Top Items:
Ron Fournier / Associated Press:
Bush's Approval Rating Falls to New Low — WASHINGTON - More and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP-Ipsos poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency.
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Peter Baker / Washington Post:
In an Election Year, GOP Wary of Following Bush — When President Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove mapped out plans for a political comeback in 2006, this was nowhere on the script. Suddenly, the collapse of a port-management deal neither even knew about a month ago has devastated …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, The Mahablog, BlueNC, TalkLeft, Blah3.com, The Heretik, The Left Coaster and ScrappleFace
Walter Pincus / Washington Post:
Panel on Eavesdropping Is Briefed by White House — The new seven-senator intelligence subcommittee created to review the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program had its first White House briefing yesterday and is scheduled to visit the National Security Agency's headquarters Monday …
David Ignatius / Washington Post:
Burning Allies — and Ourselves — DUBAI — Officials here heard late Thursday that Karl Rove had decided to pull the plug. President Bush's political adviser was said to have conveyed to a top manager of Dubai Ports World in Washington that the White House couldn't hold out any longer …
Discussion:
Daniel W. Drezner, Macsmind, All Things Beautiful, QandO, Right Wing News, The Strata-Sphere, Crazy Politico's Rantings, protein wisdom, Middle Earth Journal, The American Mind, Instapundit.com, The RCP Blog, GOP Bloggers, NewDonkey.com, Shakespeare's Sister, Captain's Quarters, Secular Blasphemy and BrothersJudd Blog
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Paul Blustein / Washington Post:
Overseas Firms Entrenched in Ports — Despite Dubai Company's Withdrawal, Others Are Likely to Stay Put — The decision by Dubai Ports World to abandon its effort to take over terminal operations at six U.S. seaports was a victory for the numerous politicians who have thundered in recent days …
Online NewsHour:
Transfering U.S. operations to a U.S. company — MARGARET WARNER So, Simon Romero, let me just — for our viewers, I will re-read the operative sentence, because there has been a lot of debate about what it means. — The — Senator Warner said, D.P. World will transfer fully the U.S. operations to a United States entity.
David E. Sanger / New York Times:
Under Pressure, Dubai Company Drops Port Deal — WASHINGTON, March 9 — The state-owned Dubai company seeking to manage some terminal operations at six American ports dropped out of the deal on Thursday, bowing to an unrelenting bipartisan attack in Congress that swept aside President Bush's efforts.
Ann Scott Tyson / Washington Post:
U.S. Sets Plans to Aid Iraq in Civil War — The U.S. military will rely primarily on Iraq's security forces to put down a civil war in that country if one breaks out, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told lawmakers yesterday. — Sectarian violence in Iraq has reached a level unprecedented since …
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Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
The Kurd Card — Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides. In the first parliament after the first set of elections, they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.
Discussion:
Dr. Sanity
David Stout / New York Times:U.S. to Rely on Iraqi Forces to Quell Civil War, Rumsfeld Says
Discussion:
AMERICAblog
Jesse / Jesse Berney dot com:
Elizabeth Dole is a racist — Check out FancyFord.com, a racist attack site created by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to oppose Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., who's running for Senate in Tennessee. — What's the message behind this site? The line of white women on the front page …
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Jill Gardiner / New York Sun:
Alarm Spreads Over Remarks Of Jail Imam — Extremist remarks made by the head imam of the city's jail system are generating alarm about whether inmates are being recruited as Islamic fundamentalists. — Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday that the city has suspended Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil …
Discussion:
Jihad Watch
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White House:
President Signs USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act — Fact Sheet: Safeguarding America: President Bush Signs Patriot Act Reauthorization — THE PRESIDENT: Welcome. Thanks for the applause. Glad you're here in the people's house. — I'm going to sign …
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Philip Shenon / New York Times:
$25,000 to Lobby Group Is Tied to Access to Bush — WASHINGTON, March 9 — The chief of an Indian tribe represented by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff was admitted to a meeting with President Bush in 2001 days after the tribe paid a prominent conservative lobbying group $25,000 at Mr. Abramoff's direction …
Scott Lemieux / firedoglake:
After South Dakota Pt. II: Stand Up For Roe — Drink to his health. — As most of you know, pro-life rhetoric in the U.S. is, more than anything, focused on diversion, using the language of states' rights or "reasonable regulations" to advance their agenda of banning abortion entirely.
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Opinion Journal:
The New Protectionists — How to create a real security crisis. — Dubai Ports World finally threw in the kaffiyah on its American operations yesterday, agreeing to sell them "to a U.S. entity." We hope that entity turns out to be Halliburton, if only for the torment that would cause certain eminences on Capitol Hill.
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Ogged / The Washington Monthly:
The Pie Strategy — You bastards already hate me. Probably. … This is not only depressing, it's boring. We're playing out everyone's favorite dynamic of suspicion vs. grievance. Right-wingers like to pretend that they're the only ones who dare say that we were attacked by MUSLIMS!
MSNBC:
Pentagon admits errors in spying on protesters — NBC: Official says peaceful demonstrators' names erased from database — The Department of Defense admitted in a letter obtained by NBC News on Thursday that it had wrongly added peaceful demonstrators to a database of possible domestic terrorist threats.
Discussion:
The Democratic Daily Blog
John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Frist turns back on Reporters over the Dubai port deal — Frist turns back on Reporters over the Dubai port deal — There's a big split happening in the GOP (primarily over political positioning) and it was magnified by Hastert's view of the "port deal" who did take questions from reporters …
John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Vernon Robinson's sick commercial — Vernon Robinson's sick commercial — This is isn't a joke or a parody commercial. It's just insane. Robinson is running for Congress in North Carolina and he uses the Twilight Zone theme to attack gays, judges, African Americans and just about anything or anyone else you can think of.
Xeni Jardin / New York Times:
Exporting Censorship — AMERICAN technology firms are taking heat from the public and Congress for helping China's government police the Internet. But this controversy extends well beyond China and the so-called Internet Gang of Four: Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft.
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