ashcroft's plame-gate recusal

* clemons:

"Now Zoellick is planning to leave the government after hearing through the grapevine that he did not make the short list to succeed Treasury Secretary John Snow.
The question now is who will come in after Zoellick. Sources have told TWN that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prefers to appoint Nick Burns as her DepSec.
But Cheney may use his influence to block Burns, whom many consider to be too much of a "diplomatic type". During the recent UN Security Council skirmishes with Russia and China over how to deal with Iran, John Bolton and various other Cheney acolytes began a whisper campaign against Nick Burns.
But Cheney had wanted John Bolton in the DepSec job rather than Zoellick -- and in this next round, Cheney will not want Burns to help further strengthen Rice's hand in foreign and national security policy.
It will be interesting to watch the sides square off, and whomever does succeed Zoellick will give some indication of the relative strengths of Rice and Cheney in the administration."

* you've heard me rail against AP ad nauseum. check out the latest details of the slime of Harry Reid.

* demonow has a great piece about all the other 'hadithas' - why is it that amygoodman is the only person who seems to be able to do stories like this? (make sure you listen to the whole piece)

* from a comment at EW's place:

"Tonight I heard Murray Waas interviewed by Sam Sedar on "The Majority Report". Wass was suggesting that in the next couple of weeks we will definately be hearing more about the 3 months that Attorney General John Ashcroft stayed on the investigation before recusing himself."