A leaked and translated version of the proposed SOFA between the U.S. and Iraq goes on line, as reports indicate that Bush is being advised to delay troop cuts in Iraq and scale back the number of troops to be transferred to Afghanistan.

In a preview of Bob Woodward's tightly-held new book, the Washington Post reveals that the U.S. "conducted an extensive spying operation" on Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as CJR explores the limitations of 'seeing Iraq through Uncle Sam's eyes.'

With the French opposition already demanding a 'rethink of Afghanistan mission,' Paris Match touches off a firestorm of controversy by "publishing a photograph of a Taliban guerrilla dressed in the combat uniform of one of the ten French soldiers killed in Afghanistan this month." More from France 24

'Cheney blusters through the Caucasus,' with talk of expanding NATO to Russia's doorstep, and control of the region's energy "the ultimate prize," while Human Rights Watch backs off a bit on Russian cluster munitions claims, and fingers point to some "apparently staged photos" used in advancing a propaganda narrative.

Despite 'uproar,' Pentagon officials are reportedly leaning toward stepping up raids across the Pakistani border, as 'Bhutto widower with a clouded past' prepares to take the helm.

The lawyer for American-trained Pakistani behavioral scientist and sometime terror suspect, Aafia Siddiqui, now on trial for trying to kill U.S. personnel, argues that she should be declared mentally incompetent based on evidence that she was imprisoned and tortured for years.

According to an extensive new report on the 'policy nightmare' in Somalia, U.S. counter-terrorism policies "have helped create an increasingly desperate humanitarian and security situation," and heightened anti-U.S. sentiment, with the high likelihood of blowback. Chris Floyd looks 'beyond the worst-case scenario.

Against a backdrop of fake soldiers and a broken taboo, and facing at least one unmeetable expectation, John McCain attempts to re-brand the party in power as the agent of change. The speech is widely panned by pundits and summed up by CNN's Jeffrey Toobin as "shockingly bad."

The McCain campaign generates anger and gets called on the way it mocked community organizers, exposing a cultural divide, and perhaps a plan of action that goes beyond the "dogwhistle" translation of community organizer as "poverty pimp."

The shades of Nixon and Agnew -- and even Pavlov -- are summoned to explain a convention whose "cheerful viciousness" is a sign, Paul Krugman warns, that the party has tapped into a powerful vein of resentment.

Roving convention videos capture 'proud Bush-McCain Republicans,' and 'Sarah Palin's hidden base,' as it's noted that 'Palin can do long derision,' but when it comes to foreign policy, she still needs some tutoring -- as did the current president Bush.

While she may not answer questions from the much-maligned media, Palin has, Bill Berkowitz notes, been added to the gallery of invitees at next week's Values Voter Summit, which is expected to showcase a rather "narrow" vision of the nation's future. Plus: Prayers for intercession.

Amid reports that Palin was testing the waters about library censorship when she was mayor of Wasilla, Amy Goodman and David Goodman recount the story of 'America's most dangerous librarians," who stood up to the now unconstitutional national security letter provision of the Patriot Act.

Sandwiched inside Fox News coverage of the convention was the first installment of Bill O'Reilly's interview with Barack Obama, which opened with "a kind of semantic loyalty oath" and, despite disagreements, elicits the concession: "I looked at him eye to eye -- he's not a wimpy guy."

Undaunted by the four-year sentence he received for, as he puts it, going "over the line," Jack "I am not a bad man" Abramoff is reportedly cooperating on a book to be published later this month titled "The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff."

A former Halliburton executive pleads guilty to bribery that took place during Dick Cheney's tenure as CEO, and the tell-tales signs of endemic and recycled corruption on Wall Street are highlighted but, as far as the Labor Department is concerned, it appears that corporate whistleblowers are on their own.

A "mountain of dismal economic news" including a jump in unemployment, sends stocks plummeting, as Nouriel Roubini points to "a dozen separate negative headwinds" that appear to signal a 'coming U.S. consumption bust.'

September 4

Pakistan has summoned the U.S. ambassador to protest a raid by U.S. troops that is described as "the first publicly acknowledged case of United States forces conducting a ground raid on Pakistani soil."

As Vice President Cheney deems Russia's actions in Georgia to be "illegitimate," Sen. McCain, in an interview with ABC News, joins other Republicans in saying that "Alaska is right next to Russia," to defend Gov. Palin's foreign policy experience, and contending that "she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities."

Dubbed 'Spiro T. Palin,' the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee delivered 'Red meat for the masses,' in a speech that drew a mixed reaction from a focus group of female Clinton supporters, and was said to have "crystallized the McCain campaign's main strategy against Barack Obama: withering sarcasm."

"Is there anything stranger," asks Grist's David Roberts, "than a room full of affluent, privileged white people who have run the country for almost a decade, cheering wildly for a provincial small-town girl who promises to shake up Washington?" Plus: Ben Stein on "one of the oddest choices in the history of presidential politics."

"McCain's political team is playing the gender card to appeal to women, and bashing the media to solidify support among conservatives," writes one-time McCain campaign job aspirant, Ron Fournier, while another AP analysis illustrates how the 'GOP contradicts self on Palin family.'

As 'The McCain campaign repeats (again and again and again) its defense of Palin,' Tom DeLay declares that "Trashing her is waking up the sleeping giant, and the sleeping giant is Republican women," one of whom tries to back away from her open mic.

Citing the McCain campaign's extensively covered "whining" about a "faux media scandal," Jay Bookman writes that "It's not the media's fault that the cinematic story envisioned by McCain and his staff has fallen apart on closer inspection. They just didn't do their homework, and they got caught." Plus: 'Who vetted Giuliani's speech?'

As e-mails shown to the Washington Post suggest that "Sarah Palin's story on Trooper-Gate may be in the process of falling apart," a 'Palin aide ducks state probe,' McClatchy reports that 'Palin's never issued an order to Alaska Guard,' and CJR compiles the most detailed reporting on her environmental record.

Congressional Quarterly reports on how 'K Street helps out at convention,' and the Party Time blog tells 'A tale of two concerts' held Wednesday evening, one a corporate event with virtually no security, the other by Rage Against the Machine, which led to more than 100 arrests.

About St. Paul forcing the Republican Party to buy $10 million of insurance to cover claims of police misconduct, Michelle Gross, who heads the group, Communities United Against Police Brutality, called it "an extraordinary agreement. Now the police have nothing to hold them back from egregious behavior."

One day after Sen. Lieberman and Gov. Palin met with the board of directors of AIPAC, Lieberman was ripped over his RNC speech by the head of a Democratic Jewish group, which also called McCain's selection of Palin 'a bizarre choice.'

Frank Luntz told Republican convention-goers "The strongest way to communicate about Iran," as part of a campaign by The Israel Project that included TV spots in Denver and the Twin Cities.

As 'mistaken fire' by U.S. troops kills six Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. military arrested an Iraqi cameraman who works for a TV station owned by the major Sunni political group, two days after detaining yet another photographer working for Reuters, one of more than 20 journalists detained this year.

'Mexican drug traffickers wage PR war over image,' reports McClatchy, which includes the "official" Web site of "the godfather of Mexico's cocaine trade."

September 3

Palin-drome Temporarily shifting the convention's focus from all Sarah all the time, 'Thompson, Lieberman attack Obama in red-meat speeches,' despite the latter's pledge not to, and President Bush 'compares critics to torturers.'

After the table was set, Republican delegates targeted "liberal media," Sen. McCain canceled an appearance with Larry King, saying that CNN's Campbell Brown went "over the line" in questioning Gov. Palin's foreign policy experience, and McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt accused the news media of being "on a mission to destroy" Palin.

Schmidt also warned reporters that the public might have a "harsh view" of them for covering Bristol Palin's pregnancy, and McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who said on Tuesday that "This election is not about issues," also reportedly "appeared to label coverage of ... Bristol's pregnancy -- which was announced via McCain campaign press release -- as 'innuendo.'"

Following an article on Sen. McCain opposing funding to prevent teen pregnancies, it was reported that 'Palin slashed funding for teen moms," as the RNC was again ratifying a platform calling for "abstinence education." Plus: Obama campaign now running radio ads targeting McCain on abortion.

McCain adviser Carly Fiorina accused the Obama campaign of "sexism" for questioning Palin's experience, a charge echoed by Rep. Michele Bachmann in a CNN segment with James Carville, who displayed a photo of the Wasilla city hall, which he said, "looks like a bait shop in south Louisiana."

As 'Media, new and old, vet Palin, do McCain's job for him,' a Washington Post report of late vetting, which as a Time commenter points out, confirms a lie, notes that the two finalists were Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and Palin.

TPM interviews legendary GOP dirty trickster, Roger Stone, seen at the Ron Paul rally, who says that he'll "probably roll out a 527 to take the wood to Barack Obama." Read about Stone's latest antics, in a Broward County sheriff's election.

With 'Journalists trapped between police, protestors and pyrotechnics,' the 'Police gas docile crowd outside the RNC,' as it's reported that 'St. Paul feels like a city under siege for some residents.'

In a profile of Rupert Murdoch, Michael Wolff writes of Murdoch's "embarrassment" over owning Fox News, how Murdoch "barely pretends to hide the way he feels about Bill O'Reilly," and details a meeting among Barack Obama, Murdoch and Roger Ailes, during which "Obama lit into Ailes."

In the face of Obama hitting 50% for the first time in Gallup's daily tracking poll, and getting what is described as the 'Biggest bounce since '96 convention,' Pat Buchanan argues that McCain's "gamble" on Sarah Palin is "paying off, big-time." Plus: 'Why McCain can't stop saying "my friends."'

FAIR explains that "both McCain and Obama could be described, by ABC's logic, as voting against 'funding for U.S. troops in Iraq,'" and as the 'Iraqi army readies for showdown with Kurds,' a Wall Street Journal correspondent describes how, 'Despite Iraq's oil oases, its citizens still live in darkness."

As 'Pakistan's PM escapes assassination attempt,' women and children were reportedly among the 15 people killed in an attack on Wednesday by U.S.-led forces in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border.

Human Rights Watch is accused of 'flawed "research" on Georgian cluster bombs,' and as Vice President Cheney 'opens ex-Soviet state tour,' it's reported that he "may be too late" to challenge 'Russia's gas clout.'

Sana Krasikov answers questions about her much-lauded collection, "One More Year," which focuses on the lives of immigrants from the former Soviet Union to the U.S. Among the stories available online are "Maia in Yonkers," and two that ran in the New Yorker.

There's 'No calm after the storm' for Louisiana's two million evacuees, with some complaining that they were met with hostility in Houston, and another telling the New York Times that they were denied shelter in upstate Louisiana: "We told them we was from New Orleans, and they wouldn't take us."

September 2

The 'levees hold' in New Orleans, but Hurricane Gustav 'reveals vulnerability,' reports the Times-Picayune, as Mayor Ray Nagin predicts that re-entry to the city is "only days away."

Sens. McCain and Obama are again urged to debate in New Orleans, and as 'Hurricane Bristol hits Minnesota,' it's said that "What the Republicans really have to worry about is Hannah and Ike." Plus: 'Absence of Bush and Cheney cheers Republican delegates.'

Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman was released from jail, after being arrested along with more than 280 others in St. Paul, and a video of her arrest is among the most popular on YouTube. More from the front lines, as one reporter goes street to street with a group of protesters.

Billmon skewers the AP over the headline of a widely-circulated article, 'McCain camp's detailed review of Palin,' noting that in addition to being "Pravda-like .... It states as established fact something that is now in considerable dispute, to put it mildly."

With a 'Thomas Eagleton Watch' initiated, Max Blumenthal reports on the vetting of Gov. Palin at a Minneapolis meeting of a 'secretive right-wing group,' and Alternet compiles what it calls the 'Top ten most disturbing facts and impressions of Sarah Palin.'

'Evangelicals rally behind Palin after pregnancy news,' which gives the governor a story to tell, and a Fox News host amplifies the claim that "any person who can help raise five children ... certainly could be vice-president of the United States."

As the 'McCain camp offers talking points on Palin pregnancy,' NPR's coverage of the Palin selection is reviewed, and despite the McCain campaign's sniping at the media, both Fox and NBC allowed him to get away with claiming that Palin was "in elected office" when Sen. Obama was a community organizer, even though she was still in college.

Jim Lobe aggregates reports on 'Palin's foreign policy record,' and a McCain campaign spokesman is unable to name one decision that she made as commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard.

With Sen. McCain accused of now helming 'The Cynicism Express,' reporters are urged to 'Ask about McCain's Navy career, aside from the POW part of it,' and CIA veterans are said to be 'Scared of McCain.'

As Patrick Cockburn points out that "The U.S. will keep 25,000 American soldiers in Anbar," a U.S. military official expresses "very real concerns" about the Iraqi government agreeing to take charge of 54,000 members of the Awakening Councils on October 1. Plus: 'Iraq-U.S. pact to go to parliament in 10 days.'

The New York Times reviews a new book on "The unraveling of life in Iraq," by a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Farnaz Fassihi, whose 'Accidental Baghdad Dispatch,' in the form of a 2004 e-mail message, chronicled the "rapidly deteriorating situation" in Iraq.

Following 'A bloody month in Afghanistan,' five more Afghan children are killed in two raids, the head of Pakistan's interior ministry admits "that al Qaida's leadership moved freely in and out of" Pakistan, and the Jerusalem Post summons up Dutch intelligence to pump the possibility of a U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear program.

The director of "Be Like Others," which "exposes Iran's utterly insane policy on homosexuality," explains the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa permitting sex changes, and the popularity of plastic surgery in Iran, particularly nose jobs.

With the "Billionaires for Bush" group seamlessly morphing into "Lobbyists for McCain," the 'Party must go on for young Republicans at the convention,' where lobbyists and corporate sponsors showed little of the restraint called for by Sen. McCain.

As 'Conservative media elites blast commenters on liberal blogs,' the 'AP issues talking points over Fournier,' and a report on how hurricane coverage guarantees a 'High Chance of Blowhards,' declares that "The champion weather-interacter yesterday ... was Geraldo Rivera."

September 1

Following a 'New Orleans evacuation breathtaking in its scope,' and a massive shutdown of Gulf Coast refineries, Gustav makes landfall west of the city as a category 2 hurricane, watched as never before.

The Politico reports that the GOP is viewing Gustav as an opportunity for 'potential redemption,' not to say "exploitation," as it cuts back on what were already looking to be rather thinly attended RNC festivities, and McCain weighs making a "devastation zone" address.

'Even without Bush in St. Paul,' a McClatchy analysis concludes, the 'GOP can't escape his record, as Jon Stewart talks to "Democracy Now!" about 'Sarah Palin, Hurricane Gustav, and the media's coverage of the convention.'

Massive, pre-emptive police raids target protesters and journalists in Minnesota in advance of the RNC, apparently at the direction of the federal government, but anti-war groups, undeterred, go ahead with planned Monday marches. More here.

With his 'high-stakes gamble' on Sarah Palin, Sen. McCain hijacks the media spotlight, but there is scant evidence that the vice-presidential candidate, whom he only met once, was properly vetted, leaving open questions about who really chose her.

As the GOP flip-flops on experience, a top McCain adviser contends that Palin can "learn national security at the foot of the master," perhaps building on the advantage some on the right are suggesting she gets from her proximity to Russia.

With the religious right ecstatic over Palin's theological and scientific views, Harper's highlights the words of some of her church mentors, while Obama provides answers of his own on science policy.

Despite what Katha Pollitt calls the McCain campaign's "blatant pander for the women's vote," two polls find Palin getting less support from women, and a recording of an insensitive talk show performance undermines her appeal as a "feminist."

Amid a debate about the propriety of a cynical response to the Palin nomination, and some less than stellar reviews from right wing pundits, Billmon considers the potential for "troopergate" to turn into a media feeding frenzy.

In the 'final days' of his presidency, Bush squabbles with neo-cons and, the New York Times notes, slips in "an 11th-hour maneuver to re-establish [his] broad interpretation of the president's wartime powers."

While the Democratic platform is praised for some "nice sounding words on torture," and the DNC proved resistant to certain narrative straitjackets, "Mosaic" reports that the Arab world found the message of the convention "clear and unpleasant."

The clock is ticking on efforts to block the release of documents on the rendition and torture of Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, as Noam Chomsky tells the Independent that 'Britain has failed U.S. detainees.' Plus: 'Extraordinary rendition, extraordinary mistake.'

Replacing his original negotiating team, Prime Minister Maliki shakes up talks over the terms of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, amid continuing doubts over the prospective transfer of control of Awakening Councils to the Iraqi government. Al Jazeera goes in depth with Nir Rosen on the fate of the councils.

New walls go up in Sadr City as Sadr loyalists 'sign blood oaths to continue fighting,' while an Iraqi reporter discusses his mixed feelings on the recovery of his plundered Baghdad home from squatters.

As U.S. forces are accused over more civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the U.S. military proposes a joint inquiry into a deadly raid to resolve disputes about U.S. culpability.

While an article in Forward suggests that 'the front against Iran is unraveling,' making it less likely for an Israeli attack to receive U.S. backing, pollsters from a "pro-Israeli organization" promote findings that a majority of Americans would support such an attack.

As Spiegel surveys the questions raised by the new 'cold peace,' Gareth Porter discusses U.S. "double standards" in condemning Russia, and Mark Weisbrot traces current tensions to past foreign policy failures.

August 29-31

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