It seems every other blog I read has mentioned today's premiere of the progressive radio network, starting with The O'Franken Factor, so I have to as well.

Shame I can't hear it. The "live streaming on the Web" has, over my commercial broadband connection, played about four minutes of the first hour, mostly commercials. I think I got to hear Al Franken and his co-host talk for about two minutes. RealPlayer constantly pauses and doesn't restart, or in one case, restarted the audio twenty minutes after pausing. I've had to quit and restart the player four times, but most of the time, like right now, the clock indicating playback is ticking but no sound is coming out, or it comes out for thirty seconds and then stops.

The stream is coming from RealNetworks' own commercial streaming service. Shame they didn't use QuickTime - since Apple manages to stream Steve Jobs' speeches, including video, to tens of thousands of people simultaneously, you'd think it could handle many more 16Kbps audio streams. RealNetworks clearly isn't up to the task.

Send the boy some love.

So, if the Republicans are supposed to have the right idea about how government works, why doesn't this happen?

• Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson sue George W. Bush, personally, for damages to her career and danger to her life for uncovering her identity as a secret agent.
• As part of discovery in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs ask to depose the President - ask him, under oath, if he ordered Plame's identity revealed, or if he knows who does
• When Bush seeks to have the subpoena quashed, the plaintiffs point out Clinton v. Jones, 1997, a unanimous Supreme Court decision:

  The court explained that the President, like other officials, is subject to the same laws that apply to all citizens, that no case had been found in which an official was granted immunity from suit for his unofficial acts, and that the rationale for official immunity is inapposite where only personal, private conduct by a President is at issue. The court also rejected the argument that, unless immunity is available, the threat of judicial interference with the Executive Branch would violate separation of powers.

• The plaintiffs argue that feloniously revealing a CIA operative for political purposes is in no way part of the President's official duties. Either the Bush administration argues in response that it was an official duty, or the court rules that Bush has to answer the questions.
• Plaintiffs then ask the President, under oath, if he knows who outed Plame and when he knew it, or if not, why he didn't call in his staff and find out. (The prospect of a President whose own staff lies to him to cover up felonious conduct is horrifying - if the man can't lead his own staff ethically, how can he lead the country?)
• Bush's answers are checked against everyone else's, and if he's found to have lied, he faces impeachment for perjury. Every Republican's vote to impeach or convict President Clinton, involving some variant of "The President cannot be allowed to lie under oath," is trotted back out.

Hey, these are the GOP's rules, established the hard way in 1995-1999. Why don't we make them live by them?