"...those guys are halfwits..." (guest post by Uranus)

• Digby wonders why Alberto has to rehearse five hours a day for his appearance before Congress:

I can hardly believe that this isn't either a national joke or a scandal. The Attorney General of the United States should not have to rehearse for five hours a day to truthfully answer questions from the US congress. It's ludicrous. Just how stupid is this guy, anyway?

I'm telling you if we ever have to endure another presidency like this because the press thought the food was better on one of the campaign planes and they thought the other candidate was, like, so totally icky, my head will explode.

Just as the nation wanted a "fun" president, George W. Bush also surrounded himself with guys he'd like to have a beer with --- and naturally those guys are halfwits just like he is. I guess we should be thankful that he wasn't allowed to put Gonzales or Miers on the Supreme Court.

• Jason Leopold reminds us missing e-mails are nothing new:

In light of the revelations Thursday that thousands of emails Rove sent over a four year period via an email account maintained by the Republican National Committee may have been destroyed, questions as to why an email Rove sent to Hadley was not initially found in the 10,000 pages of documents and emails turned over to the special counsel has resurfaced. Additionally, there are also questions about the veracity of statements Rove and his attorney, Robert Luskin, made to Fitzgerald more than two years ago regarding why that email to Hadley wasn't found.

On Friday, Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote a letter to Fitzgerald asking him to reopen his investigation.

"It looks like Karl Rove may well have destroyed evidence that implicated him in the White House's orchestrated efforts to leak Valerie Plame Wilson's covert identity to the press in retaliation against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson," Sloan said. "Special Counsel Fitzgerald should immediately reopen his investigation into whether Rove took part in the leak, as well as whether he obstructed justice in the ensuing leak investigation."

It should surprise no one the White House would use this Nixonian strategy; nor should it surprise anyone they lie about it. When the Bush administration says, "we lost our five million e-mails," they mean, "the unitary executive answers to no one. Ya hear me? NO ONE. Not even GAWD. BuWAHAHAHAHA!!"

• Matt Stoller has a lesson in picking candidates:

A plan put forth by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has come under neoconservative fire for setting a target departure date, but it provides for flexibility to suspend the U.S. drawdown if Iraqis meet the key economic, political and security benchmarks they have committed to achieve this year. The plan would also retain some U.S. forces in Iraq and the region to help deter atrocities by sectarian militias and aggression from Iraq's neighbors...

If Iraqis tell us that they would feel safer in religiously homogenous neighborhoods, and we lack the means to protect them where they are, we should support and protect them in their voluntary, peaceful evacuation -- a means, one might say, to preempt genocide in advance of our departure.

I'm doubtful this is a wise course of action, as I suspect that the US military is going to have difficulty helping millions of Iraqis move around the country when they themselves are a prime irritant and cause of the violence. Regardless of your sense of how smart this plan is, though, it is important to recognize that residual American forces will remain in Iraq under a President Obama. This is something to consider.

Yes Matt, the whole thing is unwise; I'd have used the word incomprehensible. I guess it's hard for some people to take a stand which is unfailingly correct when the contagion of slime seeps into every crevice.