Monday is the day. The DNC will announce which bloggers will get press credentials to cover the Democratic convention in Boston. We're keeping our fingers crossed we'll be chosen.

The time has come to officially credential bloggers. Starting tomorrow, we will be notifying the bloggers who applied for credentials and letting them know if they’ve been accredited. It took us a little longer than we hoped, but then again, we got more applications than we imagined. The response was incredible. So I want to thank all of you. I know you’re all used to getting and sharing information as fast as your ISP allows, but thank you for the patience and understanding that is often a prerequisite in politics when doing something meaningful for the first time.

Boston is gearing up for the convention. All court trials have been canceled.

The trials were canceled because police won't be available to testify and jurors and witnesses might find it difficult to get into the downtown area during the July 26-29 convention, the Boston Sunday Herald reported. "People are simply not going to be able to get around," court administrator Dana Leavitt told the Herald. Leavitt said superior courts in Boston and Cambridge would be open for bail reviews and emergency matters, such as restraining orders and injunctions, but not much else. Grand jury sessions will also be cancelled that week.

An hour ago, we were convinced by Kos's logic that Kerry would pick Gephardt. Now we think it's Edwards.

Sen. John Edwards visited Boston Monday to raise money for presumed Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry amid intensifying speculation about Kerry's choice of running mate. Edwards, seen by many as one of Kerry's top choices, headlined a late-afternoon fund-raiser at the Four Seasons Hotel for Kerry Victory 2004, a joint venture between Kerry's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Update: The LA Times says Kerry may announce as early as Tuesday morning.

Today's news on the Marine Hostage who reportedly was beheaded over the weekend--a report later declared false by another Islamic group:

In a statement sent to Al-Jazeera, a group, calling itself "Islamic Response," said it was holding Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a U.S. Marine of Lebanese heritage. The group said he was safe at a location it did not identify.

Reporters from the Associated Press conducted a tour of Guantanamo. They were allowed to see some prisoners and watch some interrogations without sound. The reporters were favorably impressed.

A two-day tour of Guantanamo Bay afforded The Associated Press the most extensive access ever allowed independent journalists, giving them views of some 50 detainees, including some in a new maximum-security prison. ...Watching through mirrored glass, and with the sound turned off, the AP also witnessed three interrogations, including one in the part of the camp reserved for problem detainees and prisoners believed to hold information important to the fight against international terrorist groups.

We have our doubts about these controlled show tours, especially in light of reports like these:

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the only independent group allowed to visit the detainees, issued a rare public rebuke of conditions in October. It and other groups contend the prolonged detention has harmed detainees' mental health. Some critics, however, charge that is the result of harsh interrogation techniques....Twenty-one detainees have tried to kill themselves 34 times, the most recent attempt coming last January.

Bump: Joe Trippi's excellent book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, hits the bookstores tomorrow. You can order at Amazon and get 32% off.

Joe Trippi, of course, is the man responsible for revolutionizing the way political candidates use the internet. As Howard Dean's campaign manager, Trippi launched the most impressive internet campaign in history, raising more than $50 million--mostly with donations of under $100. He also presided over the creation of Dean's incredible grass-roots organization which by the end, included 640,000 people.

Trippi's book is not just about the Dean campaign or the internet. He walks us into the future, with ideas on how businesses and government leaders, in fact, all Americans, can best use our most valuable tool--Democracy.

Trippi explains how internet democracy is transforming our way of life by evenly distributing power. He provides his list of "seven inviolable, irrefutable, ingenious things" businesses and institutions can do to rise to the top--or not.

Kos answers the question, "What if Kerry picks Gephardt?" He gives the pros and cons. Mostly he's on the "pro" side. As an interesting sidenote, Kos says:

This election will be won and lost in Missouri, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Kerry is still keeping mum....CNN reported he had made his choice, while the Kerry campaign says it's not cast in stone yet. We bet it is cast in stone, and after reading Kos, we think it's going to Gephardt. Exciting, no. Better than another four years of Bush, no question about it. A ticket worth supporting? You bet.

Here's CNN's analysis of the veepstakes.

We love stories with happy endings. This one is about Eddie Miller. For the past 44 of his 69 years, he has led a law-abiding life in Florida, married with children. Recently, there was a knock on his door. It was the police with a warrant for his arrest. Turns out he had walked away from a Georgia prison detail 44 years ago. He admitted he was the same Eddie Miller they were looking for and they hauled him back to Georgia and put him in jail. He did okay there, no complaints. The prisoners were pretty young and violent and called him "Pops," but he accepted his fate. He never even hired a lawyer.

Here's the happy ending:

Vice President Dick Cheney has had the same personal physician since 1995. He's been dropped from Cheney's medical team due to his abuse of prescription drugs--which Cheney has known about since 2000. The New York Times reports:

Vice President Dick Cheney's personal doctor, who four years ago declared Mr. Cheney "up to the task of the most sensitive public office" despite a history of heart disease, was battling an addiction to prescription drugs at the time and has recently been dropped from the vice president's medical team, according to officials at the hospital where he practiced.

....The doctor, Gary Malakoff of George Washington University Medical Center, had treated Mr. Cheney since 1995 and been a prominent spokesman on the vice president's health....Hospital officials said Sunday that they had known since 1999 of Dr. Malakoff's problem, and that Dr. Malakoff informed the vice president at that time or in 2000. But he was permitted to continue working, they said, while undergoing treatment and monitoring, including urine tests, by an independent board....But in May, when the board concluded that Dr. Malakoff was too impaired to care for patients, he was relieved of his position as director of the medical center's general internal medicine division, they said.

We just returned from an afternoon viewing of Fahrenheit 911. We thought, and we were right, that it would be a patriotic way to spend the afternoon. We're not much for writing reviews, so we'll leave it at a few comments. The 9/11 stuff didn't blow us away, nor did the parts about connections to the Saudis and oil. We had read most of that stuff before. We got engrossed when the film moved on to the War in Iraq. And then to Flint, Michigan and got into the subject of army recruiting. The last half hour or so was great. Better than great. Of course, the audience cheered at the end.

As we left the theater, our friend Dr. P. had the best line. The film should be required viewing before anyone is allowed to cast a ballot in November.

Back-to-Iraq informs that Michael Moore has approved free downloads of the film.

Update: The new edition of Time has Michael Moore on the cover. In the article he says he doesn't want the film to be reduced to Bush vs. Kerry. The full article is available to subsrcibers only.

In related news, Bush today said the America is safer because Saddam is in prison. That's close to absurd. Maybe the people in Iraq are better off with Saddam gone, but there has not been an scintilla of evidence Saddam posed a threat to America.

Update: The Talahassee Democrat scrutinizes the alleged inaccuracies in the film.

Finally....some good news to report this holiday. A new survey shows that support among Americans for First Amendment freedoms is back to pre-911 levels.

Americans’ support for their First Amendment freedoms — deeply shaken by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — continues to rebound and is back at pre-9/11 levels, according to the annual State of the First Amendment survey, conducted by the First Amendment Center in collaboration with American Journalism Review magazine.

“The 2004 survey found that just 30 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement, ‘The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees,’ with 65 percent disagreeing. The nation was split evenly, 49 percent to 49 percent, on that same question two years ago, in the survey following the ‘9/11’ attacks,” said Gene Policinski, acting director of the First Amendment Center.

Some specific findings:

Labor unions are not uniformly behind Dick Gephardt as John Kerry's choice for a running mate. Some prefer John Edwards.

Despite labor's strong ties to Rep. Gephardt, unions aren't solidly behind him as John Kerry's pick for vice president. Some prefer Sen. John Edwards as the fresh face they think can bring energy and charisma to the ticket.

We're behind Edwards too.

On a related note, Americans in Germany assembled for the 4th of July to back John Kerry.