The Commentariat -- March 24

** Nicholas Kristof: "This is ... one of the few times in history when outside forces have intervened militarily to save the lives of citizens from their government.... In 2005, the United Nations approved a new doctrine called the 'responsibility to protect,' nicknamed R2P, declaring that world powers have the right and obligation to intervene when a dictator devours his people. The Libyan intervention is putting teeth into that fledgling concept, and here’s one definition of progress: The world took three-and-a-half years to respond forcefully to the slaughter in Bosnia, and about three-and-a-half weeks to respond in Libya." ...

... Glenn Thrush & Abby Phillip of Politico highlight four unanswered questions about the Libya mission "whose answers will likely determine whether Libya is a foreign policy success or failure for Obama." ...

... Fareed Zakaria has the Time cover story on the Libyan campaign: "Call it the Goldilocks military plan: Not too much, not too little, not too unilateral, not too American. The operation against Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya mirrors the moderate temperament of its architect, Barack Obama."

Sen. Barack Obama in 2007 on genocide in Darfur and elsewhere:

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post has a terrific mini-history of the "Darfur issue," which has not gone away.

Christina Romer, out from under the thumbs of Larry & Timmy, says what she really thinks:

I frankly don’t understand why policy makers aren’t more worried about the suffering of real families. I think there are tools we have tools we have that we can use, and I think it’s shameful that we’re not using them. If I have a complaint about policy these days, it’s that we’re not doing enough. And that goes all the way up to the Federal Reserve, [which] could be taking more aggressive action. It goes to the Congress and the Administration – there are fiscal policy actions they could be taking.... We need to realize that there is still a lot of devastation out there. The 8.9% unemployment rate is an absolute crisis. -- Christina Romer, former Chair, Council of Economic Advisors

Libertarian Dave Weigel of Slate rewrites CNN's headline on the Affordable Health Act. Weigel's version: "Most favor healthcare law or wish it was more liberal." Weigel notes that "... 50 percent of voters are either fine with the law or want a more liberal bill, to 46 percent who want it gone because it's too socialistic." ...

I don’t represent the hide-under-the-desk wing of the Democratic Party. I believe we’ve got to lean into this fight. -- Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)

... Dana Milbank: Anthony Weiner takes on Republicans for "overtly lying" about the Affordable Care Act. While he's at it, Weiner bludgeons Democrats for not standing up for the reform bill. And the Supreme Court (“a corporate-dominated wing of the Republican Party”). And the CBO ("propeller-heads").

PolitiFact looks at the rogues' gallery of liars about the Affordable Care Act & reprises the ten top lies. They come from both sides of the aisle, but by far the most come from ACA critics.

Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: a group of House Republicans is sponsoring a bill that will "cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer."

Prof. Robert Darnton of Harvard University Library in a New York Times op-ed: "We should build a digital public library, which would provide these digital copies free of charge to readers. Yes, many problems — legal, financial, technological, political — stand in the way. All can be solved."

Speaking of CREW, as I do in Right Wing World below, the AP reports that "Members of [Wisconsin] Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald’s staff bounced ideas off one another and the Legislature’s attorneys for days about how to penalize the Senate Democrats for leaving and pressure them to return, according to records released Wednesday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington [CREW].... Everything from taking away computers to denying a year of service in the state retirement system was considered to punish the 14 Wisconsin Democrats who fled to Illinois for three weeks to block passage of a bill taking away union bargaining rights, [the] newly released emails show."

Liz Goodwin of Yahoo News: "Ninety-five-year-old Leeland Davidson discovered recently that he's not considered a U.S. citizen, despite living nearly 100 years in the country and serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII.... Davidson was born in British Columbia in 1916, but his parents didn't register the birth with the U.S. government to ensure they knew he was a citizen." CW: surely we can find a Republican coalition of the willing to kick this brazen illegal alien out of the country.

Right Wing World *

One fabulous takedown of presidential non-candidate Tim Pawlenty:

... OR, you can read the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party's assessment of Pawlenty's performance as governor. Not as fun as Colbert, but even more devastating: "Tim Pawlenty left our state facing the largest deficit in Minnesota's 152-year history, drove up property taxes and fees on middle-class families and small businesses alike, all while making draconian cuts to education that forced some schools into 4-day weeks."

David Corn of Mother Jones: Karl Rove's "dark-money group, Crossroads GPS, gets into the transparency game. Seriously?" Corn cites one of the group's touted "scoops": Elizabeth Warren dines with Corn. Only the dinner never happened, the Crossroads GPS site didn't show the "proof," the site spokesman couldn't find the "incriminating" document that was the basis for the "scoop," & when he did find it some while later, the "proof" of Warren's "dinner date" with Corn was a note on Warren's schedule that read, "Interview with David Corn." Shocking! ...

... Too be fair, libertarian Dave Weigel loves the Crossroads GPS concept even though he thinks it might be a mistake to introduce the project with a story that isn't remotely true. What Weigel does point out is that two of GPS Crossroads' critics -- CREW, which won't reveal its donors -- and Anonymous P. Democrat are stunning hypocrites themselves. CW: in the interest of full disclosure, my anonymous funding comes from my husband.

The Affordable Healthcare Law had its first anniversary yesterday. Teabagger & multimillionaire Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson writes what Steve Benen aptly calls "an ugly screed" in the Wall Street Journal in which Johnson claims that his adult daughter probably would have died if "Obamacare" had been in effect when the daughter's heart defect was discovered. Do read all of Benen's posts here and here to get a flavor of how low the right will go. They just lie, lie and lie again with the purpose of not just misinforming but also frightening vulnerable people. Speaking of Johnson's op-ed drivel, Benen writes, for instance,

I hesitate to even call this garbage an 'argument,' since it isn't even that. The dim-witted rookie senator isn't actually criticizing the law so much as he's imagining a fabricated nightmare based on nothing but his own ignorance.

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress explains why "The ACA wouldn’t have killed Johnson’s daughter, but thousands of other uninsured babies would have died without it." ...

... Jon Chait of The New Republic: "... asking someone like [Johnson] to actually take into consideration the actual needs of the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, as against the completely imaginary threat to his only family, is asking far too much of Johnson's intellect or moral reasoning." ...

... Brian Beutler of TPM calls Johnson's fearmongering bullshit "a new, retroactive twist on the 'death panels' hoax, which has been broadly debunked, but never seems to go away." ...

... Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, who signed "Romneycare" -- a state-level version of the ACA -- into law in Massachusetts, is trying to think of new ways to distance himself from his own record. To that end, he wrote an op-ed in the right-wing National Review -- a favored teabagger rag -- explaining how he'd let states opt out of Obamacare the first day he was in office. As Steve Benen points out, that's already in the law, you jerk. ...

... AND Does Obamacare Cover Forked Tongue Syndrome? Greg Sargent -- who remembers Mitt's history better than Mitt does -- reminds us that "The problem for Romney, however, is that he has explicitly suggested that Romneycare should serve as a model for efforts to reform our health system on the federal level...." In a 2009 CNN interview, Romney said,

I think there are a number of features in the Massachusetts plan that could inform Washington on ways to improve health care for all Americans. The fact that we were able to get people insured without a government option is a model I think they can learn from.

What about Forked Tongue Syndrome Complicated by ADD & Short-term Amnesia? George Zornick of Think Progress: Newt "Gingrich criticized Obama for not intervening in Libya, but now criticizes him for intervening in Libya." 

Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.... This is a moment to get rid of [Gaddafi]. Do it. Get it over with. -- Newt Gingrich, March 7, 2011

It is impossible to make sense of the standard for intervention in Libya except opportunism and news media publicity.... I would not have intervened. -- Newt Gingrich, March 22-23, 2011 

     ... Dave Weigel has the video of two interviews, taken 16 days apart, in which Gingrich expresses completely opposing views. Weigel calls Zornick's post a "direct hit," and says of Gingrich: "Anyone want to try and reconcile these two interviews? It's not just the flip-flop on intervention -- the flip-flip on whether humanitarian needs make the intervention justified or not is breathtaking." ...

     ... Ha ha. Newt tries to explain why contradictory statements are really consistent. He fails utterly. That schmuck doesn't care WTF he says, as long as it's against President Obama. People are going to vote for this clown for president. They really are.

... AND A Mural of Laborers in -- of All Places -- the Labor Department Has to Go. Maine's loony new governor, Paul LePage has ordered the removal of a mural in the state’s Department of Labor building. Why? The mural, which depicts "scenes of Maine workers, including colonial-era shoemaking apprentices, lumberjacks, a 'Rosie the Riveter' ... and a 1986 paper mill strike...," and LePage says the scenes are too pro-union. Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times reports. ...

     ... Bill Trotter of the Bangor Daily News: Meanwhile, LePage is planning to knee-cap the state's public workers. ...

     ... Digby becomes an art critic.

* The parallel world which Republicans and teabaggers reinvent daily. It bears little relation to the factual world.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is likely to form a presidential exploratory committee, two advisers said Thursday. The committee could be formed as soon as May but no later than June."

Washington Post: "NATO moved toward assuming command of Western military intervention in Libya on Thursday after days of wrangling, and French warplanes destroyed a Libyan plane and bombed an air base on the sixth day of allied attacks on forces loyal to Moammar Gaddafi." ...

     ... Al Jazeera Update: "NATO countries have agreed to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya 'to protect civilians' against Muammar Gaddafi's forces, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters. He said the military alliance's mandate did not go beyond the no-fly zone but NATO could also act in self-defence." ...

... Al Jazeera: "Western warplanes have hit Libya for a fifth night, but have so far failed to stop Muammar Gaddafi's tanks from shelling opposition-held towns. A loud explosion was heard in Tripoli, the capital, early on Thursday, and smoke could be seen rising from an area where a military base is situated."

New York Times: "Japanese authorities are considering a plan to import bottled water from overseas, a government official said Thursday morning, a day after spreading contamination from a crippled nuclear plant led to a panicked rush to buy water in Tokyo."

AP: "A U.S. soldier who pleaded guilty Wednesday to the murders of three Afghan civilians was sentenced to 24 years in prison after saying 'the plan was to kill people' in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers. Military judge Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks said he initially intended to sentence Spc. Jeremy Morlock, of Wasilla, Alaska, to life in prison with possibility of parole but was bound by the plea deal."

Washington Post: "The control tower at Reagan National Airport went silent early Wednesday, forcing the pilots of two airliners carrying a total of 165 passengers and crew members to land on their own. The tower, which normally is staffed by one air-traffic controller from midnight to 6 a.m., did not respond to pilot requests for landing assistance or to phone calls from controllers elsewhere in the region, who also used a 'shout line,' which pipes into a loudspeaker in the tower, internal records show.... Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said late Wednesday he is instructing the agency to increase controller staffing at the airport during the late shift." You can listen to an audio transmission here. ...

     ... Update: "The air traffic control supervisor who apparently fell asleep on duty on the job at Reagan National Airport early Wednesday has been drug-tested by federal officials, a step usually reserved for controllers involved in plane crashes."

AP: "Buyers of new homes plunged in February to the fewest on records dating back nearly half a century, a dismal sign for an already-weak housing market.New-home sales fell 16.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000 homes, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It’s the third straight monthly decline and far below the 700,000-a-year pace that economists view as healthy."

Washington Post: "A sizable majority of all Americans — and nearly half of Republicans — say the best way to slice the federal budget deficit is by cutting spending and increasing taxes, according to last week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll."

Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday is expected to detail how it plans to cut about 7,500 administrative positions — the first time it’s issued pink slips in at least a decade. The job cuts are expected to impact about 2,000 postmasters — the folks who manage individual post offices — and another 5,500 supervisors and administrative staffers. Cutting postmasters is especially noteworthy, because it will likely prompt USPS to close the post offices they operate."

Sometimes My Librul Knee Don't Jerk

Tom Friedman rests today's column on a central ethnic truth of the Middle East: that there are "two kinds of states...:

'real countries' with long histories in their territory and strong national identities (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iran); and those that might be called 'tribes with flags,' or more artificial states with boundaries drawn ... by ... colonial powers that have trapped inside their borders myriad tribes and sects who not only never volunteered to live together but have never fully melded into a unified family of citizens. They are Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The tribes and sects that make up these more artificial states have long been held together by the iron fist of colonial powers, kings or military dictators.

Friedman then cites an article, which I linked yesterday, by David Kirkpatrick, that examines whether or not the Libyan revolt is a bid for democracy or old-fashioned tribal warfare. Friedman sides with the tribal warfare hypothesis, so he omits the balance Kirkpatrick brought to his writing. The Times moderators axed my comment, so here it is. With an addition.

In your attempt to make your point, you conveniently left out half of those Kirkpatrick posed. Right at the top of his article, Kirkpatrick writes,

[The rebels'] governing council is composed of secular-minded professionals — lawyers, academics, businesspeople — who talk about democracy, transparency, human rights and the rule of law. But their commitment to those principles is just now being tested....

Kirkpatrick goes on to address the modernization of Libya that may mitigate tribalism:

But the legacy of such tribal rivalries in Libya may in fact be fading, thanks in part to the enormous changes that Colonel Qaddafi — a modernizer, in his idiosyncratic way — helped bring about. Coming to power just before the oil boom, he tapped Libya’s new wealth to provide schools, hospitals and other benefits for Libya’s desperately poor, semi-nomadic population.

He adds,

Libya became overwhelmingly urban, with about 85 percent of its populations clustered around its two main urban centers — Tripoli and Benghazi. Though many of the people who flocked to the growing cities continued to identify closely by tribe, they now live mixed together.

Moreover, there is in Libya, "a rising cohort of affluent, English-speaking young Libyans educated abroad...."

Kirkpatrick includes a good deal of evidence that supports Friedman's argument, too: that the rebels are overwhelmingly from groups always hostile to Gaddafi, that their "peaceful" demonstrations were effectively the result of not having access to arms & that they are no better truth-tellers than is Gaddafi.

I don't pretend to know how all this will shake out. I'm a realist, so I think it's quite possible the worst-case scenarios Friedman -- and to a greater extent, anti-interventionist liberals -- envision. Where Friedman sees intransigent tribalism, many liberals see a protracted, U.S.-led war against Gaddafi. They might be right.

Friedman skews his argument by omitting the inconvenient, but others on the left do worse. Today Glenn Greenwald writes a shrill column equating the attack on Libya with Dubya's Iraq War. Gaddafi, Greenwald argues, is just like Saddam Hussein -- a brutal dictator who murders his own people. This is a facile argument that glosses over history as neatly as Friedman skips Kirkpatrick's mitigating observations. Yes, Saddam brutalized his people, but he wasn't particularly doing so at the moment Bush decided to remove him. Gaddafi, on the other hand, was strafing unarmed demonstrators. And he promised to go door-to-door, yanking rebels & their sympathizers from their homes & killing them. An assertion that the situation in Libya is "just like" the situation in Iraq 2003 is, well, a lie.

Another common leftist argument is that if we were consistent, we would be ousting our dictator buddies in other Middle Eastern countries, too. Really? As I see it, the U.S. and the other countries of the coalition are taking advantage of a unique situation -- everybody hates Gaddafi. While I agree with those who say we can't be "the policemen of the world," we most certainly can, in my opinion, participate in a police action against a murdering terrorist dictator when we have world opinion with us.

A final liberal point -- which I've seen both Michael Moore & David Sirota tweet -- is that each Tomahawk missile fired on Libya would build 20 schools in the U.S. While Moore and Sirota's arithmetic may be correct, their algebra is not. Do you think House Republicans would vote out Tomahawks & vote in an equivalent investment in education? Never. Going. To. Happen. Yes, not lobbing missiles at Libya would save some money, but the money saved would not build a single school.

The attack on Libya is a gamble. It may be a long-shot gamble. But it is not the unwarranted, irresponsible gamble of the left's characterization. I'd really like to see the shrieking left at least incorporate a little nuance into their arguments. Some are. Many are not.

The Commentariat -- March 23

Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love.
-- William Butler Yeats, from "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," cited by a Libyan Foreign Ministry official to the four captured New York Times journalists

New York Times journalists Anthony Shadid, Lynsey Addario, Stephen Farrell & Tyler Hicks describe their brutal days in Libyan captivity "under the protection of the state." ...

... Ben Smith: how Reagan (brilliantly) handled Congress (& why Sen. Dick Lugar supported Reagan's plan to assassinate Gaddafi but is not supporting Obama's more limited goals) From an e-mail to Politico by Mark Helmke, an advisor to Lugar:

Reagan was much different than Obama. Reagan invited the bipartisan leadership to the White House – Lugar as SFRC Chair – and told them planes were on their way to Libya for the sole mission of taking out Gadhafi, because of the intelligence that he had personally ordered the murder on a US soldier at a Berlin bar. Reagan said if anyone objected, he would order the planes turned around. No one, including Byrd, objected. ...

... Massimo Calabresi of Time: President "Obama is interpreting U.N. resolution 1973, which authorized the intervention, to stop short of green-lighting Gaddafi's removal. He believes it only allows military action to protect civilians. Therefore, he explained yesterday, 'when it comes to our military action, we are doing so in support of U.N. Security Resolution 1973. That specifically talks about humanitarian efforts. And we are going to make sure that we stick to that mandate.' ... The administration will have to defend the ideas guiding this war: that the power to prevent atrocities is important and that ... there are limits on how our troops use force abroad. Indeed the only way the administration can defend the specific limits it is choosing to adhere to in Libya is by defending the ideas behind them." ...

... Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times: "An American pilot and a weapons officer were safely rescued in Libya on Tuesday after their warplane crashed near Benghazi, but the United States Marine Corps dropped two 500-pound bombs during the recovery and faced questions about whether Marines had fired on villagers." ...

... Secretary Clinton speaks to ABC News' Diane Sawyer about the U.N. resolution:

... Huma Kahn of ABC News: "People close to Libya's embattled leader Moammar Gadhafi are reaching out to allies around the world exploring their 'options,' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News' Diane Sawyer today, and the U.S. government has gotten unconfirmed reports that at least one of Gadhafi's sons has been killed." ...

... Gene Robinson: "Anyone looking for principle and logic in the attack on Moammar Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime will be disappointed. President Obama and his advisers should acknowledge the obvious truth: They are reacting to the revolutionary fervor in the Arab world with the arbitrary 'realism' that is a superpower’s prerogative."

... Glenn Greenwald rants against the various hypocrises perpetrated by advocates for the action against Gaddafi. ...

... Dana Milbank: whether deserved or not, President Obama falls victim to "the tyranny of the news cycle," not to mention the comedy routines of Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty & that Alaska woman, who have traded in their "Obama is a tyrant" for "Obama is a weakling." ...

... John Dickerson of Slate: "The GOP's cartoon image of President Obama is that he's slow, indecisive, and deferential to foreigners, so there is much snickering in the Republican ranks over the president's Libya policy. He allowed the French—the French!—to lead the international campaign against Qaddafi.... As a specific foreign policy critique, though, the political upside of these Republican attacks is small.... There's no Republican challenger whose foreign policy credentials are so sterling that this moment provides a rationale for their candidacy." ...

... Hear, Hear! Garance Franke-Ruta of The Atlantic "on the idiocy of framing the Libya intervention as a battle of the sexes." For some of the idiocy, see Maureen Dowd. CW: my comment on Dowd is here (#2).

... David Roberts in Grist: Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) wades into the fog of "hesitant, incoherent, poll-driven mishmash. In other words, vintage Democratic messaging" to tell an inconvenient truth: "We become less vulnerable by using less oil." You can read Bingaman's full speech here.

Norihiko Shirouzu & Peter Landers of the Wall Street Journal: "Japanese regulators discussed in recent months the use of new cooling technologies at nuclear plants that could have lessened or prevented the disaster that struck this month when a tsunami wiped out the electricity at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power facility. However, they chose to ignore the vulnerability at existing reactors and instead focused on fixing the issue in future ones, government and corporate documents show."

CW: I missed this New York Times op-ed by history Prof. William Cronon of the University of Wisconsin -- Madison, but Cronon does a nice job of showing how out-of-step with the history of his progressive state and of his own party Gov. Scott Walker really is. Cronon see in Walker shades of the odious Joe McCarthy: "their aggressiveness, their self-certainty, their seeming indifference to contrary views -- that may help explain the extreme partisan reactions they triggered."

Laugh du Jour. Reader Diane F. sent me word of the publication by The University of Chicago Magazine of contest results for David Brooks parodies. Brooks himself picked the winners & introduces them with quite a funny commentary of his own. The winner really captures Brooks. I'm not sure if the runners-up do. But then Brooks is not too good at seeing himself as others see him, & he probably missed the parodies that did him real justice. If only Driftglass had entered (but how likely is it that David Fucking Brooks would choose an obscenity-laced version of Himself?).

Right Wing World

The Amnesiac. Justin Elliott of Salon: in an interview with CBS News, Sen. John McCain forgets his own ovations to Moammar Gaddafi (made just two years ago) & boasts about arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, among them Osama bin Laden, in the 1980s. Of course McCain didn't mention bin Laden by name. (Maybe he forgot.) Includes video. ...

... Jason Linkins weighs in with a post titled "John McCain was in favor of supplying military aid to Gaddafi before he was for supplying military aid to the forces looking to topple Gaddafi."

CNN Correspondent Nic Robertson goes off on Fox "News":

     ... Steve Benen comments, "Here's hoping Steve Harrigan [the Fox 'News reporter'] was able to watch the exchange from his comfortable hotel room."

... Benen gets a kick out of Tim Pawlenty's "overwrought, overdramatic" exploratory kickoff video:

     ... BUT Benen kind of wishes we had been treated to Pawlenty's fake Southern accent. From a New York Times story:

... at the Statehouse, the talk among several Republicans was that it seemed he had suddenly developed a Southern accent as he tried connecting to voters by speaking louder and with more energy.

The political blog of Radio Iowa heard it too and noted, 'Pawlenty seems to be adopting a Southern accent as he talks about his record as governor.' As he spoke of the country’s challenges, he dropped the letter G, saying: 'It ain’t gonna be easy. This is about plowin’ ahead and gettin’ the job done.'

... Right Wing World is of Course White Wing World. Chris Good of The Atlantic says of the Pawlenty production: "Alongside the many caucasian handshakes, minorities appear a total of three or four times. (Pawlenty greets one man who looks possibly Latino.) A camera pans by a smiling Asian girl (0:45) and an African-American family standing on a front porch (1:05). As a Democratic source points out, both clips come from [stock] Getty Images."

Mitt Romney simultaneously supports the attack on Libyan but not President Obama's handling of it. Greg Sargent calls Romney's pretzel "the comically phony Tea Party pander of the day." Romney's take "is so canned and riddled with buzzwords designed to pander to the right wing base that it feels like he subjected his language to a dozen Tea Party focus groups before daring to open his mouth.... He somehow manages to slip in references to Obama’s alleged non-belief in American exceptionalism and his alleged apologizing for America (neither of which exist in the real world) before wrapping up with an absurdly heavy-handed suggestion that Arabs are dictating American foreign policy."

Family Values: Rand Paul Vows Not to Run for President against His Father. BUT. Stephanie Condon & Brian Montopoli of CBS News: "Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, fresh off his Tea Party-backed 2010 Senate victory, is traveling to various key primary states to test the waters for a potential presidential bid. The only sure thing that would keep him out of the race would be his father's [Rep. Ron Paul's] candidacy." CW: "The I-Can't-Handle-Rachel-Maddow-but-I'm-Smart-Enough-to-Be-President candidacy."

News Ledes

AFP: "Three journalists who were arrested in Libya last weekend by forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi arrived in Tunisia on Wednesday after being released overnight. Dave Clark and Roberto Schmidt, who work for Agence France-Presse, and Joe Raedle from Getty Images crossed the border at Ras Ajdir shortly after noon and were driving to Tunis, the capital, about 370 miles to the north. They were released early on Wednesday morning after an appeal by Agence France-Presse." ...

... New York Times: in a letter to President Obama, "the House speaker, John A. Boehner, on Wednesday pressed President Obama to clarify what the administration hoped to achieve through military intervention in Libya, as top Senate Democrats defended the president’s handling of the crisis." ...

... New York Times: "President Obama worked to bridge differences among allies about how to manage the military campaign in Libya, as airstrikes continued to rock Tripoli early on Wednesday. Forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, however, showed no sign of ending their sieges of rebel-held cities as the international effort to contain them entered its fifth day." ...

... Washington Post: "Four days of allied strikes have battered Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s air force and largely destroyed his long-range air defense systems, a top U.S. commander said Tuesday. But there was little evidence that the attacks had stopped regime forces from killing civilians or shifted the balance of power in favor of the rebels."

Reuters: "Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said on Wednesday he has submitted his resignation to the president after parliament earlier rejected his minority Socialist government's latest austerity measures in a vote."

New York Times: "An Army soldier facing a court-martial here on Wednesday admitted to killing three Afghan civilians as part of a conspiracy to kill for sport. 'The plan was to kill people, sir,' the soldier, Specialist Jeremy N. Morlock, told a military judge at this base south of Seattle."

Haaretz: "A bomb exploded Wednesday at a crowded bus stop outside the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, just opposite the central bus station. A 59-year-old woman was killed and at least 30 people were wounded in the incident, three of them seriously."

Washington Post: "Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Tuesday threatened government opponents with civil war and appealed to them to begin a national dialogue in conflicting statements that did not stop calls for his immediate resignation." ...

Washington Post: "The State Department announced Tuesday that it will give $20 million to Tunisia to help build its new democracy, boosting to more than $170 million the total in assistance for Arab countries that recently overthrew authoritarian leaders."

AP: "New violence in a restive southern Syrian city [of Daraa] killed as many as six people Wednesday, making it the deadliest single day since anti-government protests inspired by uprisings across the Arab world reached this country last week, an activist said."

Reuters: "Japan estimated the cost of the damage from its devastating earthquake and tsunami could top $300 billion.... As concern grew over the risk to food safety of radiation from the damaged Fukushima power plant, 250 km (150 miles) north of the Japanese capital, the United States became the first nation to block some food imports from the disaster zone." ...

... AP: "A spike in radiation levels in Tokyo tap water spurred new fears about food safety Wednesday as rising black smoke forced another evacuation of workers trying to stabilize Japan's radiation-leaking nuclear plant."

New York Times: Google's "plan to digitize every book ever published and make them widely available was derailed on Tuesday when a federal judge in New York rejected a sweeping $125 million legal settlement the company had worked out with groups representing authors and publishers.... Citing copyright, antitrust and other concerns, Judge Denny Chin said that the settlement went too far. He said it would have granted Google a “de facto monopoly” and the right to profit from books without the permission of copyright owners."