(video here)

Bump and Update: TMZ reports she was released for mental not physical problems. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I'll be discussing her release now around 1:45 p.m. ET on BBC News radio.

Post-BBC segment: I was the only one with any sympathy for Paris. [You can listen here, and fast forward to about 40 minutes in.]I think she was sentenced more harshly because she was a celebrity. A non-celebrity would not have received 45 days in solitary confinement. Most of the callers to the show complained about the different standards for the rich and poor. Poor people would not have had a top-notch lawyer or been provided relief due to a medical condition. My answer: Rather than say the rich shouldn't benefit from good counsel and compassionate care while incarcerated, we should find a way to ensure both are available to all inmates and defendants, including the poor ones.

Update: Andrew Cohen at CBS agrees she never would have gotten sentenced to 45 days in the first place had she not been a celebrity. Also getting it right: Blake Fleetwood at Huffington Post.

Update: Paris Hilton's lawyer released this statement with no detail. And once home, Paris phoned in for cupcakes and had them delivered.

More...

I have an op-ed in the Washington Examiner today on Scooter Libby's sentence and his chances for an appeal bond.

For another first-hand account of the sentencing hearing, check out Scott Shrake at Huffington Post.

Funniest headline of the day considering the columnist - Candidates Lacking A Real World Clue. David Broder claims the mantle of "reality based." And he writes this:

The dynamic on both sides is trending toward extreme positions that would open the door to an independent or third-party challenge in 2008 aimed at the millions of voters in the center.

Heh. As for Broder's discussion of issues like Iraq, etc., well, we know how silly he is on that. But the headline was good for a chuckle.

A sentence to prison is often thought unfair, particularly by the defendant and his or her family. Scooter Libby's extended conservative family is, in the words of David Frum, "weighted down by the sheer, glaring unfairness here." Their argument is that there's no "underlying crime," and their logic goes something like this: the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative wasn't shown to be a criminal act, so Scooter shouldn't be punished for lying about it to the FBI and a grand jury.

It isn't perjury if you lie about events that are not themselves criminal? If you can figure out how that makes sense, give yourself a gold star.

Anyway, the Scooterists are after a pardon. Here's an interesting presidential tidbit:

President Bush has pardoned 113 people during his presidency, including a Tennessee bootlegger and a Mississippi odometer cheat.

Bootleggers and odometer cheats are the president's kind of people. Is Scooter?

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I do have one more comment on Joe Klein's column. He wrote:

[T]he left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

Will Joe Klein try and stem the "extremism" of the Left blogs by writing the truth about Rudy Giuliani's debate performance last night, perhaps the most mendacious in history? Well Joe Klein write that Rudy Giuliani brazenly lied about Iraq, Iran, terrorism and Democrats? I bet he will not and he will then whine about Left blgos like this one calling him on his silence on the issue.

Joe Klein can not handle the truth, the Media, he included, do not report the truth. The silence on the outrageous lies of Rudy Guliani is merely the latest case in point.

In the course of a silly screed against the Left blogs (I think it so silly that it really does not merit further comment), Joe Klein asserts something that requires some explanation from Senators Clinton and Obama:

The spitballs aimed at Harman, Clinton and Obama are another story. Despite their votes, each of those politicians believes the war must be funded. (Obama even said so in his statement explaining his vote.)

So what Klein is saying is that, in essence, Clinton and Obama are being dishonest in their votes in favor of the Reid-Feingold framework. This is a serious charge and I think these two candidates need to respond to this assertion from the Time columnist.

The question for the Senators is this: Do you believe the Iraq Debacle should NOT be funded after a date certain as proposed by the Reid-Feingold framework or not? John Edwards raised the issue of the lack of leadership shown by the two Senators on the issue. Is Edwards understating the problem? Are these two Senators being dishonest in their votes on the issue, as Joe Klein asserts?

Catcher in the Rye, Huckleberry Finn, and the Harry Potter novels regularly appear on lists of banned books, but the Miami-Dade County School District has extended its censorial reach to "Vamos a Cuba" ("A Visit to Cuba"), "a children's book that critics contend glorifies life in Fidel Castro's Cuba."

The board - supported by members of the Miami-area's influential Cuban-American community -believes the English and Spanish book is inaccurate and fails to address Castro's communist government.

Instead of pulling the book from school libraries, why not add books that describe Castro's Cuba from a competing perspective? Aren't schools the ideal place to test the marketplace of ideas?

The Eleventh Circuit will decide whether the school board was entitled to remove the book.

Speaking of habeas corpus, mcjoan at DailyKos updates the status of S. 185, the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act. Check the list of senators who need to hear from you.

Sanity prevailed in Chelsea, Vermont, where public defender Kelly Green was able to convince a prosecutor to drop the charges against her client, Jayna Hutchinson. After an argumentative encounter with Vermont State Police Sgt. Todd Protzman,

she approached Protzman's cruiser, where his dog Max was waiting, putting her face within inches of the window and "staring at him in a taunting/harassing manner," Protzman wrote in an affidavit.

"While the defendant taunted my canine, Max was focused on the defendant and the perceived threat she presented to him," the affidavit said. "He was no longer focused on me and the other officers at the scene."

Hutchinson (who had apparently imbibed a few too many) was charged with cruelty to a police animal. Charges were dropped shortly before trial after the prosecutor watched a videotape that offered no support for Protzman's claim that Max "perceived" a "threat," or was even disturbed by the staring match. A resisting charge, premised on the claim that Hutchinson "pulled her arms and upper body away during the arrest," was also tanked.

The only way to correct the multiple problems (and embarrassments) at Guantanamo is to close Guantanamo. A good first step would be to restore habeas corpus for Guantanamo prisoners. Two editorial voices in today's newspapers agree that it's time for a change.

From the NY Times:

The Guantánamo camp was created on a myth — that the American judicial system could not handle prisoners of “the war against terror.” It was built on a lie — that the hundreds of detainees at Gitmo are all dangerous terrorists. And it was organized around a fiction — that Mr. Bush had the power to create this rogue system in the first place.

It is time to get rid of it.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Rudy Does It In One Sentence

It's unimaginable that you'd leave Saddam in power while fighting a war on terror.

That's the argument the GOP should embrace, seize and use to beat Hillary's campaign into a coma.

- National Review

. . . then how do we leave Iraq?

But of course it is not true. It is obviously false. But understand the mindset from Republicans. All of their Presidential candidates, save Paul, believe this. How in blazes will GOP Congresspersons then end the war? The September fantasy is just that, a fantasy. Republican will NEVER be part of ending the Iraq Debacle. And Democrats better make sure that they are perceived as having tried their hardest gto end it.

Via Sargent:

. . . Rudy now favors making English the official language of the United States, right?

But before he was against it:

Brushing aside the strong objections of Hispanic groups, the Suffolk County Legislature approved a resolution today that would make English the county's official language... [. . .] In New York City, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has consistently opposed such measures. Earlier this month, he remarked, "There's no reason to pass a bill like this except, maybe, to exclude people, insult people or offend people."

The strong, resolute, steadfast flip-flopper Rudy Giuliani.