There's nothing more powerful than being right

* RollingStone has a good article about Gore running in 08:

"Gore's biggest opponent for the nomination would likely be Hillary Clinton -- and no one in the current field of Democrats is better situated to capitalize on her weaknesses than Gore. In September 2002, just before Clinton and every other Democrat who hoped to run for president voted to authorize the war in Iraq, Gore gave a no-holds-barred speech inveighing against the invasion. "The chaos in the aftermath of a military victory in Iraq," he warned, "could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam."

At the time, recalls Carrick, Washington insiders dismissed the speech as sour grapes. "The Democratic establishment all said, 'Oh, Al's just out there doing this because he's bitter. This just proves he's never going to run again.' But they all proved to be wrong and he was exactly right. There's nothing more powerful than that.""

greenwald and others will find that last line darkly amusing.

* kwiatkoski:

"It appears that Watada will be tried for missing a troop movement, conduct unbecoming an officer and contempt toward officials. Logically, a soldier’s duty to reject and challenge unlawful orders may result in a missed troop movement, or two, or ten thousand. However, charging Watada with conduct unbecoming and showing contempt towards officials is too rich, even for the stupefying non sequitur that is military justice."

* mcclatchy:

"Vice President Dick Cheney exerted "constant" pressure on the Republican former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to stall an investigation into the Bush administration's use of flawed intelligence on Iraq, the panel's Democratic chairman charged Thursday.
[]
The most potentially controversial of the three Phase II reports being worked on will compare what Bush and his top lieutenants said publicly about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorists with what was contained in top-secret intelligence reports."

* nyt:

"Cathie Martin, Mr. Cheney’s former spokeswoman, testified that she has a clear memory of telling both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby that a prominent war critic’s wife worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, days before he contends he first learned that from a reporter. Ms. Martin was the fourth witness for the prosecution in the trial of Mr. Libby, who is charged with lying during an investigation of who leaked the name of the C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. Unlike the previous three witnesses who worked at the C.I.A. and State Department, Ms. Martin’s testimony may prove especially damaging to Mr. Libby because of her perspective as a former insider in the vice president’s office, and as a former colleague of Mr. Libby, to whom she repeatedly referred as “Scooter,” his nickname.

She testified that both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were intensely interested in Valerie Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV"