Will Joe Lieberman jump to the GOP? Though he repeatedly said during the campaign that he wouldn’t, he’s now saying there’s a “remote possibility” that he’ll do just that.

Sometimes a really big story is sitting there, right in plain sight. That’s the case with the firing of San Diego US Attorney Carol Lam and the on-going Duke Cunningham investigation.

As per Washington conventional wisdom we’re now supposed to accept that the firing of seven US attorneys around the country was, yes, perhaps unprecedented, but more an example of Bush cronyism than an effort to short-circuit one or more investigations. But the firing of Lam just doesn’t bear out that reading.

Earlier this month, Lam indicted Brent Wilkes, Dusty Foggo and John T. Michael.

By almost any measure this is a public corruption indictment of historic proportions. Wilkes corrupted the sitting US congressman who got the longest sentence ever given to a member of Congress. Foggo was the executive director of the CIA, the number three guy, the one who actually ran the agency on a daily basis. Michael helped bribing Duke and he also appears to have lied to investigators. He’s also the nephew of Tommy Kontogiannis, a key player in the scandal who is listed as an unindicted briber-and-coconspirator in Duke Cunningham’s plea agreement. One of the big mysteries in this case is why Kontogiannis still hasn’t been indicted, especially now that his nephew — whose role in the case was secondary to that of his uncle — has. On Kontogiannis, it’s probably worth considering the widespread reports of his role on the fringe of the intelligence and criminal underworlds to see why he might, as yet, have drawn a pass.

In any case, a pretty weighty indictment. And the prosecutor gets forced out so that she only barely has time to bring the main indictments? That sounds very fishy.

And what’s the reason for her firing?

We were originally told that she was let go on the basis of poor performance and management. But McClatchy later reported that, like other fired US attorneys, Lam’s performance reviews were strong.

So why was she fired?

We’re now asked to believe that she was canned because a few conservative congressmen were complaining that she wasn’t doing enough on the illegal immigration front.

Please.

A look at the cases against the men in question leave little doubt that this investigation wasn’t over. But the job of the person who’s led the prosecution from beginning is.

Who’s foolish enough to believe this is all a coincidence?

A number of TPM Readers have written in suggesting that former US Attorney Carol Lam’s firing was at the heart of the US Attorney purge. The others were meant as cover, to deflect attention from what looked like an attempt to shutdown her investigation and make her appear to be just one of several firees. I think that’s quite possible actually. And there are people involved in the case who think the same thing.

Over at TPMmuckraker, we tell a tale of romance that has all the hallmarks of a love affair during the Bush administration: big oil, lobbyists working government from the inside to suit their corporate clients, ethical violations, misleading Congress… Who’s got the movie rights?

Edwards to Hillary: Fess up about the Iraq vote.

Lieberman continues to stoke speculation that he might switch parties.

Remember Frank Gaffney, the conservative Washington Times columnist who got busted publishing a fake Lincoln quote to argue that Iraq War critics are committing treason?

Well, Gaffney’s back pushing Lincoln yet again — and he gets another smacking down for his troubles.

Former Coroner wants to deep-six Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) in 2008 GOP primary.

TPM Reader WB flags this passage in a piece just out from the Times of London …

But there are deep fissures within the US Administration. Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, who has previously called for direct talks with Tehran, is said to be totally opposed to military action.

Although he has dispatched a second US aircraft carrier to the Gulf, he is understood to believe that airstrikes would inflame Iranian public opinion and hamper American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. One senior adviser to Mr Gates has even stated privately that military action could lead to Congress impeaching Mr Bush.

A bit further down there’s this …

The hawks are led by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, who is urging Mr Bush to keep the military option “on the table”. He is also pressing the Pentagon to examine specific war plans — including, it is rumoured, covert action.

This looks like a critically important piece just out from Michael Hirsh in Newsweek. The quick summary: the implications of the ‘surge’ policy aren’t at all understood at all in the US political conversation. The ‘surge’ isn’t a ramped up effort to get a hold of the security situation in Iraq so that American troops can come home. The whole policy is based on the assumption that Iraqis can’t police or stabilize Iraq, that the American military will have to do it for them and that we’ll be there for five or more likely ten or more years more before we have any hope of leaving.

Under Petraeus’s plan, a U.S. military force of 160,000 or more is setting up hundreds of “mini-forts” all over Baghdad and the rest of the country, right in the middle of the action. The U.S. Army has also stopped pretending that Iraqis—who have failed to build a credible government, military or police force on their own—are in the lead when it comes to kicking down doors and keeping the peace. And that means the future of Iraq depends on the long-term presence of U.S. forces in a way it did not just a few months ago.

There’s a really biting irony here, which is that this really is how you run a successful counterinsurgency, albeit with many more troops than we have available or in theater. And, in a modified form, it’s also how you prevent an insurgency from coming into existence or spiraling out of control. I know there’s this often doctrinaire debate about whether the occupation was destined to come to this bleak point or not. But things wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if the White House and the Secretary of Defense hadn’t insisted on the shiftless, lackadaisical and incompetent approach we’ve followed, ignoring the reality of the situation until domestic politics in the US forced their hand.

But what’s done is done.

Set aside whether the Petraeus plan is unlikely to succeed or virtually certain to fail. And set aside — for the sake of clarifying a separate set of issues — how many more US troops would die with this new approach. (With this sort of intensive involvement in securing Iraq, the answer has to be, a lot.) The question that we need to ask is whether it’s worth trying to prevent the Iraqi civil war from running its course given our now depleted resources and how many other vital national interests are now imperiled by our continued presence in the country.

Central to the Republican line on Iraq and much more to the Democratic one than I think is sometimes realized, our whole vision is now governed by Iraq-myopia, the delusion that our national destiny is at stake in Iraq. But it’s not. We’ve done horrible harm to ourselves and the Iraqis. It’s a disaster, a catastrophe. But it’s not everything. It’s actually not even close to everything. And until we really get our collective heads around that fact I doubt we’ll ever get ourselves free of this mess.