The Senate has rejected a Democrat proposal to complete troop pullout from Iraq by March, 2008. The vote was 50 to 48.

The vote in the Senate was 50 against and 48 in favor, 12 short of what was needed to pass, with just a few defections in each party. It came just hours after the House Appropriations Committee, in another vote largely on party lines, approved an emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan that includes a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. The House will vote on that legislation next Thursday, setting the stage for another confrontation.

The 48 votes were 12 short of the 60 needed for passage. A “yes” vote was a vote to support the measure. Voting “yes” were 46 Democrats, 1 Republican and 1 independent. Voting “no” were 2 Democrats, 1 independent and 47 Republicans. Two senators did not vote.

Because of the House Vote, the legislation will continue moving forward.

More....

A Senate committee in Maryland today rejected a bill to abolish the death penalty.

Efforts to repeal the death penalty in Maryland were dealt an apparently fatal blow Thursday when a key state Senate committee defeated the measure, leaving a court-ordered moratorium on state executions in place and some legislators weighing a study of the issue.

Weeks of behind-the-scenes wrangling and lobbying by religious and law enforcement officials culminated Thursday with the bill's defeat in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on a tie vote.

Why it failed:

Sen. Alex X. Mooney, the Frederick Repub lican and devout Catholic who was expected to swing the Senate vote, did not support the repeal after trying unsuccessfully to exempt prisoners who kill again while serving a jail term. He told the committee that he struggled with the choice.

The newly released Rove e-mail raises a question of the White House's honesty in its original statement that the idea of possibly replacing all 93 U.S. Attorneys originated with Harriet Miers. It also shows that Alberto Gonzales was aware it was being discussed before he was confirmed as Attorney General, while he was still White House counsel.

The White House said Thursday night that the e-mails did not contradict the previous statements about former White House counsel Harriet Miers' role. The e-mail exchange, dated January 6, 2005, is between then-deputy White House counsel David Leitch and Kyle Sampson at the Justice Department. According to a senior White House official who has seen the e-mail exchange, "It's not inconsistent with what we have said."

The email is here.

It certainly is customary for Presidents to replace the previous President's U.S. Attorneys after an election. What's unusual here is that Bush was considering replacing his own appointments, since this was his second term.

So, what's the fuss about? One thing is whether the idea really originated with Harriet Miers. A second is timing...the discussions started earlier than the White House initially said. TPM Muckraker has put together a timeline. A third is whether the Administration told the truth when it said the idea of dismissing all the U.S. Attorneys was rejected out of hand as soon as Miers suggested it.

More...

David Sirota, (David responds to me here) of all people, is recommending a column that seems to endorse doing nothing to end the war in Iraq:

There is one decisive action that the Congress could theoretically take with respect to Iraq given Bush’s Constitutional authorities. Tina Richards referred to it in her exchange with Obey. Congress could simply refuse to pass any legislation providing further funding for the war. That sounds both simple and effective. But there are serious downsides to such a strategy that devoted opponents of this war should reflect upon. . . . Well-meaning people can argue about whether or not such a strategy would be good policy or whether or not it would be good politics. But there is little room for argument as to whether such a stance is a viable legislative strategy.

So there you have it, we "idiots" can do and should do nothing. Boy, aren't you glad you voted for Dems in 2006 in order to end the war in Iraq?

Murray Waas has a new article in the National Journal, Internal Affairs, in which he reports that the aborted DOJ probe probably would have targeted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Had it not been quashed, a Justice Department inquiry into the domestic eavesdropping program would likely have examined the actions of Alberto Gonzales.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

Right now, if you have Stanford making an improbable run in the Tourney, you are looking none too good. The Cardinal trail the Cardinals by 25 in the first half.

Davidson is giving Maryland a real tussle, down 1 at the half.

BC leads Tex Tech by 2 at the half. Please update in the thread. I am out of pocket this afternoon.

Update [2007-3-15 12:13:28 by Big Tent Democrat]: Matt Stoller says:

Pelosi's compromise is messy, but there's no clean solution here. The public is against this war, but it is not for complete withdrawal. Change is still a very scary prospect.

My question to Stoller and Meyerson is this - what part of the Pelosi "compromise" do they like? What is it that they feel is worth ANYTHING? Specifically, what?

Harold Meyerson jumps on the beat up on on antiwar folks bandwagon:

We're trying to use the supplemental," [Obey] explained, "to end the war." . . . In effect, what the protesters are doing is making the unattainable perfect the enemy of the barely-attainable good. Because Obey is quite right: The votes aren't there to shut down funding for the war. What he and Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership in both houses are about is finding some way to curtail the president's determination to pass the war on to his successor regardless of the continuing cost to U.S. interests and lives.

What Meyerson does is simply repeat nonsense about what some of us are seeking - not the unattainable perfect as he so breezily dismisses it, but the attainable, indeed the ONLY, method for reaching the goal Myerson purports to support-ending the war before the next President is in office.

Consider on the flip Meyerson's views on what the House is doing to gauge just how unserious Meyerson is in this article.

History tells us that no one below an 8 seed can do it. Applied history tells us that the likelihood of anyone below a 3 seed winning it all is rather slim.

Here is the history since the 64 team tournament began 22 years ago. Before that, UCLA always won. Just kidding.

The 64-team field began in 1984. The lowest seeds to win since the 64 team field was implemented were:

1985: Villanova - #8
1988: Kansas - #6
1997: Arizona - #4
1989: Michigan - #3
2003: Syracuse - #3
2006: Florida - #3
4 champions seeded #2
13 champions seeded #1

In the 23 years of a 64 team tourney - 17 winners were 1 or 2 seeds. 20 of 23 were 1, 2 or 3 seeds.

You do the math.

A federal judge told William White that charges against him would probably mark a "dismal end" to his career in law enforcement. The question is why that career didn't end years ago.

White planted evidence on a suspect in a drug arrest. He was fired, as he should have been, but the police union helped him get his job back. Later in his career, White pointed his gun at a group of children as he berated them with racial epithets. He kept his job despite community outrage. Still later, he was sued for beating a 13-year-old. None of that was enough to end his career at the New Haven Police Department.

It took the FBI to uncover White's latest wrongdoing.

In what prosecutors said was the most damning evidence, Lieutenant White took $27,500 from a car that he believed was part of a drug bust in January, according to the affidavit. Over and over, he said that he did not want to hurt the informant or get caught on film. But in the end, he covered his face and took the money, writing the word “estúpido” on one of the bags that held the cash to make it seem that the car had been robbed (he first called several people to find out how to spell the word “stupid” in Spanish, the affidavit said).

U.S. District Court Judge Frederic Block (E.D.N.Y.) recently scolded federal prosecutors for seeking a death sentence against Kenneth McGriff.

He told prosecutors, "I feel, as an officer, as a judge, that this is an absurd prosecution based upon what I have heard. I think I have a responsibility to let authorities know. ... There's just no chance that 12 jurors will vote for the death penalty in this case, and I think it is good for us to save money, if we can do that, and judicial resources."

Judge Block was right: the government failed to convince a unanimous jury to vote for death. And he's right again in a NY Times op ed that scolds the Justice Department for its ghoulish desire to kill defendants.

Over the last few years there has been a surge in death penalty prosecutions authorized by the United States attorney general, both nationwide and in federal cases in New York. But these have resulted in disproportionately few death penalty verdicts, at enormous costs and burdens to the judicial system.

This is beating the proverbial dead horse I think, Gonzo is toast, but WaPo asked the question:

The conflict between documents released this week and previous administration statements is quickly becoming the central issue for lawmakers who are angry about the way Gonzales and his aides handled the coordinated firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year. Democrats and Republicans are demanding to know whether Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and other Justice officials misled them in sworn testimony over the past two months.

Ayuuup. That's the question. May I suggest that a review of Mr. Gonzales' testimony from his confirmation hearings and since then the past two years raise many similar questions on issues like torture and rendition. If anyone cares to look.

Today's schedule, with my picks in BOLD:

East Regional:

Boston College vs. Texas Tech, 12:25 p.m.

Georgetown vs. Belmont, 30 minutes after previous game.

Marquette vs. Michigan State, 7:20 p.m.

North Carolina vs. Eastern Kentucky, 30 minutes after previous game.

Washington State vs. Oral Roberts, 2:30 p.m.

Vanderbilt vs. George Washington, 30 minutes after previous game.