Daily AntiKos' Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up

New York Times' Richard Perez-Pena on the Palin "Africa a country" hoax:

"And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.

"An MSNBC spokesman, Jeremy Gaines, explained the network’s misstep by saying someone in the newsroom received the Palin item in an e-mail message from a colleague and assumed it had been checked out. “It had not been vetted,” he aid. “It should not have made air.”

"Last month Eisenstadt blogged that Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, Joe the Plumber, was closely related to Charles Keating, the disgraced former savings and loan chief. It wasn’t true, but other bloggers ran with it."

Real Clear Politic's Victor Hansen on the Left's hypocrisy:

"Public financing of campaigns was a liberal given for over a quarter-century. Democrats argued that conservative big money and national big politics always made a toxic brew. Then the suddenly cash-rich Obama renounced that old liberal gospel, rightly betting that his Democrats could out-raise even fat-cat Republicans."

"Abroad, we were told that it is time to change the policies of George Bush that were unilateral and offensive. For example, pushing missile defense on Eastern Europe was said to be needlessly provocative to Russia. But will that still be true if President Obama decides to support it?"

Greg Sheridan of the Australian on Bush:

"Now, the successes. Barack Obama in some measure owes his success to the inclusiveness of Bush. Bush appointed Powell secretary of state. He appointed
Condoleezza Rice national security adviser, then Secretary of State. Over eight years, this accustomed the electorate to African-Americans handling critical national security positions. No other president, certainly no Democrat, had done anything like it."

"More important, especially for Australia, Bush was an immensely successful president in Asia. When Bush was first elected there was great fear of a conflict between the US and China. Instead, Bush from the start pursued a steady, productive and stable relationship with China. He didn't sell out Taiwan but he shrewdly and effectively manipulated downwards the vote of its pro-independence candidates by withholding US favour from them. He resisted any protectionist moves against Beijing. He had a much better China relationship than Bill Clinton did."

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