News Nuggets 583

 UP-FRONT OP-ART!!

It was reported this week that the conservative commentator Glenn Beck may start his own cable channel when his contract with Fox News expires this year.  Here's a possible schedule.  For a better view, see it at the New York Times.

NATO Set to Take Full Command of Libyan Campaign from the New York Times
"Overcoming internal squabbles, NATO prepared on Friday to assume leadership from the United States of the military campaign against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces, senior NATO officials said, while the allied effort won a rare military commitment in the Arab world when the United Arab Emirates said it would send warplanes to join patrols with Western allies."

U.S., Allies Ponder Arming Libyan Rebels from the Washington Post
"The United States and its allies are considering whether to supply weapons to the Libyan opposition as coalition airstrikes fail to dislodge government forces from around key contested towns, according to U.S. and European officials."
From the moment of intervention, arms have (apparently) been streaming into Libya from Egypt.  More heavy duty arms I suspect are in order.

It Really is About Regime Change in Libya (Robert Shrum) from The Week
"Ignore the president's hysterical critics. Obama's aim is to topple Gadhafi — and he knows the stakes are high."

Is Obama A Wimpy Professor? (Jacob Heilbrunn) from the National Interest
"Krauthammer is addicted to the great man version of history. He has a constricted, static view of leadership that is pure neocon--Churchill or bust. In Krauthammer's dramaturgy, America must go it alone (except that Churchill, after all, needed an alliance with America). But why bother with pesky allies? America is an Atlas that can shoulder any burden."

The Political Perils of Pragmatism (Yoni Applebaum) from the Atlantic
"Why pragmatism works abroad but is unpopular at home."

In Defense of ‘Dithering’ (Timothy Egan) from the New York Times
"The politician took a thought breath before proceeding: “Obviously, most of the time it seems that the president has maybe 10 percent of his agenda set by himself, and 90 percent of it set by circumstance.”  Barack Obama: meet your 90 percent. The senator who so accurately predicted how events make the leader now finds himself a president trying to lead through those events.  In the process, despite a largely incoherent chorus of second-guessers, Obama has settled into a groove of reflective dithering before making his decisions. For the most part, it has served him well."

'Arab Spring' Drives Wedge Between U.S., Saudi Arabia (Warren P. Strobel) from the McClatchy News Service
"The United States and Saudi Arabia — whose conflicted relationship has survived oil shocks, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq — are drifting apart faster than at any time in recent history, according to diplomats, analysts and former U.S. officials."

Europe's Libya Intervention: A Special Report from Stratfor Global Intelligence (may be a subscription wall)
"This is the first installment in a four-part series that will examine the motives and mindset behind current European intervention in Libya."

Syria's Bashar al-Assad Has Been Struck by Freedom Flu (Simon Tisdall) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"The fear factor that has kept Syrians in check is failing. Assad will have to move fast to avoid the circling political vultures."

The Despot of Khartoum [Sudan] and the Velvet Curtain (Editorial) from Asharq Al-Awsat [a pan-Arab newspaper out of London]
"It was obvious that the general was living in constant fear.
 He had been programmed to think that what might look like a small flame on a velvet curtain could be the start of a larger assassination plot. Next, the military dictator knew only one way of dealing with an emergency: calling in the troops.  He had come to power at the point of a gun and believed that he could live only under the shadow of a gun."

The Vetting: How the Republicans Cleared Elizabeth Warren's Path (Timothy Noah) from Slate
"I think Obama should nominate Warren. Partly that's because Warren, in her six months as de facto CFPB director (ahem, I mean "special adviser to the secretary of the treasury and assistant to the president") has demonstrated sufficient political and managerial skills (inasmuch as anyone can demonstrate such skills while running an agency that hasn't actually done anything yet). But mostly it's because Republicans have talked me into it."

In WI, Collective Bargaining Law Published Despite Restraining Order from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"In a stunning twist, Gov. Scott Walker's legislation limiting collective bargaining for public workers was published Friday despite a judge's hold on the measure, prompting a dispute over whether it takes effect Saturday."
Two predictions: When the Dems get control of the WI Senate after the recall elections [yes, I said when], they will instigate investigations into Walker's administration with an eye towards impeachment [or in a more partisan vein to lay the groundwork for Walker's own recall]. 

GOP’s Adult Deficit Disorder (Scot LeHigh) from the Boston Globe
"The Republican Party has a serious problem. Or rather, a seriousness problem.  Tough times elevate substantive people and cast pixilated partisans and juvenile jousters in an unflattering light.  Which is just what’s happened these last few weeks. Although the left sometimes chafes under President Obama’s measured and mild manner, grousing that he lacks the combativeness the political era requires, Obama understands something they don’t: Voters want a calm, reasonable adult, not a partisan warrior, in the Oval Office."

Bachmann Country: How Evangelicals Remade the Midwestern Right (Sean Scallon) from the American Conservative
A FIRST from this magazine at this blog.
"Her career has been shaped by Midwestern political and cultural forces bigger than herself. These confluences have evolved into an ideology and transformed the GOP in much of the region. If modern politics is a study in the power of narrative to influence voters, Bachmann’s story of how she came to Washington is compelling. It gives her something real to talk about, which is more than most presidential aspirants can say."

The Al Gore Surge (Brent Budowsky) from the Daily Beast
"Hot on the heels of his hiring of Keith Olbermann for Current TV and big book deal with Random House, Al Gore is rousing the Democratic base for a push to retake the House in 2012. Brent Budowsky on the prospects for Gore’s new campaign."

Mitt Romney’s Path: Victory by ‘Slog’ from Politico
"Mitt Romney is sketching a path to the GOP nomination that looks nothing like the one blazed by Republicans before him.  Romney’s plan, by necessity, more closely resembles the outline of the epic 2008 Democratic presidential primary than the GOP’s recent victory-by-early-knockout design."
I will have to say -- there is something remotely admirable about Romney's capacity for enduring years of internecine GOP punishment.  If winning the nomination were an endurance test at every level, he would win hands down!!

The GOP’s Census Problem (Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza) from the Washington Post
"While much of the shifting population is moving to red states, there is increasing evidence that it’s making those red states bluer, and most of the demographic trends are heading in Democrats’ direction."

GOP Sets Sights on AARP Over its Support for Healthcare Reform from The Hill
"Newly empowered House Republicans are getting ready to renew their attacks against AARP over its support for the healthcare reform law, The Hill has learned."

Poll: Obama in Michigan from Public Policy Polling
"Obama's not likely to win Michigan by his blowout margin of 16 points in 2008 again but if the state voted today he would have an easier time taking it than either John Kerry in 2004 or Al Gore in 2000 did. ... How can Obama have such wide leads despite such tepid approval numbers?"

Protesters Erupt As New Hampshire GOPers Move Anti-Union Bill That Goes Farther Than Walker's from TalkingPointsMemo
"A labor fight has been brewing in New Hampshire, where Republicans have huge House and Senate majorities, for weeks. But this was the first legislative step toward actually undermining unions -- and the skewed 18-7 vote suggests it could ultimately land on the Democratic governor's desk, in some form."
The video of this raucous event is HERE.

FUTURE CITIES NUGGET!!
Boomtown 2025: A Special Report from Foreign Policy Magazine
"By 2025, 136 new cities -- all from the developing world -- will take their place among the world's leading urban centers. But these new engines of global economic growth hold some surprises."

FOSSIL NUGGET!!
Texas Boys Discover 'Fossil Gold Mine' from FOX News
"We all got excited because I knew it was too big to be a cow bone, so we knew it was a dinosaur bone," Andrew said of himself and his Pottsboro Middle School classmate. What it was, once the Dallas Paleontological Society investigated. The bone was a pelvis of a Columbian mammoth, one of the two largest species of mammoth."

US HISTORY BOOK NUGGET!!
How George Washington, So Help Him God, Acquired His Many Myths: A Review of Inventing George Washington:America’s Founder, in Myth & Memory by Edward G. Lengel from the New York Times
"Like other iconic figures in history, whether Shakespeare or Leonardo, Napoleon or Lincoln, George Washington has been mythologized, psychoanalyzed and reimagined by successive generations, his reputation and image filtered through the prism of various eras’ and interest groups’ wildly disparate cultural and political ideals."

INDIA BOOK NUGGET!!
How Gandhi Became Gandhi: A Review of Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India by Joseph Lelyveld from the New York Times
"Gandhi had many messages, some ignored, some misunderstood, some as relevant today as when first enunciated. Most Americans — many middle-class Indians, for that matter — know what they know about the Mahatma from Ben Kingsley’s Academy Award-winning screen portrayal. His was a mesmerizing performance, but the script barely hinted at the bewildering complexity of the real man..."