Spying on the Press

Any mention of Lieberman gets bloggers riled up, as we see in the American Prospect post by Greg Sargent :

"How could anyone possibly conclude that the election of the candidate who agrees with Bush on the most important national security issues of the day (Lieberman) would represent a victory for independence, while the election of the candidate whose position on the war is shared by majorities (Lamont) would represent a victory for extremism? This is a sincere question: How on earth could anyone come to that conclusion?"

Automoplane : "What planet did David Broder phone this in from exactly? I felt my brain melting while reading this. My favorite part is the assertion that Mike Bloomberg is bucking Bush and the Republicans by campaigning for Joe Lieberman against Ned Lamont. Yes, campaigning for a candidate who backs Bush on the war (and whom Bush has essentially endorsed himself) and is running against a Democrat is bucking Bush."

Meta-Media : "There's one overarching problem with the centrism fetish: there's no evidence -- none whatsoever -- that centrism is actually favored by any Americans outside of David Broder. (At least, no evidence that Broder cites.)"

No wimpy bipartisanship for Arianna Huffington , no ma'am:

"What the hell was Bill Clinton thinking, inviting Laura Bush to deliver the keynote address at his latest Global Initiative conference? Talk about speeching with the enemy.

"Have those private White House lunches Mr. Clinton occasionally has with Laura's hubby distorted his sense of time, place, and perspective -- causing him to utterly forget that there are less than seven weeks before a crucial election . . . an election Democrats should walk away with but are in danger of letting slip through their hands, an election that could give Democrats investigative power over the many outrages perpetrated by Laura's husband, an election in which the Democrats' strongest campaign message is linking congressional Republicans to the disastrous policies of said husband? . . .

"This is not a time for Bill Clinton to be acting like a former president, floating above the political fray. This is a time for Bill Clinton to be acting like a Democratic former president. There is a world of difference between the two.

"There couldn't be less ambiguity about the stark choice being offered to the electorate in November. Do you want to let George Bush continue to have a free hand in destroying this country or do you want to pull the plug on him? It's that simple.

"So why cloud the issue by giving a powerful symbol of the Bush administration a giant platform to deliver an upbeat message to the world about her husband's good intentions, announcing a major White House initiative on providing clean drinking water to Africa?"

The big news this morning is the torture deal, although, in classic congressional form, some of the details have yet to be hammered out (such as a list of approved techniques, which the White House has to publish, and then Congress can comment upon, yadda yadda). Is it just another case of two Washington factions papering over their differences?

"The Bush administration and Congressional Republicans reached agreement Thursday on legislation governing the treatment and interrogation of terror suspects after weeks of debate that divided Republicans heading into the midterm elections," says the New York Times .