Lieberputz has no principles on national security other than to avoid being called names by Bill Kristol at all costs. The nebbishy putz is so afraid of being called weak that he will forego the vicepresidency rather than risk being falsely demagogued on security. He will gladly let thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis die if that's what it takes for him to save face.

Buh-bye Lieberputz. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out, little buddy.

Mike Allen has been dutifully kissing Bush's ass since his first day on the beat.

Consider the following:

1) The media not only didn't withhold any Clinton scandals, they made them up and pushed them 100 times harder than they have pushed any of the far worse Bush scandals

2) As documented in detail on Bob Somerby's Daily Howler web page, the media fought an 18-month long jihad against Al Gore in which they spread numerous lies.

3) Media coverage of Bush's theft of the presidency in 2000 was heavily biased toward Bush

4) And now we know that they withheld news of a Bush scandal that might have cost him the election

Is there any reason to think that the media are not the enemy of Democrats?

I remember once having a conversation with a dark-skinned fellow and just out of nowhere I suddenly called him a "nigger porch monkey". I had no idea what the phrase even meant at the time! You can imagine how embarassed I was when I found out!

It wasn't instant, but it got her. Harris ought to be in jail so she should consider herself lucky that her only problem is an imploding senate campaign.

It's so disappointing after she displayed so much integrity after the 2000 election and all...

I hate to say it but your friend sounds like a bitch.

Gary: your columns are always worth reading, especially on politics. But as a former resident of San Francisco, all I can say is you danced the dance with this little gem. Very nice writitng, sir.

That's not a "surge" plan, that's an "escalation" plan.

Also, I'm not so sure that Congress doesn't have the authority to withdraw despite the fact that Bush is Commander in Chief. Congress has the power to declare war, doesn't that imply that they also have the power to undeclare war? Bush can't command a war that doesn't exist.

Finally, cutting off the funds wouldn't endanger the troops. It would force bush to either withdraw or else take responsibility for endangering the troops himself as he left them in the field without supplies.

Nothing the Senate can do?

Biden needs to read Article II of the U.S. Constitution and some U.S. history and then come back and talk to us after he he learns the first thing about what he's talking about.

Thanks for selling the republic down the river, Joe, you fatuous blowhard.

Dude, you will NEVER be president. Never. Not in a million years. The very idea is laughable. If anyone wants to make a prop bet on this, I am willing to bet my entire net worth.

All Congress has to do is attach the limitations on Bush's war either to an omnibus spending bill or a bill funding the entire Iraq operation. Then Bush has to accept the limitations or choose to be held responsible for either shutting down the government like in 1995 or defunding troops in the field.

We must stop the madness.

"fails to take note of post-rock musical forms such as trance and house, which perhaps conform more readily to her analysis than, say, the music of the Grateful Dead"

More than the music of the Grateful Dead? Someone has obviously never been to a Dead show.

Dude: let me fill you in on what you missed while you were in Bible School. The Dead's music and the dancing at their shows were paradigm examples of Dionysian revelry and ecstatic dancing. Take my word for it. You've never seen anything like it.

So the kids they dance

they shake their bones

And the politicians throwing stones

Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down

Ashes, ashes all fall down

Give me a break.

At least there's one senator with the balls to do the right thing.

The funny thing about most journalists is that they're not really very smart. They have no field of expertise. Most of them went to journalism school where they studied journalism, rather than gaining any real expertise in a real academic field. They claim to be members of a professiosn but most of them come out as little more than court stenographers. Few "professions" have acquitted themselves less admirably than journalism over the last 25 years.

This trivial little tempest in a teapot has little to do with "correcting and challenging the the staid, arrogant, sometimes corrupt, rarely courageous titans of the mainstream media"

Joan, here's a simple way to express the goals of the lefty bloggers' movement:

1) counteract the anti-liberal bias in the media

2) counteract the timid centrism of the Democratic elites

Trivial debates over whether or not a couple of bloggers got fired simply are not of the caliber to raise the stark existential questions about "the movement" which allegedly motivate your piece.

"What does it mean if liberal bloggers aren't warriors for the truth, but rather for candidates?"

That's a rather blanket statement to make based on the extreme paucity and insubstantiality of examples given in your piece, isn't it, Joan? I read blogs constantly but I have to confess I paid very little attention to this issue. My guess is most of us lefty bloggers don't think that this little imbroglio is very important at all compared to, say, Bush's lies about WMD and media complicity therein or Bush's lies about Hussein and al-Qaeda and the media's complicity therein or Bush and the Supreme Court's theft of a presidential election and the media's complicity therein.