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.

I know it seems I am picking on them, and maybe I am a little, but the cognitive dissonance displayed here astounds me:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a "remaining military as well as political mission" in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there . . .

This stance deserves deep consideration by Democratic primary voters. . . . Hillary Clinton's promise to continue the Iraqi occupation will become the Democratic Party platform if she is the nominee. This is a very dangerous roadmap for the Democrats.

And yet, MYDD whips for the current House proposal on Iraq funding which is identical in principle to the Hillary formulation. Amazing. On the flip what Hillary said.

Back in 2002 and 2003, largely due to their relevance to the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui and their captivity in overseas secret prisons where they likely were tortured, I wrote many, many posts about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh.

All of the posts are accessible here:

• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (60 posts)
• Ramzi Binalshibh (53 posts)

In addition to the alleged torture of Khalid, the CIA also kidnapped his young sons and flew them to America to talk. My criticism of that is here. The U.S. gave a denial, but it didn't fit. The Associated Press reported on Khalid's statements to interrogators back in 2003. Here is the summary of Khalid's debriefing introduced at the Moussaoui trial. (Analysis here.)Time Magazine profiled Khalid in 2003. ABC reported on the torture techniques as described by CIA officers. The New York Times reported on the techniques used on Khalid (described here.) In 2004, the Washington Post reported on the conflicts between what Khalid and Binalshibh were telling them.

There are several references in the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's enemy combatant hearing transcript Friday to an al-Jazeera interview. Before their arrests, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh were interviewed by Yosri Fouda, London bureau chief for al-Jazeera.

The interview is listed as part of the evidence against Khalid. Khalid tells the hearing officer he never told the reporter he was the head of al Qaida's military committee. He wanted to call Ramzi Binalshibh as a witness at the hearing to back him up on this. The hearing officer denied the request.

The al-Jazeera interview was described in detail in a September 9, 2002 London Times article by Dominic Kennedy. It's not online that I know of, but is available on Lexis.

"A slip of the tongue by one of Osama bin Laden's top henchmen seems to have betrayed al-Qaeda's most potent secret: its charismatic leader is dead."

"The blunder was made by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has confessed to being the operational mastermind behind the September 11 attacks. He made his mistake while disclosing many of the secrets behind the atrocities, which were plotted in Kandahar, the religious extremist Taleban movement's Afghan spiritual home."

"The target of the fourth, thwarted hijack attack in Washington was Congress, not the White House; the original plan was to crash aircraft into atomic power stations; and the plotters used simple codes to keep in touch by internet, he disclosed. Mr Mohammed was speaking in a propaganda exercise organised by al-Qaeda in time for the first anniversary of September 11."

David Brooks provides a window on the Politics of Exiting Iraq:

The fact is there are two serious approaches to U.S. policy in Iraq, and the Democratic leaders, for purely political reasons, are caught in the middle, and even people like Carl Levin are beginning to sound silly.

One serious position is heard on the left: that there’s nothing more we can effectively do in Iraq. . . . The second serious option is heard on the right. We have to do everything we can to head off catastrophe, and it’s too soon to give up hope. . . .

Say what you will about President Bush, when he thinks a policy is right, like the surge, he supports it, even if it’s going to be unpopular. The Democratic leaders, accustomed to the irresponsibility of opposition, show no such guts. As a result, nobody loves them. Liberals recognize the cynicism of it all. Republicans know the difference between principled opposition and unprincipled posturing. Independents see just another group of politicians behaving like politicians.

I have repeated this too many times - the political options on Iraq are binary. You are for Bush's Iraq Debacle or you are against it. The "nuance," if it ever existed, is gone. The Blue Dogs and the fools who enable them - to wit, the Dem leaders in the House - live in a political fantasyland. They have to pick a side now. There is no other way, whether they like it or not.

The truth is the Dems need leadership in the House and they are not getting it. In the Senate, Reid seems to have regained his footing. In the House, Pelosi seems stuck in quicksand. And the Netroots seems intent on enabling this failure of political and policy leadership. It is quite disheartening, on all levels. We need new leaders - everywhere.

Bump and Update: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's enemy combatant hearing transcript is here (pdf.) The New York Times analyzes it here.

Update: Binalshibh's hearing transcript is here. Al-Libi's transcript is here.

Binalshibh and al-Libi both declined to attend the hearings. Al-Libi submitted a very interesting and polite letter that was read into the record (page 5 -7) listing his objections.

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The Defense Department today released a 26 page transcript of the Guantanamo hearing of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in which he confesses to planning the 9/11 attacks and many others.

The politics of crime ... as it affects the NCAA tournament:

• Daniel Dillon, an Arizona guard, was suspended today after being arrested for drunk driving. Arizona plays Purdue Thursday.
• Nevada coach Mark Fox is under investigation (at least by the WAC) after using "loud, boisterous and profane language" toward officials after Nevada lost in the WAC semifinals. So who doesn't? He also "appeared ready to use force toward a police officer," a more serious accusation than cursing at a ref. Nevada plays Creighton Friday.
• The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act hasn't put an end to online sports betting. Nice try, Congress. Are office pools next?