Top Items:
Bob Woodward / Washington Post:
McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure’ — Top U.S. Commander For Afghan War Calls Next 12 Months Decisive — The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them …
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, Mudville Gazette, Weekly Standard, Washington Monthly, Think Progress, FiveThirtyEight, Guardian, Achenblog, Flopping Aces, Center For Defense Studies, The Politico, Swampland, BLACKFIVE, QandO, The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, democracyarsenal.org, Don Surber, PoliBlog, TalkLeft, MoJo Blog Posts, Commentary, The BLT, SWJ Blog, Outside The Beltway, Hot Air, Wonk Room, Weasel Zippers, The Confluence, Jules Crittenden, Christian Science Monitor, Below The Beltway, EU Referendum, Taylor Marsh, ATTACKERMAN, Political Punch, Townhall.com, George's Bottom Line, Prairie Weather, The Page, LewRockwell.com Blog, The Washington Independent, LiveWire, Truthdig and Associated Press
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New York Times:
General Calls for More U.S. Troops to Avoid Afghan Failure — WASHINGTON — The top military commander in Afghanistan warns in a confidential assessment of the war there that he needs additional troops within the next year or else the conflict “will likely result in failure.”
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Matthew Yglesias, Shakesville, BBC, Donkeylicious, DownWithTyranny!, The Faster Times, MyDD, Guardian, EU Referendum and CNN
The Huffington Post:
Bush In 2008: “I'm Not Going To Tell Some Gay Kid In The Audience That He Can't Get Married” — Speechwriter Matt Latimer's new book trains its gaze on the lunacy of the late-era Bush White House. And there was plenty of material. — Latimer, who first wrote speeches and congressional testimony …
Discussion:
Think Progress, The Atlantic Politics Channel, The Moderate Voice, LiveWire and The Raw Story
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Ross Douthat / New York Times:
The Self-Correcting Presidency — Last week, the Census Bureau released a statistical report on the last year of George W. Bush's presidency. The numbers were brutal. On every indicator, Americans lost ground during the Bush era. The median income slumped. The poverty rate increased.
Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
Obama's TV Blitz: On The Air, but Off His Game? — The White House doesn't buy the notion that President Obama, who appeared on five talk shows Sunday and is heading next for David Letterman's couch, could be wearing out his welcome on the tube. — Sure, this is a president …
Discussion:
Althouse, Sister Toldjah, Commentary, Outside The Beltway, AmSpecBlog, Riehl World View and ABCNEWS
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Alessandra Stanley / New York Times:
For President, Five Programs, One Message — No one shifted an armchair, moved a flower arrangement or asked an unexpected question. — President Obama gave five back-to-back television interviews broadcast on Sunday that were as tightly choreographed — and eerily similar …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Chris Floyd, Personal Democracy Forum blogs, Salon, The Politico, Hold Fast, Macsmind, Washington Post and Politics Daily
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Taxes and Mandates — On ABC News yesterday, George Stephanopoulos tried to get Barack Obama to agree than an individual mandate to buy health insurance is a kind of tax increase. Obama disagreed: … Not being a politicians, I can just note that we generally speak the English language …
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Wall Street Journal:
Obama's Nontax Tax — On a Sunday show, the President offers a revealing definition. — Printer — Friendly — President Obama didn't make much news on his round of five Sunday talk shows yesterday, with one notable exception. The President revealed a great deal about his philosophy …
Jazz Shaw / The Moderate Voice:
Did Barack Obama Read the Baucus Bill?
Did Barack Obama Read the Baucus Bill?
Discussion:
Hot Air, The Greenroom, ABCNEWS, NO QUARTER, Wake up America, Moe Lane and Weasel Zippers
Frank Newport / Gallup:
Americans More Likely to Say Government Doing Too Much — Belief that government is over-regulating business is at high for decade — PRINCETON, NJ — Americans are more likely today than in the recent past to believe that government is taking on too much responsibility for solving …
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
New poll: Majority believe government is doing too much
New poll: Majority believe government is doing too much
Discussion:
Riehl World View
Susan Page / USA Today:
Secret interviews add insight to Clinton presidency — BALTIMORE — The call from the White House usually would come in late afternoon. President Clinton had a few hours open in the evening. Could he come over? — Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and civil rights historian …
Discussion:
Glenn Thrush's Blog, Taegan Goddard's …, The Note, Politics Daily, Talking Points Memo and LiveWire
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Reform or Bust — In the grim period that followed Lehman's failure, it seemed inconceivable that bankers would, just a few months later, be going right back to the practices that brought the world's financial system to the edge of collapse. At the very least, one might have thought …
Scott / Power Line:
Sliming James O'Keefe: A case study — James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles are the young activists who have blown the lid off the criminal left-wing enterprise known as ACORN. If they were left-wingers exposing some conservative or religious organization, government-funded or not …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post
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Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Obama open to newspaper bailout bill — The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses. — “I haven't seen detailed proposals yet, but I'll be happy to look at them …
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Big Hollywood:
Pregame Report: The NEA Conference Call — On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood's Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”: … The email invite came directly from Yosi Sergant, then-Director of Communications …
Jacob Weisberg / Slate:
First They Came for the Marlboros — The hazards of Michael Bloomberg's paternalist utopia. — Last Monday dawned clear and bright in the nanny state of New York City. The newspaper brought word that the city's new health commissioner was working on ways to get residents to exercise more.
Discussion:
Politics Daily
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David Remnick / New Yorker:
BLAGO SPEAKS. AGAIN. — The American political memoir comes in many forms—the magisterial catalogue of heroic achievement, the backward glance at modest beginnings—but none of these sub-genres have thrived with more repetition and variation than the cri de coeur of the indicted-but-not-yet-convicted office-holding grandee.
Discussion:
Taegan Goddard's …
Daniel Malloy / Toledo Blade:
Ex-organizer says he was never a fan of mass protests — WASHINGTON - If any President might sympathize with the thousands of protesters expected to flood Pittsburgh this week for the G-20 summit, it would be the one who used to be a community organizer. — But in an Oval Office interview Friday …
Bernie Quigley / Pundits Blog:
Mitt Romney's speech unites conservatives — At the 2009 Value Voters Summit this past week, Mitt Romney directly addressed President Barack Obama's incomprehensible and fatally flawed decision, unprecedented in the American political tradition, to tax future generations.