Paradigm Shifts: Presidential Censures, Women Presidents, Muslim's Critics and More

It's a day for big shifts in thinking, starting with Sen. Russ Feingold, a possible 2008 Democratic presidential nominee and today's No. 2 burstiest person for proposing a vote today that would censure President George Bush (today's top top news story and No. 3 top blog post) for exceeding executive powers and ignoring judicial oversight for the NSA domestic spying program. Brilliant at Breakfast is obviously thrilled to see a Democrat with a backbone; blogger Don Surber calls it more adolescent politics. What does a BlogPulse trend graph say about the "i-word" vs. the "c-word"?



Chile Breaks the Gender Barrier
From the stage of world leaders comes Chile's gender-shifting decision to elect Michelle Bachelet (today's No. 16 most-blogged-about personality) as its first woman president (today's No. 3 most-cited news story). "Wouldn't it be something?..." says a wisftul U.S.-based Magpie blogger. Former Yugoslav presidetn Slobodan Milosevic is today's No. 3 top person after being found dead in his cell at The Hague over the weekend, and former Iraq President Saddam Hussein is in the news because apparently thought about what might happen in post-war Iraq...perhaps more than his country's "liberators" did?

Speaking out
Two people are capturing attention for speaking out, including former British soldier Ben Griffin, today's burstiest person because of an interview in which he describes his moral decision to leave the British military rather than continue fighting what he calls an immoral "mess" in Iraq. And at No. 15 among today's burstiest people is Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born woman whose criticism of Muslim extremists (today's No. 6 most-cited news story) is bringing her praise...and death threats. "Meet the voice of reason," says one blogger; the blogger at Sisu offers perspective and background.

BlogPulse News
The Olympics are over, Josh Mankiewicz is back from vacation, and his Mank Blog is back on MSNBC's Dateline, which receives weekly blog data from BlogPulse.com and Technorati in a blogosphere roundup.