It may be time to file a commitment petition against Rep. Tom Tancredo. The man needs some serious medication.

Tancredo managed to cheese off Jeb Bush, of all people, with this remark:

"Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

Although Bush omitted the obvious argument that third world countries aren't as populated with Starbucks as Miami, he made a good point nonetheless: "Miami is a wonderful city filled with diversity and heritage that we choose to celebrate, not insult." You know the end is near when Jeb Bush is the voice of sanity.

Glenn Greenwald explains how Lanny Davis mirrors his buddy Lieberman as the Fox Democrat, this time on Bush's illegal warrantless surveillance:

[E]ven if Lanny Davis and the other Republicans on the panel think the President is using his illegal powers carefully, his conduct is no less illegal. Why is it necessary even to point that out? This has been the obvious and paramount point from the beginning, as I wrote in my book (at pages 25, 60) (emphasis in original):

The heart of the matter is that the president broke the law, deliberately and repeatedly, no matter what his rationale was for doing so. We do not have a system of government in which the president has the right to violate laws, even if he believes doing so will produce good results. . . .

. . . In a system that operates according to the rule of law, what matters is what the law says, not what Lanny Davis or the other members of some meaningless ad hoc council think. The fundamental issue here is not what sort of privacy protections the NSA program does or does not provide; the problem is that the NSA program does not comply with the law. . . . This is a BIG DEAL. A constitutional system of government cannot tolerate a chief executive who operates outside of the law, even if, in doing so, he implements policies that Lanny Davis thinks are swell. There is no 'Lanny Davis exception' to the rule of law.

Olberman really soaring:

Some highlights:

• Olberman's 266,000 Adults 25-54 represent a 63% increase versus November 2005. His 689,000 total viewers represent a 49% increase.

• Olbermann is now a solid number two among the cable newsers at 8pm. He was a distant number three a year ago.

• Competitively Bill O'Reilly continues to slide, -19% in total viewers from a year ago.

• A Year ago Paula Zahn on CNN maintained a 67% edge over Olbermann in total viewers, but her 11% slide coupled with Olbermann's 49% inclrease has catapulted Olbermann past her into second place.

Which makes this post by Red Stater Leon Wolf ridiculing me for pointing to Olberman as MSNBC's future in June 2005 all the more hilarious:

As proof that they deserve all the mockery we can muster, I offer you this from Armando at dKos:

I saw this ratings synopsis and it really impressed me that it looks like Olberman is really the biggest show on MSNBC now. Pretty impressive. Remember, Hardball was their signature show.

Now, I'll grant you, this is pretty hilarious in and of itself. When you click on the link itself, the one thing you are ACTUALLY impressed with, when checking Olberman's ratings, is that he is consistently pummeled each and every single night by O'Reilly, Zahn, and usually (!) Grace.

Looking forward appears to be a problem for the Right. Here was Michelle Malkin sneering at me for calling the January 2005 Iraq elections "an exercise in pretty pictures." I think maybe I was onto something.

He says he is going to run for President but he can't seem to remember he is a Democrat:

Biden resonates with Republicans as he sets up S.C. ground game

COLUMBIA, S.C. | U.S. Sen. Joe Biden heads into his quest for votes in a 2008 presidential primary in South Carolina with a well-exercised sense of what to say and what to leave unsaid to Republicans and Democrats alike.

. . . He's not shy about talking about South Carolina's Confederate history either. . . . Biden noted Delaware was a border state and "a slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South - there were a couple of other states in the way."

Oy. But wait there's more:

. . . Club member Bruce Rippeteau, who says he's on Genghis Khan wing of the Republican Party, said Biden kept the crowd's attention by being nonpolitical. And his Iraq message resounded because "what we've been doing hasn't worked," he said. Biden told the crowd he needs the GOP and its supporters to put Nov. 7 behind them. "American needs - I need - the Republican Party to get back up," he said. "Not a single change in direction can be done without a bipartisan consensus in this country." . . . "I don't find a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats right now," Biden said.

I like Biden. I really do but man does he seem in outer space politically. h/t TPMCafe.

Greg Sargent catches George Will being a dishonest boor:

Will omitted the pissy and rude quote spoken by the President which originally provoked Webb. Will cut out the line from the President where he said: "That's not what I asked you." In Will's recounting, that instead became a sign of Bush's parental solicitiousness: "The president again asked `How's your boy?'" Will's change completely alters the tenor of the conversation from one in which Bush was rude to Webb, which is what the Post's original account suggested, to one in which Webb was inexplicably rude to the President, which is how Will wanted to represent what happened.

Will Will correct himself and apologize to Webb? Of course not. Dishonest boors never do.

The government claimed a fingerprint linked Brandon Mayfield to a terrorist attack in Spain. That claim was false, as Spain said all along. "Sneak-and-peek" warrants, issued pursuant to the Patriot Act, were used to search for evidence against the innocent Mayfield. When no supporting evidence was found, Mayfield was arrested and detained as a material witness.

Mayfield sued the government. The suit has been settled for $2 million together with a rare apology for the government's misbehavior. The settlement does not bar Mayfield from moving forward with a challenge to the Patriot Act.

Mayfield's case called attention to the myth that fingerprints are an infallible method of identification:

Michael Kinsley today:

There is something about the Web that brings out the ego monster in everybody. It's not just the well-established tendency to be nasty. When you write for the Web, you open yourself up to breathtakingly vicious vitriol. People wish things on your mother, simply for bearing you, that you wouldn't wish on Hitler.

Yep, Crossfire Kinsley decries the incivility. He defended Crossfire when Jon Stewart criticized:

A moment of surprising resonance in the campaign was Jon Stewart's Oct. 15 appearance on "Crossfire." Taking just a tad too seriously his recent appointment by acclamation as the Walter Cronkite of our time, Stewart begged the show's hosts to "stop hurting America" with their divisiveness. I used to work on that show, and I still think the robust, even raucous, and ideologically undisguised hammering of politicians on "Crossfire" is more intellectually honest than more decorous shows where journalists either pretend to neutrality or pontificate as if somebody had voted them into office.

Kinsley is a great writer no doubt but please no more decrying of the "incivility."

In an outstanding post that is must reading, Digby discusses the role of the Media in enabling the incompetence and dishonesty of the current Administration and the price we pay for their abject failure:

What mattered, by default, was the President's "instinct" to guide America across the fresh, post-9/11 terrain�a style of leadership that could be rendered within tiny, confidential circles. America, unbound, was duly led by a President, unbound.

I blame the media for this. After 9/11 they lost their minds and became unthinking hagiographers and adminstration cheerleaders to an absurd extent. The man's halting, incoherent first press conference after 9/11 scared me more than the attacks and yet the press corps behaved as if they were in the presence of a God whose stuttering, meandering gibberish were words uttered from on high. He was called a genius and compared to Winston Churchill. Paeans to his greatness were turned into best sellers. His "gut" was infallible. It was patently obvious that he was in over his head and yet this bizarre, almost hallucinogenic image of the man emerged in the media that actually made me question my sanity at times. It took years for this trance to wear off with a majority of the public and even longer in the media. It was one of the strangest phenomenons I've ever observed.

And this genuflection to the "character" of George W. Bush continued until Katrina, the unquestionable turning point. Digby's point highlights why it is so important that the Media be the watchdog and skeptic for our nation even if Bill O'Reilly accuses you of treason. That a Bill O'Reilly is treated as a respectable person by the Media is a disgrace of course but beside the point. The Media MUST do its job.

The reason is that the American People will rally round the flag in times of crisis, they will suspend disbelief and hope for the best from their leaders. I know I did after 9/11. As Digby writes, in the days immediately after 9/11, President Bush seemed alarmingly inept. It was frightening. But when Bush gave his great address to a joint sesion of Congress on September 20, 2001, I wanted to believe and suspended my own disbelief. I wanted to believe he was up to the job. It was the inexplicable drive to invade Iraq that awoke me from my slumber. Before that, I took the one piece of evidence that could indicate that Bush was up to the job and ignored everything else.

I'm off to Key West for the annual NORML legal seminar where I'll be speaking Saturday on Terrorism and the War on Drugs. The full agenda is here.

It's just about my favorite seminar of the year, between getting together with other drug defense lawyers, the Pier House Resort and Spa (check out my favorite room) and the free-spirit, laid back style of Key West itself.

Prison Nation set a new record. It is a record in which we should take no pride.

A record 7 million people - or one in every 32 American adults - were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday.

More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Prison releases are increasing, but admissions are increasing more.

Drug offenders accounted for 49 percent of the growth in the federal prison population from 1995 to 2003.

The ranks of the Republican right-wing superstars who thought they'd follow the Bush/Rove plan to win the presidency in 2008 are dwindling. Don't expect George Allen or Rick Santorum to run after failing to hold their Senate seats. Today Bill Frist, who tried to solidify his extremist credentials by diagnosing Terry Schiavo via videotape, announced that he won't seek the presidency.

"In the Bible, God tells us for everything there is a season, and for me, for now, this season of being an elected official has come to a close," he said in a written statement. "I do not intend to run for president in 2008."

Halleluiah.

"Values":

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran. He should not be allowed to do so — not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization. . . . Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison’s favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible.

James Joyner discusses rights:

I would point Mr. Prager to Article VI of the Constitution of the United States, specifically the third paragraph:

. . . [N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Nothing in the Constitution requires the taking of the Oath on a Bible, or any other book. Indeed, doing so would obviously constitute a “religious test.” There’s also the little matter of the 1st Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .

What would Jim Wallis say?