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.

James Fallows writes:

Rudy Giuliani’s answer to the first substantive question of the debate. Knowing everything we know now, good idea or bad idea to have invaded Iraq?

Absolutely the right thing to do. It’s unthinkable that you would leave Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq and be able to fight the war on terror. And the problem is that we see Iraq in a vacuum. Iraq should not be seen in a vacuum. Iraq is part of the overall terrorist war against the United States.

Huh???? . . . What you can’t understand, or at least what I have a hard time with, is why somebody who is not lumbered with responsibility for the Iraq war — didn’t help plan or execute it, didn’t even have to vote for it in Congress — would voluntarily link himself to the war in this way.

For the same reason he was so stridently pro-Scooter Libby pardon - his history of supporting choice, immigration, gun control, gay rights, etc. Rudy can not let the message be about that. It must be about fear, hysteria and lies about Iraq and the War on Terror. For the same reason Rudy flat out lies about Iran:

In Sunday night's Democratic debate, Senator Hillary Clinton said:

“I believe we are safer than we were,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We are not yet safe enough, and I have proposed over the last year a number of policies that I think we should be following.”

I believe Senator Clinton misspoke. I think what she meant to say is that the United States has done much more since 9/11 to provide against terrorist attacks on our transportation systems and other domesic targets, but that does not translate into being "safer." Indeed, we could be doing everything possible and still be less safe. But, in fact, we are not doing everything possible. Rather, as many have argued, the MAIN thing we are doing, the Iraq Debacle, has made us less safe.

I try to do an open thread on Tuesdays, but I ended up being online all day and night because of Scooter Libby's sentencing. So, I'm going to be at work today, and as a heads up, I'll be on the road starting Thursday until next week. We'll try to keep the site going, but here's a place for you to discuss what's of import to you, regardless of whether me, Big Tent, TChris or LNILR have mentioned it.

I won't have the transcript of Tuesday's sentencing hearing in the Scooter Libby trial until today. But, Neil Lewis of the New York Times, reports:

The judge said there was no issue that Mr. Libby’s lawyers could appeal that seemed to present a reasonable chance of succeeding. But he relented somewhat and said they could file briefs next week detailing their arguments that there were two reasonable grounds for appeal: that Mr. Fitzgerald’s appointment as a special counsel was improper and that Judge Walton had erred in prohibiting the defense team from presenting experts on the fallibility of human memory.

I have thought all along that Judge Walton's refusal to allow a memory expert to testify at trial was a critical error. But Judge Walton ruled Libby's case is distinguishable from a case of faulty eyewitness memory, which is notoriously unreliable and therefore might require expert testimony.

More...

The Republican candidates for President were asked at the New Hampshire debate tonight whether Scooter Libby should be pardoned. They were told to give a yes or no answer. From the transcript:

I just want to do a quick yes or no, and I’m going to go down the rest of the group and let everybody just tell me yes or no, would you pardon Scooter Libby?

REP. PAUL: No.

MR. GILMORE: No. I’m steeped in the law. I wouldn’t do that.

REP. HUNTER: No, not without reading the transcript.

MR. HUCKABEE: Not without reading the transcript.

SEN. MCCAIN: He’s going through an appeal process. We’ve got to see what happens here.

MR. GIULIANI: I think the sentence was way out of line. I mean, the sentence was grossly excessive in a situation in which at the beginning, the prosecutor knew who the leak was —

MR. BLITZER: So yes or no, would you pardon him?

More....

Here's the transcript of the New Hampshire Republican debate tonight. Among the lowlights:

Rudy playing the terror card:

First, his self-introduction:

I’m Rudy Giuliani. I agree with the motto of your state, “Live free or die.” And I think it would be a pretty good one for our time.

Now, Saddam and the terror war:

It’s unthinkable that you would leave Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq and be able to fight the war on terror. And the problem is that we see Iraq in a vacuum. Iraq should not be seen in a vacuum. Iraq is part of the overall terrorist war against the United States.

Then, he plays up the Guyana wannabes, in a question on Iran:

And during the debate the other night, the Democrats seemed to be back in the 1990s. They don’t seem to have gotten beyond the Cold War. Iran is a threat, a nuclear threat, not just because they can deliver a nuclear warhead with missiles. They’re a nuclear threat because they are the biggest state sponsor of terrorism and they can hand nuclear materials to terrorists. And we saw just last week in New York an attempt by Islamic terrorists to attack JFK Airport; three weeks ago, an attempt to attack Fort Dix.

More...

It takes a lot of chutzpah to publish a book about Hillary Clinton by Jeff Gerth. But the publisher Little, Brown chose to do so anyway. Simply put, given his atrocious record as a reporter, particularly on Whitewater, leaves Gerth with no credibiity whatsoever as a reporter, much less, as a reporter on the Clintons.

Here's the thing - Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr., Gerth's co-author, may have the goods on Senator Clinton but whatever they write simply will not be believed. That is what associating with Jeff Gerth will do to most any journalistic project.