Tonight on Larry King Live, First Lady Laura Bush said she understands “how the American people feel” when they express frustration over Iraq, but insisted that “to leave now would be a serious mistake.” She said of Iraqis, “This is their opportunity to seize the moment, to build a really good and stable country.”

As AmericaBlog first noted, Bush added, “[M]any parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody.” Watch it:

According to the latest Brookings Institution Iraq Index, as of November 2006, there were approximately 185 insurgent and militia attacks every day.

Transcript: Read more

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) “looked awfully cozy nestled between Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in the Senate press gallery this month, talking up their counterproposal to Democratic legislation critical of President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq,” The Politico reports. “‘Reid doesn’t want to create holy hell in the Democratic blogger world,’ Graham said, speculating why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was refusing to allow votes on certain Republican amendments. The dig at Lieberman’s Internet nemeses hit his funny bone. The trio giggled in unison.“

“The top aide to convicted former Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty Monday to federal conspiracy charges,” admitting he had accepted “a stream of things of value from Abramoff and his lobbyists, including overseas and domestic trips, meals and drinks, golf, tickets to professional sporting events and concerts, and monetary and in-kind campaign contributions from Abramoff.” TPM Muckraker digs through the charging documents, and finds nuggets like this one, on how Ney dangled lobbyist goodies over the head of his staff:

Ney controlled the receipt of things of value by his personal office staff and the House Administration Committee staff as a way to reward and punish staff by approving their receipt of things of value or by taking things of value and redistributing them to others.

More HERE.

“It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown.” Keith Olbermann has promised a special comment tonight on Rice’s statement.

UPDATE: Watch Olbermann’s special comment:

Digg It!

The right-wing is angry that Al Gore has won so much public attention and goodwill for his work on global warming. Determined to smear his efforts, Drudge writes in a screaming headline:

Responding to Drudge’s attack, Vice President Gore’s office told ThinkProgress:

1) Gore’s family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology.

2) Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint — a concept the right-wing fails to understand. Gore’s office explains:

What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero.

It’s the latest in a series of desperate attacks by Drudge to paint Gore as a hypocrite. Some other examples:

These are the lengths that climate skeptics must go to suppress action on global warming. There is no meaningful debate within the scientific community, so the right-wing busies itself with talk about how much electricity Al Gore’s house uses — and even then they distort the truth.

CNN: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace has sent a classified report to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and to Congress that says the risk is now “significant” that the U.S. military would not be able to meet its obligations if a third world crisis were to break out. Pace’s declaration has triggered a requirement under the law “for Secretary Gates to come up with what they call a ‘mitigation plan’ – once the risk is ‘significant’ the Secretary must report to Congress on what he’s doing about it.” Video HERE.

UPDATE: The AP has details:

The assessment…represents a worsening from a year ago, when that risk was rated as moderate.

The report is classified, but on Monday senior defense officials, speaking on condition on anonymity, confirmed the decline in overall military readiness. And a report that accompanied Pace’s review concluded that while the Pentagon is working to improve its warfighting abilities, it “may take several years to reduce risk to acceptable levels.”

In an interview with Democracy Now, Trita Parsi — former congressional aide to ex-Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) — disclosed more details about his recent revelation that an Iranian offer for negotiations with the Bush administration was delivered to senior political adviser Karl Rove in 2003.

According to Parsi, Rove confirmed receipt of the Iranian offer two hours after it was delivered to him, calling it “intriguing.” Subsequently, Parsi claims there was a “discussion about this at the highest level in the Bush administration.” Hard-liners, led by Dick Cheney, immediately rejected it, even going so far as to “reprimand the Swiss ambassador for having delivered it.”

Parsi echoed the allegations of former NSC official Flynt Leverett, who has said that Condoleezza Rice — then National Security Adviser — saw the offer. Rice now says, “I don’t know what Flynt Leverett’s talking about.” Weighing in on the dispute, Parsi said, “I find it highly unlikely that they did not see it. I frankly believe that it’s beyond unlikely that they didn’t see.”

Full transcript can be found HERE. Transcript of the segment below: Read more

Lindsay Beyerstein has a fantastic article up on Salon about how she was approached to work for the Edwards internet team, why she declined, the ensuing Marcotte controversy, etc:

I was dazzled by Edwards’ speech, Bob’s vision and the sense that I might be on the verge of the big time. I wanted to jump on the bus, but I knew I couldn’t.

“I’m probably not … the person you want,” I said, finally. “I mean, I’m on the record saying that abortion is good and that all drugs should be legalized, including heroin. Don’t you think that might be a little embarrassing for the campaign?”

Bob assured me that my controversial posts weren’t a problem as far as the campaign was concerned. They were familiar with my work. And Bob did seem to know my writing. I didn’t get the impression he was a daily reader, but it was obvious he had been reading the blog for a while.

This, to me, doesn’t sound like a campaign whose staff is quite firing on all cylinders.