Kucinich: "This war needs to end now"

* this via Katheen:

"Kucinich observed. "This war needs to end now and Democrats should stop funding it now. The money's in the pipeline now to bring the troops home, and I've written legislation, HR 1234, to begin a process to stabilize Iraq as the U.S. troops leave.""

* dk@tpm:

"In September, Coughlin was honored for his work on fraud and white collar crime. By the following April, he was out because of his alleged connections to the one of the largest white collar crime investigations in DOJ's history. Only in the Gonzales Justice Department."

* Digby:

"Although there are many great bloggers who live in DC and float around the periphery of the establishment, for the most part they are not part of the power structure and function either as ambassadors and liasons for the netroots movement or operate as activists rather than power brokers. Considering how decadent and self-serving the politico-media establishment has become over the past few years, this may be the single most important thing that bloggers bring to the table. Certainly, as it concerns punditry, that's the case.

I suppose it could also be argued that the DC pundits are just not as smart as the rest of us but I doubt it. They aren't stupid or uninformed. Still, results are results and there must be a reason why so many members of the political media have been so wrong so often for the past decade and a half. Out here in the hinterlands, a whole bunch of us have been able to see through what was going on, while it was going on. It's not just partisanship and it's not just a fluke. From the silly travel office flap in 1993 until David Broder's heinous little screed yesterday, there is a long continuum of establishment petulance, confusion, triviality and error. If it isn't their proximity to those who are spinning them, I can only assume that they are either dumb, craven or Republican. It's got to be something."

* wolcott:

"Some of the rightwing blogs greeted the news of Rosie's exit with an odd, exhilarated triumphalism, as if they somehow willed it by furrowing their brows together in choral disapproval--as if they were responsible for her being toppled from the throne. Others, fumbling cluelessly through the Zeitgeist, portrayed her as a victim-just-waiting-to-happen of this vague fog known as "the post-Imus environment." One slicked-down hairdo on Fox News confidently proclaimed that Rosie was finished, her radioactive persona and career dead and about to be buried. Never mind that this robust parade float of rude candor left because of a contract impasse, not because of outside pressure, and that the only people scandalized by her comments were other talking heads pretending to be scandalized in order to flap their jowls in righteous indignation. Her ratings on The View wouldn't have been what they were if there were all these offended constituencies who took umbrage at her liberalism-in-the-raw and switched off because she had gone Too Far and they had Had Enough. The thumping success of Rosie on The View, like Keith Olbermann's ratings insurgence and Jon Stewart's masterful fencing with John McCain, is testament that the feargrip headlock of the Bush era is well and truly over, the days of deference to daddy-knows-best authority are done."