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, Marc Ambinder, Taegan Goddard's …, The Moderate Voice, Daily Kos, Oliver Willis and The Strata-Sphere
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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:
The Moderate Voice, ABCNEWS, The Corner, New York Times, Taegan Goddard's …, Jonathan Martin's Blogs 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 …
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.
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.
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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:
Washington Post, HorsesAss.Org, Attytood, Wonkette, The Lede, Democrats.com, Think Progress, The Carpetbagger Report, 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.
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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:
CBS News, Hot Air, Stop The ACLU, race42008.com, The Stump, Macsmind, Riehl World View and Political Machine
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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, Macsmind, Right Voices, Don Surber, MSNBC, The Hill and BrothersJudd Blog
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Brian Faughnan / Weekly Standard:
Does Harry Reid Need a Psychiatrist?
Does Harry Reid Need a Psychiatrist?
Discussion:
The Crypt's Blogs
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 …
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.
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Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:
An Astonishing Turnaround on Iraq — An astonishing turnaround occurred in the Senate on Tuesday: 70 senators voted to fund the Iraq war with a fresh $70 billion and no strings attached. Think about this a moment. Last winter, after Democrats captured the Senate and House …
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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
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 …
Discussion:
TalkLeft
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.”
IMAO.US:
The Official IMAO Republican Primary Endorsement — IMAO has long been a revered conservative institution, and we thought it would be neglectfully of us not to weigh in on who the Republicans should nominate for president. Surveys show that most Republicans are not certain of their current choice …
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