A new study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism has found that, media coverage of violence in Iraq decreased after peaking in May. Journalists still covered the violent attacks in Iraq happening on a regular basis in 2007, but reporters made “many of the accounts of these attacks brief, and limit[ed] the interpretation they contain[ed],” says the study, noting that half of the stories were simply recitations of the facts. In other words, journalists began treating the violence as routine.

There is little question now that Edwards and Obama are competing with one another for the votes of Iowans who want to nominate an agent of change. This week's Des Moines Register survey of likely Democratic caucus goers found that voters were more interested, by a 2-1 margin, in selecting a candidate who would shift the direction of the nation than in choosing one who merely offers the promise of sound leadership.
Clinton's got the clear advantage among those who are most interested in leadership skills. And she could still win with their support.

But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation. There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

Whether we get there willingly or not, we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable.
Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans’ wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures.