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.

Joe Klein, June 2006:

What can the Democrats do? They can play politics or be responsible. The political option is to embrace "cut and run"; call for an immediate withdrawal, as Kerry did; and hope the public is so sick of Bush and sick of the war that it will punish the g.o.p. in the fall. But embracing defeat is a risky political strategy, especially for a party not known for its warrior ethic. In fact, the responsible path is the Democrats' only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed. This time, U.S. military sources say, the measure of success is simple: Operation Forward Together, the massive joint military effort launched last week to finally try to secure Baghdad, has to work. If Baghdad isn't stabilized, the war is lost. "I know it's the cliche of the war," an Army counterinsurgency specialist told me last week. "But we'll know in the next six months—and this time, it'll be the last next six months we get."

Joe Klein, today:

How to Elect a Republican President (and Congress) in 2008

. . . Allow the Jacobin--off with their heads!--wing of the party to control the agenda. Keep calling for votes on Iraq that will fail. Don't call for votes on Iraq that might succeed (like the Salazar-Alexander Amendment).

Even though the Republican field is prohibitively pathetic, and the President's ratings have now reached the mid-twenties, a Democratic defeat in 2008 in entirely possibly if the public comes to believe that Democrats are only interested in futile, symbolic gestures.

Because the Alexander-Salazar Amendment has such teeth. Given how wrong Joe was in 2006, it is surprising he has no sign of humility now. But he would not be Joe Klein if he did.

Last week, Governor Charlie Christ ended the suspension on executions in the state. Other objections are emerging.

At a hearing Sunday in a case involving an upcoming execution, Circuit Judge Carven Angel in Ocala expressed additional objections:

Circuit Judge Carven Angel in Ocala questioned the "experience and competence" of the hooded executioner who's paid by the state to apply lethal chemicals in the death chamber.

The Judge noted that the job of executioner, which pays $150.00 per execution, is open to those 18 and older. The law provides his or her identity be kept secret.

"I don't think that any 18-year-old executioner with the pressure of a governor's warrant behind him to carry out an execution, and with the pressure of the whole world, the press and the whole world in front of him, and looking at him, is going to have enough experience and competence to stop an execution when it needs to be stopped," the judge said, according to the transcript. "I just don't think that's going to happen."

More...