Top Items:
New York Times:
Dear A.I.G., I Quit! — The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group's financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G. — DEAR Mr. Liddy, — It is with deep regret that I submit …
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, Megan McArdle, JustOneMinute, The Swamp, Don Surber, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Simply Left Behind, Power Line, Hot Air, Salon, Samizdata.net, AmSpecBlog, Six Meat Buffet, Connecting.the.Dots, Wizbang, Commentary, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Betsy's Page, Washington Post, Soccer Dad, The Washington Independent, Outside The Beltway and The Big Picture
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Mark Steyn / The Corner:
Resigned — This resignation letter from an AIG exec is worth reading: … I wonder if Senator Grassley (Republican, of course) is pleased that AIG honchos are now doing as instructed and falling on their swords. As I said a few days ago, if you own even modest assets (a small house …
Washington Post:
Transcript: President Obama's Press Conference — [*] OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Please have a seat. — Good evening. Now, before I take questions from the correspondents, I want to give everyone who's watching tonight an update on the steps we're taking to move this economy from recession to recovery …
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Ron Fournier / Associated Press:
Analysis: Teleprompter telegraphs Obama caution — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - What kind of politician brings a teleprompter to a news conference? — A careful one. — President Barack Obama took no chances in his second prime-time news conference …
Discussion:
The Anonymous Liberal, Washington Monthly, MyDD, Stop The ACLU, Jules Crittenden and MSNBC
New York Times:
President Obama's News Conference
President Obama's News Conference
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, The Caucus, Obsidian Wings, The Opinionator, Gawker, Blogs and Stories, 365 Gay News, The Corner, Balloon Juice, Israpundit and 24Ahead
Michael Calderone / The Politico:
Obama skips major papers
Obama skips major papers
Discussion:
Chicago Tribune, The Note, The Swamp, Top of the Ticket, Personal Democracy Forum blogs, Washington Post, Time, The Plum Line and The Fix
Quinnipiac University:
Little-Known GOP Challenger Tops Specter In Primary, Quinnipiac University Pennsylvania Poll Finds; Support For Obama Plan Helps Among Democrats — Apparently paying a political price for his support of President Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan, longtime Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter …
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Mark Murray / MSNBC:
FIRST THOUGHTS: THE OBAMA OCEAN-LINER — From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro — *** The Obama ocean-liner: More than anything else, Obama's news conference last night resembled a campaign TV ad — one in which the serious candidate talks directly to the camera …
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Ben Smith's Blog, Open Left, Shopfloor and The Washington Independent
Jeremy P. Jacobs / The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:
Toomey smokes Specter in new poll
Toomey smokes Specter in new poll
Discussion:
The Hill
Alex Isenstadt / The Politico:
GOP faithful still loves Jindal — While President Barack Obama commanded a national prime time TV audience, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal played to the GOP faithful Tuesday night, warning a Republican fund raising dinner that Obama was undertaking “the greatest expansion of government in our lifetimes.”
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Mark Preston / CNN:
Jindal defends those who want Obama to fail — WASHINGTON (CNN) — It's OK for Republicans to want President Obama to fail if they think he's jeopardizing the country, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told members of his political party Tuesday night. — Jindal described the premise of the question …
The Politico:
What Obama said and what he meant — Hold a Washington news conference and you'll be sure to hear a lot about Washington obsessions. — Two big ones dominated President Barack Obama's prime-time encounter with the White House press corps: budget deficits, and growing criticism in the Congress …
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Lori Montgomery / Washington Post:
Democrats Take Knife To Obama's Budget — Key Democratic leaders were performing major surgery yesterday on President Obama's first budget plan in an effort to bring skyrocketing annual deficits under control, while preserving the option of enacting some of the president's most significant and costly domestic priorities.
Washington Post:
‘Global War On Terror’ Is Given New Name — The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase “global war on terror,” a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor. — In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that …
Conn Carroll / The Foundry:
Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures — President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term. But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package …
Discussion:
Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, Associated Press, Neptunus Lex, Gateway Pundit, QandO, CapitalBeat, Hot Air, Pajamas Media, TigerHawk, Wizbang and The Politico
BBC:
Obama testing pundits' patience — Barack Obama's second televised presidential news conference saw him in combative mood, pundits and bloggers judged after his prime-time White House performance. — Online reaction was dominated by the president's minor spat with a TV reporter …
Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
Barack Obama's delivery of no news is quite smooth — Tuesday morning The Ticket examined the White House's current political strategy and asked the question of who would show up at Barack Obama's second nationally televised news conference that evening: the president or the senator?
George Packer In / New Yorker:
POPULISM AND PARANOIA — Step out of the A.I.G. bonus frenzy, the bailout conundrum, and other matters of the moment to think a bit about American history. It's all related. — Last year, Vintage reissued Richard Hofstadter's classic 1965 essay collection “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”
Thomas Ferraro / Reuters:
U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.
Louise Story / New York Times:
Top Hedge Fund Managers Do Well in a Down Year — The financial crisis may have turned much of Wall Street's wealth into dross, but a select group of hedge fund managers has managed to maintain a golden touch that might make King Midas blush. — As major markets and economies careened downward last year …
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Geithner ‘open’ to China proposal — Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is “open” to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar …
The Huffington Post:
Obama Flexes Political Muscle, Enters NY Congressional Race — For the first time since his inauguration, President Barack Obama is flexing his electoral muscle, urging supporters to organize and vote for New York Democratic congressional candidate Scott Murphy.
Martin Feldstein / Washington Post:
An Anti-Charity Tax, at the Worst Time — President Obama's proposal to limit the tax deductibility of charitable contributions would effectively transfer more than $7 billion a year from the nation's charitable institutions to the federal government. But the high-income taxpayers affected …
Kim-Mai Cutler / Bloomberg:
U.K. Bond Auction Fails for First Time Since 2002 — The U.K. failed to find enough buyers for 1.75 billion pounds ($2.55 billion) of bonds for the first time in almost seven years as debt investors repudiated Prime Minister Gordon Brown's plan to stem the worst economic crisis in three decades.
Discussion:
Fausta's Blog
Foreign Policy:
FM 3-XX: Revolutionary Operations — I've been looking over the Army's new manual for stability operations, which the University of Michigan just reprinted with an all-star lineup of introductions by Michele Flournoy, Shawn Brimley, and Janine Davidson. — I'm all for the idea.
Discussion:
The Washington Independent
Julia Werdigier / New York Times:
Vandals Hit Home of Ex-Chief of Bank — LONDON — The house of Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of ailing Royal Bank of Scotland, was vandalized early Wednesday and windows of his car were smashed. — Mr. Goodwin attracted criticism for keeping his £703,000, or $1 million …
Lucia Mutikani / Reuters:
Durable goods orders rebound in February — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New U.S. orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rose in February for the first time in seven months, according to a government report on Wednesday brought some cheer to an economy mired in recession.
Discussion:
Gothamist
Greg Burke / Fox News:
Politicians Fret as Muslim Population Swells in Europe Amid Little Integration — BRUSSELS, Belgium — A clash of civilizations may be taking place on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, but it's also happening a lot more quietly in European cities. — Old Europe's population …
Discussion:
Atlas Shrugs
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Apocalypse alert: Barney Frank tells Code Pink to “grow up” — You have to see this video from Townhall to believe it. Barney Frank, fresh from calling Antonin Scalia a homophobe, chastises the Left's darlings, Code Pink, for being disruptive during his committee hearing today.
Discussion:
Moe Lane