Obama says, “No, I, I, I, I, I have to, I heard, I heard, I don't need it, I don't need to hear what you read because I was, I overheard it when he said it."  —  DES MOINES, IA.—The Obama campaign faced a distraction on Thursday after some news outlets ran stories suggesting chief Obama …

Be Reasonable  —  As Iowa sizes up the candidates, so do I.  —  By next week politically active Iowans will have met and tallied their votes.  Their decision this year will have a huge impact on the 2008 election, and a decisive impact on various candidacies.  Some will be done in.  Some will be made.

Elizabeth vs. Obama  —  What ever happened to Hillary Clinton?  —  Yet more evidence that the central front right now in Iowa is between Edwards and Obama: A mailing from Elizabeth Edwards, which urges readers to check out an anti-Obama Paul Krugman column and learn “why we can't just sit down at a table with special interests.

Clinton's “don't ask” policy  —  As she races through Iowa in the days before next week's caucuses, Hillary Clinton is taking few chances.  She tells crowds that it's their turn to “pick a president,” but over the last two days she has not invited them to ask her any questions.

Giuliani Campaign Official: Rudy Is The Only Candidate Who Can Chase “The Muslims"..."Back Into Their Caves"  —  From the Guardian UK via TPM: (h/t SteveAudio)  —  Winning hearts and minds the world over...  John Deady, Co-Chair for New Hampshire's Veterans for Rudy:

Pelosi, Reid, Huckabee, Obama Among Nation's “Most Corrupt”  —  Judicial Watch has named its ten most corrupt political figures of 2007, and the list may surprise.  It includes a number of very well-known politicians who have received little attention for their questionable business deals.

Under Attack, Drug Maker Turned to Giuliani for Help  —  In western Virginia, far from the limelight, United States Attorney John L. Brownlee found himself on the telephone last year with a political and legal superstar, Rudolph W. Giuliani.  —  For years, Mr. Brownlee and his small team …

Fun With Antecedents  —  Via Scott Lemieux, Robert Dallek reviews a new book on Condoleezza Rice: … By the same token, if earth's yellow sun gave me the powers of a kryptonian, I'd be a super hero.  If my blog had Engadget's traffic, I'd be the most popular political blogger.

Dems protest Bush's surprise veto of defense bill  —  At the behest of the Iraqi government, President Bush will veto the annual defense authorization bill, saying an obscure provision in the legislation could make Iraqi assets held in U.S. banks vulnerable to lawsuits.

Rallying the middle class  —  I GREW UP in a small, rural town, and my parents didn't have a lot of money.  My mother worked at the post office and my father earned his living in a textile mill.  They worked hard to provide a better life for their children, and they taught me to believe …

Trouble With Trade  —  While the United States has long imported oil and other raw materials from the third world, we used to import manufactured goods mainly from other rich countries like Canada, European nations and Japan.  —  But recently we crossed an important watershed …

Bhutto death makes McCain man of the moment  —  URBANDALE, Iowa — John McCain, older than dirt and with more scars than Frankenstein as he likes to say, suddenly wasn't looking so bad.  —  Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated in Pakistan and the political conversation in America had changed.