I'll be watching The Bachelorette and posting on PopLeft.

The Lakers and Nuggets square off again in Game 4 of the WCF at the Pepsi Center. the Lakers are leading 2 to 1. Go Nuggets! (But they can't compete with The Bachelorette.)

I hope you all had a good weekend, we had three days of rain.

A legal question from the TL kid for any lawyers reading: Defendant is being re-tried and the victim is unavailable. Can the prosecutor call a juror from the first trial as a witness at the retrial to testify about a gesture the victim made while on the stand? The record of the victim's testimony at the first trial does not reflect the gesture.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Susan Boyle is headed to the finals in Britain's Got Talent. Check out her funny reaction when the winner is announced.

The other winner: The dance group Diversity, who beat out Natalie.

The performances:

• Susan Boyle
• Diversity
• Natalie

President Obama tells C-Span he's a night owl. He sometimes stays up till midnight.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

This town is psyched. The TL Kid tells me this is an event that might happen once every 25 years.

The Nuggets haven't lost at home since March -- 16 consecutive home games including 6 in the playoffs. They last played the Lakers in Denver on Feb. 27 and they won, 90-79.

I'm actually going to watch. If you are, please join in.

Update: End of first quarter, Nuggets up by 2. Can they keep the momentum? [More...]

Glenn Greenwald links to Ambinder:

[Obama] was blunt; the [military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.

(Emphasis supplied.) Earlier today, I disagreed with a post Glenn wrote today on "preventive detentions," but Glenn's work, like Krugman's work on the economy, is invaluable. Not only to the policies, but to Obama politically as well. Glenn puts it well:

Broder takes the cake today (via Balloon Juice):

Cheney . . . . is scornful of the simplistic formulas . . .

Heh.

Speaking for me only

Update: 100 million votes cast and in an upset, Kris Allen wins. His first comment: "Adam deserves it." He sounds almost bummed. Adam is smiling and very congratulatory. Congratulations, Kris. To Adam: You'll still be the biggest star of the show.

Final thought: Homophobic Christians took over the American Idol ballotbox, just like they're trying to do in real life. It's at least a plausible explanation considering 100 million votes but the lowest ratings ever for last night’s finale. Who’s voting besides the viewers and why? The Washington Post says you can expect these questions to be batted around the water cooler tomorrow.

****

The two-hour finale has just begun. I thought it was just the pre-teen, text-message obsessed crowd that might create an upset on American Idol tonight, resulting in Kris Allen beating Adam Lambert. But, there may be a religious factor and he may pick up a big chunk of the Danny Gokey vote: [More...]

The winner will be chosen tonight on Dancing With the Stars and it's Adam Lambert vs. Chris Allen on American Idol, with the winner being announced tomorrow night. My votes: Melissa and Adam. Who I think will win: Gilles and Adam. I'm not counting Shawn out though, she has been terrific the past few weeks, especially last night.

My pal Jesse Csincsak, former Bachelorette winner, is looking to be on the next season of Dancing With the Stars. I'd think he'd be terrific. As a professional snowboarder, he's certainly got the athletic skills and balance and coordination. Plus, he really looks good (and even better in person than on camera.) So I hope you'll take a few minutes and go sign the petition to help get him on the show. (You can even sign and click the box not to have your name displayed.)

I'll be putting longer posts on DWTS and AI on PopLeft tonight (it's still a work in progress), feel free to comment either place.

This is an open thread, all topics, tv-related or not, are welcome.

At the Peabody Awards yesterday, New Orleans TV reporter Lee Zurik took home a Peabody for his investigation into a city-run program called NOAH (New Orleans Affordable Home Ownership.)

NOAH was supposed to fix and remediate Katrina wracked homes but Zurik's investigation--which was kick-started by reporting from a New Orleans blogger named Karen Gadbois--found that NOAH charged the city for work they did not do and for addresses that did not exist. [More...]

2d Update (TChris): The explanation: Dowd didn't read Marshall's post but heard the line from a friend who failed to attribute it to Marshall. This explanation requires you to believe: (1) Dowd's memory captured the once-heard sentence word-for-word (save for one edit), and (2a) the friend also recited the sentence perfectly from memory, or (2b) the friend read the sentence (or more of the post) to Dowd without telling Dowd that she was reading from a blog. Either way, Dowd admits to using someone else's language without attribution. If it's a gift from a friend, why tell? All better now?

Update: The NY Times just changed MoDo's column to credit Josh Marshall for the paragraph. It adds the note: "An earlier version of this column failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall’s blog at Talking Points Memo. "

About that Maureen Dowd column BTD wrote about earlier, via Daily Kos, check this out:

Maureen Dowd, Pulitizer Prize winner. Today. New York Times:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Josh Marshall. Blogger. Last Thursday. Talking Points Memo:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Any bets on what Dowd or the Times will have for an explanation? An intern ghosting her column?

Maureen Dowd:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

I used to agree with President Obama, that it was better to keep moving and focus on our myriad problems than wallow in the darkness of the past. But now I want a full accounting. I want to know every awful act committed in the name of self-defense and patriotism. Even if it only makes one ambitious congresswoman pay more attention in some future briefing about some future secret technique that is “uniquely” designed to protect us, it will be worth it.

(Emphasis supplied.)

Howie Klein at Crooks and Liars has a Nanci Griffith song up tonight, so I thought I'd put up my favorite song of her's -- "This Heart." It's spirited and uplifting.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.