Crooks and Liars reports that a few liberal bloggers are screaming about Susan Estrich's column defending her position as a liberal commentator for Fox News. I'm firmly with Susan on this one.

I say whatever I want....I think it's particularly important to have a dialogue with people who aren't already members of the same choir - that's the way we will ultimately have to win elections.

I've done legal commenting on Fox News for eight years, mostly from Denver but many times at their New York studio. I've never been paid a dime by them, although I've asked a few times. I can underscore they never, ever tell you what to say and you can say whatever you want. Their producers are top notch. They are appreciative, professional and a pleasure to interact with. I may not share the views of their anchors, but on a personal level, I like every one of them.

I've never met Roger Ailes, so I don't have anything to say there, but I think the attacks on Susan are catty and misinformed. Susan is a law professor and expert on politics and feminist issues. I don't always agree with her either - I'm far to the left of her - but the attacks on her embarrass me. Liberals need to stop eating their own.

Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times has a great idea....bring the troops home and then send Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman to find Osama.

If you are unfamiliar with Dog, go here and here.

The Chicago Tribune is running a poll on its front page with the question, "Should Dick Durbin have apologized.?" Go on over and vote.

Trial began in New York Tuesday for protester June Brashares, accused of kicking a security guard while being ejected from Bush's speech at the Republican National Convention last September in New York.

June Brashares, 40, of San Francisco, is on trial in Manhattan's Criminal Court charged with misdemeanor assault, attempted assault, disorderly conduct and harassment in connection with the incident on Sept. 2, 2004.

Meanwhile, charges still have not been brought against the Republican kicker -- a young Republican supporter caught on video kicking a female protester inside Madison Square Garden as she was lying on the ground being held by three secret service agents. The protesters were arrested. The young Republican was not...

Human Rights Watch sent this letter out to Senators Monday (I received a copy by e-mail and don't have a link.)

June 20, 2005

Dear Senator:

Critics of the Bush administration's detention policies, including Senator Richard Durbin, have recently stirred controversy by comparing interrogation techniques used in Guantanamo and Iraq to those used in the Soviet penal system known as the "gulag."

Clearly, there are profound and fundamental differences between the global detention system the United States has established in places such as Guantanamo Bay, and the prison camps of Stalin's Soviet Union. .....

Nonetheless, in his floor statement of June 14th, Senator Durbin was absolutely right in two important respects.

If you're a subscriber to the National Journal's Hotline, then you know they do a daily "blogometer" roundup of what's on the blogs. They also do interviews with bloggers a few times a week. Tuesday, they featured an interview with me. If you're not a subscriber, here's a portion of the interview.

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: ....Today the Blogometer talks to liberal legal blogger Jeralyn Merritt, founder and chief contributor to the widely-read blog TalkLeft.

Vernon Jordan, over at Huffington Post, has this to say about the Edgar Killen manslaughter conviction today:

...it demonstrates that the South in general and Mississippi in particular are no longer places where racists can get a free pass for their atrocities. What happened today was a kind of justice very different from historic Southern and Mississippi injustice. While it cannot restore Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney, and Andrew Goodman to the lives so viciously taken from them in their youth, it has redeemed to an extent the honor of the region, the political courage of its leaders, and the integrity of its justice system. It also proves again what I learned at my mother's knee, that "the Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform."

While most in the country have urged restraint in response to the Supreme Court's historic sentencing decisions in the Booker and FanFan cases, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today complained that judges are being too lenient now that the U.S. sentencing guidelines are advisory only. He's urging this change:

Making the bottom range of the guidelines mandatory, but leaving the guidelines' upper limit advisory would resolve the Supreme Court's concern, Gonzales said.

Sentencing Law and Policy provides this link to Gonzales' speech.

Sen. Dick Durbin gave a full apology for his choice of words late this afternoon. Here's what CNN's Congressional correspondent Ed Henry told Lou Dobbs, who was on air at the time about the apology: (available on Lexis.com)

[from Durbin's speech] I made reference to the Nazis, to the Soviets and other repressive regimes. Mr. President, I've come to understand that was a very poor choice of words.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: This comes after heavy pressure from various Republicans on Sunday. Former prisoner of war and Senator John McCain said in fact that Durbin should go further and actually apologize on the Senate floor. Late last night, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the rest of the Republican leadership sent a joint letter to the Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, demanding that Durbin go down to the Senate floor and apologize.

by TChris

Statements like this might cause a casual observer to wonder whether the vice president has lost touch with reality.

The vice president said in a recent interview that [Howard] Dean was not the type of person to lead a political party and mentioned the chairman's mother. "I've never been able to understand his appeal. Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does. He's never won anything, as best I can tell," Cheney said in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes."

Never won anything?

Dean was elected governor of Vermont five times between 1992 and 2000.

by TChris

For all the posturing the Bush administration has done with regard to Saddam Hussein, it seems the administration is reluctant to let Hussein have his day in court.

Iraq's justice minister on Tuesday accused the United States of trying to delay Iraqi efforts to interrogate Saddam Hussein, saying "it seems there are lots of secrets they want to hide."

Those secrets, according to Justice Minister Abdel Hussein Shandal, include the money that the U.S. funneled to Hussein to support him during the years mass graves were being filled with bodies. Those graves became the retroactive justification for invading Iraq in the absence of weapons of mass destruction or evidence that Iraq was involved in the attack on the World Trade Center.

"There should be transparency and there should be frankness, but there are secrets that if revealed, won't be in the interest of many countries," [Shandal] said. "Who was helping Saddam all those years?"

by TChris

The 6-6 jury split that TalkLeft described yesterday didn't last long, as the jury returned a guilty verdict today against former KKK member Edgar Ray Killen. The jury convicted Killen of manslaughter for his role in the 1964 deaths of three civil rights workers. It settled on the lesser charge after acquitting him of murder.