memeorandum: Today's photo: Palestinians use armored vehicle marked 'TV' to attack Israeli troops (Mike Carney/On Deadline)

2:40 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: The Caucus, Los Angeles Times, Captain's Quarters, DownWithTyranny!, Middle Earth Journal, Connecting.the.Dots, New Pairodimes and Brian Beutler

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.

Discussion: TPMmuckraker, Firedoglake and Macsmind

Edwin Chen / Bloomberg:
Bush Calls Vote on Attorney General `Meaningless' (Update1)

Discussion: New York Times, Washington Post and Michael P.F. van der Galiën

Kathy Kiely / USA Today:
Bush to meet with GOP over immigration

Discussion: Washington Post and Hot Air

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

Appeals Court Orders Enemy Combatant Free by Military — In a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration's central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism, a federal appeals court ordered the Pentagon to release a man being held as an enemy combatant.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Washington Monthly and The Mahablog

Zinie Chen Sampson / Associated Press:

Court rules in favor of enemy combatant — RICHMOND, Va. - The Bush administration cannot legally detain a U.S. resident it suspects of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charging him, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday. — "To sanction such presidential authority to order …

Discussion: Balkinization and The Anonymous Liberal

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: The Moderate Voice, The Carpetbagger Report, Vox Popoli and Amygdala

Cernig / The Newshoggers: Retrocessive Intellectual Evolution

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: BLACKFIVE

Rasmussen Reports:

Harry Reid's Favorables Fall to 19% — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now viewed favorably by 19% of American voters and unfavorably by 45%. Just 3% have a Very Favorable opinion while 22% hold a Very Unfavorable views. — Reid has been very visible over the past week in the furor over immigration reform.

Don Frederick / Los Angeles Times:

New L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll — John McCain's presidential candidacy clearly is struggling, and a just-completed Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll is not going to buoy his camp's spirits. — We won't reveal the exact numbers here; for that, you can check The Times website later today for all the numbers and analysis.

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's … and Associated Press

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

ABCNEWS:

Georgia Judge Voids Sentence in Teen Sex Case — After Already Serving Twenty-Seven Months, Genarlow Wilson Waits in Prison As The State Appeals the Court's Decision to Overturn His Ten-Year Sentence. — A judge on Monday voided a 10-year sentence for a man accused of having consensual oral sex …

Discussion: TalkLeft and Sentencing Law and Policy

CNN:
10-year sentence thrown out in teen sex case

Discussion: The Debate Link, Reason Magazine and Sentencing Law and Policy

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

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 Moderate Voice, The Strata-Sphere, Abu Aardvark, Jules Crittenden, Watching Those We Chose and The Mahablog

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

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Atlantic Online and Brian Beutler

Matt / Think Progress:

Huckabee: 'Most' Prisoners In The U.S. 'Would Love' To Be In Guantanamo — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell condemned the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay yesterday, calling it "a major problem for America's perception" and charging, "if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo — not tomorrow, this afternoon."

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, My Two Sense, WorkingForChange, Confederate Yankee, Michael P.F. van der Galiën and Blognonymous

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, Taylor Marsh and Daily Kos

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

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: Taylor Marsh, Hot Air, Althouse and PerezHilton.com