Top Items:
New York Times:
Ex-Aide Rejects Gonzales Stand Over Dismissals — The former chief of staff to Alberto R. Gonzales testified on Thursday that he had consulted regularly with the attorney general about dismissing United States attorneys, disputing Mr. Gonzales's public account of his role as very limited.
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Alan Cooperman / Washington Post:
Bush Loyalist Rose Quickly at Justice — When a college intern in the Justice Department whined that all he was doing was filing and answering phones, Monica M. Goodling took him aside. If he wanted to do "substantive work," she told him, he was going to have to prove himself first.
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Taking One for the Team, When He Could Remember — Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, was in his fourth hour testifying yesterday about the firing of federal prosecutors when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy cut him off.
Discussion:
The Carpetbagger Report, Prairie Weather, Booman Tribune, The Raw Story and Michael P.F. van der Galiën
Washington Post:
Ex-Aide Contradicts Gonzales on Firings — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales was more deeply involved in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys than he has sometimes acknowledged, and Gonzales and his aides have made a series of inaccurate claims about the issue in recent weeks …
William K. Rashbaum / New York Times:
Testimony by Giuliani Indicates He Was Briefed on Kerik in '00 — Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik's relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik's appointment …
Discussion:
MyDD, PoliBlog (TM), TIME, First Read, AMERICAblog, The Right's Field, The Heretik, Shakespeare's Sister, TBogg, The Daily Dish and Oliver Willis
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Larry McShane / Associated Press:
Giuliani faces questions about Sept. 11 — NEW YORK - Rudy Giuliani's White House aspirations are inescapably tied to Sept. 11, 2001 — for better and for worse. — While the former mayor of the nation's largest city was widely lionized for his post-9/11 leadership — "Churchillian" …
Discussion:
Brilliant at Breakfast
Richard Pérez-Peña / New York Times:
Giuliani Says Wife Could Go to Cabinet Meetings
Giuliani Says Wife Could Go to Cabinet Meetings
Discussion:
TalkLeft
Felicity Barringer / New York Times:
Report Says Interior Official Overrode Work of Scientists — A top-ranking official overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service at the Interior Department rode roughshod over agency scientists, and decisions made on her watch may not survive court challenges, investigators within the Interior Department have found.
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Juliet Eilperin / Washington Post:
Report Faults Interior Appointee — Landowner Issues Trumped Animal Protections, IG Says — A senior Bush political appointee at the Interior Department has repeatedly altered scientific field reports to minimize protections for imperiled species and disclosed confidential information …
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Which Is 'The Real War'? — "Our bill calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq so that we can focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan." — The Senate and the House have both passed bills for ending the Iraq war, or at least liquidating the American involvement in it.
Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Observations about John Harris' replies — The Politico's Editor-in-Chief, John Harris, has responded via e-mail to the posts I wrote earlier this week, as well as to questions I sent to Poliico reporter Mike Allen about the Politico/Drudge relationship (posted in the first link).
New York Times:
Presidential Candidates Focus on Fund-Raising — Forget campaigning. Last week, Rudolph W. Giuliani held a presidential fund-raiser every day of the week. Senator John McCain raised money at three events on Wednesday and another Thursday, racking up 27 this month alone.
Richard Miniter / Washington Times:
Turkey, Iraq and the PKK — ANKARA, TURKEY. — When Iraq's vice president came to Turkey's capital on Tuesday to plead with the Turks not to invade northern Iraq to kill Kurdish terrorists, he spoke to the press in code. — The PKK is a Kurdish terrorist group that has killed some 30,000 Turks …
Joshua Partlow / Washington Post:
Gunmen Go On Rampage In Iraqi City — Killings Are Revenge For Blasts in Tall Afar — A day after twin truck bombings laid waste to predominantly Shiite neighborhoods in the northern Iraqi city of Tall Afar, marauding Shiite gunmen and police executed dozens of Sunnis in retaliatory attacks …
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Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Video: Rosie melts down on "The View" — I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is the video against which all future Rosie clips will be compared. Never has so much useful idiocy about so many subjects been compressed into so little time. — It's her finest hour.
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Noam N. Levey / Los Angeles Times:
Iraq: It may be a rough road to a Senate-House compromise — WASHINGTON — Fresh from passing the first timelines to bring home U.S. troops from Iraq, congressional Democrats now face the daunting task of reconciling critical differences between a Senate withdrawal plan passed Thursday and one approved by the House last week.
Discussion:
Sirotablog
Jose Antonio Vargas / Washington Post:
Grass Roots Planted In Cyberspace — John Edwards's Campaign Leads the Field In Political Use of Social Networking Sites — If there's a social networking site that John Edwards is not a part of, we'd like to know what it is, pronto. — No one's sure exactly what role these sites …
Faiza Saleh Ambah / Washington Post:
Arabs Call on Israel To Take Peace Offer — Arab leaders on Thursday reiterated their offer to normalize ties with Israel and showed signs of flexibility in their terms for peace. — At a news conference at the end of a summit where the Arab leaders' peace plan was the main issue on the agenda …
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters