The "last round" of the Great Netroots Debate, about which I wrote previously here and here, seems to have taken place at TNR, with Jon Chait exchanging salvos with Chris Bowers, Matt Stoller, Rick Pearlstein and Ezra Klein. There is a lot there but I found Ezra's piece outstanding and was very interested in Jon Chait's response which actually identified two real dilemmas the Left blogs face today. Chait wrote:

[Klein] tries to defend the netroots' treatment of internal enemies, like TNR or the DLC . . . Having decided that TNR and the DLC are enemies, they go on to accuse their enemies of being monolithic institutions, of being tools of the right, and so on. I understand the reasoning. They have decided that their foes are more hindrance than harm. But, from there, they proceed to banish all cognitive dissonance: They wildly inflate the sins and studiously omit any mention of the countervailing evidence. Once you have become an unperson to the netroots, you can do no good. Admitting any countervailing evidence would just complicate their Manichean argument. Klein wants to defend their means by changing the subject to their ends.

First, Ezra did NOT say that but I think the description is somewhat, but not totally, accurate, for a goodly portion of the Left blogs. But there is a good reason for this as I will explain on the flip.

Update [2007-5-10 10:16:43 by Big Tent Democrat]: House Judiciary Committee on the Justice Department starring Gonzo here. I'll add some comment on the hearing below.

Karl Rove, apparently the person most responsible for the firing of the USAs by Bush footstool Alberto Gonzales has got some nerve:

A Republican strategist familiar with Mr. Rove’s thinking said that Mr. Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, “believes it’s in the best interest of the president for Gonzales on his own to resign.” But, this person said, Mr. Rove and other like-minded aides have concluded that “there’s nothing they can do — it’s about the relationship between Gonzales and the president.”

Karl Rove should have resigned long ago, if President Bush's word meant anything. Of course it does not and never will. That is why this charade on Iraq and the GOP we were provied yesterday is so much nonsense. But what kind of a person is Alberto Gonzales? Is he so lacking in personal dignity, lacking in ability to be ashamed, that he will "persevere" in the face of being exposed as an incompetent Bush footstool who is destroying the Justice Department? The answer is yes:

Via Greg Sargent, the House will hold a vote on a proposal by Out of Iraq Caucus member Jim McGovern (D-MA) to set a date certain for withdrawal AND for NOT funding the Iraq Debacle. The bill has some similarities to the Reid-Feingold framework, but, in my view, has too much complicating provisions, such as a prohibition on increasing the number of troops in the interim period. This is of questionable Constitutionality, in my view, and unnecessarily muddies the waters. Better would be a House version of the Reid-Feingold framework, which is a "clean" proposal, so to speak. The focus should be on the date of withdrawal, March 31, 2008 in the Reid-Feingold proposal, not the conduct of the Debacle until the date is reached.

The Moonie Times reports that:

War debate cited as aiding al Qaeda

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday told Congress that al Qaeda will establish a stronghold in Iraq's Anbar province if U.S. troops pull out prematurely and that the group is reacting to the war debate in Washington by stepping up attacks.

. . . [I]t was disclosed that 11 . . . House Republicans had met unannounced with the president and top aides at the White House on Tuesday. Several participants described a blunt discussion in which lawmakers told the president that the war was unsustainable without public support and was having a corrosive effect on Republican political fortunes.

There you have it. Those 11 Congressional Republicans, including GOP House Leader John Boehner, are emboldening the terrorists. Why do they hate America?

Adding to Big Tent's post last night....

He's flipped and he's flopped on abortion, but now he's ready to take a stand. Rudy Giuliani will be coming out strongly for abortion rights.

Why? Because his campaign has figured out that with the changes to state primaries, he doesn't need the traditionally coveted states.

....they would focus on the so-called mega-primary of Feb. 5, in which voters in states like California, New York and New Jersey are likely to be more receptive to Mr. Giuliani’s social views than voters in Iowa and South Carolina. That approach, they said, became more appealing after the Legislature in Florida, another state they said would be receptive to Mr. Giuliani, voted last week to move the primary forward to the end of January.

....His aides said that in focusing on the Feb. 5 and Florida primaries, they were not writing off Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, acknowledging the historic importance of those states and arguing that Mr. Giuliani could do well in South Carolina and New Hampshire. But they said the events of the past week had reinforced the notion that later states were more promising for a moderate Republican, particularly one who was a political celebrity with a big campaign bank account.

Giuliani, ever the opportunist.

Are you ready for another U.S. attorney scandal? We haven't talked about Bradley Schlozman, but this NY Times editorial tells the story:

From the facts available, it looks like a main reason for installing Mr. Schlozman [as US Attorney in Missouri] was to help Republicans win a pivotal Missouri Senate race.

Jim Talent, the Republican incumbent, was facing a strong challenge from Claire McCaskill last year when the United States attorney, Todd Graves, resigned suddenly. Mr. Graves suspects that he may have been pushed out in part because he refused to support a baseless lawsuit against the state of Missouri that could have led to voters’ being wrongly removed from the rolls.

Schlozman had no reservations about interfering with the election.

Days before the election, he announced indictments of four people who were registering voters for the liberal group Acorn on charges of submitting false registration forms.

What were Schlozman's qualifications?

More....

The New York Times reports on the role of the informers used in the Fort Dix case. Did they merely facilitate plans already in the minds of the defendants? Or, did they engineer and create the crimes?

Entrapment is likely to be a defense raised by those charged. As in all entrapment cases, the critical issue will be whether those charged were predisposed to commit the crime.

It seems from the article like one of the informers kept jump-starting the plan.

Indeed, over the months that followed, as the targets of the investigation spoke with a sometimes unfocused zeal about waging holy war, the informer, one of two used in the investigation, would tell them that he could get them the sophisticated weapons they wanted. He would accompany them on surveillance missions to military installations, debating the risks, and when the men looked ready to purchase the weapons, it was the informer who seemed to be pushing the idea of buying the deadliest items, startling at least one of the suspects.

....As the case goes forward, the role of the main informer will almost surely be contested. Over the years, informers in terror cases have become the focus of efforts by defense lawyers and others to call into question the legitimacy of the investigations. They have often sought to show that informers engaged in entrapment.

One of the informers in the Fort Dix case presents another problem for the Government:

More...

I missed this from Tuesday:

On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 (of 275) lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.

Okaaay. The US Congress votes for Debacle without end and the Purple Finger chosen Iraqi Parliament says go.

Does it matter to anyone? The Iraqis want us to leave but we refuse. Unbelievable.

John Aravosis reports:

I just heard from an impeccable source that there is serious concern on the Hill that conservative Democrats in the House will vote with the Republicans to strip any and all restrictions from the Iraq supplemental tomorrow, effectively giving Bush all the money he wants with no restrictions and no effort to hold either him or the Iraq government accountable for anything.

uh, no:

After months of conflicting signals on abortion, Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in the coming days, despite the potential for bad consequences among some conservative voters already wary of his views, aides said yesterday.

Stick a fork in him. Someone needs to tell Rudy that Arnold Vinick was a TV character.

Wal-Mart has managed to do something socially useful, although its motive is suspect. A judge wanted to impose a shaming punishment on Wal-Mart shoplifers, ordering them to spend two Saturday afternoons in front of Wal-Mart with a sign that said, "I am a thief, I stole from Wal-Mart."

Wal-Mart was against this punishment before it was for it.

[Judge] Robertson said he had long tried to get the store to agree to the punishment, but had been turned down. Then, he said, company officials "told me just out of the blue without me inquiring, saying, 'Go ahead and do it, we think it's a great idea.'"

After two men were forced to carry the placards outside a Wal-Mart, the company changed its mind again. A Wal-Mart spokesman says the company had concerns for the safety of the men, although it was more likely concerned about corporate liability if the men were hurt on Wal-Mart property. Or maybe too many people driving by were cheering the "I stole from Wal-Mart" sign.

Via quaoar, the Pope has strongly backed Catholic clergy in their decision to excommunicate politicians who support choice:

Speaking to reporters on his way to Brazil, Pope Benedict has backed Mexican bishops who have threatened excommunication for parliamentarians who voted to legalise abortion in Mexico City. . . . "Yes, this excommunication was not an arbitrary one but is allowed by Canon (church) law which says that the killing of an innocent child is incompatible with receiving communion, which is receiving the body of Christ," he said.

Passing a law giving women the right to choose is not having an abortion so the logic escapes me here. I guess there is some accomplice theory but I have to wonder, what about laws allowing for birth control, also viewed as a grave sin by the Catholic Church:

the Catholic church also teaches that many methods of contraception would be a violation of natural law and therefore morally evil because they interfere with the natural processes such as condoms, diaphragms, other barrier methods, spermicides, intrauterine devices, chemical methods such as pills, patches, injections, and implants. Likewise the Catholic Church views surgical sterilization methods as being opposed to natural law because they prevent the possibility of conception.

Some politicians in the world voted to allow birth control. Are they going to be excommunicated?

And what about remarriage?