memeorandum: E.P.A. Denies California Emission's Waiver (Micheline Maynard/New York Times)

9:45 PM ET, December 19, 2007

Top Items:

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: The Corner, Taegan Goddard's …, Jonathan Martin's Blogs, New York Times and Pollster.com

David Freddoso / The Corner:

That Rasmussen Poll... ...in Iowa suggests that John McCain — not Fred Thompson — is becoming the choice of disaffected Huckaboomers. McCain has picked up six points since the last survey, Huckabee has lost 11. Romney has gained four. Fred has gained nothing.

Discussion: Weekly Standard, Rasmussen Reports, TPM Election Central, Riehl World View, MyDD, Captain's Quarters, Hot Air, FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog and PoliGazette

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: Taegan Goddard's …, Daily Kos, Oliver Willis and The Strata-Sphere

CBS News:

Poll: Huckabee Leads, Dems Tied In S.C. — GOP Hopeful Huckabee Propelled By Evangelicals, While Clinton And Obama Experience “Reverse Gender Gap" — (CBS) One month before the first votes are cast in South Carolina, a new CBS News poll finds Republican Mike Huckabee with a comfortable …

Discussion: The Palmetto Scoop

IMAO.US:
The Official IMAO Republican Primary Endorsement

Discussion: Daily Pundit and A Second Hand Conjecture

Deacon / Power Line:
MORE MUSH FROM THE HUCK — This was Mike Huckabee's comment …

Discussion: The Corner

Byron York / The Corner: What Huckabee Really Means — Mike Huckabee was on the “Today” show this morning.

Michael Calderone / The Politico:

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 …

Discussion: HorsesAss.Org, Wonkette, The Carpetbagger Report, Democrats.com, The Raw Story, JURIST and The Gun Toting Liberal™

Klaus Marre / The Hill:
White House asks NYT to remove sub-headline from CIA tape story

Discussion: New York Times, TPMmuckraker, Washington Post, White House, Agence France Presse, On Deadline, Associated Press, New York Observer, Talking Points Memo, Firedoglake, Balkinization and Salon

Dan Froomkin / Washington Post:
The Tell-Tale Stall — The best indicator of how seriously …

Discussion: CNN, Think Progress, Cliff Schecter, Salon, The Carpetbagger Report and TPMmuckraker

Greg Sargent / Horses Mouth:

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 …

Paul Krugman:
Interesting Obama history

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Comments from Left Field, Liberal Values and THE LIBERAL JOURNAL

Greg Sargent / TPM Election Central:
In An Interview With TPM, Krugman Ramps Up Case Against Obama

Discussion: Washington Monthly, TalkLeft, Newsweek, Open Left, TIME, Clive Crook and Pottersville

National Enquirer:

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 …

Discussion: Riehl World View, Wonkette, DBKP, Tim Worstall Tabloid Edition, THE REACTION, MoJoBlog, Clayton Cramer's BLOG, Doug Ross, The Corner, Right Wing News and Vox Popoli

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: Marc Ambinder, Tammy Bruce, Salon and LewRockwell.com Blog

Jonathan Martin / The Politico:

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 …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Pajamas Media, M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Comments from Left Field, Hot Air, The Stump, race42008.com and The Campaign Spot

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.

Discussion: Hot Air, Macsmind, Stop The ACLU, The Stump, Riehl World View, A Second Hand Conjecture and Political Machine

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: The Crypt's Blogs, Los Angeles Times, Right Voices, Macsmind, The Hill, Don Surber, MSNBC and BrothersJudd Blog

Brian Faughnan / Weekly Standard:
Does Harry Reid Need a Psychiatrist?

Discussion: The Crypt's Blogs

Micheline Maynard / New York Times:

E.P.A. Denies California Emission's Waiver — DETROIT — The Bush administration said Wednesday night that it would deny California's bid to set stricter vehicle emissions standards than federal law required as part of the state's efforts to fight climate change.

Discussion: Prairie Weather

John Podhoretz / Commentary:

“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 …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters and The Daily Dish

Brent Budowsky / The Hill:

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 …

Discussion: Comments from Left Field, Left in the West and TPMCafe blogs

Logan Murphy / Crooks and Liars:

Tucker Attacks John Edwards For Remembering Homeless Vets In Holiday Ad — On Wednesday's Tucker, the 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.