Department of quotes with multiple meanings.

Coulter talking to O’Reilly: “I’m more of a man than any liberal.”

What if third parties could exist without third party candidates? Dan Cantor, the head of New York’s Working Familes Party, sits down at TPMCafe’s Table for One to make the case for fusion voting.

Jared Bernstein lists 5 reasons economists still compete with weathermen for accuracy kudos.

Is McCain going to make it to the early primaries? It seems he’s got only $2 million on hand and may drop as many as 100 staffers, though they’re suggesting the number will only be a bit over 50.

Considering that bad news is itself a major blow that will make money even harder to raise, is this Phil Gramm ’96 redux? Only where the candidate can’t raise any money?

Early campaign time is full of premature and retrospectively silly post-mortems. But you have to wonder in this case.

I’d call that a really, really generous headline (from NYT/AP): “Behind in Money Race, McCain Reshapes Staff“

AQ Khan, Pakistan’s notorious nuke peddler, gets house arrest furlough.

In the Bush view, the world is a blockbuster movie where heroes strive to defeat shifty-eyed villains.

This week at TPMCafe’s Book Club, Glenn Greenwald joins us to discuss his new book A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency. In particular, Greenwald wants to focus on Iran, and how the “pure fiction” of the Administration’s “cartoonish depiction of Iran” is exacerbating the threat and may push us to war.

Debating Greenwald’s thesis, and its application to Iran, will be Ezra Klein, Seth Gitell, Danny Postel, and Chris Floyd.

AP: Bush commutes Libby prison sentence.

(i.e., Cheney pulled the lever.)

As you’ve no doubt already heard shouted from near every rooftop, President Bush has commuted Scooter Libby’s prison sentence. Specifically, the conviction stands — the fine and probation stand. Libby just doesn’t have to spend a day in prison.

Now, here’s the key to this.

There is a conceivable argument — a very poor one but a conceivable one — for pardoning Scooter Libby, presumably on the argument that the entire prosecution was political and thus illegitimate. But what conceivable argument does the president have for micromanaging the sentence? To decide that the conviction is appropriate, that probation is appropriate, that a substantial fine is appropriate — just no prison sentence.

This is being treated in the press as splitting the difference, an elegant compromise. But it is the least justifiable approach. The president has decided that the sentencing guidelines and the opinion of judge don’t cut it.

The only basis for this decision is that Libby is the vice president’s friend, the vice president rules the president and this was the minimum necessary to keep the man silent.

See President Bush’s statement on the Libby commutation.