Doubts are growing in the blogosphere that Dick Cheney will in fact be a witness for Scooter Libby at his trial. Marcy (Empty Wheel) explores this today at Huffington Post and concludes Cheney won't be called.

Marcy reminds us that FBI Agent Bond testified Thursday that Libby told the FBI in his second FBI interview in the fall of 2003 that he and Cheney might have discussed leaking Plame's identity to reporters.

As soon as Libby admitted to talking with Cheney about leaking Plame's identity, he committed to one of two scenarios: either he and Cheney both forgot Plame's identity, both learned it "as if it were new" from journalists, and thought that a piece of news that was forgettable in June was so newsworthy in July that they should share it with journalists. Or, he and Cheney learned of Plame's identity through classified channels and a month later decided to share that information with journalists. We're in the realm of an IIPA violation, folks, barring Cheney claiming that he declassified Valerie Wilson's identity ... without telling her (which is where I think Cheney's prepared to go, if it gets that far--that should make the Wilsons' civil suit all the more delectable, I think).

I think there's another reason Cheney will back off from testifying -- and it goes to the heart of the case against Libby.

Here is a new line of thinking I find extremely infuriating, via TPM:

Deciding what to do next about Iraq is hard — on the merits, and in the politics. It’s hard on the merits because whatever comes next, from “surge” to “get out now” and everything in between, will involve suffering, misery, and dishonor. . . . By comparison, Iran is easy: on the merits, in the politics. War with Iran would be a catastrophe that would make us look back fondly on the minor inconvenience of being bogged down in Iraq. While the Congress flounders about what, exactly, it can do about Iraq, it can do something useful, while it still matters, in making clear that it will authorize no money and provide no endorsement for military action against Iran.

Matt Yglesias ran with the same nonsense the other day:

[W]hat I'd urge everyone to do is keep their eyes on the real ball in the air at the moment: Iran. If Bush really bombs Iran and spineless Democrats back him ex post facto then the whole Iraq dynamic changes dramatically, and not for the better. If you want to hassle your member of congress on behalf of some peacenik cause this month, hassle him or her about Iran.

This is so wrong, so obtuse, so plain dumb from both Fallows and Yglesias, that I simply can't understand how they came to think these things. Let's be clear -- the chance of Congress authorizing military action against Iran is zero. Zilch. None. Bush will not even consider asking for it. Everyone must know this. How could they not? The ONLY reason Bush can even contemplate action against Iran is - surprise - BECAUSE WE ARE IN IRAQ! You want to stop military action against Iran? Then work like hell to get us out of Iraq. This is too obvious. How could these smart people not see this?

On the ridiculous over-reaction to the Boston non-terror scare:

• Boing-Boing

• Sean Bonner

• Metroblogging Boston:

Next, let's all get out our dictionary and look up "hoax", shall we? Because while "War of the Worlds" was a hoax, this was not. There was no subterfuge involved, and no effort made to convince people that these devices were bombs. If I see a scary looking tree out my bedroom window, think it's a monster, and then discover upon closer inspection that it isn't, it doesn't mean the tree has perpetrated a hoax against me. What it means is that for a moment I took leave of my senses. And just because I'm embarrassed about it doesn't give me the right to go cut down the tree.

Municipalities that are unwilling to pay competitive salaries to attract qualified law enforcement officers are too often willing to overlook evidence that a candidate can't be trusted to use good judgment. This is the "spotty record" that Kevin Freibott brought with him when he applied for a position with Jersey City:

Officer Freibott was fired from the department [in Middletown, NJ] in 2001 after a car accident outside a bar and grill in Atlantic Highlands in which he was driving with an expired license. Although he was reinstated after petitioning the state, he received a six-month suspension. ... Officer Freibott’s history included seven accidents, six moving violations and three license suspensions, including a drunken-driving violation in 1988 and the revocation of his license for failure to comply with a drug and alcohol program.

Is this the kind of guy who should be trusted with a badge and a gun? Jersey City thought so. Its police department hired Friebott to work a midnight shift. On January 23, he spent the evening partying in New York City, got tanked, and rear-ended a Grand Am, killing two of its occupants. At least Freibott wasn't on his way to report for duty: he was out on sick leave.

Raw Story reports that Hillary Clinton gave a speech at an event by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC Friday night in which she refused to rule out using miltary force with Iran.

Clinton told some 1,700 AIPAC supporters that the US must take any step to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons," she said. "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table."

"To deny the Holocaust places Iran's leadership in company with the most despicable bigots and historical revisionists," she added. Clinton excoriated the Iranian administration's "pro-terrorist, anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric."

"We need to use every tool at our disposal, including diplomatic and economic in addition to the threat and use of military force," she added.

More...

The Fourth Amendment restrains the ability of police officers to stop and detain the people they encounter. Unless the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime, the Fourth Amendment usually prohibits a detention. To frisk the detainee, the officer must have a reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and dangerous.

New York City police are apparently a suspicious bunch, given the number of stops they made last year. They're particularly suspicious of black people.

The New York Police Department released new information yesterday showing that police officers stopped 508,540 individuals on New York City streets last year — an average of 1,393 stops per day — often searching them for illegal weapons. The number was up from 97,296 in 2002, the last time the department divulged 12 months’ worth of data. ... The raw data showed that more than half of those stopped last year were black: an average of 67,000 per quarter.

Given the department's ugly history, transparency in its interaction with the public is important. Until yesterday, the department had stalled the (still incomplete) release of statistical measures of its citizen encounters.

Thank you Mitch McConnell:

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Friday that his party would unite to block Senate debate next week on a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq . . .

Some might say this gives Majority Leader Reid one last chance. I would disagree. I think the Republicans have just saved Reid from a colossal blunder. Anything Reid does now will not matter - the introduction of numerous resolutions for vote robs the exercise of any symbolic value. It is just a big nothing now.

Thank you Mitch McConnell.

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
like their father or their dog just died
Everybodys talking to their pocket
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stemmed rose
Everybody knows
That's how it's goes

I agree with Arianna. Why is the national news covering San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's extra-marital affair with his campaign manager's wife? If you haven't read about it yet, the wife told her husband who confronted Newsom before quitting. Newsom held a press conference to confirm the rumor and apologize. It made the round of cable news shows as well as the national media.

And now conservatives are predicting that Newsom's chances for higher office have been dashed. By that logic, Rudy Giuliani wouldn't have formed an exploratory committee for President and Newt Gingrich wouldn't say he's draftable for the presidential nomination.

But the real point is that except for those who are family values hypocrites, the media should stay out of politicians' bedrooms. It's nobody's business but their own.

Both Balkanization and Beltway Blogroll today discuss a rash of proposed state bills that would hold bloggers liable for defamatory content posted by others on their website -- and why they seemed doomed to fail.

Note that there is nothing wrong with holding bloggers responsible for defamatory content that they themselves produce, as long as the states' rules are consistent with the constitutional rules of New York Times v. Sullivan and later cases. Section 230 only affects state laws that try to hold a blogger liable for content posted by someone else.

I try to delete what I consider defamatory content once it's called to my attention. But sometimes, people don't tell me about it, they e-mail me when I'm too busy to read e-mail and I don't see it in the comments because I can't read every comment on this site. And TalkLeft isn't one of the highest-trafficked blogs out there -- certainly not in the sense of a Daily Kos, Atrios or their right-wing counterparts.

There's no question it's a drag to read something disgusting about yourself on the Internet. But the remedy it seems to me is to go after the person who wrote it or who further disseminates it, not the person whose site it got posted on. And I think we already have laws on the books for that.

Charles "Cully" Stimson has resigned. Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, is the guy who made the offensive comments about the law firms representing Guantanamo detainees.

Stimson said he was leaving because of the controversy over a radio interview in which he said he found it shocking that lawyers at many of the nation's top law firms represent detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.

"He believed it hampered his ability to be effective in this position," Whitman said of the backlash to Stimson's comments.

Resignation was his only course of action after his disturbing and contemptible comments. And, Stimson's troubles might not be over.

The Bar Association of San Francisco last week asked the California State Bar to investigate whether Stimson violated legal ethics by suggesting a boycott of law firms that represent Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Looking ahead to next week in the Scooter Libby trial, I doubt that Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby are the only witnesses Team Libby will call in the defense portion of the case.

Let's go back to the list of possible trial witnesses the Court read off to the jury on opening day.

Both NBC reporter David Gregory and former Time reporter John Dickerson are on the list.

Ari Fleischer testified he told them about Joe Wilson's wife working for the CIA on the Africa trip in July, 2003 before Robert Novak's column appeared. He said he learned it from Scooter Libby at lunch on July 7, the day Fleischer left for Africa with President Bush. Dickerson and Gregory were two of the reporters on the trip. Libby denies telling Fleischer about Valerie Wilson.

John Dickerson has been in the courtroom during the trial, blogging for Slate. He writes that Ari is mixed up, he never told him about Wilson's wife working for the CIA.