Pro-Democracy Campaign Falters

Woodward has seen all the mistakes and lived to tell about it

(NEWSER) - George W. Bush’s presidency could teach Barack Obama many lessons—about what not to do. Bob Woodward lays out 10 of them in today’s Washington Post:

• "Presidents need to draw people out and make sure bad news makes it to the Oval Office": Bush went into Iraq "without directly asking Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, or George Tenet for their bottom-line recommendation."
• "A president must do the homework to master the fundamental ideas and concepts behind his policies": One general suspected Bush "lacked a basic grasp of what the Iraq war was about."

Allawi had been appointed by US after Saddam's fall

(NEWSER) - The Iraqi prime minister installed by Washington after the fall of Saddam Hussein has blasted President Bush’s policies as an “utter failure,” Reuters reports. In an interview with an Arab newspaper, Iyad Allawi said Bush’s “insistence on names like ‘democracy’ and ‘open elections,’ without giving attention to political stability, was a big mistake” that prompted ruinous sectarian violence. More»

VP gave go ahead for 'remarkably successful' tactic

(NEWSER) - Vice President Dick Cheney personally approved using waterboarding to interrogate 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he reveals in a wide-ranging interview on ABC News. "I was involved in helping get the process cleared. The agency came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," said Cheney, referring to waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques. "They talked to me to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it." More»

Dem doesn't offer much hope of change from current president

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama has freely used the Bush card, reminding voters that John McCain has agreed with the president 90% of the time—but “the irony here is that Obama actually has much more in common with Bush than McCain does,” Bill Siegel writes in the National Review. He argues that Obama has more in common with the man he hopes to replace than he cares to admit. More»

Is the Age of Authoritarianism upon us?

(NEWSER) - The autocratic world powers that were crumbling in the late 1980s may yet have their day, and sooner than we think, writes executive editor Bill Keller in the New York Times. As China keeps its stranglehold on free speech despite promises to the IOC, and Russia tests how far it can push the West in Georgia, "It is at least a season: Springtime for autocrats," writes Keller. More»