CNN wants to be extra sure you know why Lewis Libby is on trial.

Paragraph Five:

Libby is accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Paragraph Fourteen:

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Also, there’s still no mention of Richard Armitage in the “Key players” feature, though he does make an appearance in the “Timeline” sidebar:

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage publicly acknowledges for the first time that he was the source to first reveal Valerie Plame’s identity to columnist Robert Novak, but says he did so inadvertently.

UPDATE: This Raw Story interview with blogger Tom Maguire of Just One Minute is a nice overview of the whole Plame ordeal; about halfway through, he brings up some interesting questions concerning the State Dept, specifically Armitage and Colin Powell. The interview is well worth reading, especially since Maguire, the go-to conservative blogger on this case, typically does a poor job of getting to a point, summarizing information, reviewing material and writing clearly enough for more casual readers to follow.

by request:

You only get what you pay for, by the way.

Previous titles.

Attorney D. Jack Smith celebrated Darwin Day with the Memphis Freethought Alliance this weekend. Smith, a former state representative, discussed his role in repealing Tennessee’s anti-evolution education law in 1967.

“Freethought,” by the way, is not a generic term.

Smith is quite the character: he is promoted as the foremost multi-level marketing attorney on the planet (which provides a predictable backstory); he was a leader of the recent effort to keep the Confederate names of several parks in Memphis unchanged, and he’s also the owner of a British Lordship.

My research on Smith and the MFA led me to some more thoughts on evolution and intelligent design that I plan to share in a future post. Until then, feel free to poke the links above; some of them are mildly entertaining.

The monologue monologue continues into its third year.

Someone’s starting early: Rep. Steve Cohen’s campaign website has already been updated to say “Steve Cohen for Congress 2008.”

Just a month into his term and Cohen’s team has already jumped ahead to the next election.

I’ve always heard that U.S. House campaigns are perennial, but I hadn’t seen such a blatant example before.

The Cohen news page still says 2006, though, and offers nothing more recent than November 2nd.

The deadline has now passed for Mr. Chris Davis to agree to the live debate I challenged him to have with me.

Davis has offered a great number of excuses for not participating but has repeated the following three in particular: 1. that a live debate would be a waste of his precious time, 2. that a debate would not benefit anyone else, and 3. that debates are “what blogs are for.”

The first of these is interesting, given the amount of time Davis has already spent writing blog posts and comments on the subject throughout this past week. It’s an enterprise he continues to recommend, as he did with his first of many responses to my challenge, saying, “Our readers can moderate.” This afternoon, Davis reiterated the point, “This is the debate… Right here, right now.” If Davis has so much time to write and surf the web, how is he unable to debate me in person? The fact is, it’s never been about time, it’s been something else.

Maybe his second excuse is a better fit — perhaps Davis really doesn’t believe that engaging in a debate will offer something to the community. But that’s been proved incorrect by the heightened interest on his blog and mine, for an exchange that is drawing plenty of attention locally, statewide and beyond. And that’s not to mention the influence he already claims to wield: “I should point out that this blog is fairly well read by members of the media and local civic leaders, so I believe it has an impact.” If the debate has no virtue or impact, why continue it anywhere, even online? The fact is, it’s never been about value for the community, either, it’s been something else.

So could it be that Davis simply doesn’t want to leave the friendly confines of the blogosphere, where his boosters can celebrate his achievements with photos of (and I’m not even making this up) masturbating monkeys? It could be. But, again, why engage in a debate online if you don’t have time and it won’t benefit anybody else? Furthermore, if Davis were so interested in the online debate, why hasn’t he responded to my last post on the subject, written several days ago and knocking out several of his main points? The fact is, taking advantage of “how blogs work” has never been an honest reason, either.

I wouldn’t deny anyone the liberty to advance multiple reasons for making a decision; that’s expected. But if any of these were sufficient excuses, why bother offering half a dozen more?

I would say that Davis knows very well why he’s dodging the debate — and not for any of these previously-stated reasons — but that might be crediting him with far more self-awareness than he deserves.

If he were that self-aware, he might betray some glimmer of recognition that he’d been played the fool, having been sucked into arguing the same points he ridiculed me for posting last week.

Indeed, if the biased headlines were to be applied to our situation, they would look something like this:

Davis Blocks Debate on Iraq

That’s because each time he claims that we’re already having the debate, right here, he ignores the parallel to the story I commented on in the first place. Even his editor at the Memphis Flyer got the joke (early on, I might add), but not PeskyFly.

The Fly was too busy reciting his holy book of insults, the most recent of them being “crybabies.”

In a debate, what kind of person does nothing but offer a million excuses and call people names?

I’ll take crybabies for $100, Alex.

Perhaps Davis was being serious when he suggested I send out a press release declaring myself the winner. I have no choice but to conclude that he was, based on his latest spin of a Senate GOP memo, in which he suggests the reverse has already happened.

Still, I’m a bit puzzled why Davis continues to turn my one-on-one debate challenge into a mock debate that is biased in my favor (”Hell, pick Hollihan so you’ve got a head start.”) or, alternatively, a team sport (”…I would happily take on you, Mick, Mike, and whoever you want to add to your team with the left half of my brain tied behind my back.”).

That’s a tremendous amount of swagger for someone who’s not only dodging a debate, but who has already lost it. Badly.

I think the real reason is that he’s simply afraid.

And you can run to press with that if you’d like, Chris.

The gutsy A.C. at Fore Left has tagged me with a viral blog-about-this meme. I can’t say no to a midget, so here goes:

1. I haven’t talked to many of my best friends in months.
2. It’s my sincere hope that statistics covering all facets of life will be available in Heaven.
3. I could survive on nothing but chips and salsa, and often do.
4. A few things I find extremely uninteresting: dinosaurs, cars, Law & Order, dance clubs and college sports.
5. We’re naming our pets in alphabetical order.
6. As a teenager, I once fed a large sum of money into a Pizza Hut jukebox so that Meatloaf’s “I would do anything for love (but I won’t do that)” could play for hours on end and drive the employees absolutely crazy.

In return, I tag the following cronies: Matt, Ainsley’s Mom, Benica, Olivia, Jeff and Southern Girl. If you see it, you see it. If you don’t, you don’t.

Yahoo’s fantasy baseball leagues open on Friday.

Let me know if you’d like to join us.

A Commercial Appeal editorial looks at “guerrilla tactics” that “target abortion.” It turns out Mississippi is a regular Che Guevara.

In the 34 years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion, some resistant states have found ways to intimidate women who are considering the procedure.

Few have been as aggressive as Mississippi, where practically no public funds are used for abortions, biased counseling is required and patients are made to wait 24 hours.

…

Mississippi… seems destined to pursue its guerrilla campaign of harassment and marginalization of women who want abortions.

Yes, I’m intimidated because the state gives me practically no money taken from other people to pay for my abortion, or only enough taxpayer money for a few of my abortions but not all of them.

I’m intimidated because I have to sit through a “biased” counseling session before the human life in my womb is extinguished.

Most of all, I’m intimidated because of a 24-hour waiting period.

But I’m even more intimidated about something else, so I wrote a little editorial of my own, using my home state of Iowa as an example. The headline is this: Guerrilla Tactics Target Second Amendment. I hope you like it.

In the 216 years since the Bill of Rights legalized the right to keep and bear arms, some resistant states have found ways to intimidate citizens who are considering the idea.

Many have been as aggressive as Iowa, where no public funds are used for handguns, a biased criminal background check is required and citizens are made to wait 72 hours.

Iowa seems destined to pursue its guerrilla campaign of harassment and marginalization of citizens who want to exercise their Second Amendment right.

UPDATE: The CA got several letters on this one. (more…)