On this bleak day, I want to remind folks in the Netroots of one of the main rallying cries that has been at the center of that movement:

What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?

. . . I don't think we can win the White House if we vote for the President's unilateral attack on Iraq in Washington and then come to California and say we are against the war.

. . . I have never lost an election, but my career has never been about winning elections. My career -- and this campaign -- is about changing the Democratic Party.

Here's what the best of progressive DC has to offer about today's deal:

[H]ere are two reasons why this [Bush] "victory" won't exactly ring down though the ages. First, this development is completely unsurprising, since everyone has known for some time that there was nothing else the Democrats could do. Back in January, it was clear that, whatever the Democrats decided to do with their new congressional majorities, there was one thing they could not accomplish: stop funding for troops already in the field.

That was clear was it? So where was Tomasky to tell us this when everyone was cheering the House Supplemental? Where was Tomasky when Harold Meyerson was telling us all how great the House Supplemental was? Nice 20/20 hindsight there Mike.

Tomasky also lives in a world where he thinks this is true:

In March of this year, I had many a battle with Netroots leaders on the Iraq Supplemental. Today, I think any fair person would say that I was right and they were wrong.

But the Netroots leaders won't admit their mistakes or even try to learn from their mistakes. Here is an example of the disingenuous rationalizing we are sure to see from them:

TalkLeft has been nominated for Best Political Blog in the Bloggers Choice Awards. Winners will be announced in Las Vegas in November.

I hope you'll go over and vote. So far, we're on page 8.

Matt Yglesias, also known as "what's his name," cracks Atrios-like on Peretz-Singer, who wrote this about Matt:

Actually, that's how [he] makes a living: by writing about people who are smarter than him and know more about the world than him. And since neither smarts not knowledge carry much cachet; with the left blogosphere (also not with the right blogosphere) its stars like what's his name ridicule the writers whose arguments he can't quite grasp.

Ha! A little vitriol from TNR. What's Chait got to say about that? Anyway, Matt busts on Peretz-Singer:

In my next life, maybe I'll try to take a more respectable path to media prominence, something like using my wife's money to buy an established magazine.

Snap!

We didn't do an open thread yet this week, so here you go. What are you thinking about or reading that's of interest today?

• Via Mike at Crooks and Liars, take a look a the groups the police had under surveillance before the 2004 Republican Convention.
• Via Lindsay at Magikthise, Max Blumental takes a look at Jerry Falwell's segregationist and intolerant record.
• Via Avedon Carol at Sideshow, Max's father Sidney Blumenthal writes about the unraveling Bush presidency, taking a look at the changing role of loyalty.
• Via Sentencing Law and Policy, Scotus Blog examines how the 2008 election could affect the Supreme Court.

And in the news, two of the three kidnapped soldiers in Iraq may be alive. One is believed to have been killed.

Getting past the smarmy pretension exhibited by Matt Yglesias and Dan Drezner in this discussion, at the 8:20 mark Matt makes an important point about brands in the political discourse. Not just for the Media, but for the entire chain, from the Times to the blogosphere. Discussing Mickey Kaus, Matt says:

It is not a political position that [Mickey Kaus]is espousing, [it is] a media product. . . . Mickey has created this persona for hmself, it is not . . . dishonest persona . . . but he is playing the Mickey Kaus character for Slate. And that is the same for columnists and stuff [I read "stuff" as all of the players in the political discussion] . . . . That is just the reality of it.

This is absolutely true. Everyone in the Media food chain is playing to persona. From figurative top to bottom. And that brings me back to what I always want to talk about, Iraq.

Great photos accompany this video of Crosby Stills and Nash's "Immigration Man."

Let me in, Immigration Man.

No Human is Illegal.

[This is a repeat of a post from Dec. 2006]

Politics TV has the video of James Comey's testimony yesterday about his rush to the hospital to pre-empt Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card's attempt to get former Attorney General John Ashcroft to sign off on the extension of the warrantless NSA wiretap program.

Update: Don't miss Marcy Wheeler on Comey in The Guardian today, The Constitution is in Intensive Care.

Via Jane at Firedoglake, Glenn Greenwald provides context and the Washington Post editorial calls the White House actions alarming.

More...

Lost in the shuffle of allegations of misogyny, the very dangerous and wrongheaded movement to eliminate pseudonymity in the blogs continues apace. Today it is Tom Grubisch in the Washingotn Post:

. . . [I]n late 2005, turned off by the venom of anonymous posters, Joseloff instituted a policy requiring anyone who wanted to comment to use his or her real name. . . .

[O]ne concern common to all sites is whistle-blowers: What about someone who wants to expose an injustice or unfairness, whether it's a civil servant pinpointing malfeasance in government or, perhaps, a waiter complaining about lousy tipping at a local restaurant? How can they be protected from retaliation?

Online pioneer Vin Crosbie suggests that sites -- whether personal blogs, community sites or major news providers -- should be flexible enough to grant pseudonyms to users who want to blow a whistle. This would require sites to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. How often would such intervention be required? Not enough to require most sites to hire extra staff.

Here is some vitriol, this is so unrealistic as to be laughably stupid. Decide on pseudonymity on a case by case basis? And how pray tell, do you plan to handle that disclosure to your audience? Or will you not tell them about who is pseudonymous and who is not? What about the site's transparency? Are readers to assume that all site operators are just good honest people? This is the proposal of a person who simply does not understand the way blogging works.

What's Mothers' Day without pictures of the kids who made us mothers? Here are some of my favorites of the TL kid, in chronological order, taken in Denver, Florence, Italy and New York City.

As for where is he today, he's in New York City studying for his law school finals. He graduates in a few weeks, and is looking for a job as a public defender or criminal defense attorney.

And now I'm off to visit my mother. I'll be back with a Sopranos' Open Thread this evening.

I'll be offline most of today so here's a space for you to hang out and discuss whatever is on your minds.

Some news I've been following:

• The Government is still pressing on with attempts to limit detainees' access to lawyers although it has withdrawn the most restrictive proposal of limiting the number of visits to three.

...the administration would continue to seek other limitations on the lawyers. These would include requests to permit only one visit for a detainee to authorize a lawyer to handle his case; to screen mail sent by lawyers; and to allow government officials, on their own, to deny lawyers access to secret evidence used against detainees by military panels.

• Equal and Splenda settled their lawsuit (background here)-- after the jury came in with a verdict but before it was announced. The jury had found for Equal and would have awarded substantial damages. How did the parties know to settle?

Settlement talks began after jurors asked the judge for a calculator and expert reports from both sides on how to determine damages. Lawyers rushed to the judge's office to try to delay the jury's announcement and then huddled in a courthouse meeting room.

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