Top Items:
New York Times:
In Both Parties, 2008 Politeness Falls to Infighting — The sun was not yet up yesterday, and members of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign team were confronted with the kind of attack that most infuriates them: one questioning the character of Mrs. Clinton and her husband.
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Washington Post:
Clinton, Obama Camps' Feud Is Out in the Open — An increasingly acrimonious competition between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to enlist the Democratic Party's leading fundraisers and operatives burst into the open yesterday, overshadowing what was billed as the presidential campaign's …
Lynn Sweet / Chicago Sun Times:
Geffen-Clinton snit tests Obama — He benefits from their name-calling, but is it 'cheap political points'? — LOS ANGELES — As he seeks the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama is campaigning against "the smallness of our politics" and "scoring cheap political points."
Fox News:
PELOSI CALLS BUSH TO COMPLAIN OF CHENEY'S COMMENTS ON DEMOCRATS' IRAQ STRATEGY — WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday phoned President Bush to air her complaints over Vice President Dick Cheney's comments that the Congressional Democrats' plan for Iraq would "validate the Al Qaeda strategy."
Discussion:
Hot Air, QandO, Jules Crittenden, Riehl World View, The Gavel, Gateway Pundit, PrairiePundit, MyDD and alphabet city
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Gerard Baker / Real Clear Politics:
The Thinking Behind Blair's Iraq Decision — Tony Blair's announcement Wednesday of the planned withdrawal of about 1,600 UK combat troops from Iraq has been greeted with predictable gloating and derision on both sides of the Atlantic. — Most of the commentary in Britain …
Washington Post:
Ally's Timing Is Awkward for Bush — As the British announced the beginning of their departure from Iraq yesterday, President Bush's top foreign policy aide proclaimed it "basically a good-news story." Yet for an already besieged White House, the decision was doing a good job masquerading as a bad-news story.
Discussion:
AMERICAblog
David S. Cloud / New York Times:
National Guard May Undertake Iraq Duty Early — The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their time between deployments to meet the demands of President Bush's buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday.
Discussion:
The Carpetbagger Report, The Heretik, PoliBlog (TM), Think Progress, This Modern World, Obsidian Wings and State of the Day
Christiane Amanpour / CNN:
Iranian official offers glimpse from within: A desire for U.S. ally … TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — As I sat down recently with a senior Iranian government official, he urgently waved a column by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times in my face, one about how the United States and Iran need to engage each other.
Thomas Sowell / Real Clear Politics:
Obama's Worn-Out Economic Ideas — Senator Barack Obama recently said, "let's allow our unions and their organizers to lift up this country's middle class again." — Ironically, he said it at a time when Detroit automakers have been laying off unionized workers by the tens of thousands …
Edward Jay Epstein / Opinion Journal:
The Spanish Connection — What the 9/11 Commission didn't consider. — The 9/11 Commission relied on information derived from two captured al Qaeda perpetrators for much of its picture of the conspiracy leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Hilzoy / Obsidian Wings:
Tom Vilsack's Very, Very Bad Idea — I didn't watch the Democratic debate (debates? This early??), but then I noticed (h/t Atrios and Matt Yglesias) that Jonathan Singer at MyDD wrote this: … Price indexing? Yikes. Like Matt, I didn't want to leap to conclusions …
New York Times:
Iraq Insurgents Employ Chlorine in Bomb Attacks — A truck bomb that combined explosives with chlorine gas blew up in southern Baghdad on Wednesday, and officials said it might represent a new and deadly tactic by insurgents against Iraqi civilians. — It was at least the third truck bomb …
Donald Lambro / Washington Times:
GOP 'darlings' slow to sign tax-cut pledge — The two front-runners for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination — Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani — have not signed an anti-tax-increase pledge that has been embraced by several of their rivals.
Discussion:
PoliPundit.com
George F. Will / Washington Post:
A Lack of Courage In Their Convictions — Indiscriminate criticism of President George W. Bush is an infectious disease. Some conservatives seem to have caught it, but congressional Democrats might be crippled by it. — Consider some conservatives' reflexive rejection …