Watch out, Lou Dobbs. Max and the Marginalized have burritos and they're not afraid to use them.

A nice Sunday tune. "If I had Eyes"

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this Week with George Stephanopoulos notes the passings of director-actor-producer Sidney Pollack, french fry magnate J.R. Simplot, actor Harvey Korman as well as 9 troop members in Iraq and Afghanistan, which, according to icasualties.org, brings the casualty count for Iraq to 4,397. IBC reports 191 Iraqi civilian casualties this week.

Also, reported today, Gen. William E. Odom passed away:

William E. Odom, 75, a retired Army lieutenant general who was a senior military and intelligence official in the Carter and Reagan administrations and who, in recent years, became a forceful critic of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, died May 30 at his vacation home in Lincoln, Vt. [..]

He had a reputation as a military hard-liner who opposed any compromise with the Soviet Union, which made his vocal opposition to the current involvement in Iraq all the more cogent and surprising.

"Among senior military people, he was probably the first to consider the war in Iraq a misbegotten adventure," Brzezinski said yesterday. "He believed that we're just stoking hostility to the United States in that region and developing an opposition that cannot be defeated by military means. He was very outspoken."

Hillary Clinton's speech transcript

Reuters:

Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nominating contest in Puerto Rico on Sunday, but still badly trails front-runner Barack Obama as he draws closer to clinching the party's presidential nomination.
Clinton's win in Puerto Rico, a territory where residents are not allowed to vote in the November election, gave her more fuel for her argument that she has won more popular votes and is the best Democrat to face Republican John McCain.

But the results pushed Obama closer to the magic number of 2,118 delegates needed to become the nominee, and the Illinois senator already has turned his attention to a general election fight with McCain.

Two contests on Tuesday in Montana and South Dakota, with 31 pledged delegates to the August nominating convention at stake, conclude the voting in the Democratic presidential race.

According to CNN, the delegate count is 38 for Clinton; 17 for Obama.

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Well, well, well, a Bush protest at Furman University. And he talks about of all things---redemption.

WaPo:

Delivering the final commencement address of his tenure, President Bush told supporters and protesters at Furman University here Saturday that he was far from "a model citizen" when he left college but that "it is never too late to recover and get back on track."

How many jokes could be written about this?

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Although he received a warm welcome, Bush's visit was preceded by controversy as more than 200 faculty and students signed a letter objecting to his policies on the Iraq war, detentions and other issues. A conservative group responded with its own, larger list of signatories, and said the protesters were being disrespectful of the presidency and of graduating seniors.

Several dozen protesters greeted Bush's arrival outside the stadium Saturday, and a group of 14 faculty members stood during Bush's speech while wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase "WE OBJECT."

Bush made a joking reference to the protests, telling the audience: "I, too, am a strong believer in free speech. And to prove it, I'm about to give you one."...read on

Since Scotty McClellan came out with his new book called "What Happened," in which he was very harsh on President Bush over a host of issues including partisianship, the Iraq war and the Valerie Plame leak---there has been a very interesting response to it. It's expected that the White House and the rest of the 28%ers would attach him as not qualified for the job, incompetent, a traitor, a phony and a kook, but I think the media has offered up some of the most informative opinions on him and in essence about themselves because he attacked on their war coverage. Martha Raddatz, ABC chief White House correspondent not surprisingly defends her coverage and then tells us something that I would have expected to come from the lips of from David Frum.

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RADDATZ: Yet, he seemed like a robot with a new software program on this one. I mean he was on message. It was just a very different message that he was -- he was delivering.

Is he a Cylon or part of the Borg!

He's not even human now. But she was never pressured to change her coverage.

RADDATZ: First of all, we're not a monolithic thing here. But my own experience, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, I was never pressured at all. But in the end, and I think Scott McClellan writes this, George Bush decided to take the country to war even though most people believe there were weapons of mass destruction. It was his decision that sent us to war. But I got absolutely no pressure

Some people needed that push and some people didn't.

Continue reading »

Gosh, where would we all be without NY Times columnist David Brooks to tell us what is and isn't important? After all, John McCain's statement that he was right about Iraq was predicated on the notion that the surge was successful and that troop levels are back to pre-surge numbers. The fact that he is wrong about that (both the actual troop numbers and the definition of success, come to that) is of little matter to Brooks when considering his fitness as Commander-in-Chief. Why focus on little niggling details like actual troop numbers? You nitpickers.

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Think Progress:

Contrary to Brooks’s claim that “no one’s going to care” about McCain’s reading of troop levels in Iraq, the issue is critically important. As Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) noted, “If you don’t know the number of troops it’s very difficult to make a judgment on if they are over-extended.”

Brooks claimed that McCain has a “pretty strong case” that he has been “right” about Iraq. But McCain’s gaffes are the latest in a series of ignorant comments about Iraq that raise questions about a candidate who has staked his campaign on the war.

And yet, McSame is supposed to have more credibility on Iraq than Obama, why? Could it be because the talking heads that have been wrong time and time again--and I'm looking at you, Bobo--keep telling us that a grasp of facts isn't all that important?

The Onion: Congress Debates Merits Of New Catchphrases

Do you think so? Appearing on MTP this morning, Scotty told Russert that Rove should have been fired over his roll in the Valerie Plame leak case. We all remember the changing narratives that Bush put forth in regards to how he would handle anybody that leaked Plame's name who were part of HIS administration.

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Via MSNBC:

MR. RUSSERT: The president said at the time that "if someone committed a crime, they'd no longer work in my administration." Do you believe the president should have fired Karl Rove?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's a, that's a question that the president had to make, and he chose not to.

MR. RUSSERT: But what do you think?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I, I think he should have stood by his word. I think the president should have stood by the word that we said, which is if you were involved in this any way, then you would no longer be in this administration. And Karl was involved in it. That would be a tough decision. I don't know if, if there was any crime committed. I don't--I say I just don't know that in the book. But we had higher standards at the White House. The president said he was going to restore honor, integrity. He said we were going to set the highest of standards. We didn't live up to that. When it became known that his top adviser had been involved, then the bar was moved. And the bar was moved to "if anyone is indicted, they would no longer be here."
MR. RUSSERT: So you think they should've been dismissed.

MR. McCLELLAN: I think so. I mean, Scooter Libby was, and I, and I think that he should..

MR. RUSSERT: Well, he resigned. But you...

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. But that was pushed out.

MR. RUSSERT: But you believe Rove--Rove should've, should've left?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the president should've stood by his word, and that meant Karl should've left.

Think Progress:

Yesterday, MoveOn launched a petition calling on former White House press secretary Scott McClellan to donate the proceeds from his new book to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This morning on NBC’s Meet the Press, McClellan promised to give a portion of the profits to these men and women.

It's not all, but a portion. However, without giving McClellan too much credit, it's a damn sight more than any other Bush administration official has done.