As Barry Boss says in the Washington Post, regarding Victims' rights week which began yesterday,

Victims deserve the recognition that this week provides, and they deserve sympathy and compensation for their losses. But I am increasingly concerned about what I believe they do not deserve, which is the right to serve as de facto prosecutors, a practice that is quietly insinuating itself into the legal system.

I have long opposed the Victims' Rights Amendment and in the 90's, spent a great deal of my time lobbying Congress against it. Here's what I wrote about it back in 1997. As Boss notes, the danger now is this:

The latest manifestation of our "tough on crime" policy comes in the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which will implement the 2004 Crime Victims' Rights Act. One U.S. district judge ruled that the statute renders victims "independent participant[s] in the proceedings" and "commands that victims should be treated equally with the defendant, defense counsel, and the prosecutor."

The judge's position is absurd. The Bill of Rights was designed to protect persons accused of crime.

Any rights provided to the victim must come at the expense of the rights provided to a defendant. Indeed, providing the victim with a role in the prosecution assumes a crime has been committed, despite the bedrock constitutional proposition that the accused is presumed innocent.

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I've finally found something I agree with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer about. Keeping a campaign promise, he will be introducing a bill to legalize gay marriage.

“The governor made a commitment to advance a program bill, and he will fulfill that commitment during this legislative session,” Ms. Anderson said, using the term that refers to legislation introduced directly by the governor rather than through a state agency or by the Legislature.

Is it all for show? He didn't include it in his legislative prioritybudget for the year.

Explaining why he did not include the gay-marriage bill among his post-budget legislative priorities, Mr. Spitzer said last week that he “was listing bills that I think we can and should get passed by the Legislature in the next few weeks. And so I am focusing now on politics as the art of the possible. “I think most who are close to the issue would agree with me that it’s not likely to be passed in the next nine and a half weeks,” Mr. Spitzer added.

Is he just going through the motions? Does that count? When is he going to introduce a bill to repeal the odious and draconian Rockefeller sentencing laws?

New York clearly has a zero tolerance policy for Don Imus comments:

Two police supervisors are being investigated after officers accused them of referring to them as “hos” or a “nappy-headed ho,” the police said. One instance took place in the 70th Precinct in Brooklyn on April 15. The supervisor in that case has been transferred and stripped of supervisory duties, said Chief Michael Collins, a police spokesman. Chief Collins said the supervisor was accused of having addressed a group of officers jokingly as “hos.”

The supervisor was identified by Bonita Zelman, a lawyer for the accusers, as Sgt. Carlos Mateo. In the second case, a Queens narcotics detective, Aretha Williams, said yesterday at a news conference that a sergeant recently told her, “Don’t give me no lip, or I’ll have to call you a nappy-headed ho.”

As to zero-tolerance:

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement yesterday, “This language is unacceptable under any circumstances and even more egregious when it comes from individuals in a position of authority.”

I have to agree. There's no place for such comments in the workplace.

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I am like, so glad I stayed home in Denver. Not only was the Washington Correspondents Dinner a total bore, but the after parties were even worse.

Libby Copeland and Dana Milbank explain, in an article I assume was written by Libby, with assists from Milbank, copying the tone of a Valley Girl.

Could anything be more last year -- either the dinner, the parties or their recounting? It's almost as bad as this one by Libby.

[sarcasm intended.]

Brad Plumer points us to a terrific article in the National Journal that discusses the politics and policy of withdrawal from Iraq. As Plumer and the article note, President Bush's myopic refusal to allow planning for withdrawal is another harmful act by the worst President in history. But a serious flaw in the article remains the assumption that, in terms of American interest, the situation in Iraq will worsen as a result of troop withdrawal. One of the usual "expert" suspects, Ken Pollack, who strongly supported the Iraq Debacle, now predictably warns about the dangers of withdrawal:

"I think the Baker-Hamilton proposal that we yank combat forces from Iraq but retain the missions of training Iraqi forces and hunting for terrorists was always unrealistic," said Kenneth Pollack, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and former Middle East analyst for the CIA. Given the likely size of the forward operating bases, rapid-reaction forces, and logistical footprint required to adequately conduct those missions, Pollack estimates that the United States would still need many tens of thousands of troops in Iraq. "Because I think things are going to get ugly very fast as the bad actors see a major reduction in U.S. forces, I also fear that the rapid-reaction forces we leave behind in Iraq will begin to look like a fire brigade at an arsonists' convention."

Coming from Debacle supporter Ken Pollock, who has been wrong on EVERYTHING about Iraq, this means next to nothing. But let's assume this is true, in what way would that be worse than if we keep US troops executing whatever the heck strategy Bush is supposed to be doing now or will be doing 12 months from now? Tell me Mr. Pollock, from the perspective of American interests, what could be worse than what we have now? If Ken Pollock had been in charge of Vietnam, we would still be there.

Episode 80 is tonight: "Remember When."

This week, with the heat turned up in Jersey, Tony and Paulie head south to cool off. Meanwhile, Junior rekindles some of his old fire in a poker game.

I'm wondering if someone will be killed tonight. Three weeks without a whacking is a long time.

After the Sopranos is the final episode of Apprentice: LA. Donald Trump chooses his apprentice tonight. My money's on Frank. This was definitely not a great season for the show, I usually tuned in to the last 15 minutes to see the boardroom action and who got fired, but the finales are fun to watch because they are live and the contestants presumably don't know who will be chosen.

Update: Trump chose Stephanie, a very L.A. civil lawyer who defends construction companies against defect claims and employers against workman comp claims. She was a mouse the whole season, but she showed her mettle tonight. A fitting choice for Trump.

If you watch and have some thoughts, here's the place to leave them.

Update: Ann Althouse and her commenters review the Soprano's episode. I agree with one of the commenters who said it seems like the show is going to go out with a whimper, not a bang.

A critical part of General Petraeus' strategy:

Another part of the strategy is to wall off communities along their traditional boundaries to control population access and prevent attacks. "That's part of the concrete caterpillar," Petraeus said, pointing out a barrier going up in a neighborhood in west Baghdad. . . .

Iraq PM Maliki's response:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Sunday that he has ordered a halt to the construction of a barrier that would separate a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shiite areas in Baghdad, saying there are other ways to protect the neighborhood. The U.S. military announced last week that it was building a large concrete wall in the northern Azamiyah section of Baghdad in an effort to protect the minority Sunnis from attacks by Shiites living nearby. . . . In his first public comments on the issue, al-Maliki said he had ordered the construction to stop. "I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop," al-Maliki told reporters during a joint news conference with the Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa in Cairo, Egypt. "There are other methods to protect neighborhoods."

Well, I wonder if, unlike John McCain, Gen. Petraeus has a Plan B.

U.S. News & World Report’s David E. Kaplan, in Foreign Affairs, reveals a pending class action lawsuit by past and present female CIA employees over alleged bias in the handling of “close and continuing” relationships with foreigners. From the press release (no link, received by e-mail):

The article reports never-before-told stories of female case officers falling in love and paying for it by losing their careers -- while men in similar situations, they say, merely got their wrists slapped.

For the details, see below:

Iggy Pop turned 60 yesterday, and he's still as energetic in his concerts as always.

The eerily athletic "Godfather of Punk" stripped down to a tight pair of blue jeans and dived off the stage into the arms of his adoring fans during a concert in San Francisco with his reunited band the Stooges.

Pop no longer carves up his chest with a steak knife, rolls around in cut glass, smears himself in peanut butter, or follows a drug regimen that makes Keith Richards look like a choirboy. But the Michigan trailer-park kid otherwise outruns rockers one-third his age.

I'm looking forward to reading the new biography about him, Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed.

Trynka leaves no detail, graphic or otherwise, untold in this hard-to-put-down biography that traces Pop's early years in Ann Arbor and captures the debauchery and drug use that led to his and the band's downfall. But it also tells the very human story of Osterberg and his struggle with his manic Iggy Pop alter ego.

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In discussing the coverage of Senator Harry Reid telling the truth about Iraq, Atrios has two posts that understand that Democrats' ending the war is what the American People want:

People hate Bush and hate this war and the more the Democrats are associated with that view the more support they'll have.

Exactly and this applies to funding the Debacle as well. If Democrats will embrace Reid-Feingold it will be a political boon to their fortunes. Let the GOP and Bush wail that Dems want to end the war, or in the false rhetoirc they will use - "abandon the troops." The American People want to abandon IRAQ.

Whatever the merits of the policy, understand that, the American People want out. Atrios, citing Bill Schneider with the data I have posted here previously:

Watching Meet the Press and the ridiculous talking heads, this time Meacham, Kearns Goodwin and Gregory, say nothing about nothing, I was thinking if that was preferable to what Kyra Phillips did. Of course, Meet the Press is, in theory an opinion show so the issue is should reporters by doing opinion segments. I am pretty strongly in favor reporters and Editors saying NO to that. So Gregory, Meacham, Citizen Stengel and the like should not be doing opinion segments. But that does remind of the one time a reporter did opine on a war:

[Walter Cronkite] was not punished in the ratings when he went to Vietnam and reported that he had seen the lies, corruption, and stalemate in that war and that it was time for us to go. LBJ watching Cronkite's Vietnam report. President Lyndon Johnson listened to Cronkite's verdict with dismay and real sadness. As he famously remarked to an aide, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America." After all, this was not one of the young, brash reporters like Morley Safer or Jack Laurence pricking the president's power. It was Cronkite, veteran of World War II, a man of unimpeachable patriotism. When he stated the obvious -- that the Viet Cong had no intention of giving up, and we had no intention of remaining in Vietnam for another generation -- the common sense of it stuck with the public.

Can you imagine NASCAR Brian Williams, Katie Couric or ABC's generic anchor (I know his name, but he has no persona) doing that? Of course not. Heck, the Media does not give opinions on issues, it makes fun of politicians. Our political journalism is as pathetic as the President it covers.

We are in an Era of Incompetence, from our President to our Media.

Update: Gore staffers deny the report.

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The Telegraph reports that former Gore aides have met in secret and been queried on whether they'd come to work for him if he decided to enter the presidential race.

....aware that he may step into the wide open race for the White House, former strategists are sounding out a shadow team that could run his campaign at short notice. In approaching former campaign staff, including political strategists and communications officials, they are making clear they are not acting on formal instructions from Mr Gore, 59, but have not been asked to stop.

One of his former campaign team said: "I was asked whether I would be available towards the end of the year if I am needed. They know he has not ruled out running and if he decides to jump in, he will have to move very fast. "He hasn't asked them to do this, but nor has he told them not to."

Former President Clinton also suggested on Larry King Live last week that Gore might run.

I disagree with those who think the nomination is his for the asking. Plus, I really don't want him to run. I'm happy with the candidates already in the running, particularly Hillary and John Edwards.

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