With all the activity this week, I forgot to do an open thread. Here it is. You pick the topics, we'll all just read along and respond.

It's our 5th blogiversary today. (Yes, as Skippy would say, we coined that phrase.) I'm really amazed. I had no idea when I sat at the computer one weekend in June, 2002 to create TalkLeft that I'd still be doing this five years later. There's no turning back now.

Thanks to all of you who read TalkLeft. You've made the time investment so worthwhile.

A little TalkLeft history for those who are interested, below the fold:

Barack Obama said he was going to avoid negative campaign attacks. However, his campaign just made one against Hillary Clinton.

The New York Times reports that the Clintons recently divested themselves of their stocks held in a blind trust (meaning the stocks were chosen by trustees and they were not allowed to be advised of which stocks they were holding) to avoid any allegations of conflict of interest.

When Hillary became a presidential candidate, regulations required her to dissolve the blind trust so that she would know what stocks she held.

Once she learned what they were, she and Bill decided to liquidate them all, even though by doing so they will have to pay hefty capital gains taxes.

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Greg Sargent got it:

REID: Look what this Justice Department has done. And now, with the Surgeon General, we have a man here who has written articles that I think are a little questionable as to in our modern society. He's a medical doctor. And don't worry, he's gonna be looked at very closely.

BLOGGER QUESTION: What's the next step on Gonzales?

REID: Well, I guess the President, he's gotten rid of Pace because he could not get confirmed here in the Senate. Pace is also a yes-man for the President. I told him to his face, I laid it out last time he came in to see me. I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was. But he got rid of his Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, but he still hangs on to this failed Attorney General. And I guess he's gonna [inaudible]. We're gonna keep focusing on it. Every day that goes by, it seems he keeps giving. Now we've learned that the immigration judges are all graduates of Regent University I guess.

In his podcast with Ana Marie Cox, Joe Klein said he does not believe the polls on Iraq. I believe him when he says that. He claims to be a Moderate on Iraq and in order to do that he must disbelieve the polls:

"In your opinion, should the United States withdraw troops from Iraq right away, or should the U.S. begin bringing troops home within the next year, or should troops stay in Iraq for as long as it takes to win the war?"
Withdraw Imm. -- Withdraw W/in Year -- Stay

%25 ------------------- 43 -----------------------26

Joe is with the 26%, as he makes clear in his wish list for the next Presidential agenda:

Joining the 3 bloggers who denied that Sen. Reid called Gens. Petraeus and Pace incompetent, the Americablog bloggers on the call also deny that Reid said it, increasing the pressure on Politico to retract its story or be more forthcoming on its sourcing. As of now, Politico identifies "sources familiar with the interview."

[Edited to remove any speculation on Bob Geiger. As I wrote, I take Bob Geiger at this word that he was not the source. My apologies to Bob. ]

Bump and Update: As expected, Judge Walton denied Scooter Libby's request for an appeal bond and ordered him to report to prison within weeks. Team Libby will immediately appeal. Marcy Wheeler provides analysis of the ruling.

As for the time it will take the D.C. Circuit to decide Libby's appeal of Walton's decision, I can only go by how long my last one took in a different Circuit. The Notice of Appeal was filed on Jan. 18 and the 10th Circuit issued its order upholding the trial court on March 8, about 7 weeks later. I would think the D.C. Circuit might take longer.

This means Libby almost certainly will be designated and ordered to report before the Appeal is decided. So, unless the Circuit Court stays Walton's order pending the outcome of the appeal, which is not likely, or Bush commutes Libby's sentence to probation before his surrender date, Libby will do at least some time in prison.

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Pach at Firedoglake will be live-blogging the Scooter Libby appeal bond hearing. Here's the latest:

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The Politico is reporting:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "incompetent" during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported. Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

Hmm. Who are these sources familiar with the interview? I assume it was not Reid. Who else was there? The most likely candidates are the people who were on the call. The "liberal bloggers." Now here is a question for Politico and the sources and, for that matter, everyone who was on the call - Why are you anonymous (or at least not identified by your blogger name)? Why are the sources anonymous? Why did the sources, if they are bloggers, not write about this? And if Reid did say it, why was this not blogged about it?

This is extremely strange. Do "liberal bloggers" fear "retaliation" for being a source on this story? Or is it that they are embarrassed that they did not blog about it? Is "being embarrassed" sufficient for the grant of anonymity? The description of the sources "persons familiar" provides no guidance on this one. But here is a chance for blogs to shake things up.

At MYYD, Jerome Armstrong thinks Hillary has it in the bag. That may or may not be, but I am more interested in his discussion of the Obama campaign. Jerome writes:

I looked into Obama's candidacy, very interested, then began to be skeptical, and now completely dismiss the notion that there's a movement behind Obama. It's looks like a better-than-ordinary campaign for a candidate that's personally compelling, and not much more. It is not a movement, but a candidate. It's about Obama, and nothing more. . . . But this is partisan politics, and Obama will not survive the rightwing machine's onslaught without a strategy that includes internet partisanship.

I think Jerome mars his message a little by focusing on the Netroots component here. I see how Obama being more engaged with the netroots could help him but that is not the issue. It is the disengagement from partisan Democratic politics. Obama could totally ignore the Internet as far as I am concerned so long as he remembers to be a partisan Democrat. I have written as much for a year now. In particular, I wrote about the penchant of Obama to portray himself as an Other Dem:

You may see Paris, you may see France, but in Delcambre, Lousiana, you won't see underpants.

In an attack on baggy trousers, the Mayor is signing an ordinance that imposes a possible 6 month jail sentence and hefty fine for those who wear baggy pants that expose their underwear.

“This is a new ordinance that deals specifically with sagging pants,” Ayo said.

“It’s about showing off your underwear in public.”

Why is alternative means of self-expression so threatening to people? See below:

David Broder is the Dean of the Washington Press Corps and a leader in the strange musings that pass for thinking inside the Beltway. Consider his hilarious column today and how Broder sees Senator Reid playing with political fire. You see, in Broderland, Democrats will suffer for NOT passing the immigration bill and for fighting too hard against the Iraq War. I kid you not:

All this, from a Senate that had spent most of the past five months battling futilely with President Bush over a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq -- and that then closed down for three days over last weekend and used Monday for a debate on a purely symbolic vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

. . . He may be playing with fire. A poll that Andy Kohut completed for the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press four days before the Senate fiasco on the immigration bill found a striking increase in disapproval of Democratic congressional leaders. . . .

Reid may think that Bush will suffer if immigration reform is killed. But the public is likely to put the blame where it principally belongs -- on the leader of the party that runs the Senate.

I hope Democrats can now see that their cocktail party buddies like David Broder are the most clueless, disconnected people on the Earth. Broder thinks the American People wanted the immigration bill and are tired of Democrats trying to end the Iraq War. Please remember this when you worry about being criticized by David Broder.

Back in the 90's, when I used to debate New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, then in private practice, on cable news shows, he was unequivocally opposed to all use of marijuana.

He's changed his mind.

"On many issues, hopefully you learn, you study, you evolve,” the governor said. “This is one where I had, as a prosecutor, a presumption against the use of any narcotic which wasn’t designed purely for medicinal and medical effect, and now there are ways that have persuaded me that it can be done properly.”

New York is almost ready to legalize medical use of marijuana. The hang-up is not whether it should be legal, but how users will acquire it.

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