This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: Independent (UK)
January 12, 2009
Barack Obama paid a visit to the Lincoln Memorial at the weekend, publicly honouring the man who inspired his career and whose legacy is to provide a major theme for the inauguration in eight days.
The President-elect took his family to the monument on Saturday night, where they admired the statue of the 16th President, before studying the inscriptions of his greatest speeches, including the Gettysburg Address.
It was the latest indication that Mr Obama intends
Source: Tehran Times
January 12, 2009
An Iranian-Australian team’s joint efforts in late 2007 led to the discovery of the ruins of an Achaemenid palace at the site, which is believed to be the Achaemenid city of Lidoma that has been named in a collection of ancient tablets previously unearthed at Persepolis.
The prehistoric area of Tol-e Nurabad and the Achaemenid structure at the site will be studied by the team, Iranian director of the team Alireza Asgari told the Persian service of CHN on Sunday.
Tol-e
Source: NYT
January 12, 2009
WASHINGTON — It is still a week before he takes office, yet President-elect Barack Obama is everywhere: on the Sunday talk shows, on radio and YouTube, on Capitol Hill, drawing on the techniques he employed during the campaign and lessons from predecessors as he seeks to shape public attitudes about the economic downturn.
His aides said Mr. Obama had studied the way Franklin D. Roosevelt approached the first 100 days of his presidency, and in particular had seized on the notion of R
Source: NYT
January 12, 2009
On Christmas Eve, the conservative pundit Monica Crowley argued on Fox News that instead of rescuing America from the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s spending on public works made it worse. She insisted that this bizarre claim was confirmed by “all kinds of studies and academic work.”
The show’s host backed her up. “Yes,” said Gregg Jarrett, “I think historians pretty much agree on that.” In the same vein, a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece said F.D.R. helped turn “a
Source: IHT (UK)
January 11, 2009
Manmohan Singh leads the largest democracy on Earth. But the Indian prime minister is gentle of manner and speaks in whispers. One struggles to imagine him professing love without shyness to his own wife. And so it meant something when he recently laid the L-word on a little-loved man: George W. Bush.
"The relationship with India is one of the few success stories of the Bush administration's foreign policy," said Teresita Schaffer, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and
Source: IHT(UK)
January 11, 2009
A former Macedonian interior minister who spent more than three years in detention while on trial at a United Nations war crimes tribunal has announced that he plans to run for president.
Ljube Boskoski, 48, was the first person to officially announce his candidacy for the elections, which are to be held March 22.
Boskoski was welcomed as a hero in his native Macedonia in July after the UN tribunal in The Hague, acquitted him on several charges for war crimes.
Source: IHT (UK)
January 11, 2009
The police put up wanted posters across Serbia on Sunday offering a €1 million reward for the capture of wartime Bosnian Serb Army commander, Ratko Mladic.
Posters carrying photographs of Mladic, the former general charged with genocide, and another war crimes fugitive, Goran Hadzic, were distributed to all police stations in Serbia.
Mladic is charged with genocide by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He is accused of orchestrating the 1995 massacre o
Source: NYT
January 10, 2009
“The relationship with India is one of the few success stories of the Bush administration’s foreign policy,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who ran the State Department’s South Asia desk under the first President Bush.
George W. Bush’s critics often link his idiosyncratic temperament to his administration’s diplomatic misadventures. But among Indians, who in the main have no love for his ideology, even his cr
Source: NYT
January 10, 2009
From the moment he became president, Dwight D. Eisenhower barely spoke to Harry Truman. Franklin Delano Roosevelt practically banned Herbert Hoover from the White House. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were the best of friends, but only after both left office; they bonded on a long plane flight to Cairo, when Ronald Reagan sent them to the funeral of Anwar Sadat.
And George W. Bush has telephoned Bill Clinton on a regular basis over the last several years — a discovery that might shock
Source: AP
January 11, 2009
Toshio Tamogami draws a full pension, gives lectures, appears on TV talk shows and is treated with respect.
Not bad for a general who two months ago was fired for writing an essay justifying Japan's entry into World War II.
The case of the ousted air force chief reveals how the idea that Japan's war was justified still lives on in the minds of many Japanese, including powerful ones.
When Japan went to war, the nation was told it was for self-defense, to fre
Source: New York Daily News
January 10, 2009
Nine days before fleeing to what he calls "the Promised Land" of Texas, President Bush seems almost wistful about departing a town he's always disliked.
In a moment of rare public introspection, Bush acknowledged his diminished standing but without apology when he recently told an interviewer: "I have done my duty to the country. I have given it my all."
"His legacy is in cement," predicted Curt Smith, a speechwriter for President George H.
Source: New York Daily News
January 11, 2009
His approval rating is lower than his boss' dismal numbers. The McCain campaign considered Cheney so toxic with moderate and independent voters that he never campaigned with the Republican nominee last fall.
Even a close pal calls him "the most divisive public official in modern political history."
While Bush has been given to some introspection and a few second thoughts in his farewell interviews, Cheney is unrepentant.
However history assesse
Source: New York Daily News
January 11, 2009
It took 60 years for the Tuskegee Airmen to get a second invite to a presidential inauguration, and this time they'll actually be able to go.
When President Harry Truman took the oath of office in 1949, the first inauguration after World War II, Watson and 11 other airmen from the famed all-black unit were limited to a flyby over the parade - and they never set foot in the still-segregated capital.
This Jan. 20, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will be more welcom
Source: AP
January 10, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama will be under historical pressure to deliver a speech for the ages at his Jan. 20 swearing-in.
The pressure's on for Barack Obama, orator.
History wants something for the ages in his Jan. 20 inaugural speech. Not just pretty words that melt like gumdrops but something that will settle in the nation's soul and be worth making schoolchildren memorize 100 years from now.
Americans want something for the dispiriting times they live in. They have thei
Source: Newsday
January 11, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama's mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, is moving into the White House at least temporarily to join Michelle Obama and the two children, transition officials said.
"Throughout history there have been many extended first families in office," said Robert Watson, author of "Life in the White House." Ulysses S. Grant's father-in-law, Richard Dent, stayed for several years. Harry S. Truman's mother-in-law, Madge Gates Wallace, lived there, too,
Source: Newsday
January 11, 2009
The unvarnished review of George W. Bush's presidency reveals a portrait of America he never would have imagined.
Bush came into office promising limited government and humble foreign policy; he exits with his imprint on startling free-market intervention and nation-building wars.
Grading Bush's performance has its limitations. History offers a warning about judging a president and his tenure in the moment: The wisdom and decisions of a leader can look different years l
Source: New York Times
January 10, 2009
From the moment he became president, Dwight D. Eisenhower barely spoke to Harry Truman. Franklin Delano Roosevelt practically banned Herbert Hoover from the White House. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were the best of friends, but only after both left office; they bonded on a long plane flight to Cairo, when Ronald Reagan sent them to the funeral of Anwar Sadat.
And George W. Bush has telephoned Bill Clinton on a regular basis over the last several years — a discovery that might shock
Source: AP
January 10, 2009
The unvarnished review of George W. Bush's presidency reveals a portrait of America he never would have imagined.
Bush came into office promising limited government and humble foreign policy; he exits with his imprint on startling free-market intervention and nation-building wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He was the president who pledged not to pass on big problems. Instead, he leaves a pile for Barack Obama.
Source: CNN
January 9, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama will invoke God when he takes the oath of office January 20, despite a lawsuit filed by atheist and non-religious groups, according to an attorney for Chief Justice John Roberts, who will administer the oath.
The groups have sued in federal court to block any mention of God during the inaugural ceremonies. Roberts was among those named in the suit.
Some chief executives have embellished the oath with "so help me God." It is not con
Source: IHT (UK)
January 11, 2009
The countdown clocks that President George W. Bush's chief of staff distributed 990 days ago are still ticking; his advisers tallied their remaining time last week and calculated fewer than 300 hours to go. Cardboard cartons are stacked in the West Wing, as files are carefully catalogued for the archives. By Friday, the last official work day of the Bush White House, all but the most senior officials will have turned in their government-issued BlackBerrys and badges.
This is what Bu
