Top Items:
John Harwood / Wall Street Journal:
Giuliani Loses Lead In Republican Race — Ex-Mayor Is Tied With Romney In National Poll of Republicans — WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani has lost his national lead in the Republican presidential race, creating the party's most competitive nomination fight in decades just two weeks before voting starts.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, The Moderate Voice, American Thinker, Daily Kos, Oliver Willis and The Strata-Sphere
RELATED:
Washington Post:
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.
Discussion:
ABCNEWS, The Moderate Voice, Des Moines Register, New York Times, Reuters, The Corner and Jonathan Martin's Blogs
Gary Langer / ABCNEWS:
POLL: Religion Drives Iowa GOP Race, Lifting Huckabee Into the Lead
POLL: Religion Drives Iowa GOP Race, Lifting Huckabee Into the Lead
Discussion:
Marc Ambinder, The Corner, Weekly Standard, DownWithTyranny!, TPM Election Central and Pollster.com
Tom Tancredo / You Decide 08!:
TOM TANCREDO TO DROP OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL RACE — Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo plans to drop out of the race during an announcement Thursday afternoon in Des Moines, Iowa, GOP sources close to the campaign have told FOX News. — Tancredo, who has aggressively pushed …
Discussion:
The Politico, Pajamas Media, THE LIBERAL JOURNAL, eyeon08.com, Tammy Bruce, Hot Air, LewRockwell.com Blog and The Stump
RELATED:
George Merritt / Associated Press:
Tancredo to abandon presidential bid — DENVER - Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, whose forceful opposition to illegal immigration vaulted him to national prominence, plans to announce he is abandoning his long-shot bid for the presidency, a person close to Tancredo said Wednesday.
M.E. Sprengelmeyer / Rocky Mountain News:
“Slim” chance Tancredo will remain in presidential race — DES MOINES, Iowa - Rep. Tom Tancredo plans to meet with some presidential rivals in Iowa on Thursday, and then there's only a “slim” chance he'll remain in the Republican contest, his wife said Wednesday night.
Klaus Marre / The Hill:
White House asks NYT to remove sub-headline from CIA tape story — The White House on Wednesday took the rare step of publicly asking The New York Times to change the sub-headline of a story on the destruction of CIA tapes showing the interrogations of suspected terrorists.
RELATED:
Michael Calderone / The Politico:
NY Times changes CIA headline for WH
NY Times changes CIA headline for WH
Discussion:
Washington Post, All Spin Zone, PBD, Attytood, HorsesAss.Org, Wonkette, Democrats.com, Think Progress, The Lede, Cliff Schecter, The Raw Story and TIME: Swampland
Paul Krugman:
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.
RELATED:
Greg Sargent / TPM Election Central:
In An Interview With TPM, Krugman Ramps Up Case Against Obama
In An Interview With TPM, Krugman Ramps Up Case Against Obama
Discussion:
The Anonymous Liberal, Washington Monthly, TalkLeft, Open Left, TIME, Newsweek and Clive Crook
David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:
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.
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, Weekly Standard, The Politico, Right Voices, Macsmind, MSNBC, Don Surber and The Hill
RELATED:
David Stout / New York Times:
Congress Votes to Spare Millions From Alternative Tax — WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to spare millions more Americans who do not consider themselves “rich” from being ensnared in a tax device originally designed for people who really are.
Discussion:
On Deadline
RELATED:
David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:
Congress Averts Higher Tax Bill for Middle Class
Congress Averts Higher Tax Bill for Middle Class
Discussion:
Big Lizards
Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
Did Huckabee Have Gastric Bypass Surgery? — Zogby says that we're in the middle of a Huckaboom — they find that Mike Huckabee is within 1 point of Giuliani in the national polls. Whether the Zogby poll is an outlier or not, Huckabee's surge over the past two months has been remarkable …
Roger Simon / The Politico:
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.
Logan Murphy / Crooks and Liars:
Tucker Attacks John Edwards For Remembering Homeless Vets In Holiday Ad — On Wednesday's Tucker, the hopefully soon to be unemployed host gets riled up because Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, had the nerve to mention homeless veterans and those less fortunate in his holiday ad.
The Corner:
Curious Huck — Mike Huckabee is now becoming a very divisive figure in the Republican party. It's not his faith or his Merry Christmas commercial that many conservatives question (I certainly don't), but it's his record as governor and his stated positions on the war, foreign policy generally, taxes, spending, and illegal aliens.
Discussion:
Hot Air
Gay Patriot:
Sondra K-Grande Conservative Blogress Diva 2008 — When we launched the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva contest this year, we expected to have a number of blogresses nominated and seconded as we did. So, we assumed a run-off would be necessary. — What we did not anticipate was the number of glitches in this year's competition.
Discussion:
Tammy Bruce
Mark Finkelstein / NewsBusters.org:
Huckabee Iowa Manager: ‘War on Terror a Theological War’ — Mike Huckabee might want to “revise and extend” the remarks of his Iowa campaign manager. Appearing on this evening's Tucker on MSNBC, Bob Vander Plaats stated that “we're fighting a radical religion in Islam” and that “the war on terror is a theological war.”
Bryan / Hot Air:
Video: Hillary's unintentionally revealing Christmas ad — My jaw dropped when I watched this one the first time. Hillary's Christmas ad says nothing at all about Christmas. The gifts make the connection, of course, but check out what the gifts are: universal health care, bring the troops home, etc.
Discussion:
Gateway Pundit, BizzyBlog, Blue Crab Boulevard, The American Mind, NewsBusters.org, Stop The ACLU and Taylor Marsh
Leonard Doyle / The Independent:
Slave labour that shames America — Migrant workers chained beaten and forced into debt, exposing the human cost of producing cheap food — Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching …
Discussion:
The Unapologetic Mexican
Tom Firey / Cato-at-liberty:
A Moment of Idiocy, of Real Idiocy — The above title is the correct assessment of the new energy bill that President Bush just signed into law, less than 24 hrs after the House approved it by a 314-100 margin. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking just prior to yesterday's vote …