memeorandum: Bush Calls on Iran to Release Detained U.S. Citizens (Robin Wright/Washington Post)

11:20 PM ET, June 1, 2007

Top Items:

U.S. Not Pushing for Attack on Iran, Rice Says — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought today to minimize any sense of division within the Bush administration over Iran after the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency delivered a pointed new warning against what he called the …

Discussion: Balkinization and Atlas Shrugs

Glenn Kessler / Washington Post:

Rice Insists Cheney Supports Diplomacy for Iran — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that Vice President Cheney fully supports a diplomatic course over Iran's nuclear program, denying impressions of divisions among President Bush's foreign-policy advisers.

Discussion: Balloon Juice and My Two Sense

Robin Wright / Washington Post:
Bush Calls on Iran to Release Detained U.S. Citizens

Discussion: Right Wing Nut House and Commentary

Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:
CHENEY AND IRAN....Remember that report from Steve Clemons …

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:

The End Of The Bushes? — Peggy Noonan, one of my favorite columnists and always a great read, today turns her substantial rhetorical guns on what she sees as the biggest threat to the Republican Party — George Bush. Accusing him of following his father in squandering a great political inheritance …

Discussion: The Newshoggers, Instapundit.com, The Mahablog, No More Mister Nice Blog, bustardblog, Riehl World View, Heading Right, politburo diktat 2.0, The American Mind, The Moderate Voice, Firedoglake, The Radio Equalizer, The Populist, Central Sanity and Middle Earth Journal

Paul Mirengoff / News Bloggers Blog:

Buyer's remorse — Yesterday, Cenk Uygur wrote this line: "Come on, Mr. Conservative-I-support-the-Bush- administration-no-matter-what, you don't even believe that." As anyone with a passing familiarity of current events realizes, however, there are essentially no conservatives who support the Bush administration across-the-board.

Discussion: Power Line, Tammy Bruce, Tapscott's Copy Desk, Heading Right and The American Mind

Michael A. Fletcher / Washington Post:
Key Aide To Bush Will Resign Next Month

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, The Newshoggers, The Carpetbagger Report, Shakesville, Wonkette, Outside The Beltway, The Populist, The Next Hurrah, Watching Those We Chose, The Heretik, TIME, TalkLeft and Multi Medium

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
As the World Warms, the White House Aspires

Discussion: New York Times, TPMCafe blogs, The Huffington Post … and The Carpetbagger Report

Adam Zagorin / Time:

Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor — In the rough and tumble of Alabama politics, the scramble for power is often a blood sport. At the moment, the state's former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison.

Discussion: Hullabaloo and TIME: Swampland

Edmund L. Andrews / New York Times:
Ex-Governor Says Affidavit Shows Politics in Bribe Case

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Jonah Goldberg / National Review Online:

Better Off Fred? — Here are just a few little-known facts about Fred Thompson: — Every night before going to sleep, Osama bin Laden checks under his bed for Fred Thompson. — Though Fred Thompson left the Senate in 2003, Harry Reid still hasn't stopped wetting his pants.

Discussion: Michael P.F. van der Galiën, TPMCafe blogs, alicublog, ProfessorBainbridge.com ®, MSNBC, Blue Crab Boulevard, Brainster's Blog and IMAO

John W. Dean / FindLaw's Writ:
The Bush Administration's Dilemma Regarding a Possible Libby Pardon

Discussion: TalkLeft, Firedoglake, The Next Hurrah, Talking Points Memo and DownWithTyranny!

Eli / Firedoglake:
The GOP's White Knight

Discussion: New York Magazine

ABCNEWS:

Soldiering On — ABC News Learns of Plans to Keep Troops in Iraq Beyond 2009 — Sgt. John Guerra, 21, from Dallas, Tex., walks with his platoon from the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team during a patrol in the Shaab neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 16, 2007.

Discussion: Democratic Underground …

Matt Taibbiposted / Rolling Stone:

Giuliani: Worse Than Bush — He's cashing in on 9/11, working with Karl Rove's henchmen and in cahoots with a Swift Boat-style attack on Hillary. Will Rudy Giuliani be Bush III? — >> See what people are saying about Taibbi's latest column and add your own response here.

Discussion: Prose Before Hos, TalkLeft, Wonkette and The Rachel Maddow Show

Thomas B. Edsall / Huffington Post:
Conservative Catholics Organize To Sink Rudy

Discussion: Associated Press, The Impolitic, DownWithTyranny!, The Carpetbagger Report, Election Central, Michael P.F. van der Galiën and AMERICAblog

Mary Katharine Ham / Townhall.com:

RNC Outsources Phone Solicitation to DNC, Apparently — Well, either that, or the WSJ editorial board is manning the phones. — You heard yesterday that the RNC canned its in-house phone bank employees, partly due to an estimated 40% drop in small donations.

Discussion: The Strata-Sphere, Heading Right, IMAO, BLACKFIVE, Right Wing Nut House and Washington Times

Ralph Z. Hallow / Washington Times:
RNC faces donor falloff, fires solicitors

Discussion: Blog of the Moderate Left, Chicago Tribune, Shakesville, Ed Driscoll.com, The American Mind and MSNBC

C. Jacob / MEMRI:

'We Are Facing a Second Nakba'-Reactions in the Palestinian Press to the Hamas-Fatah Clashes … Introduction — The current wave of violent Hamas-Fatah clashes is one of the most brutal the PA has known, especially considering that it broke out only a short while after the signing of the Mecca Agreement …

Discussion: QandO, Captain's Quarters, Jay Currie and Blue Crab Boulevard

World Tribune.com:

Al Qaida suspects sue Boeing, with ACLU's help — WASHINGTON — Boeing has been sued by suspected Al Qaida operatives transported by the CIA to Arab countries for interrogation and torture. — The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan …

Discussion: VodkaPundit

Rasmussen Reports:

Number of Republicans in U.S. Hits New Low, Number of Democrats Also Decline — For the fourth straight month, the number of people identifying themselves as Republicans has decreased. For the third straight month, the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats has also decreased (see history).

Discussion: Rasmussen Reports, MyDD, My Left Wing, The Heretik, The Moderate Voice and The Left End of the Dial v2.0

Mark Martin / San Francisco Chronicle:

Gays and lesbians allowed conjugal visits in prisons — (06-01) 04:00 PDT Sacramento — California's prison system is changing its regulations to allow conjugal visits for gay and lesbian inmates in response to a legal threat and a 2003 law that gave domestic partners many of the same rights as married couples.

Discussion: TalkLeft

Art Jester / Lexington Herald-Leader:

Holsinger's church role scrutinized — HAND IN METHODIST RULINGS RAISES CONCERN IN GAY COMMUNITY — The nomination of University of Kentucky professor Dr. James W. Holsinger as U.S. surgeon general has come under fire from groups that fear his actions as a high-ranking official in the United Methodist Church indicate he is anti-gay.

Discussion: Pam's House Blend, AMERICAblog, Daily Kos, Think Progress and Democratic Convention or Bust!

Reuters:

Kidney-donor TV show a hoax, producers admit … AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) — A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney was revealed as an elaborate hoax on Friday.

Discussion: Captain's Quarters

Robert Knight / NewsBusters.org:

B-I-A-S: Media Largely Ignore Spelling Bee Champ's Homeschooled Status — (14:50 EDT) Video of Tim Russert misspelling "Iraq" at bottom of post. — When California homeschooler Evan O'Dorney, 13, won the National Spelling Bee on Thursday night, the nation's press reacted with a yawn.

Discussion: Atlas Shrugs, Michelle Malkin and Roger Ailes