I hate to say this about an execution, but it seems in the case of Chemical Ali, we've been here before, done that.

Ali Hassan al-Majeed -- a former general known as "Chemical Ali" -- received five death sentences for ordering the use of deadly mustard gas and nerve agents against the Kurds during the so-called Anfal campaign. Majeed and [Saddam] Hussein were cousins.

There was no great uproar, just some human rights groups protesting Saddam's executions, and I think you will see the same for Chemical Ali, albeit on a lesser scale.

He has 30 days to appeal his sentence.

Neither should have been tried by the Iraqi tribunal, but by an International Court. I doubt it will get the same media attention in the U.S. that Saddam's execution did.

The death penalty is barbaric, and what else do you expect of a country like Iraq. We've been there four years trying to instill democracy, and they sure haven't come very far. But then again, neither have we in the death penalty department.

I'd give him life without parole in a country where he knows no one. A very cold country, like Siberia. Maybe then he will have time to reflect on the egregrious acts of genocide he ordered or acquiesced in.

The second installment of the WaPo series on the evil that is Vice President Dick Cheney and his henchmen is up. The series is a journalistic tour de force. And it is appropriately sickening. A close and complete reading of the magnificent reporting by Bart Gellman and Jo Becker is required. Read this on Attorney General Gonzales from the second installment:

That same day, Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public. According to a source with direct knowledge, that opinion approved as lawful a long list of specific interrogation techniques proposed by the CIA -- including waterboarding, a form of near-drowning that the U.S. government classified as a war crime in 1947. The opinion drew the line against one request: threatening to bury a prisoner alive.

. . . On June 8, 2004, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell learned of the two-year-old torture memo for the first time from an article in The Washington Post. According to a former White House official with firsthand knowledge, they confronted Gonzales together in his office.

Rice "very angrily said there would be no more secret opinions on international and national security law," the official said, adding that she threatened to take the matter to the president if Gonzales kept them out of the loop again.

Please read both installments to fully understand what this Administration is, what is has wrought and what we are still dealing with.

In San Francisco today at the Gay Pride event, Elizabeth Edwards endorsed gay marriage:

"I don't know why someone else's marriage has anything to do with me," Mrs. Edwards said at a news conference before the parade started. "I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage."

John Edwards supports civil unions but not gay marriage. Why? According to Elizabeth,

He has a deeply held belief against any form of discrimination, but that's up against his being raised in the 1950s in a rural southern town."

I don't like that excuse. He seems to have broken the chains of the rest of his southern taboos, why not this one?

If you were the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, who would you like to have as a speaker at your conference? If you chose Bill O'Reilly, you hit the nail on the head. And O'Reilly provided his keen insight to the opinionmakers' convention and was right on point with them. He lectured on the news side of the operation:

O'Reilly contended that many newspapers are losing circulation because they've allowed the "liberal" ideology of their editorial pages to "bleed into news coverage" -- despite, he said, there being a greater number of "traditional conservatives" than liberals in the American population. The result? "Audiences are estranged from most major newspapers," O'Reilly told the columnist attendees. "They hate you. When someone hates you, they're not going to give you your money."

Honestly, any group that invites O'Reilly to speak at their gathering deserves what they get.

Greg Sargent gets a response from the Grey Lady:

We gave the Edwards camp ample opportunity to respond, and we quoted their full response in the article. The article focused on the activities of the Center for Promise and Opportunity, and how that benefited Mr. Edwards; it did not focus on the sister charity that provided the scholarship money. In fact, when it did mention that sister charity, it cast it in only a positive light, and noted how much it had given out in scholarships.

Greg notes that the egregious flaw of the article, the lede, remains unexplained:

So the Sunday shows told me. Yawn. Can Nader match his 0.5% showing of 2004? Does anybody really care?

Since there really is nothing of import or interest to say about Nader, I leave you an Open Thread.

So, take heart. And take a look around you. You live in a nation full of progressive-thinking, liberal-leaning, good-hearted people. Give yourself a pat on the back-you won! We won! Let's take a victory lap together and then get to work on fixing the Great Disconnect -how it is that, in a nation of lefties, the right hand controls everything. They do not represent the will of the people, and that has to change. Start acting like the victors you are and get out there to claim the country that is truly ours. -Michael Moore, "Dude, Where's My Country?"

Amanda Marcotte writes:

But I do think liberals who dislike Moore so strongly are genuine in their distaste and not just trotting it out to appear fair’n'balanced. And I think that Ezra’s review points to why—the overarching theme of Moore’s career has been an attack on American exceptionalism, . . . the belief that America is somehow better or at least different and can’t be held up to the same standards as other countries is endemic.

I am an American Exceptionalist, but not in the way Amanda describes. I hold America to higher standards. I expect the best from the United States. And, I think Michael Moore is an American Exceptionalist too. I think he argues that the United States SHOULD be better. I think that is the theme of his work. Not anti-Exceptionalism. Consider this from "Dude, Where's My Country?":

Two weeks ago, Frank Rich berated persons like me because:

On the Democratic side, the left is furious at the new Congress’s failure to instantly fulfill its November mandate to end the war in Iraq. . . . It’s not exactly clear how a legislative Groundhog Day could accomplish this feat when the president’s obstinacy knows no bounds and the Democrats’ lack of a veto-proof Congressional majority poses no threat to his truculence.

Rich professed faith in John Warner to come to the rescue. This week Rich writes:

Americans and Iraqis know the truth anyway. The question now is: What will be the new new way forward? . . . Come September 2007, Mr. Bush will offer his usual false choices. We must either stay his disastrous course in eternal pursuit of "victory" or retreat to the apocalypse of "precipitous withdrawal." . . . For the Bush White House, the real definition of victory has become "anything they can get away with without taking blame for defeat," said the retired Army Gen. William Odom, a national security official in the Reagan and Carter administrations, when I spoke with him recently. The plan is to run out the Washington clock between now and Jan. 20, 2009, no matter the cost.

Who can stop them? Rich says it is up to John Warner:

Sad news today in Denver. Former Denver District Court Judge and City Attorney Larry Manzanares has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

He was facing criminal charges over a stolen laptop. As I wrote here,

I always hate to read news about people who, having accomplished much in their lives, see their reputations in tatters and find themselves facing jail over an alleged silly act that by all accounts is out of character for them. ....I wish Mr. Manzanares good luck. The D.A.’s office sure threw the book at him.

His lawyer Gary Lozow said,

“There is no adult who has not exercised bad judgment or made a mistake in their lifetime.

His family released this statement:

"Those who knew him well will remember him as a highly respected lawyer, judge, law professor, mentor for minority youth, supporter of Hispanic organizations, board member of many women's public interest groups, author, and significant contributor to various facets of his community through his lengthy dedication to public service....The Manzanares family extends its gratitude to the multitude of people who supported Larry despite unfair and one-sided attempts to publicly try him in the press by attacking his character."

We are all greater than the sum of our misdeeds. I hope that Larry Manzanares will be remembered for the good he accomplished during his lifetime, not for the solitary, comparatively insignificant act of allegedly taking a computer that did not belong to him.

R.I.P. Judge Manzanares.

Mitt Romney is one tough talker when it comes to imprisoning suspected foreign terrorists. How does he feel about people in the United States who are suspected of breaking the law? If they happen to work for his presidential campaign, he puts them on paid leave.

The director of operations of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign will be on a paid leave of absence while the authorities investigate accusations that he impersonated a state trooper in Massachusetts and told a reporter in New Hampshire that he had run the reporter’s license plate, the campaign said Friday.

Jay Garrity is presumed innocent and, if he's charged, is entitled to a fair and speedy trial. Why does Romney believe the accused who are imprisoned at Guantanamo are entitled to anything less?

It is amazing how dumb the Media can be. Jamison Foser details one of the dumbest pieces of work I have ever seen: a report by MSNBC that shows that 116 journalists in the United States made political contributions to Democrats as compared to a mere smatterng who made contributions to Republicans. Consider how stupid the premise is - what you write is not where the bias is demonstrated, it is who you gave to. There are other obvious problems as Foser relates:

For starters, MSNBC found fewer than 150 journalists who have made political contributions. There were more than 116,000 working journalists in America as of 2002. The 144 who made contributions not only constitute a tiny fraction of American journalists, they cannot be considered a representative sample of the whole. Indeed, we know that they are un-representative of all journalists: They made reported campaign contributions, and their colleagues did not. . . . Indeed, if you look at MSNBC's list, you won't find Tim Russert or Bob Woodward or Maureen Dowd. You won't see many contributions from reporters for CNN or The New York Times or The Washington Post or ABC News. But you will find sports copy editors for the New Hampshire Union Leader and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a sports statistician for The Boston Globe, sports columnists for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and a sports editor for the San Jose Mercury News.

Seems an obvious point no?

Senator Barack Obama gave another speech on faith and politics. I like this one, as it has been reported at least:

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked," the Democratic presidential candidate said in remarks prepared for delivery before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

"Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said. "At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," according to an advance copy of his speech.

"There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich," Obama said. "I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version."

This is the way to discuss the way the Right has exploited religion in politics. Good for Obama. More.