The New Rules: Obama's Strategic Patience (Thomas Banett) from World Politics Review
"Bush-Cheney's "It's better to be feared than respected" tear nearly tore up our entire military, forcing our forces to fight two nasty wars under the worst strategic conditions possible: increasingly denuded of allies and beset by spoilers on all sides. ... It is hard to think of an approach more guaranteed to diminish American power over the long run. Worse still was the Bush administration's myopic insistence that Washington retain all manner of global leadership, instead of embracing our success in shaping an international liberal trade order -- globalization -- that has unleashed so many rising economic pillars across the planet."
Our on-the-money pundit for the day!!
Iran's Revolution Enters Year Two (Op-Ed) from the New York Times
"Karl Popper and the army of pro-democracy lay and clerical Iranian intellectuals who’ve been transforming their country’s culture and ethics. They are our guides to what the United States ought to be doing vis-à-vis Iran; they are also a reproach to how President Obama has so far conducted Iran policy."
Tehran Diary: My Life in Iran, One Year After Uprising from Der Spiegal [of Germany in English]
"Saturday marks the first anniversary of the disputed Iranian presidential election, which sparked street protests leading to dozens of deaths and countless arrests. How is the atmosphere in the country today? Five Iranians describe their lives over the space of one week in May."
Obama Will Take to Oval Office Speech with a Familiar Theme from the New York Times
"Aides say Mr. Obama will describe the eight-week-old oil spill as a slow-motion crisis, resistant to the best efforts and billions of dollars from government and industry. Ultimately, he will say, the nation will recover, just not soon."
The Oil Spill is Not Obama's Katrina (Anne Applebaum) from the Washington Post
"Given that he cannot stop the oil from flowing, why has President Obama decided to act as if he can? ... I suspect that there are many reasons for this recent change of rhetorical tone and that some of them are ideological. ... A large part of the explanation, however, is cultural: Obama has been forced to take a commanding role in a crisis he cannot control because we expect him to -- both "we" the media and "we" the bipartisan public. "
Applebaum summarizes well Obama's limitations in the crisis.
Nigeria's Agony Dwarf's the Gulf Oil Spill. The US and Europe Ignore It from the Guardian [of the UK]
"The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades."
Can the Tea Party Survive 2010? from The Week
"With infighting reportedly on the rise, many Tea Party candidates are going down in flames. Growing pains or the beginning of the end for the protest movement?"
The Risks of "Hell, No!" from the Economist [of London]
"The tea-party movement is pushing the Republicans to the right. That may make it harder to recapture the White House from Barack Obama."
IL-Sen: Conservative May Enter Senate Race from the Chicago Business Daily
"A new candidate plans to enter the wild race for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, and he might make a difference if he spends the $1 million of his own money that he's promising. Mike Niecestro, a west suburban mortgage broker with little political past, describes himself as "a disgusted Republican" who's unhappy with the two major-party nominees in the contest: Democratic State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and, in particular, North Shore congressman Mark Kirk, the GOP nominee."
FL-Rep: Tea Party's Peg Dunmire May Complicate Hopes to Win Florida House Seat from Politics Daily
"There are seven Republicans vying for the chance to oppose Grayson in November, but they have been joined by Peg Dunmire, a business consultant running as the candidate of the newly-born Florida Tea Party."
What we've seen in the Senate seems to now be spreading to the House.
WHALE NUGGET!!
Whistleblower Aims to Expose Dark Side of Japanese Whaling from the Guardian [of the UK]
"'Mr Whale' alleges widespread criminality among former colleagues on mother ship of Japanese whaling fleet."
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