Just the other day I was complaining that a New York Times editorial opposing the death penalty referred to an investigative article by its reporter Adam Liptak that was behind its "Times Select" wall and how the wall prevented the excellent article from getting out. I wouldn't link to it because people couldn't read it without paying.

The New York Post reports today the Times is ending the "Times Select" wall and all of its content will be free.

Smart move.

TPM does a very good interview with Ron Fournier of the AP on the "lobbyist" issue that became the headline of yesterday's YKos Presidential Forum:

As Fournier suggests, the way the issue was portrayed in the forum was, to say the least artificial. Blasting lobbyists while taking money from state lobbyists and the spouses of lobbyists, as Obama does, or from certain principals like hedge fund managers, as Edwards does, is certainly disingenuous. The question is how come that does not make most stories? To Fournier's great credit, it did make his:

In a almost completely inane editorial, the Washington Post Editorial Board demonstrated how useless it is in this passage:

Meanwhile, Democrats in both chambers chose to spend countless hours mired in a fruitless effort to compel an "end" to the war in Iraq.

Devoting "countless hours" to the most important issue the country faces is worthy of ridicule for the Washington Post Editorial Board. Forget what your view is on the issue, how is it possible that devoting countless hours to it could be a bad thing? Only in the twisted mind of a Fred Hiatt could the efforts spent on Iraq be something to criticize.

Jeff Toobin has a new article in the New Yorker on the unsolved murder of Washington (Seattle) Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Wales.

After detailing the life and murder of Wales, a well-liked AUSA who was politically active in a gun safety group, Toobin connects some dots between the Justice Department's initial lack of enthusiasm for investigating the murder and the later firing of Washington U.S. Attorney John McKay, who had nudged (pressured is too strong a word) those at Main Justice to try harder to find the murderer.

There's also a suspect in the murder, and Jeff details his history as well.

It's a great read, and available free online.

This article, via Nick Beaudrot, demonstrates that James Fallows (he has a blog too) had been very good for a while now.

He discusses problems in the Media. It is from 1996. On the flip I have an extended excerpt of a small part of it that is brilliant. But read the whole thing.

Ever since I ordered my new Macbook Friday night, I haven't been able to get this song out of my head.

"I've got a brand new pair of roller skates, you've got a brand new key"

So, Mac users out there, what's a good external portable hard drive for backup, what programs do you use to backup and are there any new software programs you especially like for it? I'm thinking of getting Parallel and Data Backup 3. Apple Care seems like a necessity too.

Ignatius:

The most sensible comment I heard on Iraq in the past week came from one of the Democratic presidential candidates -- indeed, from the one with the strongest antiwar credentials, Sen. Barack Obama: "I think we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in." Obama is right, and so, for that matter, is President Bush when he says much the same thing. The United States is on its way out of Iraq eventually, but it matters powerfully how we disengage -- most of all to Democrats, who at this point seem likely to inherit the responsibility for America's security 18 months from now.

(Emphasis supplied.) Now that he has discarded the "Politics of Hope," I sure wish Obama would criticize David Ignatius for basically speaking falsely of his views on Iraq.

If true, this is appropriate irony. Newshounds reports:

We just got some wonderful news! One of our readers received a letter from Lowe's saying their ads will no longer appear during The O'Reilly Factor. We have not gotten any details yet but we'll keep you posted. Here's the letter below.

Dear Lowe's Customer,

Thank you for your comments regarding the program, The O'Reilly Factor.

Lowe's has strict guidelines that govern the placement of our advertising. Our company advertises primarily in national, network prime-time television programs and on a variety of cable outlets.

Lowe's constantly reviews advertising buys to make certain they are consistent with its policy guidelines. The O'Reilly Factor does not meet Lowe's advertising guidelines, and the company's advertising will no longer appear during the program [My emphasis]. . . .

On the plane home today, I watched the first hour of "No End in Sight," the 2006 documentary about the Iraq War and events leading up to it. The film was shown at Sundance and opens in theaters tomorrow, July 27. (I received an advance screening copy a few weeks ago and just got around to watching it.)

The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003) as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts.

NO END IN SIGHT examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. How did a group of men with little or no military experience, knowledge of the Arab world or personal experience in Iraq come to make such flagrantly debilitating decisions?

It is excellent. I hope you will all see it, and I plan to finish watching it later tonight.

The visuals and graphics are great. The selections from various Rumsfeld news conferences show him at his arrogant worst. Richard Armitage comes off to me as evasive, unknowledgable and disingenuous. I am really glad he's gone.

The film won the Documentary Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.Here's a recent review.

Glenn Greenwald continues to pull down Joe Klein's pants and I have little to add to what Glenn has written.

But this part struck me:

Several days ago, I referenced a Joe Klein post from January in which he called Paul Krugman an "ill-informed dilettante" and said Krugman made "a fool of himself" when Krugman argued against the Surge. Illustrating the Virtues of Beltway Seriousness, Klein complained that Krugman failed to study the Complex, Important Issues surroudning the Surge, unlike Serious Analysts like himself, Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan . . . After I posted that, I received an email from Krugman pointing out that -- directly contrary to what Klein accused him of -- Krugman had written a column months earlier, entitled "Arithmetic of Failure," discussing the military doctrine of counterinsurgency, and explaining why it was impossible for the U.S. military to succeed with this strategy. . .

What more can be said about Joe Klein World than the notion he espouses that he, a Beltway Gasbag, is a "serious" person while Paul Krugman, Princeton Economics professor, is not. Klein has lost all connection to reality.

Glenn Greenwald writes a great post that delves into how the Media has been the decider of who is "sober and serious" and who is a "wacko." Glenn exposes yet again how little intelligence and information the Media actually possesses and how the "serious and sober" designees are anything but. His discussion of Joe Lieberman's appearance at the insane John Hagee's church and the speech Joe delivered there is required reading.

But I do think Glenn is missing one very important development in this all - it is something I have been talking about a lot this year - the irrelevance of the Media and the Beltway Elite in the shaping of public opinion on the issues of the day. Any reading of public opinion polls demonstrates that the Media pundits and Beltway Gasbags have been utterly tuned out by the American People. From Hiatt to Broder to Ignatius to Brooks to O'Reilly to Klein to whomever you wish to name, their impact on public opinion has dropped to near zero.

They are enraged by this development and they have taken to attacking Democratic leaders like Harry Reid in overt and brutish ways in reaction. But as Reid's letter to Fred Hiatt attests, he is not worried nor is he listening to the Media or the DC Gasbags on this. He has figured it out. They are irrelevant now. How this process has occurred is not entirely clear yet. But I am convinced it is true. See also this post from Markos on "the fair fight." I think the irrelevance of the Beltway Media is central to this development.

A letter:

On reading the July 21 editorial "The Phony Debate," it became clear why The Post's editorial writers have been such eager cheerleaders for the Bush administration's flawed Iraq policies -- the two share the same disregard for the facts en route to drawing dubious conclusions.

The editorial was an inaccurate commentary on the nature of the Senate debate, the reality in Iraq and the president's stubborn adherence to failed policies.

Your editorial wrongly asserted that "a large majority of senators from both parties favor a shift in the U.S. mission." While a majority of the Senate voted again last week for a plan that would keep U.S. forces in Iraq for counterterrorism and troop protection and launch a diplomatic effort to help stabilize the region, Democrats were joined by only a handful of courageous Republicans -- far from a majority of Republicans and not enough to break the Republican leadership's filibuster. And if the president truly supports changing course, as your editorial implied, he needs to do much more than tell us "it's a position I'd like to see us in" -- he must drop his irresponsible veto threats and tell Republican leaders to stop blocking votes on proposals to carry out this change.

Finally, it was disingenuous to assert that Democrats are using Iraq to stir voters' passions; the American people are sufficiently disappointed on their own. Three-quarters of Americans recognize that the war is going badly, three out of five support further funding only if it includes a timetable for transitioning the mission, and nearly all expect their president to work with Congress to do something to change course.

HARRY REID

U.S. Senator (D-Nev.)

Washington