Candle page for Jane Hamsher

In the past few days I've been directing you to Firedoglake for their coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. Do check out that blog for up to date discussion of the trail--Pachacutec is liveblogging jury selection in the comments.

But I wanted to point out this post by Jane Hamsher, for anyone who might have missed it.

As someone who has devoted years to building this blog around coverage of the CIA leak investigation, it's going to be really rough to sit on the sidelines for the first two weeks while Marcy, Christy, Pach and others cover the trial in person. I've been working for months now to obtain a press pass and set up the "Plame House" in Washington DC as a central place for bloggers to stay and share information amongst ourselves as we cover the trial. When I received (with the help of Arianna Huffington and Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post) the only press pass awarded to a blogger to be in the actual courtroom, I was blown away. And as you might well imagine, it would have to be something pretty serious to keep me away for even a moment.

In mid-December I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time. It's a bit more serious this time and treatment is going to have to be more extensive. I owe a huge debt of thanks to all the folks on the blog who have stepped in and allowed me time to investigate treatment options with many physicians and make an informed decision on that front. In addition to regulars like Christy, Pach and TRex who have taken over many of my duties, I also need to express my thanks to commenters like Scarecrow, Looseheadprop, Peterr, Hugh and Oilfieldguy who have done incredible work posting so that I could take this time off. Guest posters like Taylor Marsh, Swopa, Steve Gilliard, Watertiger, Howie Klein and others have also pitched in, and no amount of words can thank the incredible RGB, our site administrator, who has taken it upon himself to coordinate all these disparate elements on the fly. It's been a daunting task and he has managed it spectacularly.

On Thursday I go in for surgery at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. My surgeons are Dr. Armando Giuliano, with whom I've been down this road before, and Dr. Jay Orringer, who comes highly recommended by both friends and his own superb work. Thanks to the time that all of those who contribute to this blog have afforded me to investigate all my options, I feel really confident in my choice of treatments. Right now I'm writing from John Amato's house, the Crooks & Liars bat cave, where I'll be recouping. The emotional support that bloggers like John, Digby, Arianna, and of course Pach, TRex and the amazing Christy have given to me during this time — well, there just are no words to express.

Sorry for kind of a long excerpt, but I realize a number of people here are not familiar with Firedoglake. A number of Dean people do post there, and it's the closest I've been able to find to the fast paced political discussion we used to have at BFA. And I'm not really in a writing state of mind at the moment, don't have enough charge in my brain cells to do a good job distilling this down. But I wanted to include enough to give you all a sense of who Jane is and why I wanted to make a candle page for her.

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