Well, crap. Just got an email saying the truly special American folk hero hobo storyteller human Utah Phillips has passed away. His friend Chris Chandler says it in a way only he can:

Damn.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey was convicted two weeks ago in her prostitution case. Last night she committed suicide.

Senator David Vitter was one of her customers, or, as he put it, he "made some mistakes" that were related to Ms. Palfrey's business.

Update: The Entire Apology [end update]

I just got a call from my Aussie other half and she said the Australian parliament is about to begin a session in which the new (dirty freaking hippie) PM Kevin Rudd will officially apologize to the Aboriginal people.

She'd gotten a call from her sis, in tears, and called me in tears just to let me know. Goddam, moments like these remind me why I'm on this side of the political sphere.

Links below.

Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, in what has to be one of the most far-reaching and morally twisted arguments supporting waterboarding ever witnessed, says, just for starters, this:

The death last week of Paul Tibbets Jr., the pilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945, is an opportunity to revisit the debate about the strategic value and moral justification of the aerial bombardment of civilian targets in wartime. It also casts some light on the controversy surrounding Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the next attorney general of the United States.

You'll probably need time to let that sink in. Jump below when it has.

UPDATE: The story is gone from Drudge's front page. Completely gone. Not so "developing" anymore, it would seem. [End update]

Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the man the RW Wankosphere can't stop fantasizing about:

SHOCK DOCS: THE NEW REPUBLIC 'SHOCK TROOPS' STORY COLLAPSES  —  The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained internal documents from the investigation of THE NEW REPUBLIC'S "Baghdad Diarist", Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private turned war correspondent who reported tales of military malfeasance from the Iraq War front.

Jump the fold for the Earth-shattering details.

Remember the letter Harry Reid wrote to clear Channel Communications, asking Rush Limbaugh to apologize for his "phony soldiers" comment?

It's for sale on eBay (by a Rush lover):

Dara and Bo Wilkerson had a baby, Bethany, in 2005. At three months she was diagnosed with a heart defect. The Wilkersons both work in a restaurant, have no medical insurance, and used the SCHIP program to pay for Bethany's treatment - and save her life. They appear in a new ad for the program, hoping, like the Frosts, that other children will benefit from it too. The Wilkersons say they expect attacks similar to those the Frosts endured, but don't fear them.

The NRO's Mark Hemingway begins the attacks today:

UPDATE: The Wilkerson's crush one of Hemingway's charges. See end. (End update.)

"IMMUNITY" IS NOT the word that should be being used to highlight and headline stories regarding the case of the telecoms and the FISA bill. "Retroactive immunity" is not even right. These terms put the focus of this story on the telecoms. It belongs on the White House. If the word is going to be used at all, it should be along the lines of "Bush seeking protection for possible White House crimes with immunity request."

Ezra Klein calls Malkin out on her goon-squad-leading tactics against Graeme Frost and family. UPDATE: SadlyNo! on it. Must see. [end update]

"It’s militant leftist bloggers," writes Malkin, "who wouldn’t know a good-faith argument if it bit them in the lip." Let's have a good faith argument. I will debate Michelle Malkin anytime, anywhere, in any forum (save HotAir TV, which she controls), on the particulars of S-CHIP.

Spread the word about this so Malkin can't pretend she hasn't heard about it. Please. I REALLY want to see this debate. REALLY. Spread the word.

Klein's full post below.

UPDATE: I changed the title. I just found this at Limbaugh's. It's from today.

Of course, the story coming out of Oakland -- and I guess there's some controversy about it, but -- apparently some Marines getting home, landing at Oakland, were spit on by people in the Oakland airport. Now, I haven't been able to confirm it, but it's on a couple blogs and apparently there are some witnesses that say that they did see it.

"Some controversty to it." The controversy being that not even in the most ardent RW blogs is there any mention of actual "spitting." But Limbaugh takes this non-story about an imagined dissing of troops for being troops and now has witnesses - witnesses to SPITTING ON TROOPS. Unbelievable. Michael Ledeen - you've done the job that only someone with your complete lack of ethics could do. END UPDATE.

A Tale of Three (so far) Emails.

[UPDATE: Free Republic has it now. Comments. Are. Priceless. It's all "lefty  Oakland's" doing.]

[UPDATE II: See below. Really. (And read Soonergrunt's comment.)

Michael Ledeen has never seen a "spitting on the troops" story he didn't like. In this post, entitled "Spitting on the Marines," [woo hoo!] he tells us about an email he received:

Spitting on the Marines   [Michael Ledeen]

Here is an e-mail from a Marine chaplain recently returned from Iraq. The story speaks for itself—lousy treatment of our troops at our own airports. He writes about Oakland, and while checking around I find that this is a common experience. I hope that one of our leaders will find a way to put an end to such behavior.

Marines and Soldiers Returning from Iraq not allowed into Oakland terminal...

Shocking soggy spat-upon details below.

Now this is just weird. The Weekly Standard, via Think Progress, has a defense of Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" comment. Michael Goldfarb says that Limbaugh was talking about actual phony soldiers, like Jesse Macbeth. (You're probably familiar with that story.)

Trascripts below.

I doubt that Julie Pierce or Michael Moore would object if I post the whole letter here for this traffic, but click on the link if you would. I've got nothing to add to it except that it should be required reading for a few people here too.

September 14th, 2007 11:03 pm

Open Letter to ABC's John Stossel ... from Julie Pierce, American SiCKO
Dear John,

My name is Julie Pierce. My husband was Tracy Pierce. I am featured in Michael Moore's documentary 'SiCKO.' In the movie, I share my deceased husband's story — his unsuccessful battle with our insurance company to receive what could have been life-saving treatments for kidney cancer.

I just read your Wall Street Journal article written on Sept. 13, 2007, titled "Sick Sob Stories." You begin by talking about Tracy's role in 'SiCKO,' and claim the bone marrow transplant denied by our insurer would not have saved him. You also accuse me of "sneering" over our situation.

As you've no doubt heard, Senator Larry Craig will announce his resignation from the U.S. Senate tomorrow.

Goodbye and good luck (a wish some here may not agree with - that's fine). And may the governor of the great state of Idaho be so moved by the state of our nation that he decides to appoint a Democrat to fill your seat. (Thank you in advance, Governor Otter, you've done a good thing.)

My only question about this, and one that I think should be shouted from the rooftops (DKos being one of the spires): Why hasn't Senator David Vitter resigned? (Link goes to the great Greenwald piece.)

More…

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, with too little help from me, on torture.

June 16, 2007, OTTAWA -- Justice Antonin Scalia is one of the most powerful judges on the planet.

The job of the veteran U.S. Supreme Court judge is to ensure that the superpower lives up to its Constitution. But in his free time, he is obsessed with Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, an American serial killer who raped, tortured, killed, committed necrophilia with, dismembered, and cannibalized several men and boys between 1978 and 1991. This much was made clear at a legal conference in Ottawa this week.

Michael Moore challenged Fred Thomspon to a debate today regarding his trip to Cuba for the making of his film, Sicko. Moore made the challenge because of the hypocrisy of Thompson's criticism, given that he happily boasts about smoking the best Cuban cigars.

Thompson has just released a video response to Moore, telling him that he should look into another documentary film maker, one that Fidel Castro "had put in a mental institution" because he didn't like his documentary.

All while holding a cigar.

A Good Ol' Boy's Simple Rundown of the Justice Department Scandal

I got me to thinking the other day that there's lots of folks out there that just don't seem to understand what the heck's going on in all this U.S. Attorney shenanigans we keep hearing about from them news people. A whole bunch of 'em keep telling us it's a whole lot a hoopla about nothin' - and a lot of folks seem to believe 'em. Well, I ain't so sure. And I think I got a little tale to tell to make it all a whole lot simpler to understand.

As has been noted, an official Karl Rove investigation has begun. It's being run by Scott J. Bloch, the Special Counsel in charge of the Office of Special Counsel.

As noted in the L.A. Times story, Bloch will be heading an investigation into:

...the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities...

Presidential appointees?