Top Items:
Michael Calderone / Michael Calderone's Blog:
Obama calls on HuffPost for Iran question UPDATE — In what appeared to be a coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post's Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly about Iran. — “Nico, I know you and all across the Internet …
Discussion:
Fox News, Washington Monthly, The Opinionator, New York Times, Emptywheel, The Bobblespeak Translations, Michelle Malkin, Gateway Pundit, Commentary, Top of the Ticket, The Plum Line, Pundit & Pundette, Say Anything, Guardian, Gawker, Riehl World View, Taylor Marsh, The Jawa Report, The Impolitic and The Rhetorican
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Matthew Cooper / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Obama's Weird “AA” Crack — It tells you something that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq came up at the president's press conference. The United States is simultaneously prosecuting two wars in the Muslim world and neither merited a question of the president.
Discussion:
Balloon Juice
Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
Why Obama's sudden news conference today? And what he'll say
Why Obama's sudden news conference today? And what he'll say
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin, Fox News, Roll Call, Washington Post, Pajamas Media, Hot Air, Moe_Lane's blog, Taylor Marsh, The Note, Right Wing News, Boston Globe and Shot in the Dark
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Sanford Returns! — Gov. Mark Sanford is set to return to South Carolina tomorrow. AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford will return to the state tomorrow after spending the last five days hiking the Appalachian Trail, according to a statement released by his office this morning.
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Jimmy Orr / Christian Science Monitor:
Sanford disappears to hike Appalachian Trail (on Naked Hiking Day) — We're not suggesting that the formerly missing Governor of South Carolina specifically ditched his family and security detail to go hiking on Naked Hiking Day. But that's what he ended up doing.
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Sanford Story Takes More Serious Turn — Late Monday evening, Gov. Mark Sanford's office revealed that he is hiking on the Appalachian Trail. — On the face of it, that solves the mystery. But this article from The State, South Carolina's main newspaper, suggests some more troubling possibilities to the story.
The Huffington Post:
Sanford's Hiking Trail Got Stimulus Money He Opposed — Gov. Mark Sanford has spent a good part of South Carolina's past legislative session railing against, and even actively turning down, portions of Barack Obama's stimulus package. And when the session ended with Sanford losing his fight …
Discussion:
msnbc.com, Latest Open Salon Blog, The Swamp, Wonkette, Washington Wire, The World Newser, The New Republic and AMERICAblog News
Joe Klein / Swampland:
About Last Night — I've been receiving a steady stream of favorable emails from Iranian-Americans regarding my appearance on Larry King last night. They're delighted that I made it clear that Iran is different from the other countries in the region—better educated, more sophisticated …
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org, American Footprints, No More Mister Nice Blog, Obsidian Wings and Balloon Juice
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Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
KLEIN 1, MCCAIN 0.... John McCain has spent an enormous amount of time lately criticizing President Obama's approach to developments in Iran. On CNN last night, Larry King mentioned to Time's Joe Klein that McCain would be on the program tonight, and asked what Klein would tell the Arizona Republican.
Scott Wilson / Washington Post:
Iran Unrest Reveals Split In U.S. on Its Role Abroad — Iran's post-election tumult has exposed the sharply divergent ways in which the Obama administration and its Republican opponents view the nature of American power and the president's role in speaking to political dissent outside the borders of the United States.
Yaroslav Trofimov / Wall Street Journal:
Israeli Radio Show Captivates Iranians — JERUSALEM—In his Friday sermon, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reserved special wrath for “Zionist radio” that he said tried to drive a wedge between the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic. Such attention from Iran's supreme leader was music to the ears …
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Jesse Lee / WhiteHouse.gov Blog:
The President's Opening Remarks on Iran, with Persian Translation
The President's Opening Remarks on Iran, with Persian Translation
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Tapes Reveal Nixon's View of Abortion — WASHINGTON — On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.
Discussion:
The Fix, The Politico, The New Republic, The Caucus, Matthew Yglesias, Ben Smith's Blog, American Power, Gawker, Truthdig and New York Times
Farnaz Fassihi / Wall Street Journal:
Son's Death Has Iranian Family Asking Why — TEHRAN—The family, clad in black, stood at the curb of the road sobbing. A middle-aged mother slapped her cheeks, letting out piercing wails. The father, a frail man who worked as a doorman at a clinic in central Tehran, wept quietly with his head bowed.
Robert Tait / Guardian:
Iran bans election protest footballers — Ali Karimi, Mehdi Mahdavikia and two others are ‘retired’ after sporting green wristbands in World Cup qualifier in Seoul — Their gesture attracted worldwide comment and drew the attention of football fans to Iran's political turmoil.
Discussion:
niacINsight, Matthew Yglesias, Telegraph, Reason, Macleans.ca, democracyarsenal.org, Think Progress and Israel Matzav
Kathryn Cheng / ABC News' Press Room:
David Westin Responds to Members of the Congressional Media Fairness Caucus — Dear Congressman Smith: — Thank you for your letter of today's date concerning our planned coverage tomorrow of health care reform in America. I am pleased that you agree that the subject deserves extensive and careful coverage.
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Laura Rozen / The Cable:
Longtime Clinton confidant Blumenthal to become Clinton advisor — Longtime journalist and former Clinton White House advisor Sidney Blumenthal will become a special advisor without portfolio to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, The Cable has learned. Blumenthal refused to comment.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog
RELATED:
Washington Post:
President Obama Holds Press Conference — Opens with Discussion on Health-Care, Iranian Elections and Energy Policy — [*] OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon, everybody. — Today, I want to start by addressing three issues, and then I'll take your questions.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, The Fix, The Moderate Voice, Reason, Top of the Ticket, Flopping Aces and PostPartisan
Christopher Badeaux / The New Ledger:
Through the Looking Glass With Andrew Sullivan — Perhaps the single, common life goal of every intellectual, pseudo-intellectual, and intellectual aspirant, is to be a true Renaissance man — a genius whose force of will and flexible, dominating intellect allows him to master or nearly master …
The Corner:
Eliminating Prison Rape — It has been far too long in coming but, yesterday, the Federal Prison Rape Elimination commission released its report on elimination and prevention efforts regarding the biggest social problem nobody wants to talk about: prison rape.
Amanda Terkel / Think Progress:
Bolton Slams Obama For Being ‘Timid’ On Iran, Then Admits U.S. Options Limited Because Of Bush's Failures — Yesterday on Fox News, Sean Hannity and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton joined the right-wing chorus hitting President Obama's response to the Iranian election crisis.
Jenny Booth / Times of London:
Iranian authorities scramble to negate Neda Soltan ‘martyrdom’ — The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of a student shot dead in Tehran to take down mourning posters as they struggle to stop her becoming the rallying point for protests against the presidential election.
David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:
Testy — An animated and testy President Obama during this presser. Partly a function, I think, of him pushing back hard on two media/GOP narratives: one, that he's not been strong enough on Iran so that his recent harsher rhetoric amounts to a shift in his position; and, two …
Jeff Stein / SpyTalk:
Mousavi, Celebrated in Iranian Protests, Was the Butcher of Beirut — He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
Discussion:
Hot Air, The Huffington Post, The Moderate Voice, Raw Story, Founding Bloggers, Don Surber and Confederate Yankee
David Weigel / The Washington Independent:
Cornyn: I'll Support Norm Coleman if He Appeals to the Supreme Court — At a luncheon at the National Republican Senatorial Committee's headquarters near Capitol Hill (organized by the Heritage Foundation), I asked Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) if there was a Republican game plan ready …
The Politico:
Ensign apologizes to GOP senators — Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), caught in the middle of a sex scandal, apologized to his Senate Republican colleagues during a closed-door luncheon, several senators said Tuesday. — Ensign made brief remarks, took no questions and was greeted by a round of applause.
Josh Kraushaar / The Politico:
Rubio's curious Tweet — Twitter hasn't always been a politician's best friend — see Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra's comparison of House Republican floor rebellions to the uprising in Iran or Newt Gingrich calling Sonia Sotomayor a “racist.” — Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio …