On “Imus In the Morning” earlier today, Chris Matthews ripped into Bush’s handling of Iraq (Watch it here):

Everybody was led to believe that we were getting payback, we were avenging what happened on 9/11 and that we are going to get them. “¦ We pursued the terrorists back to Iraq. And it’s all nonsense. The reason there are terrorists in Iraq today like Zarqawi is we created the opening by blowing the country apart. “¦

I mean the denial has been continuous. So you really can’t count on the administration to tell you what is going on. That is just the fact. You’ve got to check it out. By the way, the president said this week that he wants the whole truth about what is going on in Iraq, the whole truth and that the media isn’t telling the whole story. I’ll tell you what we are not telling. We are not showing pictures of the twenty five hundred bodies coming back because they won’t let us show the pictures. They don’t want the whole truth out and that’s the fact.

Given Matthews’ stinging salvos against the Bush administration, we were anxious to see how White House Communications Director Nicolle Wallace would respond tonight on Hardball. Here are some highlights of what she said to Matthews: Read more

Blasting those who have called Bush incompetent, Vice President Cheney said today, “If they are competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on American Idol.”

RedState’s Clayton: “The left has their blood today. Ben resigned from the WashingtonPost.com. He did not resign from RedState – and even if he tried to do so, we would have refused to accept it. The four Directors of this site, including Ben, had a call earlier today shortly after he spoke with the Post and we’re happy that Ben’s staying right here.” Domenech’s first post-resignation post is here.

A diplomatic source tells NBC News: In response to what the Afghan government is calling “the unprecedented international outcry,” the Afghan government intends to release Abdul Rahman by Monday barring any unforseen circumstances.

Post executive editor Jim Brady: “In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday. An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.”

According to a new report by the Federation of American Scientists, Chief Justice John Roberts has appointed Judge John Bates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Bates is replacing Judge James Robertson, who resigned last December to protest President Bush’s illegal domestic wiretapping program.

Bates has a “distinctly conservative cast to his resume.” From 1995 to 1997, he served as Ken Starr’s deputy in the Whitewater investigation, a glorified political witch-hunt that never managed to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons.

In 2001, Bates was appointed to district court by President Bush, where he was assigned the lawsuit seeking details about Vice President Cheney’s secret energy taskforce. In a widely criticized ruling, Bates dismissed the case:

The third Starr retread currently wielding a gavel, District Judge John Bates, played a major role in stymieing a more substantive investigation than the one he pursued under Starr. The General Accounting Office (GAO) brought the first lawsuit in its 80-plus-year existence after Dick Cheney stonewalled its attempt to obtain information about the veep’s 2001 energy task force. Bates, who provided the rationale for subpoenaing any woman to whom Clinton may have talked dirty about Whitewater, dismissed the GAO’s effort to learn with whom Cheney’s task force conferred.

Now, on the FISA court, one can only hope Bates will care as much about the privacy of ordinary Americans as he did for Dick Cheney, Ken Lay, and Big Oil executives.

Editorial in the college newspaper where the Post’s new blogger apparently published multiple plagiarized columns: “If true, his actions would be deeply offensive to us as journalists and as students. … Acting with integrity requires constant care, but the rewards are well worth it, and the consequences for failure almost unbearable.”

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin calls for Domenech to step down.