Top Items:
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
'Disproportionate' in What Moral Universe? — What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?
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Bill Gertz / Washington Times:
Hezbollah leader said to be hiding in Iranian Embassy — Intelligence reports indicate the leader of Hezbollah is hiding in a foreign mission in Beirut, possibly the Iranian Embassy, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. — Israeli military and intelligence forces are continuing to hunt …
Discussion:
Jerusalem Post, The Strata-Sphere, Once Upon a Time, Daily Pundit, The Jawa Report and Yourish.com
Lee Keath / Associated Press:
Hezbollah rocket hits deeper into Israel — BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah fired what it called a new kind of rocket, landing its deepest hit into northern Israel in 17 days of fighting. Israeli authorities reported that five rockets hit fields outside the town of Afula, causing no casualties.
Warren Christopher / Washington Post:
A Time To Act — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's just-concluded trip to Lebanon, Israel and Rome was an exercise in grace, bravery and, to my regret, wrongly focused diplomacy. Especially disappointing is the fact that she resisted all suggestions that the first order of business …
Neil MacFarquhar / New York Times:
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah — DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 — At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.
Discussion:
The American Thinker, Macsmind, Taylor Marsh, Daniel W. Drezner, Newsweek, DownWithTyranny!, TPMCafe blogs, The Sundries Shack, TAPPED, A Blog For All, Security Watchtower, Sister Toldjah, Stop The ACLU, Alternate Brain, Media Blog, Winds of Change.NET, Kesher Talk, NO QUARTER, Haaretz, Brilliant at Breakfast, The Corner, Outside The Beltway, Middle Earth Journal, Andrew Sullivan, Defense Tech and Copeland Institute …
Peter Beinart / Washington Post:
Pander and Run — After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It's called pandering. In those rare cases when George W. Bush shows genuine sensitivity to America's allies and propounds a broader …
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, Power Line, CNN, Blogometer, Booman Tribune, Flopping Aces, Unclaimed Territory, Daily Kos, Middle Earth Journal, The American Thinker, The News Blog, The Influence Peddler, California Conservative, Blue Crab Boulevard, Sisyphus Shrugged, Rising Hegemon, Decision '08, The Anchoress and Nitpicker
BBC:
US 'outrage' over Israeli claims — The US state department has dismissed as "outrageous" a suggestion by Israel that it has been authorised by the world to continue bombing Lebanon. — "The US is sparing no efforts to bring a durable and lasting end to this conflict," said spokesman Adam Ereli.
Discussion:
PoliBlog
Sharon Roffe-Ofir / Ynetnews:
Long-range missiles fired at Afula — Escalation: Security officials say that five long-range missiles, equipped with more explosives than Pajar rockets used by Hizbullah so far, fired at Afula Friday noon. Sources say missiles may have been aimed at Hadera, Netanya.
Gateway Pundit:
John Bolton Embarrasses a Confused Senator Kerry (Video) — Ambassador John Bolton totally outclassed Senator John F. Kerry in the Senate hearings on Thursday, — Video HERE — John Kerry was really no match for UN Ambassador John Bolton: … Ouch!... It's pretty painful to watch.
Discussion:
The Anchoress
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Alan Dershowitz / Washington Times:
A public advocate for the United States — As a liberal Democrat, I listened carefully to the opposition voiced by many Democratic senators to the nomination of John Bolton as our chief representative to the United Nations. Mr. Bolton has been representing us at the United Nations since August.
Discussion:
Atlas Shrugs
Thomas Joscelyn / Weekly Standard:
Bin Laden's "Brothers" — The conventional wisdom is that Hezbollah and al Qaeda are rivals, not partners. The conventional wisdom is wrong. — THE LATEST ZAWAHIRI TAPE, his tenth in the last year, will leave some al Qaeda watchers perplexed. In it, Zawahiri refers to his "brothers" …
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Jeffrey H. Birnbaum / Washington Post:
Congress to Adopt Scaled-Down Rules on Lobbying — Unable to agree on major lobbying and ethics legislation, Senate and House leaders have made plans to adopt vastly scaled-back versions of the measures as part of their rules so that lawmakers can claim that they responded to recent congressional scandals.
Andrew Taylor / Associated Press:
House GOP pressing vote on minimum wage — WASHINGTON - House Republican leaders, giving in to political reality, plan a vote to raise the $5.15 minimum wage before leaving Washington this weekend for a five-week recess. — "Whether people like it or not, we need to go ahead with it," …
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Mark Blumenthal / Mystery Pollster:
BUSH JOB APPROVAL UPDATE — This week brought a slew of new national surveys, but the trend in the Bush approval rating appears to be essentially flat since mid-June. — The new surveys are from Gallup/USA Today (story, results, Gallup reports), NBC News/Wall Street Journal (story, results) …
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BBC:
Execution of a teenage girl — A television documentary team has pieced together details surrounding the case of a 16-year-old girl, executed two years ago in Iran. — On 15 August, 2004, Atefah Sahaaleh was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka.
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin, Blue Crab Boulevard, Tim Blair, Andrew Sullivan, Liberty and Justice and Secular Blasphemy
R. Jeffrey Smith / Washington Post:
Detainee Abuse Charges Feared — An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.
Discussion:
The Next Hurrah, Obsidian Wings, Balkinization, Pacific Views, The Agonist, First Draft, The Heretik, Needlenose and The Left Coaster
nswbc.org:
NSA WHISTLEBLOWER IS SUBPOENAED TO TESTIFY BEFORE FEDERAL GRAND JURY — Government Begins its Witch Hunt Targeting Whistleblowers — On Wednesday, July 26, Russell Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and a member of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition …