Top Items:
David Ignatius / Washington Post:
An Arrogance of Power — There is a temptation that seeps into the souls of even the most righteous politicians and leads them to bend the rules, and eventually the truth, to suit the political needs of the moment. That arrogance of power is on display with the Bush administration.
RELATED ITEMS:
David E. Sanger / New York Times:
Handling of Accident Creates Tension Between White House Staffs — WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — When the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, came to the press room just before 10 a.m. Tuesday and suggested he was wearing an orange tie to avoid a stray shot from Vice President Dick Cheney …
Discussion:
The Next Hurrah
Los Angeles Times:
Cheney Lacked $7 Hunting Credential — CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Although he was not cited with breaking any laws, Vice President Dick Cheney did not have proper hunting credentials when he accidentally shot a fellow hunter at a private ranch over the weekend, authorities said Monday.
Paul Burka / Slate:
Full of Holes — The gossip about Cheney's bad shot. — Austin, TEXAS—The headquarters of Harry Whittington, the 78-year-old Austin lawyer who was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident Saturday, is the nondescript 10-story Vaughn Building, located a block from the Texas Capitol in downtown Austin.
New York Times:Fellow Hunter Shot by Cheney Suffers Setback
Discussion:
CNN, protein wisdom, Amygdala, PunditGuy, Michael Bérubé Online, Suitably Flip and Don Surber
Joe Strupp / Editor and Publisher:Ari Fleischer Joins Criticism Of Cheney's Response to Shooting
Discussion:
Taegan Goddard's …
Opinion Journal:Cheney's Coverup — The Vice President shoots a man. Questions must be asked.
Discussion:
Say Anything
Charles Babington / Washington Post:
Congressional Probe of NSA Spying Is in Doubt — Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.
Discussion:
Daily Kos, The Sideshow, WTF Is It Now??, Nitpicker, Booman Tribune, firedoglake, Bark Bark Woof Woof, The Heretik, King of Zembla and Truthdig
RELATED ITEMS:
Washington Post:
Cheney's Response A Concern In GOP — Vice President Cheney's slow and unapologetic public response to the accidental shooting of a 78-year-old Texas lawyer is turning the quail-hunting mishap into a political liability for the Bush administration and is prompting senior White House officials …
Captain Ed / Captain's Quarters:NSA Probe Losing Steam On Capitol Hill
Discussion:
The Strata-Sphere
Matthew Moore / Sydney Morning Herald:
The photos America doesn't want seen — MORE photographs have been leaked of Iraqi citizens tortured by US soldiers at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. — Tonight the SBS Dateline program plans to broadcast about 60 previously unpublished photographs …
Discussion:
Tim Blair, Hullabaloo, Liberty Street, Booman Tribune, Amygdala, Bring it On! and The Washington Monthly
RELATED ITEMS:
Washington Post:
325,000 Names on Terrorism List — Rights Groups Say Database May Include Innocent People — The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since …
Ted / Crooked Timber:
Block that kick — Steve Benen at the Carpetbagger Report passes on a story about public financing of advertising and PR campaigns. In the past two and a half years, the federal government has spent $1.6 billion on it. While that's a drop in the federal bucket, it's enough money to get excited about.
Media Matters for America:
CNN's Morton: Bush "likes to hunt quail"; Cheney "loves to hunt" — but Kerry "spent time posing with guns" … During a report on hunting and politics on the February 13 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN national correspondent Bruce Morton commented that President Bush …
Michael J. Totten:
The Dream City of the Kurds — ERBIL, IRAQ - Kurdistan is a place of the mind. It doesn't exist on any maps unless the maps are made by the Kurds. Southern Kurdistan is known to the rest of the world as Northern Iraq. Northern Kurdistan is described as Eastern Turkey.
Digby / Hullabaloo:
Journalistic Venereal Disease — Glenn has another great post up today in which he throws down the gauntlet to the right wing bloggers like the Old Perfesser who are all quick to require that Democrat purge the party of radicals while they cheer and applaud the eliminationist fascists in their own midst.
Zeeshan Haider / Reuters:
Two killed in Pakistan cartoon protests — ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Security guards shot dead two men, police used teargas on students in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave and protesters attacked Western businesses on Tuesday in Pakistan's most violent reaction yet to cartoons of the Prophet.
David S. Cloud / New York Times:
Quick Rise for Purveyors of Propaganda in Iraq — WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — Two years ago, Christian Bailey and Paige Craig were living in a half-renovated Washington group house, with a string of failed startup companies behind them. — Mr. Bailey, a boyish-looking Briton, and Mr. Craig …
Discussion:
CorrenteWire
David Rennie / Telegraph:
Tiny island that's ready to stop Europe in its tracks — In the decade since they voted to join the European Union the islanders of the Aland archipelago in the Baltic Sea have been outvoted and overruled by Brussels, time and again. — Now Aland, a unique, autonomous region of Finland …
Carlotta Gall / New York Times:
Afghan Suicide Bombings, Tied to Taliban, Point to Pakistan — KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb. 12 — Arrests and interrogations of suspects in a recent series of suicide bombings in Afghanistan show that the attacks have been orchestrated from Pakistan by members of the ousted Taliban government …
Discussion:
Rantingprofs
Guardian:
Denmark's new values — What was once a liberal country lurched to the far right while the world was not looking — Kiku Day — Denmark has at last managed to catch the world's eye, after so many years of failing to get credit for being at the cutting edge of liberalism.
