What is it with members of Congress that they think entering alcohol rehab is an appropriate response to whatever misdeeds they are accused of? Mark Foley is the latest:

Foley has said nothing since announcing his resignation. Yesterday, a statement purportedly sent by Foley to news organizations, including The Washington Post, said he has entered an alcohol-treatment facility in Florida.

Republicans continue to justify their inaction:

Republican leaders continued to insist yesterday that it was understandable that the "over-friendly" Internet e-mails they had seen did not set off alarm bells. But one House GOP leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, conceded that Republicans had erred in not notifying the three-member, bipartisan panel that oversees the page system. Instead, they left it to the panel chairman, Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.), to confront Foley.

Also yesterday, a former House page said that at a 2003 page reunion, he saw sexually suggestive e-mails Foley had sent to another former page. Patrick McDonald, 21, now a senior at Ohio State University, said he eventually learned of "three or four" pages from his 2001-2002 class who were sent such messages.

He said he remembered saying at the reunion, "If this gets out, it will destroy him."

Can anyone think of a pot-smoker who blamed pot for inappropriate sexual contact with juveniles? I can't.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

In my obsession continuing look at Democratic political strategy and countering the Republican Paranoid Style, I present evidence of why Mark Halperin and Beltway Dems are wrong. Halperin says:

Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove fired up the base on national security, taxes and social issues and found a way to win a majority of the electorate, even as they lost the allegiance of a majority of the country over all. The national security debate, the visibility of the Clintons and the momentum the Republicans gain from Mr. Bush's rising poll numbers -- all of these echo previous election cycles.

Critics of the Bush administration assert that the politics of the base has run its course, and that the Iraq war, the partisan zealousness and the conservative social policies of the administration have made voters yearn for a more centrist, bipartisan government. But Mr. Bush's opponents may be imprudently lulled by the current storyline and broad national polls, both of which miss the power and consequence of a Republican base that may have one more victory to give.

Jon Tester proves that Halperin is absolutely wrong. I'll explain on the flip.

Yom Kippur begins at sunset -- an hour or so from now, Denver Time. Arianna gets a head start with a list of people who most need to atone. Chief among them: George Allen, Mark Foley and congressional Republicans and Democrats who voted for the torture/denial of habeas bill.

Looks like it's not going to happen. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld today said he is not thinking of resigning and Bush has reiterated his support of him in recent days. He also addressed Bob Woodward's book allegations.

He said he had spoken to Bush since the book's contents were made public. Bush "called me personally," said Rumsfeld, to voice support.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

To a topic discussed here and here, now, ironically MYDD brings more evidence:

Among registered voters, President Bush's approval rating stands at 40 percent, with 50 percent disapproving. Among likely voters, his approval rating is the same but his disapproval rating is four points higher. But among the most likely voters, the President's approval rating is 47 percent, with 47 percent disapproving.

. . . If we are to glean anything from this poll it is this: If only the voters who go to the polls on November 7 are those who essentially need no prompting from either party, then the Democrats should be able to pull off a narrow victory in overall balloting. If, however, Democrats can turn out the category of voters who are highly interested but will need at least some cajoling, then they have the potential of scoring a profound victory in five and a half weeks.

These numbers just underscore the fact that we need to do everything we can to ensure that our voters get to the polls this year. . . . Because if we do, we could really upend Washington and begin to institute the change so desperately needed in the country today.

This post is ironic to me. On Thursday, the rogue Democrats did as much of a disservice to GOTV efforts as one could. An accountability project would note this. MYDD seems oblivious.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

Via Sully, a Right Wing torture "expert" named Dean Barnett writes:

So what does the actual scholarship say?

The key to gathering information is to disorient the subject. If you disorient the subject enough, he lets go of his secrets. Discomfort is actually much more useful than pain.

What's the best way to get information?

Unquestionably water-boarding.

But Amnesty International and the left say the information gleaned from this technique is unreliable. Is it?

Amnesty International is either confused, dishonest or both. Some people do say it's unreliable. but the undeniable consensus is that water-boarding is an extremely productive interrogation tool.

Cites to actual experts would be nice. I know Barnett is a Red Sox fan, and gawd knows that must be torture, but that stll doesn't make him an expert.

by TChris

Some states elect judges. Other states try to remove politics from the process of judicial selection by appointing judges on the basis of merit. The federal experience shows that politics can play a decisive role in the appointment of judges, but some states use (supposedly) neutral selection panels to recommend judicial candidates, providing at least a minimal safeguard against blatantly political choices.

When judicial candidates must raise funds to campaign for election, the public wonders whether judicial decisons are influenced by campaign contributions. To avoid conflicts of interest, judges should recuse themselves from any case in which they accepted contributions from a party to the lawsuit. A NY Times investigation reveals that Ohio Supreme Court justices consistently decline to remove themselves from cases that involve campaign contributors. (A sidebar identifies similar judicial conflicts in Illinois and West Virginia.)

This has me laughing out loud. Newt Gingrich on Fox News Sunday, via Media Matters, which also has the video.

Discussing the recent resignation of former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) with host Chris Wallace on the October 1 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Fox News political analyst and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) claimed that House Republicans would have "been accused of gay bashing" if they had "overly aggressively reacted" to Foley's allegedly inappropriate email communications with a 16-year-old male congressional page when House Republicans reportedly first learned of Foley's actions in late 2005.

.....Wallace then asked: "How would it have been gay bashing?" Gingrich replied: "Because it was a male-male relationship," adding that "there was no proof" that Foley was a "predatory person."

The issue isn't the male-male nature of the contacts, it's the age of his victims, his sexual harassment of them while they worked for him and the fact that Republicans left him in a leadership role on committees addressing sexual misconduct of youth after they knew about it.

Update: Another laugh out loud: Wonkette's "strip down and relax" post.

Via the Washington Post:

ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2004, eight days after the president he served was elected to a second term, Secretary of State Colin Powell received a telephone call from the White House at his State Department office. The caller was not President Bush but Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and he got right to the point.

"The president would like to make a change," Card said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words "resign" or "fire." He noted briskly that there had been some discussion of having Powell remain until after Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of January, but that the president had decided to take care of all Cabinet changes sooner rather than later. Bush wanted Powell's resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate.

The source: Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, being published October 10 by Knopf.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

Credit where due, Fox News anchor Shephard Smith does a great job on pointing out to Bill Kristol that the Emperor Bush Has No Clothes.

A Daily Kos diarist has the transcript :

Congressman Tom Tancredo's challenger Bill Winter has a diary over at Daily Kos today. He says he can win. He needs your support. Please, help him out. Here's a portion of his message today, aimed at Latino voters:

When white settlers came to what is now Colorado and Arizona and New Mexico and California, they found people already living there. Many of those people were dark skinned and Spanish speaking. Today even the names of many of these places are still in Spanish--Colorado, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles.

But now, in 2006 in America, people like Tom Tancredo say that Spanish is a danger to America, and those people, the ones who were here first, are somehow a threat to our culture and to our way of life. I believe in an America that is much stronger than this. I wish Tancredo believed in America the way I do!

The new Supreme Court term begins Monday.

The American Constitution Society has a preview of five of the upcoming cases written by leading legal experts.

This is the first full-term in which Justice Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts will participate fully. Other sites with round-ups: ScotusBlog, which also has many of the case briefs available for download.