On August 5, at the request of the defense, the Judge in the Kobe Bryant case appointed the Pitkin County Sheriff's office to investigate alleged leaks by the law enforcement. The written order was entered Monday, and is quite broad. It is available here. After the investigation, the Pitkin County Sheriff's office will file a sealed report with the Judge and provide a copy to both the defense and prosecution.

In other case news, both the prosecution and defense have filed objections to cameras in the courtroom for the preliminary hearing. You can access their pleadings here.

Right Wing News has released the "Left-Wing Bloggers Select The Greatest Figures In American History" article. You can see the selections here.

The Los Angeles Times reveals that the reason for going to war may have been trumped up by the Iraqis:

Intelligence officials are reexamining data used in justifying the war. They say Hussein's regime may have sent bogus defectors.

The new review has been prompted by criticism of the Administration's failure to find weapons of mass destruction. The goal is to find out if Bush & Co. were duped.

The goal, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, "is to see if false information was put out there and got into legitimate channels and we were totally duped on it." He added, "We're reinterviewing all our sources of information on this. This is the entire intelligence community, not just the U.S."

The far-reaching review was started after a political firestorm erupted this summer over revelations that President Bush's claim in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought to import uranium from Niger was based on forged documents.

....officials say former Iraqi operatives have confirmed since the war that Hussein's regime sent "double agents" disguised as defectors to the West to plant fabricated intelligence. In other cases, Baghdad apparently tricked legitimate defectors into funneling phony tips about weapons production and storage sites.

This is major. It's not like the U.S. can morph into Emily Litella and turn to the parents of those soldiers killed in the war and its aftermath and say, "Never mind."

Here's the latest on the potential Wesley Clark presidential bid. Bottom line: He only wants to run if he believes theres a realistic chance he can win. We hope he didn't wait too long.

Robert Kuttner, co-editor of American Prospect, says in the Boston Globe that if Clark runs, all bets are off.

Say hello and welcome to Corrente--a new blog by Leah, Lambert, Tresa and the Farmer, who did such a good job filling in for Atrios this summer while he was in Europe.

Good postings today:

Update: Buzzflash on the Weekly Standard v. Buzzflash and Blumenthal.

Media Horse on Bill O'Reilly's unsucessful attempt to have David Westerfield's criminal defense lawyers sanctioned by the California disciplinary commission. And, in a nutsell, on why the lawyers did nothing wrong.

The Westerfield attorneys were well within ethical boundaries to suggest scenarios consistent with the facts of the case regardless of what they knew, and that is what they did. It was the jury's job to decide how plausible those scenarios were based on the facts, and that is what they did (Westerfield was convicted).

Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul on the death of Torrance Cantwell, the autistic boy who died in church.

Hessiod of Counterspin on Bush's pledge to keep up his warplan and some thoughts on the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Tapped and Calpundit invite us over to Washington Monthly for the Mendacity Index on which President has told the biggest whoppers. No surprise there. It's interactive, and you can do your own rating.

For death penalty defense lawyers, or those who'd like to train to be one, Capital Defense Weekly has a calendar of upcoming training seminars (affectionately called "death camps" by those in the defense bar.) If you are a lawyer in a big firm who is not feeling challenged or stimulated enough, maybe you can get your firm to sponsor you and then take some pro bono cases. There are hundreds of death row inmates in the south without any representation at all for post-convction proceedings.

The Tom Paine blog has details about the planned 2004 Republican Counterconvention in New York.

Cursor has the latest on the State Department's crackdown on leisure trips to Cuba.

Joe Conason says Chris Matthew's Hardball should be renamed Softball. One of these days we're going to pay for a Salon subscription, we just can't bring ourselves to do it yet. At least the day pass ads aren't bad.

Jeff Cooper keeps up his attempt to fill in for vacationing Howard Bashman of How Appealing. He's finding it tougher than he thought. We give him an A for effort, though.

Andrew Northrup of the Poor Man is blogging for Wesley Clark at The Clark Sphere.

Eric at the Hamster says Carol Mosely Braun has picked up some endorsements.

Skippy's still somewhere off the coast of Alaska, but he has blogged in.

That's a wrap from us today--back late tonight.

The appeals court in Nigeria today began hearing the second appeal of Amina Lawal who was sentenced to death by stoning for an extramarital sexual encounter. The penalty was imposed under the Islamic penal code of Sharia, imposed three years ago in the region. It is not clear whether the Nigerian government will intervene.

Amina Lawal has a few more avenues of appeal if this one fails. In this appeal, the Sharia law itself is not being challenged, only its application.

As the grounds for the appeal were read by her lawyer, she stared into space, while her child whimpered before finally falling asleep on her lap. Her uncle was the only family member to accompany her to the court.

....Twelve northern Nigerian states have introduced Sharia punishments for criminal cases in the last three years, and while five people have been sentenced to death by stoning, no sentence has yet been carried out.

The U.S. Military is conducting a hearing to determine whether four U.S. reservists abused Iraqi prisoners at a POW camp in Iraq.

The hearing is a military version of a grand jury proceeding. The hearing officers will decide whether to recommend to senior military officials that a trial be commenced. Their recommendation is not binding.

The four - Spc. Timothy Canjar, 21; Shawna Edmondson, 24; Master Sgt. Lisa Marie Girman, 35, and Staff Sgt. Scott A. McKenzie, 38 - are all from the 320th Military Police Battalion, based in Ashley, Pa.

They are alleged to have punched and kicked several Iraqis, breaking one man's nose, while escorting a busload of prisoners to a POW processing center at Camp Bucca in May in Umm Qasr. The soldiers have said they acted in self-defense.

....The list of allegations, obtained by The Associated Press, included kicking and hitting the prisoners in the groin, face, abdomen, and head, and holding prisoners and encouraging others to kick them.

Murdered priest John Geoghan's conviction for child molesting will be vacated. Under Massachussetts law, if a defendant dies while appealing his conviction, the conviction is voided.

Thus, it will now be erroneous to refer to the late defrocked Priest as a convicted child molester.

Say hello to Summary Opinions - daily source for Liberal Commentary on the Web --thanks to Sideshow for the link.

The Ten Commandments monument has been removed from the court rotunda. Reportedly, it will be moved someplace else within the building.

Tim Francis-Wright of K-Marx the Spot has uncovered some interesting details about the Alabama constitution.

Update: Now the ultra-right is going after Alabama Attorney General and embattled Bush judicial nominee William Pryor:

Protesters hoping to keep a Ten Commandments monument in the state judicial building marched on Atty. Gen. Bill Pryor's office Tuesday, demanding he resign for abiding by a federal court order for the marker's removal.

And Atrios gets it right, as usual:

300 bigots and lunatics protesting around a carved rock, worthy of nonstop coverage. 100,000 people protesting a war, worthy of brief snide commentary.

Dean sprints. Journalist Dave Cullen at Conclusive Evidence has more on the newest Zogby poll results. [Ed: new link inserted]

Markos of Daily Kos is a guest blogger at the official Dean weblog today. Here too.

If momentum counts, Dean may have a lock on the nomination.

Update: Check out the Dean blog today after last night's stunning rally in New York's Bryant Park. Their energy and excitement is palpable. So, for the Dean train, which is the appropriate question: Will it be enough? Or can it be stopped?