So President Bush has just commuted Scooter Libby's jail sentence. Let's hope the second part of Robert Novak's prediction comes true, too: firing Alberto Gonzales.

Novak wrote an article a few weeks ago floating the notion that pardoning Libby could go very well hand-in-hand with dumping Gonzales. As I commented at the time:

My personal opinion is that (1) Bush isn’t going to fire Gonzales, because he’s terrified of trying to get a replacement through the Senate confirmation process, and therefore he’s happy to have a broken and ineffectual Justice Department for the remainder of his term; and (2) I don’t think he’s going to pardon Libby. I think a respite or even a commutation might indeed be in the cards, but not an actual pardon.

But then again, I could be wrong. I sure hope so.

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit today which any supporter of free speech should be made aware of. Here is the entire text explaining the lawsuit from their website:

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against Gregory Jenkins, a former high-level White House staffer who enacted a policy that unlawfully excluded individuals perceived to be critical of the administration from public events where President Bush was present. The policy is laid out in an October 2002 "Presidential Advance Manual" obtained by the ACLU.

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Actually, that title is misleading. To be perfectly accurate, it should read "House Votes To Not Deny Themselves A Raise," but then you get into the whole annoy-English-teachers-with-a-double-negative thing.

Last night, the House voted 244-181 to allow their automatic Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) to go through this year. You can read the details of the story in this AP wire report. Last year, Democrats successfully blocked this raise in protest over the Republicans' refusal to raise the minimum wage. But now that they have successfully raised the minimum wage, the House wants another $4,400 a year each (approximately), which would raise their salaries to around $170,000.

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In the midst of the immigration debate raging in both houses of Congress, an old chestnut has been revived by Republicans: declaring English the national language. The issue polls extremely high with the general public, and Republicans even passed an amendment in the Senate earlier this month by a vote of 64-33, which means a bunch of Democrats (17 of them) voted for it as well. A similar amendment is part of the debate in the House. My question to these lingual purists is: what happens if Puerto Rico becomes the 51st state of the Union?

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[As always, these columns of leftovers are offered up as an homage to the late, great master of "three-dot journalism," Herb Caen.]

. . . Seems to have been a bad week for Republicans. First there was the story about South Carolina's state Treasurer, Thomas Ravenal (who also happens to be the Giuliani campaign's state chairman) getting indicted on federal cocaine distribution charges. Bummer. I would be willing to bet that the voters of South Carolina are probably not going to be impressed at Rudy bringing such "New York City values" down to their state.

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In reading today's Supreme Court's decision on Morse v. Frederick, the case of the student in Juneau, Alaska, who unfurled a banner reading "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" and was subsequently suspended (you can read the story here or at the Washington Post to get the details of the case), one conclusion is crystal-clear: Kids, if you're going to unfurl such a banner in an effort to get on national television, make sure that you state your case as: 'LEGALIZE BONG HiTS 4 JESUS'." Because then the First Amendment will protect you.

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Part 3 -- Political Compromise

[This article is in three parts. Part 1 ran Wednesday and dealt with the Republicans' increasing signals that they're ready to desert Bush en masse come September. Part 2 ran yesterday and listed the major tactical options Democrats have for ending the war through legislation.]

Part 2 of this article offered an enumerated list of legislative tactics for Democrats to use in order to end the Iraq war. Since I will be referring to these options in this final installment, allow me to preface my remarks with a summary of this list (so you don't have to keep clicking back and forth to see what I'm talking about):

(1)  Timelines

(2)  Milestones

(3)  Implement the Baker / Hamilton Iraq Survey Group (ISG) report

(4)  Repeal the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF)

(5)  Pass Murtha's troop readiness standards

(6)  Cut the purse strings off

(6a)  Force the Pentagon to draw up a withdrawal plan, then fund only that plan

(6b)  Pass "X" amount of money, and tell Bush that's all he's going to get

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Part 2 -- Democratic Tactical Choices

[This article is in three parts. Part 1 ran yesterday and dealt with the Republicans' increasing signals that they're ready to desert Bush en masse come September. Part 3 will run tomorrow, and deal with the politics involved in creating a bipartisan end to the war.]

General Petraeus, the officer in charge of our military presence in Iraq, is scheduled to report to Congress in mid-September on how the surge is doing. After he does so, Democrats are going to find themselves holding a winning hand for ending the war in Iraq -- as more and more Republicans start voting with them. But how they play their cards is going to be important in determining exactly how the war should be ended, how fast it will happen, and how many troops will be left in Iraq.

Now, there are many ideas on how to end the war from the Democratic side, and in September the party is going to have to hammer out a strategy for how to proceed -- and they'll need both a detailed strategy for the military withdrawal, and also a legislative strategy for how exactly to go about enacting the end of the war.

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Part 1 -- Republicans Facing Reality

[This article is in three parts. Part 2 will run tomorrow, and will deal with the nuts and bolts of how congressional Democrats will begin to end the war this September. Part 3 will run Friday, and detail the compromises which will be necessary to secure a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress.]

Good news is popping up in the political fight to end the war in Iraq. What may surprise you is that it's coming from the Republicans in Congress.

It shouldn't really be surprising. Democrats (other than Joe Lieberman, of course) are already on record voting to end the war. That's "good"... but it's not "news." The "'news" part is that Republicans are finally beginning to see the light. They gave Bush his surge, but -- come September -- Bush will have had his last chance (as they see it) and they're going to start voting to end the war too.

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As reported by the War Room column at Salon.com today.

[OK, this is a cut and paste job, I admit, but I'm working on a two part column for The Huffington Post to run tomorrow and Thursday, so I'm kind of busy today. My article will be on Bush, Congress and Iraq, so this is a good preamble to it.]

Five Democratic candidates appeared before the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with Chris Matthews asking questions. Here is their response (in alphabetical order) to the question:

"What is your specific exit strategy for bringing American troops home from Iraq?"

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