AddieStan

President Bush just concluded a Rose Garden press conference intended as a briefing on his surprise trip, made yesterday, to Baghdad. On the subject of a draw-down of troops, Bush used the press conference to address the Iraqi insurgency this way: Don't bet on it; don't bet on American politics forcing my hand [to withdraw troops], because it's not going to happen. I'm going to make decisions not based upon politics, but based upon what's best for the United States of America. In other words, what the American people want will have no bearing on the president's prosecution of the war. Your blogstress also took note of the president's riff on leadership, which he characterized as a determination to succeed at those actions one has chosen to take; he also spoke of willfulness. Ecoutez closely, mes amis , and you will hear not the desire of an executive who seeks to lead his people in their self-chosen destiny, but rather a man determined to make the world ...

The Associated Press offers coverage of the mixed reception received today by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) from the liberal crowd at the Take Back America conference, from which your cybertrix blogs: Clinton's attempt to strike a moderate stance on the divisive issue of the war contrasted sharply with the angry words of another potential presidential contender, Sen. John Kerry, the party's 2004 standard-bearer, who called the war ''immoral'' and a ''quagmire.'' Your blogstress, once an unabashed Hillary fan, now believes that the former first lady suffers from a very bad instinct for timing. Straddling the center, a technique perfected by her husband during his presidency, was a necessity for any liberal seeking to retain power in the 1990s. But over the course of the last few years, the country has moved signicantly to the left -- and it never was as conservative as conventional wisdom would have it. Move with the tao, Hillary, and s...

A spirited discussion, arbited by Robert Borosage, took place today between Michael Tomasky, editor of The American Prospect , and writer Barbara Ehrenreich at the Take Back America conference. The volley focused on Tomasky's premise that, if they care to win elections and generally do the right thing, Democrats need to articulate their vision in terms of the common good. (Tomasky first put forth this idea in his piece , "A Party in Search of a Notion," for the Prospect 's May issue, on which your blogstress has previously riffed .) Ehrenreich appeared to take issue with Tomasky's point, though it was hard to discern on what grounds. Her problem with Tomasky's notion appeared to be that with the gulf that now exists between the haves and have-nots, there's no common ground to be had. Tomasky countered with an anecdote about how President Lyndon B. Johnson presented the 1965 Civil Rights Act to the American people: Johnson introduced the topic in a nat...

Even as an army of liberal bloggers moved themselves from the Las Vegas confab known as "Yearly Kos" to the D.C.-based Take Back America conference, the Kos gathering continued to make news. Here's Howie Kurtz , media critic for the Washington Post: Well, that liberal bloggers' confab in Las Vegas must have been a big deal--the NYT and WP each sent two reporters. That's more important in the gravitas sweepstakes than a bunch of presidential candidates being there, don'tcha think?

Today comes word that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will not be indicting White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, a fact that brough a tear to your blogstress's eye. Still, however fun it would have been to see the Pilsbury Dough Boy do the perp walk in cuffs, your Webwench knows all too well that even incarceration would have done little to spare us from the implementation of old pasty-face's evil genius in the 2006 elections. How, you may ask, does your cybertrix know this? Why, she's from Jersey, silly -- the land where some of the nation's larger cities have been run from jail cells.

Your blogstress reaches her devotees today from the hotel known in Washington as the Hinkley Hilton (so nicknamed because it's the place where John Hinkley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan). What brings your cybertrix to such digs? Why, that would be the annual Take Back America conference hosted by the Campaign for America's Future . Yesterday, your Webwench attended a lively panel discussion hosted by Mother Jones publisher Jay Harris, which included an all-star cast of progressive media types, including the media structure maven Tracy Van Slyke, publisher of In These Times , Cenk Uygur of the Sirius Satellite Radio show, The Young Turks , Robert Greenwald, the filmmaker who has brought vous et moi such gems as "Outfoxed" and "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," and Alex Walker, executive editor of TomPaine.com . It was Harris who, several years ago, convened a group of liberal media types to create a mutually supportive consortiu...

Your blogstress directs her readers to this post at Democrats.com, where devotees can find the text of an NBC story done two years ago by Jim Miklaszewski about how the administration put the kaibosh several times on capturing Zarqawi. At NPR, Mary Louise Kelly does a fascinating piece on geek-com-terrorism-expert Evan Kohlmann, who monitors jihadi Web sites in his pajamas -- for a living. On last night's edition of The Daily Show , Jon Stewart did a piece poking fun at the 17 suspected terrorists arrested by our neighbor to the north for issuing a statement on their hatred for Canada because of its role as a U.S. ally in the Afghanistan invasion. "Afghanistan?" said Stewart. "That was so two jihads ago."

Amid the blanket coverage of the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the murderous head of al Qaeda in Iraq, by U.S. forces, your blogstress found most interesting this interview by NPR's Robert Seigel of Zarqawi biographer Loretta Napoleoni, who explains how Zarqawi's stature as a terrorist big was virtually created by Colin Powell's infamous lie-riddled presentation to the U.N. Napoleoni, author of Insurgent Iraq: Al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida's New Generation and Terror Inc.: Tracing the Money Behind GlobalTerrorism , explains how, in the very same speech in which Powell falsely stated that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy aluminum tubes for use in the construction of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the then-Secretary of State named Zarqawi as the link between al Qaeda and Saddam. The problem with that statement, Napoleoni explains, is that at the time of Powell's speech, Zarqawi had nothing to do with al Qaeda, and al Qaeda wanted nothing to do with Zarqawi, who was...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter -- a maddening figure to righties, lefites and in-betweenies alike -- finds himself in some seriously high dudgeon over the sneaky actions of Vice President Darth Vader Cheney, who went behind Specter's back to prevent the testimony of telecom executives at Specter's hearing on the extensive spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on the telephone traffic of virtually every American citizen. [Note that the NSA's mission is to focus on foreign threats to U.S. security; the American people are supposed to be protected from its prying eyes by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).] Specter, a vocal opponent of the NSA's domestic spying at the administration's behest, has backed down in the past after rounds of ferocious-sounding barks, but this time your blogstress has some hope that there's bite behind the bark. The Associated Press (AP) reports : Specter is the most vocal Republican to oppose the W...

Today, mes amis , the breakaway republic of AddieStan requires some maintenance of a technical sort, meaning that your blogstress will likely not be posting today. Fear not, devotees, she will return tomorrow -- goddess willing! Your cybertrix must admit, however, to some dread in contemplating her tinkerings. Technology can, indeed, be a wonderful thing (think: Spandex), but your Webwench being a creature of her senses, she often finds herself flummoxed in the binary world of cyberspace. So let's wish her luck as she endeavors to create an ever-more inviting stop on the information superhighway.

The Washington Post 's Dana Milbank dished about White House press operations on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" last night after Olbermann played a clip of White House press secretary Tony Snow being challenged by CBS newsman Bill Plante over the definition of the term "civil rights:" OLBERMANN : Big picture here. We had dictionary time with Tony Snow at that news conference. We got this memo from the communications director, Dan Bartlett, to the press. He‘s described all the progress that the White House has made on everything from Iraq to immigration, as if we, you know, we‘ve been out or something for the last five years. But does the—does the administration, the White House, still believe its main, if not only, problem is getting its message out correctly? MILBANK : Well, I don‘t think that they believe that. But it‘s the only thing that they can do something about right now. So I—you had this sort of unfortunate thing where Dan Bartle...

The liberal blogs were all abuzz yesterday afternoon over White House press secretary Tony Snow 's comparison of the Marriage Protection Amendment to "civil rights matters." (The proposed Constitutional amendment, being debated today in the Senate, would, if passed, forbid judicial challenges to anti-gay-marriage legislation at both the state and federal levels.) Raw Story has posted the relevant piece of the transcript from yesterday's White House press briefing: WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY TONY SNOW: Whether it passes or not, as you know, Terry, there have been a number of cases where civil rights matters have risen on a number of occasions, and they've been brought up for repeated consideration by the United States Senate and other legislative bodies... BILL PLANTE (CBS News): You mentioned civil rights. Are you comparing this to various civil rights measures which have come to the Congress over the years? SNOW: Not -- well, these -- it -- PLANTE: Is th...

Today heralds the kick-off of Marriage Protection week in the Senate, mes amis , leaving your blogstress to wonder when that venerable institution had become endangered. Has there been a sudden downturn in the fortunes of wedding gown designers? Are the florists suffering for lack of nuptial blossoms? Are the caterers letting go of staff? Why, no, mes cheris , indeed they are not. But the Republicans, standing with the veil yanked from their money-grubbing, treasury-looting, murderous agenda, desperately need an issue for the 2006 mid-term elections, so they have introduced the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment in the Senate, a bill that, if enacted, would amend the Constitution of the United States to protect anti-gay-marriage legislation from the equal rights clauses of all constitutions, state and federal. Muddling through the merde that is his approval ratings, President Bush needs to pacify the religious right he has so riled up with his "guest-worker" (inden...

A mere two blocks from your blogstress's Oppo Factory sits the highest court in the land, where nine black-robed justices reign Supreme. Just across the street from the Court's side entrance -- and the entrance to its underground parking garage -- an 850-pound granite monument displaying the Ten Commandments has been placed in the front yard of a house belonging to a religious right group, in defiance of city ordinances. The Washington Post 's Michelle Boorstein has been on top of this one from the start, and yesterday, with colleague Nikita Stewart, she reported on the continuing controversy: An evangelical Christian group unveiled an 850-pound granite sculpture of the Ten Commandments yesterday at its Capitol Hill rowhouse a stone's throw from the Supreme Court, despite a threat of $300-a-day fines. Faith and Action, which is headed by the owner of the house, the Rev. Robert Schenck, lacks the permits needed to erect the monument, said Lars Etzkorn, associate direc...

Those boy geniuses at PoliticsTV.com have created a Blogger Channel, and today's featured blogger is your very own Webwench. Check her out! And while you're there, run your eye over the blogging done by producer David Grossman.

Just when your blogstress thought that the American religious landscape had reached its peak of fantasmagoria comes word, via The New York Times , of "Faith Nights" taking their place alongside Bat Days and Frisbee Nights. Michelle Boorstein reports that the Atlanta Braves have three Faith Nights planned for this season, while the Florida Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks intend to follow suit. Herewith, Boorstein's description of a Faith Night event at a minor league football game: Before kickoff, a Christian band called Audio Adrenaline entertained the crowd. Promoters gave away thousands of Bibles and bobblehead dolls depicting biblical characters like Daniel, Noah and Moses. And when the home team, the Birmingham Steeldogs, took the field, they wore specially made jerseys with the book and number of bible verses printed on the back. As graven images go, bobbleheads are certainly a new twist on the old dashboard Jesus. But if they dare to bobble the Big Ma (a.k.a....

Dana Milbank has a delicious column up today about the dominance of golfspeak at the trial of David Safavian, the Bush appointee who was led out of the Old Executive Office Building last fall in handcuffs for his dealings with the infamous lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. You'll recall, mes amis , that one of the doings that first brought Abramoff into the media spotlight was his sponsorship of a golf outing in Scotland of which former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay availed himself. Earlier this month, a treasure trove of e-mails between Abramoff and others implicated White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, currently under investigation in the exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, in the tangles of the Abramoff web. From Milbank's Washington Sketch column: A thick stack of e-mails between Abramoff and Safavian -- which prosecutors have used to demonstrate Safavian's aid to Abramoff as he tried to acquire GSA properties -- also describes a golfing partnership in which...

MSNBC is reporting that Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, once the darling of the Saudis and a leader of the U.S.-supported mujahadeen forces that defeated the Soviets, has issued a videotaped threat, which NBC says it obtained as an exclusive, calling on Afghans to revolt against the U.S. occupation. Specifically targeted is U.S. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, according to the MSNBC Web site. Although the video is posted here , it has not yet been translated from Dari, the Afghan Persian dialect in which Hekmatyar, a Pashtun, made his appeal.

For those perplexed by the shuffle of the loyal John Snow out of the post of Treasury Secretary to make way for Hank Paulson, Glenn Kellis of Ob:Blog explains all : A friend will help you move... but a real friend will help you move a body . That's the message that today's booting of Treasury Secretary John Snow revealed....Bush needs to move a body... It's a big, fat body and it will take the biggest guns of Wall street and a piano case to disguise it from the public until after the midterm elections. This is a good one, mes cheris ; check it out . Whatever the outcome, it's a relief to finally have Snow's demise complete. It's been a George Raft death scene.

Honestly, mes amis , some mornings your blogstress just does not know what impels her to meet the light of day to examine the nation's news on behalf of her devotees. In the end, it may actually come from some overdeveloped sense of moral obligation. (Yes, bad girls can have morals.) This morning the papers tell us of the first truly onerous decision to come out of the court of Chief Justice John Roberts -- a 5 to 4 verdict against whistleblower protections for public employees. If the Bush administration hadn't succeeded well enough in chilling speech in the government workplace, this decision should finish the deal. Thank you, Justices Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito and Scalito. From the indefatigable Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times : Although several employee groups raised immediate alarms, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion in fact contained the counterintuitive implication that employees might fare better by speaking out as "citizens" ...