Top Items:
Washington Post:
Democrats Struggle To Seize Opportunity — News about GOP political corruption, inept hurricane response and chaos in Iraq has lifted Democrats' hopes of winning control of Congress this fall. But seizing the opportunity has not been easy, as they found when they tried to unveil an agenda of their own.
Discussion:
MyDD, Bring it On!, Unclaimed Territory, The Left Coaster, The Democratic Daily Blog, The Washington Monthly, The RCP Blog, The Carpetbagger Report, QandO, Blogs for Bush, Balloon Juice, Sister Toldjah, Wonkette, Booman Tribune, Gina Cobb, Suburban Guerrilla, Pam's House Blend, California Conservative, Hugh Hewitt and BrothersJudd Blog
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Lydia Saad / Gallup:
Democrats Stretch Lead in Vote for Congress — Fourteen-point Democratic lead is among the widest since 1994 — PRINCETON, NJ — The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Feb. 28 to March 1, finds the Democrats holding a substantial lead over the Republicans as the party …
Associated Press:
Election - Year Politics Shadow Ports Issue — WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Democrats are using the uproar over an Arab company's planned takeover of some U.S. port operations to paint Republicans as faltering on the GOP's signature issue — national security — and accuse them of ignoring port safety in the past.
E. J. Dionne Jr / Washington Post:
The Democrats' Real Problem — It is now an ingrained journalistic habit: After a period of bad news for President Bush, media outlets invariably devote time and space to "balancing" stories that all say more or less: "Yes, the Republicans are in trouble, but the Democrats have no alternatives, no plans," etc.
Discussion:
Bloomberg, The Moderate Voice, The Next Hurrah, Democrat Taylor Marsh …, Riehl World View and IntoxiNation
Chris Bowers / MyDD:
Two Stories and Two Primaries … Next, from the front-page of the Washington Post: … So, according to Gallup, Democrats are currently in their best position ever to retake the House of Representatives. Yet, despite this, for some reason we are subjected to front-page stories …
Monica Davey / New York Times:
South Dakota Bans Abortion, Setting Up a Battle — Gov. Michael Rounds of South Dakota signed into law the nation's most sweeping state abortion ban on Monday, an intentional provocation meant to set up a direct legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 United States Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal.
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Davidbarron / LawCulture:
It's Not Just Foreign Law They Don't Like . . . Chief Justice Robert's decision for the unanimous Court in in the law school/military recruiting case today gets the constitutional analysis just right in my opinion. (Full disclosure, I signed on to an amicus brief by a number of professors …
Linda Greenhouse / New York Times:
U.S. Wins Ruling Over Recruiting at Universities — WASHINGTON, March 6 — The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a law that cuts federal financing for universities if they do not give military recruiters the same access to students that other potential employers receive.
Reuters:
Iran faces consequences in nuclear dispute: Cheney —Text+WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons and faces "meaningful consequences" if it persists in defying the international community, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Tuesday.
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Christopher Hitchens / Slate:
Survey Says — Let the exchange of trade and ideas with Iran begin. — The most touching remark I heard during my time in Iran last year was from a woman in the wonderfully beautiful city of Isfahan. (It is just outside this cultural treasure house that the mullahs have chosen to place one of their mountain-dugout nuclear sites.)
Discussion:
Dinocrat, David E's Fablog, The American Thinker, The Dignified Rant, Unqualified Offerings, MaxSpeak and Decision '08
New York Post:
IRAQ: THE UNTOLD TRUTHS — AMONG the many positive stories you aren't being told about Iraq, the media ignored another big one last week: In the wake of the terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, it was the Iraqi army that kept the peace in the streets.
Discussion:
New York Times, The RCP Blog, Gina Cobb, TigerHawk, Dean's World, YARGB, Power Line, irishpennants.com, GOP Bloggers and Media Blog on National …
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John Ward Anderson / Washington Post:
Iraqi Tribes Strike Back at Insurgents — In Turbulent Areas, Zarqawi's Fighters Are Target of Leaders and a New Militia — BAGHDAD, March 6 — First they killed the chief of the Naim tribe and his son. Then they killed a top tribal sheik who headed the Fallujah city council.
Discussion:
QandO, In the Bullpen, A Blog For All, Defense Tech, Outside The Beltway, The Dread Pundit Bluto, On Deadline and GOP Bloggers
Kevin Drum / The Washington Monthly:
SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE....Ed Kilgore responds to my angry post about the DLC's wonkish 7-point healthcare plan with this: … Here's my guess: in private, I'll bet all of these gentlemen do acknowledge that a simple single-payer national healthcare plan is the best policy.
Discussion:
NewDonkey.com, Sirotablog, Bradford Plumer, battlepanda.blogspot.com, Don Surber, Concurring Opinions, Angry Bear and skimble
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Newdonkey / NewDonkey.com:
Who's Definining UHC? — Having just done two adulatory posts about articles in The Washington Monthly, and planning another for tomorrow, I guess it's a matter of balance to take serious issue with the Monthly's blog, Political Animal, wherein Kevin Drum just posted a petulant and abusive attack …
USA Today:
8,000 desert during Iraq war — At least 8,000 members of the all-volunteer U.S. military have deserted since the Iraq war began, Pentagon records show, although the overall desertion rate has plunged since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. — Since fall 2003, 4,387 Army soldiers …
Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles Times:
Envoy to Iraq Sees Threat of Wider War — He supports the White House view that an early pullout would backfire, but he is bleak about the Sunni-Shiite conflict and says it could spread. — BAGHDAD — The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a …
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Peter Baker / Washington Post:
Bush Weaves Rug Story Into Many an Occasion — President Uses His Oval Office Floor Covering as a Metaphor for Optimism and Leadership — Nothing says power like the Oval Office. The paintings of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The bust of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The desk used by both Roosevelts.
Robert A. George / RAGGED THOTS:
Getting A Clue-ney: Race & The Oscars — My post-Oscar update (#6) on George Clooney (see below) garnered a strong comment from "Cal." I thought I would put his statement and my response as a post, with some other views on the Oscars, race and the rise of Three Six Mafia. — First Cal, who starts quoting me:
Discussion:
Deadline Hollywood Daily, blackprof.com, Booker Rising, Ace of Spades HQ, Snarksmith and Hit and Run
Jane Hamsher / firedoglake:
Unchristened Embryos, Destination: Hell — I brought up one of my favorite forced birth conundrums the other day, guaranteed to make wingnut "life begins at conception" heads explode. If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you can only save a petri dish with five blastulae or a two-year old child, which do you save?
Discussion:
Liberty Street, The Talent Show, Pharyngula, Decision '08, Crooks and Liars, Incomprehensible … and Majikthise
Jason / Generation Why?:
The Today Show Becomes Matt Lauer's Geography Class — I honestly think MSM has given up on any attempt at objectivity. They know their game is up, so they figure, "Why hide it?" — Such is the case this morning with Matt Lauer's rendition of an unbiased Katie Couric interview.
New York Times:
Shiites Try to Block Start of Parliament Amid New Violence — BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 7 — The struggle to get the country's sclerotic political process inching forward ran into a new complication today, as Shiite politicians sought to block the new parliament from holding its first meeting on Sunday.
Guy Millière / Front Page Magazine:
The Murder of Ilan Halimi — How many Jews are still living in France today? Around 500,000. The number is going down year after year. Those who leave go mostly to Israel. Some of them move to Canada or to the United States. The larger part of those who stay in France are frightened and anxious.
Carl Hulse / New York Times:
House Conservatives Prepare Austere Alternative Budget — WASHINGTON, March 6 — With Congress heading into a politically perilous budget season, influential House conservatives plan this week to propose an austere alternative spending plan that would pare more than $650 billion over five years …
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, Booman Tribune, Right Wing News, Sister Toldjah, Air America Radio and Hugh Hewitt
BBC:
Woman loses frozen embryos fight — A woman left infertile after cancer treatment cannot use her frozen embryos to have a baby, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. — Natallie Evans started IVF treatment with her then partner Howard Johnston in 2001 but he withdrew consent for the embryos to be used after they split up.
NY Daily News:
From 'Three's Company' to two's a crowd — BEVERLY HILLS — Seventies icon Suzanne Somers was strolling into Vanity Fair's Oscar party at Morton's when she vanished in the Madonna glare. — Somers had just stepped onto the red carpet when a bloodcurdling cry erupted from the paparazzi behind the barricades.
Somini Sengupta / New York Times:
Bombings in India Raise Fear of Sectarian Violence — NEW DELHI, March 7 — A series of apparently coordinated bombs went off in the ancient Hindu holy city of Benares in eastern India this evening, raising the specter of sectarian violence. — The first bomb exploded at the Sankat Mochan temple shortly …
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