memeorandum: Tom Tancredo boycotts Univision/Spanish Debate: Attacks their entire viewership (John Amato/Crooks and Liars)

1:35 AM ET, December 9, 2007

Top Items:

Scott Horton / Harper's:

The Scapegoat — Leviticus chapter 16 describes a practice among the ancient Jews in which, in connection with the observation of the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, a goat is driven off. In the English words of the King James Bible, verse 22 reads: … The Hebrew word is azazel () …

Discussion: Power Line, JURIST, All Spin Zone, Cliff Schecter and Think Progress

New York Times:

Inquiry Begins Into Tapes' Destruction — The Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency's internal watchdog on Saturday began a joint preliminary inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of hundreds of hours of videotapes showing interrogations of top operatives of Al Qaeda.

Discussion: TalkLeft, CNN Political Ticker, Discourse.net, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post

CNN:
Justice, CIA to probe destruction of taped interrogations

Discussion: The Moderate Voice

Ken Silverstein / Harper's:
Where is Jose Rodriguez? …

Discussion: NO QUARTER, Booman Tribune, Think Progress, Washington Post and A Tiny Revolution

Digby / Hullabaloo:
Presidential Perks

Discussion: Middle Earth Journal, Daily Kos, Liberal Values, THE LIBERAL JOURNAL and The Newshoggers

CNN:
Bush: 'No recollection' of tapes

Discussion: All Spin Zone, Think Progress, Liberty Street, NewsBusters.org, Emptywheel and New York Times

Mike Allen / The Politico:

Huckabee called homosexuality 'sinful' — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, surging in Iowa polls in the Republican presidential race, wrote on a questionnaire while running for U.S. Senate in 1992 that homosexuality is "aberrant" and "sinful." — "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant …

Discussion: Macsmind, Cheat Seeking Missiles, PoliBlog (TM), The RBC, QandO, Chuck Adkins and Riehl World View

The Corner:

Re: Huck AIDS Statement — The Huckabee statement Byron posts below is exceedingly disingenuous. By 1992 it was well understood that AIDS could not be transmitted by casual contact. Citing concerns about breast milk or exposure from health care workers in a medical context are not particularly relevant.

Discussion: TownHall Blog

Andrew DeMillo / Associated Press:
Huckabee wanted to isolate AIDS patients

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Huckabee '92: Isolate AIDS patients; Update: Huck issues statement

Discussion: Riehl World View and TPM Election Central

Mark Steyn / The Corner:

Racist is as racist quotes — Jim Henley has his say on my present legal woes: … Etc. The words that so offend him are, indeed "frank bigotry". However, if you read my racist diatribe, you'll see the bigotry is not mine but Mullah Krekar's: … Hello, Mr Henley? Anybody home in there?

Discussion: Hot Air, Cold Fury and Unqualified Offerings

Jim Henley / Unqualified Offerings:
Sympathy for the Devil — The excerpt from Mark Steyn's America Alone …

Discussion: DBKP, PoliGazette, JammieWearingFool and The Corner

Pajamas Media:
Libel Tourism, coming soon to a town near you

Discussion: small dead animals, The Corner, Samizdata.net and Weekly Standard

Jim Kuhnhenn / Associated Press:

NBC Decides to Run Conservative-Group Ad — WASHINGTON — NBC reversed course Saturday and decided to air a conservative group's television ad thanking U.S. troops. — The ad, by the group Freedom's Watch, asks viewers to remember the troops during the holiday season.

Discussion: Power Line, Redstate, michellemalkin.com, Associated Press, Hot Air, News Hounds, The American Mind and Think Progress

Redstate:

NBC Lawyer who nixed troop ad gives generously to Congressional Democrats — According to a Fox News report, Richard Cotton, the general counsel for NBC/Universal, was one of two network officials who decided not to sell ad time to Freedom's Watch, which describes itself as …

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, FreedomsWatch, RADAMISTO and Right Voices

John Amato / Crooks and Liars:

Tom Tancredo boycotts Univision/Spanish Debate: Attacks their entire viewership — Tancredo has a little problem speaking English himself, but that's beside the point. The racist platform upon which his campaign is built is very saddening to witness. Watch his reasoning for boycotting the Univision debate.

Discussion: The Unapologetic Mexican and Latinopundit

The Atlantic Online:
A Race Nobody Can Win

Discussion: Eunomia, The Carpetbagger Report, Pollster.com, Crooks and Liars and The New Republic

USA Today: Tancredo says other candidates are 'pandering' by going to Spanish-language debate

John McCormick / The Swamp:

Oprah says she knows she's not selling books — DES MOINES - Oprah Winfrey said this afternoon that she realizes even she can't just recommend a man for president the way she has with books to make them instant best-sellers. — "I am not here to tell you what to think. I am here to ask you to think," she said.

Discussion: CNN Political Ticker, Ben Smith's Blogs and Obama HQ

The Politico:

The 'O' Show sweeps Iowa — CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Iowans turned out by the thousands Saturday to watch the "O" Show: Oprah Winfrey stepping into presidential politics for the first time, hailing Sen. Barack Obama as a "rare thing." — Winfrey bounded on the stage like she does her 22-year-old talk show …

Discussion: CNN Political Ticker

William Glaberson / New York Times:

Detainee Says He Was Tortured in C.I.A. Prison — The first of the so-called high value Guantánamo detainees to have seen a lawyer claims he was subjected to "state-sanctioned torture" while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment.

Discussion: DownWithTyranny! and The Sundries Shack

Michael Goldfarb / Weekly Standard:

Another Surge Convert — In today's Washington Post, Pete Hegseth, executive director of Vets for Freedom, has coauthored an op-ed with...wait for it...Major General John Batiste. — Batiste, you will remember, is the formerly "antiwar" general who spoke out against Donald Rumsfeld …

Discussion: Wake up America, Blue Crab Boulevard, Captain's Quarters, Wizbang, The Belmont Club, The Sundries Shack and Dean's World

Washington Post:
Getting Beyond Stalemate to Win a War

Discussion: Hot Air, The Corner and PrairiePundit

Rasmussen Reports:

Election 2008: Michigan Republican Primary — Michigan: Huckabee 21% Romney 20% Giuliani 19% — Mike Huckabee's surging campaign has created a three-way toss-up in Michigan's Republican Primary. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Huckabee earning 21% of the vote.

Discussion: Political Machine and BizzyBlog

Agence France Presse:

Iran drops dollar from oil deals: report — TEHRAN (AFP) — Major crude producer Iran has completely stopped carrying out its oil transactions in dollars, Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on Saturday, labelling the greenback an "unreliable" currency.

Discussion: The Mahatma X Files, Bloomberg, Daily Kos and The Newshoggers

Larisa Alexandrovna / At-Largely:

The CIA tapes continued... What is incredibly fascinating about the destroyed tapes discussion being had is the the number of angles people are approaching it from. I was almost entirely focused on the question of orders, who gave them, and who delegated them. (See here).

Discussion: The Newshoggers, Cliff Schecter, CANNONFIRE, Time, Digg and Shakespeare's Sister