On the plane home today, I watched the first hour of "No End in Sight," the 2006 documentary about the Iraq War and events leading up to it. The film was shown at Sundance and opens in theaters tomorrow, July 27. (I received an advance screening copy a few weeks ago and just got around to watching it.)

The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003) as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts.

NO END IN SIGHT examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. How did a group of men with little or no military experience, knowledge of the Arab world or personal experience in Iraq come to make such flagrantly debilitating decisions?

It is excellent. I hope you will all see it, and I plan to finish watching it later tonight.

The visuals and graphics are great. The selections from various Rumsfeld news conferences show him at his arrogant worst. Richard Armitage comes off to me as evasive, unknowledgable and disingenuous. I am really glad he's gone.

The film won the Documentary Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.Here's a recent review.

Today the Clinton and Obama campaigns demonstrated who is playing checkers and who is playing chess. I will not go through the full overblown silly brouhaha again, but rather fast forward to a desperate seeming Obama calling Sen. Clinton "Bush-Cheney Lite." Senator Clinton responded, and I think in devastating fashion:

SEN. CLINTON: "Well, this is getting kind of silly. I've been called a lot of things in my life but I've never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney certainly. We have to ask what's ever happened to the politics of hope?

Now I have long ridiculed this phony Politics of Hope as silly nonsense that bore no reality to the politics necessary in today's climate. But for Obama to so abruptly abandon the "high road' to attack Sen. Clinton when he has been reticent to be "partisan" in defending Democrats (or critcizing them) smacks of desperation. Obama began with a political (not a substantive) gaffe in the debate and now compounds the error. It further strengthens my view that he is not yet up to a serious run for President.

AP:

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said Thursday the government's terrorist surveillance program was the topic of a 2004 hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials, contradicting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sworn Senate testimony.

Think Progress:

Sens. Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Russ Feingold, and Sheldon Whitehouse explained in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement that “it has become apparent that the Attorney General has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements” to the Judiciary Committee. They wrote:

We ask that you immediately appoint an independent special counsel from outside the Department of Justice to determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress.

Update: Judge Gertner to the Justice Department: Wrong again!

A federal judge today ordered the government to pay $101.7 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder after the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence to protect an informant.

Once again, our Justice Department is taking a position in court that has very little to do with justice. FBI agents allegedly knew that a witness in a state murder prosecution was being untruthful when he accused four men of participating in the murder, but they kept quiet because they wanted to protect an informant who was actually involved in the killing.

Two of the wrongfully convicted defendants and the families of two others who died in prison are suing the FBI for their decision to withhold evidence of their innocence.

The government argued that federal authorities had no duty to share information with state officials who prosecuted Limone, Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco. Federal authorities cannot be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution, a Justice Department lawyer argued.

Accountability? Not in this government. Fortunately, an excellent federal judge, Nancy Gertner, is hearing the case. She'll soon decide whether the federal government should be held responsible for its conspiracy of silence.

Glenn Greenwald continues to pull down Joe Klein's pants and I have little to add to what Glenn has written.

But this part struck me:

Several days ago, I referenced a Joe Klein post from January in which he called Paul Krugman an "ill-informed dilettante" and said Krugman made "a fool of himself" when Krugman argued against the Surge. Illustrating the Virtues of Beltway Seriousness, Klein complained that Krugman failed to study the Complex, Important Issues surroudning the Surge, unlike Serious Analysts like himself, Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan . . . After I posted that, I received an email from Krugman pointing out that -- directly contrary to what Klein accused him of -- Krugman had written a column months earlier, entitled "Arithmetic of Failure," discussing the military doctrine of counterinsurgency, and explaining why it was impossible for the U.S. military to succeed with this strategy. . .

What more can be said about Joe Klein World than the notion he espouses that he, a Beltway Gasbag, is a "serious" person while Paul Krugman, Princeton Economics professor, is not. Klein has lost all connection to reality.

In what can only be read as a sharp rebuke to Cheney acolyte Eric Edelman, SecDef Gates responds to Senator Clinton as follows:

First, allow me to reiterate that I have long been and continue to be an advocate of congressional oversight as a fundamental element of our system of government. I also have publicly expressed my belief that congressional debate on Iraq has been constructive, appropriate and necessary. . . . Furthermore, I agree with you that planning concerning the future of U.S. forces in Iraq — including the draw down of those forces at the right time — is not only appropriate, but essential. . . .

Specifically, I emphatically assure you that we do not claim, suggest, or otherwise believe that congressional oversight emboldens our enemies, nor do we question anyone’s motives in this regard.

. . . Further, you may rest assured that such planning is indeed taking place with my active involvement as well as that of senior military and civilian officials and our commanders in the field. I consider this contingency planning to be a priority for this Department.

Gates of course assures Edelman of his "strong support." Well, this letter clearly is a rebuke of Edelman's previous letter.

about this:

"I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."

He is considering not participating in the GOP CNN/You Tube Debate.

DA Mike Nifong issued an apology to the three vindicated Duke lacrosse players today in court.

A hearing is ongoing as to whether Nifong committed criminal contempt of court. After the apology, the defense lawyers withdrew their request for sanctions.

Contempt of court is an affront to the dignity of the Court. The court is the victim.

The Judge previously found probable cause to believe that Nifong lied to the court at two pretrial hearings.

If convicted, Nifong could be fined and sentenced to up to 30 days in jail. He has resigned as DA and been ordered disbarred.

There has been a kerfuffle about a TNR piece by a soldier in Iraq. The piece apparently describes some alleged atrocities. I have not read the piece as I am not a TNR subscriber. It has been a cause celebre in the Right Blogs. John Cole reports the soldier decided to reveal his true identity.

Memeorandum reports that the Right blogs have been in full bore attack mode against this US soldier fighting in Iraq.

I have no brief for the soldier. I do not even know what he wrote. I do find it ironic that supporting the troops is important for some only to the extent the soldier says what you want him to say.

Matt Yglesias, who knows what this was all about in terms of the soldier's article, writes some good stuff.

Glenn Greenwald writes a great post that delves into how the Media has been the decider of who is "sober and serious" and who is a "wacko." Glenn exposes yet again how little intelligence and information the Media actually possesses and how the "serious and sober" designees are anything but. His discussion of Joe Lieberman's appearance at the insane John Hagee's church and the speech Joe delivered there is required reading.

But I do think Glenn is missing one very important development in this all - it is something I have been talking about a lot this year - the irrelevance of the Media and the Beltway Elite in the shaping of public opinion on the issues of the day. Any reading of public opinion polls demonstrates that the Media pundits and Beltway Gasbags have been utterly tuned out by the American People. From Hiatt to Broder to Ignatius to Brooks to O'Reilly to Klein to whomever you wish to name, their impact on public opinion has dropped to near zero.

They are enraged by this development and they have taken to attacking Democratic leaders like Harry Reid in overt and brutish ways in reaction. But as Reid's letter to Fred Hiatt attests, he is not worried nor is he listening to the Media or the DC Gasbags on this. He has figured it out. They are irrelevant now. How this process has occurred is not entirely clear yet. But I am convinced it is true. See also this post from Markos on "the fair fight." I think the irrelevance of the Beltway Media is central to this development.

A letter:

On reading the July 21 editorial "The Phony Debate," it became clear why The Post's editorial writers have been such eager cheerleaders for the Bush administration's flawed Iraq policies -- the two share the same disregard for the facts en route to drawing dubious conclusions.

The editorial was an inaccurate commentary on the nature of the Senate debate, the reality in Iraq and the president's stubborn adherence to failed policies.

Your editorial wrongly asserted that "a large majority of senators from both parties favor a shift in the U.S. mission." While a majority of the Senate voted again last week for a plan that would keep U.S. forces in Iraq for counterterrorism and troop protection and launch a diplomatic effort to help stabilize the region, Democrats were joined by only a handful of courageous Republicans -- far from a majority of Republicans and not enough to break the Republican leadership's filibuster. And if the president truly supports changing course, as your editorial implied, he needs to do much more than tell us "it's a position I'd like to see us in" -- he must drop his irresponsible veto threats and tell Republican leaders to stop blocking votes on proposals to carry out this change.

Finally, it was disingenuous to assert that Democrats are using Iraq to stir voters' passions; the American people are sufficiently disappointed on their own. Three-quarters of Americans recognize that the war is going badly, three out of five support further funding only if it includes a timetable for transitioning the mission, and nearly all expect their president to work with Congress to do something to change course.

HARRY REID

U.S. Senator (D-Nev.)

Washington