Via Raw Story: As part of his "Straight Talk" tour, John McCain visited Murrells Inlet. Asked a question about Iran, he launched into an impromptu version of the Beach Boys "Barbara Ann," changing the words to "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran."

He says he was just trying to add a touch of levity.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing "starring" beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, begins this morning. Watch it on C-Span3 and CNN (for now), or, on line here.

Give us your thoughts on the hearings.

Via Kevin Drum, "Liberal" intern applicants summarily rejected by Gonzo Justice Dept.:

After choosing potential candidates to interview, the division personnel forwarded their lists to the Office of Attorney Recruitment Management for what was traditionally final approval. This is no longer a final step, however, because the list had to go higher — to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. When the list of potential interviewees was returned this year, it had been cut dramatically. ....When division personnel staff later compared the remaining interviewees with the candidates struck from the list, one common denominator appeared repeatedly: most of those struck from the list had interned for a Hill Democrat, clerked for a Democratic judge, worked for a "liberal" cause, or otherwise appeared to have "liberal" leanings. Summa cum laude graduates of both Yale and Harvard were rejected for interviews.

But Gonzales tells us that the Justice Department does not make decisions based on political considerations. As usual with Gonzo, the exact opposite of what he says appears to be the truth.

Via Josh Marshall, McClatchy reports:

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

And Attorney General Gonzales says his department does not based policies on politics. Riiiiight.

Greg Sargent pointed us to John Solomon doing his thing, spewing GOP talking points, in a WaPo chat, but he missed the "best" one:

Woonsocket, R.I.: Am I mistaken, or is the White House's claim of an overriding "executive interest" in the RNC e-mails a huge step towards a constitutional crisis? . . .
John Solomon: I think it is too early to say where this will end up. Dan Eggen and I at the Post were the first to notice the RNC email accounts and to write about them. It turns out both Democrats and Republicans since the 1990s have set up separate accounts for their political staffs at the White House to avoid Hatch Act violations. So this issue isn't unique to the Bush administration. . . . If the emails that weren't archived are simply lost, there won't be any constitutional issues. You can't fight over emails that can't be retrieved. For the emails that do exist, or can be retrieved, the White House will have to decide whether to invoke executive privilege or turn them over. That decision will be the tipping point, and we don't know yet how that will shake out. There are also some middle ground solutions that could emerge ... like allowing Congress to read or review the emails in private but not keep copies and make them public.

Wow! So much just, WRONG! Not just wrong, so Roland Hedley, Jr. (See Doonesbury).

Bumped and Updated with new information, scroll down.

AmericaBlog picks up on this ABC News report on the Virginia Tech shooter that says there may have been a gap in the federal database regarding his medications:

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

John asks, what database? Does the Government keep a list of all of our prescriptions?

The answer is yes. I reported on it in 2005 when Bush signed the bill creating the electronic database:

More...

In South Dakota's first death penalty case with a female defendant, a jury yesterday voted for life in prison without parole over a death sentence.

A jury on Wednesday spared the life of a woman who killed an acquaintance and hacked up her body with a chainsaw, sentencing her to life in prison without parole.

The victim's mother told the defendant's mother:

"We pray for you every day asking that God may touch your heart, that you may come to know his love and that you repent of your sins and seek God's forgiveness," she said.

Dee VanderGiesen told Wright's mother, Carolyn Tucker: "We both have lost our daughters. One to death and the other to prison time for as long as she lives. May God's grace be shown to you at this time of pain in your life."

The prosecution's facts:

More...

The Harvard Crimson praises Massachusetts Gov. Devall Patrick for reevaluating mandatory minimum sentencing laws. So do we.

Mandatory minimum sentences eliminate a judge’s ability to fit the punishment to the crime. ... Furthermore, since the law cannot anticipate every possible situation, in some infamous situations mandatory sentencing requirements can lead to punishments that are wildly disproportionate from the offense. The example most familiar to Harvard students is a Massachusetts law that adds at least two years to a drug sentence if the violation occurred within a 1,000-foot radius of a school property. Ten of Harvard’s houses count as within such an area, as does most of the City of Boston.

The editorial's logic undermines its conclusion that more reasonable mandatory minimums might serve a beneficial purpose. There will inevitably be circumstances under which a mandatory minimum will be widely understood to be unfair. Sentencing judges should always have the freedom to show mercy where mercy is deserved.

The New York Times asked four attorneys what questions they would ask Alberto Gonzales. Truth be told the questions are, imo, pretty awful and not much related to the issues at hand. But only one set of questions had me bursting in laughter. Read what the co-founder of the Federalist Society would ask:

Congress’s Role By Steven G. Calabresi

1. Can politics truly be kept out of the investigations into the recent dismissal of several United States attorneys if such oversight is being led by a senator who is himself responsible for the election of Democratic senatorial candidates in 2008?

[He's talking about Schumer and the silly GOP talking point that somehow a Senator involved in electing Dems can't do his job as Senator. First, the investigation is being led by the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, not Schumer. Second, every Senator will be involved in getting folks of their party elected. By Calabresi's logic, no one in Congress can investigate anything ever. This is one of the stupidest talking points in the history of talking points.].

2. Doesn’t the Constitution make the president the law enforcement officer in chief precisely so he can make sure that all 93 United States attorneys are following the law enforcement priorities that he was elected to enforce? And doesn’t the Constitution specifically limit Congress’s role in removal of United States attorneys to impeaching them or their superiors for high crimes and misdemeanors?

[More nonsense. The President and his Attorney General are supposed to enforce the priorities of the Congress, to wit, enforce the laws passed by Congress, not his "law enforcement priorities." As for the Congress' role, this is not a subject Calabresi should be bringing up since the Bush Adminsitration engaged in some dirty stealth language changes in laws in orer to circumvent Congress' role in CONFIRMING US attorneys]

A new Washington Post - ABC News poll finds Rudy Giuliani's lead shrinking while Hillary maintains her advantage:

Giuliani remained the front-runner in the national poll, but his support has eroded. In a late-February Post-ABC News poll, 44 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents preferred Giuliani for the nomination; that figure is down to 33 percent. Support for McCain held steady at 21 percent.

Giuliani's support dipped in part because of the possible entry of former senator Fred Thompson (Tenn.) into the GOP race. Thompson ran third in this poll, with 9 percent, tying him with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

As for the Democrats:

More...

Republican Rep. John Doolittle, on the FBI's appearance at his home yesterday with a search warrant authorizing the seizure of records pertaining to his wife's company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions Inc.:

"My wife has been cooperating with the FBI and the Justice Department for almost three years and that cooperation is going to continue in the future," Doolittle said. "I support my wife 100 percent and fully expect that the truth will prevail."

Here's a tip: if you're cooperating with the FBI and they show up with a warrant, the cooperation isn't going all that well.

The search occurred the same day that Kevin Ring, a former Doolittle aide who went on to work for Abramoff, abruptly resigned his law firm job without explanation.

TalkLeft noted the Doolittle/Abramoff connection in this 2005 post.

As the chickens came home to roost with Justice Alito casting the deciding vote today in the SCOTUS' upholding of a federal ban on a pregnancy termination procedure used primarily late in the pregnancy term, I thought I would trot out a post I wrote on the politics of choice, when the Alito nomination was pending.

The post:

Just as in every other Supreme Court nomination, the ScAlito nomination has at its center the issue of Roe v. Wade. Many other issues of course are always significant, but Roe is the touchstone. Inevitably, at least here, the arguments lead to whether it is "good politics" for Dems to support Roe. Of course, for many if not most of us, politics simply won't be a consideration on the issue. But I also think these folks are wrong to argue that Dems should retreat on Roe.