He's resigning! He's not resigning!

He's leaving! He's not leaving! And now...

Larry and Suzanne Craig agree to primetime interview

Sen. Larry Craig will sit down with Matt Lauer of NBC News for what is billed an "exclusive and wide-ranging" interview about the accusations that he was trolling for sex in the men's room when a plainclothes cop arrested him in June at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The interview with Craig and his wife, Suzanne, will be broadcast next Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET.

And there's more...

Move over, Larry Craig. Gangway, David Vitter.

Joey DiFatta - a St. Bernard Parish councilman and (until today) a candidate for the Louisiana State Senate - has been caught tappin' toes in a mall bathroom just outside New Orleans.

Twice.

Oh, and both times were just terrible misunderstandings.

Leading this morning on the New York Times website:

In Aiding Poor, Edwards Built Bridge to 2008

John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.

Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.

A spokesman for Mr. Edwards defended the center yesterday as a legitimate tool against poverty.

More under the jump.

"...And now we go to "Laura" in California. Hello, Laura."

Hi, Dr. Laura.

"What can I do for you today?"

Well...I'm worried about my son. He's a soldier in Afghanistan, and it seems that he created a very disturbing webpage...

Well, somebody had to go over to The Steaming Pits of Hell and see what they were saying about the Holy Leader's blessing of the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill.

And it shocked even me. I was expecting some laughs, but the Schadenfreude I felt at their horrified betrayal by the Dauphin was just too rich. Rich rich. I mean, Stilton-and-port rich. With a side of gout.

Actual responses from the Bush faithful regarding Dear Leader's perfidy -- and do keep in mind that these are the rock-ribbed faithful, who have defended him come the hell of Iraq and the high water of Katrina:

I made a joke in another thread about the Rev. Fred Phelps and his kkkrewe showing up to picket Falwell's funeral. (No, I'm not linking to Phelps' site here.)

But, as Lily Tomlin once said, "No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up."

Behold:

The UK newspaper The Independent recently ran a commentary by Rupert Cornwell contrasting the last days of the Bush administration to the end of the Sopranos. Like the Bush administration, The Sopranos has run for eight years; unlike the Bush administration, it hasn't faltered in its mission or execution.

And it's been a damn sight better well-written.

That said: Watching tonight's episode, I was struck by a few psychological parallels between the family Soprano and the family Bush.

(There's a mild semi-spoiler under the flip, so if you haven't watched the US broadcast of April 22...thanks for reading this far, at least...)

The site OlbermannWatch -- the personal effort by blogger Robert A. Cox to document the atrocities of Keith Olbermann, has been shuttered.

We had held out hope that MSNBC would allow Olbermann's contract to expire even up until the last few weeks. But the deal is done and our Countdown Clock expired at midnight on March 1, 2007.

Faced with Olbermann's new four-year deal with NBC Universal, Mr. Cox seems to have taken his blog and gone home...

As you may know, the very august and superswanky National Press Club held an event on Feb. 20 where they agreed that bloggers are very, very bad people:

David Gregory: Because it- it's the Internet, and the blogs, that have really used this White House press conference to somehow support positions out in America- political views...and I think people try to divine motives of the questioners and- and certainly draw conclusions about, uh, the answers, or- or non-answers, uh, based on their, their, their own political views.

That was the tenor of the meeting. (And - as Kossack STOP George noted - legendary man-whore White House correspondent Jeff Gannon was in attendance.)

All very funny. We get it. Bloggers is bad mens (and wimmens).

So why is the NPC teaching a Blogging 101 class to its members on March 12?

"Do you like my cowboy hat?"

The woman at Louis Armstrong Airport was heading back to Oregon, but right now she was beaming, holding out her camera to me. "I was just inside, admiring it on some guy, and he insisted I take it."

I snapped her photo, and she told me about her trip, the fun she'd had, the people she'd met, clearly intoxicated on the city, the experience, and perhaps a midday brew or two. "New Orleans people," she concluded, "are all so nice. They are the nicest."

She was on my flight, along with a member of the Portland Trail Blazers and an Oregon family who had come up for the LSU/Notre Dame game. As we were getting ready to deplane, they were talking: "The only thing that could have been better," one of them said, "was if the Irish had won."

"Well, look at the good side," somebody else said. "At least we didn't get shot at or murdered."

She was a legend, a star, and an R&B queen of the 1950s who was reduced to working as a maid a decade later. Twenty years after that, she won a Tony Award and a Grammy. And, in her 70s, she was touring the country with Bonnie Raitt.

All very nice. But what Ruth Brown did was change the musical landscape for dozens of her contemporaries - her contemporaries who were cheated out of their royalties due to duplicitous record company accounting.

Come freude with me...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 13, 2006 Fargo, ND ... Ed Schultz, host of America's fastest growing progressive talk radio program The Ed Schultz Show, today assured his listeners and fans that his show is independently owned, operated and in no danger of bankruptcy or other financial obstacles...

Schultz' assurances that all is well at The Ed Schultz Show and at Schultz's partner and co-owner Product 1st, the programming company owned by long-time radio executives Randy Michaels and Stu Krane, were sparked by news of  bankruptcy filings at a liberal talk network in no way related to Schultz. (my emphasis)

Why I'm getting email from Schultz, and why this pisses me off so very much, is under the cut.

Some points of interest from the interview:

* Since the gates slammed shut at Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar in San Diego, she hasn't had one visitor. Not one. Marie Claire accompanied her mother for her first visit to the prison, along with England's baby by her former lover and fellow abuser Charles Graner.

* England now refers to Graner as "Shithead."

* And England chose to pose for Marie Claire wearing a T-shirt that says "Desert Rock," in a takeoff of the Hard Rock Café T-shirts.

Personally, I wouldn't want to choose clothing that would remind people of my role in something like Abu Ghraib, but I guess that's what makes her ineffably Lynndie...as is the following:

Remember when 9/11 happened? In the rush of hyperbole, we were all convinced it represented the one cataclysmic occurrence that was utterly sacred. It would be forevermore depicted with the proper reverence and respect or not at all. This was hallowed historical territory, after all. Well, it took a mere five years for TV to render that ideal obsolete. We always hear protestations of, "It's too soon!" Well, in that spirit, allow me to chime in that it's too soon to be tampering with this truth as we would an urban legend.

As a member of the next population bubble (labeled by the media and marketed to as "Generation X"), I can sum it up for the hippies:

You had Jimi Hendrix. We had Jimmy McNichol.

Okay. That's too facile. (To be honest, we didn't want Jimi Hendrix either.)

Medved has consistently defended The Passion of the Christ and Gibson himself against charges of anti-Semitism:

If nothing else, the bitter disputes and free-floating anxiety over The Passion of The Christ should help enlighten the Jewish community to the identity of our true enemies today?and our truest friends. A sane perspective on the public reaction to the movie's artistry and message may yet help Gibson achieve his original goal of promoting unity, rather than division, among Christians, Jews, and the rest of humanity.

So what did Michael have to say on his radio show today?

The deputy quickly subdued Gibson, cuffed him and put him inside the patrol car.

Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, "You mother f***r. I'm going to f* you." The report also says "Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he 'owns Malibu' and will spend all of his money to 'get even' with me."

The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: "F**g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Gibson then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"