N. J. Governor James McGreevey resigned today, saying, "I am a gay American." Here's the text of his statement. Wonkette comments:

This was the speech of the year. The most high profile outing, well, ever, and McGreevey handled it with grace and dignity. He sort of makes me want to go gay, too. We hope that someday it won't mean much to go on national television and announce, "I am a gay American." Someday, we hope that kind of announcement comes at the beginning of someone's political career, not the end.

Wonkette rocks updates. For more on McGreevey's political leanings, Addiestan has the text of McGreevey's speech at the Stonewall Democrats Luncheon on the last day of the DNC and asks if he tipped his hand? Addie says of yesterday's announcement:

For the real scoop on Bush's nomination of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss as Director of the CIA, you need only go one place--Billmon at Whiskey Bar.

Fred Kaplan at Slate has more.

Via Atrios, we find this article listing prominent politicians and their military service. It compares the Democratic and Republican tickets, and those in the Bush Administration with those in the Clinton Administration (since Kerry doesn't have an Administration yet and that was the last Democratic administration.)

In addition, the author picks somes journalists, pundits and bloggers to compare. It's striking how few of them served. Until you see how many were of Vietnam age. Can't say I blame them.

Update: Markos of Daily Kos (who served in Gulf War I) has some astute analysis.

Where's the pictures of the happy couple? Jeb's son gets married, the President goes fishing and attends the rehearsal dinner but not the reception, and the big news is Jenna caught a fish?

Has anyone noticed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft have been conspicuously absent lately as Administration spin-men? We have.

So has Chisum Lee, one of our favorite civil liberties reporters at the Village Voice, who reports on Ashcroft. Harold Meyerson reports on Rumsfeld.

We are being photographed as we write this by the photographer for the New York Times. It's for an article by Jennifer 8. Lee on the convention bloggers. So we don't have time right now to discuss Sandy Berger. But we know you all want to, so jump right in.

David Sirota of American Progress informs us that instead of filling housing budget shortfalls, the administration is proposing to create a website for the homeless...Here is the news release and here is the website.

We agree the Administration should be funding bedspace and housing --as well as websites.

by TChris

Does your ability to serve your country in a nonpartisan fashion depend upon whether you voted for the President? In this administration, the answer appears to be "yes."

In a report released yesterday, a scientific advocacy group cited more instances of what it called the Bush administration's manipulation of science to fit its policy goals, including the questioning of nominees to scientific advisory panels about whether they had voted for President Bush.

The report is available here.

Vice President Dick Cheney has had the same personal physician since 1995. He's been dropped from Cheney's medical team due to his abuse of prescription drugs--which Cheney has known about since 2000. The New York Times reports:

Vice President Dick Cheney's personal doctor, who four years ago declared Mr. Cheney "up to the task of the most sensitive public office" despite a history of heart disease, was battling an addiction to prescription drugs at the time and has recently been dropped from the vice president's medical team, according to officials at the hospital where he practiced.

....The doctor, Gary Malakoff of George Washington University Medical Center, had treated Mr. Cheney since 1995 and been a prominent spokesman on the vice president's health....Hospital officials said Sunday that they had known since 1999 of Dr. Malakoff's problem, and that Dr. Malakoff informed the vice president at that time or in 2000. But he was permitted to continue working, they said, while undergoing treatment and monitoring, including urine tests, by an independent board....But in May, when the board concluded that Dr. Malakoff was too impaired to care for patients, he was relieved of his position as director of the medical center's general internal medicine division, they said.

This week's Sunday New York Times Magazine interview is with Ron Reagan. He's an atheist. He did not vote for George Bush in 2000. He's been hired by MSNBC to provide election coverage. A few snippets. First, on his father:

How do you account for all the glowing obituaries of him? I think it was a relief for Americans to look at pictures of something besides men on leashes. If you are going to call yourself a Christian -- and I don't -- then you have to ask yourself a fundamental question, and that is: Whom would Jesus torture? Whom would Jesus drag around on a dog's leash? How can Christians tolerate it? It is unconscionable. It has put our young men and women who are over there, fighting a war that they should not have been asked to fight -- it has put them in greater danger.

On Dick Cheney:

How did your mother feel about being ushered to her seat by President Bush? Well, he did a better job than Dick Cheney did when he came to the rotunda. I felt so bad. Cheney brought my mother up to the casket, so she could pay her respects. She is in her 80's, and she has glaucoma and has trouble seeing. There were steps, and he left her there. He just stood there, letting her flounder. I don't think he's a mindful human being. That's probably the nicest way I can put it.

On the election:

One thing that Buddhism teaches you is that every moment is an opportunity to change. And we will have a moment in November to make a big change.

Last week's Sunday New York Times Magazine featured an interview with Trent Lott. The opening topic is his hair and whether it's real. They move onto torture, and he again takes the position using dogs to threaten prisoners at Abu Ghraib is fine:

You recently created a stir when you defended the interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib.

Most of the people in Mississippi came up to me and said: ''Thank Goodness. America comes first.'' Interrogation is not a Sunday-school class. You don't get information that will save American lives by withholding pancakes.

But unleashing killer dogs on naked Iraqis is not the same as withholding pancakes.

I was amazed that people reacted like that. Did the dogs bite them? Did the dogs assault them? How are you going to get people to give information that will lead to the saving of lives?

He does a little better with gay adoption:

Journalist and blogger Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence weighs in on the puritanical reaction to Jack Ryan's sexploits with his wife.

None of this was about his wife. It was all about the sex. Freaking Puritans.