I don't know if anyone has been following Al Gore's cable-internet venture online, but they have a really amazing bit of "breaking" first-hand journalism from the Gaza strip up right now by one of their freelancers, Adrian Baschuk.  This is the link.

Today, Ed Kilgore wrote about the "big picture implications" of the Rove scandal over at TPMCafe:

To whit:

One of the great differences between liberals and conservatives is how the two camps go about explaining misconduct. Conservatives prefer straightforward, old-fashioned explanations that focus on a flaw in those who commit the misconduct -- greed, lust, cruelty, or (in extreme cases) evil itself. For liberals, such explanations are unsatisfyingly superficial. Misconduct must have a root cause, but liberals consider basic human instincts such as greed, lust, and cruelty to be insufficiently rooted. Thus, an intellectual posse must be recruited to track down the real culprit. And the search always seems to lead to the liberals' version of the heart of darkness -- "Amerika," in other words the policies adopted by America's elected leaders. By rejecting the obvious explanation and shifting the blame to American policy, the liberal accompishes that which is most important to him -- he proves his intellectual and moral superiority.

On Friday, Jonathan Chait published the most illuminating and alarming article of the season (IMO) in the New Republic (at the American Prospect, Robert Reich offered this less impressive version of same) explaining exactly what that "ownership society" entails and why we're likely to see it come to fruition if Bush gets a second term with a Republican Congress.  For those who can't access TNR, here are the relevant portions of Chait's analysis:

I know everyone is tied up with the media's egregious handling of the Swift Vet Thugs, but Krauthammer's new column "The Pressure Cooker Theory" is too hacktacular to let slip.  Goddamn, it has got to be soul-destroying to be this much of a hack:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37224-2004Aug26.html

...But that is still not enough to account for the level of venom today. It is not often that a losing presidential candidate (Al Gore) compares the man who defeated him to both Hitler and Stalin. It is not often that a senior party leader (Edward Kennedy) accuses a sitting president of starting a war ("cooked up in Texas") to gain political advantage for his reelection.

http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage3.asp

Anson gives a really wonderful, readable overview of just how sloppy and empty the Swift Boat Vet campaign has been to date, and also provides what I think is a spot-on analysis of the danger they pose and why.  Not to mention how absolutely sleazy it was for Bob Dole to lend his credibility to the Swift Vets.  I agree with Anson that Dole's endorsement of the Swift Cause was important -- and also that it proves even "nice-guy" Republicans can be absolute indescriminating scum when the chips are down.

I thought it was interesting that it looks like Bush's loyalty problem seems to be spilling into John Thune's South Dakota race against Daschle.  The Repubs are really fired up about this race,  so it's interesting that they seem to be marketting Thune as, well, "a different kind of Republican" (one who represents tax cuts and ethanol.)

My first reaction reading this article was "stupid, stupid idea.  Crazy."  Baer points out:

Doing so [suing] would magnify the impact of the charges made in the ads, which as of now are only playing in seven small media markets, and keep them in the news for the duration of the campaign. It would also derail the campaign from its message, underscore the litigious history of his vice presidential pick, and open the candidate up to a possibly invasive subpoena.

Not only that, but Baer probably underestimates the frothing such a suit would cause on the right, frothing that would quickly make its way quickly onto CNN and MSNBC.  Freepers are already making jokes all over the Internet about how Kerry & Edwards' War on Terror will amount to "suing the terrorists for bodily harm."  The right would go absolutely wild if Kerry were to initiate a suit.

But then I read on.  Baer (not a lawyer) thinks that precedent and the general sloppiness of the SBVT smear campaign could make for legal vulnerabilities:

Gunner's Mate Van O'Dell says that: "John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star. I know, I was there, I saw what happened." O'Dell did not serve on Kerry's boat, but was on another boat in his division. O'Dell claims to have witnessed the entire incident in which Kerry won his Bronze Star. Yet, his account does not show up in any official Naval documents--from the spot reports filed immediately after the incident that detail damage to two boats, including Kerry's, and Kerry's injury report to the eyewitness accounts of Jim Rassman, the man who Kerry pulled out of the river. Either O'Dell is right, and Rassman, Kerry, and the US Navy are wrong--or O'Dell has a big legal problem on his hands.

Isn't it fair to say that when an Admin has to "take to the talkshows" to defend its safety-first actions -- ie convince the population and the press that they're not, oh, full of shit, rather than that being assumed by a public that believes in its government -- that the wheels have come off?  Meanwhile, if it's true that Khan might have been a ticket to Bin Laden or other terrorists living in the US!!!, what can you even say?

Behold the true incompetence of the last people you'd ever want defending your homeland from terrorists.  It's simply mindbogging these fools are in charge of our government.