WPost Admits Bungling Obama Quote

By Robert Parry
August 10, 2008

The Washington Post’s ombudsman says the newspaper’s original source for a quote that was used to portray Barack Obama as a megalomaniac now disputes the Post’s negative interpretation that has spread across cable TV, the Internet and even into a John McCain attack ad.

Post ombudsman Deborah Howell also acknowledges that neither Post reporter who relied on the misleading quote spoke directly with the source, checked out its accuracy, or made any independent effort to determine the context of the remark, which was made to a closed Democratic caucus meeting on Capitol Hill on July 29.

Read on.

Where's Al Gore?

By Brent Budowsky
August 9, 2008

Anyone can champion the Earth when it's easy, yet too many remain silent when it's hard.

The forces behind oil are taking charge in the great energy debate – and the issue of global warming has virtually disappeared from the political campaign, with barely a word from its strongest advocate.

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A Novel Approach to Politics

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
August 9, 2008

ABC News’ political blog, “The Note,” points out this week that Paris Hilton is issuing policy statements while John McCain nominates his wife for a topless beauty contest. The world’s turned upside down.

Who could blame a person for thinking that chronicling such oddness is beyond the skills of simple journalists? This is a job for the novelists.

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The Hamdan Principle and You

By Robert Parry
August 7, 2008

The U.S. military commission’s split guilty verdict on Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, has drawn praise from the Bush administration and criticism from civil rights groups, but what has been overlooked is the chilling message that “the Hamdan principle” sends about future prosecutions in the “war on terror.”

This new principle holds that anyone – regardless of how tangential a connection to actual acts of terrorism – can be prosecuted through the kangaroo court of the military commissions and be sentenced to a long prison term (or even death). Though Hamdan is a Yemeni, the principle would seem to apply to U.S citizens, too.

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McCain Adopts Cheney's Energy Plan

By Jason Leopold
August 7, 2008

John McCain, who once was regarded as a top Republican ally of the environmental movement, has embraced an energy plan nearly identical to Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Energy Policy, which was drafted largely by industry executives and which pushed their desire for more oil drilling and nuclear power.

Now echoing those views, McCain declares repeatedly, “We need to drill here and we need to drill now.” Beyond opening up large tracts of protected coastal waters for oil exploration, McCain has called for a massive expansion of nuclear power.

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McCain's Future Wars

By TheRealNews.com
August 6, 2008

Energized by the supposed success of the Iraq War troop “surge,” John McCain now sees the neoconservative vision of a Long War against Islamic extremists back on track.

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Why McCain May Well Win

By Robert Parry
August 6, 2008

It might seem unlikely that the United States would elect John McCain to succeed George W. Bush when that would ensure continuation of many unpopular Bush policies: an ill-defined war with the Muslim world, right-wing consolidation of the U.S. Supreme Court, a drill-oriented energy strategy, tax cuts creating massive federal deficits, etc., etc.

But there are reasons – beyond understandable concerns about Barack Obama’s limited experience – that make a McCain victory possible, indeed maybe probable.

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We Don't Need a 'War on Terror'

By Ivan Eland
August 5, 2008

Many opponents of the Bush administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq have always argued that this conflict is an irrelevant and even counterproductive sideshow to the real "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan.

In fact, Barack Obama led the parade to initiate a troop surge in Afghanistan after having opposed it in Iraq. The more hawkish John McCain, not to be outdone by a weak-kneed Democrat, proposed that even more troops be sent to Afghanistan.

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Readers' Comments

August 4, 2008

Editor’s Note: Readers had thoughts about the news media’s treatment of Barack Obama, why the energy crisis has grown so bad over the past three decades, and other serious challenges facing the United States.

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CIA Accuses Pakistan of Terror Links

By TheRealNews.com
August 4, 2008

During a visit to Washington this past week, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had an exclusive meeting with CIA chief Michael V. Hayden, who reportedly presented him with accusations that Pakistani intelligence agencies were involved in jihadi activities.

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McCain, Anthrax & the Afghan Blunder

By Robert Parry
August 3, 2008

The scene of John McCain – during the anthrax attacks in October 2001 – opining to David Letterman that Iraq might be responsible underscores McCain’s central role in what may go down as one of the biggest strategic blunders in U.S. military history, the premature pivot from Afghanistan to Iraq.

Not only has it been clear for many years that McCain’s speculation about Iraq’s role in the anthrax attacks was reckless – made even more apparent by the FBI now pinning the crime on dead U.S. bio-defense scientist Bruce Ivins – but McCain also told Letterman in that Oct. 18, 2001, interview that “the second phase is Iraq.”

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Tax-Factless Wall Street Journal-omics

By Alice Cherbonnier
August 2, 2008

On July 29, the Wall Street Journal forfeited a full half page of op-ed space to a specious article called "Obamanomics Is a Recipe for Recession," written by Michael J. Boskin, a Stanford University economics professor and "senior fellow" of the Hoover Institution. Boskin chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under President George H. W. Bush.

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Justice Probe Still Threatens Gonzales

By Jason Leopold
August 1, 2008

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will face new legal jeopardy when the Justice Department’s Inspector General issues his next report on how the Bush administration let politics influence prosecutorial judgments, says ex-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

That installment is expected to address the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006 and could set the stage for criminal charges against Gonzales and his former deputy, Paul McNulty, according to Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico who was one of those fired in the purge.

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Dan Ellsberg on Past, Present, Future

By Glenn Greenwald, Salon Radio
August 1, 2008

Daniel Ellsberg was the key figure in the Pentagon Papers controversy in the early 1970s – the leaking of the secret history of the Vietnam War – and today is one of the most incisive commentators on a whole variety of current political issues.

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Cameras 'Shooting Back' in Palestine

By TheRealNews.com
July 31, 2008

Under an initiative promoted by an Israeli human rights group, Palestinians were armed with 100 cameras to film real-life interactions and confrontations with Israeli settlers and troops.

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Wave of 'Capitol Crime' Continues

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
July 31, 2008

Like the largesse he spread so bountifully to members of Congress and the White House staff -- countless fancy meals, skybox tickets to basketball games and U2 concerts, golfing sprees in Scotland -- Jack Abramoff is the gift that keeps on giving.

The notorious lobbyist and his cohorts (including conservatives Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed) shook down Native American tribal councils and other clients for tens of millions of dollars, buying influence via a coalition of equally corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds.

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WPost Calls Out 'Uppity' Obama

By Robert Parry
July 31, 2008

At this pivotal moment in American history, the major U.S. news media is back to its old game of drawing sweeping character judgments about a presidential candidate based on misleading “quotes,” a sickening replay of other recent elections.

The latest example of this wearisome gamesmanship was a column by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who distorted a reported quote from Sen. Barack Obama at a closed Democratic caucus and used it to prove Obama was a “presumptuous nominee.”

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McCain Lies about Obama on Troops

By Brent Budowsky
July 30, 2008

John McCain personally told Larry King that Barack Obama wanted to bring reporters, cameras and campaign aides to a meeting with wounded troops in Germany.

When he said this, John McCain was lying. Let me spell this correctly: L-Y-I-N-G.

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Is Iraq Ready to Explode?

By TheRealNews.com
July 29, 2008

Three female suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck Shiite pilgrims taking part in a massive religious procession in Baghdad on Monday. Police said at least 32 people were killed and 102 wounded.

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McCain Spin on the 'Surge'

By Jason Leopold
July 29, 2008

Over the past several weeks, John McCain and his backers have touted his early endorsement of the Iraq War “surge” as evidence of his political courage, but it could be equally viewed as an act of political desperation, to forestall total calamity in Iraq and to avert disaster for broader neoconservative objectives in the Middle East.

McCain’s endorsement of the “surge” in January 2007 also represented a repudiation of his previous support for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s concept of using a light force of mobile U.S. troops, backed by technology and air power, to win the war.

Read on.