Our linkfest offering readers a road map to interesting blog posts of varying viewpoints. Links do not necessarily represent views of The Moderate Voice or its writers.
As Rudy Giuliani Advances (Or Shrinks?) In Polls He Gets More Scrutiny and Glenn Greenwald looks at what he calls “extraordinary anti-democracy comments from Giuliani.”
Oooh Those New Cars Are Delicious but do you have to get into a car crash to adjust one of the many, intricate eye-diverting buttons? We link YOU DECIDE.
Looking At The Latest Middle East Peace Plan via Jay Tea:
Much of the world is all abuzz about the latest resurgence of a certain “peace plan” being pushed by Saudi Arabia. It proclaims itself as the “answer” to the intractable differences between Israel and the Palestinians, and much of the Arab world is lining up behind it. There’s only two little flies in the ointment, though…
Read it to find out.
Who Are The April Fools? John Cole has some candidates. (He left one out. The famous website that bloggers keep linking to that has been wrong on some key occasions in its original reports but seldom does a retraction. If one of its headline-screaming posts doesn’t pan out, the original post usually vanishes as if it were never up there. Which is why we look at it for its excellent constant updates on breaking news but hold off linking to it unless its now-it-can-be-told scoop is reconfirmed by mainstream media reports, versus blog linking).
Former Bush Pollster Matt Dowd Recently Blasted George Bush In The NYT But Are His Motives Pristine? Dick Polman (a superb political analyst, professional columnist and weblog writer) stands back and puts it into perspective. He notes for instance, Dowd’s role in not just suggesting but helping convince Karl Rove & Co to use a polarization strategy:
But what Dowd didn’t say, and what the story didn’t say, was that he was arguably the prime architect of the Bush strategy that he is now denouncing. Generally, when ex-aides trash a president, it’s because that president failed to heed their advice (“if he had only listened to me�); here, we seem to have the opposite. Dowd is trashing Bush in part because he did heed Dowd’s advice.
He also notes how the White House chose to go after (which means try and discredit) Dowd. Here’s just part of it:
And those still residing in the Bush inner circle might well be a tad annoyed that one of the president’s key enablers is publicly declaring a desire “to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world.� And those folks generally don’t like dissenters, anyway. Which is why, as soon as I read Dowd’s remarks, I wondered how they would come after him, and seek to explain away the substance of his remarks. I didn’t have to wait long. On CBS yesterday, White House aide Dan Bartlett suggested that Dowd is dissing the Decider because he is messed up emotionally.
Dowd was recently divorced, a daughter died, and a son is heading to Iraq. Therefore, Bartlett suggested, his criticisms of Bush can be dismissed as the workings of an illogical mind: “I think he’s been on a long personal journey over the last couple of years, both in his private life, as well as his — the politics that he participate in…He himself has acknowledged that he’s going through a lot of personal turmoil but also he has a son who is soon to be deployed to Iraq. That could only impact a parents’ mind…� The White House worked this angle again today, painting Dowd as overwrought.
Read it in full (as Polman should always be read in full…and often).
But This Tactic Isn’t New as Crooks And Liars points out — and they show you a White House discredit-the-source (rather than address the points made by the source) operation via a video.
Would Victory Mean Bringing Our Troops Home? One view: not necessarily (or likely).
Pajamas Media Is Conducting A Presidential Straw Poll and I’ll be you can’t guess the names of the leading Democrat and Republican? Here’s the answer.
Environmentalists And Those Raising The Alarm About Global Warming Won A Big Supreme Court Victory Yesterday although (in emails) some insisted that our saying so must mean we have a secret liberal agenda or are (the worst curse yet) not “real” moderates. So again we’re urging those folks to contact all of THESE WRITERS AND EDITORS and let them know a) they’re wrong b) they must be RINOS and/or Democrats. And, yes, global warming and environmentalists do have cause for elation. Progressives in particular are highly skeptical of the present EPA and the administration’s intent on environmental matters. For instance, read this post.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.