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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How can the Iraq Debacle be ended? Some say only after the 2008 election:

Matt Stoller makes it explicit:

My strategic end goal is to end the war. To do that involves a process of showing that the Democratic caucus is unified behind putting restrictions on Bush and his ability to fight the war, and then using that pressure to remove Republicans (and wayward Democrats) from office in 2008.

Some think that the House Iraq supplemental funding can lead to a confrontation with the President in the Supreme Court:

If [Bush] ignores [the House proposal], we sue and the courts enforce it. if he ignores that, we're in massive constitutional crisis.

Gov. Bill Richardson thinks deauthorizing the Debacle and invoking the War Powers Act can lead to a Supreme Court resolution:

the Congress authorized the war and the Congress should deauthorize the war. Then, there will be a legal fight - the administration will say "well, we don't recognize the war powers act." Then you go to the Supreme Court.

Are any of these options realistic? Or acceptable? Waiting for the next election could work but it is morally unacceptable and, imo, not likely to work. As for counting on the Supreme Court, assuming a bill could be enacted, issues of standing and the political question doctrine preclude these avenues. The reality is, as it always has been, the Congress' power to end the Debacle lies in the Spending Power.

Carl Levin and Barack Obama must be pleased to have gotten the David Broder Seal of Approval:

From the start, Democrats ought to concede one big point: Absent any readiness on their part to cut off funds to the troops in Iraq, those forces will be there as long as George Bush wants them to remain. Once that point is conceded, Bush should be called upon to pay some attention to the Democrats' demands -- and the public opinion that supports them.

Levin and Obama are one step ahead of you Broder:

We're not going to vote to cut funding, period," Levin said. "But what we should do, and we're going to do, is continue to press this president to put some pressure on the Iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement."

Obama is not going to play chicken, he'll just be chicken. Of course, as Matt Yglesias points out, bargaining with the Decider is just plain ridiculous.

Neocon Paul Wolfowitz, former Deputy Defense Secretary who is now President of the World Bank, has responded to charges he improperly granted a promotion and raise to his girlfriend. (Background here.)

Too funny is Wonkette's photo of Wolfowitz with holes in his socks "at a mosque in Turkey, where he was meeting with extremists to plan new attacks on America."

Gwen Ifill speaks:

For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny.

[Imus'apologies] seem[] forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before. I know, because he apparently did it to me.

. . . It was not until five years later, when . . . I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network — that I discovered why people were asking [why she did not appear on Imus' show.] It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.

“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

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