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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120400313_pf.html
Bush Accepts Bolton's U.N. Resignation
By TERENCE HUNT
The Associated Press
Monday, December 4, 2006; 9:55 AM
WASHINGTON -- Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Boltonwill step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, theWhite House said Monday.
Bolton's nomination has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committeefor more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans. Sen.Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican who lost in the midterm elections Nov.7 that swept Democrats to power in both houses of Congress, was adamantlyopposed to Bolton.
Critics have questioned Bolton's brusque style and whether he could be aneffective bureaucrat who could force reform at the U.N.President Bush gave Bol.
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_113006H.shtml
Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon: The End of the West's Strategic Supremacy
By Arnaud de La Grange
Le Figaro
Wednesday 29 November 2006
Between the Battle of Port-Arthur, concluded during the frigid year1905, and that of Fallujah, the end of which has not really been written, acentury. A long century, and few points in common between the two events,given that war seems to have changed even more quickly than the societies itshoves around. Nonetheless, these two military episodes both created andsymbolized a profound strategic rupture. Port-Arthur was the first Westerndefeat in the face of an adversary from another world - in that case, Asia -in a modern war. Fallujah and the thousand and one fronts of the Iraqiquagmire represent the first Western failure in these famous postmodernwars. In both cases, the consequences are immense and include theinscription within people's unconscious of a new vision of powerrelationships. Today, from Beirut to Kabul, by way of Baghdad, everyoneknows that Western power may be, if not vanquished, at the very leastcircumvented.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120301088_pf.html
The CIA and The Militant Who Eluded It in Norway
Counterterror Tactics Often Foiled in Europe
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 4, 2006; A01
OSLO -- Two months after he helped kidnap a Muslim cleric in Italy, recordsshow, an undercover CIA officer boarded a flight to Norway on another secretmission. Two other U.S. spies followed a few weeks later and checked intothe same hotel.
Shortly after the agents arrived in the spring of 2003, an Islamic militantliving in Oslo known as Mullah Krekar received a warning from an anonymousNorwegian official, according to Krekar's lawyer. The message: Krekar, thenhead of a Kurdish insurgent group, was a CIA target and should watch hisback.
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The Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0612010081dec01,0,6964854.story?coll=chi-news-hed&?track=sto-topstory
Obama's mega-church visit spotlights waning `God gap'
By Mike Dorning
Washington Bureau
December 1, 2006
WASHINGTON -- There are many forums a potential Democratic presidentialcandidate ordinarily might pick for a high-profile public appearance: aunion hall, a black church, perhaps a teachers convention.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), curiously, has chosen a suburban Californiamega-church, Saddleback Church, home base of pastor Rick Warren, whosebest-selling "The Purpose Driven Life" helped make him one of America'sleading evangelical ministers.
Obama will be on stage Friday with one of the religious right's favoritepoliticians, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), as he addresses more than 1,000evangelical pastors and church leaders at a summit on AIDS organized byWarren.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120300689_pf.html
America's Moral Duty in Iraq
By George F. Will
Monday, December 4, 2006; A19
James Baker almost smiled.
When the poker-faced co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group heard a commentatorwho had been invited to advise the group say that America's aim must be"victory," Baker's stony visage betrayed the bitter amusement that the word"victory" now occasions. Not even the word "success" seems elastic enough tocover any attainable outcome. Remember the "demonstration effect" thatIraq's self-governance was to have in transforming the region? AlthoughAmerica's vice president calls Iraq "a fellow democracy," it lacks agovernment whose writ runs beyond Baghdad's Green Zone.
John McCain seethed.
Weeks ago, he had been with a proud father of a Marine who was then in Iraq.Recently McCain had heard that the son's legs had been blown off. "At thehips," McCain said, intensely, several times, with a clenched-jaw fury bornof frustration. Fifteen minutes later, on ABC's "This Week," McCain broughta steely clarity to the Iraq debate.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120301037_pf.html
A Newspaper Chain Sees Its Future, And It's Online and Hyper-Local
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 4, 2006; A01
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Could this be the future of newspapering?
Darkness falls on a chilly Winn-Dixie parking lot in a dodgy part of NorthFort Myers just before Thanksgiving. Chuck Myron sits in his little grayNissan and types on an IBM ThinkPad laptop plugged into the car's cigarettelighter. The glow of the screen illuminates his face.
Myron, 27, is a reporter for the Fort Myers News-Press and one of its fleetof mobile journalists, or "mojos." The mojos have high-tech tools --ThinkPads, digital audio recorders, digital still and video cameras -- butno desk, no chair, no nameplate, no land line, no office. They spend theirtime on the road looking for stories, filing several a day for thenewspaper's Web site, and often for the print edition, too. Their guidingprinciple: A constantly updated stream of intensely local, fresh Webcontent -- regardless of its traditional news value -- is key to buildingonline and newspaper readership.
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The Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/editorial/sfl-editgskorancapdec04,0,7000209.story?coll=sfla-news-editorial
1st Amendment
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board
December 4, 2006
Ellison has right to use Quran
When U.S. Rep-elect Keith Ellison of Minnesota is sworn in next month as thefirst Muslim in Congress, he plans to take the oath of office on the Quraninstead of a Bible. To some, this is blasphemy.
One radio talk show host said if Ellison refused to take the oath on theBible, "don't serve in Congress." The Internet has had some give-and-take onthe issue.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120300688_pf.html
Bush's Shrinking Options
By Robert D. Novak
Monday, December 4, 2006; A19
George W. Bush passed through seven time zones from Amman, Jordan, onThursday to land in Washington at 4 p.m., resting briefly before embarkingon the annual round of White House Christmas parties. The nightly six-hourchore of handshaking and posing for photos was followed by sitting throughthe endless annual honors presentation at the Kennedy Center on Sundaynight. This regimen, for a president who likes to fine-tune and limit hisschedule, fits his loss of control over Iraq.
The notion bruited about Washington that James A. Baker is a deus ex machinaimposed by President Bush to resolve the entangled Iraqi plot is nonsense.The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former secretary of state Baker andformer representative Lee Hamilton, is out of the White House sphere ofinfluence. The White House certainly did not ask Congress for help bycreating this commission. Baker has made sure that the report, though leakedin part to the press, has not gone to the White House.
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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/12/04/robert_gates/print.html
A vote for more cooked intelligence?
Little-known documents link Rumsfeld replacement Robert Gates with the kindof trumped-up reports that unleashed the Iraq war.
By Mark Benjamin
Dec. 04, 2006 | Robert Gates won't be forced to run much of a gauntletTuesday during his Senate confirmation hearing on the way to becoming thenext secretary of defense. The former CIA director has bipartisan support.And during his interrogation, Washington's near-total preoccupation with thesituation in Iraq will crowd out any serious probing of Gates' past,including his murky role in the Iran-Contra scandal and the cooking ofintelligence on the Soviet Union during Gates' tenure at the CIA more than adecade ago.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120300689_pf.html
America's Moral Duty in Iraq
By George F. Will
Monday, December 4, 2006; A19
James Baker almost smiled.
When the poker-faced co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group heard a commentatorwho had been invited to advise the group say that America's aim must be"victory," Baker's stony visage betrayed the bitter amusement that the word"victory" now occasions. Not even the word "success" seems elastic enough tocover any attainable outcome. Remember the "demonstration effect" thatIraq's self-governance was to have in transforming the region? AlthoughAmerica's vice president calls Iraq "a fellow democracy," it lacks agovernment whose writ runs beyond Baghdad's Green Zone.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120300768_pf.html
A Different Race Case
The Supreme Court considers whether race can be used in public schoolplacement.
Monday, December 4, 2006; A18
WHEN THE Supreme Court hears oral arguments today about race-based schoolplacements in Seattle and Louisville, the justices may be tempted to see thecases as the latest showdown over affirmative action. One side casts thematter as a simple issue of governmental race-consciousness; the other talksof diversity. Yet the programs at issue are not classic racial preferences.They deserve to be considered -- and upheld -- for what they are.
A society committed to equal protection under law necessarily finds ituncomfortable whenever government considers a person's race in deciding howto treat him or her -- even if the goal is laudable. But these programs userace in a fashion quite different from those that have inspired the court'sskepticism in the past.
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The Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-124racism,0,2900070.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
Are most white Americans racist?
A sociology professor says biases are 'drilled into our heads' almost frombirth
By Linda Shrieves
Orlando Sentinel
December 4, 2006, 9:17 AM EST
When comedian Michael Richards unleashed a verbal rant at twoAfrican-American hecklers in a comedy club recently, he unwittingly sparkeda national discussion.
Was Richards, known to many Americans as Seinfeld's quirky Cosmo Kramer, aracist? Did he explode in a fit of stage rage? Or was he telling the truthwhen he apologized and said he couldn't believe what had come out of his ownmouth?
In a country that has shied away from examining racism, Richards' rant andMel Gibson's drunken, anti-Semitic tirade have led many to wonder: Couldthere be an inner racist in all of us?
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/opinion/04mon4.html?pagewanted=print
December 4, 2006
Editorial Observer
What's Wrong With My Voting Machine?
By ADAM COHEN
To the long list of recent Election Day horrors from butterfly ballots tosix-hour lines, add "vote flipping."
In Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey and other states last month, there werereports - some confirmed by election officials - that when voters touchedthe screen for one candidate, the machine registered it for another. OneFlorida Congressional race, in which the Republican won by fewer than 400votes, is in the courts because paperless electronic voting machines mayhave failed to register as many as 18,000 votes.
This year's election had voters across the country once again asking whyvoting machines are so lousy. Their technology is similar to A.T.M.technology, but when was the last time your A.T.M. flipped a $200 withdrawalinto a $200 deposit?
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http://www.capitolhillblue.com/news/publish/Bush_Leagues_21/Bush_will_deny_spying_torture_info_to_Democrats_printer.shtml
From Capitol Hill Blue
Bush Leagues
Bush will deny spying, torture info to Democrats
Dec 1, 2006 - 4:48:50 AM
The Bush administration is unlikely to allow the incoming Democraticmajority in Congress to learn details about its domestic spying program andinterrogation policy, a Republican senator said on Thursday.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who hascriticized the Bush White House's secrecy about national security issues,said he would welcome detailed congressional oversight of the NationalSecurity Agency's warrantless eavesdropping.
"It would be ideal," said Specter, whose committee was blocked by theadministration this year from conducting a full review of the program,despite an outcry among some lawmakers that the spying was illegal.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/02/opinion/02chafetz.html?pagewanted=print
December 2, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Politician, Police Thyself
By JOSH CHAFETZ
New Haven
WITH three-quarters of voters in the recent election saying that corruptionand scandals helped determine how they cast their ballots, one of the firstitems of business for the Democrats in January should be putting theirCongressional houses in order. Indeed, at the orientation sessions formembers-elect last month, they were taught, in the words of incomingRepresentative Michele Bachmann, "how to hire a chief of staff, how to hireother staff, how to stay out of jail."
But if the new leadership is going to get serious about ethics, it shouldthink less about the legal system and more about its own internaldisciplinary procedures. This has been a year of high-profile Congressionalscandals - the names Cunningham, Jefferson and Foley spring to mind - butthe reason discontent spreads beyond these members' districts is a beliefthat their colleagues simply do not care to police themselves.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/opinion/04mon1.html?pagewanted=print
December 4, 2006
Editorial
An Assault on Local School Control
More than 50 years after the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board ofEducation, the nation still has not abolished de facto segregation in publicschools. But thanks to good will and enormous effort, some communities havemade progress. Today the Supreme Court hears arguments in a pair of casesthat could undo much of that work.
Conservative activists are seeking to halt the completely voluntary, andlaudable, efforts by Seattle and Louisville, Ky., to promote raciallyintegrated education. Both cities have school assignment plans known asmanaged or open choice. Children are assigned to schools based on a varietyof factors, one of which is the applicant's race.
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The New York Times
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-congress-lameduck.html?pagewanted=print
December 3, 2006
Congress Prepares to Wrap Up Unproductive Year
By REUTERS
Filed at 1:32 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ridiculed as the ``do-nothing'' 109th U.S. Congress,the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on Monday begin a brief sessionto wrap up whatever work they can, install a new defense secretary andapprove money to prevent a shutdown of government services.
The Republican-led Congress will meet only for about another week beforedrawing to a close -- as lawmakers prepare for the new 110th Congress set toconvene on January 4 under Democratic control.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801438_pf.html
Judge Strikes Down Parts of Executive Order on Terrorism
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; A12
A Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that key portions of a presidentialorder blocking financial assistance to terrorist groups areunconstitutional, further complicating the Bush administration's attempts todefend its aggressive anti-terrorism tactics in federal courts.
U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins, in a ruling released late Monday,found that two provisions of an executive order signed Sept. 23, 2001, areimpermissibly vague because they allow the president to unilaterallydesignate organizations as terrorist groups and broadly prohibit associationwith such groups.
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/opinion/04krugman.html?pagewanted=print
December 4, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Two More Years
By PAUL KRUGMAN
At a reception following the midterm election, President Bush approachedSenator-elect James Webb.
"How's your boy?" asked Mr. Bush.
"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," replied Mr. Webb, whoseson, a Marine lance corporal, is risking his life in Mr. Bush's war ofchoice.
"That's not what I asked you," the president snapped. "How's your boy?"
"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," said Mr. Webb.
Good for him. We need people in Washington who are willing to stand up tothe bully in chief. Unfortunately, and somewhat mysteriously, they're stillin short supply.
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