Boy am I not telling you any news here: Senator Obama, FISA, and telecom immunity present a series of interwoven issues that aren't easily sorted out. As I wrote this one for tonight, I was confident it would be "brief."

Silly me.

Especially after John Dean came back today with a rather startling report that even the Bush Administration concurs: there is no criminal immunity for anybody in the FISA bill.

Your problem (Senator Obama) is what happens even if this plays out according to plan next week:

1. You vote for the anti-immunity amendment.

2. The anti-immunity amendment fails.

3. You vote for the FISA legislation.

And:

4. The FISA legislation passes.

Oh, and, 5) Senator: The Republicans still run against you with the 'elections-for-dummies 'message: "Obama voted uh-uh... thing terror-stop."

   Every once in awhile I see mass media blasted for being inattentive or sloppy or exhibiting a pack mentality (or exhibiting no mentality at all), and I recoil, just as you might if somebody trashed the entirety of your field.
   And then something happens that makes me think the criticism isn't merely justified - it's understated.
   Did anybody notice that Grover Norquist walked into the Washington bureau of The Los Angeles Times yesterday and dismissed Obama as "John Kerry with a tan?"

The weeks have blurred together lately, for obvious reasons. I don't stop by for awhile, then I read I'm AWOL. And I don't do a Comment blasting Obama, and I read somebody wrote something over-the-top about my lack of principles.

I think it was last Thursday or Friday - dates and quotes aren't going to be exact here and you can forgive that or not - that we had John Dean on, to try to explain Senator Obama's rationalization of voting for the telecom civil immunity in the FISA bill.

Simply put, what John said quelled any anger simmering beneath my surface. Because John Dean is the smartest person I've ever met.

   Once more unto the breach.
   As Senator McCain explains tonight that his "position on the war in Iraq has been very very clear," and his people insist we all know what he meant by answering a question about when the troops will be ransomed from Iraq by saying "that's not too important," I will examine exactly what his position on Iraq has been, primarily using his own words.
   And in this Special Comment I hope also to provide the Senator the context his supporters claim that quote was taken out of.

     Thoughts, offered more in sorrow, than in anger.
     For two full days now, the Senator and his supporters have been outraged at what they see as the subtraction of context from this extraordinary remark.
     This is, sadly, the excuse of our time, for everything.
     Still. If the Senator claims truncation, we will correct that, first.

As alluded to elsewhere Senator Clinton's comments require a Special Comment tonight.

I need to be brief, but there's a preview below. We can sometimes have our most innocent remarks misinterpreted into the most violent of inferences - I know this firsthand. And we are still responsible for the words, no matter the intent.

The use of the word "assassination" is not open to misinterpretation. It has no place, not with our country's history.

Reading these new remarks, jaw-dropping even for this knuckle-dragging president, I am reminded, strangely, of the scene in Monty Python's Life Of Brian, when the commandos of the Campaign For Free Galilee and the People's Front of Judea meet each other in the palace of Pontius Pilate, having each conceived and launched exactly the same kidnap plot at the same time.

BRIAN: Brothers! Brothers! We should be struggling together!

FRANCIS: We are!

BRIAN: We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should be united against the common enemy!

EVERYONE: The Judean People's Front?!

Times like these, when a president of the United States is not descended upon by a team of psychoanalysts after he actually talks about how he responded to the grief of parents who lost children in his meaningless war in Iraq, by making his own sacrifice - golf - remind me that surely even in this time of internecine Democratic struggling, we should be united against the Common Enemy.

So tonight, for the first time since Valentine's Day, I'm offering a Special Comment on Mr. Bush, previewed below.

My friend Rachel Maddow walked on to the set last night saying she'd just heard a prophesied "dog-whistle" tell-tale sign, earlier in the show (namely that Dianne Feinstein had just given anything less than a cheerleader-style answer to the prospect of the Clinton campaign continuing).

I replied I'd just heard a different whistle that the end was nigh, but I couldn't say anything yet pending additional sourcing.

I can say it tonight and before the tv audience gets the full thing, I thought I'd offer up a little preview: At least one very prominent Clinton campaigner has just this week started shopping for a book deal.

I knew some day I'd actually write something that did not include a shout about what we're doing on the show. And, my very dear friends, as Mr McCain would begin, this day has arrived. I've been startled to watch two developments anger and shake our respective Coalitions of The Reasonable, without the obvious deflating corollaries apparently dawning on anybody.

Firstly, Senator Clinton's appearance with O'Reilly is more pathetic and revelatory than it is outrageous. Secondly, the "Manchurian Candidate" meme voiced by Coultergeist might be taken down and later used against her.

   Well, it's not a Special Comment, and with one possible exception, I don't think it's particularly nasty towards one side more than the other in the current Democratic Endlessness.
   But, if like me, you've recently been called out by Governor Ed Rendell or James Carville, you probably need a few yucks.
   So tonight when the show celebrates its 5th Anniversary with our special on NBC, we will be laying on the network folks, four minutes' worth of our exclusive "discovery" of the actual "Commander-In-Chief Threshold Test," the existence of which was revealed by Senator Clinton and Mr. Wolfson earlier in the month.

      Well this probably violates all house rules about purloining material but the thing is about me.
      I have to say this reflects the off-the-record interplay, too, and I find it encouraging.
      Some of what Ben Smith reported at Politico, after he asked, on the Clinton Campaign conference call:

.

..how the campaign responds to Keith Olbermann's contention that they are "awash in filth."

  I do not do this lightly, and I do not do this happily.
  There is no exaggeration in this preamble, and when I say the words on "more in sorrow than in anger" on the air tonight, I will mean them and mean them profoundly.
  As ever, forgive me for quoting myself.

    By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton -- and the Senator's mother, and the Senator's brother -- were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty, and the most anger. My gratitude to them is abiding.

You did it again, Keith. While Hunter's been working on a new comment rendering system, it's not fully ready. In the meantime, comments disabled. Someone should start up a new diary for the discussion. -ct

Howdy, Campers.

Well combining the intoxicating aroma of Valentine's Day, with the House Democrats' sudden spinal growth -- close business, except for pro forma activity, until February 25, thus calling the President's bluff -- has gotten me all feisty. Some of it will be uh, re-purposed, from the piece of January 31st, but I'm sticking a Special Comment in tonight's televised festival.

In exchange for imposing the plug on you, here's the first sneak peak.

I had a shot of cortisone in my hand Friday afternoon so I'm still not certain I'm not hallucinating this, even though I've seen it on the Reuters news wire, read it aloud to a couple of colleagues, and put it out on Countdown as the closer to "Bushed!"

Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he has hung two portraits in his new office. And one of them is of George Orwell.

Forgive the fairly minor focus here but I spot at least three diaries on his appearance on Countdown last night to discuss Obama, Reagan, and Edwards.

Those of you complaining about it are right.

[This is legit -- kos]

     Yeah, it’s me.
     Hi.
     Sure has taken me long enough. But, as you may know, I am the shy, retiring type: Hesitant to state an opinion in public and horrified to pass judgment or seem a scold.