From the debate:

Speaking of Iran, Giuliani said "they looked in Ronald Reagan's eyes and in two minutes they released the hostages." That was a reference to the U.S. hostages released from captivity on the day of Reagan's inauguration in 1981.

Oh really? Then how do you explain this, Rudy?

In 1983, Buckley succeeded Ken Haas as the Beirut Station Chief/Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy, but was kidnapped by the Islamist group Hezbollah on March 16, 1984. Hezbollah was closely allied to Iran. William Casey, who was by then the Director of Central Intelligence, asked Ted Shackley for help in securing Buckley’s release. Three weeks after Buckley’s abduction, President Ronald Reagan signed the National Security Decision Directive 138. . . . This was the beginning of the Iran-Contra deal, which culminated in the exchange of missiles for the release of hostages.

Not to mention this:

On October 23 1983, around 6:20 am, a yellow Mercedes-Benz truck drove to Beirut International Airport, where the 1st Battalion 8th Marines, under the U.S. 2nd Marine Division of the United States Marine Corps, had set up its local headquarters. . . . The suicide bomber detonated his explosives, which were equivalent to 12,000 pounds (about 5,400kg) of TNT. . . .In the attack on the American barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen . . . The Marines were moved offshore where they could not be targeted. On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the Marines to begin withdrawal from Lebanon. This was completed on February 26; the rest of the MNF was withdrawn by April.

Is that what Rudy is promising in his potential Presidency?

I'm no supporter of federal hate crime legislation. We need to get away from mass federalization of crimes that are better left to the states. I also object to laws that punish thoughts behind the crime in addition to the crime itself.

The penalty for murder is life or death. Sex offense penalties are already sky high. Why make them higher?

Nonetheless, the House of Representatives today passed hate crime legislation. President Bush has signaled he will veto it. Fine by me.

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I'll chime on with thoughts on the GOP Debate as they come.

First thought, the Big Loser so far is Brian Williams as Matthews, Jim Van Den Hei and John Harris are asking much better questions than Williams could muster. What an empty suit he is.

Update [2007-5-3 20:40:4 by Big Tent Democrat]: Huckabee is extremely effective at what he is trying to do. His answer to the global warming question was shrewdly nuanced, abstaining on the question of whether humans are the primary cause, and stressing whatever the answer to that question is, we must address it. Markos always said he was a guy to watch and I can see why now.

Update [2007-5-3 20:42:16 by Big Tent Democrat]: Rudy no longer supports Roe v. Wade. Or at least that's what he wants GOP primary voters to think.

Update [2007-5-3 20:47:0 by Big Tent Democrat]: Here's my question to the Republican candidates on choice, assuming Roe is overturned, would you support a complete federal ban on abortion?

Update [2007-5-3 21:2:48 by Big Tent Democrat]: Ok, I'm bored. I'm changing the channel. I'm gonna watch basketball now. Sorry.

James Comey, who we know primarily as the person who chose Patrick Fitzgerald, shows what integrity used to mean at the Department of Justice, as he describes two USA firings he was involved with:

h/t TPM.

In responding to Jon Chait's argument that the Left Blogs take it easy on each other, Atrios writes:

If The Left suddenly became all powerful and was successful at promoting views and legislation I disagreed with I'd certainly be more critical of it.

Let me prove Atrios right by criticizing a view he is promoting:

The important thing, politically, is for the public to understand that the Democrats are doing what they can to stop CooCoo's war. And, sadly, "what they can" does have to take into account the fact that they have 51 senators and only a slim House majority, especially once one excludes the wanker caucus.

Atrios' underlying assumption is wrong. The Democrats are NOT doing everything Congressional control permits to end the Iraq Debacle. Whether Atrios likes it or not, the Blue Dogs are part of their caucus and if it is the Blue Dogs that are the problem, then DEMOCRATS are the problem.

I find this TPM Cafe story surreal:

[T]he offices of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are denying a Washington Post story today saying that Congressional Democrats have backed down to the White House by offering to remove Iraq withdrawal language from the now-vetoed Iraq bill.

That's great and all but the fact is the Dems backed down on a firm withdrawal date in the bill Bush vetoed. Why all the gnashing of teeth now?

Let's be clear, the Dems bill did not set a firm deadline and no binding conditions that the President could not waive. The only theoretically firm deadline was that troop withdrawal START, without saying how many, in October. Frankly, why Bush vetoed it is inexplicable to me. Sure he'll get the Dems to cave here but he let the Dems escape immediate co-ownership of the war.

All this DRAMA about whether the Dems backed down is funny. But the need to end the Iraq War is not. The Reid-Feingold framework which, for those of you just tuning in, does NOT require passage of a bill, is the way out. Announce April 1, 2008 as the date certain for NOT funding the war. Forget about strings, conditions, benchmarks and goals. None of that matter to Bush.

Close the purse. Say it now so you can do it then.

A press conference will be held in New York today heralding the introduction of a much needed legislative reform package that will help reduce the number of wrongful convictions. From the Innocence Project's press release (no link, received by e-mail):

The sweeping legislative package includes fundamental reforms – including access to post-conviction DNA testing, preservation of evidence that can prove innocence, mechanisms for people to prove their innocence by using forensic databases that can identify true perpetrators of crimes, the formation of a state Innocence Commission and others.

Update [2007-5-3 11:45:52 by Big Tent Democrat]: MYDD is dismayed by this headline - Democrats Back Down On Iraq Timetable Compromise. No offense but when MYDD was cheering for this House Supplemental did it NOT know this headline was inevitable? The funny thing is the Dems backed down on binding timelines in the bill they sent to Bush. The one he vetoed. The Media is so bad they think the Dems are backing down now. Hilarious.

What do the American People think about Iraq? Do they have deep complex thoughts on partition and counterinsurgency tactics and blowback? Or do they just know that what they have been told would happen did not happen? That we have been there for more than 4 years and with no progress in sight? Do they know, in short, that the Debacle is lost? How do you argue the issue of Iraq now? Cliff Schecter and Sean-Paul Kelly endorse this approach from the Nelson Report:

On a related note, when will ANY prominent Democrat start using effective propaganda vs. Bush's Iraq War policies? Whimpering like Sen. Reid is so politically weak. Every supporter of the war should be grilled again and again with variants of the same question: ‘When are we going to stop arming and training more terrorists?’ We armed and trained Al Qaeda before they turned on us. We armed and trained Hezbollah when they were still a Shiite brigade of the Lebanese army.

There are a few problems with this one. The most important is that the Democrats have already won the argument on Iraq. The American People want out. There is no problem with Harry Reid's argument. The issue now is how to end the Debacle. I am for NOT funding on a date certain. Certain folks want to "ratchet up the pressure," whatever that is supposed to mean. To think the problem is Democratic rhetoric is to have swallowed the Beltway line whole. Surprising to see bloggers do that.

This is a tour de force evisceraton of Politico by Glenn Greenwald, exposing lies, conceit, stupidity, hypocrisy and incompetence, all in one column. Read the whole thing. But, I want to take the main Politico players Glenn skins:

(1) (non-Pajama) Roger Simon - Glenn proves him untruthful, hypocritical, and rather stupid. Here's how - Simon wrote about John Edwards' haircut. Now we all expect that from people like Roger Simon because he is shallow fool. But Riger Simon has gotten wind that we think of him as a shallow fool and thus wanted to provide a justification for his vapidity. And thus he describes why he is wrting about Edwards' haircut again:

This is bad: When you go to Google and enter "Edwards haircut," the first item that comes up is a story by Bill Wundram in The Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa. . . . The article got 324 comments from readers. When people inside the Beltway are talking about your haircut, it doesn't matter much. When people in Iowa are talking about your haircut, you may have a problem.

Simon's first mistake was to think that Glenn Greenwald did not know that he lifted the item from Matt Drudge, not that he actually did a Google search, and that since Drudge linked to the Iowa newspaper story, that explains the 324 comments. So, Simon is demonstrated to be not truthful about (1) why he is writing the story, the Iowa newspaper piece had nothing to do with it, and (2)the enormous amounts of comments the piece got - both because Drudge linked to the Iowa article.

So what do we know now about Roger Simon in addition to the fact that he seems vapid and foolish (which we knew already)? That he does not tell the truth either.

Here's a sensible take on the use of force against protesters (and the media) in Los Angeles on May 1:

The police action was reportedly in response to a handful of protesters who threw plastic bottles and other small objects in the direction of police. But none of that explains what happened. Even LAPD Chief William J. Bratton, currently being considered for a second term as chief, was moved to call the response “inappropriate” and said “I was disturbed at what I saw.” Which would certainly be obvious to anyone watching the footage, but hearing it from the current chief of police is a comforting change in attitude from previous generations of LAPD leadership. Two investigations have already been launched into the incident.

The response from apologists whenever a scene like this one unfolds (i.e., Rodney King) is that police work is tough and dangerous and requires split-second decisions: What would you do in that situation? That is all true, except that police are also trained, paid, and fully expected to operate at a different level from an average citizen caught in chaotic situations. What reason could there be to beat unarmed protesters or media personnel carrying professional video equipment?

In the wake of a police shooting of an elderly Atlanta woman, some members of Congress are calling attention to a problem that politicians routinely ignore: the use (or dangerous misuse) of information provided by unreliable informants to justify the issuance of search warrants.

A host of influential House members who are black, like [shooting victim] Johnston, said the case highlights widespread misuse of police informants, and they pledged to address the issue in Congress.

"I see the shooting and killing of Ms. Johnston as one piece of a larger puzzle," said Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat. "We must utilize every means at our disposal ... to ensure that this kind of injustice never, ever happens again."