The Enron investigation is about to claim another top gun--former CEO Jeff Skilling is reported to be close to Indictment.

The charges against Skilling being finalized by Enron Task Force prosecutors come on the heels of the Jan. 21 indictment of ex-Enron Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey and the Jan. 15 guilty pleas of former company Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and his wife.

Skilling testifed before Congress and did not invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege. He is expected to fight the charges all the way.

Bruce Hiler, Skilling's Washington, D.C.-based lawyer, said his client did nothing wrong and fairly relied on his subordinates and the accountants and lawyers they hired. Hiler said if Skilling is indicted, many corporate executives need to be afraid of the government.

"If a COO can't rely on the dozens of experts who review and recommend transactions, then no COO should go to work tomorrow, because they may find themselves indicted," Hiler said.

Attorneys involved in the Enron criminal cases expect that Fastow, who agreed to serve 10 years in prison for two counts of conspiracy, gave prosecutors information that will add to the case against Skilling.

Speaking on the Don Imus show this morning, John Kerry said he's ready for whatever the Republicans throw at him:

Front-runner John Kerry said Friday he is prepared for an onslaught of criticism from the Republican Party and is ready to fight back as he moves closer to the Democratic nomination for president.

"We've seen evidence. We know exactly where these guys are gonna go, and I'm ready for it," Kerry told radio broadcaster Don Imus. "I've been at this for a while, Don, and I've been through some tough races. I've been pretty well, you know, vetted and examined from one side to the other. And I think that they're in for a surprise. I'm going to fight back. I am a fighter, and I'm ready to fight back."

We're reading:

Saved by a Hair in LA Weekly--Kevin Cooper gets another month at life.

Lou Dubose, also writing for LA Weekly, says the real question about Bush's military service is how did he get into the Guard in the first place?

Hesiod of Counterspin reports on Drudge's Kerry reports and says it's not true that the media was investigating the story. Here's one article backing up Hesiod's claim

Drudge claimed that half a dozen news outlets were investigating the allegations against Mr Kerry, but most of them denied doing so last night. Leonard Downie, executive editor of The Washington Post, mentioned by Drudge, said: "This is the first we've heard that we're working on a story that we're not working on." A reporter with Time magazine, also cited by Drudge,
said that the weekly magazine was as puzzled by the story as the rest of the world."

John Edwards will be on the Tonight Show tonight. Last night on the show, Dennis Kucinich played "The Dating Game" and won a date with actress Meg Tilly.

This floors us. The Pentagon is now saying that the detainees at Guantanamo may be held for years or even indefinitely:

Senior Defense Department officials said Thursday that they were planning to keep a large portion of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, there for many years, perhaps indefinitely. The officials said they would soon set up a panel to review those long-term prisoners' cases annually to determine whether the men remained a threat to the United States or could be released.

The officials described the panel as a "quasi-parole board" that would comprise three members before whom prisoners could personally plead their case for release. At the same time, the officials said, in the coming months they will continue to release to the home governments many other prisoners deemed not to be a continuing danger.

Indefinitely, as in forever? Life without parole for prisoners never charged with a crime or provided a lawyer? What country is this....Iraq?

San Francisco once again demonstrates it is the epitome of liberalism--or at least, of live and let live. Thursday, in a supreme act of civil disobedience, San Francisco gave out marriage licenses and 50 couples were wed--with the stamp of imprimateur of its new mayor, Gavin Newsom, who supports gay marriage.

In a historic act of civil disobedience, San Francisco defied state law and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples Thursday, a move expected to ignite a constitutional showdown starting today.

The city's action marked the first time in the United States that gays and lesbians could wed and have their marriages recognized by a government body.
A San Francisco lesbian couple who have been together five decades were the first to marry, followed by dozens of other couples who said their vows in City Hall ceremonies.

The New York Times reports here.

Our view: Go for it, insist on it as your civil right. Marriage should revolve around love and commitment, not gender. Adoption, in vitrio fertilization and other techniques that can bring the joy of children to same sex unions is a blessing.

Say hello to Ralph Don't Run. It is a grassroots campaign that depends on recipients forwarding the message to supportive friends. Once you see the site, if you're so inclined, please pass it along as broadly as possible.

Drudge is reporting that Kerry is preparing a response to the allegations he posted earlier on his website that Kerry had an extramarital affair with an intern (see our earlier post here.)

Daily Kos says the allegations pertain to relationship Kerry had with another lawmaker's intern while he was between marriages. In other words, sex as a single guy. Drudge alleges the relationship was in 2001.

The U.S. papers are not, as yet, covering the allegation. The U.K., Scottish and Irish papers are reporting it, but have no details other than a regurgitation of Drudge. (check Google news)

A reporter on CNN tonight said that Howard Dean said today he will go back to Vermont and consider what to do next if he doesn't win Wisdonsin--which is different than his earlier statements first that he would drop out if he lost Wisconsin and later that he would stay in if he lost Wisconsin. If this new statement is accurate, we think it unlikely that the Kerry story is driving his decision.

Our prediction: The Kerry story is going to fizzle.

Update: Joe Conasen on Drudge's smear campaign.

Is American politics suddenly returning to the bad old days, when Washington journalism became frenzied with sheet sniffing and keyhole peeping? That seems to be the default program of the right-wing media machine whenever Republican poll numbers sink into the red zone.

Late Thursday morning -- with George W. Bush's credibility damaged on several fronts as reporters demanded answers to questions about his National Guard service that should have been asked years ago -- the Drudge Report defamed his leading Democratic challenger with a "world exclusive" smudge of personal dirt.

Law Professor and contributing Nation editor Joel Rogers, writing in the Madison Capital Times, provides a list of reasons why John Edwards is more progressive than John Kerry. First he lists the candidates' similarities, and then he distinguishes Edwards:

Where Edwards diverges from Kerry is in addressing a series of issues of distinctive concern to progressives - inequalities of race and class, abusive corporate power, neoliberal globalization, ghetto poverty and prisons, the importance of worker and community organization outside the state. And what makes him distinctive is not just that he regularly touches these third-rail issues, but is effectively running on them.

He is unabashedly pro-union. He regularly challenges white audiences to confront the white problem of continued racial injustice. His "two Americas" stump speech is all about class. He appreciates and notes the sheer pervasiveness of corporate crime - from tax evasion to union avoidance, predatory lending to environmental degradation, unsafe working conditions to subsidy abuse.

He is sharply critical of the "Washington consensus" on international trade and finance. He talks about the growth of poverty and dead-end poverty jobs. And he's the only candidate who does this in language that ordinary voters understand and are moved by. Better still, Edwards is relentlessly upbeat about America's ability to solve these problems. He's not another Clintonesque "I feel your pain, now let me tell you why I can't do anything about it" sort of guy. He has a real program of democratic renewal. And it is largely ours.

...He wants to raise labor and environmental standards, invest heavily in worker training and continuing education, and build the public infrastructure needed to achieve a shared prosperity. He also wants to get beyond the free trade/protectionism frame for international economic policy and commit the United States clearly to both defending living standards here and enabling sustainable growth in the Third World.

The best news to us:

He also would have us shrink our bloated prison population and return its present members more successfully to society by better distinguishing non-violent drug crimes from other offenses; restoring abandoned treatment and training options; and re-enfranchising those who have done their time.

Wesley Clark is going to endorse John Kerry. So maybe there is less to the Kerry rumors than Drudge reported. (See post below this one.)

Update: 2/16/04, The rumor is false.

**************
Original Post

Ok, the source is Drudge, but since three reporters have credited an off the record comment by Gen. Clark saying Kerry's campaign would implode over an intern issue, we're reporting it. We caution, however, that just because it's going to be talked about doesn't make it true.

We also note that the report says that the intern issue is the reason Dean is staying in the race. If Kerry does implode, then Dean likely is back in the race, which makes our post yesterday saying it's over for Dean and he should get out, no longer true. Although, we think any decline by Kerry will give a greater bump to Edwards than Dean.

Here's Drudge:

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU FEB 12, 2004 11:45:28 ET XXXXX

CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN

World Exclusive Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT

A frantic behind-the-scenes drama is unfolding around Sen. John Kerry and his quest to lockup the Democratic nomination for president, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal. Intrigue surrounds a woman who recently fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

A serious investigation of the woman and the nature of her relationship with Sen. John Kerry has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST, THE HILL and the ASSOCIATED PRESS, where the woman in question once worked. A close friend of the woman first approached a reporter late last year claiming fantastic stories -- stories that now threaten to turn the race for the presidency on its head!

In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." [Three reporters in attendance confirm Clark made the startling comments.]

The Kerry commotion is why Howard Dean has turned increasingly aggressive against Kerry in recent days, and is the key reason why Dean reversed his decision to drop out of the race after Wisconsin, top campaign sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

It's great when bloggers turn into journalists. The Bush military records flap has produced two first hand reports:

Oliver Willis located and interviewed Bush's "flight buddy" Bill Campenni:

I got in contact with Bill Campenni, known as the witness (possibly) to George W Bush's missing year. I asked him why he chose just now to finally come forth with his story and his reply was that "The stupidity reached a critical mass". He also says that he doesn't know why it's been so difficult for the national media to get in contact with him to verify his story (honestly, it was pretty easy to track him down), though he believes that stupidity has something to do with it.

When I asked him about being stationed in Pittsburgh, not Alabama and the fact that his story leads one to believe he was in grad school from '71-72 (the same years as the hole in Bush's record) and thus incapable of vouching for where the president was, his reply? An evasive "Nice Try".

Kevin Drum of Calpundit tracked down Bill Burkett and had a two hour conversation with him.

Basically, he confirmed his account and answered several of my questions about it. He says he accidentally overheard the conversation in General James' office about cleaning up George Bush's National Guard record and then discussed it with a friend who subsequently led him to the building where he saw 30 or 40 Bush documents lying in a trash can. He agrees that his "clarification" in 2000 went too far and says that he got scared by all the attention and backed off more than he should have. And he's quite frank about his run-ins with Dan Bartlett and the medical problems that he blames on retaliation by Bush's staff.

Kevin will be writing more tomorrow after he recovers from his cortisone shot, something we definitely can identify with--we hope it's not from overusing the computer.

We've only done one interview for TalkLeft--it was of Gary Hart, while he was considering running for President--you can read it The National Journal's rendition of it here.

It's a lot harder to interview a person than it is to be interviewed. We've been interviewed by journalists seeking legal analysis for the past 8 years on various topics, so we know first-hand how much tougher their job is. We'd be glad to try a stint at being an interviewer for a major publication, but, on the other hand, we're not sitting home scheming on how to make that happen.

All the more reason praise is due to Oliver and Kevin, who took it upon themselves to track down an interviewee, convince him to speak with them, and end up with a finished product we can all read about.

In our book, Oliver and Kevin have been raised to "way cool".

John Kerry has a corps of volunteer lawyers from prestigious D.C. law firms acting as a shadow Justice Department, helping him shape policy positions on justice issues.

The group, headed by Nicholas Gess, of counsel at the D.C. office of Bingham McCutchen, is one of several clusters of well-connected lawyers and policy experts, many of them Clinton administration veterans, relied on by Kerry to brainstorm key issues. ....All of them report to Sarah Bianchi, the campaign's policy director and a former domestic policy adviser to former Vice President Al Gore.

Among the questions before it: How would a Kerry administration handle criminal sentencing? What kind of federal judges would it appoint? How would it strike the balance between civil liberties and national security? What stance would it take on gay marriage and civil unions?

The group includes plenty of Washington insiders who helped run the DOJ the last time the Democrats were in power. And often, when a new president is making key appointments, he looks to people who have helped him in the campaign.

Actually, there are lawyers in all fields helping out the Kerry campaign:

Other groups, larded with lawyers from the D.C. offices of such firms as Arnold & Porter; Latham & Watkins; Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, focus on issues like economics or foreign policy.

Then there's the lawyer-helpers on trade, regulatory, environmental, foreign policy and national security issues. Take the national security team--it set up a mini-National Security Council:

"We have a weekly conference call, write position papers, and do opposition research on the Bush administration."

We haven't heard of any other candidate having such a broad base of policy experts. And, of course, there's a reason for it--employment opportunities in the new Kerry Administration. As one lawyer, Jeffrey Liss, says, he's been running something of a Kerry job referral service lately:

Lately I've had a bunch of people, former Clinton administration types, approach me and say, 'Can you plug me in?' Liss says. "That happens all the time in D.C., and I've done that for them. But the pace of it has certainly picked up in the past several weeks."