The House Judiciary Committee's hearing on the use and abuse of presidential dlemency authority for executive branch officials, to include the Scooter Libby sentence commutation, begins at 12:00 pm ET.

You can watch the live webcast here.

I've already expressed my opinion on the witness list, and how I don't think it will shed any light on Bush's motives in granting the commutation.

I think it is worthwhile to listen to the testimony of Joe Wilson and law professor Doug Berman.

Unless the President waives executive privilege on the Libby commutation as Rep. Conyers asked him to do in this letter (pdf), and as President Clinton did in similar hearings into his exercise of clemency, I don't think we get very far today.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing has begun on the U.S. Attorney Firings.

TPM has Sara Taylor's written statement.

She's going to walk the line of deciding which questions she can answer as a private citizen and which she won't answer because Fred Fielding says they would impact privileged staff communications.

"While I may be unable to answer certain questions today, I will answer those questions if the courts rule that this committee's need for the information outweighs the president's assertion of executive privilege...

I look forward to answering those questions not covered by the President's assertion of executive privilege."

Firedoglake is live-blogging the hearing. (Part One and Two, so far.) TPMuckraker also is following the hearings.

The hearing is steaming live here.

I am not comfortable with this line of reasoning from Avedon Carol and Matt Yglesias:

Avedon Carol wonders if it shouldn't "concern us that Republicans are constantly talking about how people will all wise up when the next terrorist attack at home comes?" After all, they seem to really be "looking forward to it, and they take great delight in the thought that, by God, people will see things differently when it happens."

I detest it when Wingnuts accuse Democrats of "wanting the terrorists to win" when Dems speak the truth about Iraq. I think this is only marginally better than that -- a veiled insinuation that Wingnuts want terrorists to successfully attack us.

Can everybody, Wingnuts and DFHs, just drop this line of thinking? I guess I know Republicans and Wingnuts will not so is this a case of sauce for the gander? Perhaps, but I still do not like it.

I was watching the Larry King thing with Moore/Gupta and Atrios' reaction is my own:

I haven't gone into the full details, but from what I could tell from the Larry King joint appearance tonight what happened was fairly typical. Basically, to "fact check" Moore, the kind of scrutiny which rarely happens to, say, hacks from AEI or the Preznit of Amurka, Gupta pulled up some nitpickery alternative numbers. One could determine whether Gupta's chosen numbers were more or less correct than Moore's, but nothing supported the idea that Moore "fudged the facts" as was claimed. . . . [w]hat is clear is that "fact checking Moore" means one can throw up something, anything, and use it to cast doubt on his integrity. I welcome fact-checking. I just wish CNN would subject more of their guests to it.

In the spirit of fact checking, I would point to pieces of shoddy factual work by Gupta that I am personally familiar with. One was his fact-checking a few months ago of Bush's claim on stem cell research where Gupta was not willing to call out the flat out falsehoods of the bush Administration on this. Would that he held the President of the United States to the same standards as he appears to want to hold Michael Moore.

But the other was tonight.

In 2006, a report called the Illinois Study was released. It claimed that double-blind sequential lineups did not produce more valid eyewitness identifications. Prosecutors have since relied on that study to contest 30 years of research that shows they are more reliable than simultaneous identification procedures.

Now, a new report is out by leading researchers in the country finding that the Illinois study was flawed.

A blue ribbon panel of social scientists, convened by the Center for Modern Forensic Practice of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the Illinois Eyewitness Identification Field Study, which challenged 30 years of academic research into eyewitness identification procedures, was itself crippled by a design flaw that made the study's conclusions a dangerous basis for shaping public policy.

The Eyewitness Identification Reform Blog says there's no way to put lipstick on this pig.

The new findings are available here (pdf).

A 13 minute video will be released by New York firefighters tomorrow debunking Rudy Giuliani's claim to being a 9/11 hero. ABC News reports:

The nation's largest firefighters union is set to launch a video on Wednesday that seeks to tarnish former mayor Rudolph Giuliani's reputation as a strong leader before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The 13-minute video -- set for distribution to firefighters and the general public courtesy of the International Association of Fire Fighters -- uses interviews with New York City firefighters and families of 9/11 victims to argue that Giuliani has exaggerated his record as mayor.

"He's running on his 9/11 leadership and it was lacking -- and there was none," Jim Riches, a deputy chief in the New York Fire Department and a father of one of the 9/11 victims, says on the video, according to a transcript obtained by ABC News. "I blame Giuliani. He was the leader that day. And he was the leader for the eight years leading up to that."

Last year it seems to me MySpace was big. This seems to be the year for bloggers and Facebook.

Firedoglake has over 700 members. Christy has figured out how to put up her own page. Jane has one too.

Digby has a group. So does Yearly Kos.

They have inspired me to spend an absurd amount of time today updating the TalkLeft page and TalkLeft Group on Facebook. I haven't created a separate page for me, and instead put my stuff on the TalkLeft page.

As of now TalkLeft has only 17 friends and the TalkLeft group has only 8 members, a pretty paltry showing. If you're into Facebook, I hope you'll stop by and connect up with us. You can just click to join the TalkLeft group. I'm not sure how I add you as a friend.

Some questions for Facebook pros below:

Digby again. Raw Story has the Pope saying take that, you heretic Cal Thomas:

The Vatican set itself on a collision course with other Christian faiths Tuesday, reaffirming the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church in a corrective document which it said was designed to clear up recent "erroneous" doctrine. The document's central claim, that only the Catholic Church is "the one true Church of Christ", is likely to revive a debate which has dogged the Vatican's relationship with rival Christian denominations for decades.

You read that right. Harriet Miers, proving herself unversed in the law, accepts her lawyer's erroneous statements:

Ms. Miers has no choice other than to comply with direction given her by Counsel to the president in his letters mentioned above. This is particularly so because, as the members of the Committee are aware, the assertion of the privilege in this circumstance is supported by the thorough and reasoned opinion of the Solicitor General of the United States...

This is wrong in every respect. Ms. Miers can of course choose to not follow the "direction" of the counsel for the President, who ALSO has no power to invoke executive privilege. Only the President can.

Whether Ms. Miers, her attorney or Fred Fielding think executive privilege applies here, only the President has the power to invoke it. A letter from Fred Fielding does not invoke it. And even if it did, neither the President or Mr. Fielding have the final word on this.

Ms. Miers is clearly in contempt of Congress. The House should immediately begin proceedings to enforce its subpoena.

Digby points out what we should all know by now; the Radical Religious Right is intolerant of religious beliefs not in lockstep with their own:

Liberal faith . . . ultimately morphs into societal and self-improvement efforts and jettisons the life-changing message of salvation, forgiveness of sins and a transformed life.

If the newspaper story is accurate, this is where Clinton is on her faith: "In a brief quiz about her theological views, Mrs. Clinton said she believed in the resurrection of Jesus, though she described herself as less sure of the doctrine that being a Christian is the only way to salvation."

This is a politician speaking, not a person who believes in the central tenets of Christianity. . . . Clinton is entitled to whatever faith she wants to practice, but when she uses it as an election tactic, she should not be allowed to alter classic Christian theology.

If it is "classic Christian theology" that Cal Thomas is looking for, how about the Spanish Inquisition? It always makes me smile when Southern Baptists speak in this fashion. Cuz in the "classic Christian theology" - ole Cal Thomas is a heretic. I also wonder when ole Cal is gonna dissect Mitt Romney's Christianity.

Happy 5th blogiversary to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Skippy has made me smile with his unique writing voice all that time.

His blogiversary post reads like a Who's Who of the liberal blogosphere, so go on over and read it and check out the many blogs mentioned.

Congrats, Skippy, you've been a great blogosphere friend . I wish you many more great blogging years and hope you hit that 2 million mark soon.

In other blogging news, Heretik is doing a great job with Mike's Blog Roundup at Crooks and Liars. For those interested in the mechanics of blogging (such as the change-over of many individual blogs to group blogs and the concept of short head vs. long tail blogs) Chris Bowers explains all at the new blog Open Left in a post he titles, New Establishment Rising? The End Of the Flat Blogosphere

Arianna writes that Democrats can't wait for GOP'ers to defect to act to end the war.

Let's make this an open thread.

The AP reports that Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sparred on Iraq today. AP reports that Obama said:

It will be enormously difficult to invest in jobs and opportunity until we stop spending $275 million a day on this war in Iraq . . . I believed then and still do that being a leader means that you'd better do what's right and leave the politics aside, because there are no do-overs on an issue as important as war.

Fine to toot your horn but will it obfuscate the more important message? I think what Clinton said is the important message now:

Our message to the president is clear . . . It is time to begin ending this war — not next year, not next month — but today.

More.