memeorandum: Certain Degrees Now Cost More at Public Universities (Jonathan D. Glater/New York Times)

1:40 AM ET, July 29, 2007

Top Items:

Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over Spying — A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency's secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

Discussion: TalkLeft, The Next Hurrah, Power Line, Corrente, Prairie Weather, Needlenose, Booman Tribune, Washington Monthly and Brian Beutler

New York Times:

Mr. Gonzales's Never-Ending Story — President Bush often insists he has to be the decider — ignoring Congress and the public when it comes to the tough matters on war, terrorism and torture, even deciding whether an ordinary man in Florida should be allowed to let his wife die with dignity.

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

As you can... DATA MINING — As you can see, we now have the first hint of what was at the center of the Ashcroft hospital room showdown. According to the New York Times, what the White House calls the 'terrorist surveillance [i.e., warrantless wiretap] program' originally included some sort of largescale data mining.

Discussion: Washington Post

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

Not that he... NYT: IMPEACH GONZALES — Not that he should be fired. The Times editorial in tomorrow's paper says he should be impeached if Paul Clement, who for a complicated set of reasons is acting AG in this matter, doesn't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales' numerous and increasingly overlapping bad acts.

Discussion: The RBC

Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:
Parsing Gonzales And Prepping For Greymail

Discussion: TalkLeft

New York Times:
Justice Dept. Lawyers Join Chorus Criticizing Gonzales

Discussion: Washington Post and TPMmuckraker

Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:

I Guess He Should Have Just Burned A Flag — This will make for a fascinating prosecution: … Well, if had burned an American flag the issues would be clear. If he had put a crucifix in a glass of urine, it would have been art. — On the other hand, a book in a toilet, regardless of the book …

Newsday:
Hate-crime arrests in Quran desecrations at Pace University

Discussion: Riehl World View, UrbanGrounds, theneweditor.com, The Jawa Report and Jihad Watch

Little Green Footballs:
Outrage of the Week: Arrested for Desecrating a Koran

Discussion: CAIR, Hot Air and Gateway Pundit

Jim Henley / Unqualified Offerings:

I Know When I'm Beat — The only honorable thing to do is admit that Anne-Marie Slaughter's new oped in the Washington Post beats Anne Applebaum out for the title of dumbest thing ever written by anyone in any venue. If it weren't print, I'd expect her to break into a rendition of "Fly Away …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Obsidian Wings, The Sideshow and TalkLeft

Anne-Marie Slaughter / Washington Post:
Partisans Gone Wild

Discussion: Unqualified Offerings, Eunomia, Wake up America, Hullabaloo, Booman Tribune, Sadly, No!, The Gun Toting Liberal™ and The Impolitic

The Atlantic Online:
"Partisan" — On top of whatever else has been said …

Discussion: TalkLeft, Eschaton and Sadly, No!

Samantha Power / New York Times:

Our War on Terror — The day after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush declared the strikes by Al Qaeda "more than acts of terror. They were acts of war." Bush's "war on terror" was "not a figure of speech," he said. Rather, it was a defining framework.

Steve Benen / Talking Points Memo:
In reviewing Ian...

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:
DIVIDE AND CONQUER....In a review/essay critiquing both the phraseology …

Discussion: TPMCafe blogs

baldilocks:

A New Kind of "Chickenhawk" — When I said yesterday that most of Beauchamp's defenders had sense enough to steer clear of the milbloggers, I had no idea that Columbia Journalism Review's Paul McLeary had run out into the open, bare-a** naked. … (Emphasis mine.)

Discussion: The Jawa Report, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Little Green Footballs, Ed Driscoll.com, Weekly Standard and Riehl World View

Washington Post:

Fewer See Balance in High Court Decisions — Growing Numbers In Poll Say Bench Is 'Too Conservative' — About half of the public thinks the Supreme Court is generally balanced in its decisions, but a growing number of Americans say the court has become "too conservative" …

Discussion: Think Progress and About U.S. Politics

Faiz / Think Progress:

Soltz: Bush Needs To Resolve Whether Pat Tillman Was Killed For His Political Views — Yesterday, Iraq war veteran Jon Soltz wrote on ThinkProgress about Pat Tillman: "Was the man the White House used to promote the war ordered to be killed because he was becoming increasingly critical of the war in Iraq?"

Discussion: protein wisdom, The Sideshow and The Huffington Post

Damien McElroy / Telegraph:

Iraqi leader tells Bush: Get Gen Petraeus out — Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush. — Although the call was rejected …

Discussion: SWJ Blog, Connecting.the.Dots, QandO, The Newshoggers, The Garlic, The Atlantic Online, Don Surber, DownWithTyranny!, Cliff Schecter, Outside The Beltway, TalkLeft, Liberty Street and Marine Corps Times HOME

Jonathan D. Glater / New York Times:

Certain Degrees Now Cost More at Public Universities — Should an undergraduate studying business pay more than one studying psychology? Should a journalism degree cost more than one in literature? More and more public universities, confronting rising costs and lagging state support …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Watching Those We Chose

Mark Leibovich / New York Times:

In the '60s, a Future Candidate Poured Her Heart Out in Letters — They were high school friends from Park Ridge, Ill., both high achievers headed East to college. John Peavoy was a bookish film buff bound for Princeton, Hillary Rodham a driven, civic-minded Republican going off to Wellesley.

Discussion: Redstate, Shakespeare's Sister and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

Greg Mitchell / Editor and Publisher:

Press Reports: Another Apparent Iraq Vet Suicide — NEW YORK One of the least covered aspects of the fallout from the Iraq war is the rising toll of suicides, both near the battlefield and back home. — Latest official figures released by the Pentagon reveal at least 116 self-inflicted fatalities in Iraq.

Discussion: Shakespeare's Sister, Think Progress and ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Peter Beaumont / Observer:

Amputations bring new crisis to Iraq — Iraq is facing a hidden healthcare and social crisis over the soaring number of amputations, largely of lower limbs, necessitated by the daily explosions and violence gripping the country. — In the north of Iraq, the Red Crescent Society …

Discussion: Cliff Schecter

Steve B. / Educated Soldier:

Paradise: Baghdad... I am not sure if I should be excited about this but; recently, I have found myself waking each morning most anticipating two daily events: time spent in the gym or running and the authoring of this Blog. — In anticipation of writing tonight's post, I had developed two separate topic pieces.

Discussion: The Belmont Club