There is plenty of buzz at the moment over the claim made by CNN’s Jessica Yellin to Anderson Cooper that White House reporters “dropped the ball” during the run-up to war. The Politico’s Mike Calderone reprints the relevant transcript: “And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network

Vive la France! (with an “r”) Publisher of McClellan book front for Soros.

Sex and the City movie sucks and blows. Whodathunkit? They didn’t really know what they wanted – career or husband, baby or Balenciaga bag? – but what they didn’t want was to turn out like their mothers. And while straight men universally hated SATC (they professed to find Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw repellent, while in reality being unable to cope with her straight-talking prickliness), women – pretty much all

for stance on immigration. Think Progress on search terms Pope + abortion. I guess the Pope is only infallible when he agrees with Think Progress. You’d be paranoid about buggery, too, if you were such an ass. More religion in the news: Arctic Sea Ice Traps Climate Tour Icebreaker “Now, only nature can help this ship.” So start burning stuff. What is karma, again? Oh, yeah.

Academia for Conversos, only: Today, the Universities and Colleges Union is discussing whether universities should single out Israeli and Jewish scholars for active discrimination. Yes, you read that correctly. The UCU is debating a motion which not only raises the spectre yet again of an academic boycott of Israel but demands of Jewish and Israeli academics that they explain their politics as a pre-condition to normal academic contact. The motion

At Salon, Democratic pollster Paul Maslin looks at whether the youth vote can deliver the presidency to Barack Obama.  Most of Maslin’s point echo my assessment of the youth vote from May 26, but it is always good to get independent confirmation.  Maslin agrees that even a large increase in the youth vote would produce only a small impact on the actual makeup of the electorate: Despite the gains of 2004, however,

Barack Obama’s views on meeting leaders of enemy nations without preconditions is now so chock full ‘o’ nuance that it takes not one, not two, but three reporters from the New York Times to absorb it all — and not one, not two, but three uses of the word nuance! Yet even the Grey Lady’s scribes seem unconvinced: The caveats belie the simple answer Mr. Obama gave during a debate

Grab a cup of coffee and dig it. Sound track. Mmmmmm. Arbeit mit Fries.

more at Transterrestrial Musings. (The one who saved Art Buchwald).