Under Siege

"So what? This was the authentic sound of a vibrant democracy doing its thing. It was the exact opposite of the frightened and prissy attitude that if you draw a picture I don't like, I'll have to kill you.

"It was: We do free speech here ."

Red State revels in news that Harry Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to Abramoff's Indian-tribe clients:

"Is all of this the end of the world? No. But it certainly shows that Reid was every bit as much in bed with Abramoff, and maybe more so, than many of the Republicans he is criticizing, and as such his ties to Abramoff will become a major liability to the Democrats' need to make the Abramoff issue a campaign theme this fall (as Reid himself has signaled it will be their main theme, if not their only theme). If there's nothing wrong with what Harry Reid did - a position Democrats will need to take if they don't want to throw their own leader under the bus - then the bar for a Republican scandal over ties to Abramoff will have to be set pretty high."

But radio talker Taylor Marsh isn't buying:

"The swiftboating of Senator Reid has begun. Republicans are trying to tie him to Jack Abramoff. Good luck. . . .

"Harry Reid accepts lobbying money. It's legal. It's politics. It's life in Washington. What it isn't is a pay to play pay off scheme like Jack Abramoff had going with Republicans.

"Senator Harry Reid takes money from gaming and Indians tribes, both of which happen to be in his constituency. How do I know? I live in Las Vegas."

At the HuffPost, Mark Kleiman pounces on news that Scooter says he was only following orders:

"If revealing classified information is illegal, then it's a crime, right?

"And George W. Bush promised that 'If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration,' right?

"Now it comes out that 'Scooter' Libby has testified that his 'superiors' authorized him to reveal classified information in an attempt to discredit Joseph Wilson's account of his trip to Africa and thus to defend the idea that the Administration had a basis for claiming that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium in Niger.

"Libby's boss was Dick Cheney; Libby was Cheney's chief of staff. His only other 'superior' would have been . . . George W. Bush.

"So either Cheney or Bush (or both) ordered the release of classified information, which according to Bush is a crime. And anyone who commits a crime has to leave the administration.

"So which is it? Is Bush going to ask for Cheney's resignation, or offer his own?"

Ann Althouse , the Wisconsin law professor and blogger, wonders whether there's a place online for someone not entrenched in either ideological camp:

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm a political moderate. More than any ideology, I care about rational discourse. In the year that I've been blogging I've taken a lot of different positions, some left and some right. What I've noticed, over and over, is that the bloggers on the right link to you when they agree and ignore the disagreements, and the bloggers on the left link only for the things they disagree with, to denounce you with short posts saying you're evil/stupid/crazy, and don't even seem to notice all the times you've written posts that take their side. Why is this happening? I find it terribly, terribly sad.

"UPDATE: My colleague Nina, a self-confessed 'lefty,' writes that she has been slammed from the right. And I'm reminded that I should say, I don't think all the irrational blogging is on the left. I'm just saying that I'm struck by the way the right perceives me as a potential ally and uses positive reinforcement and the left doesn't see me as anything but an opponent -- doesn't even try to engage me with reasoned argument. Maybe the left feels beleaguered these days, but how do they expect to make any progress if they don't see the ways they can include the people in the middle? If you look around and only see opponents and curl up with your little group of insiders, you are putting your efforts into insuring that you remain a political minority."