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.

Posting about Con Law Prof. Sanford Levinson's ruminations on writing a better Constitution, which entail some very serious thinking on the democratic processes enshrined in our Founding document, Ezra Klein, an always interesting and almost always smart writer, misses the point imo. Ezra writes:

I could totally write a better constitution. Know why? I have 250 more years of historical knowledge and contemporary context with which to ensure it's applicable to modern times. For instance: I could write a way clearer 2nd amendment, and I'd limit judicial terms to 12 years, and I'd make the electoral college go bye-bye.

But these "improvements" miss the point of Levinson's work and, frankly miss the point of the Constitution. I'll explain why I think so on the other side.

It was bad enough when the $100 hamburger appeared, but a $1,000 pizza? Could it be any better than the $12 pepperoni, goat cheese and banana pepper pizza at Greenbush? Or, for that matter, your local favorite?

Negligent homicide?

A coroner conducting an inquest into a U.S. friendly fire attack that killed a British soldier during the Iraq war said Friday that it was unlawful and criminal.

Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker also criticized the U.S. military for failing to cooperate with his investigation into the incident.

"I believe that the full facts have not yet come to light," said Walker, who has complained that he did not get all the evidence he needed about the U.S. A-10 "Tank-buster" plane that killed Lance Cpl. Matty Hull, 25, in an attack on his armored vehicle convoy.

Sean Bell was at his bachelor party the night before his wedding. As he was leaving, he was killed by a blaze of 50 police bullets.

The grand jury has indicted three of the five cops who fired at him. No one knows what charges they have been indicted on since the Indictments will be sealed until Monday. Photos of the five cops are here.

The grand jury has been considering murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide. It deliberated on the charges for three days. More than 60 witnesses testified in the inquiry.

Bell's family maintains the cops fired without warning. The Rev. Al Sharpton had this to say:

"The only way you make sure it doesn't happen again is you stop it, and you punish it and you send a signal that we live in a society where laws have to be respected," he said. "So there is no joy, no vengeance, no party here."

Others have characterized the killing as a case of contagion-shooting.

Mahablog patronizes me:

At Talk Left, Big Tent Democrat complains that Scott Lilly endorsed “doing nothing.” No, dear; he’s asking people who presume to be activists to stop being stupid about it.

That's very nice dear, but how about explaining why it is stupid. Because Harold Meyerson, Walter Dellinger, Scott Lilly, Matt Stoller and you say so is not an argument. Remember the arguments from experts on Iraq and the politics of Iraq? I do my own thinking thank you very much. Present YOUR argument. And then we can discuss it. I have presented mine. Would be nice if you addressed it.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow today backtracked off the Harriet Miers story. He says people's memories are now hazy.

"It has been described as her idea but ... I don't want to try to vouch for origination," said White House press secretary Tony Snow, who previously had asserted Miers was the person who came up with the idea. "At this juncture, people have hazy memories."

Sung to the tune of Jimi Hendrix.

Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just dont seem the same
Actin funny, but I dont know why
scuse me while I kiss the sky

I'll be discussing the firings on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday morning at 10:00 am ET.

Update: New York Times on Snow's statement.