Top Items:
Juan / Informed Comment:
The Adults take Charge — The Reality Based Community Strikes Back in Iraq — The professionals take charge. Bush is bringing in Ryan Crocker, a distinguished career foreign service officer, as the new US ambassador to Iraq. And Gen. David Petraeus will replace Gen. Casey as top ground commander in Iraq.
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New York Times:
Bush to Name a New General to Oversee Iraq — President Bush has decided to name Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus as the top American military commander in Iraq, part of a broad revamping of the military team that will carry out the administration's new Iraq strategy, administration officials said Thursday.
Discussion:
Dick Polman's American Debate, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, No More Mister Nice Blog, toohotfortnr, Outside The Beltway, Think Progress, The Heretik, The Democratic Daily, TigerHawk, The News Blog, PrairiePundit, War and Piece, Middle Earth Journal, Prairie Weather, ABCNEWS, Rising Hegemon, Informed Comment and Decision '08
Reuters:
Bush plans changes in key advisers for Iraq fresh start — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush is planning to name a new ambassador and military commanders for Iraq as he prepares to make a fresh start on a worsening problem that has mired his administration and threatens his legacy.
United States Central Command:
Jihadist Website: Al-Zawahiri Urges Somalis, Muslims To Fight Ethiopian Forces — A jihadist website is observed on 5 January to post several links to 5-minute and 30-second audio message by Al-Qa'ida's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri entitled "Rise up and Support Your Brothers in Somalia."
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Bill Ardolino / Examiner:
Grit and guts for Navy corpsmen in a Fallujah police station — WASHINGTON - Editor's note: Blogger Bill Ardolino is embedded with a U.S. Marine unit in Iraq. He's there to find out the truth about the U.S. war effort on the ground in Iraq. Unlike the vast majority of mainstream media journalists …
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John M. Broder / New York Times:
Jubilant Democrats Assume Control on Capitol Hill — In a day of transition and pageantry, exultant Democrats on Thursday took control of both houses of Congress for the first time in a dozen years and elected the first woman to be speaker of the House. — Representative Nancy Pelosi …
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Arizona Republic:
Guardsmen overrun at the Border — National Guard unit stormed while patroling the border — Border attack raises security concerns — A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico. — According to the Border Patrol …
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Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Mexican gunmen cross border, rout National Guard
Mexican gunmen cross border, rout National Guard
Discussion:
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Greg Miller / Los Angeles Times:
Negroponte shift is ruffling feathers — Some say that his assignment to the State Department will leave the national intelligence office in a lurch. — WASHINGTON — The abrupt departure of John D. Negroponte as the nation's spy chief prompted angry responses from Capitol Hill and triggered …
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Glenn Kessler / Washington Post:
White House Postponing Loss of Iraq, Biden Says — Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster …
Bruce Loudon / The Australian:
Gays are a capitalist pollutant: Maoists — NEPAL'S hardline Maoist guerillas, on the brink of achieving effective government power in the Himalayan kingdom, have turned their attention to so-called "social pollutants" and denounced homosexuals as "a by-product of capitalism".
Discussion:
Dean's World
Bryan / Hot Air:
Barney Frank accuses Bush of genocide — There's no other way around it: When you accuse someone of perpetrating "ethnic cleansing" in any way, shape or form, you are accusing them of genocide. — Genocide. Let that word work its way around your mind for an moment.
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
The Hanging: Beyond Travesty — Of the 6 billion people on this Earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed but tortured and mutilated — doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure. It is quite a distinction to be the preeminent monster on the planet.
Richard Dawkins / Los Angeles Times:
Saddam should have been studied, not executed — Sparing Hussein and studying his makeup could have provided valuable research. — THE OBVIOUS objections to the execution of Saddam Hussein are valid and well aired. His death will provoke violent strife between Sunni and Shiite Muslims …
USA Today:
Nominee played big role in outsourcing intelligence — WASHINGTON — J. Michael "Mike" McConnell, in line to become the nation's top intelligence official, has been a leading figure in outsourcing U.S intelligence operations to private industry, records and interviews show.
Sarah Lueck / Wall Street Journal:
In New Senate, The 'Candy Desk' Gets a Kiss-Off — New Occupant Hails From — State With a Sweet Deficit; — 'Moose Doodles,' Anyone? — WASHINGTON — With Democrats back in control of Congress for the first time in years, much is changing in the nation's capital …