Too funny. The D.E.A. has hired a company to improve its website and may include a blog.

[DEA] has also asked Adfero to create an interactive Web site that will include blogs and virtual tours of the museum. Right now, the only Web site that exists is a page about the museum on the DEA Web site. Plans to include a blog and a speaker's bureau are also under discussion.

If the Museum is news to you, here's more about it. If you want to see for yourself, go here.

The Washington Post reports that President Bush is the most unpopular president "in the history of modern polling" with the exception of Richard Nixon.

Bush's disapproval rating is now at 65%. Nixon's, 4 days before his resignation, was 66%.

The historic depth of Bush's public standing has whipsawed his White House, sapped his clout, drained his advisers, encouraged his enemies and jeopardized his legacy. Around the White House, aides make gallows-humor jokes about how they can alienate their remaining supporters -- at least those aides not heading for the door. Outside the White House, many former aides privately express anger and bitterness at their erstwhile colleagues, Bush and the fate of his presidency.

As for his plans for the rest of his term:

Big Tent wrote yesterday about Tuesday night's debate between Bill O'Reilly and Hillary Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.

Crooks and Liars has the video. The You Tube version is here.

Peter Daou, Hillary's Internet Communications Director, has a post-show diary on Daily Kos pointing out this statement by Wolfson:

"I think it's unfortunate that in the last week or so you have cherry picked some comments on the Daily Kos site that you or I or others might find objectionable and decided to smear an entire community - hundreds of thousands of people who go to the site every day, who talk to one another, who participate vigorously in our democracy; and you are urging Democratic presidential candidates to stay away from their yearly conference. And unfortunately with all due respect for you, the days where you can dictate where Senator Clinton and other Democrats go, who we talk to, are over.

I'm getting excited about Yearly Kos. I'll be there for all of it. If you can't make it, you can still watch and participate through Second Life. The sign-up sheet is here.

So many readers responded by comments and e-mail to my Powerbook woes and request for help getting a new Macbook with helpful hints on how to save a failed hard drive, select a back-up system and transfer music and video files from an iPod to a new computer, and with donations, I thought I'd post a follow-up.

Things are looking up. Here's what happened.

After receiving the failed diagnosis from the Genius Bar at the Apple store on Sunday, I took the Powerbook in to the local authorized Apple repair shop on Monday. Hard drive failure diagnosis confirmed.

The options were: Buy a new hard drive and have them install Tiger on it and transfer the music and videos from the iPod to the new hard drive, for a cost of $400 (and maybe throw in a few hundred more for additional memory since the Powerbook only had 512 mb memory and then think about still more for an external hard drive).... or give them the Powerbook and they'd give me $400 for it, which I could then put to the cost of a new Macbook.

More...

More from the CRS Report on Congress’ Contempt Power:

The Position of the Department of Justice on the Use of Inherent and/or Criminal Contempt of Congress Against the Executive Branch

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken the position that Congress cannot, as a matter of statutory or constitutional law, invoke either its inherent contempt authority or the criminal contempt of Congress procedures against an executive branch official acting on instructions by the President to assert executive privilege in response to a congressional subpoena. This view is most fully articulated in two opinions by the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from the mid-1980s, and has been the basis of several recent claims with respect to pending congressional investigations.

. . . The 1984 opinion focuses almost exclusively on the criminal contempt statute, as that was the authority invoked by Congress in the Superfund dispute. In a brief footnote, however, the opinion contains a discussion of Congress’s inherent contempt power, summarily concluding that the same rationale that makes the criminal contempt statute inapplicable and unconstitutional as applied to executive branch officials apply to the inherent contempt authority:

We believe that this same conclusion would apply to any attempt by Congress to utilize its inherent “civil” contempt powers to arrest, bring to trial, and punish an executive official who asserted a Presidential claim of executive privilege. The legislative history of the criminal contempt statute indicates that the reach of the statute was intended to be coextensive with Congress’ inherent civil contempt powers (except with respect to the penalties imposed). Therefore, the same reasoning that suggests that the statute could not constitutionally be applied against a Presidential assertion of privilege applies to Congress’ inherent contempt powers as well.

Okay. Bush has adopted the Ted Olson reasoning. But can the President do anything about it? Let's discuss on the flip.

Via Marty Lederman and scotusblog, the Congressional Research Service has just issued a comprehensive report on the Congress' contempt power. Of especial interest to today's controversies are the discussions of Congress' power to investigate abuse and fraud and the inherent contempt power. On investigations of abuse and fraud, such as the US attorney firings, the report states:

Congress’s power “to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power is broad. It encompasses inquiries concerning the administration of existing laws as well as proposed or possibly needed statutes.” The Court did not limit the power of congressional inquiry to cases of “wrongdoing.” It emphasized, however, that Congress’s investigative power is at its peak when the subject is alleged waste, fraud, abuse, or maladministration within a government department. The investigative power, the Court stated, “comprehends probes into departments of the Federal Government to expose corruption, inefficiency, or waste.” “[T]he first Congresses,” held “inquiries dealing with suspected corruption or mismanagement by government officials” and subsequently, in a series of decisions, “[t]he Court recognized the danger to effective and honest conduct of the Government if the legislative power to probe corruption in the Executive Branch were unduly hampered.” Accordingly, the Court now clearly recognizes “the power of the Congress to inquire into and publicize corruption, maladministration, or inefficiencies in the agencies of Government.”

(Emphasis supplied.) In the US attorneys firings scandal, the Congress' investigative power is at its zenith while the President's claim of executive privilege is at its ebb as it does not involve a question of national security. It does not even inolve communications with the President. Isn't it obvious why White House counsel Fred Fielding wants no part of a court adjudication of this dispute? Because he is sure to lose. More.

TPM Muckraker:

Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader who received briefings on the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance programs, says Alberto Gonzales isn't telling the truth about what Senate and House leaders were told in March 2004 about the program's utility and legality.

. . . It was only after a briefing for the so-called "Gang of Eight" bipartisan congressional leaders demanded that the program continue, Gonzales said, that he and then-White House chief of staff went to "inform" Ashcroft of the Gang's wishes.

. . . Daschle was one of that Gang of Eight:

"I have no recollection of such a meeting and believe that it didn't occur. I am quite certain that at no time did we encourage the AG or anyone else to take such actions. This appears to be another attempt to rewrite history just as they have attempted to do with the war resolution."

Daschle's statement bolsters one that his former Gang of Eight colleague, Senate intelligence committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), gave to Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: Gonzales is "once again is making something up to protect himself," Rockefeller said.

Ooops. There really is no excuse not to impeach him.

As usual, but particularly on this, I speak for myself only. My views are not necessarily shared by TalkLeft or its contributors.

What Hunter said. Of course, if the Senate had listened to the Big Orange Hate Filled Site back in January 2005, we would not be in this Gonzo mess in the first place:

We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him. . . . With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.

As TalkLeft noted here, Dr. Anna Pou is a skilled physician who performed heroically during Hurricane Katrina, risking her own life to assist patients who were stranded at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center. She was rewarded with an arrest and a murder investigation as prosecutors claimed she had deliberately ended the lives of patients "who could not easily be evacuated from the hospital."

Dr. Pou has always denied the accusation. She had the support of the Louisiana State Medical Society, and apparently of a judge who tired of the seemingly endless investigation. Fortunately for Dr. Pou, the ordeal is over. A grand jury refused to indict her.

The AMA, expressing its pleasure with that decision, said:

"The AMA continues to be very concerned about criminalizing decisions about patient care, especially those made during the chaotic aftermath of a disaster, when medical personnel and supplies are severely compromised."

A day after CNN announced that it was hiring Campbell Brown to replace one of its prime-time hosts, presumably Paula Zahn, Ms. Zahn confirmed today that she was leaving the cable channel, effective Aug. 2.

The unraveling of “Paula Zahn Now,” which made its debut at 8 p.m. in spring 2003, was ultimately a function of ratings. Though CNN took pains recently to note that the number of viewers for the show had ticked upward earlier this year, Ms. Zahn’s task remained a Herculean one.

The estimated 558,000 viewers her program has been drawing, on average, each weeknight this year, according to Nielsen Media Research, represents less than a quarter of the nearly 2.3 million who watch “The O’Reilly Factor” with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News. Ms. Zahn’s program also draws about 100,000 fewer viewers a night than “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC.

O'Reilly has been losing viewership, particularly in the key 25-54 demographic so it was not O'Reilly that did Zahn in. It was Olbermann, whose Countdown program is now the MSNBC flagship and ratings driver. I do wonder what CNN thinks Campbell Brown can do for them in the time slot. Mrs. Dan Senor (of Iraqi CPA fame) will, one assumes, attempt to do better in the 25-54 demo. But how she steals from Olbermann is hard to see. I guess she will be going after O'Reilly to get younger conservative viewers. We'll see.

In a credibility contest between James Comey, the former number 2 in the Justice Department who earned a reputation as a tough-minded but honest prosecutor, and Alberto Gonzales, there's no contest at all. When Gonzales, during today's Senate testimony, contradicted Comey's earlier testimony about Gonzales' visit to a hospitalized John Ashcroft, Gonzales' testimony was greeted -- at least by some senators, including Republican Arlen Specter -- with the scorn it deserved.

Mr. Specter signaled that he did not accept Mr. Gonzales’s explanation about the hospital incident. “What credibility is left for you?” the senator asked at one point.

Mr. Specter has accused Mr. Gonzales before of dodging questions, and he did so again today. At one point, the senator said, “I see it’s hopeless.” At another point, he said acidly, “Let’s see if somewhere, somehow we can find a question that you’ll answer.”

The challenge is not just to find a question that Gonzales is willing to answer, but one he's willing to answer truthfully.

Markos writes:

Hillary Clinton Communications Direct Howard Wolfson will go on O'Reilly's program (8 p.m.) to debate him on YearlyKos. . . . Hillary appears invested in the netroots, which is a great thing for all of us.

Peter Daou is the Clinton campaign's internet communications director. One of the folks who get it. It seems clear that Peter has had a voice in the room on this issue. And clearly the Clinton camp listened.

This is simply, imo, a brilliant move by the Clinton campaign. To get into a fight with O'Reilly defending the Netroots? To defend partisan Dems, the progressive base, against the noxious O'Reilly? Whatever you think of the Clintons, NO ONE can doubt for a moment their superior ability at the art of politics. And that matters.