Top Items:
New York Times:
Doing the President's Dirty Work — Is there any aspect of President Bush's miserable record on intelligence that Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not willing to excuse and help to cover up? — For more than a year, Mr. Roberts has been dragging …
Discussion:
NewsHog, King of Zembla, War and Piece, Democrat Taylor Marsh …, WTF Is It Now??, TalkLeft, CorrenteWire and Decision '08
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Washington Post:
Senate Rejects Wiretapping Probe — But Judge Orders Justice Department to Turn Over Documents — The Bush administration helped derail a Senate bid to investigate a warrantless eavesdropping program yesterday after signaling it would reject Congress's request to have former attorney …
New York Times:
Accord in House to Hold Inquiry on Surveillance — WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday that they had agreed to open a Congressional inquiry prompted by the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. But a dispute immediately broke …
Discussion:
Unclaimed Territory, Amygdala, Stop The ACLU, Norwegianity, Shakespeare's Sister, Althouse, Decision '08, AMERICAblog and State of the Day
Los Angeles Times:
Spying Inquiry Blocked by GOP — The Senate intelligence chair buys time, saying the White House is open to legislation on Bush's surveillance program. Many are doubtful. — WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked a proposed investigation of President Bush's domestic spying operation Thursday …
Richard Cohen / Washington Post:
What Is the Value of Algebra? — I am haunted by Gabriela Ocampo. — Last year, she dropped out of the 12th grade at Birmingham High School in Los Angeles after failing algebra six times in six semesters, trying it a seventh time and finally just despairing over ever getting it.
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Riaz Khan / Associated Press:
Cleric: $1 Million to Kill Cartoonist — PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A Pakistani cleric announced Friday a $1 million bounty for killing a cartoonist who drew Prophet Muhammad, as thousands joined street protests and Denmark temporarily closed its embassy and advised its citizens to leave the country.
Nick Coleman / Minneapolis Star Tribune:
New pro-war ad cynically exploits families' grief — Another pro-war ad is getting a trial run on some Twin Cities TV stations, repackaging the same deceptions that I deconstructed last Sunday. The first ad was bad enough, but the newest installment in this expensive effort to shore …
Discussion:
Fraters Libertas
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Shankar Vedantam / Washington Post:
Glacier Melt Could Signal Faster Rise in Ocean Levels — Greenland's glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously believed, the result of a warming trend that renders obsolete predictions of how quickly Earth's oceans will rise over the next century, scientists said yesterday.
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Jim Hansen / Independent:
Climate change: On the edge — Greenland ice cap breaking up at twice the rate it was five years ago, says scientist Bush tried to gag — A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that it is melting far faster than scientists had feared - twice as much ice is going into the sea as it was five years ago.
Cameron W. Barr / Washington Post:
Policing Porn Is Not Part of Job Description — Montgomery Homeland Security Officers Reassigned After Library Incident — Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers.
Discussion:
PoliBlog
Philip Kennicott / Washington Post:
Painted in Blood, an Abstract Expression of Horror — From the beginning of the Abu Ghraib scandal, when the first images of torture and humiliation from the Iraqi prison appeared, we knew there were more. And now, two years later, they've begun to emerge.
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John Pomfret / Washington Post:
Cheney Shooting Case Is Closed in Texas — Report on Accident Backs Explanations by Vice President and Ranch Owner — CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex., Feb. 16 — The sheriff's department responsible for investigating Vice President Cheney's shooting of a Texas lawyer has closed its investigation …
George F. Will / Washington Post:
No Checks, Many Imbalances — The next time a president asks Congress to pass something akin to what Congress passed on Sept. 14, 2001 — the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) — the resulting legislation might be longer than Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past."
Discussion:
Power Line, PoliBlog, Stop The ACLU, The Political Pit Bull, Right Wing News, Prometheus 6, National Review and Secrecy News
Robin Givhan / Washington Post:
Winning Flush — Vice President Cheney sat in the warm glow of his ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building Wednesday afternoon and, in an interview with Fox News, accepted responsibility for the hunting accident in which he blasted Texas lawyer Harry Whittington with birdshot.
Discussion:
Betsy's Page
New York Times:
On Private Web Site, Wal-Mart Chief Talks Tough — In a confidential, internal Web site for Wal-Mart's managers, the company's chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., seemed to have a rare, unscripted moment when one manager asked him why "the largest company on the planet cannot offer some type of medical retirement benefits?"
Richard Spencer / Telegraph:
On the menu today: horse penis and testicles with a chilli dip — The menu at Beijing's latest venue for its growing army of gourmets is eye-watering rather than mouth-watering. — China's cuisine is renowned for being "in your face" - from the skinned dogs displayed at food markets …
Discussion:
Whatever It Is …
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Quell Quailgate — Cheney's Call Was Wrong but Understandable — I'm just glad he didn't shoot Scalia. — Well, everyone's entitled to one Quailgate joke, so that's mine. Although the best one, occurring at the White House news briefing Monday, was only inadvertently funny.
