memeorandum: GOP candidates for governor debate key issues, Sanford (John O'Connor/The State)

4:55 PM ET, September 23, 2009

Top Items:

Obama's Speech to the United Nations General Assembly — Following is a text of President Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, as released by the White House. — Good morning. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen …

Discussion: Washington Post, Associated Press, The Huffington Post, WhiteHouse.gov Blog, Connecting.the.Dots, Commentary, The Washington Note, The Confluence, democracyarsenal.org, The Nation, TPMCafe and FP Passport

Nile Gardiner / Telegraph:

The UN loves Barack Obama because he is weak — It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits Barack Obama when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly today, writes Nile Gardiner. — Barack Obama's Gallup approval rating of 52 percent may well be lower at this stage …

Discussion: Top of the Ticket, Little Green Footballs, Atlas Shrugs, Jules Crittenden, Right Wing Nut House, Fausta's Blog, QandO, Gateway Pundit and The Corner on National …

Steven Edwards / National Post:

Canada to walk out on Ahmadinejad's UN speech — Ahmadinejad warned Western powers it was too late to stop Iran's nuclear programme, amid ... UNITED NATIONS — Canada will boycott Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, saying his outbursts about the Holocaust and Israel are “shameful.”

Discussion: Reuters, CBC News, Moe Lane, Guardian, The Greenroom, Gateway Pundit, Indecision Forever and Weasel Zippers

Michael Barone / Washington Examiner:

Obama's time warp: The U.S. is still the bad guy — Senior Political Analyst — In the early 1980s, while planning a vacation in Latin America, I went to bookstores to find histories of the region. All I could find were Marxist tracts arguing that “the people” were exploited …

Discussion: The Daily Dish, OpenMarket.org, Washington Times, Pundit & Pundette, alicublog and GayPatriot

Robert Costa / The Corner on National Review Online:

Bolton: ‘A Post-American Speech By Our First Post-American President’ — By: Robert Costa — Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton tells NRO that President Obama's address to the U.N. was “a post-American speech by our first post-American president.

Discussion: MoJo Blog Posts and democracyarsenal.org

Helene Cooper / New York Times:
At U.N., Obama Sets New Tone, but Problems Are Familiar

Discussion: CNN, Salon, Below The Beltway, The Page, Indecision Forever and Daily Kos

Washington Times:
Worst foreign policy ever

Discussion: Power Line and Taylor Marsh

Josh Gerstein / The Politico: Qadhafi hails Obama in U.N. speech

Paul Haven / Associated Press:
Fidel Castro praises Obama on climate change

Discussion: Sweetness & Light and New York Times

Jonathan Weisman / Wall Street Journal:
Obama, at U.N., Sets New Tone for U.S.

Discussion: Washington Wire and Indecision Forever

New York Times:

Obama Considers Strategy Shift in Afghan War — WASHINGTON — President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:

At Pentagon's Request, Washington Post Delayed Story on Afghanistan Report — To Bob Woodward, it was the modern-day equivalent of the Pentagon Papers. But to Obama administration officials, the classified assessment of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, if disclosed by The Washington Post …

Discussion: The Caucus, Sweetness & Light, Mudville Gazette and Don Surber

Fred Kaplan / Slate:
It's Not About the Troops — Only a legitimate Afghan government can beat the Taliban.

Discussion: Washington Post, MoJo Blog Posts, JustOneMinute, marbury and Newshoggers.com

Associated Press:

Democrats nix putting pre-vote health bill online — WASHINGTON — Senate Finance Committee Democrats have rejected a GOP amendment that would have required a health overhaul bill to be available online for 72 hours before the committee votes. — Republicans argued that transparency is an Obama administration goal.

Discussion: Weekly Standard, JammieWearingFool and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

Faiz Shakir / Think Progress:

Sen. Roberts: We Need To Give Health Insurance Lobbyists ‘At Least 72 Hours’ To Read The Bill — During the Senate Finance Committee's mark-up session of the health care reform bill today, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) — who has had a hard time staying awake during these meetings …

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Prescriptions, The Hill and TPM LiveWire

Carrie Budoff Brown / The Politico:
72-hour delay? Eh, Dems say

Discussion: AmSpecBlog and RedState

Washington Wire:

Excerpts of Sarah Palin's Speech to Investors in Hong Kong — Alex Frangos reports from Hong Kong on Sarah Palin's speech. — Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, delivered her first major international speech outside North America Wednesday in Hong Kong at an investor conference.

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …, The Swamp, Townhall.com, GOP 12 and Reason

Mark McDonald / New York Times:

Palin Speaks to Investors in Hong Kong — HONG KONG — Sarah Palin, in what was billed as her first speech overseas, spoke on Wednesday to Asian bankers, investors and fund managers. — A number of people who heard the speech in a packed a hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Vanity Fair, DailyFinance, Don Surber, RealClearPolitics Video Log, Gawker, Conservatives4Palin.com and Riehl World View

Wall Street Journal:
Palin Addresses Asian Investors

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Washington Wire, Agence France Presse, Bloomberg, Real Time Economics, Think Progress, FP Passport, The Mudflats, Newsweek Blogs, TBogg, On Deadline, Wonkette, Indecision Forever, TPM LiveWire, James Pethokoukis and Swampland

Jon Walker / Firedoglake:

Carper Publicly Defends Secret PhRMA Pact; Deal Made in Exchange for Support Ads — In a stunning moment during the Senate Finance Committee markup Sen. Tom Carper defended a secret deal that the White House, Baucus, and PhRMA had reached. The White House has long denied the deal.

Discussion: The Washington Independent, D-Day, RedState and No More Mister Nice Blog

Jim Geraghty / National Review Online:
Did Sen. Tom Carper Just Admit PhRMA and the White House Had a Laws-for-Ads Deal?

Discussion: Hot Air

Ezra Klein:

Kamikaze Obstructionism — You guys like polls, right? … The Republican Party's strategy against health-care reform has been something of a kamikaze mission: destroy the bill through a strategy that also destroys the party, at least in the short-term. The hope is that if they win the war …

Discussion: TalkLeft, The Daily Dish and Daily Kos

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
STANDING ATHWART HISTORY.... There are plenty of discouraging …

Discussion: Washington Post and Hot Air

Mike Lux / The Huffington Post:

Triggering a Democratic Civil War — Media reports and insider buzz make it increasingly clear that key people at the White House have become obsessed with Olympia Snowe on health care, and are willing to do pretty much whatever she demands in order to get her on board.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, TalkLeft, Daily Kos, TPMDC, Firedoglake, The Plum Line, Democratic Strategist, Taylor Marsh and AMERICAblog News

Think Progress:
Bush on visiting a prison ministry program: ‘Everyone was black, of course.’

Discussion: Random House

Matt Viser / Boston Globe:

Legislature gives final approval to bill to fill Kennedy seat — The Massachusetts House and Senate have given final approval to a bill that would allow Democratic Governor Deval Patrick to appoint an interim US senator to take the seat left vacant by the death of the legendary liberal Edward M. Kennedy.

Discussion: MoJo Blog Posts, Politics Nation, Talking Points Memo, msnbc.com, Eye on 2010, The Page and TPM LiveWire

Michael Falcone / The Politico:
Paul Kirk may take Kennedy's seat

Discussion: The Page

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Glenn Beck, Post-Modern Conservative — Buried in the cross-tabs of the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is a question that takes a temperature reading of Glenn Beck. Beck actually makes out pretty well. While just 24 percent of Americans have a favorable view of him (13 percent strongly so) …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Michael Calderone's Blog, Mediaite, Prairie Weather and CANNONFIRE

David Cay Johnston / Firedoglake:

GOP Favors Public Option for Property, Not People — Atop the front page of The New York Times today is a color photo of Georgia homes flooded up to their rafters, an image that illustrates how when it comes to insurance our Congress applies two standards, separate and unequal, one for property and a lesser one for people.

New York Post:

Khadafy booted from Camp Trump — W'chester foils Trump guest — Unwelcome Libyan thug Moammar Khadafy briefly found a comfy spot to rest his foul head yesterday — at Donald Trump's palatial estate in suburban Westchester. — But town officials in tony Bedford put the kibosh …

Discussion: BBC, The New Republic and On Deadline

Emily Miller / Politics Daily:

Dancing Tom DeLay on Infighting in the ‘Leaderless’ GOP: ‘Even Rush and Hannity Are Doing It’ — LOS ANGELES — Walking out of a restaurant in Los Angeles last week, the former House Majority Leader was stopped by a stranger. — “Aren't you Tom DeLay?” the man asked. — “Yes, I am.”

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel, The Daily Dish, Glenn Thrush's Blog and Salon

Sally Goldenberg / New York Post:

Wife: Gov ‘stunned’ O wants him out — Gov. Paterson's wife — emotionally stunned at President Obama's request that her husband not run for another term — ripped into him today, saying that it's “very unfair” the president asked New York's “first African-American governor” not to seek office.

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog and msnbc.com

Fox News:

Up to 24 More People Sought as NYC Tightens Security in Terror Probe — NEW YORK — Police in New York City stepped up their patrols and increased their random searches on subways and buses Wednesday following reports that as many as 24 more people are being sought in a suspected cross-country terror plot.

Discussion: Atlas Shrugs and GroupIntel

Rasmussen Reports:

Election 2010: Missouri Senate — 2010 Missouri Senate: Blunt 46%, Carnahan 46% — Democrat Robin Carnahan and Republican Roy Blunt are dead even in the first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey of the hotly contested race for the U.S. Senate in Missouri.