This is more of a programming alert than a true diary but I thought that kossacks would like to know that Hillary Clinton is scheduled to be on Countdown tonight (Monday, April 21 at 8PM and 10PM EDT).

Olbermann has been somewhat critical of HRC's campaign lately so it's a little bit of a surprise that she is making an appearance on his show. Nonetheless, I would deduce that HRC prefers Olbmermann to Chris Matthews as Matthews as been begging her to appear on his Pennsylvania Hardball college tour (both McCain and Obama made appearances on his show in the past few weeks). It will be very interesting to see how Keith handles HRC's appearance - I'm guessing that he won't be too hard hitting as that is not his style but we'll see . . .

Could John and Elizabeth Edwards be this calculating?

Word is former Dem presidential hopeful John Edwards is now leaning toward endorsing Hillary . . . but it's still a wait and see.

•      Translation: Sneed hears Edwards' wife, cancer survivor Elizabeth Edwards, does NOT favor Barack Obama's candidacy . . . but NOT because of racism. "She feels her husband should have been the man in the center of the presidential sweepstakes, rather than Obama," a source said.

The source for this claim  is Michael Sneed, a columnist for the Chicago Sun Time.

AP's TV reporter, a man by the name of David Bauder, has written an article that is designed to discourage NBC/MSNBC from using Keith Olbermann as a participant in presidential debates.  The rationale for this attack on Olbermann is that he is biased as is evidenced by the statements he makes in his "special commentaries" (a recent Olberman commentary addressed Giuliani's demagoguing of the national security issue).

As best as I can determine, the only difference between Olbermann and the other NBC/MSNBC talking heads is that Olbermann has been forthright in stating his political views. The others all hold them and, in most cases, their biases tend to be in the direction of the Republicans. Their biases sneak into the questions selected and how they are asked instead of being expressly acknowledged and are in a sense more insidious . . .

In recent weeks, Senator Harry Reid has done an extraordinary job in holding together a razor-thin majority (consisting of 48 Democrats and 2 Republicans) in support of a gradual phase down of our involvement in Iraq. This was accomplished through a 50-48 vote to defeat the Cochran amendment to delete the withdrawal language from the supplemental funding bill for the Iraq war on March 27. Two days later, the bill containing the Iraq funds (with the phase-down language) (H.R. 1591) was passed by the Senate on March 29 by a vote of 51-47 and awaits a conference with the House on similar legislation. For this extraordinary achievement, Harry Reid deserves high praise and much gratitude.

But I turn now to focus on the bad part of Harry Reid - the part of him that wheels and deals behind closed doors on behalf of special interests and tries to hide special interest legislation in larger bills. This is exactly the type of legislative practice that must be stopped if the American people are ever to gain control of their government.

This is a tiny but very promising news item from today's Washington Post on Tim Johnson's recovery. He's actually starting to do some work from the hospital and, perhaps most important, he is reading and speaking in full sentences. The primary area of his brain that was damaged by the hemmorhage associated with the venal malformation in his brain was the area controlling speech so this implies that Senator Johnson is on the road to a full recovery:

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) is reading news clippings and starting to do some office work from the hospital . . .

"We do not anticipate him back [in the Senate] for several weeks," spokeswoman Julianne Fisher said. "We are bringing work to him rather than him coming to us. His first priority still is rehabilitation."

Johnson has been undergoing physical, occupational and speech therapy since he was transferred to rehabilitation from intensive care at George Washington University Hospital last month. He recently began to read and speak in full sentences, his doctors said.

There has been some confusion and uncertainty as to whether Joe Lieberman has the power to flip control of the Senate to the Republicans. I come bearing good news!! As of this past Friday (January 12), it appears that Lieberman is powerless to effect party control of the 110th Congress.

This is due to the fact that the Senate passed a resolution on January 12 (S.Res. 27) that designates various Democrats by name as committee chairs and specifies the Democratic members of each committee. The Senate also passed a similar resolution (S. Res. 28) the same day that names various Republicans as the ranking minority members of each committee and specifies the Republican members of each committee. Based on these two resolutions, the membership of each standing committee in the Senate appears to be fixed for the duration of this Congress. Further, it includes one more Democratic member than it does Republican members in each case, thereby providing Democrats with control of the committee system and the flow of legislation in the Senate.