Tucker Carlson discussed the Daily News story on Wednesday night. He claimed that the White House was the original source of the story about Bush and Rove. He said they were doing this as a sort of premptive defensive strategy but that it was extremely dumb because either way it implies directly that Bush either lied to the Prosecutor or to the public or both.

The Healy article was interesting, but the usual rearrangement of what everyone already knows - the only difference is that he gets paid to write what most intelligent people know and will tell you for free. The flaw in the analysis was the stated assumption that political writers understand better than the public what is happening and have greater insight into what will happen. Unfortunately, the political writing and chattering class - whether the airheads who appear on the cable mud-wrestling shows - or the writers for Salon, for whom I have much greater respect, have little or no clue how the ordinary voter (or non-voter) thinks - as demonstrated by the appallingly bad track record of all of them in making any predictions as to what will happen this year. The reasons for this disconnect is, I believe, largely because they do not lead the same sort of lives as ordinary people. They mostly talk to and read one another, and never gain any insight into the daily lives of ordinary people. Interviewing a bunch of self-absorbed Iowa farmers or New Hampshire yuppies is not going to cut it, since these two groups are about as unrepresentative of the country as you can get. Similarly, talking to people in the crowds at whistle stop campaign rallies is not going to reflect the diversity of opinion and experiences of the vast majority of the people who eventually might vote.

President Bush knows even less history than the political hacks who flack for him. His quote

'Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided."' was from the notorious isolationist, erstwhile Nazi sympathizer, and REPUBLICAN SENATOR, William Borah of Idaho.

It is sad when anyone dies young. Before Russert is canonized, as a sainted political journalist, however, it is well worth remembering

1) At the Libby trial, Russert made a point at how he treated all his conversations with Administration insiders as off-the-record unless otherwise instructed. Such suck-up stenography is not good political journalism, but it is how Washington journalism works.

2) Testimony at the Libby trial also revealed that far from fearing Russert as a tough interrogator, Cheney's office that he was a pushover: "I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used," Martin testified. "It's our best format." (Daily Kos 1/25/2007).

3) Russert may have been a journalist's journalist, but that is because he epitomized much that is wrong with mainstream political journalism - no that its partisan, but because it is fixated on trivia - flag-pins and other pseudo-issues like candidate's haircuts or whether or not they were sincere when they cried, gotcha quotes - and, above all else, the political horse race. What passes for political discussion is usually vapid and issue free. Russert was just better at this than the other entertainers on Sunday morning TV

So far, Mr. Schaller's blogs for War Room have dealt almost exclusively with the kind of fluff you can get from CNN, the NY Post, or Time. Why read Salon if all we are getting is this kind of mindless blather? Please write about something substantive

Its spelled "lyophilizer"

The rest of the post is damning for both the media and the FBI

This is a really dumb ad. What is the point of insulting your own activists by getting them to watch a video that belittles their commitment? I have never failed to vote in any election or primary since I first voted 46 years ago. Why should my donation to MoveOn go to fund crap like this?

Another sad part of the original Italian version directed by Giusseppe Tornatore (who also contributed to the original screenplay for "Everybody's Fine") is that not only have the children hidden from their father their owned failed lives (one son actually committed suicide and the father did not know this), but only at the end does the viewer learn that the reason the mother has not accompanied the father on this trip is that she has died, and he never told the children because he did not want to burden them!