News Nuggets 147

The Hudson River, a stretch currently being cleaned up of PCBs and other toxic waste.  It's been waiting for decades to happen.

Helping Obama to Help Us (Editorial) from Al-Ahram [of Egypt in English]

VERY INTERESTING perspective on what Obama has been doing on the Arab-Israeli front.

"One informed senior Arab diplomat told Al-Ahram Weekly that during their extraordinary meeting on the situation in Palestine last Thursday, Arab foreign ministers shied from even suggesting tough stances on Israel, "in order to avoid a tone, or an atmosphere, of confrontation that could pre-empt any positive position that Obama might be taking"."

Obama Makes His Bid for Middle East Peace from the Guardian [of London]

"Tomorrow the Israeli prime minister meets the US president at the White House. The following week Obama will also meet the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders. America has signaled it wants solutions in the Middle East, but are the president's guests ready to make concessions?"

Obama to Visit Ghana in First Official Trip to Sub-Saharan Africa from the Washington Post

I keep saying this -- but it is AMAZING the pace Obama is keeping up since he was elected!

"President Obama will make his first official trip to sub-Saharan Africa this summer, the White House announced today, spending two days in Ghana with his wife, Michelle, after visiting Russia and Italy.  The visit of the first African American U.S. president will be heavy with symbolism. Obama is likely to draw a huge crowd from across the continent during the brief stay."

Obama Can't Turn the Page on Bush (Frank Rich) from the New York Times

"TO paraphrase Al Pacino in “Godfather III,” just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t."

Into the Thicket on Torture (Jim Hoagland) from the Washington Post

"President Obama's effort to block the release of photographs of U.S. prisoner abuse is a mistake that can be corrected. The president acts with good intentions -- and a profound understanding of the overstimulated times and society in which he lives. That alone represents progress at the White House."

And He Shall Be Judged [the article] and Onward, Christian Soldiers [the slides] (Robert Draper) from GQ

"Documents from Rumsfeld's Pentagon mixed religion and war."

WTF were they thinking?!  THIS is creepy and weird!

A Dark Lord Comes Shrieking Into the Light (Andrew Sullivan) from the Times [of London]

"Cheney is afraid. He knows he is losing the argument about his record. The cumulative effect of leaked reports detailing the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has altered public perceptions."

Sullivan is very much on the money here.

Cheney Said Gitmo Detainees Revealed Iraq-Al Qaida Link from the McClatchy News Service

"Cheney's 2004 comments to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News were largely overlooked at the time. However, they appear to substantiate recent reports that interrogators at Guantanamo and other prison camps were ordered to find evidence of alleged cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein."

Cheney, Master of Pain (Maureen Dowd) from the New York Times

"Nancy Pelosi’s bad week of blithering responses about why she did nothing after being briefed on torture has given Republicans one of their happiest — and harpy-est — weeks in a long time. They relished casting Pelosi as contemptible for not fighting harder to stop their contemptible depredations against the Constitution. That’s Cheneyesque chutzpah."

Crist's Senate Run Provokes Backlash in his Own Party from the McClatchy News Service

As predicted ...

"A Republican backlash is brewing against the state and national party as they anoint Gov. Charlie Crist's U.S. Senate campaign — thereby dissing that of his rival, former state House Speaker Marco Rubio."

Potential Republican 2012 Nominee Joins Obama Administration from Daily Kos

Some free-wheeling analysis on this fascinating "flip" with a supporting link.

"It's gotten so bad that one of the most impressive potential presidential candidates who might have run against Barack Obama in 2012, a Republican from Utah, has not only given up his presidential aspirations, he's joining the Obama administration!"

Huntsman to China: It's About Romney from Narconews.com

Some interesting speculation about why Obama offered the envoy job to Huntsman and why he accepted.

"It speaks volumes of the outside-the-box tendencies of the President and his team that the thought would even occur to them to appoint such an unexpected envoy, that they would know that Huntsman - a former LDS missionary in Taiwan - speaks Mandarin, and that they'd be able to convince the Governor to switch jobs for a post that is not necessarily a promotion."

Randall Terry No Match for Obama from Salon

An interesting - if perhaps premature - analysis of Obama's impact on anti-abortion extremism.  I suspect this is premature because it seems to me that most flavors of extremism both on the left and right are coming back into vogue right now.

"The man who destroyed the antiabortion movement with his extremism is trying to use the president's visit to Notre Dame to advance his cause, but he will fail -- again."

US Churches Bid for - and Squabble Over - Obama from Le Monde [of France in English]

A very odd article to appear in a French publication.

"Every Sunday, full of hope, Washington's parishioners wait. Will he come? Barack Obama hasn't yet chosen a church. … In Obama's case, the choice is even more delicate because of the divisions between communities. Black church? White? Mixed? ... Meanwhile, traditionalists reproach Obama for reestablishing U.S. subsidies for family planning and with authorizing federal support for stem cell research."

VIDEO NUGGET!!

Michelle Obama's Commencement Address at UC Merced from the Huffington Post

CULTURE NUGGET!!

Who is a Real Catholic? (Op-Ed) from the Washington Post

"Is this what Catholicism in America has come to? Bickering about whether Notre Dame is really Catholic, or whether a priest can make out on the beach with his gal pal? Well, yes. And that should come as no surprise."1