Prosecutors want to introduce evidence of Michael's embarrassing "stash," in order to prove that he knew the Cunningham documents were, in their own way, as embarrassing.

Prosecutors are going to bring out the porn stash under which Duke Cunningham's buddy hid documents incriminating Cunningham in his below-market home purchase which turned up in a routine search of home purchase records by reporters.

That's this always-vote-against-Gays Duke Cunningham:

The most recent occasion was a Gay Pride forum on June 3, where a panel of gay rights leaders was addressing whether there was “a gay agenda.” Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, began her presentation, which focused in part on reaching out to gay rights foes, with an example about a private meeting she and an HRC colleague had in 1995 with an unnamed conservative Republican congressman who opposes gay rights.

The congressman startled her, Birch said, when he ushered his staff members out of his Capitol Hill office, closed the door, and asked Birch and Daniel Zingale, then HRC’s political director, just how it was that they came to know that they are gay.

“You know, how do you know you’re that way?” Birch quoted the congressman as asking.

In hushed tones, Birch told the audience that the congressman leaned back against his desk and revealed that he was asking the question because he had “loved men” in his past.

“[T]his guy’s got three tours in Vietnam, and there were a lot of guns on the wall,” Birch told the audience, which laughed in response. “Whips and stuff like that. … I looked at Daniel and I went, ‘Oh my God.'

Leading Republicans in Congress on Thursday declared that troop withdrawal legislation should be scrapped because the United States has made significant progress in the Iraq war, just as Democrats were resuming efforts to bring soldiers home.

We have them despite our own incompetence. The first person to understand that will be President.

Their Presidential candidates are fighting for the last seat on the Titanic:

McCain was ready and eager to stress his muscular position in favor of the "surge" in Iraq, and he had plenty of opportunity to do so. The key moment came after Romney said the surge was "apparently working," and McCain challenged him. "No, not apparently, it's working," McCain responded sharply.

Romney, the ex-governor of Massachusetts, said he wants to wait to hear from General David Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq who will testify before Congress next week, before rendering a less equivocal verdict.

That's the reality. We suck eggs, they suck balls. Apparently that's a huge difference.

p.p.s. God Romney is just a lying machine. Dude's betting on the incredible ability of GOP rank and file to engage in wholesale self-deception. If he gets the nomination, he will be more anti-Iraq War than all but Kucinich.