President Obama is the man Americans admired most in 2009, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup poll. Obama was picked by 30 percent of those polled, and former President Bush was second with 4 percent. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the most-admired woman, edging former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin 16 to 15 percent. Other top men were South African leader Nelson Mandela (3 percent), Fox News host Glenn Beck (2 percent), evangelist Billy Graham (2 percent), Pope Benedict XVI (2 percent) and Bill Gates (2 percent). Top women included Oprah Winfrey (8 percent), Michelle Obama (7 percent), Condoleezza Rice (2 percent) and Queen Elizabeth (2 percent).
The dispute continues about whether the Tiahrt amendment does or doesn’t restrict police access to gun trace data. A Washington Post commentary, excerpted on this blog, reported that 69 percent of National Rifle Association members polled had a problem with the Tiahrt amendment’s restrictions. The office of Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, responded that the Tiahrt amendment law “explicitly ensures that no restrictions are imposed on the police’s ability to use the data for criminal investigations.” As a result, the office argued, “making the claim that NRA members ‘had a problem with the Tiahrt amendment’ is not supported by the poll and is an unsubstantiated assertion.”
The decade’s top 10 political speeches, as ranked in descending order by MSNBC’s First Read blog: Barack Obama’s race speech in Philadelphia (in photo); President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks; Al Gore’s 2000 concession speech; Obama’s keynote at the 2004 Democratic convention; a tie between Bush’s “mushroom cloud” and “axis of evil” speeches in 2002 and Colin Powell’s 2003 WMD speech to the United Nations; Sarah Palin’s 2008 GOP convention speech; Hillary Clinton’s 2008 concession speech; Democrat Zell Miller’s keynote at the 2004 GOP convention; Howard Dean’s 2004 scream speech; and a tie between Hugo Chavez, Moammar Gadhafi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N., and also Ahmadinejad at Columbia University.
The attempted bombing of the Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day raised awareness of how Yemen has become a key front in the fight against al-Qaida. The alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (in photo), reportedly was trained in Yemen, and administration officials said that Yemen could become al-Qaida’s next operational and training hub, the New York Times reported. As a result, the Pentagon is spending more than $70 million in Yemen over the next 18 months and is using teams of Special Forces to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces.
