From Politico:

Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose support among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions.

As Craig Crawford said on Olberman, this is akin to getting the paint out for changing the name on the parking space.

The end is nigh.

And if you want to picket, you want to protest, you want to disrupt my life - better my life [in my spacious DC office] is disrupted than the lives of these men and women in uniform [fighting and dying in Iraq].

-Senator Barbara Mikulski (thanks Barb)

Booman is misled by the repeating of false GOP talking points from Senator Mikulski on the Iraq defunding debate and now uses the Beltway position to articulate his views. I stand with Russ Feingold:

Keeping our brave troops in Iraq indefinitely is having a devastating impact on our national security and military readiness.

That's why I have consistently advocated that we set a timetable to redeploy our troops from Iraq. But the president refuses to set a timetable, even though the American people soundly rejected his Iraq policy in November. Instead, the president has announced he wants to send approximately 20,000 more troops.

. . . We can't afford to wait any longer. Congress must use its main power - the power of the purse - to put an end to our involvement in the war in Iraq. . . . As the president made clear Wednesday night, he has no intention of redeploying our troops from Iraq. Congress cannot continue to accept this.

. . . Some [like Dem Sen. Mikulski and Booman] will claim that cutting off funding for the war would endanger our brave troops on the ground. Not true. The safety of our service men and women in Iraq is paramount, and we can and should end funding for the war without putting our troops in further danger.

Congress will continue to give our troops the resources and support they need, but by, for example, specifying a time after which funding for the war would end, it can give the president the time needed to redeploy troops safely from Iraq.

Joe Lieberman desperately grasps for attention and relevance. After urging Dem primary voters to not vote against him just on "one issue," after insisting on his Dem bona fides, after promising that he would caucus with Dems in his independent run, Joe now says he might switch to the GOP.

Why does he do this? Because he is no longer a Faux Dem, he is just Joe Lieberman, Bush and Cheney's best friend, not a very interesting profile. Not much of an attention grabber.

A reminder, on all my Iraq defunding posts, indeed all my posts, I speak ONLY for me

One of the most maddening things about the reaction of Move On and much of the Netroots to the disastrous House bill on Iraq funding is the newfound belief that it is now their role to be the "pragmatic conciliators" who need to cut deals.

What delusion. What hubris. A dkos commenter, Eugene, captures what is wrong with this mindset:

You say, at one point:

Just the numbers aren't on the side of those who wish to end the war.

That's your problem right there. You see that as a conclusion instead of as a starting point. You see it as an answer, not a question.

That the votes aren't there right now is not relevant to the conversation. What matters is how we get those votes. How do we twist arms to make these "Democrats" who have sabotaged even a proviso to stop an attack on Iran come around and change their minds?

I speak only for me of course

From Greg Sargent:

MoveOn's Washington director, Tom Matzzie just confirmed to me that despite earlier concerns that the House Dem leadership's Iraq plan wasn't tough enough, the organization yesterday started polling its members and has decided to back the legislation . . . "We asked all 3.2 million of our members to weigh in, and 80 percent back the plan," Matzzie says, adding that he didn't have exact numbers on how many members had voted. "Our view is, this is a choice between Republicans who want endless war and Democrats who want a safe, responsible end to the war."

Well, this is just stuff and nonsense. The House bill will not end the war in September 2008 as proclaimed. That simply is false. What it does do is fund the war until that date when the Congress will vote more money, as any sane person realizes they will, 2 months before an election.

Glenn Greenwald eviscerates a typical nonsense column by Michael Barone, resident GOP shill at US News & World report. Glenn is his usual trenchant self and I recommend you read his post in its entirety, but I want to focus on something different. Barone writes:

In their assessment of what is going on in the world, they seem to start off with a default assumption that we are in the wrong. . . . If something bad happens, the default assumption is that it's their fault. They always blame America -- or the parts of America they don't like -- first.

I am not sure who "they" are, but if Barone is speaking about people like me, I have certainly blamed Bush and the Republicans First since they launched the most disastrous set of policies this country has ever encountered from its leaders. We blame Bush and the Republicans for the Iraq Debacle and all the debacles, scandals, corruption and abuse of the Constitution that have occurred because it is THEIR FAULT! IT was and is THEIR policies. It was and is their scandals. It was and is THEIR abuses. Who should we blame for that? As usual, Barone is of the no accountability school . Any decent Republican shill would be.

I'm in the courtroom at the trial of Qwest former CEO Joseph Nacchio. Jury selection is underway. The questioning is being done by Judge Edward Nottingham, not the lawyers.

The prospective jurors just filed in. I'll be putting the live blog posts over at 5280.com.

The Taliban has taken credit for the suicide bombing next to a motorcade of U.S. Embassy officials in Kabul.

Joe Mellott, a US embassy spokesman, told the AP news agency that several American embassy officials were wounded in the incident, one seriously. He confirmed that Ronald Neumann, the US Ambassador, was not in the convoy.

Local police later confirmed that a 15-year-old passerby had died in the blast, while several civilians were injured.

In a typically very good post, Atrios reminds us of the years of pronouncements from the Wise Men on Iraq:

. . . [T]he Very Serious People in Washington, as represented by Fred Hiatt, are still all for sending other people off to die to find the pony they know is there. The editorial the Post had out yesterday will be recycled for next year's anniversary, with little changed.

And on and on.

...A year ago, David Ignatius told us in the Post:

[. . .] [T]his is the way this war is supposed to be going. It's a few years late, but the new U.S. strategy is moving in the right direction.

. . . Jim Hoagland told us:

[. . .] U.S. troops will be moving out of Iraq's streets and then out of Iraq's cities by the end of this year as part of a coordinated drawing down and concentration of all foreign forces. . . . This is what Bush calls Iraqis standing up to allow Americans to stand down.

But I have a nit to pick with Atrios and the Netroots generally. Which I will do on the other side.

At least, Airbus hopes so.

Senator Pat Leahy announced he will seeks public testimony from White House officials via subpoena. Not surprisingly, the White House started to use the dread "E phrase":

Dan Bartlett, counselor to Mr. Bush, has said it is “highly unlikely” that the president would waive executive privilege to allow his top aides to testify publicly. One Republican strategist close to the White House, speaking on the condition of anonymity so as not to appear to be representing the administration [ASIDE: Huh? This is the most bogus basis for granting anonynmity I have ever read.], said: “No president is going to let their senior staff assistant to the president go testify. Forget that. They might agree to do an informal interview, but they’ll never testify.”

A matter of principle? Separation of powers? Try a matter of politics:

[A] report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service say[s] presidential advisers, including 47 from the Clinton administration alone, have frequently testified before Congressional committees, both while serving the president and after they had left the White House.

It's the politics. And it will be the politics that decides whether they testify or not. But, since this is a law blog, let's look at the law on the other side..

Four years ago, on March 19, 2003, the United States launched it war against Iraq. In his announcement speech, Bush said,

We are going to apply decisive force. "We are going to carry on our work of peace."

On March 21, mass protests occurred in the U.S. In San Francisco, 1,350 people were arrested.

We're still there, fighting a civil war. More than 3,000 of our troops have died.

Something is very wrong with this picture, and I say it's President Bush.