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Obama, Hillary, the GOP and 2 US stalwart newspapers

What do the above in common? Much, as the US seems to lurch to trying to be seen as tough and resolute.

First, veteran and doyen Washington White House correspondent Helen Thomas,comments on what appears to be Obama and crew adopting the GOP stance of showing toughness.

Thomas writing for timesunion.com says:

"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding her voice in the world of foreign affairs -- and it's the sound of hawk-speak, filled with warnings.

She has warned that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship. She is trying to persuade U.S. allies to support stronger sanctions against Tehran.

There's no sign that the U.S. is about to invade Iran but there's tons of speculation that the Pentagon has been tasked to figure out what bunker-buster bombs would do to Iran's underground nuclear industry and whether such an attack would help or hinder efforts to neutralize Iran as a nuclear threat.

While a massive bombing would certainly delay Iran's nuclear development, it would not stop it. The cost of such a military option would be grave: Iran's hard-liners would be fortified politically; and anti-American terrorists everywhere would see such an attack as justifying their own violence.

There's not much doubt that Iran is heading toward nuclear weapons. Iran's neighbors have those terrible devices and so the Iranians ask: Why not us, too?

Clinton was tough on the Palestinians during her tour in the region. She said the Palestinians have to make more "concessions" to the occupier to get peace talks going.

The word peace has not been exalted in the White House for years and neither President Barack Obama nor his secretary of state seems to aspire to it. They fret that some critic somewhere will accuse the administration of being "soft."

Meanwhile, no less troubling this observation from consortiumnews.com:

"Many American progressives don’t want to recognize how bad the U.S. mainstream news media has become. It’s easier to praise a few exceptions to the rule and to hope that some pendulum will swing than to undertake the challenging task of building a new and honest media infrastructure.

But the hard reality is that the U.S. news media is getting worse, with now both premier national newspapers – the New York Times and the Washington Post – decidedly sliding into the neocon camp, where the likes of the Wall Street Journal have long resided.

For the Post, this may already be an old story, given its enthusiastic cheerleading for the Iraq War. The Times, however, was a somewhat different story. Yes, it did let Judith Miller and other staff writers promote the fictions about Iraq’s WMD, but it hadn’t sunk to the depths of the Post.

That is now changing as the Times – behind executive editor Bill Keller and editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal – tosses aside all pretense of objectivity in the cause of seeking “regime change” in Iran, today’s top priority for the neoconservatives."

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