Visual source: Newseum
NY Times:
The decision will draw to a close a divisive war that cost the lives of more than 4,400 troops and helped ignite President Obama’s rise.
Eileen Smith:
President Obama's announcement that he is essentially ending the war in Iraq by withdrawing all American troops by year's end will no doubt drive the conversation on the Sunday talk shows. Unless it gets bumped by Sen. Marco Rubio's shocking admission that his parents are actually from New Jersey, not Cuba.
But don't expect the roundtables to devote much time to the global implications of the troop withdrawal and the death of Muammar Qadhafi as much as what the Republican presidential candidates have to say about it. Not surprisingly, Mitt Romney has already denounced Obama's plan. Troops being freed up from Iraq could be good news for Rick Perry, however, in order to get more boots on the ground to fight the Mexican drug war. It's hard to know where the Texas governor stands on Iraq since he has yet to give a foreign policy speech, choosing to spend more time reviewing opposition research on Romney's landscaping service. But in an interview with TIME Magazine last month, Perry said, "I think we need to try to move our men and women home as soon as we can. Not just in Afghanistan, but in Iraq as well." Perhaps Perry will publicly support Obama's decision, right after he endorses Romney for president.
Charles Blow:
If the Occupy Wall Street protests were a band, I’d say the closest corollary would probably be the legendary ’90s grunge band Nirvana — both meaningful and murky, tapping into a national angst and hopelessness, providing a much-needed catharsis and gaining a broad and devoted following while quickly becoming the voice of a generation.
Needless to say, that doesn’t cover everyone. The protests have a Lollapalooza-like eccentricity and diversity to the crowds. Some come to revel in the moment. Others come to rage against the machine. But they are all drawn together by the excitement of animating a muscle that many thought had atrophied: demonstration and disobedience in the name of equality.
Dana Milbank:
Say what you will about the birthers, but don’t call them partisan.
The people who brought you the Barack Obama birth-certificate hullabaloo now have a new target: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a man often speculated to be the next Republican vice presidential nominee. While they’re at it, they also have Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana and perhaps a future presidential candidate, in their sights.
Kathleen Parker:
Here, for example, is a distillation of Tuesday’s debate:
Rick Santorum: Mitt, you’re a lying hypocrite, and I’m the only one here who cares about family.
Ron Paul: I’d eliminate the federal government and not even go to work.
Herman Cain: Nine apples, nine oranges, nine lives, whatever.
Mitt Romney: Shut up, I won already.
Rick Perry: I hate your guts, Mr. Vitalis, and I’m gonna take you down.
Newt Gingrich: Yadda-yadda-yadda. You’re all stupid.
Michele Bachmann: I will hunt Mexicans with predator drones, and Barack Obama’s cake is cooked.
More or less.
She should have stopped there instead of filling in the rest of the column with Republican apologia.
National Journal:
It takes poker-champion nerves to ride into the country’s foreclosure capital, bask in the bright lights for a day, then skip town without tossing so much as a $5 chip toward the housing crisis that is keeping the economic recovery tied up in the desert. But that’s what seven Republican presidential candidates did in a televised debate from Nevada this week, dodging questions about falling home values and repeating long-discredited whoppers about how economic growth alone—or squashing government-backed mortgage lenders—can heal the housing market.
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