ThinkFast: May 19, 2008
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 20th, 2008 4:30 am by HL
ThinkFast: May 19, 2008
The on-air feud between MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly “has triggered back-channel discussions” involving Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker, and GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Ailes warned that if Olbermann didn’t halt attacks against Fox, “he would unleash O’Reilly against NBC.” The appeals failed, and O’Reilly has escalated his […]
The on-air feud between MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly “has triggered back-channel discussions” involving Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker, and GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Ailes warned that if Olbermann didn’t halt attacks against Fox, “he would unleash O’Reilly against NBC.” The appeals failed, and O’Reilly has escalated his criticism of GE in recent weeks.
A top U.S. commander in Baghdad apologized to “local leaders and tribal sheiks” this weekend after it was discovered that “a soldier had used a Koran” as a target at a shooting range. Though the soldier has been “disciplined and sent out of Iraq,” a major Sunni political party called for “tough government action” against the soldier.
President Bush arrived back in Washington yesterday “with little to show” for his trip to the Middle East. “Saudi Arabia rebuffed his plea for help with soaring oil prices, Egypt’s leader questioned his seriousness about peacemaking and there was not enough progress in the peace talks to warrant a three-way meeting of Bush with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.”
Before breaking for Memorial Day, senators will be taking up a series of Iraq-related measures, including a “complex series of votes on the war money, a new G.I. education benefit, aid for the unemployed, immigration and even health care.”
Yesterday, Tom Loeffler resigned from Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign, after Newsweek reported he had been lobbying for foreign interests, including Saudi Arabia. At the outset of the campaign, Loeffler was prepared to give up his clients at the behest of campaign strategist John Weaver. “But McCain, trusting Loeffler to know where the boundary lines lay, overruled Mr. Weaver; Loeffler got to keep his clients.” (more…)
