memeorandum: Hizbullah continues military offensive in Chouf (From Beirut to the Beltway)

Newt Gingrich / Newsweek:

Dear Senator Obama ... A Republican reformer has advice for the new guy promising to clean up Washington: get specific. — Your campaign has been brilliant. It has given you more support and more momentum than most analysts expected a year ago. Keeping things simple and vague has worked so far …

Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:

Gloomy Republicans — For good reason? — First, the good news. Conservatives won a sweeping victory in an enormously important election the week before last. Unfortunately, it happened in England, where Boris Johnson won the race for mayor of London and Conservatives trounced Labour all across the country.

Discussion: BuzzFlash.org and Classical Values

New York Times:

Already, Obama and McCain Map Fall Strategies — Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are already drawing up strategies for taking each other on in the general election, focusing on the same groups — including independent voters and Latinos — and about a dozen states where they think the contest …

Discussion: PERRspectives Blog, Los Angeles Times, Daily Kos, The Page and On Deadline

Marc Ambinder:

An Optics Problem For McCain — Item: The McCain campaign's handpicked RNC convention czar, Doug Goodyear, resigns after Newsweek reports that his firm, the DCI Group, was working to make the government of Myanmar look good. … Discussion: Optics. What becomes now of Doug Davenport …

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, American Street, MyDD, The Jed Report, Obsidian Wings and Newsweek

Michael Cooper / New York Times:
Official Chosen by McCain to Run Convention Resigns

Discussion: Stumper, DownWithTyranny!, The Page and Jonathan Martin's Blogs

Frank Rich / New York Times:

Party Like It's 2008 — ANOTHER weekly do-or-die primary battle, another round of wildly predicted “game changers” that collapsed in the locker room. — Hillary Clinton's attempt to impersonate a Nascar-lovin', gun-totin', economist-bashin' populist went bust: Asked which candidate most …

Discussion: Prairie Weather, TalkLeft, Hoffmania! and Roger L. Simon

Maddy Sauer / ABCNEWS:

Halliburton Rape Claim Goes to Court — Judge Orders That Woman's Case Should Go to Trial, Not Arbitration — A Houston woman who says she was gang raped by co-workers at a Halliburton/KBR camp in Baghdad won a major court battle late Friday when a Texas judge ordered that she can bring …

Discussion: The Other McCain, Buck Naked Politics, Truthdig and Newshoggers.com

From Beirut to the Beltway:

Hizbullah continues military offensive in Chouf — Areas in Aley are being bombed by Hizbullah artillery, and clashes broke out between Hizbullah, pro-Syrian Arslan and Jumblatt's PSP in Choueifat, forcing many residents to flee. My parents, who live in the area, have fled under gunfire and heavy bombardment.

Discussion: Gateway Pundit and Blacksmiths of Lebanon

Dan Collins / protein wisdom:

Happy Mother's Day! — Mom reading the Geneva Conventions. — Love you, mom. I'll think about you.

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

Is She a Trojan Rabbit? — Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton. — After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital …

Discussion: Corrente

New York Times:

Rethinking Ethanol — The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.

Discussion: Don Surber and PoliGazette

Teddy Davis / ABCNEWS:

McCain Poised to Flip on GOP Abortion Platform — In '00 and '07, McCain Called for Exceptions in GOP's Platform on Abortion for Rape, Incest, Mother's Life — Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faces enormous pressure from social conservatives to ignore his repeated commitment to change the GOP's platform on abortion.

Discussion: BuzzFlash.org, RADAMISTO, Think Progress and The Carpetbagger Report

Michael A. Hiltzik / Los Angeles Times:

In mortgage market, ‘walkaway’ homeowners may be urban myth — Bankers and housing analysts say many homeowners, owing more than their homes are worth, are defaulting on their loans even when they can afford payments. But no hard numbers back up their claims.

Spencer / Attackerman:

You Better Keep Your Mouth Shut, In A Rut — It's always disconcerting to read senior defense officials sounding like the wingnutosphere, but this gem from the doc-dump about the Pentagon's media-manipulation efforts is especially telling. In 2006 Rajiv Chandrasekaran did a TPMCafe book club …

Discussion: Newshoggers.com

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo: GUESS THAT'S A BAD THING?