SOME BARBECUE-BLOGGING from Les Jones.

FRANK CAGLE: “I’ve never understood why good-government types hate democracy, but I suspect it’s because voters often elect the wrong candidates.”

FROM “TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE” TO Hsu for the price of one: “NBC’s Andrea Mitchell: Hsu Scandal Makes Bill Clinton a Drag on Hillary’s Campaign.”

UPDATE: Reader Vernon Conaway emails:

I think I see a pattern emerging, and I’d be interested to know if you agree. First, Hillarycare wasn’t really Hillarycare, but Billcare, and Hillary took the fall for him once it proved unpopular. Now Hsu is only a problem for Hillary! because it reminds people of Bill and his administration’s troubles with Chinese donations seeming to buy our sensitive nuclear secrets. So is the new Hillary! campaign going to throw even Bill Clinton under the bus to try to keep the Hillary! name clean?

Whatever it takes, is the usual political approach.

MORE ON the French and Iran.

SLATE: It’s a Hsu-nami!

Plus, in the L.A. Times, Sweet Hsu: “Associates describe the disgraced Democratic fundraiser as charming and self-effacing, but deceptive.” And, in the New York Times, Eager Hsu Please: “Norman Hsu was desperate for invitations to glitzy Democratic Party galas in California and private political dinners in New York. But once he got in, Mr. Hsu, a 56-year-old apparel executive, seemed awkward and out of place, almost astonished to be posing for pictures with former President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and other big-name Democrats. . . .He was a compulsive name-dropper who even took time to befriend campaign workers, pulling strings to get them reservations at tough-table restaurants like Nobu in Manhattan.”

IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jeff Rosen reviews K.C. Johnson & Stuart Taylor’s book on the Duke (non) rape case, Until Proven Innocent. Rosen calls it “riveting.”

MISMANAGEMENT IN MICHIGAN.

LIVING IN THE FUTURE, and discovering the downside.

SOME OF US LIVE THIS STORY EVERY DAY: The Sea of Trolls.

O.J. SIMPSON ARRESTED on multiple felony charges.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS, in Iraq.

FROM VANESSA WILLIAMS TO VANESSA HUDGENS: Are nude photos just no big deal anymore? Seems to me that when half the country is posting their own nude pics to Flickr, celebrity nude photos just aren’t going to be that big a deal.

THE BIONIC WOMAN: A blast from the past. Where do people get this old video?

A COMBINATION HD-DVD/BLURAY PLAYER: Verdict: Excellent.

MORE ON MORPHINE: “Although opium was one of the chief exports of British India and the country still produces more for the legal morphine industry than any other country, few Indians benefit. They end up like millions of the world’s poor — spending their last days writhing in agony, wishing death would hurry.” The problem isn’t money — morphine is cheap — but drug-war regulations.

IF THE DOCKSIDER FITS. Though I’d call him for a Topsider man, myself.

A LEGACY OF THE DUKE CASE: Concerns about prosecutors: “Some observers see a potential sea change in US attitudes over prosecutorial power.” I’d say it’s time.

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

MORE: Reader Rob Ives thinks I’m too hard on prosecutors:

Well, as a guy who has been tossed from office three times (no kidding) by the voters, I think I am fairly expert on checks against a prosecutor’s power (the first part really is true, but that is a joke). . . .

I don’t think mainstream press reports are a good place to find out what is happening in the criminal justice system and I have never seen any statistical evidence that would support what I take to be your position.

I know there is one thing we almost certainly agree about: the drug war has been very hard on the justice system. I am unquestionably libertarian at heart, and your position on this bothers me largely because I strongly agree with you about issues such as the drug war, guns, and search warrant errors. However, you make me nervous when you express a desire to apply the tort system as a solution to a problem. I despise the american tort system. Put in loser pays, and maybe we can talk.

Well, “loser pays,” if you believe in it, should apply here — defendants found not guilty, or convicted on significantly lesser charges, should be able to recover their expenses from the government’s purse. But it’s not just the news media — when I was a law clerk we had a case in which federal prosecutors actively concealed evidence of innocence from the defendant and the court. And I’ve seen enough of this sort of thing — and enough evidence of prosecutors’ power to damage even those who are never charged — to think that we need more checks and balances. And fewer criminal laws to start with.

THE HILLARYCARE MYTHOLOGY: Suddenly, we’re being told that Hillary wasn’t behind Hillarycare — it was all Bill’s idea!

The first lady was an active force in these discussions, but there was never any question that the president was in charge. We took our guidance from him. That, of course, was how it should have been (who else but the president ought to make such decisions?), except that many reporters and the public thought that Bill Clinton had handed over the policy to Hillary and that she would report back to him, which was not the case.

Presidents often downplay their own direct involvement in decision making to put some distance between themselves and policies that may eventually prove to be unsuccessful. Part of the job of cabinet members and advisors is to take the blame when things go wrong. Clinton’s appointment of his wife to chair the task force did not, however, create the necessary distance and deniability. Not only did the fiction of Hillary’s personal responsibility for the health plan fail to protect the president at the time, it has also now come back to haunt her in her own quest for the presidency.

Well, you know, tangled webs and all that. (Via Newsalert).

UPDATE: This, on the other hand, is just weird.

FRANCE: Prepare for war with Iran.

THE REAL IMPORT OF THE PETRAEUS TESTIMONY: An interesting take. “The military is the most respected institution in the country. By bypassing the political leadership (anyone seen Sec. Gates lately?) they are using that influence to make the war about them rather than the President. They’re saying ‘OK, so there was no WMD. The war was run badly by Bush and Rumsfeld. But now the professionals are running it and we’re starting to win. Let us finish the job. You don’t like them, but you respect us. Don’t let us down, like you did in Vietnam.'”

UPDATE: Susan Estrich says that the Democrats have a problem with Petraeus: “He was, to put it simply, good, a man who came across as brave, honorable, and true, and that’s the problem.”

MARIE CLAIRE DARES TO ASK THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: “Is anal bleaching for you?”

LECTURING ELIZABETH EDWARDS in “a scary, weird tone.”

UPDATE: Some amusing cover art.

IS MARRIAGE THE NEW DATING?

IS BELGIUM splitting apart?

A $30 BILLION WRITEOFF for investment banks. I predict the coverage will go along these lines:

Kramer: “It’s a write off for them.”
Jerry: “How is it a write off?”
Kramer: “They just write it off.”
Jerry: “Write it off what?”
Kramer: “Jerry, all these big companies, they write off everything.”
Jerry: “You don’t even know what a write off is.”
Kramer: “Do you?”
Jerry: “No, I don’t!”
Kramer: “But, they do. And they’re the ones writing it off.”

Indeed.