memeorandum: Obama's Brother in China (Roger Cohen/New York Times)

10:50 AM ET, March 17, 2008

Top Items:

Kristol Fails To Check His Sources, And So Bungles Key Fact In Anti-Obama Column — Bill Kristol's New York Times column about Barack Obama this morning contains a major, prejudicial error. — Paragraph five: … The error is in trusting the source without checking.

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, The Daily Dish, Think Progress, Swampland, The Other McCain, Riehl World View, AMERICAblog and Israpundit

William Kristol / New York Times:

Generation Obama? Perhaps Not. — Sunday evening, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner held a “Generation Obama” fund-raiser at Boston's Rumor Nightclub. In case you're not up on the Boston club scene, I should tell you that Rumor “brings together the sexiest and hippest people from around the globe” …

Discussion: Fox News, Shakesville, Naked Politics, Political Machine, Publius Pundit, Scared Monkeys, MSNBC, Don Surber, NewsBusters.org and The Politico

Ronald Kessler / NewsMax.com:

Washington Insider with Ronald Kessler — Obama Attended Hate America Sermon — Contrary to Senator Barack Obama's claim that he never heard his pastor Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. preach hatred of America, Obama was in the pews last July 22 when the minister blamed the “white arrogance” …

Discussion: Power Line, michellemalkin.com, American Power, Newsweek, NO QUARTER, Jules Crittenden, Top of the Ticket, Hot Air, Political Byline, FREEDOM EDEN, Fact Check, Classical Values and Little Green Footballs

Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:

I Don't Know What You Did Last Summer — Barack catches a break - the NewsMax reporter who claimed Obama was in the church nodding in agreement during yet another of Jeremiah Wright's speeches has a space-time problem. From NewsMax: … However, Barack spoke that Sunday to a La Raza rally in Miami …

Discussion: Hot Air, Gateway Pundit and QandO

Roger Cohen / New York Times:

Obama's Brother in China — So there I was, a couple of weeks back, sitting under a mango tree in western Kenya, when Senator Barack Obama's half-sister Auma says to me: — “My daughter's father is British. My mom's brother is married to a Russian. I have a brother in China engaged to a Chinese woman.”

Discussion: Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog, Eunomia and The Campaign Spot

Wall Street Journal:
Obama Under Fire As Personal Ties Stir Controversy

Discussion: Dick Polman's American Debate, New York Times and The Page

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

The B Word — O.K., here it comes: The unthinkable is about to become the inevitable. — Last week, Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, and John Lipsky, a top official at the International Monetary Fund, both suggested that public funds might be needed to rescue the U.S. financial system.

Discussion: The Smirking Chimp, TPMCafe, The American Mind, The Democratic Daily, The Glittering Eye, The Peking Duck, Corrente, Brilliant at Breakfast, DownWithTyranny! and Connecting.the.Dots

Megan McArdle:

Sold! — So JP Morgan has agreed to buy Bear Stearns at $2 a share. As others have already pointed out, this is, from the point of view of the shareholders, just barely better than bankruptcy. Talk of a bailout of the bank is silly—this wasn't a bailout; it was an orderly winding-up of business.

Discussion: Marc Ambinder, Bloomberg, michellemalkin.com, Associated Press, Hot Air, Obsidian Wings and TigerHawk

Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times:

JP Morgan Pays $2 a Share for Bear Stearns — In a shocking deal reached on Sunday to save Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay a mere $2 a share to buy all of Bear — less than one-tenth the firm's market price on Friday. — As part of the watershed deal, JPMorgan and the Federal Reserve …

Discussion: Think Progress, The Lede, New York Magazine, The Volokh Conspiracy, Redstate, Washington Monthly, The American Scene, DealBook, Pressing Issues, Eschaton, Marginal Revolution, Emptywheel, JustOneMinute, Hullabaloo and Reason Magazine

Edmund L. Andrews / New York Times:
Fed Acts to Rescue Financial Markets

Discussion: CNNMoney.com, Firedoglake, Wake up America, Gothamist, Associated Press, Guardian Unlimited, The Moderate Voice, Booman Tribune, Guardian, Prairie Weather, The Carpetbagger Report, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, The Agonist, Bang the Drum and Angry Bear

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard / Telegraph:
Foreign investors veto Fed rescue

Discussion: Vox Popoli

Reuters:
Bear Stearns Chairman Played Cards Amid Crisis-WSJ

Discussion: First Draft and Eschaton

Wall Street Journal:
The Buck Stops Where? — In the credit market panic that began …

Discussion: Donklephant

Landon Thomas Jr / New York Times:
Fears That Bear Stearns's Downfall May Spread

Discussion: Gothamist, AMERICAblog and The Agonist

Matthew Yglesias:
Sunday Financial Meltdown Blogging

Discussion: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Brendan Nyhan

Jeane MacIntosh / New York Post:

I WAS MCG AND WIFE'S THREE-WAY SEX STUD: EX-DRIVER — A former driver and aide to former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey yesterday made the bombshell claim that Dina Matos McGreevey must have always known her husband was gay - because he was the other man in bed with them.

Discussion: Gateway Pundit and New York Magazine

New Jersey Online:

McGreevey aide says he had sexual trysts with ex-governor, wife — A former aide to James E. McGreevey said today that he had three-way sexual trysts with the former governor and his wife before he took office, challenging Dina Matos McGreevey's assertion that she was naive about her husband's sexual exploits.

Discussion: Gawker, Political Machine, QandO, Gothamist, JunkYardBlog, JammieWearingFool, Gateway Pundit, Pam's House Blend, Political Byline and The Other McCain

Scott Helman / Boston Globe:

Many voting for Clinton to boost GOP — Seek to prolong bitter battle — For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show.

Discussion: TPM Election Central and PoliGazette

Lesley Clark / MiamiHerald.com:

Democrats unable to agree on Florida do-over — The ongoing problem of how to resolve Florida's outsider status in the presidential race continued to divide Democrats. — AIM — lclark@MiamiHerald.com — As the Florida Democratic Party gets ready to decide Monday whether to pull …

Discussion: Real Clear Politics, JammieWearingFool, MyDD and The Page

Detroit News:
Obama, Clinton campaigns still at odds over Michigan redo

Discussion: MSNBC

Dan Balz / Washington Post:

White Male Vote Especially Critical — Questions Remain Over Obama's Ability to Appeal to Demographic — In the fierce campaign between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, a battle dominated by questions of race and gender, white men have emerged as perhaps the single critical swing constituency.

Discussion: protein wisdom, Political Machine, MSNBC, marbury, Prairie Weather, Don Surber, Electoral-vote.com, American Power and The Page

Kate Zernike / New York Times:
Postfeminism and Other Fairy Tales

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog and ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Zogby:

Zogby Poll: U.S. Wants McCain to Answer the Phone — GOP presidential candidate seen as best to handle a 3 a.m. crisis at the White House — UTICA, New York - The recent Hillary Clinton campaign advertisement asking who Americans want answering the phone in the White House when a crisis erupts …

Gallup:
Gallup Daily: McCain at 47% to Obama's 44%

Discussion: Hot Air, The Jed Report and TPM Election Central

Alan Greenspan / Financial Times:

We will never have a perfect model of risk — The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the second world war. It will end eventually when home prices stabilise and with them the value of equity in homes supporting troubled mortgage securities.