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By Nick Turse
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By Will Durst — Political comedian Will Durst provides the answers to some frequently asked (and vexing) questions about Gen. David Petraeus’ testimony.
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File this one under “Good Uses of Journalistic Resources”: The Associated Press marshaled its fact-checking talents and expertise to dissect President Bush’s speech on Thursday, issuing corrections to some of Bush’s claims in this handy point-by-point analysis.
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Find out what Joe Biden, John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani thought about President Bush’s speech. (Hint: One of them really liked it.)
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whitehouse.gov
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In a preview of Thursday’s speech, President Bush lays out his “return on success” plan for bringing troops home (though the meaning of “success” is unclear), discusses the Iraqi government’s progress (and lack thereof) in meeting its goals, and insists that “the success of a free Iraq is critical” to America’s security.
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Not to kick a man when he’s down, but there’s something to be said for a resignation speech that at least mentions why the person is resigning, even if it’s the pitifully transparent “to spend more time with my family.” After Gonzales concluded his farewell remarks, at least one reporter shouted, “Why are you leaving?”
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Think you could be President Bush’s speechwriter? Well, that’s probably not going to happen in real life, but that’s why we have the Internet! Check out this amusing site, which allows you to cobble together a speech and play it back from the virtual mouth of our president—complete with sound effects!
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overgaard.dk
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John F. Kennedy referred to Theodore C. Sorensen (above, left) as his intellectual blood bank—a man who helped put the magic in JFK’s famous rhetoric. Here is his dream acceptance speech for the next Democratic nominee. While the actual speech will probably have more political calculation and pandering, it’s worth dreaming about an alternative.
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Sen. Richard Lugar, a respected figure in the Republican Party and a traditional backer of the president’s war policy, has broken with the White House and called for a draw-down of troops in Iraq—ahead of the much-touted September review of the surge. In what some have described as a watershed speech on the Senate floor, Lugar warned that the coming election would make rational policy choices in Iraq politically unrealistic.
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By Eugene Robinson — One need only listen to the president’s definition of success in Iraq to appreciate the value of a full and immediate withdrawal.
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“The Daily Show” host dissects Bush’s State of the Union speech.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Sen. Jim Webb replied to Bush’s State of the Union speech with a moral clarity almost unheard-of since the days of The Great Communicator.
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By Joe Conason — None of the progressive-sounding proposals in the president’s speech stand any chance of actually arriving on Capitol Hill as legislation.
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As we prepare to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. this Monday, on the holiday Dick Cheney opposed, Code Pink reminds us that stirring words still resonate.
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news.yahoo.com
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Needless to say, the Democrats hated Bush’s plan for escalating the war in Iraq, although they differed on how to defeat the action. Ted Kennedy continues to push for a direct confrontation, while the leadership wants to start off with a symbolic vote. Hillary Clinton was surprisingly feisty in her comments, calling Bush’s policy “marred by incompetence and arrogance.”
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from msnbc.com
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The president began his address to the nation Wednesday evening by accepting responsibility for mistakes made in Iraq. But as he outlined his commitment to escalate the war, complete with abundant references to 9/11 and the specter of al-Qaida, George W. Bush demonstrated the same insulation from reason and reality that created this nightmare in the first place.
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washingtonpost.com
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When Qin Zhongfei took 10 minutes to scribble down a satirical poem about local bureaucrats, he had no idea it would land him a month in jail—a sign that free expression still languishes in China, despite hopes that President Hu Jintao’s economic reforms would translate to a more open society.
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By Joe Conason — Newt Gingrich wants to trim off a little fat—from the Bill of Rights.
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Arianna Huffington issues an appeal for calm in the face of election season fear-mongering: “Remember FDR. ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ And, of course, those who use it for their own political purposes.” (Video & Transcript)
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On Monday’s “Free Speech” segment, CBS News featured a Columbine father who blamed school shootings on the teaching of evolution and the proliferation of abortion. (Video & Transcript)
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Responding to Sam Harris’ Truthdig-published column on the pope’s recent speech on “faith versus reason,” Andrew Sullivan writes, “Harris both condemns Benedict for being controversial in inflaming Muslims and then condemns him for not being controversial enough.”
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By Robert Scheer — A day before Bush paid lip service to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in his U.N. address, a Canadian government commission accused the U.S. of “rendering” a Canadian to Syria for almost a year of torture.
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timesunion.com
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The pope’s recent comments signal a divergence from the religious outreach of his predecessor, John Paul II, who was the first pope to enter a mosque. Benedict XVI has since apologized for his speech, which quoted a Byzantine emperor who said the prophet Muhammad had brought only “evil and inhuman” things to the world.
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AP/ Jens Meyer
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By Sam Harris — The bestselling author of “The End of Faith” responds to Pope Benedict XVI’s speech on the interplay between faith and reason. Harris: “It is ironic that a man who has just disparaged Islam as ‘evil’ and ‘inhuman’ before 250,000 onlookers and the world press is now talking about a ‘genuine dialogue of cultures.’ ”
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From MSNBC
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Truthdig salutes the MSNBC anchor, whose strident monologue at Ground Zero last week ripped to rhetorical shreds the assertion of Vice President Cheney that critics of the government “validate the strategy of the terrorists.” (Jump for video and a full transcription, along with other fiery clips)
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From asquithberowraparishes.org.au
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Pope Benedict XVI began a speech in Germany by quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying, ?Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.? Many Muslim leaders are not happy. (h/t: Huff Po)
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Rush Limbaugh said something stupid again, only this time on CBS nightly Free Speech segment, where the radio show host railed against those evil people who are more interested in punishing this country over a few incidents of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay than they are in defeating those who want to kill us. (Video & Transcript)
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In recognition of Bush’s visit to the Utah capital, Mayor Rocky Anderson gave a speech to a crowd of thousands calling Bush a “dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president” whose time in office would “rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure.” Thank you, Salt Lake City! Watch it here. Full transcript here (pdf).
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From defendamerica.mil
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The Secretary of Defense compared critics of the war in Iraq to Nazi appeasers, saying the critics have failed to heed the lessons of history. (story and video)
History, huh? Well, based on current policy, one imagines that Rumsfeld would have recommended invading China in response to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.
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Bush spoke to the NAACP?s annual convention for the first time during his presidency. His speech drew both applause and silence as he addressed the group he has avoided for five years.
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“The Daily Shows” host tees off on Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens’ instantly infamous speech about Net Neutrality—which Stewart likened to “something you’d hear from a crazy old man in an airport bar at 3 a.m.”
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Watch as Fox host Julie Banderas drowns out a vile anti-gay hatemonger. (Sort of a straw-man target, to be sure, but it’s nice to see Fox News on the correct side of the cultural divide for a change. (Video hoster: Johnny Dollar’s Place.)
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Our Truthdigger of the Week goes on MSNBC to share her story of standing up to Sen. John McCain.
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McCain: AP / Rohe: folkproject.org
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Truthdig salutes New School University graduating senior Jean Rohe, whose commencement speech at Madison Square Garden on Friday preemptively struck against the address that Sen. John McCain was due to deliver directly after her. Click here for links to the speech, biographical information on Rohe, and the instantly infamous response by one of McCain’s staffers in which he insulted Rohe’s graduating class and called her an “idiot” in print.UPDATE: Rohe responds to the McCain staffer: “Please don’t try to bully me anymore.”
UPDATE #2: Rohe goes on MSNBC.
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Jean Rohe, the graduating senior at the New School University who spoke just before John McCain’s commencement speech explains why she “tore McCain’s speech apart before he even opened his mouth.”
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Librado Romero / The New York Times
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The Arizona senator got heavily jeered during his commencement address for a New York university. One student banner read, “Our commencement is not your platform.”
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By Robert Scheer — “It is good news that the public is finally hip to Bush’s con, yet it is worrisome when surprisingly sensible proposals by the president on immigration are automatically rejected because of the source.”
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info-news.org
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By Marc Cooper — One of the nation’s leading experts on immigration policy writes that Bush’s May 15 speech “had nothing to do with actual border policy and everything to do with domestic electoral politics.”
Instead of sending National Guard troops to the border, “Bush could have saved the taxpayers a load and sent a few battalions of Boy Scouts to do this job.”
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From thezreview.co.uk
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President Bush will deliver a rare (for him) television address, a Monday night talk on immigration reform.
Is it too cynical to ask whether he’s wagging the dog to distract attention from the NSA phone record issue?
Is it possible to be too cynical about Bush’s motives?
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Now the Arizona senator says it’s “an honor” to speak at the college of Jerry Falwell’s, the same man he once called an “agent of intolerance.”
Posted on May 10, 2006
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From Mother Jones
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Ray McGovern, the CIA veteran who publicly challenged Donald Rumsfeld last week, tells Buzz Flash in an in-depth interview that the canned applause that accompanied Rumsfeld’s lies reminded McGovern of Cold War-era Russia.
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Keith Olbermann presents the uncut version of CIA veteran Ray McGovern’s confrontation with Donald Rumsfeld. The MSNBC host uses Rumsfeld’s own words to throw his lies back in his face—with the help of Newsweek writer Richard Wolffe.
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Greenland’s Great Melt Is Pinned On Climate Change
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