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Obama stretched out his schedule for withdrawing troops from Iraq. During the debate, Obama said we could "reduce" the number of combat troops in 16 months: Obama: "Now, what I've said is we should end this war responsibly. We should do it in phases. But in 16 months we should be able to reduce our combat troops, put – provide some relief to military families and our troops and bolster our efforts in Afghanistan so that we can capture and kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda." But in Oct. 2007, Obama supported removing all combat troops from Iraq within...

STAFFERS at The New York Times are dismayed the newspaper snubbed the brilliant and funny writer Monique Yazigi by refusing to run her obituary. Yazigi died last week at age 45 of breast cancer.

Barack Obama just delivered a speech on patriotism in Independence, Mo., hometown of what was once America's most powerful haberdasher, and offered a mild rebuke to Wesley Clark, who took on John McCain's military record the other day in rather scorching terms. And just to make it clear, an Obama spokesman sent out this brief statement as Obama was speaking: "As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and, of course, he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark." Obama's speech focused on his own sense of patriotism, quoting Mark Twain (it's good to quote...

John McCain is a fighter -- at least when it comes to defending his military record. Today, a "Truth Squad" for the presumptive Republican nominee forcefully rejected General Wesley Clark's comments that McCain lacks foreign policy experience, and suggested Barack Obama do the same. Led by John Warner, a Virginia Republican who serves with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the squad blasted Clark and sought to reenforce the military reputation of McCain, a former Vietnam POW who once headed the largest Navy aviation squadron. "I find General Clark's comments to be unworthy, unseemly, for someone of his stature....

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The incidents that first left then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan "dismayed and disillusioned" about Washington involved the surreptitious release of classified information, McClellan said Thursday. The first of the "defining moments," McClellan told NBC's "Today" show, was when CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked to the media. The second, he said, was when he learned that President Bush had secretly declassified a report on Iraq so Vice President Dick Cheney and Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby could disclose it to reporters. "We had been out there talking about how seriously the president took the...

The former Bush administration pitchman making explosive election-year charges about how the White House handled the Valerie Plame case and built the case for invading Iraq said Thursday that he went to Washington to change it and became “disillusioned” when he realized he was just a pawn in the never-ending political game.

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war." McClellan includes the charges in a 341-page book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade. He describes Bush as demonstrating a "lack of inquisitiveness," says the White...

ormer White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence. Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95): —McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war. —He says the White House press corps went too easy on the administration. —He admits that some...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The spokesman who defended President Bush's policies through Hurricane Katrina and the early years of the Iraq war is now blasting his former employers, saying the Bush administration became mired in propaganda and political spin and at times played loose with the truth. Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan blasts President Bush and advisers in a new book. In excerpts from a 341-page book to be released Monday, Scott McClellan writes on Iraq that Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then...

Lieberman: Carter Is 'Naive' at Best Thursday , April 17, 2008 Former President Jimmy Carter met another top Hamas official Thursday in a Cairo hotel and planned to meet more officials in Syria Friday, drawing the ire of dozens of U.S. lawmakers. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., told FOX News that "at best, President Carter is being naive" in trying to negotiate with avowed terrorists. "There is a long list of people who thought they could reason with dictators and killers, going back to Neville Chamberlain and Hitler in the 1930s, but it has been shown to be absolutely wrong." Rep....

Call it censored, call it buried, call it lost—the search term “abortion” was all of the above for approximately a month on POPLINE—a publicly-funded database that its administrators describe as “Your connection to the world’s reproductive health literature.”Last week, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, uncovered this ironic situation while trying to “connect” to “reproductive health literature.” Health care providers, researchers, and advocates around the country were alarmed to learn that POPLINE (POPulation information onLINE), had rendered the search term “abortion” a stopword—which directs the database to ignore the term when used in a search. UCSF librarians discovered...

EL PASO, Texas - Trying to overcome a string of losses and a staff shake-up, Hillary Rodham Clinton sought new energy Tuesday night from a boisterous crowd of about 12,000 in a state she hopes will provide a rebound in her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton, whose rallies had been overshadowed by rival Barack Obama's huge crowds, arrived at the packed University of Texas at El Paso basketball arena as voters were giving Obama victories in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. But her sights were set on the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries and on President Bush....

"I've traveled, of course, a great deal around the world. I lived outside the country. I've done business in over 20 countries. I know something about negotiating and sitting there with people across the table, making friends with other people," the former Massachusetts governor said. "We have too much of a 'it's our way or the highway' attitude as we go around the world. When you're working with people in other nations, foreign policy is no longer the way it was last century. We got a lot of people really good at foreign policy in the 20th century—which was more...

Several current and former high-level government officials familiar with the authors of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran described the report as a politically motivated document written by anti-Bush former State Department officials, who opposed sanctioning foreign governments and businesses. The report released this week said Iran once had a covert nuclear weapons program, but shut it down in 2003. The authors" aim is to undercut the White House effort to increase pressure for sanctions on Iran and to argue that Iran dropped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003 because of diplomatic efforts in which the authors had participated, the officials...

Brownback to Endorse McCain By LIZ SIDOTI Associated Press Writer MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - Sam Brownback, a Kansas conservative and favorite of evangelical Christians, will endorse his former Republican presidential rival John McCain, GOP officials said Wednesday. The nod could provide a much-needed boost, particularly in Iowa, for the Arizona senator and one-time presumed GOP front-runner whose bid faltered and is now looking for a comeback. Republican officials said Brownback will announce his support for McCain later Wednesday in Dubuque, Iowa, and then travel with the candidate to campaign in two other cities in the state. The officials spoke on...

In accordance with the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s directive banning what it considers ethnically or racially hostile or abusive nicknames, mascots and imagery at championship events, Arkansas State University Chancellor Robert Potts announced that the school will be changing its team nickname. Formerly known as the “Indians,” the ASU teams will now be known as the “Weasels.” Potts said the decision to change the nickname was not an easy one. “We thought we were honoring Native Americans by naming our team the ‘Indians,’” Potts said. “We even had testimonials from local tribes endorsing our perception. But the lure of money...

I asked one of the few conservative Republican senators who stuck with President Bush on immigration to assess how Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell handled the issue. Asking not to be quoted by name, he replied: "If this were a war, Sen. McConnell should be relieved of command for dereliction of duty." Not only did the minority leader end up voting against an immigration bill that he said was better than the 2006 version that he supported. He abandoned his post, staying off the floor during final stages of Senate debate. Although I never before had seen a Senate party...

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts: French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the United States should pull out of Iraq within one year and work with Iraq's neighbors and Europe to resolve the crisis. Villepin, in a speech Friday at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government on Friday, said the United States' true strength "isn't its army." The United States in the 20th century constructed an economic and cultural model "and forged an ideal of modernity that inspired the admiration of the rest of the world," he said. "For us you represented the camp of freedom. You were the guarantors of...

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Friday urged the United States and other foreign nations to withdraw from Iraq in 2008 and said the war had "shattered" America's image abroad. The Iraqi conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and some 3,200 U.S. troops in the past four years, is sapping the power of the United States to peacefully influence other players in the troubled Middle East, he said. "The war with Iraq marked a turning point. It shattered America's image," said Villepin, who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It...

The UN on Sunday criticized the decision to sentence Saddam Hussein to death, calling upon local authorities to refuse the to hang the ex-leader. UN Human Rights Commission head Louise Arbour said that the "appeal process is reliable and a vital part of the fair judicial procedure." Army Radio reported. She said that "the results of the appeal will what they will be," and Arbour expressed hope that the Iraqi government would suspend its death sentence.

A total withdrawal from Iraq would play into the hands of the jihadist terrorists. As Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, made clear shortly after 9/11 in his book “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” Al Qaeda’s most important short-term strategic goal is to seize control of a state, or part of a state, somewhere in the Muslim world. “Confronting the enemies of Islam and launching jihad against them require a Muslim authority, established on a Muslim land,” he wrote. “Without achieving this goal our actions will mean nothing.” Such a jihadist state would be the ideal launching pad for future...

Even the most "moderate" Democrat politicians in America today are ready to retreat from Iraq – essentially raise the white flag of surrender, sue for peace and demonstrate to the world, once again, that the U.S. is an unreliable ally in the cause of freedom. Take your pick: Jim Webb, the challenger to Sen. George Allen in Virginia, was a Marine who served as Ronald Reagan's Navy secretary. From his resume, he looks like a guy I could support to be in the U.S. Senate. But, just to become a Democratic Senate nominee in a large state these days means...

Rep. Chris Shays, a Republican facing a tough challenge from an anti-war Democrat, on Wednesday called for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign. The Connecticut lawmaker also accused officials at the Defense Department of withholding information about the Iraq war from Congress. "I am losing faith in how we are fighting this war," Shays, a longtime supporter of the conflict, said in an interview. "I believe we have to motivate the Iraqis to do more." Shays said defense officials stopped cooperating with his congressional subcommittee after he proposed setting a timeline for troop withdrawals. Shays, who had previously opposed...

In the service of his economic strategy and his ambition to see Russian companies improve their position abroad, Vladimir Putin employs the same methods perfected since he first took power, and which account for much of his previous success within the KGB: dissimulation, intimidation and the struggle for power. He didn't warn [French President] Jacques Chirac of his intention to initiate the attack on EADS [the European aerospace consortium] stock. Neither did he consult the Europeans before Russia's state-owned Gazprom, in true high-handed fashion, decided to cut gas supplies to Ukraine last January 1, which resulted in disturbances to Europe's...

EU: No intent yet to add Hizbullah to terror list Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja says, ‘Given the sensitive situation, I don't think this is something we will be acting on now’ News Agencies  P{margin:0;} UL{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;margin-right: 16; padding-right:0;} OL{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;margin-right: 32; padding-right:0;}The European Union does not intend to place Hizbullah on its list of terrorist organizations for the time being, EU President Finland said on Tuesday. "Given the sensitive situation, I don't think this is something we will be acting on now," Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, told a news conference following an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.  Tuomioja's...

SEATTLE (AP) — The Association of Trial Lawyers of America voted during its convention this week to change its name to the American Association for Justice. Spokeswoman Chris Mather said there was overwhelming support for the change, and that the new name "reflects whose side we're on in the fight for justice." The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, a critic of the trial lawyers group, called it "an astounding admission of the unpopularity of trial lawyers in America." The 60-year-old association has 65,000 members.

Paris (dpa) - European countries had begun evacuating their citizens from Lebanon Saturday in the face of the ongoing military Israeli offensive and blockade on the country. Italy and Spain had already acted to move their citizens to safety, while Britain and France were preparing similar operations. The Italian Embassy in Beirut had helped 420 foreigners, including 300 Italians, to evacuate from Beirut by bus to safer areas in northern Lebanon, Italian state television reported. Some 1,300 Italians live in Lebanon, most of whom "have been living in the country for years and want to remain there," the embassy said....

Despite a plea from the Bush Administration, the New York Times ran a story revealing that the U.S. government was tracking terrorists through their bank accounts. The classified information disclosed in the Times piece was obtained from unnamed sources alleged to be working for the CIA. “The Bush Administration’s claim that this disclosure would aid America’s enemies is ludicrous,” said an unsigned Times editorial. “The Bush Administration is America’s most dangerous enemy. Anything we can do to thwart its evil designs is our patriotic duty. In this regard, strange as it might first seem, the so-called terrorists are actually our...

Now that we know who the RINOs in the senate truly are, how about a new pack of weasels? Who would you nominate for the ace of spades? Who is the highest card in the deck to go after. The only lesson the weasels understand is when they lose their seat. My fellow FReepers are creative. I would love to see a website and a published deck of RINO weasel cards. Who would you choose to go after first and what card would they be?

BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Union and Washington are split over an EU proposal to offer Iran a generous package of incentives including nuclear reactors and security pledges if it stops enriching uranium, diplomats said on Saturday. The EU draft offer of a package of incentives in exchange for a suspension of enrichment has caused a split in the West's previously united position on Iran since Washington has serious reservations about the European plan, EU diplomats said. The plan will be discussed in London on Wednesday by senior officials from the "EU3," the United States, Russia and China, an EU...

An article on L’Opinione reports (in Italian) that anti-globalization and communist groups based in Italy, among which is the infamous “anti-imperialist camp” (that collecting “Euros for the Iraqi resistance”) coordinated with Islamic terrorists in Iraq to attack our troops in Nassiryiah. The Italian intelligence heard phone conversations in which the red fundamentalists instructed the Islamists about how and when to kill our soldiers. It seems that the attack was organized in order to pressure Mr. Prodi to speed the pullout from Iraq. And of course all was coordinated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. I am sorry that I can’t...

The state board that investigates lawyer misconduct says it is on record pace for disciplining Minnesota attorneys this year. The Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board says the number of sanctions, ranging from public reprimands to disbarments, is up and it is only spring. If the trend continues, it could lead to the highest number of sanctions leveled against Minnesota lawyers in over five years. St. Paul, Minn. — Many of the complaints the Lawyer's Board investigates get dismissed. Those include a large number filed by clients upset simply because their attorney lost. Every year, however, there a few attorneys the board...

Here's what I believe to be true regarding some of the most important issues facing America today, and what most politicians apparently don't. IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT I'm going to be as blunt as I can be with respect to the illegal alien problem in this country, while refraining from using the profane terms that routinely leap to my mind every time I think about our government's unrelenting failure to address this issue in any responsible way. To get right to the point, any person in this country who doesn't support (A) doing whatever is necessary to stop illegals from entering...

<p>In this document ISGZ-2004-028179 there is a report by the Assistant of the Iraqi Intelligence Director to his boss “The Director” dated January/23/2003 regarding the visit of one German and one Frenchman to Iraq and these two guys talk about their strong relation with the top government officials in both France and Germany. In this letter the German that German Chancellor Schroeder was totally opposed to the idea of the war in Iraq and it his opposition to the possible war that made him win the German elections held in 2002. Also there is an important part of the letter where it mention the visit of German Chancellor to meet with the Chinese Prime minister and that the Chinese PM told Schroeder “about the information that was obtained by the Chinese intelligence and it says that Iraq has moved his mass of destruction weapon to Syria and the German Chancellor told him that the German intelligence did not indicate this. And after two days the US state secretary went to Damascus to check on this with the Syrian government that in turn denied this news.” Also in the letter it show the fear of the French to join the war because of the heavy losses that will suffer..</p>

Tue Mar 14, 9:22 AM ET NEW YORK - The New York Times is investigating questions raised about the identity of a man who said in a Page 1 profile that he is the Abu Ghraib prisoner whose hooded image became an icon of abuse by American captors. The online magazine Salon.com challenged the man's identity, based on an examination of 280 Abu Ghraib pictures it has been studying for weeks and on an interview with an official of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command. The official says the man the Times profiled Saturday, Ali Shalal Qaissi, is not the detainee...

Russia and China have rejected proposals from the United States and other veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council for a statement demanding that Iran clear up suspicions about its nuclear program, diplomats said Monday. The dispute raises the threat of an impasse in the Security Council and means that the U.S., Britain and France may not get their wish for strong action by the powerful U.N. body. They believe such a text could further isolate Iran and help compel it to abandon uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for a civilian nuclear reactor or fissile material for...

The British, French and German ambassadors to Washington said that the United States must close its Guantanamo "war on terror" detention camp which the French envoy called "an embarrassment." The ambassadors stepped up international pressure on US authorities after a report by UN human rights experts called for the camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be shut as soon as possible. "Guantanamo is an embarrassment, and so it has to be solved one way or the other," French ambassador Jean-David Levitte during an appearance by the three envoys on CNN television. The German ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger was equally outspoken....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia and China have too much riding on commercial relations with Iran to help the West in curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions, a U.S. senator said on Tuesday, calling for tough measures with Moscow and Beijing. "The two countries that are sending the wrong signals today are Russia and China," said Kansas Republican Sam Brownback. "Part of the problem is Iran ... has effectively bought U.N. Security Council vetoes from China and, very likely, Russia," Brownback, a potential presidential contender in 2008, said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. Experts at a symposium at the...

MOSCOW, February 14 (RIA Novosti) - The visit by Hamas representatives to Russia will offer the new Palestinian leadership an opportunity to return to the norms outlined by the United Nations, the French prime minister said Tuesday. "I want Hamas to realize that it is being given a chance to follow the way defined by UN resolutions," Dominique de Villepin said live on Ekho Moskvy radio during his official visit to the Russian capital. The premier laid out the conditions that had to be met by Hamas in order to begin talks: giving up any kind of violence, acknowledging Israel's...

Dairy giant Fonterra is distancing itself from Danish products caught up in widespread Muslim protests and trade boycotts after the publication of cartoons of Mohammed. Denmark was the first country to publish controversial caricatures of the Muslim prophet last September and the country has been hardest hit by the backlash. Fonterra is remaining tight-lipped about any impact the publication of the cartoons in New Zealand might have had on its business, but Middle East reports say that some emails and fliers wrongly list Fonterra products as coming from Denmark. Fonterra has published an ad in Middle East newspapers highlighting that...

The editors of The Dominion Post and The Press have apologised for the offence caused after they published pictures of the prophet Mohammed. A group of 17 news executives and religious leaders met in Wellington this afternoon over the fall-out from the publication of caricatures first published in Denmark. The two newspaper editors told the meeting they did not set out to insult or offend Muslims, and both have apologised. However, they have not resiled from the decision to publish the cartoons in the first place. Federation of Islamic Associations president Javad Khan says the meeting has opened up dialogue...

The Prime Minister has spoken out about the Mohammad cartoon controversy, saying she does not think it is a freedom of the press issue. Helen Clark says the New Zealand press is free, and politicians do not dictate what it can and cannot print. She says it is a question of judgement. She does not think the publication of the cartoons does anything to bring communities together in New Zealand or around the world. Helen Clark says the New Zealand government's position is very strongly in favour of respecting all religions and working to bring communities together, not drive them...

New Zealand diplomats in the Islamic world have been warned to take precautions against possible threats to staff and property following the publication here of controversial cartoons of Mohammed. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials have reacted "with concern" to the publication of the images, and were yesterday monitoring Muslim reaction for signs of retaliation against New Zealanders overseas or our trade interests. Yesterday The Dominion Post ran the 12 caricatures, originally published by a Danish newspaper in September. Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst said the publication was a test of Islamic tolerance. The Press ran two of the...

BERLIN, Dec. 28 -- A former German ambassador to Washington and four members of his family were reported missing and apparently kidnapped Wednesday while vacationing in a remote part of Yemen. It was the latest in a string of tourist abductions in the Arabian desert. Juergen Chrobog, ambassador from 1995 to 2001, his wife and three adult sons were declared missing by the German Foreign Ministry. In Yemen, government officials said the family had been taken hostage by tribesmen who regularly seize Western tourists as bargaining chips in dealings with the government, according to news service reports from Sanaa, the...

OLD politicians never die, they just fade into boardrooms. The passage of Gerhard Schröder from public office accords with the dictum, except that he stubbornly refuses to fade. The former Chancellor of Germany took just a fortnight’s leave on quitting office before accepting his post at NorthEuropean Gas Pipeline, a company that will lay a pipe the length of the Baltic Sea. Barely enough time to do a round of after-dinner speeches, let alone write his memoirs, before he was appointed head of the supervisory board of Gazprom’s European venture. To make matters worse, Herr Schröder’s eager acceptance of a...

Gerhard Schroeder, who less than a month ago was Germany's chancellor, has agreed to become chairman of the company that is building a gas pipeline from Russia, across the Baltic Sea to Germany, and on through Western Europe. In many countries, Schroeder would now be charged with the crime of conflict of interest. His apparent ethical lapse is magnified by the fact that, at this very moment, Russia is threatening to cut off Ukraine's gas supplies if that country does not give in to the pricing demands of the Kremlin's state-owned gas behemoth, Gazprom. Russia's strategic task is obvious: cutting...

OTTAWA and VANCOUVER — The United States launched an exceptional mid-campaign rebuke yesterday of the Liberal government's constant criticism of the Bush administration, bringing the high level of tensions between the world's two biggest trading partners to the forefront of the Canadian election. "It may be smart election-year politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it is a slippery slope, and all of us should hope that it doesn't have a long-term impact on the relationship," the U.S. ambassador to Ottawa, David Wilkins, said in a tough speech to the...

<p>The former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will be the chairman of the supervisory board of the pipeline-syndicate NEGP Company, said the boss of the Russian corporate group GAZPROM Alexej Miller during a celebration for the start of construction of the new pipeline through the Balic Sea in Babajewo.</p>

I put a $50 pre-order on an Xbox 360 in August 2005. The video game store employee (a walking commercial on why to go to college) promised a delivery date of November 23, 2005. Yesterday, the store left an auto mated message; "Microsoft is not going to deliver the quantity of Xboxes they promised. Your Xbox won't arrive until 2006." Unfortunately, my kids played the answering machine before I got home from work. It was a shock and disappointment for them, as several did not know I ordered it. I can only find mention on news of a delayed launch...

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced that there is “very serious” evidence of Syria's involvement in the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri on February 14 of this year. A UN commission investigation of the assassination uncovered that evidence. Washington has prepared a resolution to introduce in the UN Security Council on the imposition of international sanctions against Syria. Besides, the assassination of Hariri, Syria is accused to financing Palestinian and Iraqi extremists. Russia, which considers Syria its main ally in the Middle East, is determined to prevent the passage of...