memeorandum: Fred: I need at least third in Iowa (Domenico Montanaro/MSNBC)

4:20 PM ET, November 20, 2007

Top Items:

McClellan points finger at Bush, Rove — Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan names names in a caustic passage from a forthcoming memoir that accuses President Bush, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney of being "involved" in his giving the press false information about the CIA leak case.

Discussion: Comments from Left Field and Macsmind

Editor and Publisher:

Scott McClellan's Book Coming in April — Admits Wrongdoing in Clearing Rove and Libby in CIA Leak Case — NEW YORK To no one's surprise in a world where top White House aides with any president eventually write a book about it, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan will be coming out with his volume in April.

Discussion: Firedoglake, The Carpetbagger Report, Booman Tribune, Blog and News Tidbets and The Next Hurrah

Ali / Think Progress:
McClellan's tell-all implicates Bush in Plame scandal.

Discussion: Salon, The Huffington Post, Shakespeare's Sister and Digg

Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:

Court agrees to rule on gun case — After a hiatus of 68 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to rule on the meaning of the Second Amendment — the hotly contested part of the Constitution that guarantees "a right to keep and bear arms." Not since 1939 has the Court heard …

Discussion: Hot Air, The Volokh Conspiracy, Comments from Left Field, ACSBlog, Redstate, A Blog For All and Daily Kos

Robert Barnes / Washington Post:

High Court to Take D.C. Gun Ban Case — The Supreme Court announced today that it will decide whether the District of Columbia's ban on handguns violates the Constitution, a choice that will put the justices at the center of the controversy over the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in nearly 70 years.

Discussion: Wonkette and Cato-at-liberty

David Stout / New York Times:
Justices to Hear Gun Control Case

Discussion: Betsy's Page and Lone Star Times

Mark Sherman / Associated Press:
Supreme Court will hear guns case

Discussion: michellemalkin.com, Blue Crab Boulevard and Macsmind

Ben Smith / The Politico:

More detail on the controversial Iowa poll — I spoke this morning to a source closely familiar with the details of that Iowa poll that raised eyebrows last week, though he was unable to definitively say who sponsored the poll, and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Discussion: Pollster.com

The Politico:
Rapid response speeds up

Discussion: The Caucus, The Hill, QandO, The Newshoggers, Blue Crab Boulevard, TIME and Washington Post

Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Parsing the Polls: Inside the Post/ABC Iowa Survey

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Mahablog and The Carpetbagger Report

Ben Adler / The Politico:
Young voters dig Giuliani's moderate views

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, The Swamp, Democratic Strategist, The Glittering Eye, michellemalkin.com, Unqualified Offerings and Boston Globe

Big Tent Democrat / TalkLeft:
Why John Edwards Is In Trouble In Iowa

Discussion: MyDD, Booman Tribune and Daily Kos

Martina Stewart / CNN Political Ticker:

Wrestler Ric Flair supporting Mike Huckabee — COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) - In the race for presidential endorsements, Mike Huckabee has the kitschy pop culture celebrity vote on lockdown. — First it was martial arts hero and "Walker, Texas Ranger" star Chuck Norris, who appears with Huckabee in his first TV ad.

Discussion: Galley Slaves, The Hill, Associated Press, The Sundries Shack, Political Machine, Riehl World View, Wonkette, TPM Election Central, Hotline On Call, Air America Radio and DownWithTyranny!

Jonah Goldberg / Los Angeles Times:

Ron Paul isn't that scary — It's that over-do-gooder Mike Huckabee who should be making conservatives nervous. — As the hopeless but energetic presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) builds momentum in name recognition, fundraising and cross-ideology appeal, media conservatives are beginning to attack Paul in earnest.

Discussion: Reason Magazine, Publius Endures, TPMCafe blogs and LewRockwell.com Blog

Richard Cohen / Washington Post:
You First, Governor Huckabee

Discussion: The Van Der Galiën Gazette, The Opinionator and The American Street

Marty Griffin / KDKA-TV:

Wounded Soldier: Military Wants Part Of Bonus Back — The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments. — To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Discussion: Think Progress, Shakespeare's Sister, QandO and The Volokh Conspiracy

Carpetbagger / The Carpetbagger Report:
Wounded soldiers asked to return signing bonuses

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, Balloon Juice and Hot Air

Devin Culclasure / alligator.org:

Protesters arrested at Gonzales speech — In his first appearance at a university since resigning in August, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was met at UF on Monday with a mixture of cheers, boos and scattered interruptions by protesters, two of whom were arrested.

Discussion: St. Petersburg Times, Crooks and Liars, TPMmuckraker, Think Progress, UrbanGrounds, Gateway Pundit, JammieWearingFool and Norwegianity

Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
Students Protest Alberto Gonzales At University of Florida Speaking Gig

Discussion: Cliff Schecter

Gina Kolata / New York Times:

New Stem Cell Method Could Ease Ethical Concerns — Two teams of scientists are reporting today that they turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo — a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field.

Discussion: The New Republic, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Political Machine, Hot Air and Buck Naked Politics

Joseph Bottum / On the Square:
Embryonic Stem Cells and Those Pro-Science Pro-Lifers

Discussion: The Corner, New York Times, The Atlantic Online and Political Machine

Jonah Goldberg / The Corner: The Stem Cell Breakthrough and the "Necessity" of Evil

Craig Timberg / Washington Post:

U.N. to Cut Estimate Of AIDS Epidemic — Population With Virus Overstated by Millions — The United Nations' top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, Hot Air, New York Times, Don Surber, NewsBusters.org, Blue Crab Boulevard, All Spin Zone, Say Anything, ScrappleFace, Reason Magazine, Right Voices, Comments from Left Field, BitsBlog, On Deadline and Truthdig

Faiz / Think Progress:

Bush Administration Stokes Fear Of Massive Army Layoffs To Force Congress To Drop Redeployment — The Bush administration is threatening that it will issue furlough notices to up to 150,000 civilian workers at military bases in mid-December if Congress does not approve unrestricted Iraq funding immediately.

Discussion: Chicago Tribune and The Carpetbagger Report

Domenico Montanaro / MSNBC:

Fred: I need at least third in Iowa — From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy and Domenico Montanaro — ORANGE CITY, Iowa — For the first time, Thompson acknowledged he has to finish in the top three in Iowa in order to remain a viable candidate. — In an interview with the NBC Sioux City affiliate …

Discussion: Hot Air

Michael Calderone / The Politico:

At White House behest, NYT sat on scoop — When the New York Times published a front page story Sunday about the United States' and Pakistan's joint clandestine efforts to protect nuclear weapons, the newspaper offered a glimpse into a "highly classified program" the Bush administration long objected to seeing in print.

Little Green Footballs:

YouTube: The Jihad-Friendly Video Sharing Network (Update: Convicted Terrorist Opens YouTube Account) — Sheik Faisel Mohammed was convicted of incitement to murder and stirring up racial hatred in Britain, and deported back to his native Jamaica. — And today we've discovered that Yousef al-Khattab …

Discussion: The Jawa Report