Al Masri, the bloodthirsty terrorist who attacked us on 9/11, who supposedly is the key to the whole Iraq Debacle, now that the previous two keys, Saddam Hussein and Zarqawi are dead (not to mention 8 million #3s), is DEAD! again. Check that. Nope, it is misinformation we are now told. So how is that different than what the Media has been reporting for the last 6 years?

Meanwhile, we can report that Osama bin Laden is alive and well, living in Pakistan/Afghanistan/Waziristan/Off The Bush Radarstan.

This is scary:

The News Corporation, owner of Fox News and The New York Post, has made an unsolicited $5 billion bid for Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. . . . The acquisition of Dow Jones would broaden the reach of News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch, into business reporting and American media in general.

In running The Times (UK), Murdoch's record has received mixed reviews. But Murdoch in England is not Murdoch in the US, where his media properties are nothing but GOP propaganda vehicles. If Murdoch acquires the Wall Street Journal, will we lose the Wall Street Journal news operation, one of the best in the business (as opposed to the editorial pages which Murdoch could not be happier with one imagines) to Fox like bias?

Jon Chait attempts an explanation of the Netroots for perplexed The New Republic readers. It is a quite good piece and Chait has some interesting things to say, but he gets a lot wrong. To me, this is his biggest mistake:

All the lessons the netroots have gleaned about U.S. politics were on display in this noxious denouement [the 2000 Post-Eloection Fight], and those lessons have been reinforced time and again throughout the Bush presidency. The Democratic leadership and the liberal intelligentsia seemed pathetic and exhausted, wedded to musty ideals of bipartisanship and decorousness. Meanwhile, what the netroots saw in the Republican Party, they largely admired. They saw a genuine mass movement built up over several decades. They saw a powerful message machine. And they saw a political elite bound together with ironclad party discipline.

It is not admiration that the Netroots expresses here. It is dealing with the reality of the situation. Chait mistakes understanding your political adversary, what you are up against, with admiration.

No one wants the nation so divided politically. Everyone wishes we could all be reasonable. But only a fool acts as if the world is how he wishes it to be. I have written about this in the past:

Via Atrios, E&P has this from the NYTimes:

By Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt
BAGHDAD, May 2 --
The Bush administration is planning to withdraw most United States combat forces from Iraq over the next several months and wants to shrink the American military presence to less than two divisions by the fall, senior allied officials said today. . . .

That was May 2, 2003.

Isn't it great?:

President Bush announced in a nationally televised address that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

"In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment," Bush told the Navy men and women aboard the warship Thursday.

Bush also made a direct connection between the war in Iraq and the continuing war on terrorism. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001, and still goes on," Bush said.

. . . "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror," he said. "We have removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding."

Worst President in history.

For the second May Day in a row, immigrants across the country will take to the streets in protest.

In New York, groups are planning an "American Family Tree" rally, where immigrants will pin paper leaves on a large painting of a tree to symbolize the separation of families because of strict immigration laws.

In Chicago, demonstrators will march more than three miles through downtown, ending at a lakefront park.

In Fresno, Calif., organizers planned a rally focusing on children whose parents had been deported. The San Joaquin Valley is home to thousands of seasonal workers who cross the Mexican border illegally each year to work in the fields and construction industry.

In Milwaukee, Ricardo Chavez, the brother of famed agricultural labor leader Cesar Chavez, was expected to speak, as protesters demanded a stop to immigration raids. A raid last year in Whitewater, Wis., saw the arrests of 25 workers and the owner of a packaging plant. Mothers were separated from their children.

More...

D.C. Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, facing racketeering charges, explains why she gave ABC her client roster and is outing them via the media. She's seeking witnesses. She fully expects her customers, especially the prominent Washingtonians among them, like Randall Tobias who resigned as Deputy Secretary of State last week, to say there was no funny business going on, just legal escort services.

She wants these deniers as defense witnesses, to counter the Government's assertion that her escorts provided sexual services.

Pretty desperate strategy, if you ask me. The clients are hardly going to be willing witnesses. What if they just tell her lawyer, when they get their subpoenas, there was sex involved? Surely, she won't publish their comments since it would be adding to the Government's case against her and hurtful to her defense? Nor would she dare actually put them on the stand.

Just in time for sweeps week, she'll be on 20/20 this Friday. I doubt she'll drop any famous names during the show, though the reporters may.

This is taking sleaze media to the extreme.

Update: Think Progress has Sen. Patrick Leahy's response to Murray's disclosure.

*****

Murray Waas breaks new ground in the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, by unconvering a secret, March 2006 order signed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales broadly delegating hiring and firing of non-civil service Justice Department officials, including high-level staff at the Criminal Division, to his then Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson and to Monica Goodling who became his White House liason a month after the order was signed.

In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison "the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration" of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department's political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

More...

The Maliki government is falling to pieces:

The largest bloc of Sunni Arabs in the Iraqi Parliament threatened to withdraw its ministers from the Shiite-dominated cabinet today in frustration over the Iraq government’s failure to deal with Sunni concerns. President Bush stepped in to forestall the move, calling one of Iraq’s two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab, and inviting him to Washington, Mr. Hashimi’s office said in a written statement. The bloc, known as the Iraqi Consensus Front and made up of three Sunni Arab parties, “has lost hope in rectifying the situation despite all of its sincere and serious efforts to do so,” the statement said.

1, 2, 3, 4, what are we fighting for?

At least 104 United States troops lost their lives in hostile actions in Iraq in April, the highest of any month so far this year. Another 13 deaths among other allied forces have been reported, making it the highest monthly death toll for all allied forces in more than two years. Military reporting typically lags at least 24 hours so the final total for the month could be higher.

Last month, 104 American soldiers lost their lives so that George Bush's feewings don't get hurt. I'm livid tonight. At George Tenet, David Broder and each and every enabler of the worst President in history who has plunged us into the most castastrophic foreign policy debacle in our history.

This Debacle must be ended. By the Democratic Congress. There are no other options.

David Broder take note. Via Greg Sargent, Beltway insider Stu Rothenberg says Dems are the moderate political party:

If you really want to see how times have changed across the nation in general, and on Capitol Hill in particular, all you need to do is consider both the way high-profile Democrats have reacted to recent events and how the Democrats are proceeding in Congress. It’s stunning, and that’s not mere hyperbole. . . . So far, in other words, there is little or no evidence that Democratic leaders are being dragged away from their post-election strategy of keeping toward the political center and demonstrating their moderation.

On substance, the post is utter nonsense, but who cares really? The important thing here is that Beltway insider Stu Rothenberg says the Dems are the moderate party.

Pass the word. We are the middle.

. . . and so does David Broder, who simply has slipped into utter incoherence. But let's read Buckley:

It is simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq. The indicators rise and fall from day to day, week to week, month to month. In South Vietnam there was an organized enemy. There is clearly organization in the strikes by the terrorists against our forces and against the civil government in Iraq, but whereas in Vietnam we had Hanoi as the operative headquarters of the enemy, we have no equivalent of that in Iraq, and that is a matter of paralyzing importance. . . . How can the Republican party, headed by a president determined on a war he can’t see an end to, attract the support of a majority of the voters?

Broder said:

[V]ictory in Iraq -- whether that's achievable is really doubtful.

Treason!

I wonder if Joe thinks this is a good plan:

BLITZER: Foreign Minister . . . there's concern here in Washington — Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, raised it — that your parliament is about to take a two-month vacation in the midst of all of these challenges. . . . ZEBARI: . . . In fact, the recess is two months. And we discussed that issue. That really this should be cut down to two weeks or one week because business is not as usual in our country. . .

What will Susan Collins say?

If the president's new strategy does not demonstrate significant results by August, then Congress should consider all options . . .

I predict she'll say '[i]f the president's new strategy does not demonstrate results by August March 2008, then Congress should consider all options.' And so on . . .