Yesterday, Sen. Harry Reid and the Dems attempted to add a fairly reasonable (one would think) amendment to a Homeland Security appropriations bill. David Corn of The Nation commented in a late-night blog article, that the amendment could well have been called "the Karl Rove Memorial Act". Here's what it said:

Fair enough. But since Republicans don't care for National Security, nor about outting covert CIA assetts apparently, the amendment failed. Corn explained...

That's the sad part. The funny part, however, --- wherein Majority Leader Bill Frist made yet another "doofus" of himself --- we'll leave to Corn's piece from last night, "Rove Scandal Drives Frist Bonkers". Enjoy.

If you missed The Daily Show last night, you missed a lot. This time, not because it was funny, but because Jon Stewart nailed the hard truth again as he did so brilliantly with the phonies at Crossfire last year.

This time, it was former CBS anchor cum raving wingnut opportunist Bernie Goldberg who fell dumber than a donut once confronted with an intelligent (non-Hannity-approved) challenge to the hateful premise of his hate-mongering book, "100 Americans Who are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37)".

As you may have guessed by now, 97 of the 100 just happened to be identified with the left. No word from Goldberg on whether outing covert CIA agents or creating endless world wars for trumped up reasons screws up America in any way. We'll just suppose those things are great for America!

On the other hand, apparently Barbra Streisand and Michael Jackson are really a great concern of Goldberg's, and apparently America's.

As usual, Stewart --- who simply "gets it" --- cut straight to the heart of the matter after giving Goldberg ample time to make his completely hollow, morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest, ethically challenged and apparently unsupported case...

If only Stewart would spend less time telling the truth and more time lying this country into wars, he might just be eligible for the Medal of Freedom.

If you didn't catch this segment, it's a must-see. And Crooks and Liars has it, natch.

Perhaps an even more remarkable number: Just 41% of the nation believe that Bush is "honest and straightforward."

(A cynic might say that the "remarkable" part is that there is still 41% in this country who find him either "honest" or "straightforward"!...But we'd never be cynical here at The BRAD BLOG.)

Hardball has more...

As all of the scandals in the House of Bush begin to slowly merge together, AfterDowningStreet.org has an update on events scheduled around the country on July 23rd, the third anniversary of the original "Downing Street Memo" (the minutes of a meeting in the UK describing their foreign ministers meetings with the Bush Administration's plans to topple Saddam through military means eight months prior to asking Congress for authorization, and revealing that they had planned to "fix the intelligence and the facts around the policy").

There are now more than 150 events planned nationwide, and ADS has info on how you can participate and/or help organize an event in your own hometown.

As we like to say...this democracy ain't gonna save itself, people!

(As a side note, our interview on last weekend's BRAD SHOW with Times of London's Michael Smith, the journalist who broke the original story and is continuing to break still more if it, is now available for listening online in the BRAD SHOW Archives. Scroll to the 7/9/05 show, HOUR 1.)

Looks like we scooped AP with our report yesterday on Ambassador Joe Wilson's call for Bush to fire Rove last night. They're just now running their story on it.

Meanwhile, back at Disinfo Central...If you missed the Rush Limbaugh show this morning, you missed quite the lolapalooza. He's become positively unglued vis a vis the Plame/Rove affair. And it was a hoot!

The "theory" that Rush has been pummelling his Ditto Heads with all day: Joe Wilson has been a part of a double super secret background conspiracy with the DNC since day one, well before he was sent by the CIA to Niger.

Yes, that's right. According to Rush, the entire plan to send George W. Bush's own father's Man in Iraq --- a decades-long expert in African and Middle-Eastern affairs to Niger --- was all just a ploy by Democrats "to undermine the War in Iraq and the Bush Presidency," as Rush repeatedly described it.

We suppose then, that Bush 41's letter sent to Wilson saying that he concurred with much of the article that Wilson wrote prior to the war in the San Jose Mercury News was also part of that conspiracy.

Why is Dubya's own father trying to destroy Dubya's own "Presidency", dammit?!

Rush's final words at the end of the show (referring to the Press Conference scheduled by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to happen shortly): "Chuck Shumer is Joe Wilson's 'handler' in this agency plot to bring down the President."

Good lord, these Right Wing Tin-Foil Hat wearers never fail to entertain.

Po' po' Rush he was even having trouble getting anything but callers who were supportive of Wilson today! Rush is in as much trouble today as his White House counterpart Scottie McClellan has been in all week in the WH press room.

We're also honored that Rush was unglued enough to refer to The BRAD BLOG as a "left wing blog" at the top of the show when he said that "Wilson was even speaking to left wing bloggers last night."

He didn't mention us by name though. Geez, we always give him full credit for everything he says. Oh, well.

Anyway...As reported here yesterday, Wilson appeared this morning on the TODAY Show. The video from his appearance is available at Crooks and Liars.

White House Spokesboy slash liar, Scottie McClellan, the man with the worst portfolio since Terik Aziz was forced to defend Saddam Hussein in public, continued in his third day of his very good Ron Zeigler impression. (Though, in truth, we noticed the similarities long before the rest of the Leftie Pundits seem to have. And huge kudos to John Amato at C&L for getting up the video from a 1973 CBS report with an earily similar ring to it!) He "continued to stonewall on questions surrounding Karl Rove and the Plame case", as Editor & Publisher described it.

Here are a few of the most surprising exchanges. The likes of which led Jon Stewart on The Daily Tuesday to suggest that someone must have "secretly replaced the White House Press Corp with actual reporters."

Wow. Are we dreaming? Where did those guys come from? And where have they been for the last 4 and a half years???

White House Spokesboy slash liar, Scottie McClellan, the man with the worst portfolio since Terik Aziz was forced to defend Saddam Hussein in public, continued in his third day of his very good Ron Zeigler impression. (Though, in truth, we noticed the similarities long before the rest of the Leftie Pundits seem to have. And huge kudos to John Amato at C&L for getting up the video from a 1973 CBS report with an earily similar ring to it!) He "continued to stonewall on questions surrounding Karl Rove and the Plame case", as Editor & Publisher described it.

Here are a few of the most surprising exchanges. The likes of which led Jon Stewart on The Daily Tuesday to suggest that someone must have "secretly replaced the White House Press Corp with actual reporters."

Wow. Are we dreaming? Where did those guys come from? And where have they been for the last 4 and a half years???

White House Spokesboy slash liar, Scottie McClellan, the man with the worst portfolio since Terik Aziz was forced to defend Saddam Hussein in public, continued in his third day of his very good Ron Zeigler impression. (Though, in truth, we noticed the similarities long before the rest of the Leftie Pundits seem to have. And huge kudos to John Amato at C&L for getting up the video from a 1973 CBS report with an earily similar ring to it!) He "continued to stonewall on questions surrounding Karl Rove and the Plame case", as Editor & Publisher described it.

Here are a few of the most surprising exchanges. The likes of which led Jon Stewart on The Daily Tuesday to suggest that someone must have "secretly replaced the White House Press Corp with actual reporters."

Wow. Are we dreaming? Where did those guys come from? And where have they been for the last 4 and a half years???

White House Spokesboy slash liar, Scottie McClellan, the man with the worst portfolio since Terik Aziz was forced to defend Saddam Hussein in public, continued in his third day of his very good Ron Zeigler impression. (Though, in truth, we noticed the similarities long before the rest of the Leftie Pundits seem to have. And huge kudos to John Amato at C&L for getting up the video from a 1973 CBS report with an earily similar ring to it!) He "continued to stonewall on questions surrounding Karl Rove and the Plame case", as Editor & Publisher described it.

Here are a few of the most surprising exchanges. The likes of which led Jon Stewart on The Daily Tuesday to suggest that someone must have "secretly replaced the White House Press Corp with actual reporters."

Wow. Are we dreaming? Where did those guys come from? And where have they been for the last 4 and a half years???

Ambassador Joseph Wilson fired back today at the Rightwing Spin Machine, which, having been issued marching orders late yesterday in a set of talking points from the RNC, is once again hoping to distract from the potentially treasonous crimes that George W. Bush's top political operative and Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, is alleged to have committed.

In a phone discussion early this afternoon, Wilson told The BRAD BLOG in no uncertain terms that "the President should fire Rove."

He told us that he'd be appearing on NBC's Today Show tomorrow morning and would be repeating that call.

As well, he told The BRAD BLOG that he planned to read a letter on air which he received from Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush shortly after an article of his was printed in the San Jose Mercury News, on October 13, 2002, in which Wilson related his concerns about the pitfalls of the approach to Iraq being taken at the time by both the U.N. and the U.S.

In reply to that article, Wilson said that the former President wrote that he had "read your article and I agree with a lot of it."

Additionally, Wilson explained, Bush 41's own National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, had contacted him to ask whether he "could walk on over to the White House with the letter" at the time. Which apparently he did.

Wilson also had sent the article to Bush 41's Secretary of State, James Baker.

"None of them responded saying you're a Democratic partisan hack and your views suck," said Wilson.

The above points are notable, because armed with those RNC talking points, Rush Limbaugh, Fox "News" and Friends have today kicked into overdrive smearing and lying about Wilson, claiming that he was against the Iraq War from the get-go.

If fact, Wilson, who was in charge of the Embassy in Iraq during the first Gulf War under Bush 41 (he was the last American to speak personally with Saddam Hussein before the war begain, and was responsible for taking care of some 125 Americans who had sought refuge in the American Embassy there when they were not allowed by Saddam to leave the country just prior to the war), says that it was "a full eight months" after he was sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium there, "before I had said anything publicly about what America should consider in regard to a war with Iraq."

"My real concern was always WMD," he told us, "not Regime Change."

That concern was expressed in the October 2002, San Jose Mercury News editorial which apparently George W. Bush's own father and National Security Advisor tended to agree with. Wilson's trip to Niger occurred a full eight months earlier, in February of that same year.

We asked him if he had heard Fox "News'" John Gibson make his deplorable and irresponsible statement yesterday which said that "Karl Rove should receive a medal," because Wilson's wife, covert CIA asset Valerie Plame, "should have been outed."

"Where I come from," slurred Gibson, "we do not want secret spy masters pulling the puppet strings in the background.

Gibson's "logic", such that he has any, seems to be based on the unsupported claims that Plame --- or Wilson's "little wifey" as Gibson condescendingly referred to her --- was "pulling the puppet strings" of national policy from her covert position in the CIA, by sending Wilson to Niger. That was, in Gibson's false claim, because Wilson, "was opposed to the War in Iraq, opposed to Bush policy, and pointedly and loudly said so."

No, he didn't, Mr. Gibson. Never mind those pesky facts. It's only Fox "News" you work for, so we realize such facts are hardly relevant to you receiving your paycheck there.

"That is something that should be out in the open," blathered Gibson, "And the person doing it should be identified and should own up to it. So Rove should get a medal, if he did do what he says he didn't do."

In response, Wilson simply said, "Well, that's a lie. But no surprise there."

In the meantime, despite such pesky facts, the wingnuts also continue to claim that Plame was, in fact, not even a covert asset at the time of her outing.

The BRAD BLOG has learned from several sources, as also confirmed in Time magazine that Plame was indeed a "NOC", an agent with "nonofficial cover", the most valuable, secretive and vulnerable of CIA assets.

In regard to whether she was covert or not at the time of her outing by Rove, Bob Novak or whoever his "two senior administration sources" were, Wilson said, "What I can say is, that the CIA looked at the evidence of what had happened and referred the case to the Justice Department. That means that the CIA may think that a crime has been committed."

On Rightwing Hackery hoping to cynically deflect from the seriousness of the potentially treasonous crime committed by claiming that "Wilson lied" about his wife's involvement in sending him to Niger, Wilson says, "In actual fact, all I've done is repeat what the CIA itself has said since July 22nd, 2003 as reported initially in Newsday by Knut Royce and Tim Phelps."

That Newsday article says [emphasis added]:

"The CIA said [my wife] was not the person to have authorized my trip. They've repeated that time and time again."

And the Bush Apologists, who suddenly don't seem to care all that much about National Security after all, keep repeating the opposite. Time and time again.

Perhaps he's desperate to be as popularly hated as his colleague Bill O'Reilly. Who knows for sure? But Fox "News'" John Gibson has been desperately and shamefully attempting to grab headlines lately. At any and all costs.

Last Thursday after the bombings in London, Gibson appallingly said, "This is why I thought the Brits should let the French have the Olympics --- let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while."

That, the day after he'd said about the choice to hold the Olympics in London in 2012: "If they had picked France instead of London to hold the Olympics, it would have been the one time we could look forward to where we didn't worry about terrorism. They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?"

Gibson, irony-of-ironies, wrote a book recently attempting to answer the question of why the world hates America. As far as we know, however, he didn't include a chapter simply entitled "Me". But he should have.

(The rest of Gibson's America Hating Fox compatriots were equally despicable vis a vis the London Bombings last week. In case you missed any of it, MediaMatters has compiled a round-up of all the good hating from Fox.)

But Gibson outdid even himself in the way of slimy smears on behalf of his paymasters at the Republican Party and the Fox Republican "News" Channel by leading the way yesterday with what is quickly becoming the desperate Spin du Jour in the PlameGate/Karl Rove matter. Oliver Willis was there...

None worse, Oliver.

He has the full video. Prepare to be wholly disgusted.

As readers know, our friend Andy Stephenson, a founding advisor of ours at VelvetRevolution.us passed away last Thursday night after a short, but heroic fight against pancreatic cancer.

His death came on the day prior to the BRAD BLOGATHON (wherein the readers took the joint over, so we could not post here at all!) and therefore I was unable to follow up with a few items of note. I shall do so now.

Those who knew of Andy's illness, may also have known about the disgraceful ghouls at FreeRepublic and elsewhere who had made a quick industry out of challenging Andy's illness after the Internet community came together to quickly raise $50,000 for Andy's surgery at Johns Hopkins (he had no health insurance after being unemployed in the wake of leaving Black Box Voting where Bev Harris and he parted on very less than good terms).

The loathesome Freepers charged that the fundraising effort was fraud, and succeeded in having his PayPal account frozen until an investigation proved that his needs were legit. That little act of thoughtfulness on the part of the repugnant folks who would unrepentingly do such a thing, helped to delay Andy's surgery for three weeks and added an unconscionable additional burden to his final weeks of life and death struggle.

There is some discussion on that, some words of tribute, and information on a memorial service to be held for Andy at Town Hall in Seattle at 1119 Eighth Ave., on Saturday, July 16, at 2 p.m. in the following items on his passing from over the last few days...

They were as sharp as ever last night. Still the best news program on television. Period.

The first two segments last night were devoted to Rove, natch. And here was one of our favorite moments:

Crooks and Liars has the full video coverage...

What follows this post may likely be a flurry of posts which I've been unable to make while I've been busting at the seams during my mostly involuntary BLOGATHON captivity. So, very quickly...

The BLOGATHON was an extraordinary event, no matter the financial results (and I don't know what they were yet since it was all set up and run by readers --- but I'm praying that we at least covered the expenses for it!) I consider the effort a tremendous success as well as a tremendously moving experience for me. Thanking Steve and Winter Patriot here is not enough since there were scores of folks that are due thanks. I shall try to do so in the coming days. For the moment, please see Winter Patriot's many thanks, followed by Commander Steve's in the comments for that item! Though I should also point to Mr. Conyers' incredible words posted last night which just blew me away. In the current political atmosphere, it is truly we who owe our thanks to him, not vice versa. But we graciously accept and appreciate his thoughtful words.

Thanks to every single one of you who participated in any way over the last several days and last several months to help support The BRAD BLOG and SHOW. Without you, I am nothing.

The map to the cornucopia of mad events that was the BLOGATHON Travelling Circus will be up and available in perpetuity for those who may have missed anything over the last several days, or wish to review the festivities. There is a treasure trove there to be explored! Enjoy!

In the meantime, I know you guys would love for me to get back to work here just about as much as I would love to do so myself...What a perfect bunch of days to have been held hostage and unable to report here!

So get ready for a flurry of delicious and wholesome BRADness... It's time to light it up, bitches!...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The First Annual BRAD BLOGATHON has been running for just over a hundred hours, and as you probably know, our primary motivation was to raise some much-needed funds for The BRAD SHOW and Brad's other very important work. We've been asking, and you've been responding. Thank you very much for that. We cannot say Brad's cup runneth over, but at least his cupboard is no longer quite so bare.

We hope you'll continue to make the occasional donation via Credit Card or PayPal or Snail Mail and that you'll make a habit of shopping at The BRAD STORE, but we're going to stop pestering you about it, at least for a while. We agree that The BRAD BLOG is much better with Brad here than without him, and we're ready to give him back his keys. So we've reached the point where we need to say "thanks"... to a lot of people!

To all who have contributed financially, with cash donations or by shopping at The BRAD STORE, or both: Your support is sincerely appreciated, and we thank you very much. Brad's work could not continue without your support, and we wish there were more of you. So go forth and multiply, will you?

To our excellent guest bloggers: to Josh Mitteldorf, Bernie Ellis, Chris Floyd, Gandhi, David Cobb, Larisa Alexandrovna, John Amato, Bob Koehler, Bob Fitrakis, and Clint Curtis: Many thanks to all of you! What an incredible lineup! We are very grateful for you support, as well as your blogging! And we hope you've enjoyed the time you've spent here with us.

To the loyal BRAD BLOG readers who contributed their time and their skills and their ideas and their enthusiasm to make all this possible; to Tracy, Peg, Joan and Robert for their very generous contributions; to Torqued, who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes on any technical thing anyone asked him to do; to Steve, who conceived the idea, and who worked so hard to make sure it happened; to all these people and to many others whose names I cannot possibly mention here [including some whose names I do not even know!], we offer our deepest gratitude.

And now, as we turn to the man of the hour ... or the man of the blog... I have so much to say ... and so few words ... I was thinking clearly --- or at least I was thinking a bit more clearly than I am now --- when I wrote this entry in please don't read my blog:

It's always an honor to sit in for him while he's gone. A great digger, a very good writer, a brave and honest patriot, and a very, very funny man, Brad's my choice: there's nobody in the world I would rather help.

That was back in May, and although I wouldn't take any of those words back, I no longer see them as adequate. There's more ... there's so much more ... that I want to say ... but ... shucks, folks ... I get so tongue-tied sometimes ... oh, you know ... hey, listen: Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin said it better than I ever could, way back in 1961:

You know what, Brad?
Bomp bah bah bomp, bah bomp bah bomp bomp.
Yes, my friend, rama lama ding dong forever.
And when I say, dip da dip da dip da dip
You know I mean it from the bottom
of my boogity boogity boogity shoo.

And so ... without further doo-wop ...
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Brad Friedman!

Welcome home, Brad! We've missed you!!