Top Items:
The Raw Story:
Bush press secretary says gay marriage amendment civil rights measure; Stumbles when asked to define civil rights — At the White House press briefing today, Bush press secretary Tony Snow signaled that Bush considers an amendment barring same-sex marriage a "civil rights" matter …
RELATED ITEMS:
White House:
President Discusses Marriage Protection Amendment — THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Good afternoon, and welcome to the White House. It is a pleasure to be with so many fine community leaders, scholars, family organizations, religious leaders, Republicans, Democrats, independents.
Laurie Kellman / Associated Press:
Senate to tackle gay marriage ban — WASHINGTON - President Bush and congressional Republicans are aiming the political spotlight this week on efforts to ban gay marriage, with events at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — all for a constitutional amendment with scant chance of passage but wide appeal among social conservatives.
John / AMERICAblog:
ACTION ALERT: Call Congress, ask if THEY'RE defending THEIR marriages — UPDATE: Here how one call went to Senator Crapo's office (R-ID) - it's hysterical - and a few other offices. And you can now watch Bush's bigoted White House announcement about the amendment today.
Discussion:
Democrats.com, Crooks and Liars, WTF Is It Now??, Bark Bark Woof Woof, The Rude Pundit and Pam's House Blend
Maria Newman / New York Times:
Senate Debates Gay Marriage Ban Unlikely to Pass — President Bush reaffirmed his support for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage today as the Senate began several days of debate on the measure, which is not expected to be passed. — The president, speaking …
Ronald Brownstein / Los Angeles Times:
Gay Marriage Vote Serves Only to Divide Nation — 'That's vanity ... not politics," President John F. Kennedy once snapped at an aide who wanted him to provoke a confrontation with Congress on an issue Kennedy knew he didn't have the votes to pass. — Times change, don't they?
Discussion:
Think Progress, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, The Claremont Institute and The Washington Monthly
Julian E. Barnes / Los Angeles Times:
Army Manual to Skip Geneva Detainee Rule — The Pentagon's move to omit a ban on prisoner humiliation from the basic guide to soldier conduct faces strong State Dept. opposition. — WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention …
RELATED ITEMS:
David Carr / New York Times:
Show Me the Bodies — FOR war photography, Vietnam remains the bloody yardstick. During the Tet offensive, on Feb. 9, 1968, Time magazine ran a story that was accompanied by photos showing dozens of dead American soldiers stacked like cordwood. The images remind that the dead are both the most patient and affecting of all subjects.
RELATED ITEMS:
Greyhawk / Mudville Gazette:
SHOW ME THE MONEY SHOT — "I don't like working in Iraq. The terrain is flat and uninteresting, the food is terrible, the weather is ridiculous, and to be honest, the people are not that charming or interesting." — (Sorry, you'll have to read the whole thing for the attribution.)
Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:
Orders: Court to rule on race in K-12 education — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider the use of race in student assignments in two urban school districts — the first time it will take up the affirmative action issue since its rulings in 2003 on college admissions.
RELATED ITEMS:
Gina Holland / Associated Press:
Supreme Court to hear schools race case — WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether public schools can consider skin color in student assignments, reopening the contentious issue of affirmative action in a major case that will turn on the votes of President Bush's new justices.
Discussion:
joannejacobs.com
Peter Wehner / Washington Post:
And Now For Some Good News — By now Americans know the litany: The nation is engaged in a difficult and costly war in Iraq; Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon; gas prices are high; the costs of reconstructing the Gulf Coast region are huge; illegal immigration is a major problem — and more.
Sebastian Mallaby / Washington Post:
Reward for the Hereditary Elite . . . It doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. There is no possible excuse for doing what Congress is poised to do this week: Abolish the estate tax. — The federal government faces a future of expanding deficits.
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, QandO, The Washington Monthly, Greg Mankiw's Blog, TAPPED, Outside The Beltway, Brad DeLong's Semi …, Firedoglake, Carol Platt Liebau, Blue Crab Boulevard, The Carpetbagger Report, The Sundries Shack, Talking Points Memo, Just a Bump in the Beltway, PSoTD, Think Progress and Decision '08
John Fund / Opinion Journal:
Pluribus Sine Unum — Will the Senate impose race-based government on Hawaii? — America's motto is "E pluribus unum," Latin for "Out of many, one." Some U.S. senators seem to be reading it backward. This week the Senate will consider legislation that would create an independent, race-based government for Native Hawaiians.
Media Matters for America:
Cavuto: Media biased if they cover Iraqi insurgency, biased if they don't … On the June 1 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto complained that "the media is all over" the alleged killings of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in Haditha, Iraq, but that there has been …
Observer:
US confronts brutal culture among its finest sons — In the wake of the Haditha massacre come further allegations of outlaw killings in Iraq. They add to growing unease about US military culture that fails to distinguish civilian from insurgent — Paul Harris in New York, Peter Beaumont in London, and Mohammed al-Ubeidy in Baghdad
Jackson Diehl / Washington Post:
Iran's China Syndrome — In the middle of a tirade about the pointlessness of talking with the Bush administration, a senior Iranian official I met in Tehran last month abruptly paused and asked if he could speak off the record. Then he said: "What we need is an American president …
Christopher Hitchens / Slate:
The Hell of War — Why Haditha isn't My Lai. — Unjust though the assumption may prove to be, let us imagine that the Marines of Kilo Company did indeed crack up and cut loose in Haditha that day. Something like this has certainly been waiting to happen.