Larisa: one might think...

* josh:

"I don't know about you. I've been in sort of a haze. But am I wrong to think the old song and dance just isn't quite working for them this time? I can only imagine what we're going to see over the next two months. And fear is a powerful weapon. But somehow we seem to have arrived at the chicken with its head cut off stage of the game. As the BS gets less believeable the ante keeps getting upped until now we seem to be at the stage of an infinite regress into historical parody.
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Is the jig up?"

(josh's dad died. condolences, josh.)

* larryjohnson:

"Looks like Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney charged with investigating the leak of that identified Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA officer, has hit a real nerve and is on the verge of dropping a new legal bomb on the Bush Administration. How else to explain the sudden surge of criticism directed against Mr. Fitzgerald?
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The facts show that Fitzgerald is keeping his cards close to his vest, which certainly has Dick Cheney and Stephen Hadley crapping their pants. Their role, particularly Cheney's, in directing the campaign to discredit Ambassador Wilson, has become clearer in the last year thanks to court filings in the case against Scooter Libby. For example, we now have Cheney's notes that became the basis for RNC talking points in attacking Ambassador Wilson.

I am not privy to Fitgerald's plans or thinking; but, given the nature of the offensive now directed against the Wilsons and Fitzgerald, it appears that Mr. Fitzgerald may be on the verge of asking the Grand Jury to indict Dick Cheney and Stephen Hadley. Karl Rove is no dummy and would be derelict and incompetent to not prepare for this contingency. He know that if Fitz drops a new legal bomb before the November elections on someone in the Administration that the Republican ship of state will sunder."

* tpmm:

"The new book (Hubris) appears to contradict earlier accounts which have claimed Plame's CIA position involved Iran and non-proliferation."

* larisa:

"A new book by Austin-based journalist James Moore and senior Dallas Morning News political reporter Wayne Slater will report Tuesday that Karl Rove's step-father, Louis Rove, divorced his mother and lived the rest of his adult life as an openly gay man, RAW STORY has learned.

This is one of many bombshells delivered by reporters James Moore and Wayne Slater in The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power. RAW STORY obtained an advance copy of the book.

The book also alleges that Rove held streetcorner meetings with fallen superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, knowing that all visits and phones calls to the White House were logged. Abramoff recently pleaded guilty to tax fraud and conspiring to bribe members of Congress.

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One might think that such a sensitive family situation might have kept Rove from using it as a political ace-in-the-hole. Instead, Rove made sexual orientation -- specifically, gay marriage -- the centerpiece of a presidential campaign aimed at getting out conservative voters in states like Ohio.

The premeditated and well-organized assault of the Rove-led GOP as described in The Architect is breathtaking. One has to wonder why a group of senior members of the Christian right, huddled in a room together, and planning to play one Christian denomination against another never made the headlines.

Yet Moore and Slater present something more than the background shockers of these public figures. They provide a detailed illustration of a conglomerate that profited on faith, race, heritage, even gender, using the very people who are trusted by their congregations, their leaders and their heroes."