Poll: Iowa's GOP Race is Battle Between Huckabee, Romney  —  The race for Iowa's Republican caucuses has narrowed to a two-person battle between former governors Mike Huckabee (Ark.) and Mitt Romney (Mass.), with Huckabee now perched atop the field, propelled by a big jump in support among religious women.

NY Times changes CIA headline for WH  —  The New York Times has changed the subheadline in Wednesday's front-page story on the CIA's destruction of secret interrogation tapes, following a formal request by the White House.  —  The correction has already been made online …

UPDATE: NATIONAL ENQUIRER WORLD EXCLUSIVE: JOHN EDWARDS LOVE CHILD SCANDAL!  —  Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught up in a love child scandal, a blockbuster ENQUIRER investigation has discovered.  —  The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that Rielle Hunter, a woman linked to Edwards …

Tancredo to get out?  —  Tom Tancredo has scheduled a press conference in Des Moines tomorrow afternoon to make a “major announcement regarding the campaign,” according to a media advisory his campaign sent out today.  —  Asked whether Tancredo intended to drop out of the race …

Interesting Obama history  —  I've been alerted to an interesting Boston Globe article about Barack Obama's role, when he was in the Illinois legislature, in the attempt to get the state committed to universal health care.  It turns out that the story very much prefigures the debates we're having right now.

Fred Thompson: Lazy as charged  —  WAVERLY, Iowa — When is retail politics not retail politics?  When candidates refuse to get off their big buses and go do it.  —  Fred Thompson rolled into this small town on the Cedar River in north-central Iowa on a giant brown bus Tuesday.

Person of the Year: Vladimir Putin  —  A Tsar Is Born  —  No one is born with a stare like Vladimir Putin's.  The Russian President's pale blue eyes are so cool, so devoid of emotion that the stare must have begun as an affect, the gesture of someone who understood that power might be achieved …

Fire in Cheney's Office Causes Leftists to Rant Uncontrollably  —  There was a fire in Dick Cheney's office this morning, and as usual the leftist blogosphere is brimming over with lunatic ranting.  —  At Think Progress, the Morlocks who inhabit their comments are sure this is a ploy to cover up the destroying of documents.

Reid's Relationship With Bush Enters Deep Freeze  —  WASHINGTON — Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has called President Bush a loser and a liar and has referred to him derisively as King George.  Mr. Reid has also apologized — but only, he likes to point out, for the “loser” line.

“Mitt Romney...Helped Save My Daughter”  —  At first blush, this seems like a genuinely great campaign ad — the story of how Mitt Romney basically closed down his business, Bain Capital, in 1996 when the daughter of one of his partners went missing in New York City and Romney sent dozens …

What Huckabee Really Means  —  Mike Huckabee was on the “Today” show this morning.  Meredith Viera asked him to react to Rich's remark that nominating Huckabee would be suicide for the Republican party.  Huckabee began with his standard line about how he is not part of the “Wall Street-to-Washington axis, this corridor of power.”

Krugman Dogged By Rumor That His Son Works For Hillary  —  Regular readers of this site will recognize that this headline is a tongue-in-cheek one, I hope.  But as it happens, Krugman is being dogged by such a rumor, though it happens to be false.  —  Over at Election Central …

Torture Tapes are the Watergate of Our Times  —  As I write these words on the morning of Wednesday, Dec. 19, high- and low-level officials of the Bush administration involved in torture, and the destruction of the torture tapes, are consulting their criminal lawyers as The New York Times reports …

All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord, Study Shows  —  Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of “occupying forces” as the key to national reconciliation …