Top Items:
Washington Post:
Chalabi Lacks Votes Needed to Win Spot in Iraqi Assembly — BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 — Unexpectedly low support from overseas voters has left Ahmed Chalabi — the returned Iraqi exile once backed by the United States to lead Iraq — facing a shutout from power in this month's vote for the country's …
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Juan / Informed Comment:
Top Ten Myths about Iraq in 2005 — Iraq has unfortunately become a football in the rough and ready, two-party American political arena, generating large numbers of sound bites and so much spin you could clothe all of China in the resulting threads. — Here are what I think are the top ten myths …
Richard A. Oppel Jr / New York Times:Iraq Vote Shows Sunnis Are Few in New Military
Discussion:
Informed Comment, TAPPED, Total Information Awareness, Eric Umansky, Air America Radio and The Heretik
James Wolcott:
HEADHUNTERS — The dainty stench of burnt envy drew me to the comments section of Little Green Footballs, where I found my reputation and personhood under mass grubworm assault. I don't know you've ever ventured into the subterranean underworld that is LGF's comments section …
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Eugene Robinson / Washington Post:
Power That Bush Can't Just Take — Since the holiday season is a time of generosity and goodwill toward all — even those who torture the Constitution and hoodwink the nation into ill-advised wars — let's do a little thought experiment. — Let's assume that George W. Bush's claim …
Evelyn Nieves / Washington Post:
S.D. Makes Abortion Rare Through Laws And Stigma — Out-of-State Doctors Come Weekly to 1 Clinic — SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The waiting room at the Planned Parenthood clinic was packed by the time the doctor arrived — an hour late because of weather delays in Minneapolis.
Thomas Sowell / Townhall.com:
Cheap politicians — I don't make a million dollars a year but I think every member of Congress should be paid at least that much. It's not because those turkeys in Washington deserve it. It's because we deserve a lot better people than we have in Congress.
Discussion:
The Washington Monthly, The Carpetbagger Report, Betsy's Page, Vox Popoli, Althouse, Booker Rising, Prometheus 6 and Fausta's Blog
New York Times:
Unwarranted Complaints — SHORTLY after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush ordered surveillance of international telephone communications by suspected members of Al Qaeda overseas, even if such calls also involved individuals within the United States. This program was adopted …
Deborah Howell / Washington Post:
The Whole Story on Military Recruiting? — Numbers aren't just facts. They can be interpreted in many ways, even if they come from the same or similar sources. — Ann Scott Tyson, a respected military reporter just back from Iraq, wrote in a front-page story Nov. 4 that …
Washington Post:
Policy Adrift on Darfur — For two years the Bush administration has made commendable efforts to improve the lives of people in Darfur. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick has become personally invested in the crisis, recently completing his fourth trip to the region in the past seven months.
James Q. Wilson / Opinion Journal:
Faith in Theory — Why "intelligent design" simply isn't science. — When a federal judge in Pennsylvania struck down the efforts of a local school board to teach "intelligent design," he rightly criticized the wholly unscientific nature of that enterprise.
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Shankar Vedantam / Washington Post:
A Political Debate On Stress Disorder — The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Discussion:
Rantingprofs, DIRELAND, The Democratic Daily Blog, the talking dog, Debsweb, Mia Culpa, Politics in the Zeros and Donklephant
USA Today:
Iraq debate eclipses heroic acts — This season, 155,000 of our men and women in uniform will spend the holidays fighting in Iraq. Though this period is traditionally a time for celebration and hope, our U.S. troops are being confronted with a message of a different sort emanating from the home front …
Discussion:
Gateway Pundit
Aljazeera:
'My kidnappers were not criminals' — A former German hostage who spent 24 days in the hands of unknown captors in Iraq has said her kidnappers are not criminals and have demanded humanitarian aid for Sunni Arab regions. — Speaking to Aljazeera satellite channel, Susanne Osthoff …
James Bone / Opinion Journal:
Where Is the Car? — Why Kofi Annan said I'm not a "serious journalist." — UNITED NATIONS—Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary-general and Nobel peace laureate, is normally the meekest of diplomats. He is so accommodating he once described Saddam Hussein as a man "I can do business with."
C. J. Chivers / New York Times:
Putin's Senior Economic Adviser Abruptly Resigns — MOSCOW, Dec. 27 - The most outspoken of President Vladimir V. Putin's senior advisers abruptly resigned today, warning that Russia's nascent political freedoms have been lost and the Kremlin's economic choices have been poor.
