Arkansas: Cnn

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Lisa Leitz, an assistant professor of sociology at Hendrix College, writes in an essay posted on CNN's website today that she hopes President Obama will "consider the burden he is asking military families to bear" as he decides U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Leitz is the wife of a U.S. Naval aviator deployed in Afghanistan and a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO). She writes:

In spite of military members’ best efforts over the last eight years, there has been little tangible progress made in Afghanistan. We are no closer to peace or national security because of our military might. Eight years of war have brought little to no improvement in public services, education, or equality to Afghanistan.

Arkansas writer Gene Lyons has a terrific piece in Salon on the mainstream media's knee-jerk defense of Fox. After the White House said it was a "fiction" that Fox News was a traditional news organization, columnists gasped in horror.

... neither the Times nor most "mainstream" pundits evaluated the claim on its merits. Most pretended not to grasp the White House's point, and then went straight to the aiding and abetting. Many invoked the ghost of Richard Nixon. Why, to criticize Fox, claimed the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus and Charles Krauthammer, was downright "Nixonian."

NPR's Ken Rudin recalled "what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list." So did CNN's Anderson Cooper. Rudin subsequently apologized for the "boneheaded" comparison; Cooper didn't.

Excuse me, but Nixon's enemies list was secret. Journalists and others got subjected to illegal FBI wiretaps, "black bag" break-ins and IRS audits. White House officials even discussed murdering columnist Jack Anderson.

Tim Griffin, the Karl Rove acolyte and Bush administration political hit man, is running for 2nd District Congress in Arkansas. But he's gotta make a living.

It would appear some of the dough has come from Griffin doing the same-old, same-old, this time in South Carolina.  A highly opinionated blog (not that there's anything wrong with that) connects some of the dots on $36,000 paid to Griffin for "policy research and backgrounders" for Gresham Barrett, a candidate for governor.

“This guy embodies everything that was wrong with the Bush Administration,” one South Carolina insider told The Palmetto Scoop. “He is a stain on the Republican Party.