Red State thinks a plan to end the war is abandoning the troops:

You see, when you tell the nice veteran that nobody's planning to deny the troops what they need, political obsessives like Gateway Pundit go track down the boasting press releases that say, yeah, people are.

The press release is of course about the Reid-Feingold bill. That bill gives the troops what they need, an end to the Iraq Debacle on March 31, 2008 and full funding while the troops are in the field. I wish the Republicans would explain to the nice veterans that they oppose ending the Iraq Debacle one year from now. That 5 years of disaster is not enough for them.

The Reid-Feingold bill is something the "anti-war movement" is embracing, as is over 60% of the country. The Republicans want Debacle without end. Tell the nice vet Red State. 5 years of the Iraq Debacle is not enough for you. You want, nay, demand, more.

Mark Halperin has been on a downward career trajectory for the past seven months, starting with his incredible bootlicking of Bill O'Reilly, followed by his incredible bootlicking of Hugh Hewitt, followed by his falling out with his coauthor John Harris over his self abasing behavior with Fox, Hewitt and others. So it seems almost inevitable that now his invective for Democrats is not couched with any pretense of neutrality:

Although Halperin is political director of ABC News and founder of its online analysis column The Note, [Teresa] Heinz-[Kerry] blurted, "What would he know? Why would anyone listen to him?" when Charlie Rose interviewed the couple at the 92nd Street Y last week. On Wednesday, Halperin spoke at a Bernstein Global Wealth Management session and replied, "As Bill Clinton might say, 'That's like a pig calling someone ugly.'"

Very O'Reilly like of Halperin. I see a future Fox News Political Director in the making.

h/t Sirota.

Jeralyn posted about the NYTimes editorial calling on Senate Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi to work to repeal the travesty that is the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

What the Times does not talk about is the fact that Bush will veto any such bill, assuming their are the necessary votes to pass a repeal and overcome a GOP filibuster.

I like this exercise because, as you may know, I support the Reid-Feingold "not funding" the Iraq Debacle bill. I am always asked, where are the votes? What about the filibuster? What about the veto? My response is always the same - filibusters and vetoes do not fund the Iraq Debacle. Do not flinch when the time comes (in the Reid-Feingold bill, the time is March 31, 2008.) Does the same strategy apply for Gitmo? It could. I think there are other avenues for closing Gitmo and restoring the rule of law on enemy combatants and habeas. I n short, to stop the Iraq Debacle, there are no other options. To stop Gitmo, there are imo.

The New York Times in an editorial today calls on Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to take action against the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, both of which limit appeal rights of detainees.

Both violate the Constitution, and the court should strike down the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which limits avenues for appeal. But Congress approved the military commissions, left in place the combatant status review tribunals and suspended habeas corpus. Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi have a moral obligation to lead the way to righting these wrongs.

Crooks and Liars has the video, you have to see it. Bill O'Reilly almost busted a gut.

GERALDO: "Cool your jets! It has nothing to do with illegal aliens…it has to do with drunk driving! Don't obscure a tragedy to make a cheap political point. It is a cheap political point and you know it!!"

Background from Oliver Willis:

"A young girl was tragically killed by a drunk driver. But this was not enough for O'Reilly. Instead, because the criminal was an illegal alien he added this incident to his ongoing crusade against the brown people. Luckily Geraldo was on the show and he - to his credit - called out O'Reilly's xenophobia for exactly what it was. This drove Bill O'Reilly insane. I was almost certain he was going to reach across the table and hit Geraldo."

The issue is drunk driving, not immigration -- as correctly noted by the victim's family and the town Mayor.

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Rudy Giuliani apparently was feeling the heat of the southern sun today. In South Carolina, home to many abortion opponents, he backed off yesterday's comments to CNN about his support for publicly funded abortions. Yesterday, he said:

"I would have to re-examine all of those issues and exactly what was at stake then -- that was a long time ago," he said. "When I was mayor, adoptions went up, abortions went down. But ultimately, it's a constitutional right, and therefore if it's a constitutional right ... you have to make sure that people are protected."

Pressed if he would support public funding for abortions, Giuliani said, "If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right, yes, if that's the status of the law, then I would, yes."

Rudy today: It should be a state's right issue, with individual states making the call.

"The Legislature of South Carolina should make its decision about that." He also said states should make the decision whether to use public money for abortions.

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Unbelievable. When will this insanity stop?

The Florida Department of Corrections says there are fewer and fewer places in Miami-Dade County where sex offenders can live because the county has some of the strongest restrictions against this kind of criminal in the country.

Florida's solution: house the convicted felons under a bridge that forms one part of the causeway. The Julia Tuttle Causeway, which links Miami to Miami Beach, offers no running water, no electricity and little protection from nasty weather. It's not an ideal solution, Department of Corrections Officials told CNN, but at least the state knows where the sex offenders are.

Then there's the rats and rodents that swarm over them.

I have preached against getting obsessed with the 2008 Presidential election to no avail. So I am going to try quoting Atrios:

As impressive as Obama's polling and fundraising has been, the dominant narrative of this as a battle between Clinton and Obama has been a bit silly. . . . And, yes, it's early and national polls are silly and when I find myself talking about this stuff too much I want to shoot myself in the face.

Let's talk about this instead:

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Arianna Huffington has a good post up today asking why the Democratic contenders for President aren't discussing the second war, the war on drugs?

...a quick search of the top Democratic hopefuls' websites reveals that not one of them -- not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, not John Edwards, not Joe Biden, not Chris Dodd, not Bill Richardson -- even mentions the drug war, let alone offers any solutions.

The silence coming from Clinton and Obama is particularly deafening.

So, let's look to the past. John Edwards put forth this position in 2004.

He also would have us shrink our bloated prison population and return its present members more successfully to society by better distinguishing non-violent drug crimes from other offenses; restoring abandoned treatment and training options; and re-enfranchising those who have done their time.

Yet, he also said:

.... he would not change marijuana laws, and he favors the Justice Department's arresting patients and caregivers who defy federal law.

Hillary addressed the war on drugs in her 2000 Senate campaign:

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Florida Governor Charlie Crist has won the battle against state Attorney General Bill McCollum to restore civil rights, including the right to vote, to most ex-offenders.

Florida officials on Thursday voted to end the practice of stripping ex-criminal offenders of their civil rights, including the right to vote. Florida is one of just three U.S. states, all in the Deep South, that have maintained long-standing constitutional barriers to restoring civil rights to those that have committed serious crimes, rights groups say.

Meeting in a special session, the Florida Clemency Board agreed by a 3-1 vote to allow some 950,000 ex-felons to automatically have their civil rights restored, removing a barrier that goes back 140 years.

Jeb Bush opposed automatic restoration. Crist made it a campaign pledge.

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His supporters will say, indeed have said, that John Edwards supports the goals of Reid-Feingold, but that it does not go far enough:

EDWARDS: I can't tell from the way you're describing [Reid-Feingold] enough of the specifics. I can tell you what I support, if Bush vetoes a bill, we should send him a bill that forces a drawdown of troops.

Ben Smith at Politico asked the Edwards campaign to elaborate on Edwards' view of Reid-Feingold. Smith reports:

"EDWARDS: Spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield emails, "I wouldn't say he supports Reid-Feingold. He supports defunding as a policy and applauds Reid and Feingold for putting it on the table, but the plan he supports is his own -- which would force a drawdown of 40-50,000 immediately and have all combat troops out in 12-18 months." UPDATE: That is to say, says Bedingfield, his only quarrel with the bill is it doesn't go far enough, but he has no problem with the methods."

This is nice and all, but Edwards can and should make it simple - he should say he supports Reid-Feingold and advocates for even TOUGHER measures. But this is too cute by half. KISS Senator Edwards. Keep it simple.

Atrios calls Hiatt a wanker. Think Progress says Hiatt is "misleading." I think Hiatt is just the biggest idiot in Washington, DC. Absorb that statement for a moment. The biggest idiot in Washington. Why? Most recently, this:

. . . After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. . . . Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message.

What is the basis of Hiatt's statement? Seemingly this:

"What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office.

Now is that a contradiction Mr. Hiatt? Are you saying Israel is not and was not ready to engage in peace talks with Syria? Is this true? Then what in the heck is wrong with Israel? They SHOULD be ready to engage in peace talks with Syria.

It is hard for some folks to say these things, but I will say it, Fred Hiatt is not a smart man. He has proven to be a disingenuous man but many credit him with an intelligence he simply does not possess. What he wrote in this editorial simply makes no sense.