memeorandum: Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Study Finds (William Glaberson/New York Times)

11:00 PM ET, February 20, 2009

Top Items:

Josh Gerstein / The Politico:

Gibbs rebukes CNBC's Santelli — White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs jumped at the chance Friday to rebuke a CNBC reporter whose attack on President Barack Obama's anti-foreclosure plan caught fire on the Internet. — Gibbs took on CNBC's Rick Santelli in unusually personal terms …

Discussion: Power Line, New York Times, Democratic Strategist and Riehl World View

The Huffington Post:

Gibbs V. Santelli: He Should Read President's Plan (VIDEO) — Rick Santelli, the CNBC reporter who went into a certifiable rant against the Obama housing plan Thursday, found himself in the White House bullseye 24-hours later: the object of scorn and humorous derision from the president's press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Wonkette, Talking Points Memo, TVNewser, Pat Dollard, Firedoglake, Hot Air and TigerHawk

Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Business Channel:

The White House encourages Santelli, on purpose — This is very simple. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs went out of his way today to blast CNBC's Rick Santelli for his “rant” yesterday against Obama's mortgage assistance plan. The early press reaction asks why the White House …

Discussion: Instapundit

David Brooks / New York Times:

Money for Idiots — Our moral and economic system is based on individual responsibility. It's based on the idea that people have to live with the consequences of their decisions. This makes them more careful deciders. This means that society tends toward justice — people get what they deserve as much as possible

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Open Left, The Opinionator, QandO, cab drollery, Liberty Street, FiveThirtyEight.com, American Power, Commentary, Democrats.com and Outside The Beltway

Huma Khan / Political Punch:
Defending President's Housing Proposal, Gibbs Assails CNBC Personality

Discussion: Gateway Pundit, Don Surber and The Atlantic Politics Channel

Mark Silva / The Swamp:
White House: Stock market not our fault

Discussion: Democratic Strategist and The Politico

Steve Clemons / The Washington Note:

BREAKING: Darrel Thompson Jumps Off Burris Ship — Acting Chief of Staff to Senator Roland Burris, Darrel Thompson, has resigned his position, according to senior staffers in the US Senate. — Darrel Thompson, a former Senior Adviser to Senator Harry Reid, had been dispatched by Senator Reid …

Discussion: The Fix, Hot Air and Matthew Yglesias

Manu Raju / The Politico:

WH to Burris: Think again — CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn said Friday that Roland Burris should resign from the Senate and the vacancy should then be filled by a special election, injecting fresh momentum in the growing campaign to oust the man picked to fill President Barack Obama's Senate seat.

Discussion: The New Republic

Chicago Breaking News:
Quinn calls on Burris to quit

Discussion: Political Machine, Associated Press, The Capitol Fax Blog, The Hill, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, The Swamp, CBS News, Change of Subject, Democracy in America, The Caucus, The Raw Story, The Next Right, Salon, The Politico, Jack & Jill Politics, The New Editor and Daily Kos

Frank James / The Swamp:
White House sends Burris a warning

Discussion: Change of Subject, Political Fix and The Capitol Fax Blog

Ryan Powers / Think Progress:

Jindal Rejects $90 Million In Recovery Funding That Would Have Benefited 25,000 Louisiana Residents — When President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act last week, it included three different provisions to benefit unemployed workers. The first provided funding to states …

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel, The Huffington Post, THE LIBERAL JOURNAL, Associated Press, gov.state.la.us, workforcesecurity.doleta.gov and Riehl World View

Alexander Burns / The Politico:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to refuse part of stimulus funds …

Discussion: Hot Air

Peter Finn / Washington Post:

Report Finds Guantanamo Prison Meets Standards of Geneva Convention — A Pentagon review of conditions in the Guantanamo Bay military prison has concluded that the treatment of detainees meets the requirements of the Geneva Convention but that prisoners in the highest-security camps …

Discussion: Power Line, Hot Air, Political Punch, Stop The ACLU, Jules Crittenden, Moe Lane and Don Surber

William Glaberson / New York Times:
Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Study Finds

Discussion: Salon

Joe Palazzolo / The BLT:
Obama Stays the Course on Bagram

Discussion: SCOTUSblog

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

Jeffrey Goldberg's gasping, dying smear tactics — (updated below - Update II) — The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg — in a paragraph he entitles “Where the Left and Right Always Seem to Agree” — writes (emphasis added): … His link to “Israel-bashing” in the penultimate sentence …

Discussion: Democracy Now, United States House … and Comments from Left Field

Robert Stacy McCain / The Other McCain:
Glenn Greenwald: ‘No anti-Semite could possibly hate me worse than I hate myself’

Discussion: The League of Ordinary … and Alas, a blog

Jeffrey Goldberg: Glenn Greenwald is Hysterical

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
A test for the Israeli lobby

Discussion: The New Republic and Matthew Yglesias

Fox News:

Obama Administration Shoots Down LaHood Mileage Tax Idea — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood floated the idea to tax motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn. — FOXNews.com — President Obama's transportation department slapped down a suggestion …

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, American Prospect, The Washington Independent, The Sideshow, Environmental Capital, Progress Illinois and QandO

Joan Lowy / Associated Press:

AP Interview: Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax — WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn …

Discussion: Right Wing News, JammieWearingFool, OpenMarket.org, The Foundry, The Politico, MoJo Blog Posts, LewRockwell.com Blog, Associated Press and The Corner

The Huffington Post:

Schumer: Failed ‘Zombie’ Banks Should Be Nationalized — Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) believes that failed “zombie” banks, no matter what their size, should be taken over by the government, which should then wipe out shareholders, fire management, clean up the banks and quickly resell them into the marketplace.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Paul Krugman, Spin Cycle, Open Left, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room and Washington Monthly

Alison Vekshin / Bloomberg:
Dodd Says Short-Term Bank Takeovers May Be Necessary

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Money & Company, Obsidian Wings and The Washington Note

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo: RECEIVERSHIP — From TPM Reader JP ... As I've said a number …

Forbes:

Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed — The financial crisis lays bare the weakness of the Anglo-Saxon model. — It is now clear that this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst economic crisis in the last 60 years. While we are already in a severe …

Discussion: Obsidian Wings

Alex Leo / The Huffington Post:

John Gibson Did Not Compare Eric Holder To Monkey With Bright Blue Scrotum (UPDATED) — UPDATE: The Huffington Post has learned that the below video has been doctored. We regret the error and apologize to Mr. Gibson. John Gibson never compared Eric Holder to a monkey with a bright blue scrotum.

Discussion: Portfolio, johnny dollar's place, TVNewser, Oliver Willis, The Radio Equalizer and PoliGazette

mikero.com:

More Darwin — Update: 2pm CST: (I've rewritten most of the post so that it reflects the current state of affairs. Many comments below were made before the storefront was open, so that is why they say what they do) — So, I made some Darwin artwork that parodies the famous Shepard Fairey Obama poster.

Discussion: Little Green Footballs and The Daily Dish

Jackie Calmes / New York Times:

Obama Bans Gimmicks, and Deficit Will Rise — WASHINGTON — For his first annual budget next week, President Obama has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller. The price of more honest bookkeeping: A budget …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Balloon Juice, The New Republic, Matthew Yglesias, Donklephant, Maggie's Farm and Wonk Room

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:

Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence — Listening to neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle at the Nixon Center yesterday, there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole. — In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack.

Discussion: Wonk Room, American Footprints, Washington Monthly, Angry Bear, The Reaction, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Washington Independent, Democracy in America and Christy Hardin Smith

Domenico Montanaro / MSNBC:

CHU JUMPS IN ‘DEEP END OF THE POOL’ — From NBC's John Yang — Energy Secretary Steven Chu may be a Nobel laureate Ph.D. in physics, but his first forays into energy policy suggest he's a neophyte when it comes to the ways of Washington. — At a forum with reporters on Thursday …

Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:

Washington Post Stands By Climate Change Denialism — For those who are late to the party, recently George Will wrote a column claiming, most broadly, that in the 1970s there was a scientific consensus that the world was suffering from “global cooling” that was as firm as the current consensus about global warming.

Discussion: Brian Beutler, TPMMuckraker, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The RBC and Climate Progress

Paul Steinhauser / CNN:

Poll: Obama rating slips, but still high — CNN Deputy Political Director — WASHINGTON (CNN) — A national poll indicates that two out of three Americans approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president of the United States. — The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey …

Discussion: Capitol Briefing, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Ben Smith's Blogs and Real Clear Politics

Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:

Obama's Supine Diplomacy — The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama.” Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis.

Discussion: Pat Dollard, GINA COBB and Eunomia

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight.com:

Land of a Thousand Liebermans — The jungle primary isn't just for Louisiana anymore. — In fact, it isn't for Louisiana at all, which has phased out the system for federal races. But the practice was recently adopted by Washington State. And if a State Senator from San Luis Obispo gets his way …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Calitics, Open Left and Opinion L.A.

BBC:

US soldier guilty of Iraq murder — A US soldier has been convicted of murder for his involvement in the killing of four Iraqis who were shot and dumped in a Baghdad canal in 2007. — Sgt Michael Leahy Jr had confessed to investigators that he shot an Iraqi in the back of the head from close range.

Discussion: TalkLeft