AP:

The U.S. military on Sunday announced the deaths of seven more troops in Iraq, including four killed by a roadside bomb while patrolling western Baghdad — the latest American casualties in a monthlong security crackdown in the capital. . . . Saturday's deaths brought to at least 3,217 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Death is always impossible to accept. But senseless death caused by craven political considerations, and idiotic politics at that, is just . . . unacceptable.

The Chicago Tribune has some new details about the difficulties Attorney General Alberto Gonzales overcame in his life:

Gonzales' father was arrested for drunken driving five times in 17 years covering much of Gonzales' childhood and adolescence. Pablo Gonzales died in an industrial accident in 1982 when Gonzales was at Harvard Law School.

A younger brother, Rene Gonzales, died under mysterious circumstances in 1980. In 1991, the same year Alberto Gonzales became one of the first Hispanic partners at the white shoe Houston law firm of Vinson & Elkins, his younger sister Theresa pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. Nine years later, while Gonzales was on the Texas Supreme Court, his mother and another brother signed over their houses to a bail bondsman to raise bail for Theresa after she was charged with the same offense.

Most of these details did not arise in his Senate confirmation hearings, even though they might reasonably have been thought to affect his views about crime, drug and alcohol policy, and sentencing--all issues overseen or influenced by an attorney general.

What does the omissions of these details mean?

More...

Our fearless leader Jeralyn will be discussing the Gonzo prosecutor firings tomorrow morning with Howie Kurtz on CNN's Reliable Sources program.

Sure to be the highlight of the Sunday programs.

In my previous post, I painted with too broad a brush. Two bloggers pointed out to me that they too reject the idea that the Left Blogs should refrain from critiquing the Dems on Iraq.

Corrente:

I read plenty of blogs that have no problems whatsoever criticizing the Democrats. This one, for example. I also find that there are plenty of people at larger communities who speak out about Democratic waffling or inaction, and they are not always shouted down. But it is an interesting point to raise, given the levels of Shrill that could be found Blogosphere-wide before the election.

Gun Toting Liberal:

If I have to say so myself, it takes courage to do what we’re doing here, and that says a LOT about our co-bloggers and co-authors here at The GTL and those few other sites out there (including TalkLeft, of course) who are willing to sacrifice a LOT of “linkie-luv” and inbound traffic from our fellow “lefty” bloggers out there by standing up for what’s right, or more accurately, what REALLY is “left”.

Ok, this seems the beginning of the makings of an Out of Iraq blog caucus. Anyone else game to join us?

From CNN:

Thousands of anti-war demonstrators and supporters of the U.S. policy in Iraq shouted at each other Saturday from opposite sides of a street bordering the National Mall as protesters formed a march to the Pentagon to denounce a war entering its fifth year. . . . Speakers criticized the Bush administration at every turn but blamed congressional Democrats, too, for refusing to cut off money for the war. "This is a bipartisan war," New York City labor activist Michael Letwin told the crowd. "The Democratic party cannot be trusted to end it."

Harold Meyerson and his friends can criticize "idiot liberals" all they want, but we "idiot liberals" have our own eyes and our own minds. I think the idiots are those who think these sentiments are illegitimate and won't be growing.

Enough is enough with the patronizing members of the Left who demand we "clap louder" for the Dems. And yes Booman, that's what you just did. Freaking hilarious from a guy who is pushing impeachment.

Thanks to the good folks at Progress Now, a bunch of bloggers had some hands on video training this morning. We were divided into groups of three and sent out to make themed videos. Here's the one my group made.

Via mcjoan, Newsweek polls says:

6. Do you favor or oppose Congressional legislation that would require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008?

Favor 59%
Oppose 34
Don't Know 7

So a date certain for no more funding is bad politically why again? The Dems in Congress simply are making a huge mistake by not making this policy the announced and firm approach. Tell Bush no more money after a date certain. 60% of America wants that.

Update [2007-3-17 14:54:48 by Big Tent Democrat]: Xavier up 6 8 9 at the under 10 8 5 mark and OSU go to overtime. Lewis with monster 3 to tie. Oden 3 4 fouls out. The Bucks could be in serious VERY serious trouble. Bucks up 8 in OT. I call ballgame. Great win for Ohio State.

Today's other games - Butler/MD, Vandy/Wash. St, L-ville/Tex A&M, VCU/Pitt, UCLA/Ind, BC/G-Town, UNC/Mich St. My picks are in bold.

In December 2005, I engaged in an interesting discussion with Dan Solove of the very good law blog Concurring Opinions on the nature of the blogosphere Left and Right. I took issue with this assertion from Solove:

. . . [T]he conservative blogosphere is much better integrated in its intellectual and activist dimensions. For example, the conservative political blogosphere seems much more deeply connected to the legal blogosphere, where political bloggers seem to more routinely tap into the expertise of law professors about various legal issues. Indeed, many of the prominent political bloggers in the conservative blogosphere are academics; fewer of the liberals are. This strikes me as representative of a larger difference between the Left and Right. The Left must better connect its intellectual and activist sides.

This struck me, and still does, as extremely naive about the nature of the so called "intellectual" side of the Right, which is nothing if not activist and highly partisan. Solove fundamentally failed to grasp this basic point at first, though he came to concede a fair bit of it in comments.

It's not only Alberto Gonzales who's in trouble, Karl Rove has some explaining to do as well. As Shakespeare wrote,

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Dan Froomkin, writing in Friday's Washington Post, The Politics of Distraction, warns us not to miss the forest for the trees. Whether Alberto Gonzales stays or goes, there's more to the story of the U.S. Attorney firings, and Karl Rove is in the midst of the soup.

More....

The L.A. Times gives credit where credit is due: to Josh Marshall's Talking Points and TPM Muckraker for besting the mainstream media on the coverage of the U.S. Attorney firings.

In a third-floor Flower District walkup with bare wooden floors, plain white walls and an excitable toy poodle named Simon, six guys dressed mainly in T-shirts and jeans sit all day in front of computer screens at desks arranged around the oblong room's perimeter, pecking away at their keyboards and, bit by bit, at the media establishment.

The world headquarters of TPM Media is pretty much like any small newsroom, anywhere, except for the shirts. And the dog. And the quiet. Most newsrooms are notably noisy places, full of shrill phones and quacking reporters. Here there is mainly quiet, except for the clacking keyboards.

It's 20 or so blocks up town to the heart of the media establishment, the midtown towers that house the big newspaper, magazine and book publishers. And yet it was here in a neighborhood of bodegas and floral wholesalers that, over the last two months, one of the biggest news stories in the country -- the Bush administration's firing of a group of U.S. attorneys -- was pieced together by the reporters of the blog Talking Points Memo.

[hat tip Kevin Drum]

When Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales' Chief of Staff, resigned Monday in PurgeGate, Gonzales and others said it was because he didn't share the extent of his discussions about firing U.S. Attorneys with the DOJ officials who were tasked with providing information about the firings to Congress.

Now, Sampson has lawyered up and is changing his tune. His lawyer has issued a press statement.

"The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing the subject for several years was well-known to a number of other senior officials at the department, including others who were involved in preparing the department's testimony to Congress," according to the statement by Sampson's lawyer, Bradford A. Berenson.

But, he's also playing both ends against the middle. His statement also says he resigned because he failed his boss.