DANIEL SOLOVE looks at varying media treatments in the Tom Delay case.

Personally, I don’t like Tom “no pork here” Delay, and I think it’s good for the country (and the Republicans, actually) that he won’t be resuming his leadership position. On the other hand, I also suspect that he really is the target of a politically motivated witch hunt, and I can only imagine the howls we’d hear if the same kinds of legal theories were being applied to labor unions.

UPDATE: More here.

IT’S MURTHA VS. MURTHA over at Kausfiles. “Sorry, this man seems confused. In his current state I wouldn’t follow him either into battle or out of it.”

The Dems do seem in disarray over the war, but now they’re not just disagreeing with each other, but with themselves. It’s like the whole party has been Kerry-ized.

UPDATE: P.A. Miller has a theory about what’s going on.

MORE: “Karl Rove has made suckers out of the Democrats again.”

“POUTING SPOOKS” STRIKE AGAIN? Seems, as others have suggested, like something calling for more subpoenas. Because leaking classified information is always wrong, right, not just when it might implicate someone in the White House. . . . (Via Never Yet Melted). You do wonder whether anyone at the CIA ever manages to keep a secret. It seems clear that Bush made a dreadful mistake by not firing a lot of people after 9/11.

I’VE NOTICED LOTS OF DEMOCRATS on various TV shows calling for Bush to replace Rumsfeld with Joe Lieberman. Given that the Democrats don’t exactly see eye-to-eye with Lieberman on defense matters, I wonder what’s going on? Are they trying to get him out of the Senate for some reason? Do they expect things to get a lot better in Iraq before 2006, and want to split the credit? Do they think Bush is going to do it anyway, and want to make it look like they pressured him into it? (Kaus’s “Nader strategy?”) Or is there some other agenda I’m missing? Because it sure seems to have coalesced as an across-the-board talking point very quickly.

UPDATE: Here’s some Democratic thinking, according to Kos.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Kerry has jumped on the bandwagon, which makes me suspect that it’s not going anywhere.

IF YOU LOOK IN THE RIGHT SIDEBAR (below the credits buttons and just above the recommended links) you’ll see a box listing recent blog carnivals. I’m testing this for my cousin-in-law Brad Rubenstein — it’s a feature of his BlogCarnival.com site. Don’t worry — I won’t quit linking carnivals here. But I think it’s a useful guide. I believe you can get the button for your site, too, just by clicking.

UPDATE: The Carnival of Tomorrow is up!

HEH.

HERE’S A ROUNDUP OF VENEZUELAN ELECTION BLOG COVERAGE put together by Robert Mayer of Publius.

SO THE 9/11 COMMISSION IS COMPLAINING about problems with first responders’ radios. Who’s holding things up? Television networks:

As I noted in an earlier post, Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., and Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., have cited un-named television broadcasters who use the frequencies first responders want to use — Channels 63, 64, 69 and 69 — as holding up this legislation for years.

So who are we talking about? Which big broadcasters?

I’m told from Congressional sources that the big stations that would be affected by giving those spectrum numbers are the family-friendly PAX and Spanish-speaking UNIVISON, as well as some other broadcasters in particular markets.

I wonder if the family friendly and minority nature of these stations have anything to do with the politicians’ reluctance to name them?

Or is it just that it’s more nefarious-sounding to call them “big broadcasters”?

I wonder why this story isn’t getting more TV coverage . . . .

MARC COOPER:

I just came back from the Burbank studios of Warner Bros. where I saw a screening of the new thriller, Syriana.

In a word: disappointing.

Syriana’s commercial tag-line might, indeed, be “Everything is Connected” but its 126 minutes made me feel like I was pitched into a roiling sea of free-radical dots with very little coherence at all. As I watched a particularly gruesome scene of George Clooney’s character getting his fingernails pulled out, I briefly considered if it might be worth my time to trade places with him.

Ouch!

WHO SHOULD CONTROL THE INTERNET? A discussion.

FOR SOME PEOPLE, it will always be 1971.

UPDATE: But not for everyone.

THE 9/11 COMMISSION WILL NEVER GO AWAY, APPARENTLY: Now they’ve issued a report card.

On the other hand, there’s clearly room for improvement:

Connecticut homeland security officials were left in the dark for more than two hours Friday after a series of bomb threats forced the evacuation and shutdown of the state’s 45 courthouses, authorities acknowledged Monday.

Neither police nor Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s office _ which received one of the bomb threats at 10 a.m. _ had informed the security agency by noon, leaving top officials to learn about the first-of-its-kind evacuation from reporters.

Yes, this is a state issue — but supposedly we created a new cabinet department to help bring states up to speed.

FRESH BAKED: Nidra Poller offers firsthand reporting from Paris, where unrest continues. This time it’s the gypsies rioting. “Everybody and his brother can bring the city to a halt. Demonstrating is the last of the sacred rights.”

SO I GUESS FOXNEWS DIDN’T JUST MAKE IT UP: Brian Flemming has declared war on Christmas.

I hate to disparage a fellow blogger, but I’m not sure Brian is a match for Foamy the Squirrel. Maybe they can do a point/counterpoint on O’Reilly. . . .

AT LEAST THEY’RE CONSISTENT: Antiwar protesters practice cut-and-run.

PUBLIUS has a live report from the Venezuelan elections. “Miguel Octavio and I went across the entire city of Caracas in search of a polling station full of people. Or half full. Or people at all!”

And Gateway Pundit has more.

SOME FURTHER THOUGHTS on happenings in Azerbaijan: “Unlike their neighbors, the Georgians (with whom I also worked with for a year) the Azeri opposition was never able to understand the basics of political message development and communication – namely, that you have to research the electorate and identify and communicate a message that will resonate with a specific portion of that electorate.” Somebody should offer them some help.

EUGENE VOLOKH looks at neutrality and trust in the judicial system.

MORE ANNOYING SPYWARE installed on your computer. And here’s a review of antispyware tools. (Both via Slashdot).

I think that companies that install spyware should be liable under RICO. Or we could just bring back tarring and feathering.

I’M HOME FROM HAVING A COLONOSCOPY — everything went fine, but I think I’ll let the drugs leave my system for a while longer before doing any serious blogging. In the meantime, you might want to check out Cato’s new blog, Cato Unbound, and also this interesting post on India’s increasing engagement with the Anglosphere. And if you’re still bored, you can cast your votes for best blog in the Wizbang Weblog Awards.

UPDATE: Better now. A few people were offended that I even mentioned the word “colonoscopy,” while others wondered why I didn’t live-blog it a la Katie Couric. The latter is a bit much, and would have required me to forego the drugs; the former is just silly.

A colonoscopy isn’t just a diagnostic test — if they find polyps, they can remove them, making it virtually certain that you won’t get colon cancer. If you skip that because of squeamishness, well, you’re just an idiot. Luckily, I was clean and don’t have to go back for five years. By then, they may have replaced them with swallowable cameras, with actual scoping only when there’s something that needs fixing. At any rate, though, there aren’t many simple safe procedures that can absolutely prevent cancer, and this is one. Don’t forego it because you’re squeamish.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I’m blaming the drugs for this error, which Dave Johnston emails me to correct:

Cato Unbound is not Cato’s blog, which is forthcoming later this month. Unbound is a online magazine-type project by Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson. It will feature monthly issues and discussions, with work submitted by scholars in various areas depending on that month’s topic. It is set up to look a bit like a blog (I’ve installed WordPress for Will and Brink to use as a content management system).

I point this out because there has been significant internal wrangling here at Cato to make sure that the two projects are not confused.

The blog will be very free-flowing with no set topics or discussions…like, well…a blog.

Certainly this one!

MORE: Oncologist reader David McCune emails:

Before you exit your Katie Couric mode, I was hoping you would do one last public service announcement. You reach a wide audience, and it wouldn’t hurt to get the word out as to the current screening guidelines for colorectal cancer.

Colon cancer screening with either colonoscopy (a flexible tube that allows a doctor to visual the entire colon) or flexible sigmoidoscopy (a shorter scope) is recommended for men and women beginning at age 50. If the person has a family history of either cancer or pre-cancerous polyps, then screening should start at 40 or 10 years younger than the earliest age at which cancer was diagnosed in the family, whichever is earlier. Although the two tests are considered equivalent, I personally recommend the colonoscopy. The sigmoidoscopy has too high of a chance of missing cancers that occur beyond the reach of the shorter scope. The colonoscopy does have its own drawbacks, though, including a higher risk of serious complications and the need for sedation. Here are the recommendations from the American Cancer Society, and here are the ones from the National Cancer Institute.

I’m an oncologist, so I end up seeing the people who eventually get advanced cancer. The percentage of people who have not had the recommended colon screening is much higher than the percentage who have neglected to have mammography (probably because of the “ick factor” of talking about the colon), even though the reduction in cancer death is even more impressive than that seen with mammogram screening for breast cancer. Thanks for getting the word out.

You’d feel pretty stupid, wouldn’t you? And yes, I started early because of family history issues.

HERE’S MORE on the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong yesterday.

GO BUY VIRGINIA POSTREL’S BOOK — or she’ll think you’re unpopular! Actually, I think it’s the other way around, which strikes me as poor salesmanship . . .

THE CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS IS UP!

PLAME TWO: The sequel! More subpoenas are on the way, no doubt.

JOHN HAWKINS HAS ANNOUNCED THE WINNERS of the 4th annual Warblogger Awards.