Top Items:
Glenn Greenwald / Unclaimed Territory:
The dying scandal that keeps growing — Ever since the NSA scandal began, Bush followers, led by Karl Rove, and even some frightened Democrats, have loudly insisted that this scandal is actually beneficial for Republicans, because they can use it to depict Democrats as weak on national security.
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Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
How Not to Keep Your Head Down — Nothing makes journalists madder than the feeling that they're not getting the full story — and the Bush administration has been giving them plenty of practice. — On one controversy after another, the White House has been the gang that couldn't shoot straight …
New York Times:
Facing Pressure, White House Seeks Approval for Spying — After two months of insisting that President Bush did not need court approval to authorize the wiretapping of calls between the United States and suspected terrorists abroad, the administration is trying to resist pressure for judicial review …
Discussion:
AMERICAblog, protein wisdom, The Strata-Sphere, Balloon Juice, Wampum, The Carpetbagger Report, TalkLeft and The Moderate Voice
Elisabeth Bumiller / New York Times:
Troubleshooting the Tale of a Hunt Gone Sour — WASHINGTON — Mary Matalin, Vice President Dick Cheney's longtime troubleshooter, was sleeping in last Sunday when the phone jangled her awake at 8 a.m. She groggily picked it up to hear, 'The vice president shot somebody, and he's O.K.' "
Veronika Oleksyn / Associated Press:
Holocaust Denier Gets Three Years — VIENNA, Austria - Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty Monday to denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison, even after conceding he wrongly said there were no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
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BBC:
Holocaust denier Irving is jailed — British historian David Irving has been found guilty in Vienna of denying the Holocaust of European Jewry and sentenced to three years in prison. — He had pleaded guilty to the charge, based on a speech and interview he gave in Austria in 1989.
Discussion:
Europhobia
Guardian:
David Irving jailed for Holocaust denial — Staff and agencies — The British revisionist historian and Nazi apologist David Irving was today sentenced to three years in prison after he admitted denying the Holocaust. — An eight-member jury at a court in Vienna convicted Irving, 68 …
Jimmy Carter / Washington Post:
Don't Punish the Palestinians — As the results of the recent Palestinian elections are implemented, it's important to understand how the transition process works and also how important to it are actions by Israel and the United States. — Although Hamas won 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats …
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Captain Ed / Captain's Quarters:Carter: They Know Not What They Did — Jimmy Carter takes …
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Jim Tankersley / toledoblade.com:
Hackett's research targeted Brown — Votes to cut funding for intelligence cited — Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown voted to cut intelligence funding more than a dozen times before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a record that Paul Hackett's campaign advisers called proof …
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Richard B. Schmitt / Los Angeles Times:
Privacy Guardian Is Still a Paper Tiger — A year after its creation, the White House civil liberties board has yet to do a single day of work. — WASHINGTON — For Americans troubled by the prospect of federal agents eavesdropping on their phone conversations or combing through their Internet records …
Maha / The Mahablog:
Patriotism v. Francis Fukuyama — This is only tangential to the "patriotism v. nationalism" series I seem to have embarked on, but I'd like to toss it in to the mix now before it gets stale. — Some years ago I read the original "The End of History?" article that Francis Fukuyama wrote in 1989 …
Jane Mayer / New Yorker:
THE MEMO — How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted. — One night this January, in a ceremony at the Officers' Club at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia, which sits on a hill with a commanding view across the Potomac River to the Washington Monument …
Dexter Filkins / New York Times:
Strategy Tragedy? — When I recently spoke with Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson at his headquarters in Baghdad, it was impossible not to be overwhelmed by a feeling of what might have been. Peterson, a big, witty officer in charge of training the Iraqi police force, spent two hours laying …
Discussion:
Andrew Sullivan
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Scott Shields / MyDD:
Bill Frist, Brilliant Political Strategist — It's not very often that we here at MyDD come up with the same conclusions as the folks over at RedState. But last week, I had to agree when Blanton wrote a piece that described Bill Frist as hapless and inept, and that he's "failed to be a real leader" in the Senate.
Edward Rothstein / New York Times:
History Illuminates the Rage of Muslims — An ant climbs a blade of grass, over and over, seemingly without purpose, seeking neither nourishment nor home. It persists in its futile climb, explains Daniel C. Dennett at the opening of his new book, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" …
Robert Mayer / Publius Pundit:
RUSSIA SHUTS DOWN NEWSPAPER WITH CARTOON DEPICTING MOHAMMED — The municipal government in Volgograd has decided to close down a local newspaper for printing a cartoon showing Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Moses watching a crowd of clashing people while saying, "We never taught them to do that …
Michael J. Totten:
"Our Jerusalem" — ERBIL, IRAQ - Iraq may not survive in one piece. The overwhelming majority of Iraqi Kurds are packing their bags. Most have already said goodbye. Erbil (Hawler in Kurdish) is the capital of the de-facto sovereign Kurdistan Regional Government.
Discussion:
Samizdata.net
Paul Harris / Observer:
37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty — Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening
