Don't get sidetracked by the Bush National Guard records issue. Let the Freepers play with it. There's more important things going on, Corrente has the details:

Election Fraud: California joins Bev Harris in whistleblower suit against Diebold

Abu Ghraib: U.S. claims to have lost evidence in the investigation into the death of an Iraqi prisoner.

Danfur: Colin Powell says it's genocide.

Who cares about a typewriter? Don't let the right distract you from more important issues.

A table is set up at New York Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital with four microphones. The surgeons who performed bypass surgery on President Clinton are expected momentarily for a press conference on his condition.

Press Conference:

The President of the Hospital Dr. Herbert Pardes is moderating. Also present: Dr. Robert Kelly, hospital chief operating officer; Dr. Allen Schwartz, Chief of Cardiology; Dr. Craig Smith, chief of surgery at the hospital and lead surgeon.

First a statement from Hillary and Clesea is read. Summary: Chelsea and I thank G-d and the the incredible medical team for taking such good care of my husband. We stayed up late last night talking, playing games and just being with each other. The last few days have been an emotional roller coaster. Open heart surgery is a serious procedure. That's why we are so grateful to the hospital and to the thousands of people who have sent us messages of support. We have welcomed your prayers. We are thankful for good news. His faith and optimism will carry him through.

Dr. Schwartz, begins with President Clinton's medical history. Had episode of constriction that lasted 15 minutes. No damage to heart. Because of extensive blockage, they decided to operate. They waited several days due to blood thinning medication he had been taking. They thought it was safest to wait to cut down bleeding.

Leave it to Kathleen Willey, the young widow (since remarried) who accused Clinton of coming onto her in the White House, to make a tasteless, base comment about President Clinton:

A COUPLE of hours after news broke that former President Clinton had been hospitalized to undergo bypass surgery, Kathleen Willey sent an e-mail to a friend. Willey was the attractive widow who claimed in 1998 that Clinton had tried to force himself on her in the Oval Office five years earlier when she came to him for a job. The subject line of her e-mail said: "Clinton's heart." The text read: "You mean he has one?"

Yes, Ms. Willey, he does. It just didn't beat for you.

This is very cool. Former President Clinton was watching Larry King Live Friday night in his hospital room and called in to discuss his upcoming bypass surgery. Here's the transcript:

KING: How are you feeling?

CLINTON: I feel great. And I've enjoyed this program. And Dr. [Wayne] Isom explained why we are going to delay this surgery for a couple of days. But I feel really blessed, you know, because a lot of people who have a heart attack never get any advance warning, as Dr. [Bill] Frist said, or Senator Frist said.

I've had some difficulty ever since I got out of the White House in getting my distance up in running. And I just had a feeling a couple of days ago I had to have it checked, when I finally got some tightness in my chest. And I hadn't done any exercise. That's the first time that ever happened to me, and we did this angiogram and found out I had blockage that was too significant to open and put a stent in. We had to do the whole surgery. So I'm trying to get my head in the game.

KING: But you look so great. You lost so much weight. Didn't you think that if you had a problem, it was over?

CLINTON: Well, no. I've also been treating the high cholesterol and then I stopped taking that medicine because I got my cholesterol down low. And I had, in the past, had a little blood pressure problem, which I've treated and then I got it down.

Update, 9/5: All comments on this thread have been sent to President Clinton. I received this response:

On behalf of President Clinton, thank you so much for your message. Please know that your words will be conveyed to the former President as soon as possible. We appreciate your taking the time to write to him at www.clintonpresidentialcenter.org and wish you all the best. (The Clinton Presidential Center Web Team)

*****************
(Original Post)

Former President Bill Clinton was hospitalized today with chest pains and will undergo quadruple bypass surgery possibly tomorrow. Send good thoughts his way. Use the comments if you'd like. Here's more:

A family friend close to the former president told FOX News that Clinton experienced chest pains a few days ago while at his home in Chappaqua, N.Y., and was taken to a local hospital.

The sources said that Clinton had angioplasty done in the last day or two, but the results showed the problem was more serious than first anticipated, so he was transferred to Columbia Presbyterian, one of the top heart hospitals in the nation. "When someone is found to have an obstruction ... we usually do an angioplasty," said FOX News health contributor Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld said an angioplasty involves a balloon being inserted into the artery to expand it. If that does not appear to be effective, the patients are usually taken into surgery.

Update: Surgery may be today.

The Republicans just lost another member of Congress to hypocrisy. Virginia Rep. Ed Schrock, co-sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment and ranked by the National Journal as the second most conservative member of Congress, abruptly resigned today. It appears he was outed on a website for being gay.

...several voicemail messages he left on a phone sex service came into the posession of gay activists, who posted one on their blog. Schrock said only: “In recent weeks, allegations have surfaced that have called into question my ability to represent the citizens of Virginia’s Second Congressional Distict.” He would not elaborate on the allegations.

Raw Story’s transcript of the tape is as follows (click here for audio file.

“Uh, hi, I weigh 200 pounds, I’m 6′4″ (inaudible) blond hair….very muscular, very buffed up, uh, very tanned, uh, I just like to get together a guy from time to time, just to, just to play. I’d like him to be in very good shape, flat stomach, good chest, good arms, well hung, cut, uh, just get naked, play, and see what happens, nothing real heavy duty, but just, fun time, go down on him, he can go down on me, and just take it from there… hope to hear from you. Bye.”

John Kerry is not the only one calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Congressman Charlie Rangel has been demanding it since 2003. Rangel established this website, StopRumsfeld.com which has a petiton. Go over and sign. Rangel writes today to Tom of Functional Ambivalent:

Today, Senator Kerry reiterated his call for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign. I have been calling for the Secretary to resign since November of 2003. The time has come for American citizens to assert their power to remove him from office by calling on their elected representatives to impeach Rumsfeld. Please join me in this effort by signing this petition to impeach him here.

It's not just Abu Ghraib and the failure of post-war planning. Read on:

New Jersey Governor James McGreevey explains his decision to remain in office until November in an op-ed in today's New York Times.

First, there are immediate public policy considerations and actions, which need to be completed. Simply put, there are demands and projects which need to be addressed and put in place now.

....The second major reason is that our 1947 state constitution establishes the Senate president as the official who would succeed a governor in an unexpired term. I acknowledge that the constitution would permit a special election to occur if I were to resign at or about the first week of September. But the constitution does not outline provisions or state requirements for the timing of a resignation. While the constitution does provide the mechanism for an election, the decision of when to make that resignation effective is a personal one.

Steve Gilliard comes down pretty hard on Jessica Cutler, aka Washingtonienne, author of the explicit weblog with details of her life as an staff assistant to Republican Senator Mike DeWine-details which included her making as much money as she could in exchange for sex from men she met at his office--"dates" that she says were set up by his staff.

Jessica's blog (short for "Web log") was the online diary she had been posting anonymously to amuse herself and her closest girlfriends. In it, she detailed the peccadilloes of the men she said were her six current sexual partners, including a married Bush administration official who met her in hotel rooms and gave her envelopes of cash; a senator's staff member who helped hire her, then later bedded her; and another man who liked to spank and be spanked.

....Jessica was officially fired for misusing an office computer, but the men she wrote about kept their jobs. What they lost was their privacy. Jessica's blog identified them only by their initials. But amateur Internet sleuths who read the blog searched electronic databases looking for likely suspects, then posted names and photographs on the Internet. Jessica still refuses to name the men publicly.

I think Steve is missing the bigger story here. It's not Jessica at all. Why isn't the mainstream media all over the committee staffer who used his connections with the senator--and even worse, the senator's office staff--to arrange paid-for trysts with a young staffer? He, and the others detailed in Jessica's diary, should be the ones wearing the scarlet "A."

Here's Jessica:

You will also be able to view Jessica this fall in Playboy. At least she got a nice book deal out of the mess. After that, who knows? Outside the beltway, she's not a story. So, while she may never work in Washington-town again, there's always Montana. Or L.A. Or, Nevada... she might want to hook up with Heidi Fleiss, who has big plans to start a legal brothel in a building that is a replica of the White House. Fox's Rita Cosby got the story:

Could this story get any weirder? The Israeli poet that Sen. Jim McGreevey put on his payroll as a security advisor, and over whom he resigned claiming a homosexual relationship, is denying he is gay and that there ever was such a relationship.

Golan Cipel says he is straight and that he threatened to sue the Governor for repeated unwanted sexual advances.

"It doesn't bother me that it is said I am gay, but I really am not. I'm straight. On the other hand, to accuse me of being an extortionist? Someone here has lost his mind," Cipel was quoted as telling Yediot.

Cipel said his lawyers contacted McGreevey's attorneys and informed them that he planned to sue the governor. Negotiations on a settlement began, Cipel said. "They made a few proposals, but before we answered them, he decided suddenly to resign," Cipel said, adding the governor was convinced they were about to file the lawsuit. "He preferred to admit he was homosexual rather than stand opposite accusations of sexually harassing a subordinate. If you ask me, McGreevey resigned because he knew that the facts surrounding the harassment against me would come to light and he knew I could prove it," Cipel said.

Cipel says he's staying in the U.S. to see the case through.

Arianna Huffington weighs in on the resignation of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey. She wonders whether McGreevey put his lover on the payroll knowing it would be discovered so that he'd have an excuse to come out. Arianna's ex-husband came out during her marriage, so her thoughts are all the more interesting.

By the time the curtain comes up on this drama’s Act Five we could be in the middle of a serious political scandal that may force McGreevey to step down even before Nov. 15. Or we may be in the middle of his political resurrection, looking not at a tortured politician with a secret draining away precious energy but a free man fully -- and finally -- accepting himself. Either way, he had to practically drive the car right off the cliff in order to put himself on the road to Thursday’s declaration. And that's an indictment of our society and our political culture wars.

So until the final curtain falls, let’s seize the moment to reaffirm, loudly and without reservation, that to be gay is to be normal -- whether you’re a governor or a gardener, a public figure or a very private one.

Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence agrees with her:

The dumbest White House Press Release ever

Remarks by the President Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Bush in a Photo Opportunity, The Reagan Home,Bel Air, California

2:37 P.M. PDT

THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I are honored to come by and pay our respects to Mrs. Reagan. We really admire Mrs. Reagan's strength and her love of a great President, and her friendship. We really thank you for the tour of your beautiful backyard. (Laughter.)

MRS. REAGAN: I'm so glad you came -- so glad you came. Thanks so much.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you.

MRS. BUSH: Thanks so much.

MRS. REAGAN: I'm always happy to see you.

MRS. BUSH: Thank you very much.

MRS. REAGAN: And you met Duchess.

THE PRESIDENT: And I met Duchess.

MRS. REAGAN: You met Duchess.

MRS. BUSH: That's right.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all.

MRS. BUSH: Thanks, everybody.

END 2:38 P.M. PDT

Wasn't that informative?