It’s a bad omen for the primary debates when you get repeatedly outfoxed by a comedian.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Dear Rudy Giuliani,

Republicans are bad on national security.

Love,
me

Vermont’s state senate passed a largely symbolic resolution on Friday calling on the U.S. Congress to impeach President George W. Bush over his handling of the unpopular Iraq war.

Reflecting growing grass-roots anger over the war, the 16 to 9 vote urges Vermont’s representatives in Washington to introduce a resolution in Congress requiring the House Judiciary Committee to start impeachment proceedings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney…

If Vermont’s House follows, rules written by former President Thomas Jefferson to govern the U.S. House could set impeachment proceedings in motion. According to section 603 of Jefferson’s Manual, a state legislature can introduce impeachment charges to Congress.

Read on.

Two anonymous individuals at Overheard In the Office make a fascinating observation.

“RNC Asserts Executive Privilege” by Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)

My former client, Andrei Sakharov, had a physicist’s approach to politics. The essential dynamics of a political system is rarely apparent on the surface, he said. It was necessary to understand the political equivalent of the subatomic particles and to understand the rules by which they interact. In his last years he was fascinated by constitutional law, and by the Constitution of the Soviet Union. And after some careful study, he made this pronouncement: the entire system of Communist tyranny hangs on a single article of the Soviet Union, and it is article 6. “Article 6?!” was the incredulous response. It was an almost forgotten provision – it said that the “Communist Party of the Soviet Union is the guide of the USSR and the interpreter of its laws.” But Andrei Dmitrievich was convinced: this was the anchor of Communist tyranny. Remove it, and the system will come tumbling down. And, as Soviet citizens learned within a matter of only a couple of years, this analysis was exact and correct: the movement to repeal article 6 was launched at the end of 1989, and it correctly identified the principal stress point and helped bring down the Communist dictatorship.

But in America today, things seem to be operating in reverse. How are we to understand the announcement that the Republican National Committee will claim Executive Privilege? The Party is the State. The party is the guide of the United States. And the interpreter of its laws? The party stands above the law? The functions of the Party and the Executive have been fused into one? The assertion is preposterous. The American constitution has no equivalent of the USSR Constitution’s article 6. And yet today the claim is made, and it hardly seems to stir comment.

The comic Achewood presents this novel idea for paying for the war.

Britain has decided to ban the term ‘War on Terror’ – sparking fears of a major row with the US.

The International Development Secretary will say the phrase has strengthened militant groups by giving them a shared identity.

Hilary Benn’s speech is expected to anger the White House when he criticises President Bush’s phrase.

He will stress the term makes terrorist groups feel that they are part of something “bigger”.

Mr Benn will also urge world leaders to open dialogue with potential enemies rather than use military force.

President Bush championed the phrase ‘War on Terror’ shortly after the al Qaeda attacks on New York on September 11, 2001.

The Foreign Office called for it to be dropped in December last year but Washington stuck to its guns.

Mr Benn will say in his speech: “In the UK, we do not use the phrase ‘War on Terror’ because we can’t win by military means alone, and because this isn’t us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives.”

Read on.

Pat Condell sends this message, “Hello America”:
(audio NSFW)

NPR reports:

Children were invited to the White House Monday for the Easter Egg Roll. On the agenda: Laura Bush reading a children’s book called Duck for President. The duck takes over the farm, then runs for governor, then runs for the White House. He wins after a recount. But he gives it all up to go back to the farm, concluding: “Running a country is no fun at all.”

(thanks to Julia for the link)