Planet Abell

I t's hard to see how Alberto Gonzalez survives, what with the almost complete repudiation of his various defenses by the calm, cool and collected testimony of his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson . The only way out when you can't just quit and your boss isn't going to fire you is to have to resign. To be noble. To protect the kids! There may not have been the Alexander Butterfield moment Chris Matthews predicted, but Sampson's demeanor hearkened back to that previously faceless bureaucrat, whose testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee about bugging devices in the Oval Office quickly altered history. And it also seemed reminiscent of John Dean 's appearance in the same forum, although, chief of staff, you are no John Dean. Gonzales, who, unless he chooses to do another interview, or step down, is next scheduled to face the subject of how eight US attorneys got the axe on April 17. Support by President Bush (the only support that matters) seems perfunctory ...

(UPDATE: Webb says he did not give aide his gun ) T he arrest of an aide to Virginia Sen. Jim Webb for gun possession is bound to be a straight line for at least a few days. The poor guy -- a husband and father -- had to spend the night in jail for forgetting to drop off in Virginia a handgun and two full magazines. What none of the news accounts I've read make abundantly clear is how easy it is for this sort of thing to happen in all innocence. Virginia, which borders DC and is so close in every way that it even shares the city's subway system, is a "shall issue" state , which means that the right to be granted a permit to carry a concealed handgun is more or less inherent and can only be denied for narrow reasons. All you need to qualify for a permit is $50, demonstrate minimal shooting proficiency (taking a safety course from a shooting instructor), fill out some forms, prove residency, wait at least 45 days and make two trips to court (drop off forms, ...

I 'm not in the habit of commenting there and publishing here (it really should be one or the other, shouldn't it?), but Jeff Jarvis struck a nerve over at The Buzz Machine with his call for comments on why anyone should be optimistic about the future of news in a post headlined " Nabobs of negativism v. cock-eyed optimists" . In the interest of full disclosure: I am. Here's what I wrote over there: The good news is great news: there is no evidence that the public interest in news has waned. We just don’t know exactly what people I feel like a kid in a candy store most days, free to be disloyal or to ignore, to find out what’s happening on my terms. Or to skip a day or two and catch up later. are doing or like – and maybe they don’t either since the volume of choice -- in content and means of consumption -- can tend to breed fickleness. The theorists call this " fragmentation ." I feel like a kid in a candy store most days, free to be disloyal or to ign...

T his is a question about balance, but it may sound insensitive: was Elizabeth Edwards' medical news worthy of a national press conference? Early in the day The Politico , (which righteously tells all here ) broke the story that a change in Mrs. Edwards' The specter of something coming out of left field rightly put media outlets on "Stop the Presses" mode. But Edwards knew what the announcement would be -- sad, but not landscape-altering. health -- whatever it was -- would prompt her husband to abandon or at least suspend his presidential campaign. That's newsworthy because he is considered a serious contender for the Democratic nomination (although well behind Hillary and Obama, and in the same neighborhood as Al Gore , who is not running at all) and leads the polling in the Iowa caucuses where the first actual voting occurs, oh, years from now. The specter of something coming out of left field rightly put all media outlets on "Stop the Presses" mode. ...

Television news viewership is down across the board -- but YouTube is more popular than ever. Newspaper readership is way up -- online -- but newspaper company earnings are down and the financials are challenging. The online news audience has plateaued, even though broadband connections are increasing. W hat is going on here? The Project for Excellence in Journalism has published its fourth annual report on American journalism and the big question it seems to ask is, "Where is everybody?" The Web story is over as the driving force for digital news. Sites have already become repositories rather than destinations, warehouses instead of storefronts. It may not be terribly obvious yet but they are going somewhere, for sure. There is no reason to believe that there is a diminished appetite for news, however currently defined. Is it just a matter of coming up with ways of measuring user experiences with mobile phones, RSS feeds, downloads and pirated & "lent" content...

It's not perjury; it's just business. -- "Caught in the Spin Cycle," by Michael Wolff, in Vanity Fair A very smart friend of unrepentant left-wing views shares with me this very fine Vanity Fair article about the Libby trial. Funny thing: it is business. Dirty politics is part of politics and when discovered speaks volumes to voters about the perpetrators in a way no other perspective can. Bring it on and blow it, I say. But there is a cost of doing business, and sometimes it involves a visit to the graybar hotel. Libby's "pardon him now" backers should know better ; there is no rational sanctuary If the purpose of justice is prosecute the right people and appropriately punish a crime then it is a shame that there will be no more indictments and that Robert Novack flourishes, and it would be a shame if Scooter gets more time than Martha Stewart . in portraying Libby as a man wronged unless one believes he was wronged not by Patrick Fitzgerald, but by ...

"I wish we weren't judging Libby. This sucks." -- Libby trial juror Denis Collins, describing the defendant as a "fall guy" I t's a tough job, but somebody has to do it -- whether it is being the point person for a campaign to discredit a political opponent of your boss, or serving on a jury that is judging the wrong person. "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty of four of the five criminal counts against him, charges that he lied to a grand jury and to FBI investigators over how and from whom he learned that former ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative. Wilson appeared on the White House radar by writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times recounting his CIA-backed mission to Niger, I wonder if Libby is replaying his grand jury testimony and FBI interviews over and over and asking himself why oh why he just didn't remember at all. Would there have been charges if he didn't remember but also didn't contra...