Top Items:
BBC:
Powell raps Europe on CIA flights — Ex-US Secretary of State Colin Powell has indicated that Europeans are being disingenuous when they deny knowledge of the rendition of terror suspects. — Mr Powell said the recently highlighted practice of moving people to places where they are not covered …
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Herald Sun:
White House 'never told' of WMD doubts — THE US administration was never told of doubts about the secret intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday night. — Mr Powell, who argued the case …
Discussion:
In the Bullpen
Mark / Mark in Mexico:
Now Colin Powell comes out swinging — In a stunning statement during an interview on the BBC, Colin Powell says that the White House was never told of doubts about WMD intelligence by the CIA. … While admitting that he had been bypassed on occasion by some of the White House hawks …
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters
Glenn Greenwald / Unclaimed Territory:
Purposely misquoting FISA to defend the Bush Administration — Defenders of the Bush Administration are resorting to outright distortions and deliberate falsehoods about the Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) in order to argue that the Administration's warrantless eavesdropping …
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Glenn Reynolds / Instapundit.com: TOM MAGUIRE has questions for the New York Times. — UPDATE: Lots more here.
Mark R. Levin / The Corner on National Review Online:NSA HYSTERICS — I notice the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers …
Washington Post:
Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers — In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s.
New York Times:
This Call May Be Monitored ... On Oct. 17, 2002, the head of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, made an eloquent plea to a joint House-Senate inquiry on intelligence for a sober national discussion about whether the line between liberty and security should be shifted …
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Patricia Sullivan / Washington Post:
Investigative Journalist Jack Anderson, 83, Dies — Pulitzer-Prize Winner Exposed Corruption in Washington in His Decades-Long Column — Jack N. Anderson, 83, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who for years was America's most widely read newspaper columnist, died Dec. 17 at his Bethesda home.
Discussion:
Running Scared
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Los Angeles Times:
Planted PR Stories Not News to Military — U.S. officials in Iraq knew that a contractor was paying local papers. Discretion was the key. — WASHINGTON — U.S. military officials in Iraq were fully aware that a Pentagon contractor regularly paid Iraqi newspapers to publish positive stories …
Jennifer Loven / Associated Press:
Bush Defends Secret Spying in the U.S. — WASHINGTON - Facing angry criticism and challenges to his authority in Congress, President Bush on Saturday unapologetically defended his administration's right to conduct secret post-Sept. 11 spying in the United States as "critical to saving American lives."
Discussion:
the talking dog
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Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Bush's Fumbles Spur New Talk of Oversight on Hill — After a series of embarrassing disclosures, Congress is reconsidering its relatively lenient oversight of the Bush administration. — Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by several recent reports, including the existence …
Discussion:
Hullabaloo
Philip P. Pan / Washington Post:
Chinese Evade Censors To Discuss Police Assault — HONG KONG, Dec. 16 — At first glance, it looked like a spirited online discussion about an essay written nearly 80 years ago by modern China's greatest author. But then again, the exchange on a popular Chinese bulletin board site seemed a bit emotional, given the subject.
Charles Babington / Washington Post:
Domestic Spying Issue Inflames Debate Over Patriot Act Renewal — President Bush escalated his attack yesterday on Senate Democrats and four Republicans for blocking efforts to renew the USA Patriot Act, but key lawmakers insisted they will not budge until stronger privacy protections are added to the domestic surveillance law.
Discussion:
The Sideshow
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Associated Press:
U.N. Investigator Names Syria in Murder — BEIRUT, Lebanon — The chief U.N. investigator into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said in remarks published Saturday that he believed Syrian authorities were behind the killing. — It was the first time that Detlev Mehlis …
Manohla Dargis / New York Times:
Masculinity and Its Discontents in Marlboro Country — LESS than two weeks after its release, "Brokeback Mountain" is already on the verge of being embalmed in importance. A lightning rod for attention even before it opened, the film has earned plaudits from critics' groups along with predictable sneers …
Discussion:
Althouse
Washington Post:
Don't Be Fooled by Bush Polls, Democratic Council Warns — Rising public frustration with the Iraq war and low approval ratings for President Bush look to many Democrats like an opportunity for big gains with voters in the 2006 and 2008 elections. — But two of the party's top strategists …
Nancy Gibbs / Time:
The Good Samaritans — For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME's Persons of the Year. … These are not the people you expect to come to the rescue.
Jill Crouch / Washington Post:
Ombudsman 'Briefing' — I was dismayed by ombudsman Deborah Howell's Dec. 11 column, "The Two Washington Posts." — Without providing any examples to make her case, other than to mention the opinion of John F. Harris, The Post's political editor, Howell claims that Dan Froomkin's …
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