Now that’s Hardball.

A month ago, Fouad Ajami, a prominent neocon at Johns Hopkins, wrote a bizarre op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in Scooter Libby’s defense. “In ‘The Soldier’s Creed,'” Ajami wrote, “there is a particularly compelling principle: ‘I will never leave a fallen comrade.’ … [Libby] can’t be left behind as a casualty of a war our country had once proudly claimed as its own.”

Yesterday, David Shuster, guest hosting MSNBC’s Hardball, took Ajami to task for comparing Libby to American troops.

Ideally, this should be routine. A marginal neocon appeared on MSNBC to talk about a column he wrote a month ago. A professional broadcaster, who knew what he was talking about, pointed out the guest’s errors of fact and judgment for the benefit of the television audience. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, this is what TV shows are supposed to do.

But exchanges like the one between Shuster and Ajami are so rare, that some of us see them and can barely contain our excitement. What should be routine has become extraordinary. Digby said the segment made her “almost feel like the world is setting itself back on its axis — at least for today.”

I suspect that conservatives would find all of this rather odd. Far-right TV personalities spout off conservative ideas on the air every day; why would the left get so excited about one on-air smackdown?

It’s because we’re left with a media environment in which segments like Shuster’s are the exception to the rule. The “no liberals on the teevee” directive is usually pretty unshakable.

Hillary Clinton isn’t just ahead in the national polls; she’s also solidifying her reputation as the establishment candidate by leading the Democratic field in congressional endorsements. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Saturday Roundup.

The president decided to lambaste the Democratic congressional majority this morning in his weekly radio address, accusing lawmakers of failing to do their duty when it comes to annual spending bills.

“Democrats in Congress are also behind schedule passing the individual spending bills needed to keep the Federal government running. At their current pace, I will not see a single one of the 12 must-pass bills before Congress leaves Washington for the month-long August recess. The fiscal year ends September 30th. By failing to do the work necessary to pass these important bills by the end of the fiscal year, Democrats are failing in their responsibility to make tough decisions and spend the people’s money wisely.

This moment is a test… Democrats have a chance to prove they are for open and transparent government by working to complete each spending bill independently and on time.”

Yes, it’s outrageous when Congress fails to pass each spending bill on time, isn’t it? Indeed, it seems like just last year that a Republican House, Republican Senate, and Republican White House were so dysfunctional, that they failed to pass hardly any of the necessary spending bills. Oh wait, that was just last year.

Republicans intend to conclude the 109th Congress this week and leave Democrats stuck with the tab in the form of unfinished spending bills as the days of Republican rule draw to a close on Capitol Hill.

Congressional leaders said election losses had sapped Republican enthusiasm for trying to finish nine spending measures that were due Oct. 1. Congress will instead pass a stopgap measure to keep the government running until mid-February, leaving the fiscal tangle for the new Democratic majority to sort out next year.

Following Bush’s reasoning, Republicans failed in their responsibility to make tough decisions and spend the people’s money wisely. I wonder why he didn’t complain about this a year ago?

Post Script: The AP headline on the story on Bush’s radio address reads, “Bush rips Democratic lawmakers’ failures.” Apparently, the AP was short on time, so the editors just let Karl Rove write the headline for them.

The discord among Republicans on the Hill over Iraq may be palpable, but Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) just returned from Baghdad, and wouldn’t you know it, he agrees wholeheartedly with Bush, Cheney, McCain, and Lieberman.

In contrast with the stalled political progress, Graham said, the surge — the dispatch of 30,000 more U.S. troops that Bush began in January — is yielding clear results.

“The military part of the surge is working beyond my expectations,” Graham said. “We literally have the enemy on the run. The Sunni part of Iraq has really rejected al Qaida all over the country. We’re getting more information about al Qaida operations than we’ve ever received.”

Of course, there’s war supporters’ reality, and then there’s the reality for the rest of us.

Three months into the new U.S. military strategy that has sent tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq, overall levels of violence in the country have not decreased, as attacks have shifted away from Baghdad and Anbar, where American forces are concentrated, only to rise in most other provinces, according to a Pentagon report released [three weeks ago]….

Iraq’s government, for its part, has proven “uneven” in delivering on its commitments under the strategy, the report said, stating that public pledges by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have in many cases produced no concrete results. Iraqi leaders have made “little progress” on the overarching political goals that the stepped-up security operations are intended to help advance, the report said, calling reconciliation between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni factions “a serious unfulfilled objective.”

For that matter, a week ago marked the end of the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. And July is proving to be no less discouraging.

A suicide truck bomber blasted a Shiite town north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing more than 100 people, police said, in a sign Sunni insurgents are pulling away from a U.S. offensive around the capital to attack where security is thinner.

The marketplace devastation underlined a hard reality in Iraq: There are not enough forces to protect everywhere. U.S. troops, already increased by 28,000 this year, are focused on bringing calm to Baghdad, while the Iraqi military and police remain overstretched and undertrained.

The U.S. military on Saturday also reported that eight American service members were killed in fighting in Baghdad and western Anbar province over two days, reflecting the increased U.S. casualties that have come with the new offensives.

But don’t worry, Lindsey Graham sees progress. And since his track record on the war has been sterling to date, we should all take his word for it.

All of a sudden, pollsters think enough of the impeachment question to start putting the question in the field. The latest comes by way of Rasmussen Reports.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Americans now believe that President Bush should be impeached and removed from office. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 49% disagree while 12% are not sure.

Those figures reflect a slight increase in support for impeachment over the past year-and-a-half. In December 2005, 32% believed that President George W. Bush should be impeached and removed from office. Fifty-eight percent (58%) took the opposite view at that time.

A majority of Democrats (56%) now believe the President should be impeached…. Republicans, by an 80% to 16% margin, say that the President should not be impeached…. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 40% now favor impeachment while 45% are opposed.

This is the third poll I’ve seen on this in the last two months, and the results are similar enough to bolster their collective reliability. An American Research Group poll released this week showed that among all U.S. adults, 45% support the House initiating impeachment proceedings against Bush (the percentage was 54% in relation to Cheney impeachment). And an InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll taken in early May showed 39% of American favor impeachment.

First, for a “fringe” idea that “serious” people are supposed to reject out of hand, 40% of the electorate sounds like a fairly substantial number of people.

Second, more Americans support impeaching Bush now than supported impeaching Clinton when he was actually being impeached.

And third, I think Matt Yglesias is right about the larger political dialog: [I]nsofar as Bush appears determined to use his constitutionally granted authority to shield his subordinates from the consequences of breaking the law, I would say that removing him from the office which grants that authority is something that should be discussed.”

Are there 67 votes in the Senate for removing Bush from office? Almost certainly not, a fact that seems unlikely to change anytime soon. For that matter, the prospect of a President Cheney is, shall we say, disconcerting.

But given the circumstances, there’s no reason to dismiss the notion as some radical flight of fancy. Reasonable people, debating in good faith, can disagree about the utility, implications, and grounds for impeachment, but as Yglesias put it, the concept should probably “enter the mainstream conversation.”

Nearly two weeks ago, in the midst of claiming executive privilege on documents relating to the U.S. Attorney purge, the Bush White House also told Congress that lawmakers would not be permitted to see documents relating to former political director Sara Taylor’s work on the matter. It was obviously disappointing (though not unexpected), especially given the Bush gang’s rhetoric about their willingness to cooperate.

But at least Taylor agreed to honor a subpoena and will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee about what she knows of the scandal, right? Wrong. Her appearance, which was scheduled for Wednesday, is now off — Taylor’s lawyer doesn’t think the White House is willing to let her talk the committee.

From the letter Taylor’s attorney delivered to Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy:

Ms. Taylor expects to receive a letter from [White House Counsel Fred] Fielding on behalf of the President directing her not to comply with the Senate’s subpoena. These contrary directions undoubtedly create a monumental clash between the executive and legislative branches of government. This clash may ultimately be resolved by the judicial branch. […]

Absent the direction from the White House, Ms. Taylor would testify without hesitation before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She has participated in no wrongdoing. She will assert no personal privileges.

[Taylor] faces two untenable choices. She can follow the President’s direction and face the possibility of a contempt sanction by the Senate, with enforcement through the criminal courts, an action that regardless of the outcome, will follow her for life. Or, she can attempt to work out an accommodation with the Senate, which will put her at odds with the President, a person whom she admires and for whom she has worked tirelessly for years.

Chairman Leahy responded, “The White House continues to try to have it both ways — to block Congress from talking with witnesses and accessing documents and other evidence while saying nothing improper occurred.”

If I didn’t know better, I might get the impression that the White House has something to hide.

As recently as 2000, Virginia was a reliably “red” state. Virginia had a Republican governor, a Republican lieutenant governor, a Republican attorney general, and two Republican U.S. senators. Of the state’s 11-member delegation to the U.S. House, eight were Republicans. At the presidential level, George W. Bush had just cruised to an easy victory over Al Gore, the eighth consecutive victory for Republican presidential candidates in the Commonwealth.

By all indications, Virginia, like its southern brethren, was going to be increasingly uncompetitive for the foreseeable future. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Permanent Republican Majority.

Virginia, usually a reliably Republican state in presidential elections, may become a key battleground in the 2008 election as broadly negative views among independents of President Bush and the war in Iraq have altered the presidential race.

Mirroring the national mood, Virginians’ approval of Bush and support for U.S. policies in Iraq have eroded as the war has dragged on. Bush is the worst of the past nine presidents, say Virginia’s independent voters, who helped him win in 2004 but now say they are more likely to prefer that a Democrat rather than a Republican be the next president. […]

[M]ore than a year before the general election, this poll shows that four in 10 voters prefer that a Democrat be elected to the White House in 2008, compared with 33 percent who said they favor a Republican.

The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard conducted a fairly extensive poll of Virginians and found a surprisingly competitive state. In fact, if anything, Virginia is suddenly leaning blue — more than half of the state’s residents have an unfavorable view of the national Republican Party, while more than half of Virginians have a favorable impression of national Democrats.

Like Yglesias, I think Mark Warner deserves quite a bit of the credit for making Virginia “bluer.” Following Jim Gilmore’s almost comically hopeless term as governor, the state was willing to take a chance on a Democrat. Warner won, governed very well, and enjoyed stunning popularity statewide (he left office with an approval rating over 70%).

But reading over the results of the Post poll, Bush really is the gift that keeps on giving. Warner may have made Democrats palatable to otherwise GOP-leaning Virginians, but the president sealed the deal.

Randall Austin, who lives in conservative southwestern Virginia, said, “I think most of the United States and the majority of people I talk to are kind of negative towards the Republican Party. With the war, the economy, with everything, including fuel pricing, I have a feeling everyone wants a change.” Austin, of course, voted for Bush.

On the one side, we have six people and documented evidence that Fred Thompson lobbied for the pro-choice National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. On the other side we have the Thompson campaign, which insists the lobbying, for which Thompson was paid handsomely, never happened.

Any comment, senator?

Thompson gave an oblique response when asked about the matter, first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

“I’d just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing,” said Thompson, who is considering running for president as a social conservative. He refused comment on whether he recalled doing the work.

That ought to clear things up.

It took a long while, but the New York Times editorial board has seen enough of the war in Iraq to know that it is now “time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.” The paper of record makes the case in a lengthy, 1,700-word mega-editorial in today’s edition.

The Times’ editors acknowledge that they have, like many Americans, “put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.” But the editorial board isn’t waiting anymore.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans’ demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened — the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.

This country faces a choice. We can go on allowing Mr. Bush to drag out this war without end or purpose. Or we can insist that American troops are withdrawn as quickly and safely as we can manage — with as much effort as possible to stop the chaos from spreading.

Editor & Publisher’s Greg Mitchell argues that the Times’ piece “may one day be viewed as a historic editorial.” Noting that a handful of major dailies reached the same conclusion sooner, Mitchell adds that the Times’ detailed argument comes at “a critical moment,” which the paper may influence with “its considerable weight.”

We’ll see. I’m skeptical that any editorial can have a sweeping an impact on a debate of this magnitude, but the Times’ piece is both comprehensive and compelling. Take a look.

When the president commuted Scooter Libby’s prison sentence, the conventional wisdom told us that the White House was anxious to score a few points with the far-right GOP base, which has slowly distanced itself from Bush over the last several months.

Byron York suggests today the commutation, if it was a political ploy, didn’t work.

Bush came up with a cramped, limited statement, commuting Libby’s jail term while keeping (at least for now) his conviction, a $250,000 fine that he has already paid and two years of probation. One didn’t have to read too far between the lines to guess that the president believes Libby to be guilty of perjury; just for good measure, Bush threw in some good words for Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. The problem, the president said, wasn’t that Fitzgerald had gone on a three-year fishing expedition that netted only Libby, or that the Iraq war’s foes were using the CIA leak case to rehash their grievances against the original decision to invade; rather, the problem was simply that U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton’s sentence was “excessive.”

For many conservatives, it was exactly the wrong way to approach the problem. […]

In other words, if Bush had pardoned Libby because the CIA leak probe never should have happened, fine. But don’t play judge, Mr. President — that’s not your branch.

This is consistent with what we’ve been hearing most of the week. Bob Novak reported a couple of days ago that other than Libby, “hardly anybody else is all that happy” with Bush’s decision.

Similarly, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page was in rare form this week, calling the commutation “a profile in non-courage.”

Frankly, I think the talk about Bush’s concern for the base is probably overwrought. The president wasn’t trying to impress deserting Republican activists; he was abusing his power to “shortcircuit the investigation of a crime to which he himself was quite likely a party, and to which, his vice president, who controls him, certainly was.”

Nevertheless, York’s piece does speak to a broader truth: even the president’s far-right flank is suffering from acute “Bush fatigue.”