Rush Limbaugh's First Shots at Huckabee  —  So everybody and their brother is listening to Rush today, wondering if he'll take a shot at Huckabee after an unnamed Huckabee aide in DC criticized Limbaugh...  The first comment, moments into the show: “You want to whine like Mike Huckabee's whining …

THE “SCANDAL” THAT'S RIDICULOUS … That claim is incontestable. … The AP story is titled: Romney backpedals on statements — again.

Poll: Obama makes gains, is even with Clinton in N.H.  —  PELHAM, N.H. — Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are locked in a dead heat among New Hampshire voters in a statewide USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, underscoring the volatility of the race less than three weeks before the nation's first primary.

Why Isn't Anyone Paying Attention to This?  —  This was not exactly bannered across the front page of the New York Times yesterday.  As a matter of fact, I don't think I saw it in my paper at all.  But on the Times' website, dated December 20, there is this headline: “Giuliani's Office Shifted Money Around?

Obama Camp Registers Anti-Clinton Web Sites  —  Campaign Plays Semantics Over Whether Sites Are Personal Attacks  —  Though Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has pledged to keep criticisms of his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, focused on the issues, ABC News has learned that his campaign secretly registered …

Huckabee: Gitmo Is “Too Nice”  —  From CBS News' Joy Lin and Mary Hood:  —  DAVENPORT, IA - Asked about Guantanamo, Mike Huckabee said he had visited the facility and said it was “disappointing” that military personnel were eating meals that averaged $1.60 while the detainees were eating Halal meals that cost over $4 each.

Pimp My Ride  —  On the road with Ron Paul's merry band of misfits and his hooker fan club.  —  The first thing I learned from driving around Nevada with Ron Paul for a couple of days: People really hate the Federal Reserve.  This became clear midway through a speech Paul was giving …

The “Theory of Change” Primary  —  Perhaps we are being too literal in believing that “hope” and bipartisanship are things that Obama naively believes are present and possible, when in fact they are a tactic, a method of subverting and breaking the unified conservative power structure.

RE: Bye, Bye Mike  —  Regarding that Huckabee advisor's soon-to-be-regretted comments about Limbaugh, Huckabee actually encourages people in his book From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPs to Restoring America's Greatness to “listen to less talk radio” as part of his “12 Action Steps to STOP Being Cynical.”

Blindly Into the Bubble  —  When announcing Japan's surrender in 1945, Emperor Hirohito famously explained his decision as follows: “The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."  —  There was a definite Hirohito feel to the explanation Ben Bernanke …