Top Items:
Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice:
Staged Bush Military Photo Op Caught By Reporters: The Nose Grows? — Was it staged, or merely advance work? — You'd think by now that the last thing the Bush administration would want would be yet another instance where it's caught in a controversy involving truth...but, then think again.
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Juan / Informed Comment:
Zawahiri Letter to Zarqawi: A Shiite Forgery? — The Arabic text of the recently released letter alleged to be by Zawahiri (al-Qaeda's number two man) to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq raises questions for me as to its authenticity. — The very first element of the letter is the blessing on the Prophet.
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Aljazeera:
Al-Qaida: US faked al-Zawahiri letter — A purported al-Qaida web posting has charged the United States with fabricating a letter from the group's second in command allegedly to its leader in Iraq asking for money and laying out the group's plans for the Middle East.
Matthew Scully / New York Times:
The Harriet Miers I Know — WHITE House speechwriters first learned the name Harriet Miers in January 2001, when drafts started reappearing full of corrections, instructions and particularly annoying requests for factual substantiation. In the campaign, life had been simpler, the editing and fact-checking a little more casual.
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, A Chequer-Board of Nights …, Hugh Hewitt, The Strata-Sphere, The Anchoress, Brendan Nyhan, Bench Memos …, The Right Coast, The Hedgehog Blog, The Carpetbagger Report, David Frum's Diary …, The Heretik, All Things Beautiful, Daily Pundit, www.AndrewSullivan.com, PoliPundit.com and TAPPED
cyber.law.harvard.edu:
GLOBAL VOICES WEBLOG — Echoes from the Tunisian blogosphere — Tunisia, Middle East & North Africa, Weblog — The beginning of this week marked a big buzz in the Tunisian blogosphere about Tunisia's national soccer team qualifying to the World Cup next year after a 2-2 draw with Morocco.
Washington Post:
In Iraqi Swing City, Hope vs. Defiance — BALAD, Iraq, Oct. 13 — In a dusty room of Qadriya Elementary School, Lt. Col. Jody L. Petery delivered his message: Sunni Arabs should cast their votes Saturday in a referendum on Iraq's proposed constitution. His skeptical audience had other concerns.
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Mark Finkelstein / NewsBusters.org:
Up the Creek: Out to Embarrass Bush Over Alleged Video Stunt, Today Gets Caught in Stunt of Its Own — In a deliciously ironic twist of fate, shortly before airing a segment aimed at embarrassing the Bush administration by suggesting that it had staged a video conversation between the president …
Stephen Gordon / The Speculist:
An Open Letter to President Bush — Dear Mr. President: — Like many Americans I'm deeply concerned about the risk of Avian flu. News about our nation's preparedness has not been reassuring. — The only drug that is thought to have any impact on the disease once contracted is Tamiflu.
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Roger L. Simon / Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter:
Harold Pinter Wins Nobel Prize — For what I imagine to be a variety of reasons... perhaps because I have been a professional writer of screenplays and novels for more years than I care to admit in public or perhaps because I have served on awards committees for PEN and the Los Angeles Times …
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Vaughn Ververs / CBS News:
Outside Voices - The Anchoress Speaks — Each week we invite someone from the outside to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week, we invited The Anchoress, one of the blogosphere's most mysterious and interesting voices who this week turned …
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
A Flu Hope, Or Horror? — While official Washington has been poring over Harriet Miers's long-ago doings on the Dallas City Council and parsing the byzantine comings and goings of the Patrick Fitzgerald grand jury, relatively unnoticed was perhaps the most momentous event of our lifetime — what is left of it, as I shall explain.
Los Angeles Times:
Window Into Miers' Legal Thinking in the 1990s Reflects a Glint of Liberalism — HOUSTON — In the early 1990s, lawyer-bashing was all the rage. And Harriet Miers didn't like it one bit. — Then the president of the State Bar of Texas, Miers used her monthly column in the Texas Bar Journal …
National Review:
Start Over — When President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, we called it a missed opportunity. The ensuing debate has confirmed that judgment. For all its fury, a consensus was reached early on that point. Leaving aside the president and his employees …
National Review:
Mm'Doh! — This is my last column on Harriet Miers until her confirmation hearings begin — or until her press conference announcing that for the good of her (insert "country," "president," "family," "party," "faith" or "sanity") she's withdrawing from consideration for the Supreme Court.
Bloomberg:
Bush's Miers Predicament Forces GOP Split or Nominee Withdrawal — Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — President George W. Bush prides himself as a man who never runs from a fight and as a leader who pays careful attention to his political base. Harriet Miers has put those qualities in conflict.
Gateway Pundit:
Condoleezza Chases Down Dictator! — After Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made stops in Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and later to Tajikistan, she was not about to put up with any silliness from the Ex-Soviet Autocratic President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, on Thursday!
Donna St. George / Washington Post:
For Injured U.S. Troops, 'Financial Friendly Fire' — Flaws in Pay System Lead to Dunning, Credit Trouble — His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center …
