slaughter has been keeping up. The other big story she may have missed is Barack Obama, whom she praises earlier in her piece for his bipartisanship, having gone ballistic negative on Hillary, labeling her "Bush Cheney Lite." Does not sound very bipartisan to me. And when for gawd's sake, did Joe Klein call for a truce with the blogs?

Ms. Slaughter seems very ill informed indeed. Even in her specialty, foreign policy. Perhaps she missed the bipartisan Levin-Reed Amendment which called for a binding Iraq withdrawal timeline, which was supported by Republican Senators Hagel, Smith, Snowe and Collins, only to be stymied by a Republican filibuster and a Bush veto threat. Oh by the way, the blogs strongly supported this bipartisan bill.

Frankly, it makes me question whether Ms. Slaughter knows much about anything.

Apparently, the White House had a right blogger conference call on the ongoing executive privilege dispute. My first reaction is why would the White House do this? Why the reach oout to the Right bloggers on this issue? I can think of only one explanation - the White House intends to make a political fight out of this, not a legal fight. I mean honestly, if they were going to make this a purely legal dispute of Constitutional issues to be decided in a court, this would obviously be unnecessary. My other thought is that the White House is obviously very worried about the situation, particularly from a political perspective. Perhaps they felt the base was not supporting them as strongly as they expected. I really do not know as I have not followed the Right political blogs on this, but have read the good conservative legal bloggers like Volokh Conspiracy, which was decidedly lukewarm to the WH position. In any event, on the flip, I will review Captain Ed's take on the call.

If true, this is appropriate irony. Newshounds reports:

We just got some wonderful news! One of our readers received a letter from Lowe's saying their ads will no longer appear during The O'Reilly Factor. We have not gotten any details yet but we'll keep you posted. Here's the letter below.

Dear Lowe's Customer,

Thank you for your comments regarding the program, The O'Reilly Factor.

Lowe's has strict guidelines that govern the placement of our advertising. Our company advertises primarily in national, network prime-time television programs and on a variety of cable outlets.

Lowe's constantly reviews advertising buys to make certain they are consistent with its policy guidelines. The O'Reilly Factor does not meet Lowe's advertising guidelines, and the company's advertising will no longer appear during the program [My emphasis]. . . .

Chalk this one up as better late than never:

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

. . . Senators were too quick to accept the nominees’ word that they would respect legal precedents, and “too easily impressed with the charm of Roberts and the erudition of Alito,” Schumer said. “There is no doubt that we were hoodwinked,” said Schumer, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Yes, Senator. You were. More.

Mitt Romney attacks?

But Romney showed some unfamiliarity with the Internet when he discussed the problem of sexual predators and children. "YouTube is a website that allows kids to network with one another and make friends and contact each other," Romney explained. "YouTube looked to see if they had any convicted sex offenders on their web site. They had 29,000."

Actually, YouTube is the popular site that allows Internet users to upload and watch a variety of videos. The web site, which is owned by search-engine behemoth Google, also was a co-sponsor of the Democratic presidential debate held on Monday night.

The web site MySpace is the one to which Romney actually was referring. MySpace, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., said this week it had found 29,000 registered sex offenders who had submitted profiles to its site and removed them.

Ooops.

Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, convicted of insider trading, today was sentenced to six years in prison, fined $19 million and ordered to forfeit $52 million to the Government.

He was granted a voluntary surrender and will report to the designated facility within 15 days of designation. He was denied an appeal bond.

More here, including my take:

Joe Nacchio suffered a supreme fall from grace today. He didn’t get off lightly. The Judge, to his credit, resisted the Government’s request to max him out and flatten him like a pancake. We are all greater than the sum of our misdeeds, including Joe Nacchio.

So say Democracy Corps poll:

A major, multi-mode survey of America’s young people recently conducted by Democracy Corps shows young people profoundly alienated from the Republican Party and poised to deliver a significant majority to the Democratic nominee for President in 2008.1

The political stakes with this generation could not be higher. In 2008, young people (ages 18-31) will number 50 million, bigger than the baby boom generation. By 2015 they will likely comprise one-third of the U.S. electorate. While participation among young people still lags well behind other generations, turnout increased two election cycles in a row and, in 2004, jumped nine points (to 49 percent).2 In 2004, younger voters were the only generational cohort outside of the World War II generation to support John Kerry (56 percent). In 2006, younger voters supported Democrats by a 60 – 38 percent margin, the highest of any generation.3

The looming disaster Republicans face among younger voters represents a setback that could haunt them for many generations to come. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama lead Rudy Giuliani—the most acceptable of the Republican offerings among youth—by significant margins, assembling a diverse coalition of support and leading the vote among independents.4 Exploring attitudes toward the parties themselves, young voters’ reaction to fundamental issues and their perceptions of the GOP suggest a fundamental alienation from the Republican Party, a crisis that will not leave with the Bush administration.

Ed Kilgore on impeachment:

Citing the Clinton precedent, M.J. Rosenberg writes:

"[I]mpeachment is no longer the political nuclear bomb it once was, especially if one knows in advance that conviction and removal from office is unlikely to occur. Accordingly, impeachment proceedings are essentially the best means of getting information to the public which is otherwise unavailable."

I'm glad M.J. is beginning with the premise that actual impeachment and removal of Bush ain't happening, at least based on the current dynamics. I do not share his optimism about impeachment proceedings serving as a "lever" to bring Bush to heel, given everything we know about the man. Nor do I really understand Josh's suggestion that initiating a pre-doomed impeachment effort will somehow serve as a legal precedent reducing the impact of Bush's scofflaw behavior.

So the fundamental question remains whether Democrats want to take up the "I-word" as a political exercise. And other questions quickly follow.

Matt Yglesias responds:

At the end of the day, the argument Ed's making really is an argument from craveness -- it's the argument that Democrats should fear the results of playing with fire, not the argument that there are no crimes in this neighborhood.

It amazes me that Matt, like Josh Marshall, actually do not want to think about taking meaningful and effective steps to actually check abuses by the Bush Administration. [Ed Kilgore does consider them.]They seem to assume it is impeachment or nothing. This is not craven. It is shockingly ignorant. Ever heard of the Spending Power? Inherent contempt? Apparently not.

A Pennsylvania judge has declared unconstitutional the Hazleton law banning the undocumented from living or working within city limits.

The decision, by Judge James M. Munley of Federal District Court, presents a new roadblock to local officials who want to take action against illegal immigration after broad federal legislation to address the issue failed in the Senate last month.

Judge Munley ruled that ordinances first passed last July by the Hazleton City Council interfered with federal law, which regulates immigration, and violated the due process rights of employers, landlords and illegal immigrants.

Many cities since either adopted the Hazleton law or declared their intention to do if it was upheld.

The judge emphasized that illegal immigrants had the same civil rights as legal immigrants and citizens.

“Hazleton, in its zeal to control the presence of a group deemed undesirable, violated the rights of such people, as well as others within the community,” he wrote.

The ACLU weighs in here.

More like this please.

Today is reckoning day for former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio. He will be sentenced by Judge Edward Nottingham, Chief Judge of Colorado's U.S. District Court.

Among the unknowns, in addition to the length of the sentence and the amount of forfeiture and any fine the Court will impose on Nacchio, is whether he will be allowed to remain on bond pending appeal and if not, whether he will be taken into custody immediately or told to report to his designated institution within a period of weeks.

These are very different issues. One involves the Judge determining whether Nacchio has met the stringent legal standard for an appeal bond, which I discuss here and the Rocky Mountain News discusses today here.

The other only has to do with self-surrender.

More...

Apparently, the Saudis believe the Al Maliki government is beholden to Iran:

During a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted a top American envoy with documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq’s prime minister could not be trusted. One purported to be an early alert from the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr warning him to lie low during the coming American troop increase, which was aimed in part at Mr. Sadr’s militia. Another document purported to offer proof that Mr. Maliki was an agent of Iran. . . . Now, Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

So the Saudis are fueling the Sunni insurgents, who we are working with to defeat Al Qaida in Iraq in Anbar? And we are upset about that? Hard to figure what the plan is. More.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has tossed himself into a legal pickle by answering questions in ways that, at this point, appear to have been untruthful. The question is why did he answer the questions at all? I mean 64 "I don't recall"s in his previous appearance. A flat out refusal to answer a question from Schumer in his last appearance. And think of this, as reported by Marty Lederman:

[A]t the Senate Judiciary hearing this week, Senator Durbin . . . asked the AG, in particular, whether it would be legal for a foreign government to subject nonuniformed U.S. personnel to five particular interrogation techniques -- "painful stress positions, threatening detainees with dogs, forced nudity, waterboarding and mock execution."

This was our Attorney General's shameful non-response:

"Senator, you're asking me to answer a question which, I think, may provide insight into activities that the CIA may be involved with in the future. . . . [I]t would depend on circumstances, quite frankly."

. . . In questions following a hearing last summer, Senator Durbin asked the each of the Judge Advocates General of the military services the same question about the application of Common Article 3 to such interrogation techniques. The JAGs -- Navy Rear Admiral Bruce MacDonald; Army Major General Scott Black; Marine Brigadier General Kevin Sandkuhler; and Air Force Major General Jack Rives -- have now submitted their answers, which are just a bit less equivocal, and quite a bit shorter, than the responses of the Attorney General, the President, and Mike McConnell:

QUESTION: Are those five techniques consistent with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions?

ANSWER (from each of the JAGs): "No."

Q: Are they unlawful?

A: Yes.

So why answer the other questions instead of dodging them? Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel have a theory: