Full Text of Email Reveals Greenwald Mischaracterizations  —  Welcome, fellow minions of the lgf New World Odor  —  Glenn Greenwald, as he had promised in his post at Salon, has forwarded the email he says he received from Colonel Steven A. Boylan, Public Affairs Officer for General Petraeus.

President Bush Announces Recipients of Presidential Medal of Freedom  —  President George W. Bush today announced recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation's highest civil award.  Established by Executive Order 11085 in 1963, the Medal may be awarded by the President …

Iraqi troops free tribal leaders kidnapped by Mahdi Army commander  —  Just 24 hours after the capture of 11 Sunni and Shia tribal leaders in northern Baghdad, the Iraqi Army has freed eight of the sheikhs.  Meanwhile, Multinational Forces Iraq has identified the Mahdi Army commander responsible …

Obama issues 3-page memo defending gay-basher spokesman, explaining that McClurkin has no problem with "happy" gays  —  Obama's campaign now says that McClurkin only wants to cure the unhappy gays.  (The rest of us are, I guess, fine to continue trying to kill America's children.)  —  From the Washington Post:

Looming Catastrophe as Campaign Opportunity  —  If Obama is hoping for an issue to gain traction with vis a vis Hillary, he's really muffed it picking Social Security.  In itself the idea of removing or significantly restructuring the 'cap' on payroll taxes is a good one, at least one with a lot to recommend it.

GIULIANI'S LATEST....The Washington Post notes that Rudy Giuliani will be running a new radio ad in New Hampshire starting today: … You will be unsurprised to learn that Giuliani is full of s**t.  As you can see from the chart on the right, Britain and the United States have virtually identical mortality rates from prostate cancer.

FEMA memo: Fake briefing a breach of ethics  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — In an internal memo obtained Monday by CNN, Federal Emergency Management Agency chief David Paulison rips the agency's public affairs staff for a staged news conference in which staff members posed questions to FEMA's No. 2 official, Harvey Johnson.

Giuliani: Dems Will Change Minds on Iraq  —  LONDONDERRY, N.H. (AP) - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Monday that two of the Democratic candidates will change their minds again about the Iraq war and agree that it was the right decision.  —  Asked at a town-hall meeting …

Authority Figure  —  The childhood roots of Giuliani's strange views of liberty.  —  At a town hall meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire, last month, local resident Bob Roughsedge introduced Rudy Giuliani as "the next mayor of the United States."  No one tittered or spoke up.

AIDS virus invaded U.S. from Haiti: study  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic, scientists said on Monday.

Sarkozy storms out of "60 minutes" interview  —  PARIS: "No, no. This is stupid," President Nicolas Sarkozy snorted, abruptly unplugging his microphone and calling his press secretary an "imbecile" for setting up an interview with American television network CBS on a busy day.

U.S. destroyer pursuing hijacked ship  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — A U.S. destroyer has entered Somali territorial waters in pursuit of a Japanese-owned ship loaded with benzene that was hijacked by pirates over the weekend, military officials said Monday.  —  The guided-missile destroyer USS …

The horror is getting to Matt Taibbi  —  Matt Taibbi, our newest Scrogue, is perhaps the premier political writer of his generation.  He made his bones with Mark Ames at Russia's legendary expat rag The eXile before moving on to The Beast and New York Press.

KRUGMAN ON IRAN AND 9/11  —  I tend to agree with Paul Krugman's argument that "Islamofascism" has "no chance of collapsing the United States, let alone taking over the world."  However, this is a remarkable claim...  Here are passages from Chapter 7 of the 9/11 Commission Report.

Using Incentives to Solve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict  —  The very interesting Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has a good analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a clever suggestion for moving forward: … The article cited has a lot more on Bueno de Mesquita and the remarkable series …