The headlines are filled with news of British PM Gordon Brown’s first meeting with President Bush since taking office and whether Brown will bring a cooling of Anglo-American relations or even a revisiting of the so-called ‘special relationship’. Perhaps people think it goes without saying. But it simply cannot go without saying that this tussle is virtually all about Iraq. And to the extent it’s not about Iraq it’s about stuff like Gitmo and Global Warming. But on the key issue of Iraq, Brown’s position is the position of a huge majority of Americans. Indeed, Brown’s to-this-point deliberate ambiguity on Iraq leaves open the possibility that he is more hawkish than most Americans, though I doubt that is so.

In any case, the essential point is clear: this rift is much more aptly described as a rift with President Bush and it is more or less the same rift that most Americans have with President Bush.

In fact, since Brown appears to be one of the few non-Koolaid drinkers President Bush is now speaking to about Iraq perhaps, speaking with all humility on behalf of the great majority of Americans who think the president’s policies on Iraq are nuts, he can put in a word for us too?

I don’t want to get into a back and forth about whether it makes sense or sense yet to impeach Alberto Gonzales. But I assume we all agree that members of Congress should have a good enough working knowledge of the constitution to know how impeachment works. According this diary post at Daily Kos (well-known hate site), Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) responded to a constituent letter advocating Gonzales’ impeachment by writing …

The Attorney General serves at the pleasure of the president in a non-impeachable office. Unless convicted of an illegal act, the Attorney General cannot be removed from office without the president asking for or accepting his resignation. However, please be assured that I will keep your thoughts and concerns in mind as I review the circumstances surrounding recent allegations of impropriety within the Justice Department.

This is whacked on a couple levels. First, cabinet officers can most certainly be impeached, as we noted yesterday. Second, convicted of an illegal act? To the best of my knowledge, there’s nothing in the constitution whatsoever that makes a criminal conviction for anything relevant to removal from office. It’s just not even part of the equation. Perhaps it’s just nitpicky to point out that the president can simply fire any cabinet officer at any time for any reason, notwithstanding the faux-technical discussion of resignation. The whole letter is written in a hyper-specific sort of of pseudo-constitutional claptrapese to disguise the fact that what’s being said is complete nonsense.

I admit that this has relatively little to do with the great issues on the table before us. And I should note that I do not believe the authenticity of the letter has been confirmed. But it would be nice to know that statements sent out over the names of important elected officials don’t make claims that would garner you a F in high school civics.

We’ve noted Sunday’s NYT editorial endorsing the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales if Solicitor General and acting AG Paul Clement does not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales’ alleged perjury before Congress. But a number of readers have pointed out this odd passage. The Times editorial rather blandly states that it was Vice President Cheney who ordered the nighttime visit to John Ashcroft’s hospital room.

Unwilling to accept [DOJ’s refusal to reauthorize the program], Vice President Dick Cheney sent Mr. Gonzales and another official to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room to get him to approve the wiretapping.

The folks at TPMmuckraker are the ones really following this story closely. So perhaps this is a detail that has eluded me. But I was not aware that it had ever been established that Vice President Cheney ordered the visit. Speculated, rumored, sure. But I wasn’t aware this had been established at all.

And yet the Times states it rather offhandedly as a fact. So what do they know?

Editorials like these are sometimes a venue where facts are stuck in which are ‘known’ to be true but which cannot be sourced cleanly or clearly enough to make it onto the news pages. Is that what’s up here?

Obama tells Pat Robertson news organization that faith has been “hijacked” by the religious right. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.

An examination of the source of Alberto Gonzales’ “verbal difficulties.”

The most telling part of the Sunday Show reaction to Alberto Gonzales yesterday was that it was treated as a given by pretty much everyone that Gonzales should resign or be fired. The only point really being debated now is whether he’s guilty of perjury, a pretty proud standard for the top law enforcement official in the country. Here’s our round up of all the gory details in today’s episode of TPMtv …

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Edwards campaign to send giant copy of the Constitution to Alberto Gonzales. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.

Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) home has been raided by the FBI.

Late Update: If you want to understand the scandal that has just led to Sen. Stevens (R-AK) getting his home raided, we wrapped it all up in a nice little package in this episode of TPMtv …

You can also see TPMmuckraker’s on-going and comprehensive reporting on the Stevens’ scandal here.

For those of you who are going and perhaps even more for those who aren’t, I wanted to mention that TPMtv is going to be covering Yearly Kos this weekend, with multiple reports each day from the convention — interviews with politicians, bloggers, activists, miscellaneous hangers on and whoever else seems interesting to talk to. If there’s someone there who you’d like us to interview, let us know. And if you’re a TPM Reader who’s going to be there, let us know. We’d love to say hi.