Sigh. Here we do NOT go again:

"Over the course of the next three to four months, we'll have some idea how well the plan's working. . . . By the time we get to September or October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B?"

Sure they will. This is deja vu all over again:

I think it will be rather clear in the next 60 to 90 days as to whether this plan is going to work. . . . We need to know, as we . . . move through these benchmarks, that the Iraqis are doing what they have to do. -Boehner, 1/23/07

Democrats and anti-war groups that are waiting for Republicans to move to end the Debacle now sound like this:

Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let's go.

They do not move.

Episode 82 is tonight: "Walk Like a Man."

This week, A.J. struggles with depression. Meanwhile, Kelli's dad is the unwitting catalyst of a new feud between Christopher and Paulie.

Paulie sure is getting his share of attention this season. I wonder if it means he'll be gone by the season's end.

So many loose ends, so few episodes left. Anyone have any predictions or reactions?

A new study in New Jersey, home of the original Megan's Law which requires convicted sex offenders to register with authorities, finds no evidence they make children safer and questions whether the laws are worth the enormous cost.

For those who don't know a Megan's law from an Amber Alert or a Laci's or Jessica's law,

The 1994 law is named after Megan Kanka, a suburban Trenton girl who was raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender living across the street. It has been a model for dozens of state laws across the country.

The law requires sex criminals to report their whereabouts to law enforcement authorities, who must maintain a catalog of the offenders and notify residents when a high-risk offender moves nearby. The tracking and notification apparatus in New Jersey costs county and local governments millions of dollars.

As to the study, conducted by the New Jersey Department of Corrections and funded by the National Institute of Justice (the research arm of the Department of Justice),

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Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo continues to ratchet up the immigration debate with ridiculous hyperboles. His latest, in Arizona yesterday:

Presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo told supporters gathered at a private ranch here Friday that American culture, as well as the fate of western civilization, is being threatened by illegal immigration.

....“There’s an issue that is so much broader than all that, so much more serious. It is the issue of our culture itself, and whether we will survive.”

Then, he warned his audience that what happened at an elementary school in 2004 in Beslan, Russia, ("where Islamic terrorists from Chechnya killed more than 300 people") could happen here:

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Who wrote this column, cuz it makes good sense:

The gap between public opinion and Washington reality has rarely been wider than on the issue of the Iraq war. A clear national mandate is being blocked -- for now -- by constraints that make sense only in the short-term calculus of politics in this capital city. The public verdict on the war is plain. Large majorities have come to believe that it was a mistake to go in, and equally large majorities want to begin the process of getting out. That is what the polls say; it is what the mail to Capitol Hill says; and it is what voters signaled when they put the Democrats back into control of Congress in November. . . . Congress shares war-making power under the Constitution but can exercise it only through its control of the money the president needs to finance any military operation.

But then it makes the Friedman Unit mistake:

Putting aside her professional failings, which were very serious, plagiarism is one of the most serious sins in academia, why does anyone take Doris Kearns Goodwin seriously? As Atrios point out, she has said so many stupid things, such as this one on Bush's Mission Accomplished stunt:

Well, you see, I think what worked about the speech the other night was not only the imagery. The imagery is a kind of static thing, even the plane going in, but what made it work was partly what David said. There’s a war behind it. It was a real event, and by speaking to those soldiers who were on their way home, it gave it such an emotional connection between him and the soldiers, just like when Reagan spoke on the anniversary of D-Day before that incredible rock. And people had climbed up that rock and those rangers were there. There’s a connection then between the commander in chief and the troops that you cannot take away. So I think it is crazy to criticize it. I think it was a good thing he did for himself, for the country and the Democrats have plenty of other things to criticize, but it’s silly to go on about that.

(Emphasis supplied.) Doris Kearns Goodwin is silly, to put it mildly. Tim Russert is grilling George Tenet this morning on all the things he said in the past. When do pundits get grilled for all the things they said in the past? When is there accountability for them?

Some anti-Iraq Debacle groups have discovered that the House Iraq supplemental funding bill that they supported has led to nowhere. They feign outrage now and try to reclaim some type of pressuring role. It is too little, too late:

On Thursday, leaders of the liberal group MoveOn.org . . . sent a harshly worded warning to the Democratic leadership. “In the past few days, we have seen what appear to be trial balloons signaling a significant weakening of the Democratic position,” the letter read. . . . The letter went on to say that if Democrats passed a bill “without a timeline and with all five months of funding,” they would essentially be endorsing a “war without end.” MoveOn, it said, “will move to a position of opposition.”

NOW they will oppose? They supported a bill that would not have even, theoretically, ended the war until September 2008, two months before an election!

I find the critiques of Karl Rove from Jon Chait and Matt Yglesias regarding his envy of persons of faith strange. I guess I find it so because, as an agnostic, I agree with Rove when he says, according to Hitchens:

“I’m not fortunate enough to be a person of faith.”

Chait and Yglesisas object to Rove viewing persons of faith as "fortunate." I ask why? Yglesias says:

I think it's not at all condenscending to say something like "I wish it were the case that my destiny were in the ends of a benevolent higher power." I could use the help! But what Rove [says] is different, and condescending, Rove is saying he wishes he thought the world were like that, but, sadly, he knows better.

How is Rove saying that? I know when I say it, I envy the serenity and yes, strength of purpose, persons of faith can have in their life path. I don't have that and I wish I did. How is that condescending? I can assure you that for me my envy is genuine. Remember, you can't choose to have faith, you have it or you don't.

The AP "reported" the following:

Olbermann’s popularity and evolving image as an idealogue has led NBC News to stretch traditional notions of journalistic objectivity.

This line in an AP news article is, in itself, stretching traditional notions of journalistic objectivity past the breaking report. This sentence is an opinion, namely, the opinion of the Giuliani campaign repeated as a fact by an AP news report. It also misspells the word ideologue.

Can the Associated Press, after this egregious breach of journalistic ethics, continue to cover the Giuliani Presidential campaign?

Of course it can. It screwed up. It should admit its error and move on. Keith Olberman, by the way, did not screw up. He labelled his Special Comment um, a special comment, not news. AP did not label its editorializing as opinion. The AP needs a lesson in journalism it seems to me.

Finally, for the record, a lot of journalists give their opinions. It is a bad thing imo. It makes them famous, always bad for reporters. But the AP may consider whether it is just as bad when other journalists, including their own, engage in punditry and pontification when the decide to criticque Keith Olberman.

Newsweek's latest poll shows Bush's approval rating at 28%, his lowest level ever. And, he's bringing the Republican contenders for 2008 down with him.

This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOP’s chances for victory in ’08. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the Republican frontrunners in head-to-head matchups.

Another flip-flop for Rudy. First, when addressing an audience in Florida, he was for the congressional attempt to intervene and save Terri Schiavo's life.

In the debate this week, he switched positions, and said it's an appropriate matter for the courts.

The flip:

In April, Giuliani had explained his position this way: Noting that the controversy had been through the court system for years, he said the 2005 congressional intervention, "was appropriate to make every effort to give her a chance to stay alive. ... My general view is, you should do everything you can to keep somebody alive unless they have expressed a strong interest in not having very, very special things done, extraordinary things done."

The flop:

"The family was in dispute. That's what we have courts for. And the better place to decide that in a much more, I think in a much fairer and even in a deeper way, is in front of a court, " he said at the first GOP presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan library in California.

His campaign manager's attempt to reconcile the two:

There's a lengthy profile in today's news of Blair Montgomery Sibley, lawyer for accused D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfry.

It's kind of bizarre, to put it mildly. What do you make of it?