CORRECTION: The bombing was in Hadera, not South Tel Aviv. While Condi Rice proclaims the need for Israel to have open borders, an Arab terrorist blows itself up in an open-air marketplace in Hadera, Israel killing at least 4 people and wounding dozens more…

And others argue in various forums that she most definitely is not — and that the Society of Professionial Journalists drank Kool Aid in backing her.

It’s now official: Iraq’s constitution has been approved overwhelmingly by the newly-democratic country’s voters. Now comes the hard part. The questions become: is the country ready to endure a long-predicted onslaught from “insurgents” who want to prove that the vote on the constitution isn’t worth a hill of beans, will it stabilize the country, or lead to unforeseen — tricky — political consequences? Already you can see some conflicting perceptions:...

…but instead a milestone where we should re-examine what prejudices we still hold as truths, and consider how they may be regarded 50 years from now, as we now regard the defiance of Rosa Parks 50 years ago.

Joe at AMERICAblog points to this from The Washington Note: An uber-insider source has just reported the following to TWN: 1. 1-5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end. 2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters. 3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and “filed” tomorrow. 4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.

E. J. Dionne Jr has some concerns about Ben Bernanke’s nomination as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and expresses them in this Washington Post column: No Job for an Ideologue You’d hope that the new chairman of the Federal Reserve Board would learn not only from Alan Greenspan’s successes but also from his failures. There is reason to worry that having a Fed chairman so close to President Bush’s policymaking apparatus will give us something other than the best of...

More unsightly image problems for Vice President Dick Cheney…this time in the Plamegate scandal….but whether this is illegal or not remains to be seen: WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 – I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday. Notes of the previously undisclosed...

Is the other (elephantine-sized) shoe now slowly dropping in the ongoing saga of President George Bush’s generally-panned nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court? With each passing day, the trend certainly seems to increasingly point towards a bleak or historically unenthusiastic endgame for GWB’s lawyer, whose selection sparked howls of protests from many conservatives who didn’t want a “stealth” conservative candidate and were underwhelmed by Miers’...

FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations; Secret Surveillance Lacked Oversight By Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today. Records turned over as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also indicate that the FBI has investigated hundreds of potential violations related to its use...

Today’s NPR Talk of the Nation (TOTN) – Guests were Former Sen. John Danforth, Rep. Thomas Tancredo (R-CO) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) Faith-based initiatives, school vouchers — and now the Harriet Miers nomination. President Bush speaks often about the role of religion in his life, and translates that into public policy. We discuss religion and politics.

UPDATED ON TUESDAY MORNING: A Special Report from The Toledo Blade: PART I: Ohio, California take divisive redistricting wars to ballot box Voters in California and Ohio, two states with rich histories of gerrymandering, could bulldoze the national political balance this fall if they decide to write politicians out of the redistricting business… PART II: Complex reforms hinge on personality – Increasingly unpopular governors cast shadows over redistricting fight PART III: Redistricting...

…here at The Moderate Voice, an interesting analysis of the “house effects” titled “Which way do polls lean?” is well worth reading. A second, longer discussion can be found at this link, with the following listed as the conclusions: Specific polls do appear to have consistent biases on specific questions. The amount of lean can exceed the nominal MoE (margin of error), which only measures sampling error, not errors from systematic biases. One should focus on overall...

As Republicans battle via the Harriet Miers nomination to define the kind of party they are, the Democrats are seemingly going through an identity crisis as well. Democrats are often blasted by GOPers (and some independents) as a party that seemingly knows more what it doesn’t want, versus what it specifically wants. So this post by Oxblog’s David Adesnik should be of special interest to people of all parties. It needs to be read in full and we don’t want to spoil it by taking...

Due to logistics (a 500 mile drive and a packed morning and early afternoon schedule) TMV’s own postings will start late today — later in the afternoon. BUT as readers of this site have noticed, our perceptive and independent-minded co-bloggers often have a lot to say. So make SURE you stay tuned. And check back often. ALSO: if there are breaking developments on Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination or on Plamegate, be sure to check here. A post by a co-blogger (or later by TMV)...

How much has Judith Miller’s status now sagged within The New York Times? Read this freebie link to sister Times writer Maureen Dowd (normally, now, you have to pay big bucks to read Ms. Dowd’s words of wisdom): An Associated Press story yesterday reported that Judy had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder...

Just under a month ago, word leaked out of the bowels of the bureacracy that former FEMA chief Mike Brown would temporarily continue to receive a salary from the federal government despite having resigned. But an item in the 30th graf of a Los Angeles Times article by Mary Curtius raises some questions as to just how temporary Brown’s payments are. Brown is still on FEMA’s payroll as a consultant, [FEMA spokeswoman Nicol] Andrews confirmed. He works from home, where he is “pulling...

There’s little good news you can read about the Harriet Miers’ nomination, if you’re among the (small) group of people aggresively and enthusiastically pushing the nomination of George Bush’s lawyer to the Supreme Court. For instance, note this major defection by National Review’s Jonah Goldberg: It’s not just that Miers was in favor of racial quotas — we’d pretty much known that for a while. It’s the fundamental confirmation that she’s...

Dean Esmay has some ideas here. Our view. He’s on target. The problem with TMV, though, is that he comes from a news background and there will be stories that break that he might not want to cover but his journalistic “juices” get going and he’s compelled to cover them. A lot depends on how each person views their site. Is it strictly opinion (nothing wrong with that)? Or does the site seek to comment on the major stories (nothing wrong with that)? A mix? Is the goal to keep...

My thoughts on the Kansas Supreme Court ruling unanimously declaring that so-called “Romeo and Juliet Laws” mitigating certain classes of statutory rape have to be applied equally to hetero- and homosexual persons. The opinion of the court can be found here.

It sounds as if divorce court should get ready to put a new case on its schedule: the New York Times V Judith Miller. It’s getting ugly out there in the Plamegate case in anything involving Miller and is that a surprise? She was controversial before the scandal broke, went to jail in the Plamegate case (forcing many of America’s journalists who jealously defend the right to protect sources to hold their noses and line up behind her), announced she couldn’t recall whom the KEY SOURCE...

The pollsters at Marist University take an early look at the state of the campaign for the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries and find the following: Democratic Primary Hillary Clinton — 41% John Kerry — 17% John Edwards — 14% Joe Biden — 5% Wesley Clark — 3% (Evan Bayh, Tom Vilsack, and Mark Warner all at 2% or below) Republican Primary Condoleezza Rice — 21% Rudy Giuliani — 21% John McCain — 19% Jeb Bush — 5% Newt Gingrich...

My little brother is visiting me at college, hence the lack of posting. But, if you’re desperate for stuff, here’s my weekend reading list for you.

“I Drew This” on Church & State

Blogger Pam Spaulding was interviewed by MTV Online and the article is now posted: Diary to the Masses: Blogging Teens Learn the Pros & Cons of Publishing to the Web

…at an author, columnist and talking head who’s a favorite of Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge….a columnist named Ann Coulter.