memeorandum: Moody's Affirms Lehman Rating Amid Concern About Bear Fallout (John Flowers/Wall Street Journal)

11:35 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: Reason Magazine, The Carpetbagger Report, The Daily Dish, Matthew Yglesias, Brendan Nyhan, Obsidian Wings, Think Progress, Swampland, Political Punch, AMERICAblog, The Other McCain, Riehl World View 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: The Moderate Voice, Fox News, Shakesville, Don Surber, Naked Politics, Political Machine, Scared Monkeys, Publius Pundit, MSNBC, 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: The Corner, Power Line, Redstate, michellemalkin.com, Newsweek, American Power, NO QUARTER, Fact Check, Jules Crittenden, Top of the Ticket, Political Byline, FREEDOM EDEN, Hot Air, Classical Values and Little Green Footballs

Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:

I Don't Know What You Did Last Summer — Barack catches a break [but Ambinder and Sully need to give me a break - see below] - 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:

Discussion: Fausta's blog, Hot Air, Gateway Pundit, QandO and The Volokh Conspiracy

Rasmussen Reports:

Just 8% Have Favorable Opinion of Pastor Jeremiah Wright — Pastor Jeremiah Wright, who has become part of the national political dialogue in recent days, is viewed favorably by 8% of voters nationwide. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 58% have an unfavorable view …

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

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

USA Today: Obama faces questions over ties to controversial minister

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 Glittering Eye, The Democratic Daily, The Peking Duck, Brilliant at Breakfast, Corrente, DownWithTyranny! and Connecting.the.Dots

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, Washington Post, New York Magazine, The Lede, Redstate, Law Blog, Washington Monthly, DealBook, Pressing Issues, Eschaton, Marginal Revolution, Emptywheel, Hullabaloo and Reason Magazine

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

Reuters:
Bear Stearns Chairman Played Cards Amid Crisis-WSJ

Discussion: First Draft, Eschaton and Matthew Yglesias

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

Discussion: Vox Popoli

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

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

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

Discussion: Donklephant

David Bernstein / The Volokh Conspiracy:
BEAR STEARNS COLLAPSES: JP Morgan is buying the company …

Discussion: Redstate, The American Scene and JustOneMinute

Scarecrow / Firedoglake:
Bush Is Becoming Hoover; Where is FDR?

Discussion: Boston Globe, The American Mind and Balkinization

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

Discussion: Gothamist, AMERICAblog and The Agonist

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, New York Magazine and PageSix.com

New Jersey Online:
McGreevey aide says he had sexual trysts with ex-governor, wife

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

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, MyDD, JammieWearingFool and The Page

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

Discussion: MSNBC

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: TPMCafe, TPM Election Central and PoliGazette

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, marbury, MSNBC, 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

HillaryClinton.com:

Hillary Clinton: Ready to End the War in Iraq — Today, in a major speech ahead of the five year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, Hillary Clinton outlined new proposals that build on her three-part plan to end the war responsibly. Five years after the start of the war, we have come to a crossroads.

Discussion: Spin Cycle and Real Clear Politics

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

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.