There's good news over at Captain's Quarters. Ed's wife (the First Mate) has had a successful kidney transplant. She and the donor are doing fine. Ed's been blogging through the surgery to relieve the stress. Go on over and send some good wishes.

This sound familiar?

I have concerns about cutting off funding . . . I think there is a possibility, given how obstinate the Administration is, that if we try to cut off funding, Bush is hellbent on doing what he is doing . . . he may decide to play chicken and say 'you guys do whatever you want [I'm keeping the troops there]' . . .

No, that was NOT from today's daily kos front page story on Obama.

It is from MY front page Talk Left story of March 2, 2007. So all the Obama sycophants who believe the AP is lying when it writes this:

If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker "wants to play chicken with our troops," Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday.

need to wake up and stop drinking the Obama kool aid. For months and months, I have been preaching that Obama has been playing a bad brand of politics. To disbelieve a quote that is virtually the same thing he said a month ago, a quote that was ignored by most, but not by me, is to descend into blind hero worship.

Obama has talent and a good heart, but he has a politics problem.

Anthony Capozzi is now 50 years old. He's been in prison for 22 years for a rape he didn't commit. DNA has proved his innocence and he is expected to be freed within two weeks.

DNA evidence at the time of Capozzi’s trial wasn’t even admissible in the courts, and D’Agostino had to contend with the testimony of three women who identified Capozzi as their assailant.

“Maybe one’s wrong, maybe two are wrong, but jurors sit there and say how can three people possibly be wrong?” he said. “They were all so positive it was him.”

The D.A. agrees Capozzi was wrongfully convicted.

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark is expected to present Troutman DNA test results from the county’s crime lab. Those tests show that DNA in slides taken from the rape victims matches that of the man charged as the Bike Path Killer, Altemio Sanchez.

Hillary Clinton raked it in this quarter.

Shattering previous records, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton collected $26 million for her presidential campaign during the first three months of the year and transferred an additional $10 million from her Senate fundraising account, aides said Sunday. The New York senator's total included $4.2 million raised through the Internet.

The amount outdistanced past presidential election records and set a high bar by which to measure the fundraising abilities of her chief rivals.

I wonder how Rudy Giuliani did.

Update: John Edwards raised $14 million.

Some people I know say that if Rudy Giuliani self-destructs or bows out as a GOP presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich will step in. He has said he's open to stepping at some later point in the cycle.

Here's Newt's latest, on bi-lingual education, which he equates with ghetto-living:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education Saturday with "the language of living in a ghetto" and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.

"The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up" to vote, said Gingrich, who is considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women.

"The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," Gingrich said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.

He sounds like Tom Tancredo. Now, that's an idea for a frightening ticket combination.

The Mighty Gators dismantled UCLA tonight and have a chance to be the first repeat champion since Duke in 1992. The championship game will be a repeat of the football championship game, as Ohio State handled Georgetown 67-60, in a game marred by poor officiating (did not effect the outcome imo, but did effect the enjoyment of the game) but this time the Gators will be the clear favorite (Vegas has installed Florida as a 5 point favorite over the Buckeyes).

One more time -- Let's Go Gators!

Karl Rove has emerged unscathed in the justice system so far. But the New York Times puts out its claws today and draws blood.

I can't remember a time during PlameGate, the closest Karl Rove came to being indicted, that the New York Times so lambasted Rove.

Whatever the immediate objective, Mr. Rove seems focused on one overarching goal: creating a permanent Republican majority, even if that means politicizing every aspect of the White House and subverting the governmental functions of the executive branch.

....This was, perhaps, the inevitable result of taking the chief operative of a presidential campaign, one famous for his scorched-earth style, and ensconcing him in the White House — not in a political role, but as a key player in the formation of policy. Mr. Rove never had to submit to Senate confirmation hearings. Yet, from the very start, photographs of cabinet meetings showed him in the background, keeping an enforcer’s eye on the proceedings. After his re-election in 2004, President Bush formally put Mr. Rove in charge of all domestic policy.

The Times says Congress shouldn't let Rove skate on testifying under oath at hearings on the fired U.S. Attorneys.

The investigation of the firings of the United States attorneys seems to be closing in on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who should have been fired weeks ago. But Congress should bring equal scrutiny to the more powerful Mr. Rove. If it does, especially by forcing him to testify in public, it will find that he has been at the vortex of many of the biggest issues they are now investigating.

I think Karl Rove's bigger problem is that Bush is now a lame duck and the media figures his lieutenants are now fair game.

The whole bunch of them are about to see their power dwindle.

It's up to us in 2008 to ensure we get a regime change, not just a name change.

Edger has led the charge on the growing Out of Iraq Blogger Caucus.

E, we have a new prospect for membership, President Bush's former pollster, Matthew Dowd:

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

. . . His views against the war began to harden last spring when, in a personal exercise, he wrote a draft opinion article and found himself agreeing with Mr. Kerry’s call for withdrawal from Iraq. He acknowledged that the expected deployment of his son Daniel was an important factor.

. . . “If the American public says they’re done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want,” Mr. Dowd said. “They’re saying ‘Get out of Iraq.’”

He has a blog with Joe Lockhart. Send him an invite Edger.

Seven days after Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal sent a memo to Gen. John Abizaid warning against "any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Cpl. Tillman's death become public." In other words, "don't pretend that Tillman was killed by the enemy, because the truth will come back to bite you in the rear."

Advising the government to be truthful proved to be a wasted effort. The memo was written on April 29, 2004.

The family was not told until May 29, 2004, what really happened. In the intervening weeks, the military continued to say Tillman died under enemy fire, and even awarded him the Silver Star, which is given for heroic battlefield action.

Pat Tillman's mother has this to say:

I have stated that:

The March 31, 2008 nonbinding date contained in the Senate provision should become the announced date certain for NOT funding the Iraq Debacle. . . . [T]he INTENTION to NOT fund the war past the date certain is essential to a political strategy that will allow the Congress to do this. The American People must be forewarned of the date. They must internalize it. They must then internalize that if Bush does not withdraw troops past that date, then it is he who is abandoning the troops in harm's way - [it is] President Bush.

According to Newsweek, the American People will support this:

Do you support or oppose the legislation passed this week by the U.S. Senate calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008?

Support: 57%
Oppose: 36%
DK: 7%

Why should Talk Left readers root for the Florida Gators? Here's another reason why:

Some of Noah’s statements are nonverbal and are made off the court. When his championship team was invited to the White House this season, Noah at first was reluctant to go because he said he opposed President Bush and the war in Iraq.

Seriously though, Florida is an admirable team because it is a TEAM, evenly spreading the scoring among the 5 starters, averaging between 11 and 13 points per game each. The star at Florida is the TEAM, not Noah, not Horford, not Brewer, not Green, not Humphrey. You don't see that so much in this day of diaper dandies and sneaker contracts. Three of the players put a hold on the NBA in order to have another year of the college experience. That seemed pretty smart to me.

On the games, Florida is the best team, but the best team does not always win. UCLA is clearly much improved. It will be a close game. I think and hope the Gators will prevail. In the opening game, the matchup of Hibbert and Oden will be compelling. I think Georgetown is the better team and will win.

From TalkLeft reader lawyer Terry Kindlon:

While we're complaining about how bizarre and other-worldly the Guantanamo Military Commissions are, we should not fail to give sufficient credit to the powerful, pragmatic advocacy of Major Michael Mori, USMC, David Hicks's appointed counsel. Like Navy Commander Charles Swift, who sacrificed his career to effectively represent his client, Mori, a former enlisted Marine, has fearlessly taken on the United States Government at its worst and he's been routinely spectacular.

(As many TalkLeft readers know, Terry Kindlon of Albany, NY is an outstanding criminal defense lawyer who reads and comments often on TalkLeft about military service. He was a decorated Marine during Vietnam, sustained some injuries, is married to my friend Laurie Shanks, also an outstanding defense lawyer in Albany, and their son Lee, age 30, is a captain in the Marines and a military lawyer who recently returned from Fallujah, where he also served as a Judge Advocate.)