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Insight:
Rove counting heads on the Senate Judiciary Committee — The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.
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Carl Bialik / Wall Street Journal:
Sometimes in Polling, It's All in the Question — What does the public think about the Bush administration's wiretapping program? — It depends on how you ask the question. — A half dozen polls on the issue have turned up different conclusions, and a key distinction appears …
Charles Babington / Washington Post:
Activists on Right, GOP Lawmakers Divided on Spying — Despite President Bush's warnings that public challenges to his domestic surveillance program could help terrorists, congressional Republicans and conservative activists are split on the issue and are showing no signs of reconciling soon.
Adam Liptak / New York Times:
In Limelight at Wiretap Hearing: 2 Laws, but Which Should Rule? — It is the sort of problem that judges confront every day. One law forbids a certain activity. The other may allow it. Which one counts? — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made the case to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday …
Katherine Shrader / Associated Press:
Gonzales Answers Tough Questions on Spying — WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed skepticism Monday about the legality of President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program and suggested it be reviewed by a special federal court.
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:In Quizzing a Reticent Gonzales, Senators Encounter a Power Shortage
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Right Wing News, TalkLeft, Associated Press, AMERICAblog, ScrappleFace and PJ NSA Files
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff / Washington Post:
Tolerance Toward Intolerance — Last week the publication I work for, the German newsweekly Die Zeit, printed one of the controversial caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. It was the right thing to do. — When the cartoons were first published in Denmark in September, nobody in Germany took notice.
Discussion:
INDC Journal, Blinq, TKS on National Review Online, AmSpec Blog, Balloon Juice, Hit and Run and USS Neverdock
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Michelle Malkin:
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS, WILL YOU PLEASE STAND UP? — Kudos to the Philadelphia Inquirer for braving the forces of political correctness, foreign and domestic, and publishing one of the forbidden Muhammad cartoons. The point that needs to be hammered again and again is that the newspaper …
New York Times:
Those Danish Cartoons — Cartoons making fun of the Prophet Muhammad that were published in a Danish newspaper last September are suddenly one of the hottest issues in international politics. Muslims in Europe and across the Middle East have been holding protests with growing levels of violence and now loss of life.
Discussion:
The American Thinker
Julie Bosman / New York Times:
Protesters at Philadelphia Paper Ask It to Apologize for Cartoon — The Philadelphia Inquirer became the first major American newspaper to publish any of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Saturday, prompting a small protest outside the newspaper's offices yesterday morning.
Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
Budget Plan Assumes Too Much, Demands Too Little — President Bush's budget blueprint would bring the federal government's budget deficit under control by decade's end. But to do that without raising taxes, the White House would need a sweeping tax reform that it has avoided proposing and a swift end to the war in Iraq.
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Robin Toner / New York Times:
Holding Fast to a Policy of Tax Cutting — WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 — George W. Bush ran for office as a "compassionate conservative," arguing that Americans did not have to choose between huge tax cuts and a government that would do its part to address social needs like education and health care.
Times of London:
Iranian paper launches Holocaust cartoon competition — Iran's biggest-selling newspaper has waded into the Muhammad controversy by launching a competition to find the 12 "best" cartoons about the Holocaust. — Farid Mortazavi, graphics editor for Tehran's Hamshahri newspaper …
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Lorenzo Vidino / National Review:
Creating Outrage — Confused by the wave of protests, threats, boycotts, and attacks against diplomatic facilities that have shaken their idyllic tranquility after the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed on Jyllands-Posten, the Danes are asking themselves questions.
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Kelluman / neandernews.com:Danish Imams Busted!
Discussion:
Mark in Mexico, Harry's Place, Classical Values, sisu, Gateway Pundit, Taking Aim, The Counterterrorism Blog and On The Third Hand
John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Alberto: George Washington loves electronics too — Monday Funnies — Sometimes you just hit the jackpot. — Video-WMP Video-QT (hat tip Intoxination) — Alberto: President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.
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rawstory.com:
Reporter hits McClellan on taps: 'You know what happened to Nixon when he broke the law' — RAW STORY — White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan got in a heated row with a White House correspondent at Monday's press briefing over President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program, RAW STORY has learned.
mccain.senate.gov:
MCCAIN RELEASES LETTER TO OBAMA — Washington D.C. - Today, Senator McCain sent the following letter to Senator Obama regarding ongoing Congressional efforts towards bipartisan lobbying reform. The following is the text from that letter: — The Honorable Barack Obama — United States Senate
Discussion:
Hotline On Call, The Carpetbagger Report, The Washington Note, WuzzaDem, Daily Kos, The Moderate Voice, MyDD, Pundit Review, bRight & Early, Austin Bay Blog, Democrat Taylor Marsh …, The American Princess, chicagoboyz.net, Two Babes and a Brain, RedState, THE ASTUTE BLOGGER, Donklephant and BrothersJudd Blog
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Washington Post:
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Holds a Hearing on Wartime Executive Power and the National Security Agency's Surveillance Authority — The transcript picks up with the testimony of Senator Herb Kohl. Return to Part I. — Senator Kohl? — KOHL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gerard Baker / Times of London:
New roles take centre stage but old divisions lurk in the wings — Sabre-rattling Europe and emollient US will soon settle down to business as usual — WHEN European and US policymakers, led by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary …
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MSNBC:
Because they can — If I were the kind of blogger who ran contests, I'd have an essay contest today asking people to write in and explain which of the following two stories is the more perfect representation of the Bush Administration's overall approach to the rest of the world.
Forbes:
Pakistan medical assn to boycott European drugs over cartoons — MULTAN, Pakistan (AFX) - The Pakistan Medical Association has vowed not to prescribe medicines from firms based in some European countries where controversial cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammed were published, said Shahid Rao …
