I'm with TRex, I don't get the media fascination with Astronaut Lisa Nowak's arrest. There's nothing about it I find even remotely interesting.

Big Media's lurid coverage of this case is off key, out of line, and really, unduly fixated on the salacious details, but of course, why should we expect any different? There's a woman to be degraded and humiliated here! Call out Greta Van Suffering!

If you feel differently, here's a place to discuss it.

Tim Russert, walking with a crutch under his arm, has arrived at the D.C. Courthouse to testify in the Scooter Libby trial. The judge took lunch late to finish the 40 minutes left of Mr. Libby's grand jury testimony. Then, the jury will hear from Mr. Russert who will deny discussing Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, with Mr. Libby on July 10, 2003. (Background here.)

Swopa at Firedoglake and Media Bloggers will live blog the testimony.

Update: Fitz's direct examination took 11 minutes, Maine Web Report has the details.

Contrary to my earlier speculation, Wells, not Jeffress is conducting the cross-examination.

Update: From the Firedoglake and Maine Web Report live-blogging, it seems like Wells did a very good job of crossing Russert. I'm glad to hear that because I think he's an excellent lawyer but had the impression in the trial segments I watched that his crosses were too lumbering.

Now we'll see what the MSM and cable news has to say. I'm headed to the gym where I'll watch it on the treadmill. Russert will be back for more cross-examination and redirect by Fitz tomorrow.

The Chicago Tribune reports on Rudy's speaking fees and the questions it raises for his potential presidential bid.

He commands $100,000 for a speech, not including expenses, which his star-struck clients are happily willing to pay. In one speech last year at Oklahoma State University, Giuliani requested and received travel on a private Gulfstream jet that cost the school $47,000 to operate. His visit essentially wiped out the student speakers annual fund.

Like other high-priced speakers in the private sector, Giuliani routinely travels in style. Besides the Gulfstream, which is a standard perk on the big-time speakers circuit, his contract calls for up to five hotel rooms for his entourage, including his own two-bedroom suite with a preferred balcony view and king-size bed, in the event of an overnight stay. The Oklahoma contract also required a sedan and an SUV, restrictions on news coverage and control over whom Giuliani would meet, how he would be photographed and what questions he might be asked.

Then there is his investment bank, which he is trying to sell, and his consulting and security businesses.

His spokesperson says:

Eric Boehlert has a terrific article up at Media Matters on the larger context of the media coverage of the Valerie Plame leak and the Scooter Libby trial:

So as the facts of the White House cover-up now tumble out into open court, it's important to remember that if it hadn't been for Fitzgerald's work, there's little doubt the Plame story would have simply faded into oblivion like so many other disturbing suggestions of Bush administration misdeeds. And it would have faded away because lots of high-profile journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and NBC wanted it to.

In a sense, it was Watergate in reverse. Instead of digging for the truth, lots of journalists tried to bury it. The sad fact remains the press was deeply involved in the cover-up, as journalists reported White House denials regarding the Plame leak despite the fact scores of them received the leak and knew the White House was spreading rampant misinformation about an unfolding criminal case.

And that's why the Plame investigation then, and the Libby perjury trial now, so perfectly capture what went wrong with the timorous press corps during the Bush years as it routinely walked away from its responsibility of holding people in power accountable and ferreting out the facts.

Here's a bit more on the "timorous press corps."

The Government will call its final witness today in the Scooter Libby trial. It's NBC's Tim Russert.

For other takes, be sure to check in with Firedoglake, Empty Wheel, Just One Minute and Media Bloggers. Here's mine:

Fitzgerald wants to end his case on a high note. That's why even today, he wasn't sure he was going to call "the mystery witness," a low-level DOJ employee. He'd rather end with Russert, who he thinks will be the final linchpin, the one who will put his case over the top and bring it home.

I suspect Jeffress will do the cross-examination since he has crossed all the journalists so far, if I'm not mistaken.

Jeffress may try to hammer home that Russert didn't have to go before the grand jury but got interviewed in his lawyer's office. Jeffress took this route with Matt Cooper (although I thought that line of questioning went nowhere.)

There is another wrinkle with Russert the defense may try to exploit, that Russert and Fitz had a deal whereby Russert was only asked questions about Russert'ss side of the conversation. In other words, he was questioned about what he told Libby, not what Libby told him.

Time Magazine has an article about the differing laws in various states on whether a man can be convicted of rape if the female consents, and then during intercourse, she changes her mind.

The answer depends on where you live. The highest courts of seven states, including Connecticut and Kansas, have ruled that a woman may withdraw her consent at any time, and if the man doesn't stop, he is committing rape. Illinois has become the first state to pass legislation giving a woman that right to change her mind. But in Maryland--as well as in North Carolina--when a woman says yes, she can't take it back once sex has begun--or, at least, she can't call the act rape.

The Maryland case is under appeal.

If the law doesn't recognize a woman's right to say no during sex, [victims' rights advocates] say, there is no recourse for a woman who begins to feel pain or who learns her partner isn't wearing a condom or has HIV. Those who are wary of these measures say they're not arguing against having a man stop immediately when a woman no longer wants to have sex, but with how to define immediately.

That is totally illogical to me. If it starts to hurt, or there's no protection, and he doesn't pull out, it may be unwanted sex at that point but it's not rape. Let's not trivialize real rape to accomodate definitions of consensual sex gone awry. Make up a new crime for that if it's going to be illegal. But to brand someone as a sex offender for life, require sex offender registration, submit them to possible life sentences? Come on.

More...

Barack Obama is making two big decisions this week: to file a statement of candidacy for President and to quit smoking.

"I've never been a heavy smoker," Obama told the Tribune, "I've quit periodically over the last several years. I've got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I don't succomb. I've been chewing Nicorette strenuosly."

More from the Chicago Tribune, here.

Is this a campaign stunt? To get millions of America to join him and thereby become vested in his success? Probably not, but I could see it happening.

Remember Chai Vang, the Hmong hunter convicted of killing six white hunters in Wisconsin a few years ago?

It appears there may have been a revenge killing. A White hunter, James Allen Nichols, is accused of killing a Hmong hunter, Cha Vang, earlier this month. (yes, the names are that similar.) Was it an accidental shooting? Consider this:

There was no need to shoot Vang, stab him six times and then shove a 3- to 4-inch stick down his throat, what Allen has been accused of doing. Maybe, in the heat of the moment, it became a crime of hatred.

The Hmong community is seeking justice.

The jury continues to hear tapes of Scooter Libby's grand jury testimony today. Swopa at Firedoglake and the Media Bloggers' Association's bloggers are live-blogging.

I can't draw conclusions until I've read transcripts of all of his testimony. But, as to what Libby's lawyers will argue to the jury, here is the "Theory of Defense Instruction" (pdf) they have asked Judge Walton to read to the jurors as part of his instructions at the end of the case.

A defendant is entitled to a "theory of defense" instruction, but there has to be evidence presented during the trial to support it. I don't think Judge Walton will give it exactly as written, but it's revealing in showing where Team Libby is headed.

After a day filled with hot air, with Democrats vehemently crying for up and down votes on nonbinding resolutions to oppose the Bush Iraq Surge, and the GOP desperately trying to avoid going on the record in support of the Bush surge, the very smart columnist E J Dionne learns some correct lessons and some incorrect ones. The correct ones:

In other words: Even if a substantial majority of Congress that includes many Republicans demonstrates a lack of confidence in the Bush-Cheney surge, the administration will feel free to ignore the other elected branch of our government -- and the more recently elected branch (remember November, anyone?) at that.

And the GOP wants avoid getting shackled with Iraq in 2008. This is clear and that seems obvious to me. But what EJ is missing is that this Kabuki will mean nothing in November 2008. But, to be fair, EJ sees this as building up for a reversal of Iraq policy:

The impatience of the administration's critics is entirely understandable. But it would be a shame if impatience got in the way of a sensible long-term strategy to bring America's engagement in this war to as decent an end as possible as quickly as possible -- even if not as quickly as they'd like. The anti-surge resolution is a necessary first step, which is why those who are against a genuine change in our Iraq policy are fighting so hard to stop it.

Dionne is incorrect here. This does NOT lead to a sensible long term strategy to end the war. It is NOT a first step towards that. Russ Feingold is right:

This is not a time to finesse the situation. This is not a time for a slow walk. This almost reminds me a little bit of the way Democrats behaved in October 2002, which was trying to play it safe, trying to use words such as 'well, we're going to vote for this resolution, but what it really means is that the president should go to the UN. That stuff doesn’t fly. And this kind of attempt to go a little bit of the way just to show you're on the other side of the president doesn’t fly either.

One of the grand jurors in the Duke Lacrosse players' alleged sexual assault case says he now has second thoughts. Two of the grand jurors appeared on Good Morning America. They couldn't discuss what happened in the grand jury, so they talked only about their impressions since.

"Knowing what I know now and all that's been broadcast on the news and in media, I think I would have definitely … made a different decision," he said to ABC News.

"I don't think I could have made a decision to go forward with the charges that were put before us. I don't think those charges would have been the proper charges, based on what I know now," he said.

The second grand juror disagreed.

"I don't know for sure whether she was raped, you know, because of everything that … came out," he said. "I'm not sure, to tell you the truth."

It's time for the Tuesday open thread where you pick the topics. Have fun and stay warm. I'll check in later in the day.

Some stuff I'm reading:

• Media Matters challenges Chris Matthews' statements on Hardball yesterday touting Rudy Giuliani. I happened to catch that segment and just shook my head. Thanks to MM for the real facts.

• Judi Nathan Giuliani touts Rudy's testosterone and his loving side (gag reflex inducing) (hat tip Raw Story)

• Ted Haggard says he's completely heterosexual, he never was gay, just acting out.