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Looks like we have a winner for the prize of "first completely GOP-ginned-up Obama 'scandal' of the year," folks. Last night NBC News led their evening broadcast with the story, which they judged to be more important than "U.S. military gets hacked by terrorists." In other words, we're back to chasing shiny, shiny objects rather than reporting actual news. Happy new year, from Brian Williams!
The New York Times disclosed over the weekend that federal prosecutors have recommended that the Justice Department should bring charges against former general and C.I.A. director David Petraeus. Unless President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder (or his successor) want to be seen as flaming hypocrites, Petraeus must now be prosecuted.
Je suis Charlie. In fact, let's go even further: Nous sommes Charlie Hebdo. Because we are all Charlie, this week.
As dawn metaphorically breaks over the new 114th Congress, the inside-the-Beltway punditocracy is going through one of their periodic bouts of self-delusion over how wonderfully everyone is going to get along for the next two years. Sanity and comity will reign supreme on Capitol Hill, they blithely predict, and all kinds of stuff will get accomplished. The only real question is which side of the aisle will be signing melody and which will be harmonizing, as everyone joins in a rousing chorus of "Kumbaya." You'll have to forgive me for not being so easily convinced, mostly because I can accurately remember back past roughly two weeks ago, which seems to be the attention span for some of these pontificators.
Today's article is nothing more than a giant collection of links to some stories you may have missed during 2014. Another way to put this is: I am clearing out my list of "things I should write about, when I have the time" -- articles which got me thinking, but which I never followed up on by actually writing about them. I'm cleaning up my bookmarks, and so I thought I'd dump all these out there for others to read, perhaps waiting for a flight home or perhaps hiding in your old bedroom because you are sick of dealing with your extended family's drama right now. Ahem.
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
As we do every year, we are pre-empting our "Friday Talking Points" columns for the next two weeks, to bring you our best and worst of 2014. And, yes, we are going to continue our supercilious and no-doubt-annoying habit of using the editorial "we" throughout these two columns, so thanks for asking! Heh.
There were two big things going on in the political world this week: the release of the Senate torture report, and the cromnibus bill which kept the government open. For the most part, we're going to cover the torture report at the end, in a very unusual talking points section.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of Senator Dianne Feinstein, we now have an official record of what, exactly, was done in all our names in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. As President Obama has already admitted, this can be summed up as: "We tortured some folks." We can't pretend it wasn't torture anymore, because the facts weren't swept under a historical rug this time.
It is indeed the season. Yes, it's that magical time of year when the wee folk of Capitol Hill actually get something done. These brief bursts of activity only happen very rarely, of course, and always immediately proceed another one of the many, many long vacations Congress takes during the year.