Top Items:
Adam Nagourney / New York Times:
Big States' Plan for Earlier Primaries Scrambles Race — As many as four big states — California, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey — are likely to move up their 2008 presidential primaries to early next February, further upending an already unsettled nominating process and forcing candidates …
Discussion:
Balkinization, PoliBlog (TM), CQPolitics.com, The Carpetbagger Report and Dick Polman's American Debate
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Opinion Journal:
Senators-in-Chief — Congress has no Constitutional power to micromanage a war. — To understand why the Founders put war powers in the hands of the Presidency, look no further than the current spectacle in Congress on Iraq. What we are witnessing is a Federalist Papers illustration …
Discussion:
Redstate, The Mahablog, Right Wing Nut House, Outside The Beltway, The American Street, Washington Post and Sister Toldjah
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Daniel Henninger / Real Clear Politics:
Talking Ourselves Into Defeat — The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism. In the halls of Congress, across endless newspaper columns, amid the punditocracy and on Sunday morning talk shows—all emit a Stygian gloom about America.
Discussion:
Blue Crab Boulevard
CNN:
Cheney: Talk of blunders in Iraq is 'hogwash' … WASHINGTON (CNN) — Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday dismissed as "hogwash" the suggestion that blunders may have hurt the administration's credibility on Iraq and led members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to question President Bush's plan to send more troops to Baghdad.
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Tony Karon / Time:
2008: Hillary vs McCain? — Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner to win the Democratic party's nomination for President in 2008, but the Republican race will be a close contest between Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani — with McCain edging Giuliani by a three- to four-point margin.
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Marcus Baram / ABCNEWS:
Hillary's Hollywood Friends Switch Sides — Steven Spielberg and David Geffen Invite Hundreds of Stars to Their Big Barack Obama Fundraiser — Is Hollywood abandoning Hillary? — On Wednesday morning, hundreds of Hollywood's movers and shakers received an invitation that they may find hard to refuse.
Discussion:
Roger L. Simon, Captain's Quarters, The Heretik, Blue Crab Boulevard, Right Voices and NewsBusters.org
Tyler Cowen / New York Times:
Incomes and Inequality: What the Numbers Don't Tell Us — The growing inequality in wealth and income has led many people to question whether the contemporary American economy is rigged in favor of the rich. While there is little doubt that the gap between the wealthy and everybody else …
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William Beutler / Blog P.I.:
Hillary in Blogistan: On Blogads, The Netroots and Peter Daou — Hillary Clinton did not wait long after her weekend presidential campaign announcement to step foot in the blogosphere: By Monday her technically fledgling but long-assumed campaign had a major step toward engaging web users …
Eric / Classical Values:
THE YEAR THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME? — In China, it's the Year Of The P-P-P-Pig! — Yay! Right? — Not in China. According to this detailed WSJ report, the Chinese government is systematically censoring all mentions of pig and pig images — putting Western advertisers in a mad editing scramble:
Rowan Scarborough / Washington Times:
Rumsfeld's transition raises questions — Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has left the Pentagon, but not the Defense Department. — On Jan. 4, Mr. Rumsfeld opened a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him, a Pentagon official said.
Robert D. Novak / Washington Post:
The Democrats' Rude Rebuff — When President Bush called for a bipartisan "special advisory council" of congressional leaders on the war against terrorism in his State of the Union address, he had in his pocket a rude rejection from Democratic leaders. Thank you very much …
Discussion:
The Carpetbagger Report, CorrenteWire, Middle Earth Journal, The Heretik, Blue Crab Boulevard and INSTAPUTZ
ESPN:
Being Inmate No. 1187055 — Genarlow Wilson is standing on a threshold all right, at the end of the last hall of Burruss Correctional Training Center, an hour and a half south of Atlanta. He's just a few feet from the mechanical door that closes with a goosebump-raising whurr and clang.
The Politico:
Senate Shows Its Age; Health Problems Pose Challenge For Governing — The average age of members of the U.S. Senate is older than it has ever been, according to Senate Historian Richard Baker. For many senators, advanced age is starting to show, raising questions about their ability to govern.
Greg Gutfeld / The Huffington Post:
New Trend on The Rise: the Patriotic Terrorist — Whenever I visit this lovely blog, I usually run into someone - a "leftist," if you will - who finds pleasure in things that make our country or the President look bad. I suppose I could say these angry types are no better than cheerleaders for terrorism.
John Schwartz / New York Times:
Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and the Perils of Bad Publicity — Charles Roselli set out to discover what makes some sheep gay. Then the news media and the blogosphere got hold of the story. — Dr. Roselli, a researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, has searched …