Top Items:
Mike Allen / The Politico:
Gramm calls slowdown ‘mental’ — Former Sen. Phil Gramm, a top economic adviser to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, referred to the economic slowdown as “a mental recession” and called the United States “a nation of whiners.” — The comments, in an interview with The Washington Times …
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Jonathan Weisman / The Trail:
Gramm Stands by Recession Comments — Former senator Phil Gramm — under fire for saying the United States has “become a nation of whiners” — said in an interview today that he meant the nation's leaders were whiners, not its citizens. — But the top adviser to Sen. John McCain repeated …
Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
McCain Campaign Initially Stood By Gramm Remarks — The McCain campaign is working hard to distance itself from statements made by economic adviser Phil Gramm describing the current economic downturn as a “mental recession” and saying America had “sort of become a nation of whiners.”
Karl Rove / Wall Street Journal:
Barack's Brilliant Ground Game — For a campaign that says it wants to end the politics of the Bush-Cheney years, the Obama for President effort has cribbed an awful lot from the Bush-Cheney playbooks of 2000 and 2004. — For starters, Barack Obama's manager admitted to the New York Times …
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Andrew Grice / The Independent:
Bush to G8: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter' — After rejecting global climate-change targets, George Bush's parting shot to the G8 summit — President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Newshoggers.com, Wizbang, Macsmind, Think Progress, The Reaction, Firedoglake, Riehl World View and Brilliant at Breakfast
Gateway Pundit:
Horray! Bush Gives Global Warming Religionists the Finger — Best. President. Ever. — Leaders of Group of Eight pose for photos Monday, July 7, 2008, prior to dinner at the Windsor Hotel Toya Resort and Spa in Toyako, Japan. From left are: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy …
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / International Herald Tribune:
Testing! Testing! Bush finds, again, that speaking softly isn't enough
Testing! Testing! Bush finds, again, that speaking softly isn't enough
Discussion:
The Reaction
John Bresnahan / The Crypt's Blogs:
Pelosi says House Judiciary may hold hearings on Kucinich impeachment resolution — Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning that the House Judiciary Committee may hold hearings on an impeachment resolution offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).
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CNN:
Rove ignores panel's subpoena, refuses to testify — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Karl Rove, President Bush's longtime political guru, refused to obey an order to testify before a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday. — Rove's lawyer asserted that Rove was “immune” from the subpoena …
The Lede:
In an Iranian Image, a Missile Too Many — Updated, 9:33 a.m., Agence France-Presse has retracted the image as “apparently digitally altered.” — As news spread across the world of Iran's provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison.
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The Politico:
Dems searching their souls on drilling — In the stages of grief, denial gives way to anger and then to bargaining. — It may be an apt metaphor this week, as Democrats' long-held opposition to expanded offshore oil drilling succumbs to the political realities of $4-per-gallon gasoline.
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Dan Balz / Washington Post:
Obama's Ideology Proving Difficult to Pinpoint — Democrats Decry a Move Toward Middle, but Republicans Still See a Liberal — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama put himself on the opposite side of his party's leadership in the Senate yesterday by reversing course to support a compromise intelligence surveillance bill.
Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
Jesse Jackson Apologizes for Remarks on Obama — WASHINGTON — The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized on Wednesday for critical and crude comments he made about Senator Barack Obama, remarks in which he accused Mr. Obama of “talking down to black people.” — Mr. Jackson, before an interview …
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Susan Page / USA Today:
This year, 6 types of voters will decide the presidential election — All voters are not created equal. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll by only single digits among registered voters, 48%-42%, at the edge of the survey's margin of error.
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Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
The Hubris Of Obama? — A few things have unsettled me these past couple of weeks about the Obama campaign. It is not the small adjustments to previously-held positions - FISA, the Second Amendment, Iraq. It's a sense that Obama's ample self-regard is lapsing into hubris.
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George F. Will / Washington Post:
Survival of the Sudsiest — Perhaps, like many sensible citizens, you read Investor's Business Daily for its sturdy common sense in defending free markets and other rational arrangements. If so, you too may have been startled recently by an astonishing statement on that newspaper's front page.
Discussion:
StephenBainbridge.com, Outside The Beltway, Neptunus Lex, Jezebel and Real Clear Politics
Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
Clinton and Obama do joint fundraiser but he forgets the fund part — The unity thing is proving something of a stubborn problem for the no longer officially dueling camps of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. There've been reports in recent days of some die-hard Clinton supporters …
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Matt / Think Progress:
Bush addresses the Italian prime minister in Spanish: ‘Amigo! Amigo!’ — At the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia two years ago, President Bush was caught in a candid moment on an open microphone, complaining that some of his fellow world leaders “talk too long.”
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias
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Harry de Quetteville / Telegraph:
Germany plans to give vote to babies — Dozens of German politicians have tabled a new law to extend voting rights to babies, toddlers, children and teenagers. — The bill, which has won the cross-party backing of some heavyweight German politicians, would wipe away decades of “exclusion” …