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Monday, April 20, 2009

News Nuggets 127

Southwestern Utah in the spring from the New York Times


Team Obama: Survival of the Smartest from the Times [of London]

"Will Obama turn out to be as successful in pushing his agenda as Reagan, or as unsuccessful as Carter? The core issue is the clarity and self-discipline needed to maintain control of the agenda."


The Doctrine of R-E-S-P-E-C-T (Editorial) from USA Today

"When Barack Obama ran for the presidency promising change, most Americans probably were not thinking that he meant foreign policy, at least other than Iraq. But hardly a week has gone by without a striking example of the president's campaign to remake America's relationship with the world."


Obama Brings Chance to Build a New Future from La Capital [of Argentina in English]

"By welcoming the change that Obama seems to embody, with dialogue as his banner and tolerance as his distinctive characteristic - but without renouncing the strength to oppose fundamentalist terrorism - the world may find a faster way out of the labyrinth that lurks ahead. Let us hope so."


Humble Obama Unites Latin Leaders from the Christian Science Monitor

"A more humble approach to the region by the United States and its president this weekend helped put relations in the Americas on new and less combative footing, many of the leaders from the Summit of the Americas said Sunday."


Hugo Chavez Becomes the Latest Leader to Fall Under Barack Obama's Spell from the Guardian [of London]

"What is striking, though, is the amount of goodwill that Obama has generated wherever he goes, from US troops in Baghdad, crowds in Istanbul and now fellow leaders in Latin America."


GOP Stumbling in Health Care Fight from Politico

"Republicans look across the health reform battlefield and see the Democrats organized, energized and flush with cash — with several groups lined up to promote the president’s plan, and a message honed by years of preparation.  Then they look into their own camp — and get nervous. "


The Wail of the One Percent from New York Magazine

"Everyone on Wall Street is prepared to lose money. Bankers have expressions for disastrous losses: clusterfuck, Chernobyl, blowing up … But no one was prepared to lose money this way. This felt like getting mugged."


"You've Got to Execute" (David Ignatius) from the Washington Post

Ignatius captures the political moment very well here.

"When President Obama finished announcing his Afghanistan-Pakistan policy on March 27, he turned to the advisers gathered behind him and said: "Okay, now you've got to execute." That's a good rubric for the Obama administration as a whole, as it contemplates the whirlwind progress of the First Hundred Days."


Give Obama Credit Over Torture Memos from the Guardian [of London]

"There is one more distasteful activity than a partial whitewash on torture and that is a total whitewash. Obama could have kept the whole re-adjustment of interrogation policy secret – in effect failing to lance the boil publicly. Indeed he appears to have been advised by no fewer than four ex-CIA chiefs to do just this. But he didn't."


The Party That Failed from the Guardian [of London]

"Not a single one of my Republican friends I spoke with found the time to make it. Their reactions were interesting, though, ranging from a wistful "I wish I could have gone but I had to finish my taxes" to a sour "those guys look like idiots and give us conservatives a bad name". What I didn't detect was any hint of victory or determination from them."


Picking Letters, 10 a Day, That Reach Obama from the New York Times

"Tens of thousands of letters, e-mail messages and faxes arrive at the White House every day. ... Designed to offer a sampling of what Americans are thinking, 10 letters are read by the president, and he sometimes answers them by hand, in black ink on azure paper."


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