memeorandum: A Crime Buster, With His Eye on the Future (Michael Powell/New York Times)

11:40 PM ET, December 9, 2007

Top Items:

'Meet the Press' transcript for Dec. 9, 2007 — Mayor Rudy Giuliani, R-N.Y. — MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: Our Meet the Candidates 2008 series continues, an exclusive interview with Republican Rudy Giuliani. He has served as associate attorney general in Washington …

Discussion: Hotline On Call, Brendan Nyhan, Los Angeles Times, The Swamp and The Huffington Post

Ben Smith / The Politico:

Obama-Oprah show plays after church in S.C. — COLUMBIA. S.C. - In a giant Sunday afternoon rally suffused with Christian - and at times messianic - rhetoric, Barack Obama made his largest-scale pitch to black and white Democrats of South Carolina, the third and most devout presidential primary state.

Discussion: TalkLeft, The Caucus and CNN Political Ticker

Michelle Obama / Newsweek:

Star Power — Barack Obama couldn't have hoped for a better endorser than Oprah. Problem was, she outshone the candidate. — Forty years ago, when Andrea Perry was a cheerleader at St. Bonaventure, administrators at the upstate New York school barred her from traveling to Columbia, S.C., with the basketball team.

Discussion: The New Republic and Hotline On Call

Chuck Todd / MSNBC:

DEM RACE TIGHTER THAN EVER; HUCKABEE SURGE CONTINUES — From NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro — If the first round of MSNBC/McClatchy/Mason-Dixon presidential state — polls are any indication, we're in for a wild ride these next six weeks.

Discussion: Jonathan Martin's Blogs, Open Left, PoliGazette, Obama HQ, TPM Election Central, Pollster.com, Taegan Goddard's … and Rasmussen Reports

Steven Thomma / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Huckabee surges to big GOP lead; Dems in dogfight

Discussion: MyDD, The Atlantic Online, Prairie Weather, skippy the bush kangaroo and The Mahablog

Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
Oprah Winfrey Hits Campaign Trail for Obama

Discussion: CNN Political Ticker, The Swamp, Ben Smith's Blogs, NY Daily News, BAGnewsNotes, QandO and PrezVid

Jeff Zeleny / The Caucus:
Oprah in Des Moines

Discussion: The Huffington Post and TalkLeft

Michael / Discourse.net:

Senators and Representatives Could Have Spoken Out On Waterboarding: the Constitution Protects Their Right to Speak Out Without Fear of Legal Consequences — A number of the best internet commentators are discussing today's news that a few of the leading Congressional Democrats may have been …

Discussion: The RBC and The Atlantic Online

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Democratic complicity in Bush's torture regimen

Discussion: Buck Naked Politics, Obsidian Wings, The Mahatma X Files, Think Progress, The American Street, Firedoglake, Corrente, The Unapologetic Mexican and Harper's

Washington Post:
Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002

Discussion: The New Republic, Stop The ACLU, Balkinization, Big Brass Blog, NewsBusters.org, Hullabaloo, RIGHTWINGSPARKLE, The Atlantic Online, Redstate, Hot Air, A Tiny Revolution, Right Voices, Liberty Street, Atlantic Free Press, Democrats.com, Think Progress, PoliGazette, Wake up America, Comments from Left Field, Once Upon a Time, Liberal Values, Buck Naked Politics, The Impolitic, The Mahatma X Files, Power Line, Gateway Pundit, Truthdig, Connecting.the.Dots, Washington Monthly, Associated Press, The Sundries Shack, Sister Toldjah, Macsmind, Corrente, TIME: Swampland, Open Left, AMERICAN FUTURE, Emptywheel, Shakespeare's Sister, Jules Crittenden, TPMCafe blogs, The Carpetbagger Report, Too Sense, TalkLeft, Majikthise, Prairie Weather, The Sideshow, PoliPundit.com, The Heretik, The American Street, Sadly, No! and Booman Tribune

Nicole Belle / Crooks and Liars:
Congress Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002

Discussion: The Sideshow

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:
Pelosi Briefed On Waterboarding In 2002, No Objections

Discussion: Atlantic Free Press, The Atlantic Online and AMERICAN FUTURE

Glenn Reynolds / Instapundit.com:
CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS' flip-flop on waterboarding:

Discussion: Dean's World, Redstate and Riehl World View

John Aravosis / AMERICAblog:
Did Bush approve CIA leak to embarrass Pelosi?

Discussion: Right Wing Nut House and A Tiny Revolution

Byron York / The Corner:

There Are Flops, And Then There Is "Redacted" — Brian De Palma's "Redacted," the Iraqi war movie that won the best director prize at the Venice Film Festival but has been dismissed as loathsome and awful in other circles, has been in theaters - okay, 15 theaters - nationwide for three weeks now.

Discussion: TBogg, VodkaPundit and QandO

Nicole Belle / Crooks and Liars:

Meet The Press: Mistresses Should Get Secret Service Protection Too! — Somehow, I don't think Judith Nathan Giuliani should feel too comforted by that... Download (367) | Play (466) Download (322) | Play (271) (h/t Dan) — Continuing his surprisingly confrontational interview with Rudy Giuliani …

Discussion: driftglass

Marissamuller / CNN Political Ticker:
Giuliani: Nathan did not want police protection

Discussion: Say Anything

New York Times:

Rivals Hold Firm on Immigration in Republican Debate — In front of what will probably be their most pro-immigration audience, Republican candidates toned down their rhetoric but told Spanish-language television viewers in a debate on Sunday that they would take strong measures to close off the country's borders to illegal immigration.

Discussion: The American Street

Robert Maranto / Washington Post:

As a Republican, I'm on the Fringe — Are university faculties biased toward the left? And is this diminishing universities' role in American public life? Conservatives have been saying so since William F. Buckley Jr. wrote "God and Man at Yale" — in 1951.

Discussion: PoliGazette, Blue Crab Boulevard and The American Mind

Michael Powell / New York Times:

A Crime Buster, With His Eye on the Future — He was, to the popular eye, Eliot Ness reincarnated, an unsparing prosecutor for a crime-shadowed age. And when the United States attorney in Manhattan resigned in January 1989, he earned a tabloid salute: — "Good News for Bad Guys," The Daily News proclaimed.

Julia / Firedoglake:

ABC's "Man in the Middle" isn't. — After a whirlwind highly-qualified-contrition* tour of the media, the man who credits himself with convincing Karl Rove to move all the way to the right because the center no longer exists has landed at ABC News. Predictably, he's going to be providing us with his bipartisan view from the center.

Discussion: Making Light, The Sideshow and Suburban Guerrilla

Erik Eckholm / New York Times:

Many Seeking Disability From Social Security Face Big Delays — RALEIGH, N.C. — Steadily lengthening delays in the resolution of Social Security disability claims have left hundreds of thousands of people in a kind of purgatory, now waiting as long as three years for a decision.

Discussion: Outside The Beltway and Amygdala

Roni Sofer / Ynetnews:

Shas minister: Americans' attitude to report reminiscent of Auschwitz — Yitzhak Cohen says during cabinet meeting 'US intelligence report was ordered by someone who wants dialogue with Tehran. Minister Eli Yishai: 'We must not play dumb in the face of the report's findings'

Discussion: Liberty Street and The Moderate Voice

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

Canadian Judge Finds U.S. Lacking as a Haven for Refugees — Late last month, a federal judge in Canada ruled that the United States had violated international conventions on torture and the rights of refugees. — The decision has caused quite a stir in Canada.

Steve Benen / Talking Points Memo:

BUSHIES GAIN ACCESS TO NBC AIRWAVES — For quite a while, it seemed as if the only political ads that were rejected by television networks came from the left. Last week, for example, Fox News rejected an ad from the Center for Constitutional Rights about the administration's torture because …

Discussion: Wake up America, NO QUARTER and The Carpetbagger Report