memeorandum: Election Central Debate Roundup (Eric Kleefeld/TPM Election Central)

12:05 PM ET, September 28, 2007

Top Items:

Dems unite to slam Limbaugh, GOP silent — As a rule, Democrats and their allies are a little slow when it comes to organized outrage. A high-profile Republican will say or do something that most decent Americans would find outrageous, progressive blogs will call him or her on it …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, The Stakeholder, Chris Dodd National Blog, Central Sanity and Take Our Country Back

Brian Faughnan / Weekly Standard:

What Limbaugh Said — The folks on the Left are beside themselves today—thinking that by dint of a truncated quote, they will succeed in shutting down Rush Limbaugh and taking him off the air. Before lining up next to the folks from Crooks and Liars, FireDogLake, Media Matters, ThinkProgress …

Discussion: Firedoglake and The Van Der Galiën Gazette

RushLimbaugh.com Home:
How Long Is Too Long for Victory?

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, The Rude Pundit and Outside The Beltway

Michael D. Shear / Washington Post:

Leading GOP Candidates Skip Debate on Black Issues — 4 Contenders Attend Fundraisers Instead — Fred D. Thompson was at a fundraiser in Franklin, Tenn. Mitt Romney was gathering checks in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. Rudolph W. Giuliani was in California raking in some last-minute cash just north of Napa.

Discussion: The Newshoggers, The Caucus, Burkean Reflections, POLITOPICS, The Carpetbagger Report, Corrente and Los Angeles Times

Eric Kleefeld / TPM Election Central:

Election Central Debate Roundup — • The transcript of last night's Republican debate on PBS is available here. — • With the top four Republicans skipping this debate, which was dedicated to minority issues, viewers got a great chance to check out the second tier …

Michael Medved / Townhall.com:

Six inconvenient truths about the U.S. and slavery — Those who want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history's most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity invariably focus on America's bloody past as a slave-holding nation.

Discussion: Heading Right, Captain's Quarters, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Crooked Timber, The Mahablog and Sadly, No!

Jillian / Sadly, No!:

Pick A Bale Of Stupid — I am beginning to suspect that the greenhouse gases being released into the world by industrialized nations are having an adverse effect on the space-time continuum. There are days, based on the rhetoric I see coming from some of the loonier corners of the right wing batty brigade …

Discussion: Lean Left

Andrew Malcolm / Los Angeles Times:

BREAKING NEWS: Electoral initiative backers give up — Plagued by a lack of money, supporters of a statewide initiative drive to change the way California's 55 electoral votes are apportioned, first revealed here by Top of the Ticket in July, are pulling the plug on that effort.

Discussion: Think Progress, Washington Monthly, San Francisco Chronicle, Crooks and Liars, Comments From Left Field, RealClearPolitics, DownWithTyranny!, Brilliant at Breakfast, The Democratic Daily, Outside The Beltway, TPM Election Central, Upper Left, The BRAD BLOG and MyDD

Dan Morain / Los Angeles Times:
GOP electoral initiative dealt major blows

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's … and The Carpetbagger Report

Michelle Malkin:

Reports: Military junta cuts Internet access in Burma; Sniper reportedly killed Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai; Update: Videos added; Update: Worldwide condemnation — Update 11:30am Eastern. Worldwide condemnation: … Update 10:45am Eastern. The Lede points to more Burmese bloggers continuing to report despite the clampdown.

Discussion: Weekly Standard, Wall Street Journal, Captain's Quarters, Voice of America, Associated Press, CNN, Times of London, Agence France Presse, New York Times, Global Voices Online, The Lede, Bloodthirsty Liberal, Sister Toldjah, A Blog For All and Blue Crab Boulevard

Bill Toddler / Pajamas Media:
MONKS AND BLOGGERS — PJM Phnom Penh, Cambodia: As the Burmese …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Glittering Eye, This ain't Hell … and On Deadline

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:

What Free Speech Means, And What It Doesn't — For a nation birthed on the concept of free speech, we seem to have a very poor understanding of the concept. Jonah Goldberg notices this in his NRO column today, and uses the case of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia to make the point:

Discussion: PointOfLaw Forum

Peggy Noonan / Opinion Journal:
Hear, Hear — Americans should not fear talking—and listening …

Discussion: The Corner

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:

S-CHIP Battle Moves To Vetoland, Population: 3 — The Senate passed the expansion of the S-CHIP program yesterday with a veto-proof majority, 67-29, which sets up a standoff between Congress and the White House over the renewal of the politically sensitive program.

Discussion: Redstate

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:

Why They Call Them Tax Regimes — For those who seek to increase sin taxes as a means of funding social engineering, the experience of Tennessee should give pause. The state passed a large increase in cigarette taxes, creating a large disparity between Tennessee and its neighbor states.

Tom Humphrey / Knoxville News-Sentinel:
Cigarette surveillance program begins today

Discussion: Rook's Rant, The Oxford Medievalist, QandO, Balloon Juice, David Harsanyi's Blog, Blue Crab Boulevard and The Agitator

Eugene Robinson / Washington Post:

Wanted: Democratic Straight Talk on Iraq — Yes, you heard it right: At the Dartmouth College debate Wednesday evening, not one of the three leading Democratic candidates could pledge that all U.S. combat troops would be out of Iraq by the end of his or her first term as president.

Discussion: Eschaton, The Heretik, NewsBusters.org and The Glittering Eye

PageOneQ.com Latest:

US Congressman owned home with another man, took DC tax deduction while voting in NC — Congressman Patrick T. McHenry (R-NC), right, purchased a residence in Washington, DC's Capital Hill neighborhood with another man, PageOneQ has learned. While he owned the home, McHenry …

Discussion: DownWithTyranny!

Guardian:

The Islamic Reformation — Those who call for an Islamic 'Reformation' are missing the point: it has already happened, unfortunately. — Since 2001 a plethora of writers have made calls for an Islamic "Reformation". Many hopes (and careers) are pinned on the idea, but there is no such thing coming.

Discussion: RealClearPolitics, Dean's World and Ali Eteraz

Joe Conason / Salon:

The war president "at peace" with himself — Bush's 2003 conversation with the Spanish prime minister shows his smug determination to invade Iraq at all costs. — George W. Bush answers a question during a joint news conference with Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar …

Discussion: Truthdig

Peter Baker / Washington Post:

With Legacy in Mind, Bush Reassesses His Agenda — As he addresses a conference on climate change this morning, President Bush will face not only a crowd of skeptics but the press of time. For nearly seven years, he invested little personal energy in the challenge of global warming.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Grasping Reality … and Booman Tribune

Spencer Ackerman / TPMmuckraker:

More on The Surveillance Timeline — What were administration lawyers debating for four hours after the NSA said it had sufficient basis for an emergency FISA warrant in the Iraqi insurgent-kidnapping case? — The three soldiers were reported missing on May 12, 20007.