For Friday, April 19, The American Prospect Online taps the following Web content:
IS BUSH NIXONIAN? We've always said that the Bush Administration's mania for secrecy approaches that of Richard Nixon's White House. But don't take Tapped's word for it. Take former Nixon counsel John W. Dean's word for it! After all, he should know. [posted 3:35 pm]
THE TROUBLE WITH BIAS. Bernard Goldberg pens a short but bizarrely splenetic response to Geoffrey Nunberg's sober empirical critique of Goldberg's claim of left-wing media bias. More on this Monday. [posted 3:30 pm]
MIND THE TALKING POINTS, GUYS! The Wall Street Journal unvails what looks like a new wrinkle in GOP strategy. In language that puts Tapped in mind of Bill Clinton's attacks on the "obstructionist" Newt Gingrich, the Journal hits the Democratic-controlled Senate for bringing "the process of government to a halt." Fellas, fellas. You're supposed to call them "Daschlecrats." Didja get the memo? Grover, get these guys back on message! [posted 3:02 pm]
GEORGE W. BUSH, SPENDTHRIFT? A report from the Treasury Department indicates that the U.S. federal government is now $133 billion dollars in deficit. So much for trusting Republicans with the surplus. Why aren't the Deomcrats harping on this? [posted 2:55 pm]
DID ARAFAT END THE PEACE PROCESS? Slate's Robert Wright pens a very important reconsideration of the land-for-peace talks between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat in the summer of 2000. Wright's take? The deal Barak offerred was in many respects not so sweet. It's a judicious and thoughtful take -- refreshing given the current overheated state of debate. [posted 11:55 am]
SMACKDOWN. The Los Angeles Times opines on a Portland, Oregon judge's recent slap at attorney general John Ashcroft, saying he has no right to overturn the will of Oregon voters as expressed in Oregon's assisted suicide law. "You are not the Congress, you are not the president," the Times wrote, "The attorney general has more than enough to do in his own job." [posted 11:04 am]
PROOF! TOM DELAY'S NUTS. The Houston Chronicle labels House majority whip and likely-to-be Speaker of the House Tom Delay "fanatical" and charges him with wanting to "transform American government into a theocracy." The editors took great umbrage (and that's an understatement) at Delay's condemnation of Baylor and Texas A&M University as he warned Texans not to send their children to be educated there (in Baylor's case because the school isn't Creationist enough). [posted 11:02 am]
SAY ANYTHING. President Bush has taken to calling Ariel Sharon a "man of peace," despite the fact that Sharon refused Bush's demand that he withdraw his troops from the West Bank. Here's how the Washington Post expresses it: "Two weeks after he declared 'enough is enough,' Bush said he understood why Israeli forces were laying siege to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has his headquarters." It seems even Post writers Peter Slevin and Mike Allen can't be "objective" about something as blatantly contradictory as this, if objectivity means not making Bush look really bad in a straight news story. And who can blame them?
DEPARTMENT OF UNFORTUNATE METAPHORS. After the GOP lost the push to drill in ANWR in the Senate yesterday, Trent Lott had this to say: "This fight is not over We will continue it on land, on sea and in the air." Wow, Trent, that covers pretty much the whole ecosphere. Don't want to get the environmentalists too fired up or anything, do we?
GLAD WE POSTED FIRST. Salon's David Talbot had basically the same reaction to David Brock's book as Robert Borosage.
CLONING GETS HAMMERED. We haven't read it yet, but the next issue of The New Republic looks like it has as its cover story the following: "What We Will Become: A Secular Inquiry Into the Ethics of Research Cloning," by Charles Krauthammer. The article title on the Table of Contents page is this: "Crossing Lines Four objections to research cloning, and why the fourth settles the issue." This is, of course, the same technology about which the much more judicious Washington Post editorialized today, "Therapeutic cloning, and the promise it holds for people, should be allowed to proceed, with careful attention to where it goes."
MORE 2004. Weirdly, Marshall Wittmann (The Bull Moose) says the Democrats should tap General Wesley Clark to run for president. Is this just a way of diverting attention away from the calls for his man John McCain to switch parties?
MORE MCCAINALIA. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto comments of Joshua Green's and Jonathan Chait's articles about why the Democrats need McCain: "Maybe we're missing something, but isn't McCain a Republican?" We're pretty sure this is just a joke -- with Taranto that's usually the case. But here, it has the rather lame effect of basically ignoring all the pretty convincing arguments for why McCain isn't really a Republican at all. The latest of which is his vote yesterday against ANWR drilling.
FLATTENED. Ben Fritz does a nice job of tearing down a recent op-ed by Dick Armey claiming that a flat tax would be nice and simple -- just like Bush's tax cut. Not!
-- compiled by Prospect staff
