Blog: TAPPED

MORE PUTIN. In a slightly confusing series of moves, a right wing Russian autocrat has published an op-ed (really just an edited version of a recent speech) in a left wing British newspaper criticizing America’s right wing foreign policy — and he leads it off with a quote from FDR! The times they have a-changed. […]

THE ADMINISTRATION THAT CRIED WOLF. Props to Joe Klein for this demolition job on the false certainty offered in the administration’s anti-Iran briefing. As Klein shows, only a fool or a propagandist would make the confidently declarative claims our shdaowy intelligence officers gave out the other day: the government of Iran is purposely murky. There […]

NEGOTIATIONS ARE TO BUSH�S RIGHT? Since Matthew Yglesias picked up my item yesterday and linked to his own recent Guardian Online column about Hillary Clinton�s hawkishness as a reply, I wanted to note two instances in his column where I believe he is playing by Clinton Rules in attacking her. Matt writes: �From smacking down […]

PACE SHOOTS DOWN THE ANONYMICE. The A.P. reports: Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces hunting down militant networks that produced roadside bombs had arrested Iranians and that some of the material used in the devices were made in Iran. ”That does not translate that the Iranian government per […]

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: THE MAN BEHIND THE MECCA AGREEMENT. Jo-Ann Mort reports on the new Palestinian unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas officials and discusses imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti — “without doubt the most important person missing from Mecca.” –The Editors

ENCINO BOY. Apparently the creationism v. evolution debate is raging in the womb of human life. The earliest, most complete human skeleton, known as “Turkana Boy,” is set to be displayed at a museum in Kenya, but an evangelical Christian group is planning to boycott the exhibit. The creationism movement has spread virally beyond the […]

MORE ON THE DEAL. The Times has the details on the deal. Essentially, the U.S. and the five party group will be trading electricity, fuel oil, food, and some diplomatic goodies for a verifiable freeze on North Korea’s nuclear program. The freeze won’t be wholly verifiable, but the agreement will shut down North Korea’s plutonium […]

THROWING IN THE TOWEL. Blue Mass. Group has the backstory on why John Edwards blogger Amanda Marcotte resigned yesterday. –Garance Franke-Ruta

GIULIANI THE CONSERVATIVE. Over at The New Republic‘s under-read Open University blog, historian David Greenberg raises a red-flag about calling Rudolph Giuliani a moderate Republican: [In New York] His record could hardly have been more conservative. The action that perhaps best captured his deepest, most sincerely held beliefs was his attempt to close an art […]

AMERICA WANTS OUT. Gallup News reports on the results of a new poll: The American public is more in favor of Congress passing legislation that would set caps on the number of U.S. troops serving in Iraq and a timetable for withdrawal of all troops than they are in favor of Congress passing a non-binding […]