Josh Marshall has a couple of posts from readers who note that the media seems to "get it" about the gas-tax-holidy nonsense.  IMHO, they (the media) and, it seems, many others, don't actually "get it."  Some half, get it, but stop short of full understanding.

Those TMP reader comments (then, my thoughts below the jump).

There is little, if any written legal legacy coming out on Harriet Miers. Hasn't been a judge, so no legal opinions. But the former (and current) clerks among us know that we had a tiny bit of influence over how opinions were shaped, and our input was sometimes sought in how they turned out.  We were, in a sense, the lawyer for the judge.

Harriet Miers was a clerk, no?  Chief Judge Estes in 1971 & 1972?  Well Estes wasn't prolific either -- do a Lexis search for "opinionby" Estes and you get only about two dozen opinions. And for reasons not germane here, not even all of those are pertinent.

So what does this all mean?  More below the flip, as they say.

[Subtitle this Diary -- What the Downing Street Minutes and Other Documents Really Mean]

There has been a ton of chatter and babble on dKos about what the Downing Street Minutes mean.  A lot of hand wriging about the MSM/RWCM and their failure to highlight these documents.

And there has been all kinds of "see, I told you so" about these "smoking guns" and outrage that the long arm of the law is not arresting the man holding the gun.

Well, let me add my $0.02 to the conversation and offer an explanation as to why this is giving you all fits and what you might be able to do about it.

That's what Bush supporter, Jerry Gossett of Wichita Falls

is alleging.

More below the jump. *UPDATED*

Executive summary:

Todays' (April 11) "best of the web" on the WSJ site tells Kerry to be careful and "not embarrass" himself by (their assumption) quoting the Onion as fact.

Jim Taranto may want to be careful himself . . . putz - or liar, you decide.

[More below the fold.]

I read this piece in the New York Times this morning and can't decide what to make of it.

On the one hand, it seems to warn democrats about any "rethinking" of the position on abortion.

On the other hand, it seems to gleefully nudge the democrats for what the author sees as lack of a cohesive position on the issue.

What struck me most, though was this lead-in assertion:

Now, I've not heard anything from either Clinton or Dean (set aside the fact that no one outside the 4th Estate considers Clinton a "party leader") on this issue.  As for Clinton, it wouldn't surprise me that she'd stake out pragmatic positions on this.

But as to Dean -- our party's leader -- I would bet dollars to donuts that this is just an out and out false statement.

When Bush asks the U.S. to trust him to best lead the nation in the war against terrorism, do we really need to look any further than the August 6, 2001 PDB?

I mean, c'mon.  The POTUS gets a memo that says "bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" and his administration says that such an attack was unforeseeable.

Do we really need to go beyond this collossal fuck up?  Can someone please make a pithy flash animimation commercial for widespread dissemination?

In response to a recent story regarding new ad spends in "battleground" states, I commented that it was time for me (a Chicagoan) to venture north where my help could be used.  Kerry and Obama seem to have Illinois pretty well sewn up.

Trouble was, I didn't know how to help or who to ask for help to help . . .  you get the point.

Well, my request was granted.  Daniel Biss is that man (see below).  He's the man with the plan -- new to dKos (welcome Daniel).  I repost below his e-mail to me.

I don't know as I can make this weekend, but I guarantee that I'll be up in Wisconsin helping Kerry  carry the land of cheese and Brett Favre!

I read an opinion piece by Sylvia Smith yesterday that I wasn't particularly taken by. Ms. Smith's main thesis was that the current debate about Vietnam service wasn't relevant to the question of who could be a better commander in chief.

Fair enough.

But in the process, I thought she was far too "even handed," as journalists are wont to do these days.  Report what one side said, report what the other side said, don't evaluate either one for truth or credibility and claim that you are being "fair."

Well, I kinda had enough, so I wrote to Ms. Smith, who is, accoding to www.fortwayne.com,

A 31-year veteran of The Journal Gazette, Sylvia Smith has covered Washington for 15 years. She is the only Washington-based reporter who exclusively covers northeast Indiana. Her e-mail address is sylviasmith@jg.net, and her phone number is 202-879-6710.

Her Op Ed is excerpted below first.  Then my letter to her.  Finally, her response letter to me. In fairness to her, I'm going to respond and link this diary so she can join whatever discussion might ensue.

Interspersed, of course, is my additional commentary.

You may recall that Lawrence Lessig invited Howard Dean to "guest blog" way back when.

Recently, Lessig's guest has been Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner. Its definitely worth a look.

OK, so I received an email today that was crytic enough to pique my curiousity, but I lack the techie skills and knowledge to decipher things completely.

The message appears to come from POTUS.  The "from" in my Microsoft(R) Outlook Express inbox says "The President."  The "to" line is "Jnimble11@comcast.net." I assume that I was "blind copied."

The subject is "Testy Test" and the only message text is "Attempting the Perfect Spoof."

I double clicked the "from" and it indeed appears to come from the POTUS's email address (President@whitehouse.gov).  Since that exhausts the limits of my technical abilities, I'm posting more info in the "extended copy" for any tech wizards to decipher.

Curious if anyone else got a similar message or what to make of it.

I don't know if I'm late to the party on this one (was out of town on biz all last week so I had limited dKos exposure) or what.  This just seemed like the sort of "War of the Worlds" explanatory message that precedes the "real news" and makes everyone forget that the "real news" is actually fake.

(I'm forwarding a copy to Kos if you want further info on it beyond the stuff in extended copy).

Forgive me if this is a "duplicate" entry, but I have not seen boo about this topic and, IMHO, it ought to be the only thing that we are talking about these days -- the Senate is pinning the blame for invasion based on faulty intel on the CIA.

Last Friday, the Senate released a preliminary report that blisters the CIA as the source of overstated intelligence on Iraq and its supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Commentary is, among other places, here where the Sun Times says that:

The key U.S. assertions leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was working to make nuclear weapons -- were wrong and based on false or overstated CIA analyses, a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report said Friday.

I'm having none of it.  Why?  Because I have a memory and this story is directly in conflict with one that I was told about a year ago.

This might only merit "open thread" material, but since it pissed me off so much when I heard it yesterday, I thought I'd vent here and give you all an opportunity to unload on Ashcroft or on me.

Here it is:

Yesterday, driving home from a court hearing, NPR replayed a news conference with John Ashcroft regarding the incitment of a CIA "contractor" for abuse connected to the death of an Iraqi prisoner.

Why does he have to say stupid sh!t like this:

* * * *
*BIRD'S WHITE VIEW

Larry Bird believes the NBA could use more white superstars to entertain white fans.

In an interview with ESPN that will air Thursday, the former Celtics great responded to a question asking whether the league lacks white stars.

"I think so," he said. "You know when I played, you had me and Kevin (McHale) and some others throughout the league. I think it's good for a fan base because as we all know, the majority of fans are white America. And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited. But it is a black man's game, and it will be forever. I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American."

Bird also said he felt insulted during his playing days when he was guarded by a white player. He remembers telling them, "You got no chance."

Though Bird's remarks sparked some debate on talk shows and in newspapers, they didn't cause any stir at the NBA Finals.

And Denver's Carmelo Anthony and Cleveland's LeBron James, also participating in the round-table interview, disagreed with Bird.

"Race is not an issue," Anthony said. "Where I'm from, people love the Yao Mings, the Dirks, the Pejas. They love these guys. I don't think race is an issue right now."

I've been thinking more and more that the correct approach to the news hype on Kerry's war record has to be flat out indignance.

Someone asks him about "medals vs. ribbons" one more time and he needs to either laugh in their faces or give them a tongue lashing that they'll never soon forget.

Are we seriously talking about the purity of this purely symbolic gesture, when there are both real Chickenhawks in the WH and a real occupation going on and real lies and hypocrisies spewed daily from Cheney's mouth re: "cutting spending" in the DoD?

A little indignity, please.  Sheesh.  Kerry is a master of indiginty when he can't get first in line in a movie in Boston.  How about a little for the press corps who can't locate a real issue affecting Americans if their lives depended on it.

As much as I try to like and even respect Republicans, it happens very infrequently. I tend to view their opinions as uninfomred and based on faulty logic or misguided principles.

There are, though, a few who I can tolerate listening to and a tiny handful who's opinions I actually value.  They are probably "Republicans" from my vantage point, but they tend to be very apolitical or at least "non partisan."

David Gergen is one of those people to me.  I don't always agree with him, but he seems like he has his thumb on the pulse of things pretty well. My dad is another one.

NB - He's 64, a semi-retired school teacher, formerly a dyed in the wool union democrat, a practicing Catholic, and lately a "Reagan Democrat."

Apologies if this has been pointed out elsewhere, but I just visited the SF Gate web page for a story on Iraq and saw an awesome Kerry Flash animation.

Here's the link that I visited.

The flash is GWB with a crown on a stack of gold.  Kerry is way beneath him.  A check for $25 appears, goes into an envelope addressed to Kerry.  Then many envelopes pile up and raise Kerry up to just above Bush's level.  Kerry leans over and pushes Bush in the chest and Bush falls over.

In a word: Brilliant.  I just wish that Dean and Co. had been capable of this level of media saavy.

And, apologies for not being technically saavy enough to link the animation directly.

It always seems to spark controversy.  Say "McCain" and quote him bashing Bush and many folks here go "ga ga" over the possibility.

Many, myself included go queasy for other reasons (i.e., disgust) at the thought.  It seems to me, though, that McCain would make net positives to Kerry (as much as I hate the thought of it) because there would be nowhere else for liberals to turn.

But am I right?  Assume that:

• monkeys have just flown out of my a@@;
• pigs can fly;
• that the Cubs just won the World Series
• that hell has frozen over and that
• yes, John Kerry has chosen John McCain as his running mate.

What would you do?
(sincerest apologies if this has been polled before).