Josh Marshall defends his reporting on Gov. Sarah Palin's alleged abuse of power involving her ex-brother in law, state trooper Mike Wooten:

I've noticed some people who should know better claiming that bringing up Gov. Palin's troopergate scandal is tantamount to making a victim of or defending her slimeball ex-brother-in-law who allegedly [BTD - makes you wonder how much Marshall knows about this story as Wooten admits to the tasering] once used a taser on his stepson. That's awfully foolish. So I thought I'd put together a post explaining why.

The person in question is state trooper Mike Wooten -- Palin's ex-brother-in-law who's embroiled in a bitter custody and divorce battle with Palin's sister. . . . Most people who are familiar with the ugliness that often spills out of custody and divorce cases know to take accusations arising out of the course of them with a grain of salt unless you know a lot about the people involved.

(Emphasis supplied.) More . . .

Sending good thoughts to those in the path of Hurricane Gustav. New Orleans has been evacuated.

This is an open thread.

Hurricane Gustav is dominating the news. Bob Dylan is headlining Jazz Aspen tomorrow night. And I'm not going to pass up a chance to highlight the plight of the wrongfully convicted. So here's Bob Dylan singing "Hurricane" about Ruben "Hurricane" Carter.

Gov. Palin is yesterday's news. Big Tent Democrat may decide to write more about it, and you can continue the disussion on his threads. I've had enough. Time to change the conversation to other things. This is an open thread for other topics.

MSNBC Head Phil Griffin:

Look, when Keith [Olbermann] anchors, he plays it straight down the line.

Bwahahahahaha! Good one Phil. Next you'll tell me he is "fair and balanced." Oh wait, how about this one - "Olbermann Reports, You Decide."

This is an Open Thread.

Greg Sargent reports:

On Fox News just now, Howard Wolfson unleashed a broad attack on MSNBC and its top on-air personalities, slamming the network's coverage of Bill and Hillary, hitting back at Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann for using his work for Fox to question his Democratic credentials, and blasting MSNBC as having been "taken over" by "antics." . . . "I'm not gonna take any lectures on how to be a good Democrat from two people who spent the last two years relentlessly attacking Bill and Hillary Clinton everyday," Wolfson said on the air moments ago, when asked by the Fox anchor to respond to some criticism of Wolfson on MSNBC yesterday.

Wolfson's decision to unload on MSNBC was triggered by some particularly barbed comments about Wolfson from Olbermann and Matthews yesterday. Matthews slammed Wolfson as Fox's "little toy soldier," while Olbermann joked that Wolfson is Fox's "Tokyo Rose."

Here's what's weird to me - NBC pretends to have a news organization. Did Tweety and Olbermann just stop pretending yesterday? As a Democrat, I have always opposed Dems appearing on Fox. So I wish Wolfson would not appear on Fox. But Olbermann and Matthews are pretending to be journalists, not Democratic bloggers, aren't they? What are they doing commenting on how good a Democrat Howard Wolfson is?

Speaking for me only

Josh Green making Andrew Sullivan look sane:

The crowd was fired up. But the excitement faded quickly. Clinton didn't seem angry or betrayed or entitled or any of the things that critics have attributed to her—she seemed merely unenthused, and so did the audience, his crowd and hers.

Heh. I take it Josh is mad that no one gave a crap about his big "memos" scoop. Also, he has to be worried. His only schtick is Clinton Hate and, after tonight, at least for the rest of this campaign, he'll have nothing to say. He's sort of a junior Carl Bernstein now.

Speaking for me only

Via corrente, David Sirota demonstrates how to do the most harm you can to Barack Obama:

The Clintons are doing everything they can to make this convention all about them - and to absolve themselves from the substantive criticism of both Clintonism and Bill Clinton's behavior on the campaign. . . . No, Bill Clinton was not "painted as a racist" - he was a racist during the campaign.

Nice work David. John McCain thanks you.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

I hate to rain on the parade, but when MSNBC has as its primary news anchor the most biased and ridiculous person in journalism, it ill behooves Left blogs, who fawn all over Olbermann, to complain when Ron Fournier, does what he always does, editorialize the news. ESPECIALLY when he does it in piece labelled as an opinion piece.

As Bob Somerby ably argues, Barack Obama is the Media's choice for this election, and thanks for that. I am happy about it. Indeed, I COUNTED ON IT when I supported him for the nomination. To play the victim now with the Media and Ron Fournier's OPINION piece proves once and for all, the Left blogs have become that which they purport to hate - mindless cheerleaders. Of course Fournier's behavior is reprehensible. But so is Keith Olbermann's and the entirety of NBC News. But no one demands Olbermann resign. It is silly to ask it of Ron Fournier now. But that is all we are now - hypocrites. Like, Paul Krugman, I see, understand and even applaud, the fact that Barack Obama played the silly games of politics regarding John McCain's houses. Politics is stupid. But I do not believe we need to play the same game with ourselves. At least I know I won't.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

As we await Sen. Obama's choice of a running mate, I'm humming the Shirelles and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?"

This is an open thread.

Beginning Thursday, Rachel Maddow takes over the 9pm ET slot at MSNBC, replacing Dan Abrams' show, The Verdict.

Mr. Abrams, who is well liked at MSNBC, is expected to remain both there and at NBC News, where he is the chief legal correspondent. He will also serve as an anchor during some of MSNBC’s daytime coverage, as well as a substitute host on NBC’s “Weekend Today” show.

I wonder how much of Olbermann's popularity is due to Rachel's constant presence as a guest, which she obviously can't keep doing with a new show of her own.

I like Rachel. I hope she does well. And I hope Dan's back on the air with his own show soon -- one about legal issues, which is what I think he does the best.

Amazing tiebreaker in women's uneven bar gymastics tonight. Nastia Liukin (U.S.)got the silver, He Kexin (China) got the gold. The math that gave He the gold medal is explained here.

The announcers all thought Nastia outperformed He. To my untrained eye, He's mistakes did seem bigger than Nastia's. But, the judges did follow their formula for breaking the tie. By 1/100th of a point, He came out ahead.

So to Nastia, you got the silver, but to many of us, you are the gold.

This is another open thread.

Digby writes about the Fallows article on the debates I covered the other day. It is a good post. But some of you may be struck by this passage:

Fallows didn't see the debates in real time (he was in China) so he was only able to get the full flavor of what was so wrong with them after the fact, seeing them all at once. Very few people wrote about this while it was happening, even in the blogosphere, until Gibson and Stephanopoulos went over the top on Barack and his online supporters lurched into gear. I consider that our failure too (me included --- I didn't make it the kind of focus of my blogging that I should have) and I hope we've learned our lesson.

(Emphasis supplied.) Digby pulls her punch here. She KNOWS why it was not covered by most of the Left bogs until the ABC debate - for the same reason the Media's bias, sexism and misogyny was not covered by the blogs - because they loved it when it was against Hillary Clinton. The Left blogs failed in the primaries and it is time they owned up to it and why - when it was smears, sexism and silliness against Clinton, all was well. Look at Keith Olbermann for crissakes. Their complaints about McCain favoritism in the Media, to the extent it exists, now rings hollow. Their credibility had been shot long ago. See Corrente's series on the subject.

Speaking for me only