US Representatives are much more susceptible to public pressure than Senators because they have to face reelection every two years. But in the fourth year of their terms, every Senator becomes a Representative for two years. Blanche Lincoln is running for re-election in 2010. If she’s ever going to be persuadable, now is the time.

Obama edges a bit further off the sidelines regarding the Iranian post-election protests: “I’m very concerned, based on some of the tenor and tone of the statements that have been made, that the government of Iran recognize that the world is watching.”

We might yet get to see Cheney’s interview in the CIA Leak case.

Sen. Kay Hagen (D-NC)

Mike Lux wants to know:

This won’t be a long post, because I just need to ask a simple question. With Ted Kennedy too sick to come down to DC and make the committee vote, Democrats will need every Senator on the HELP committee to produce a strong bill, a bill that fights for what Teddy Kennedy has been fighting for his entire life.

As the firing of Dan Froomkin illustrates, there is a lot of pressure to “go along” and “get along” in traditional media institutions.

Which is why it’s so important to support your friendly liberal blogger.

A number of vectors all crossing at the same time led to a situation where bloggers have a good chunk of the real estate in the online media environmen.

“It’s not politically smart, but morally it’s the right thing to do,” Ghaemi concluded

The Las Vegas Sun has posted the letter John Ensign’s cuckold, Doug Hampton, sent them not long before Ensign admitted his affair. In it, he reveals there was a confrontation over the affair in February 2008 that Tom Coburn attended.

The unethical behavior and immoral choice of Senator Ensign has been confronted by me and others on a number of occasions over this past year.

Glenn Greenwald says most of what needs to be said about the Washington Post’s firing of Dan Froomkin. But having been involved in the first round of this internal battle and watched it ferment over the years, I thought I’d add a few contextual pieces.

When Debbie Howell wrote that Dan Froomkin was “highly opinionated and liberal,” she didn’t just think that up on her little old “Yippie Kay Yeah motherfucker”

Our financial elites follow the same playbook year after year. Change a bit of language, and a couple of names, and deja vu.

It looks like Froomkin committed the Sin of the Village of making principled criticisms of the President.