Pope flies over sea of young pilgrims Believers or not, that must have freaked them out. Bogie at 11 o’clock! Hey, this is the way I feel about PP’s arguments: Chechen strongman calls on Russian army to give up premises BREAKTHROUGH: Human stem cells provide therapeutic options for mice Obama uses “regal we,” admits need for much better intelligence Russians like the old czars better Their arms aren’t THAT short
July 19, 2008
Medicrap [Dan Collins]
Preview of coming retractions, courtesy NYT: An alternative path is to put in place more means testing throughout Medicare. For instance, higher-income older Americans have already been paying larger Medicare premiums and receiving a lower prescription drug benefit; that’s part of what made it possible to expand the prescription benefit within budgetary constraints. This could be taken much further. Of course, the idea of cutting some government transfers provokes protest
Jawing Victory from the Snatch of Defeat [Dan Collins]
Donald Douglas at American Power, a companion piece to Karl’s, below: Today’s big foreign policy spin is the report that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has apparently backed Barack Obama’s amorphous troop withdrawal plan for Iraq. There’s a malevolently otherworldly reaction to this around the leftosphere, where many appear to suggest that the success of the surge somehow validates the radical left-wing surrender agenda of the Democratic Party and the
Iraqi PM al-Maliki’s comments on Iraq and Obama’s globetrot [Karl]
As the blogosphere is abuzz with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s comments to Der Spiegel about Barack Obama’s 16-month timeframe for a withdrawal from Iraq, I would note that Allahpundit (with whom I diagreed elsewhere this morning) catches all the nuance, saving us all the time. Maliki’s comments are based on the assumption that positive trends continue, that al Qaeda and the militias are being defeated and that political reconciliation is
McCain, Obama, religious and non-religious voters [Karl]
Though Peter Wallsten of the L.A. Times writes that Barack Obama is doing just as badly among white evangelical voters as his party’s 2004 nominee was at this point, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life poll that forms the basis of Wallsten’s post emphasizes that John McCain has a smaller lead among white evangelical voters than Pres. Bush had at a similar point in 2004. Both takes are correct,
Why give Obama the benefit of the doubt on Iraq? [Karl]
At The Volokh Conspiracy, Jim Lindgren writes about Barack Obama’s various position on Iraq over time, but adds this: Personally, I would prefer that, should Obama clearly pivot on what to do in Iraq, he not be attacked by either the left or the right for flip-flopping, but rather commended for responding to new realities. After all, he is likely to be President, and the earlier he takes a more
