Cursor's Media Patrol - 07/14/06

"Nothing is safe" warned Israel's military chief of staff, as Israel continued bombing and blockading Lebanon, and Hezbollah "loosed a hail of rockets" into Israel amid fears that "events in the Middle East are designed to spiral out of control, right into Persia."

Secretary of State Rice is rumored to have been told to "back off," after she asked Israel "to exercise restraint," and Sen. Chuck Hagel tells Larry King that "at the most dangerous time maybe we have seen ever in the Middle East," it's a job for Colin Powell, not Rice. Plus: Noam Chomsky warns of "extreme disaster."

U.N. Ambassador John Bolton casts a lone veto against a resolution condemning Israel for the current violence in Gaza, pronouncing it "unbalanced," and Dan Froomkin catches 'Bush the bystander,' who was in Germany to meet a friend, replying to a question about Lebanon with "I thought you were going to ask me about the pig."

Salon reports that Rumsfeld has until 5 p.m. Friday "to hand over a raft of documents to Congress that could substantiate allegations that U.S. forces have tried to break terror suspects by kidnapping and mistreating their family members."

Sen. Arlen Specter's 'compromise' on warrantless wiretapping leads Glenn Greenwald to object that it "repeals each and every restriction on the President's ability to eavesdrop, all but forecloses judicial challenges, and endorses the very theory of unlimited executive power which Hamdan just days ago rejected." Plus: Monitoring political opponents?

Congress renews the Voting Rights Act without amendment, despite the opposition of 33 Republicans, one of whom is said to have recently drawn an analogy between immigrants and livestock.

In 'Left Behind Economics' Paul Krugman argues that despite the education myth, "it's a great economy if you're a high-level corporate executive or someone who owns a lot of stock. For most other Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport."