memeorandum: Libby's Supporters Who Wrote to Judge Learn That Letters Take on New Life on the Web (Noam Cohen/New York Times)

12:20 PM ET, June 11, 2007

Top Items:

Standing by the Wrong Guy — Just when it seemed George W. Bush's sinking prestige with his Republican base had bottomed out, his stock hit new lows. The president's seeming indifference to the sentencing of Scooter Libby was bad enough. But it coincided with Bush's apparent determination …

Discussion: DownWithTyranny!, Middle Earth Journal, New Pairodimes and Brian Beutler

Edwin Chen / Bloomberg:

Bush Calls Vote on Attorney General `Meaningless' (Update1) — President George W. Bush dismissed as ``meaningless'' a planned Senate vote today on a resolution of no confidence in U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, America's top law enforcement officer.

Discussion: Michael P.F. van der Galiën

Laurie Kellman / Associated Press:

Democrats to Push Vote on Gonzales — Majority Democrats in the Senate are forcing their Republican colleagues on the record about whether embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should keep his job. — No one is predicting that a symbolic resolution expressing no confidence in Gonzales will survive even the test vote Monday.

Washington Post:
Immigration Judges Often Picked Based On GOP Ties

Discussion: New York Times, The Carpetbagger Report, CBS News, DownWithTyranny!, Prairie Weather, All Spin Zone, The Gun Toting Liberal™, Corrente, Watching Those We Chose, Suburban Guerrilla and ImmigrationProf Blog

Laura McGann / TPMmuckraker:
Today's Must Read

Discussion: Firedoglake

Carl Hulse / The Caucus:
The Senate Confronts a Gonzales Vote

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and Norwegianity

Washington Post:

Tribal Coalition in Anbar Said to Be Crumbling — U.S.-Backed Group Has Fought Al-Qaeda in Iraq — A tribal coalition formed to oppose the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development that U.S. officials say has reduced violence in Iraq's troubled Anbar province, is beginning to splinter …

Discussion: Hot Air, The Strata-Sphere, Abu Aardvark, The Mahablog, Watching Those We Chose and Jules Crittenden

New York Times:

U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies — With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups …

Discussion: Think Progress, The Carpetbagger Report, BuzzFlash.org, Norwegianity, Blognonymous, Comments From Left Field, KnoxViews, Outside The Beltway, Counterterrorism Blog, politburo diktat 2.0, Brilliant at Breakfast, Jihad Watch, The Heretik and BlueGrassRoots

Spencer Ackerman / TPMmuckraker:
Tensions Within the Sunni Coalition Against al-Qaeda

Discussion: The Atlantic Online and Brian Beutler

Sebastian Mallaby / Washington Post:

The Party of Economic Seriousness — The collapse of the immigration bill last week holds a political lesson. It isn't just Democrats who flunk Globalization 101. Indeed, Democrats may be supplanting Republicans as the grown-ups on this issue. — Anyone who understands Globalization 101 knows …

Discussion: Ezra Klein and Eschaton

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
From the Local News To a Higher Calling

Discussion: Romenesko

Don Frederick / Los Angeles Times:
New L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll

Discussion: Associated Press

Nikki Finke / Deadline Hollywood Daily:

THAAAT'S What We Were All Waiting For? Angry 'Sopranos' Fans Crash HBO Website — The line to cancel HBO starts here. What a ridiculously disappointing end lacking in creativity to The Sopranos saga. But if you're one of those who found it perversely interesting, then don't bother to read on.

Discussion: New York Times, Editor and Publisher, Associated Press, Liberal Values, At-Largely, UrbanGrounds, Political Punch, Consumerist, CJR, The American Mind, TMZ.com, Scared Monkeys, PoliBlog (TM) and TheOnlineWire

Robert Tanner / Associated Press:

Studies say death penalty deters crime — Anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum in the past few years, with a moratorium in Illinois, court disputes over lethal injection in more than a half-dozen states and progress toward outright abolishment in New Jersey.

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, Big Lizards, The Moderate Voice, Heading Right, Don Surber, Sister Toldjah, Liberal Values, The Jawa Report, Comments From Left Field, Jules Crittenden, Blue Crab Boulevard, Scared Monkeys and Secular Blasphemy

David G. Savage / Los Angeles Times: IQ debate unsettled in death penalty cases

Noam Cohen / New York Times:

Libby's Supporters Who Wrote to Judge Learn That Letters Take on New Life on the Web — In what may be a sign of things to come, the lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr. last month invoked the rarely used courtroom tactic: the "bloggers can be mean" defense. — The issue was whether to release …

Discussion: Washington Post, Crooks and Liars, CJR and Althouse

Allahpundit / Hot Air:

Video: Dennis Miller goes nuclear on Harry Reid — The e-mails are flooding in. You want it? You got it. — If Rasmussen's right, this should resonate broadly. — Blowback

Discussion: Rasmussen Reports and BLACKFIVE

Frank Newport / Gallup Poll:

Majority of Republicans Doubt Theory of Evolution — More Americans accept theory of creationism than evolution — PRINCETON, NJ — The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.

Discussion: Michael P.F. van der Galiën and Vox Popoli

ABCNEWS:

EXCLUSIVE: Hilton Calls Barbara Walters from Jail — She 'Was Severely Depressed and Felt as if I Was in a Cage,' but now Has 'New Chance' — In jail serving out the remainder of her sentence for violating parole on reckless driving charges, Paris Hilton phoned ABC News' Barbara Walters Sunday …

Discussion: Althouse and PerezHilton.com

Howard Berkes / NPR:

Poll: Rural Vote No Longer a Lock for Republicans — · A new national poll indicates rural Americans are no longer reliably Republican, and the Bush administration's conduct of the war in Iraq seems mainly to blame. — People from the nation's smallest places had the biggest impact in the last two presidential elections.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Burnt Orange Report and Daily Kos

Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:

Court to hear crack vs. powder case; issues five unanimous rulings. — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up at its next Term the long-standing dispute over the wide disparity in punishment for crack cocaine crimes than for offenses involving cocaine powder a 100 to 1 ratio.

Discussion: ACSBlog and Sentencing Law and Policy

Laurie Goodstein / New York Times:

Romney's Run Has Mormons Wary of Scrutiny — LOGAN, Utah — In this wide valley where the twin spires of the Mormon temple dominate the landscape and some neighborhoods have a Mormon chapel every few blocks, Mitt Romney's bid for president is both a proud sign of progress and a cause of trepidation.

Discussion: DownWithTyranny!, TIME, Michael P.F. van der Galiën and Outside The Beltway