Via Wonkette:

Crashing the Gate by bloggers Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos and Jerome Armstrong of My DD is now available to pre-order.

Crashing the Gate is a shot across the bow at the political establishment in Washington DC and a call to re-democratize politics in America.

This book lays bare, with passion and precision, how ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated the Democratic Party establishment has become, and how it has failed to adapt and respond to new realities and challenges. The authors save their sharpest knives to go for the jugular in their critique of Republican ideologues who are now running—and ruining—our country.

Only 10,000 copies are being printed, so get your's now. Markos reports that as of 10 am this morning, 1472 copies have already been sold. Why order now? So the book can debut on the bestseller list, which in turn will help it reach more people.

25 years ago, on December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment building on the upper West Side of New York. I heard about it that night from Howard Cossell while in bed watching Monday Night Football. He interrupted the program to announce that "an unspeakable tragedy had occurred in New York City."

I was nine months and three weeks pregnant, and had just returned from the hospital where they tried to induce labor and it failed, so they sent me home. The minute Cossell said John Lennon had been shot, I heard a loud pop. My water finally broke, I rushed to the hospital, and just a few hours later, the TL kid was born. I tell more about the events of that night here, and how for the past 25 years, I have told the TL kid that when John Lennon's spirit left his body, it went straight to his.

John Lennon has been a spiritual member of our family ever since then. From listening to his music, discussing his life, and at least once a year in New York traveling through the sidewalk art shows to pick up memorabilia of John that resonated with one or both of us. It's a heavy day, followed by a day of celebration.

Playwright Harold Pinter is ill with cancer. He was too ill to travel to Stockholm to give his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in person, so he presented it by video. During his speech he called Tony Blair and George Bush war criminals.

In a hoarse voice, he accused America of massacring innocent people all over the world in the name of democracy. He asked: "How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?"

...Pinter said the justification for invading Iraq was based on "a tapestry of lies" and went on: "We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'."

He went on to accuse America of supporting "every Right wing military dictatorship in the world" since the end of the Second World War. He added: "It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain."

The New York Observer analyzes Bob Woodward's relationship with the Washington Post as one of economics - Woodward has become so much of a cash cow for the paper, and so rich himself, that there is no controlling him. Nor, it seems, does the paper have any idea what he's working on. There are some juicy tidbits and quotes. Here are a few, but go read the whole thing.

Publisher Leonard Downie:

Asked to explain why he’d been out of touch, Mr. Downie replied, “Because he’s a rich man, who has an entire floor of his house as his office, and he has a staff of his own working for him. He doesn’t come into the office so much. We have to take the initiative to talk to each other.”

Is the tide finally turning on Law and Order and its never-ending spinoffs about prosecutors and cops? I hope so. ABC will launch a new series in January called In Justice about defense lawyers in an Innocence Project fighting to free clients who have been wrongfully convicted.

Every year, hundreds of innocent men and women get convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Sloppy police work. False testimony. Biased juries. In the blink of an eye an innocent man can lose his life to the mistakes of an imperfect system. And every year the number of innocents who live without hope behind bars multiplies, while the real criminals walk free.

The leading role goes to a Barry Scheck-type character.

John Amato of Crooks and Liars has a few questions over at Huffington Post for David Corn who reported on December 2 that Viveca Novak and Robert Luskin were friends, but wrote a day later that Viveca was just a source for Luskin.

I agree that Corn's article yesterday was just a Viveca puff-piece and disappointing. It also didn't solve any mysteries.

When friendship conflicts with reporting, it's not enough to state that you happen to know the person you are writing about. It's important that you also state your bias. Here are some examples from when I've been in that situation:

There may be hope yet. The November cable news rankings are out. You can view the full chart here (pdf). Keith Olbermann is the highest ranked MSNBC show and he beat Nancy Grace.

But, nine of the top ten shows are on Fox News Channel. O'Reilly continues to lead, with Hannity & Colmes number two and Greta number 3.

Where is Tucker Carlson's show? I couldn't find it on the chart.

Media Bistro reports that Roger Ailes has made a lunch date with former CNN anchor Aaron Brown.

NBC News got a new chief today - 42 year old Andy Capus. He will be in charge of both NBC and MSNBC News and the MSNBC website.

Democracy Now Wednesday will feature interviews with Stanley "Tookie" Williams, awaiting a clemency meeting with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Lori Berenson, imprisoned for ten years in a Peruvian jail. Go here to listen in.

A Conversation with Death Row Prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams

Two weeks from the date of his scheduled execution, Williams speaks from death row with Democracy Now! about his case, his life and his redemption. Williams helped start the Crips street gang. But behind bars he has become a leading advocate for the end of gang violence. He has written nine books and has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is scheduled to die on Dec. 13.

There's a lot of Woodward bashing going on in the blogosphere today. I can't really chime in because until his re-emergence as a player in PlameGate, I can't recall reading anything he's written since Watergate. I've never read a book he authored solo. He's largely been a historical figure to me, the reporter who co-broke Watergate through Deep Throat.

Others are more familiar with his work. Arianna rakes him over the coals today for failing to see the story under his nose when writing his book Plan of Attack. Nora Ephron, who was married to his Watergate writing partner Carl Bernstein, provides her view, as does David Fiderer.

John Amato of Crooks and Liars saves his artillery for Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. Jane at Firedoglake takes on Andrea Mitchell. So does Tom Maguire.

I'm just going to read them all and hope to learn something.

On Meet the Press Sunday, two Washington Post reporters acknowledged being baffled and embarassed by reporter Bob Woodward's actions in failing to disclose his involvement in the Valerie Plame leak investigation to his editor for more than two years.

Arianna takes Russert to task for following the standard playbook and failing to follow through on the bigger issue:

It was a great opportunity for Tim to look at the broken conventions regarding confidential sources and the broken trust between the public and the press.

But instead, Tim went right back to the old playbook and the old problem: "Every source I believe is going to want complete assurance that if I give you this information, will you refuse to testify even if it means going to prison." Stunning though it may seem, Russert really believes that the main problem raised by Judy Miller's and Bob Woodward's roles in Plamegate is: how does the press repair the damage done between journalists and anonymous sources?

The critical question, Arianna says, is under what conditions should the press guarantee anonymity?

The best way to end Thanksgiving...Live at Denver's Pepsi Center. They don't come on until 9:15 so I won't be posting again until very late.

For those of you online tonight, here's an open thread.

Update: Unbelievably great show. Every time I think they can't play better than the last time I saw them, they prove me wrong. This was the best I've ever seen them.