Top Items:
Robert Novak / Real Clear Politics:
Huckabee Slipping — WASHINGTON — While public polls show Mike Huckabee leading Mitt Romney in Iowa, a new survey of an oversized sample shows Huckabee slipping and no longer ahead of Romney. — A private corporate interest commissioned a phone bank survey of 15,000 Iowans …
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Romney Eyes Huckabee Lead — Onetime Favorite Launches 11th-Hour Attacks — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched a fresh attack Friday on rival Mike Huckabee, raising the stakes in the tense two-person contest in Iowa that could prove critical to both candidates' hopes of winning the GOP nomination.
Marc Ambinder:
First Look: Romney's Second Immigration Ad — Mitt Romney will air a second ad drawing distinctions with John McCain on immigration, campaign aides said last night. Here's an exclusive preview: — The ad dispenses with the friendly “both good men” sentence and gets right into the details.
Marc Hansen / Des Moines Register:
McCain could be comeback codger — Every four years, it seems, one of the presidential candidates left for dead rises from the tomb and surprises everyone on caucus night. — Around this time in 2004, John Kerry and John Edwards came alive, finishing first and second. — Who will it be this time?
Discussion:
The Caucus
Jesus H Christ / The Huffington Post:
Bill Kristol To Become New York Times Columnist In 2008 — The Huffington Post has learned that, in a move bound to create controversy, the New York Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will become a weekly columnist in 2008. Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative who recently departed …
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias, Booman Tribune, The Edge of the American West, Blog P.I., The Sideshow, The Anonymous Liberal, Washington Monthly, Bark Bark Woof Woof, The American Street, Unqualified Offerings, driftglass, Crooks and Liars, Vox Popoli, Macsmind, TBogg, Reason Magazine, State of the Day, Bob Cesca's Goddamn … and Suburban Guerrilla
RELATED:
Carpetbagger / The Carpetbagger Report:
Kristol gets an unearned promotion — Recently cast off from Time magazine, presumably for writing shallow, predictable tripe, the Weekly Standard's William Kristol is getting a promotion of sorts. … If the report is accurate, and Kristol is joining the Times' roster …
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
Kristol To The NYT — He's obviously an extremely talented writer …
Kristol To The NYT — He's obviously an extremely talented writer …
Discussion:
Prairie Weather, alicublog, UrbanGrounds, The Agitator, Unqualified Offerings and LewRockwell.com Blog
David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:
Remarks on Pakistan Are Tailing Huckabee — In discussing the volatile situation in Pakistan, Mike Huckabee has made several erroneous or misleading statements at a time when he has been under increasing scrutiny from fellow presidential candidates for a lack of fluency in foreign policy issues.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, NY Daily News, CALIFORNIA YANKEE, Wizbang, Washington Wire, The Carpetbagger Report and MSNBC
RELATED:
Patrick Healy / New York Times:
Crisis Overseas Is Sudden Test for Candidates — WEBSTER CITY, Iowa — For the presidential candidates, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has emerged as a ghoulish sort of test: a chance to project leadership and competence — or not — on a fast-moving and nuanced foreign policy issue.
Discussion:
The Politico, MSNBC, Jules Crittenden, Brendan Nyhan, Prairie Weather, Democratic Strategist, Hot Air, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post
Matt Bai / New York Times:
Invisible Blogger — The sidewalks of Harlem's main thoroughfares are wide and inviting, and in the 1960s the kids playing “boxball” shared the asphalt squares with some of the greatest orators in creation. The most famous spot for speechifying was the “Speakers' Corner” …
Michelle Malkin:
Impeachment Watch: Extreme BDS in Vermont — Frustrated by the failure of the Dem leadership to carry through with impeachment, some Bush-haters in Brattleboro, Vermont want to subject President Bush and VP Cheney to arrest if they set foot in their town. Consider it sort of a do-it-yourself impeachment alternative:
RELATED:
Bill Minor / Clarion-Ledger:
Has Barbour set stage for ‘lifetime job’ for GOP Senate seat? — At the height of the holidays, Gov. Haley Barbour merrily trampled years of precedents and legal stops to hand the Mississippi Republican Party a shiny Christmas gift labeled “U.S. Senate Seat for Life.”
Discussion:
Hattiesburg American
RELATED:
Greg Giroux / CQ Politics:
Lott's Mississippi Senate Successor Gets Named on Monday
Lott's Mississippi Senate Successor Gets Named on Monday
Discussion:
Cliff Schecter
Sabrina Eaton / OPENERS:
Kucinich backers mad over Pizza Hut ad — A new Pizza Hut ad (see YouTube video above) that uses slices of presidential debate commentary to tout a cut-rate pizza deal has angered backers of Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich. — “Are people seeing lower prices now?” …
CNN:
Bhutto exhumation okay, Pakistan official says — ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — The Pakistani government has no problem with officials from Benazir Bhutto's political party exhuming the slain opposition leader's body if they see a need to do so, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Saturday.
Brent Budowsky / The Hill:
What Gore, Clinton and Democrats Can Learn from Benazir Bhutto — Benazir Bhutto was no angel, but she was a believer in democracy who gave her life for her country, retuning to Pakistan knowing she would probably give her life for her country. — By contrast, Democrats in Washington have a life crisis …
Discussion:
TPMCafe blogs
David Harsanyi / Reason:
The Amateurs' Hour — Is the Internet destroying our culture, or is it just annoying our snobs? — The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture, by Andrew Keen, New York: Currency, 228 pages, $22.95 — Andrew Keen's website claims, without a hint of humility …
Discussion:
Michael J. Totten
New York Times:
In Surprise Step, Bush Is Vetoing a Military Bill — CRAWFORD, Tex. — For months President Bush harangued Democrats in Congress for not moving quickly enough to support the troops and for bogging down military bills with unrelated issues. — And then on Friday, with no warning …
Bryan / Hot Air:
Huck claims John Bolton as a foreign policy adviser. That's news to John Bolton. Updated: “...no foreign policy credential..." — I didn't want to write yet another blast at Huckabee, honest. Like the movie says, I keep trying to get out but he just keeps pulling me back in. Over and over and over again.
Discussion:
Sister Toldjah, TownHall Blog, The Discerning Texan, The Trail, You Decide 08!, Lone Star Times and Flopping Aces
RELATED: