memeorandum: US trains Gulf air forces for war with Iran (Tim Shipman/Telegraph)

6:45 PM ET, September 30, 2007

Top Items:

Seymour M. Hersh / New Yorker:

SHIFTING TARGETS — The Administration's plan for Iran. … In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran.

Discussion: The Newshoggers, The Swamp, Taylor Marsh, The American Street, A Tiny Revolution, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Prairie Weather and The Garlic

John Amato / Crooks and Liars:

Sy Hersh on Bush and Iran: Shifting targets: New Propaganda push to attack their Revolutionary Guard — UPDATED: Sy Hersh joined CNN's Late Edition and discussed his new article out in the NewYorker: "Shifting Targets," which says that the WH has a new talking point which it will sell attacking Iran …

Discussion: Brave New Films blog, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Hullabaloo, Chuck Adkins, The Next Hurrah, The Carpetbagger Report, The Atlantic Online and New York Times

Gavin M. / Sadly, No!:

Madame Curveball — Here's a cautionary tale about Middle-Eastern dissidents who seek to advance their causes — even after the lesson of Iraq — by making common cause with American right-wing extremists and their phony 'human rights' campaigns. (Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi is the daughter …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars and Southern Beale

Faiz / Think Progress:
Hersh: Bush's Case For Hitting Iran Has 'Shifted,' Now Focused …

Discussion: rubber hose

Michael Scherer / Salon:

Religious right may blackball Giuliani — Christian conservative leaders privately consider supporting a third-party, antiabortion candidate should Rudy Giuliani win the GOP nomination. — Rudy Giuliani speaks to the Associated Press Sept. 25, 2007, in New York.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Moderate Voice, Power Line, DownWithTyranny!, The Democratic Daily, Liberal Values, BartBlog, The Carpetbagger Report, Donklephant, Middle Earth Journal and Roger Ailes

Liz Sidoti / Associated Press:

Giuliani argues he can beat Hillary — NEW YORK - Rudy Giuliani has focused on November 2008 — and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton — from the outset of his presidential bid with a strategy as uncertain as it is necessary. — "I'm not running against my Republican opponents.

Discussion: The Politico, MyDD, Oliver Willis and Conservative Belle

David D. Kirkpatrick / The Caucus:

Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort — Alarmed at the chance that the Republican party might pick Rudolph Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate in an attempt to stop him.

Discussion: Feministe

Washington Post:

GOP Is Ready to Roll Out the Klieg Lights for Craig — Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho is a tough guy to run out of town. — Not that his Republican colleagues aren't trying. Worried that the disgraced lawmaker intends to remain in the Senate indefinitely, they are threatening to notch …

Discussion: DownWithTyranny! and BartBlog

Steve Benen / Talking Points Memo:

THE GOP'S BEST ANTI-CRAIG WEAPON — It must be terribly frustrating for the Senate Republican leadership, knowing there's not much they can do to force embattled Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) to go away. — The party can take away his committee assignments, but that's already happened and it didn't have much of an effect.

Discussion: Daily Kos

Jules Crittenden:

Nation of Stupid — Tom Friedman: "9/11 has made us stupid." — Sure has made some people stupid, no question. Friedman is writing against Giuliani as the "9/11″ candidate, saying we need a 9/12 candidate. Which, as an attempt to be clever, is pretty stupid, too. 9/12, you'll recall, was the day after 9/11.

Discussion: Redstate, PoliBlog (TM) and BartBlog

Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:
9/11 Is Over — Not long ago, the satirical newspaper …

Warner Todd Huston / Stop The ACLU:
NYTimes: Thomas Friedman Wants America to Get Over 9/11

Discussion: The Strata-Sphere, Don Surber and JammieWearingFool

Michelle Malkin:

What happened to our troops in Oakland — Two days ago, an e-mail about the rude treatment of Marines and soldiers returning from Iraq started making the rounds on the Internet. The brother of one of the mistreated Marines who described the incident at Oakland Airport works on the Hill.

Discussion: Wake up America, Take Our Country Back, The Corner and Patterico's Pontifications

Little / Daily Kos:
UPDATED II: Fake [?] Anti-Troop Email Making RW Rounds

Discussion: The Corner and Atlas Shrugs

MSNBC:

'Meet the Press' transcript for Sept. 30, 2007 — Former President Bill Clinton, Dan Balz, Patrick Buchanan, David Gregory, Tavis Smiley — MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: In his third annual Global Initiative conference, former President Bill Clinton convenes leaders …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Hullabaloo and The Carpetbagger Report

Nick Langewis / PageOneQ.com Latest:

Suspected Georgetown gay-basher has Bush Administration ties — A Georgetown University sophomore, implicated in a gay-bashing by a fellow student, has ties to the Bush Administration, PageOneQ has learned. — 19-year-old Philip Anderton Cooney, pictured here in the spring of 2005 …

Discussion: Conservative Belle and Pam's House Blend

Frank Rich / New York Times:

Is Hillary Clinton the New Old Al Gore? — THE Democrats can't lose the White House in 2008, can they? — Some 13 months before Election Day, the race's dynamic seems immutable. Americans can't wait to evict the unpopular president and end his disastrous war.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, TIME: Swampland, race42008.com, Norwegianity, Donklephant and Ezra Klein

Ros Taylor / Guardian:

Bolton calls for bombing of Iran — John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.