George Will with one of his sour-puss looks of the day during the panel discussion on This Week where he was actually outnumbered by those evil liberal pundits on one of the bobble head shows; those being Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Al Sharpton and Bill Maher. How horribly unfair of ABC News to allow him to be ganged up on like that.

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It's awfully nice to see one real liberal on This Week's roundtable. Katrina Vanden Heuvel gets to the heart of the matter. (In another part of the discussion, she pointed out that the arguments over torture "aren't a political football game" and chided the other panelists that outside the Beltway, things look very different.)

STEFANOPOULUS: The White House is obviously sensitive to this charge on flip-flopping, but does it matter if you end up in a place where you're going to get a lot of support?

CARVILLE: Look, first of all, if you say that my general said I shouldn't release this, it'll cause a spike, and the president says okay, I won't release it, I mean, I think that, as George pointed out, was something he said during the campaign, we'd be awfully uncomfortable as Democrats if he was releasing these pictures tomorrow and these were things that General Petraeus and Secretary Gates were saying - and with a new command coming into Afghanistan, General McCrystal, would have said, "Don't do that," so let me tell you, as a Democrat, I'm very glad he decided to listen to what his commanders said. And it may very well be that as it winds its way through the courts, the courts will release them anyway.

STEFANOPOULUS:: That may be, and maybe part of the calculation is that they are gonna come out eventually. But we're at a critical time in Iraq now as troops are moving out of the cities, we're heading toward elections in Afghanistan and the timing here did matter.

CARVILLE: Right. And again, you would not want to be president and have the secretary of defense and your top commanders come back and say we advise against doing this. That would make me uncomfortable, and I'm a pretty good Democrat.

CHENEY: Those same people advised against doing it before the White House publicly announced they would be releasing those photos, so it's a little disingenuous to say, you know, he made the decision based on what the military commanders were saying

VANDEN HEUVEL: But it's also buying the military argument that the release of these photos will increase violence. These photos - Guantanamo, Bagram - that has been the cause for any anti-Americanism and our actions, our policies in escalating in Afghanistan.

CARVILLE: I agree with you, we became infatuated with torture. We should have never done that. However, given the reason that you have these photographs is because they exist, having said all of that, if these generals come in and you're the president and they said you shouldn't do it right now, I don't envy the decision, but I'm more comfortable as a Democrat with him making this decision than another decision.

There's a certain amount of "outrage fatigue" you experience when blogging about the state of our union. The amount of bad news that I recount here makes it harder and harder for me to stay positive.

So thank heavens for Katrina vanden Heuvel for focusing on positive changes we could make to benefit us all. How does this list look to you? What would you add, subtract, or expand upon?

Alternet:

...House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will begin to answer that call (of the November 2006 elections) by pushing a "100 Hours" agenda -- including common-sense legislation to increase the minimum wage, cut interest on student loans and open the way for Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.

That's a good beginning, but it's only a down payment on a broader agenda. Progressives now have the opportunity to develop a new vision that returns power to the American people for the first time in generations. But to-do lists don't add up to a vision. But Democrats must show they are serious by passing bold measures that define a new "people's agenda." With that in mind, here are ten existing pieces of legislation that deserve to be passed by our new Congress.

Read Katrina's list here

Katie needs a hug.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Pat Buchanan joined Katie Couric on the Today Show, to discuss President Bush's admission that he bypassed the FISA court for wiretaps. Pat got a little hot under the collar and to millions of people "misspoke" about the way the FISA court works.

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Pat: You cannot go to bureaucratic court and wait seventy two hours for a warrant after we've been hit with something like 9/11.

Pat should know (because it's the one thing that even the apologists agree with) that just the opposite is in effect. Bush didn't have to wait seventy two hours for a warrant under the current FISA protocols, but had that amount of time to then file after they started eavesdropping. Katie hadn't a clue about the law and was content to just pose for a big smile and say,"You know I could talk with both of you about it for an hour..." How about knowing the most basic fact of the case-Katie?

C&L Exclusive: Audio interview with Katrina Vanden Heuvel

Katrina has just become the Publisher for The Nation Magazine, after being the editor since 1995. She has just released a new book entitled, "Dictionary of Republicanisms," which is thoroughly entertaining. I spent about thirty minutes interviewing her Friday afternoon. We discussed many of the issues brought up by the readers of C&L.

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Katrina vanden Heuvel takes offense to these idiots:

...But wouldn't you know, the biggest dittohead on the block, Rush Limbaugh, is calling the storm Hurricane Katrina vanden Heuvel and warning that the left is going to use this tragedy against the right. Jonah Goldberg, who has never seen a bad joke bandwagon he could resist jumping on with both feet, blogged, and I quote, "It would be pretty cool if Fox played to caricature and repeatedly referred to the hurricane as Katrina vanden Heuvel." Not satisfied, he went on to imagine the headlines, "The destruction from Katrina vanden Heuvel is expected to be massive...The poor and disabled are particularly likely to suffer from the effects of Katrina vanden Heuvel." ...read on

Jeralyn at Talk Left has put together some fine quotes: As America celebrates Freedom today, here are some thoughts on what freedom means...read on

Katrina Vanden Heuvel has some ideas for progressives on this holiday: Here, then, are five initiatives for the next time you hear some ethically challenged rightwinger (think Tom DeLay) claim that progressives are obstructionists with no good ideas...read on