A top good-government expert claims Obama is the most reliable Democratic Presidential candidate on goo-goo issues.

Yesterday we brought you the news that GOP Rep. Steve King was introducing a measure to prevent Nancy Pelosi from using State Department funds to consort with the enemy.

Well, the measure has just gone down to crushing defeat.

Talk about a false alarm. Not only is the Guantanamo Bay detention facility not on the verge of closing, but the Defense Department announced this morning that it’s gained its first new prisoner in months.

Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer flatly deny a Drudge-flacked tale claiming they’re seeking a “legislative fix” for talk radio.

Okay, put this down as utterly irrelevant trivia, certainly in the context of American politics. But it’s stuck in my head.

Clement Attlee was Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1945-1951, also Deputy Prime Minister in Winston Churchill’s wartime national unity government. It was under Attlee’s government that most of the British welfare state was created. And, depending on your judgment of Tony Blair’s premiership, he is arguably the most successful Labour Prime Minister in UK history.

These days, former Prime Ministers are often ennobled and thus given a seat in the House of Lords. However it’s virtually always as ‘life peers’, i.e., they’re ‘Lords’ for their lifetimes but their eldest child doesn’t inherit the title. Half a century ago, however, it was still common for ex-Prime Ministers to become hereditary peers. (Winston Churchill actually declined the offer to become hereditary ‘Duke of London.’)

And — yes, I’m getting back to the point — when he retired from the House of Commons in 1955 Attlee was ennobled as Earl Atlee and Viscount of Prestwood as an hereditar peer.

Now, today the title is held by Atlee’s grandson John Atlee, 3rd Earl Attlee. And Atlee sits in the House of Lords as a member of the Conservative Party.

So, Clement Attlee’s grandson sits in the House of Lords as a Tory!

That’s all I got. But it’s just too much of an irony for me, just had to pass it on.

Abramoff lives! Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) establishes legal defense fund.

Hapless Romney aide Jay Garrity, under investigation for impersonating a trooper, realizes he’s become a problem for his boss and takes a quiet leave of absence.

Late Update: Apparently Garrity was pulled over on his way to work today for speeding on the Mass Turnpike by Sherrif Cletus T. Romney and hauled off to the slammer — jmm.

Later Update: Yes, that’s parody.

Over the coming weeks and months we’re going to be lining up interviews with the presidential candidates that will run on TPMtv. We’re already talking to several of them. And we want you to be part of it.

Specifically, we want your questions.

So if you’ve got a question for Hillary or Obama or Edwards or Richardson or any of the rest, send us an email with the text of the question to our comments address with the subject heading “TPMtv Question: [Candidate’s name]”. We’ll save them up for when we do the interview.

Of course, we can only pose the question if the specific candidate agrees to sit down with us for an interview. But I’m optimistic we’ll be able to schedule most of them. And if we choose your question we’ll credit you by name or you can remain anonymous. Your choice.

We’ll keep you posted on what we’ve got scheduled.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino on the vice president’s “unique” role: it’s “an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate.”

The Bush administration is just full of interesting constitutional questions, isn’t it?

TPM Reader SM writes in …

It’s a curious thing that, over the past 10 – 12 days, the news from Iraq refers to the combatants there as “al-Qaida” fighters. When did that happen?

Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were “insurgents” or they were referred to as “Sunni” or “Shia’a” fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as “al-Qaida”.

Welcome to the latest in Iraq propaganda.

I don’t know if SM‘s claim is accurate in the particular. But it’s very true as a general matter.

I’ve long been amazed at how freely reporters accept it when this or that Arab or Muslim with a gun is labelled as “al Qaida.” And the issue is complicated by the fact that a new group — a post-invasion group with a very uncertain connection to the actual al Qaeda — has taken the name of al Qaeda in Iraq.

But is the standard bamboozle getting ramped up a notch? As Andrew Sullivan noted yesterday, even David Patraeus acts like the whole issue in Iraq now is just al Qaeda and Iranian arming of, I guess, al Qaeda. Otherwise things would be great.

This is the sort of thing that requires a close watching of the news and how things are being reported. Is ‘insurgent’ now being replaced across the board by al Qaeda. Keep an eye out and let us know what you see. We’ll do the same.