Get out your mittens, sinners, 'cause it looks like Hell may just have frozen over. Here, Fox News host Chris Wallace asks guest Newt Gingrich about Alberto Gonzales, "How damaging is it, in the middle of a war on terror, to have an Attorney General... who has so little credibility?"

Wait a minute. Did somebody on Fox News just say something that might be construed as... anti-administration? Nah. I must have misunderstood.

So Newt basically says that, yeah, wacky Democrats and their pesky questions aside, it really isn't so great for the country when the person who's supposed to be our quintessential representative of justice and fairness is being investigated to death and just generally being accused of being a big fat lying liar from Liartown, Lietucky.

And then Wallace says, "By the way, we invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales. We had (big snotty dramatic pause) no takers."

Woah. It's one thing when your administration becomes so unpopular that even the party hacks are trampling each other to get at a safe distance from you. But when Fox News starts to turn on you... sheesh. That's harsh.

Last night marked a watershed moment in American politics with the inaugural CNN/YouTube debate. Not unpredictably, the event had its champions and its critics.

For a good round-up of the critical reaction, check out this article on Wired.com. Most of the criticism, quite justifiably in my opinion, has been leveled at the final list of 39 questions (culled from more than 3,000 entries) that were picked by the event's organizers. Simply put, CNN/Youtube could have picked a much better way to represent the American people to the candidates and to the rest of the world.

This debate had the potential to have a massive impact on how candidates respond to questions, -- it could have made canned answers become candid ones. So why in the hell did they choose this question, which happened to be the most-viewed on the entire site? This kind of stuff belongs in The Onion, not in a nationally televised event that should help determine the future of a country enduring one of the biggest collective political crisis in its history. A little editorial discretion would have come in handy, don't you think?

For a comprehensive round-up of all the clips, check out the PoliticsTV YouTube channel.

A viral promotion for the launch of new political blog OpenLeft.com, the concept of our Commander In Chief fully embracing new media is a stretch, and we've seen better Bush impressions. But it's nice to hear every single one of our most secret whiny liberal suspicions confirmed by that raspy dry voice. This must be how conservatives feel while watching the last half hour of Team America: World Police. Vaguely justified.

A new video released by As-Sahab Media contains fifty seconds of unverified footage of Osama bin Laden extolling the virtues of martyrdom. Bin Laden says that Mohammed himself would have liked to have died a martyr, quoting the prophet as saying, "I would love to attack and be martyred, then attack again and be martyred, then attack again and be martyred." (Full translation of the segment at www.lauramansfield.com.)

Because there's nothing on the tape to indicate when the footage was shot, and because the setting and bin Laden's appearance are similar to those in videos shot several years ago, and because bin Laden is saying, more or less, the same damn stuff he pretty much always says, experts have so far been unable to determine whether or not the clip is new.

The full tape's about forty minutes long, and features statements from other al-Qaeda leaders, as well as would-be suicide bombers and other jihadists recording themselves for posterity pre-attack.