John Edwards raising cash off the fact that he was the first to pull out of the Fox-hosted debate.

Rest assured conservatives, John McCain is no Luke Skywalker.

Dem congressman calls for ethics investigation of Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA).

Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) keelhauls Alberto Gonzales.

A gay man living in New York writes a powerful letter to the hometown paper he delivered as a boy imploring that it drop Coulter’s column.

Pelosi blasts President in new statement: Bush offers nothing but “war without end.”

A question, probably for our congressional staff readers:

In his recent New Yorker piece on the Bush Administration’s “redirection” in the Middle East, Sy Hersh recalled the Iran-contra scandal as he reported on clandestine activities being conducted by the Department of Defense deliberately outside of the purview of the congressional intelligence committees:

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. [Elliott] Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.

. . .

“This goes back to Iran-Contra,” a former National Security Council aide told me. “And much of what they’re doing is to keep the agency out of it.” He said that Congress was not being briefed on the full extent of the U.S.-Saudi operations. And, he said, “The C.I.A. is asking, ‘What’s going on?’ They’re concerned, because they think it’s amateur hour.”

The issue of oversight is beginning to get more attention from Congress. Last November, the Congressional Research Service issued a report for Congress on what it depicted as the Administration’s blurring of the line between C.I.A. activities and strictly military ones, which do not have the same reporting requirements.

So here’s my question: if an administration can avoid the congressional oversight mechanism put in place after the CIA abuses of the 1970s by shifting the covert activity to the Pentagon, cutting out the CIA, and running the operations out of the Office of the Vice President, is serious legislation pending to close this loophole?

I don’t mean to concede the argument that in fact the intelligence oversight mechanism cannot legally be circumvented so easily. But set that aside. If there’s a purported loophole that top level Bush Administration officials believe is big enough to run a black-bag squad through, is Congress taking steps to close that loophole?

Late Update: Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, responds:

In response to David Kurtz’s question, Congress appears to be at an early stage of grappling with apparent loopholes in its oversight of quasi-covert actions conducted outside of established CIA channels.

Among the questions posed by the November 2006 Congressional Research Service report cited by Hersh are such elementary ones as these (at page 11): “How should Congress define its oversight role? Which committees should be involved?” Thirty years after the establishment of the intelligence oversight committees, one might have expected such questions to be answered long ago. But no.

That CRS report is available from the Federation of American Scientists here.

McClatchy blows it open. Just out …

Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state’s U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.

In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

“Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?” Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.

“He’s gone,” Rove said, according to Weh.

“I probably said something close to ‘Hallelujah,'” said Weh.

Let’s not pretend we didn’t see this coming.

The New York Times has more on top New Mexico Republican officials urging action against then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias:

“I fall into the category of those who were ultimately very disappointed in David,” said Pat Rogers, a Republican lawyer in Albuquerque who has represented Mr. Iglesias, Ms. Wilson and the State Republican Party.

Mr. Rogers said he spoke with Mr. Iglesias at a private lunch last October in Albuquerque to discuss the perception that he was not pursuing indictments in the courthouse corruption inquiry expeditiously.

“I asked him, ‘Do you understand that everyone in this community is talking about why there hasn’t been any follow-up?’ and he said: ‘Boy, you’re right about that. Someone even told my wife about sealed indictments,’ ” Mr. Rogers said. “I came away from that meeting feeling stunned.”

Mr. Rogers said he thought Mr. Iglesias was shying away from the kinds of career-making cases prosecutors typically jump at, so he voiced doubts to Mr. Domenici.

Mickey D. Barnett, another top Republican lawyer in the state, who once served as an aide to Mr. Domenici in Congress and represented the Bush campaign in New Mexico in the 2000 and 2004 elections, said he had also complained.

“I would say to Pete and Heather: ‘Look, you guys have some influence; I don’t have any influence. Can we get something done?’ ” Mr. Barnett said.

Against the backdrop of complaints from top Republicans, Domenici and Wilson called Igelsias about the courthouse investigation just days before the mid-term elections only for informational purposes? Please. At least we know who they were talking about when Domenici and Wilson said they were getting constituent complaints about Igelsias.

We edge a bit closer to the truth on where the list of 8 canned US Attorneys came from. From Newsweek …

Justice officials say the dismissals were for “job-performance reasons,” as well as for failure to pursue Bush administration policy priorities. But where did the list of particular U.S. attorneys to fire come from? Two senior Justice officials, who didn’t want to be named discussing the dismissals, tell NEWSWEEK that Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’s chief of staff, developed the list of eight prosecutors to be fired last October—with input from the White House. In a recent statement, the White House said it approved the firings, but didn’t sign off on specific names.

“With input from the White House.” I’ll bet.

Here’s a bit on Sampson’s background from a DOJ press release: “Prior to his service with Attorney General Gonzales, Kyle Sampson served in the Department as Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft and in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President. He also served as Counsel to Senator Orrin G. Hatch on the Senate Judiciary Committee.”