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Dan DeVise writes in the Miami Herald:

The state Attorney General’s Office rebuked a Palm Beach County prosecutor Wednesday for allegedly misrepresenting conversations between the two agencies to make it appear the AG had endorsed releasing sensitive plea-bargain documents about Rush Limbaugh to the public.
Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer released two pages of plea negotiations with Limbaugh last week in response to a public records request, along with a memo indicating that the agency had been advised by an Attorney General expert that the release was required by public-records law.
The documents show the radio talk-show icon proposing to settle allegations of prescription-drug abuse through treatment, potentially avoiding a permanent criminal record.
Limbaugh’s attorney, Roy Black, questioned Krischer’s motives and said the release was part of a smear campaign. Prosecutors said they believed they were doing the right thing after consulting the law, the attorney general and the Florida Bar. But there was nothing in writing to support or refute their claim that they were following legal advice from the attorney general.
That changed Wednesday with the release of a letter to Palm Beach County prosecutors from Patricia Gleason, general counsel for the attorney general. The letter lent credence to Limbaugh’s claim that the release of the records was improper.”

Go ahead… tell me about how this treatent of Limbaugh is not driven by an overtly political motivation.

The Chicago Trib is reporting:

“The Bush administration, deeply concerned about recent assassination attempts against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and a resurgence of Taliban forces in neighboring Afghanistan (news – web sites), is preparing a U.S. military offensive that would reach inside Pakistan with the goal of destroying Osama bin Laden (news – web sites)’s Al Qaeda network, military sources said. “

Hmmmm.
Wouldn’t such details be kept under wraps until the attack was underway? Not sure about this one.

I’m not overly sure this wasn’t planned by the Administration.  I don’t know, but consider the scenario with this question:

If you wanted to get BinLaden to expose himself to our intel people without causing a great deal of bloshed, how would you do it? One simple way would be to fake a message that a raid was going to take place where we thought him to be.

Awwww.
The poor unions in the UK are all bent out of shape that one of their members, one Andrew Gilligan, got called on the carpet by Hutton for tilting the news, and possibly causing the death of at least one person.

Sky News reports the union leader as saying:

“Our reaction would be to immediately back him, to represent him at any subsequent hearings, and to argue with our members that they should take whatever action is necessary to protect his position.”

Reynolds has it right:

Is there any profession that’s worse at admitting mistakes and taking criticism than the journalistic profession? I don’t know, but UK journalists are responding to the Hutton Inquiry by threatening to strike if disciplinary action is taken against the feckless Andrew Gilligan, who got the story so dreadfully wrong and whose errors may have contributed to David Kelly’s suicide. Of course, to some people, this isn’t a threat but a promise — the reader who sent the link observes: “Oh God! A journalists’ strike, how will we ever notice ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^ cope?”

The boy should be fired at least.

(Update:) Thanks to Glenn, we now have the full text of the report. Impressive website, actually….

I’ve spent much of the day pouring over this series of documents. It appears to me that what Hutton is realy calling for in his report, and what the Unions are resisting, is accountability in Journalism.

Fancy that.

Well, my guess is that we’ll see a Kerry/Edwards run.  Kerry’s too strong for Dean, and Edwards will be needed for the “Southern Strategy.” In any event, Kerry will want no part of Dean who has demonstrated himself to be far too loopy as a running mate. (Consider the impact of that statement; Too loopy for Kerry?) Edwards doing well in Carolina will reinforce this idea with me.

Dean for his part, came up last night on NightLine, with words to the effect that Iraq doesn’t matter to the voters. Which, of course is nowhere near accurate. The voters… Even the Democrats… Don’t like the strong anti-war stance Dean took.  They don’t like Kerry on the point, either, but at least Kerry has more going for him than anger. Not MUCH more, mind you.

Which leads us to a Bush Victory. Kerry has too much of a negative history, even among Democrats, to not be full of holes by next November. Since I like to be on the bleeding edge, let’s list a few I didn’t mention in my weekly long form, linked above;

Think of it, Gang….
The ‘party of the little guy’ coughs up John Forbes Kerry, someone of money, who married into MORE money in the form of the heir to the Heinz fortune. Someone whose only dealings with minorities is when he’s in need of another drink at the country club.  Someone who has never been a working man in his life. Someone who, when he pays taxes it’s nothing more than a number; it never really affects his life in any substantial way… taxes don’t even enter his world.

We’re talking about someone here who was one of only 12 senators who voted against funding our troops in Iraq, and who voted for at least seven major reductions in defense and military spending and then claimed he was supporting our troups, and that he knows how to defend America.

We’re talking about someone who voted repeatedly to slash the budgets of intelligence agencies by billions of dollars, and then on the night of 9/11 bitched loud and long about how our intel community failed us.

We’re talking about someone who now claims to be for balancing the budget and yet who is on record has having voted against a Balanced Budget Amendment at least five times.

In Kerry we have someone who claims to be for the little guy, someone who’s concerned about the tax burden on americans and yet, is on record as voting for the largest tax increase ever, and the death tax, and for a 50-percent increase in the gas tax.

Family values issues? Oh, yeah, there’s a lot here, too.

We’re talking about someone who voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion at least three times.. who was one of 14 Senators who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act… someone who voted against a parental notification requirement where minors’ abortions are concened, who voted against mandatory sentences for drug dealers.

This is what the ‘Little Guy” Democrats are placing all their hopes in? Oh, yeah, that’s gonna sell in middle America.
Bloody amazing.

By the way, did you guys notice Kerry’s plastic surgery on his face, and some apparently serious reconstructive dental work, as shown on Matt Drudge’s site yesterday?

I predicted :

Dean,(but not by much)
Kerry,
Edwards.

It came out

Kerry
Dean
Edwards

(Shrug)
Of course, I also predicted, it wouldn’t matter.
I hold to that.

AP reports:

“BERLIN (Reuters) – An Iranian defector, preparing to testify in Germany’s second major Sept. 11 trial, said on Tuesday that a son of Osama bin Laden had personally told Iranian leaders of the planned attacks on U.S. cities in 2001.”

New York Post Online Edition reports:

“January 27, 2004 — EXETER, N.H. – Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean. “

So much for an open debate. so much for dissent.
Using tactics the Germans used now, Al?

WHAS11.com : over in Louisville is reporting taht Jack Parr has died at 85.

Much as I liked Carson, I rather liked Parr a bit more. I still remember seing him with then relative newcomer Bob Newhart. Sad we didn’t get to see him much after he pulled the plug on TV in ’65.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Government wins fees vote, majority five

I mentioned earlier today about how many of my predictions for 2004 had already come true. This is but one more.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Ex-minister denies Iraq oil claim:

“Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua has denied claims that he received gifts from Saddam Hussein in return for supporting his regime.

The paper printed a list of foreigners who, it says, received oil coupons for backing an end to sanctions.”

(Chuckle)
And the Democrats think we were going to be able to get these slimeballs to the table, and t pony up with funds and troups?
Yeah, right.

In my Predictions for 2004 column of the beggining of this month, I suggested:

“Given court rulings allowing any two persons to “marry” we’ll see the ACLU come out in support of the legalization and normalization of all kinds of kinks, including bestiality and necrophilia, incest, polygamy, pedophilia, and so on. They will argue that such restrictions are unconstitutional, and will use the pro-homosexual rulings as their basis for motion. “

So, it should come as no shock when we see in the paper today:

First cousins want right to marry; science agrees

Indeed, quite a lot of the predictions I posted that day are already well on their way to cming true. Perhaps an examination of that list is in order when I have some time.

In any event, I’ll leave this ‘cousins’ thing to you to decipher.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit on the numbers from that BET polling about ‘the most segregated Cities in America, I posted the other day.

Because of some of the conversational dynamics, it seemed appropriate to spring it into a debate going on over at Dan Drezner’s place, and the comments I posted there do a fair job of expressing my current thinking on it all…

“…..Here all this time, we’ve been led to think it was conservatives… the right… who fosters racism. 

But I wonder, looking at the numbers I posted, and considering the source;
Given that at least the unconscious level, the perception of racism being higher in areas where the left dominates seems prevelant, what happens to the Democrats when that thought occurrs to them as a waking, conscious thought? I suspect the electoral impact will be rather large, and it will not favor the left.”

The one person this situation could help in this race would be Edwards, assuming he doesn’t come in lower than 2nd in HN.

Reuters is repoting some good news tonight:

“LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) – An al Qaeda operative with close ties to the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was captured last week in Iraq, President George W. Bush said on Monday.

Bush said the al Qaeda figure, Hassan Ghul, was helping al Qaeda step up attacks by insurgents against U.S. troops in Iraq. Al Qaeda members are believed to have entered Iraq after the war last year that toppled President Saddam Hussein.”

They just keep on falling, don’t they?
But I’m willing to bet you don’t see much about this capture in your morning paper, or even on the web.

Cold tommorow. Usually, that means a bad turn out. Add that to the trend of the last few primary races, which has been trending down, and you get the idea this is going to be the smallest turnout yet.  Results on the Democratic party side will end up being

Dean,(but not by much)
Kerry,
Edwards.

Interesting stats:
Historically, no Democrat who’s not been #1 or #2 in NH, has ever gotten the Democrat nomination.
So, it’ll be Dean and Kerry one way or the other as the nominees.

And it won’t matter, because the general election will see them as losers on a on a scale only Mondull has topped.