All Blog Posts from Public Eye

The Skinny, Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web, appears daily here on Public Eye and on the "Evening News" page at CBSNews.com.

Following the New York Times leakage yesterday of the expected (lest we forget non-binding) report from James Baker-Lee Hamilton & Friends (a.k.a the Iraq Study Group) the Washington Post today has its own rundown of the panel's anticipated suggestions.

The paper highlights the group's planned recommendation to cut troops – potentially by half – by 2008. In case you live under a rock somewhere, that happens to also be the same year we'll be electing a new president. "The choice of early 2008 as a goal could also, intentionally or not, change the nature of the debate over the war at the height of the U.S. presidential primary season." Really?

Both papers and the Wall Street Journal's newsbox have an overview of yesterday's meeting between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, following Wednesday's snub or no snub kerfuffle.

Graceful Exit From Iraq? Nah.

With that and the leaked recommendations from the Iraq Study Group in the air, Bush told reporters that Maliki is "the right guy for Iraq" and "This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever." According to the Washington Post, White House aides later modified that statement, cautioning "against interpreting that as opposition to any change in the U.S. troop posture."

Instead, according to an aide: "Some options being discussed by the Iraqi Study Group and his own administration's internal policy review, the official said, are 'things that he's very open to.'" Writes the New York Times: "the idea of a major and rapid withdrawal seems to be fading as a viable option." The paper emphasizes the same in a news analysis, aptly titled, "Idea of Rapid Withdrawal From Iraq Seems to Fade."

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The Skinny, Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web, appears daily here on Public Eye and on the "Evening News" page at CBSNews.com.

The nation's major newspapers dwelled at length on what everyone is suggesting was a snub by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki – who abruptly cancelled a meeting with President Bush yesterday – and the White House denies was a snub. "The White House insisted Mr. Bush was not upset and had not been snubbed," writes the New York Times. " 'Absolutely not,' said Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president."

The cancellation follows yesterday's leak in the The New York Times of a classified memo from NSA Adviser Stephen Hadley that expressed doubts about Maliki's leadership. White House officials "insisted the document had nothing to do with it."

The cancellation also occurred following turmoil in the Iraqi government yesterday, when a bloc of lawmakers loyal to Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr boycotted their duties "to protest Maliki's decision to meet with Bush," writes the Washington Post.

Everyone mentions Bartlett's quote response to the suggestions of a snub, that: "No one should read too much into this." The Los Angeles Times, however, does read into it, writing that "the surprising change of plans suggested more was at work than a scheduling matter among friends," as Bush rarely alters his plans.

"Senior Bush aides offered at least four explanations for the cancellation," writes the LAT, "finally dispatching a more junior official to tell reporters late Wednesday that Maliki and Jordan's King Abdullah II had decided mutually that a three-way conversation was not necessary."

Bush and Maliki met this morning privately and in a joint news conference and "said they agreed to speed the training of Iraqi security forces, and they pledged to continue cooperation between the U.S. and Iraq to stem violence."

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The Skinny, Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web, appears daily here on Public Eye and on the "Evening News" page at CBSNews.com.

The Wall Street Journal's front page features one more chapter in Starbucks' master plan to take over the planet: conquering China. The overwhelming obstacle there is that most Chinese people, um, drink tea.

But Starbucks executives didn't become the Starbucks executives that they are by letting that deter them from an emerging market. No, writes the Journal, "executives didn't think the coffee part stood in their way."

Indeed, if you shovel enough milk and sugar into it, pretty much anyone will chug a latte five days a week. So, Starbuck's has begun to execute plans to lure the young people into their clutches – by counting on "a new generation of Chinese with growing spending power and an appetite for high-status brands" who will soon become as addicted as you and I are.

And many are already being sucked in. Warren Guo, "a 30-year-old who works in foreign trade," told the paper that he doesn't actually like coffee. He comes to Starbucks because there are "many girls."

Runway model Fang Sun Yan "started coming to Starbucks to meet friends. Now she says she's grown 'a little bit addicted' to coffee and visits as often as three times a week." We were all "a little bit addicted" at the beginning, my friend.

The president of Starbucks Greater China shared this philosophy with the paper: "Coffee represents the change," said Wang Jinlong. Remember that quote. In the film that will be created 25 years from now, about why the Earth was renamed Starbucks, that will be the tagline.

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