When I defended Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy earlier, I must admit it was not because I was thinking of this:

Could it be that Howard Dean is really a savvy political strategist? . . [F]ollowing the Mark Foley scandal, Democrats are talking about not just winning the House but piling up as many as 40 new seats and also capturing the Senate. And some of the places where they are now competing lie in the blood-red states where Dean has been on his lonely crusade to find blue voters. . . . "If we win a House seat in Nebraska, Howard Dean will get more credit than Rahm Emanuel," says Barry Rubin, executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party.

I disagree with Atrios when he says:

[W]hether you gave the thumbs up or thumbs down to any particular conflict, no matter how right or wrong it seems after the fact, doesn't necessarily say all that much about you. However, I would say an exception to that is the current conflict in Iraq, which was sold to the country in an especially divisive and dishonest manner. Supporting this war wasn't just about supporting the war, but "supporting the supporters" who, by the time the bombs dropped at least, had clearly demonstrated that they were very bad people who were not acting in good faith. Though, I suppose, they weren't quite as smelly and annoying as Some Guy With A Sign somewhere.

I disagree because I believe that the policies you support, be they war, tax cuts or what have you do of course say a lot about your judgment. War being the most important decision, it especially says something about you how you decided and what you decided on that question. He is also wrong to say that supporting the Iraq Debacle made you, by necessity, a Bush supporter. Why would it do that? Because atrios thought they were "very bad people"? That is not convincing. More on the flip.

Spencer Ackerman has left The New Republic and it is major hit to that publication, for Ackerman was clearly the best they had. There are other fine writers still at TNR of course, Chait for instance and Frank Foer himself. But Ackerman stood out.

Ackerman has a new blog -
I am sure it will fast become a must read.

I am a newcomer to posting here at TalkLeft, but have been a longtime reader and fan of Jeralyn, Chris and LNILR.

What I have found since becoming a poster at TalkLeft is the intelligent and generally civil exchange of ideas and arguments that the TalkLeft community brings. And it can only get better now that TalkLeft has installed Scoop software, the best there is in my opinion. The best voices, and often, the best conversations, will often now be found in the diaries, linked in the right hand column.

Jeralyn has been generous with us in making this investment in Scoop. I wish to emulate her generosity, and ask the TalkLeft community to join me. I am offering a $500 matching contribution to TalkLeft - I will match your contributions dollar for dollar up to a maximum of $500. Thus, you can double the value of your contributions, be they 10, 25, 50 or whatever you can give, courtesy of my wallet. I think Jeralyn can count on the TalkLeft community to express its gratitude for her hard work and generosity with a litle generosity of our own.

Michael DeWayne Johnson was 17 18 years old when he was charged in Texas with killing a convenience store clerk. He was sentenced to death.

Johnson was to have faced his Texecutioner last night. Hours earlier, despite 15 minute checks by guards, Johnson slit his own throat and used his blood to write on his cell wall, "I did not shoot him."

Prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Johnson cut his jugular vein and an artery in his right arm with a blade fastened to what appeared to be Popsicle sticks. He was last seen alive at 2:30 a.m. as guards made their regular four-times-an-hour death-watch check of his cell.

Lyons said the blade was small, possibly fashioned from a disposable razor. She said Johnson's cell had been searched for weapons several days before the incident.

Michael DeWayne Johnson died at age 29, beating the Texecutioner of the opportunity to kill him by mere hours. He had had no prior convictions.

Johnson always maintained his innocence in prison interviews. What if he was telling the truth?

Bush and Lieberman, h/t Stoller:

You know, the Democrat Party made a clear statement about the nature of their party when it came to how they dealt with Senator Joe Lieberman. He's a three-term Democrat from Connecticut who supports completing the mission in Iraq. He took a strong, principled stand, and he was purged from the Democrat Party.

. . . There's only one position in the Democratic Party that everybody seems to agree on. If you want to be a Democrat these days, you can be for almost anything, but victory in Iraq is not an option.

President George Joe McCarthy Bush and Senator Joe McCarthy Lieberman:

If we just pick up as Ned Lamont wants us to do and get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England and it will strengthen them and they will strike us again."

And don't forget Dick "Iraq is going remarkably well" Cheney:

[W]hen [the terrorists] see the Democratic Party reject one of its own . . . it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today."

You see Bush, Cheney and Lieberman have a plan:

Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do.

I'll be in court and with clients most of the day. Let's try another open thread, now that so many of you are registered and have mastered the comment area of the new site.

Feel free to let me know what you think of the change, whether you are getting accustomed to it, and whether you have found it speedier to load and to comment.

You can also weigh in on other subjects. Just remember, no profanity here. I can't edit your comments, so those with profanity or blazing attacks on other posters will just be deleted. I still intend to keep the site civil.

Writing about today's Connecticut Senate debate, Matt Stoller, in his fantastic piece writes:

After the debate, both Schlesinger and Lamont were mobbed by reporters and supporters outside, but Joe was nowhere to be found. Some friends here think that Joe is scared to face reporters, but I don't think that's what's going on. I think Joe actually and honestly doesn't like people and doesn't want to deal with them if he doesn't have to. That's why he doesn't like or care about doing good visibility events - his ego isn't fed by large crowds since he doesn't think much of people he doesn't know.

And Joe doesn't know the people of Connecticut. The central reality of the political creature that is Joe Lieberman is that he is of the Washington DC Establishment and of Washington, DC. Connecticut is not where Joe Lieberman's from at all anymore. This reality explains everything he does, says and yearns for.

Sally Quinn inadvertently performs a great public service by demonstrating, in no uncertain terms, how clueless the Beltway Media is:

Don Rumsfeld is the shrewdest person in Washington.

Oh there's more of course but let's consider that one line and think about how clueless and out of touch one would have to be to write that. I would say it gets better but of course, after that start, that is impossible, but this is almost its equal:

It is hard for the American people to turn completely against the president. It seems tantamount to patricide. We're much more comfortable being able to blame someone else for the president's mistakes. Laura Bush will never be the scapegoat. For now, it's [Snowball] Rumsfeld.

Lakoff vindicated one might say - strict father and all that. Except for the fact that the President's rating are in the 30s. Oh and the only for GOP Presidents Sally Quinn rule. See, she led the charge against Clinton trashing "her town."

This is the first open thread since the new site launched Monday.  All topics are welcome.

For those of you who want to see the comment you are responding to in the same window as the one you are writing in, if your comments are set to "nested" or "threaded" there will be a "reply to this" button in each comment.  Click on the "reply to this" for the comment you want to respond to and that comment will be there when the commenting screen opens.  

So you can view and cut and paste from the individual comment you are replying to and view both in the same window.

Update: I deleted this post by accident (I'm learning Scoop too for the first time).  Let's start again.

We've corrected most of the bugs (including those posted in the comments we thought warranted fixing) and the RSS feed.

I'm very happy with the move, and hope you are too.   Change is never easy, try it out, see if you don't get used to it.

Before I let the developers off the hook, here's your last chance to tell us what isn't working or what you wish we would change.