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, Dick Polman's American Debate, PoliBlog (TM), CQPolitics.com and The Carpetbagger Report
RELATED:
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, Sister Toldjah and Washington Post
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Daniel Henninger / Real Clear Politics:
Talking Ourselves Into Defeat
Talking Ourselves Into Defeat
Discussion:
Blue Crab Boulevard
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 …
Micah L. Sifry / Personal Democracy Forum blogs:
2008: Who's Ahead Online (Rs) — It's taken me a little longer than I had hoped to pull together the data on how the Republican presidential candidates are doing in terms of bottom-up support for their campaigns online, for which I apologize. Here's the headline: They're almost invisible on the web.
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.
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.
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:
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.
Mark Trevelyan / Reuters:
Climate change seen fanning conflict and terrorism — LONDON (Reuters) - Global warming could exacerbate the world's rich-poor divide and help to radicalize populations and fan terrorism in the countries worst affected, security and climate experts said on Wednesday.
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:
CorrenteWire, The Carpetbagger Report, Middle Earth Journal, The Heretik, Blue Crab Boulevard and INSTAPUTZ
Nibras Kazimi / New York Sun:
Turnaround in Baghdad — There has been a flurry of press reports recently about insurgents battling American and Iraqi security forces on Haifa Street in Baghdad, and around the rural town of Buhruz in Diyala Province. These same insurgents also claimed to have shot down a Black Hawk helicopter near Buhruz.
Discussion:
Redstate
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.
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.