Midday open thread

• Ken Silverstein at Harper’s digs into the background of NBC’s vapid China expert, Joshua Cooper-Ramos, who’s providing commentary for the Olympics, and finds that roads lead to … Henry Kissinger.
• What would Orwell blog? Beginning today, we might get a glimpse as The Orwell Prize begins to post, day by day, Orwell’s diary from 1938 onwards. Today’s entry appropriately begins the journey, seventy years to the day after the original was made.
• In dueling Saturday radio addresses, the two presidential candidates go at it. Obama focuses on our record deficits and Iraq’s oil profit-driven surplus, and McCain focuses on … Obama. And his celebrity. And that people like him. And that he gives good speeches.
• David Gregory is determined to prove that even when it’s not about Barack Obama, it’s all about Barack Obama.
• A total of 1500 killed in battle as chaos unfolds and Georgia and Russia get their war on.
• Nate Silver (a/k/a DK’s poblano) from fivethirtyeight.com appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night to discuss his polling data which suggests an Obama victory in November. –Scout Finch
• Good headline in Newsweek as it runs a piece by factcheck.org: “More Tax Deceptions: McCain misrepresents Obama’s tax proposals again. And again, and again.”
• The FBI admits it improperly obtained records of phone calls by NYT and WaPo reporters in 2004. This is another case of the FBI using “exigent” letters to demand records without a warrant. Director Robert Mueller says whoopsie, we broke the law again.
  

  F.B.I. officials said the incident came to light as part of the continuing review by the Justice Department inspector general’s office into the bureau’s improper collection of telephone records through “emergency” records demands issued to phone providers.

  The records were apparently sought as part of a terrorism investigation, but the F.B.I. did not explain what was being investigated or why the reporters’ phone records were considered relevant.

  - smintheus

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