(Note: this has been diaried by smash artist and by nathanrudy, but both those diaries scrolled off the list. This brutal fact should be given much broader play, IMO. - o.h.)

John McCain says he supports the troops. Too bad they don't support him.

  Attorney General Michael Mukasey today prevented what would undoubtedly have proven to be the worst case of writer's cramp in human history when he declared that violations of the law are not crimes.

  President George W. Bush immediately called Mukasey and thanked him profusely for eliminating the need for one of the most tedious jobs on the lame-duck president's to-do list: writing out a series of presidential pardons for every person who had ever done anything ever for the BushCheney administration.

On his program this morning Thom Hartmann mentioned some off-the-record conversations he had had with Democratic congressional insiders regarding the possibility of impeachment just 100 days or so away from November’s general election.

These insiders told Hartmann that the Democrats would not push for impeachment so close to the election because, as has been said so many times before, "impeachment would suck all of the oxygen out of the room."  Their belief is that the traditional media, with their deranged sense of "balance," would apportion all of their coverage of any impeachment hearings to the "Democratic" side of the ledger, and grant the bulk of the remaining, "Republican," side of the ledger to coverage of John McCain.

In other words, media coverage would consist of two things: John McCain, and impeachment.

I cannot think of a better way to win in a landslide this November than for exactly that to happen.  Let me explain:

Note: Tybalt had a diary up on this a few hours ago, but unfortunately it scrolled off. - o.h.

The just-released report (PDF file) from the Department of Justice's inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility surprised no one here with its finding that the Alberto Gonzales-led DOJ broke the law with its handling of the hirings and firings of federal prosecutors.

I guess when you've got column inches to fill, you'll grab at anything.

Appearing in the LA Times' online edition under the headline

Obama's path to presidency is far from clear

is the following mind-reeling observation:

O’REILLY: Okay, now he shows up on Saturday at the most hateful - there is not — and I’m including the Nazis and the Klan in here — there is not a more hateful group in the country than these Daily Kos people . . . Hateful, hateful, hateful. The rhetoric that they use and the rhetoric that the Klan and the Nazis use are the same rhetoric. It’s hate. Everyone knows that.

Note: Blow Riley asked me if I would post this for him, and since I didn't have another diary planned for today, I agreed. Evidently, he attended NN'08 in Austin, and was so excited by what he saw there that he immediately registered on Daily Kos. When he found out he'd have to wait a week before he could submit a diary, he got frantic. I figured posting this was the least I could do for him. From the looks of it, it seems like The Bill O'Viator had a somewhat different experience than the rest of us had. But let's let him tell it in his own words and pictures, shall we? - o.h.

NOTE: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES WHICH MAY SHOCK SOME READERS.

While it's fresh in everyone's mind, I thought it would be worthwhile for those who attended Netroots Nation - and even those who didn't - to toss in their $.02 about what was good, what was great, and what can be done to improve the convention next year.

Well, Adam B just beat me to it, so I'm scratching the "suggestions" part of the diary (I've instead posted that as an extra-long comment in his thread) - but let's have some fun with the trivial, insubstantial, juicy, scandalous time-wasting gossipy stuff from NN'08, shall we? Please, feel free to dish on whomever and whatever in the comments . . . - o.h.

Nancy Pelosi landed in hostile territory here in Austin, and made her way to the lectern greeted not by flowers and little Bosnian girls, but by Gina Cooper and a list of pointed questions.

No body armor, circling Black Hawks or evasive maneuvers.

UPDATE: Okay, Nancy, the cavalry's here. You can relax. Al Gore just came onstage. Well played, too: In a Giuliani-esque bit of stagecraft, Pelosi looked to her Blackberry, and started to "read aloud" an "e-mail" from a friend, when Gore's recorded voice came over the convention center's speakers, whereupon he strode out onto the stage. Nicely done, nicely done.

And, more to the point - Pelosi's question period is done, I think. We'll see . . .

Not much to report here. During a police car chase the other day, the car being driven by the suspect struck and killed two as-yet unidentified people on Hollywood Boulevard here in L.A.

It turns out that the man police arrested for driving the fleeing car is an ex-Marine who served in Afghanistan. His sister says his experiences during the war changed him.

- unless you want to LOSE!

Don't ask me how, but somehow John McCain found out that DemocraticLuntz was looking for people to round out his team for this year's Netroots Nation Pub Quiz.

. . . all I got left is cynicism, snark and recycled outrage.

See, it was easy back in '06 - when things were soooo bad. I mean, outrage was running, what – buck-and-a-quarter, maybe six bits a gallon back then, right? I was livin’ large, drivin' the Escalade of outrage – we all were. And it was easy back then to figure out who our collective outrage should be aimed at:

Those filthy, nasty Republicans

- who, after all, were actually running things, so blaming everything on them was totally legitimate.

And I was committed to taking Congress away from those cretinous bastards so we could put a stop to the occupation of Iraq, and to warrantless wiretapping of Americans, and to the whole idea of the President as king. You know, like we did 230 years ago, right?

Madame Speaker, inasmuch as you have elected not to pursue impeachment against any member of the current administration for anything whatsoever, in spite of significant evidence of malfeasance, one can only assume that, in your estimation, the activities of the current administration do not - whether individually or collectively - rise to the level of "impeachable offenses." Can you, then, so that we will know precisely what to look for in the future, please detail for the American public exactly - exactly - what constitutes impeachable offenses?

How cool is that? Netroots Nation is featuring an "Ask the Speaker" forum, wherein attendees can submit ideas for questions to be asked of Madame Speaker at next week's events! Awesome!

Senator McCain: I am PREPARED TO DEFEND the use of your military record as PROOF of your QUALIFICATION TO SERVE AS PRESIDENT -

I lack only the tools.

Help ME to help YOU.

I can assure you that the diary I was going to post today was a treasure of erudition, snark and insight, and would have redirected the political discourse in this nation to a higher plane. But screw that – I’ll post it tonight. This is more important:

DARCY BURNER NEEDS OUR HELP.

DONATE HERE

So Former Naval POW John McCain walks into the American Presidential audition room and proceeds to shuck and jive through his entire schtick, twirling his POW flag around while telling you that he's not, and trying to convince America to vote for him because everybody tells him he'd be a swell president.

Gen. Wesley Clark, sitting in Simon Cowell's chair, can't take any more and raises his hand to stop the music.

"You're a terrific juggler," Gen. Clark says, "but

your future involves not being president."

Well, after the Supreme Court’s stellar 5-4 decision today in D.C. v. Heller (PDF file), I am saving all my pennies for the day when Antonin Scalia decrees that I can legally possess a TOW missile – because, as his majority opinion makes clear, he gets to decide what weaponry I get to own.

While I must say I'm mildly encouraged by Russ Feingold's rather circumspect hinting that he might maybe sorta filibuster the current FISA bill never mind - there's a possibility that the Senate won't even get to the bill before the recess - BUT WHATEVER: I still think we need to be prepared in case this steaming turd passes. And - entrenched as I firmly am in the when-it's-inevitable-you-might-as-well-enjoy-it camp - I figure we should try to make the best of what will otherwise be a bad situation. To wit:

In all of this talk about telco immunity in the FISA bill, the same question keeps popping into my mind:

Just exactly which constituency is it that's clamoring for telco immunity?