Move On had its virtual town hall meeting last night. John Edwards won the Big Tent Dem sweepstakes, with the caveat that he still has not endorsed Reid-Feingold. How did the others do? Let's take a look. Here's my description of part of Hillary's answer:

There are two ways of thinking about this, what to do when Bush is President and what to do when a new President is in office. For the present, Hillary discusses her own bill, a bill that places conditions and benchmarks on funding, among other things. As for what is going on now, Hillary said this Congress was elected to end the war and bring the troops home. However, to do this Republican support is necessary. . . .

I stop here because this is the wrong answer. Democrats can end the war without Republican support. What is required is the courage to announce a date certain when DEMOCRATS will no longer fund the Iraq Debacle. Hillary is not for ending the war because she has placed an impossible condition on ending the war, garnering sufficient Republican support. That will not happen. There is one way to end the war while Bush is President -- do NOT fund it after a date certain. The Reid-Feingold bill need not pass in order to end the war. Democrats need only abide by its provisions.

Tomorrow appears to be the day the North Carolina Attorney General's office will announce its decision on whether to drop or proceed with sexual assault charges against the three former Duke lacrosse players.

Smart money says the case will be dismissed. Two of the defendants, Reade Seligman and Colin Finnerty traveled to Durham today, and the press is swarming around.

Question: If the charges are dropped because of lack of evidence or because the accuser won't cooperate, what should be the remedy for the boys? Their lives -- and that of their families -- have been turned upside down and into a hell for the past year. Their schooling has been interrupted, their reputations trashed.

Duke's reputation has taken a hit. The lacrosse team season was cancelled. Unpleasant racial issues surfaced.

I put much of the blame for this travesty of a case on D.A. Mike Nifong. If he hadn't glommed on to the media and made outrageously inappropriate comments in the beginning, jumping to the support of the accuser before the facts were in, much of the damage could have been avoided.

I think the State Bar will hold him accountable, but it still can't undo the damage.

Update: I'll be live-blogging the AG's press conference in a new thread. Or, you can watch it on your computer's here.

John Edwards tonight at the Move On event:

. . . President Bush has promised to veto that funding, calculating that he can use the bully pulpit to intimidate Congress and get them to back down.

But this is not the time for political calculation, this is the time for political courage. This is not a game of chicken. This is not about making friends or keeping Joe Lieberman happy. This is about life and death—this about war. We are done letting George Bush manipulate the rhetoric of patriotism, only to use our troops as political pawns. If Bush vetoes funding for the troops, he's the only one standing in the way of the resources they need. Nobody else.

Congress must stand firm. They must not write George Bush another blank check without a timeline for withdrawal—period. If Bush vetoes the funding bill, Congress should send another funding bill to him with a binding plan to bring the troops home. And if he vetoes it again, they should do it again.

The American people are overwhelmingly in favor of ending this war. If our side stands firm, if we show courage now, we can finally bring our troops back home and bring this war to an end.

Some adverstisers on Don Imus' radio show are pulling their ads.

Among them: Proctor & Gamble and Staples.

"Based on recent comments that were made on the show, it prompted us to kind of take a look at our decision to advertise and as a result we decided to stop advertising on that program," said Staples spokesman Paul Capelli said.

Cincinnati, Ohio-based P&G also withdrew its sponsorship. "Effective Friday, April 6, we pulled all P&G's brand advertising from the MSNBC daytime rotation," said P&G spokeswoman Jeannie Tharrington. P&G would not advertise again "until we can evaluate the Imus situation fully," she said.

On the fence: Bigelow Tea.

Update: The Washington Post reports Bigelow Tea will also pull its ads.

As always, speaking for me only.

Via Yglesias, Eric Alterman describes in stark terms what the MSM punditry dislikes about blogs:

Back in the pre-Internet days of yore, political punditry was the best job in journalism and one of the best anywhere. You could spout off on anything you wanted, and almost nobody would call you on it, much less find a place to publish and prove you wrong. . . . The advent of the Internet--particularly the blogosphere--has changed all that. Now, not only are the things pundits say and write preserved for posterity; there are legions of folks who track pundit pronouncements, fact-check their statements and compare them with previous utterances on the same and similar topics. . . .

All true, and brilliantly stated. But I worry about the same type of process happening with the blogs. Most Left bloggers are indeed quite good. Some, like Digby and Glenn Greenwald, are consistently brilliant. But no one should be immune from questioning and disagreement. I hope we can avoid the logrolling nature that became, and still is, the MSM punditry.

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It's been a busy day in PurgeGate. The House, frustrated with Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Departments pussy-footing over document turnover, has issued a subpoena for more of them.

The department has released more than 3,000 pages of e-mail messages and other files. But, the senators wrote in a letter to Mr. Gonzales, “We are concerned that additional documents relevant to the committee’s investigations are missing or have been withheld.”

What's missing?

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DNA has made it official. Larry Birkhead is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter Dannielynn. Press conference is live on CNN.

Howard Stern says he won't fight for custody, he'll do what he can to make sure Larry gets full custody. Howard will stay in the Bahamas, he says he wouldn't leave Anna Nicole's late son Danny alone.

Virgie (Anna's mother) and her lawyer say she's looking forward to working with Larry to have Virgie involved in Dannielynn's life. She said she just wants to be a grandmother, so I assume there won't be a custody fight. But Bahamian law provides for two guardians, her lawyer said, and it looks like Vergie may vie for being one of them.

Ok, that's over. Congrats to Larry Birkhead. And now Howard Stern's new lawyer, Lin Wood (lawyer for Richard Jewell and Jonbenet Ramsey's parents) can go after the media who maligned him.

Pretty well done:

The American people want the President and the Congress to work together to bring this war to an end, safely and responsibly. Congressional Democrats are willing to meet with the President at any time, but we believe that any discussion of an issue as critical as Iraq must be accomplished by conducting serious negotiations without any preconditions. Our goal should be to produce an Iraq supplemental bill that both fully funds our troops and gives them a strategy for success.

"With his threat to veto such a plan for change in Iraq, President Bush is ignoring the clear message of the American people: we must protect our troops, hold the Iraqi government accountable, rebuild our military, provide for our veterans, and bring our troops home.

"The President is demanding that we renew his blank check for a war without end. Despite the fact that the President persists in trying to score political points at the expense of our troops, congressional Democrats have repeatedly reached out in the spirit of cooperation. We renew our request to work with him to produce a bipartisan bill that provides our troops and our veterans with every penny they need, but in turn, demands accountability."

It's time for the Tuesday Open Thread.

I've been looking for a place to post this photo of my cousin Max, taken on his cell phone last week. He's the same age as the TL kid. What a cutie. He's given me permission to post it, with the caveat, "I dont mind as long as its not used to shed any negative light on Paris herself. After meeting her I would have nothing but positive nice things to say."

So please, no Paris insults in the comments.

And now, for your news and thoughts of the day.

Via Bowers, Move On hosts a Virtual Town Hall on Iraq with Dem Presidential hopefuls:

We're organizing three “Virtual Town Halls” to hear from 2008 Presidential candidates on the issues MoveOn members say are most important: Iraq, health care, and energy. On April 10th, we're focusing on Iraq. MoveOn members are asking candidates the tough questions about their Iraq plans, and we're gathering in living rooms from coast to coast to hear the answers directly. . . .

In case you have any doubt what my question would be, I want to know who supports the Reid-Feingold bill:

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold introduced legislation today to effectively end U.S. military involvement in Iraq. The bill, supported by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, requires the President to begin safely redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq 120 days from enactment, as required by the emergency supplemental spending bill passed by the Senate. The bill ends funding for the war, with three narrow exceptions, effective March 31, 2008. In addition to Reid, the bill is cosponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chris Dodd (D-CT), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), John Kerry (D-MA), Pat Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

As of today, I (speaking only for me of course) support Chris Dodd for President.

My offer is this: nothing. Not even the $20,000 for the gaming license, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally. -Michael Corleone

So Bush has made his Michael Corleone offer to the Dems on Iraq:

President Bush on Tuesday invited Democrats to discuss their standoff over a war-spending bill, but he made clear he would not change his position opposing troop withdrawals. The White House bluntly said the meeting would not be a negotiation. [Bush said:]

It's time for them to get the job done, so I'm inviting congressional leaders from both parties — both political parties — to meet with me at the White House next week. At this meeting, the leaders in Congress can report on progress on getting an emergency spending bill to my desk. We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill, a bill that funds our troops without artificial timetables for withdrawal and without handcuffing our generals on the ground. I'm hopeful we'll see some results soon from the Congress.

Levin and Obama have already caved. So why should Bush negotiate?

At 94, John Rodgriguez is California's oldest "lifer." But he didn't get a life sentence. He got a sentence of 16 to life. He's served the 16 plus another ten years for second degree murder of his wife 25 years ago.

He's in a wheelchair, his only prison violations were misuse of the telephone and the last time that happened was in 1992.

He participates in AA, a family has offered to take him in if released, and yet he stays in prison, an effective "lifer." He was a war hero, earning a bronze star in WWII.

Every time the Parole Board has recommended him for parole, the decision has been reversed by the Governor. Last year the reversal was by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

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