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 …
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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.
Discussion:
Boston Globe, Captain's Quarters, The New Republic, The Caucus, MSNBC, PoliGazette and Slate
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
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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
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” …
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
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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:
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Greg Giroux / CQ Politics:
Lott's Mississippi Senate Successor Gets Named on Monday — There will be a New Year's Eve Senate name-dropping in Mississippi, when Republican Gov. Haley Barbour is scheduled to announce his appointee as the interim replacement to resigned Republican Sen. Trent Lott.
Discussion:
Cliff Schecter
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Bill Minor / Clarion-Ledger:
Has Barbour set stage for ‘lifetime job’ for GOP Senate seat?
Has Barbour set stage for ‘lifetime job’ for GOP Senate seat?
Discussion:
Hattiesburg American
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 …
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Kagro X / Daily Kos:
Bush claims Senate's pro forma sessions don't count
Bush claims Senate's pro forma sessions don't count
Discussion:
White House, Firedoglake, Taylor Marsh, Hullabaloo, Group News Blog, Prometheus 6, Big Brass Blog, The Democratic Daily and Open Left
Janny Scott / New York Times:
A Biracial Candidate Walks His Own Fine Line — The 2006 Democratic primary campaign for the presidency of the Cook County Board of Commissioners was vintage Chicago politics. — The incumbent was an aging party loyalist, mayoral confederate and institution in black Chicago.
Lisa Lerer / The Politico:
Bolton denies he is a Huckabee adviser — In recent days, Mike Huckabee has tried to answer long-standing questions about who is on his foreign policy team. On Friday morning, he listed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has “spoken or will continue to speak.”
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Michael Cooper / New York Times:
Giuliani Returns to a Familiar Theme: 9/11 — FORT DODGE, Iowa — With his campaign hitting a rocky patch just before the first votes are cast, Rudolph W. Giuliani is returning to the themes that transformed him from a lame-duck mayor of New York City to a popular national figure six years ago …
Michael Kamber / New York Times:
Shame of Imported Labor in Kurdish North of Iraq — SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — The tiny Filipino woman's hands trembled. She was in hiding, fearing capture at any moment. — She and a friend had come to Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish north as guest workers six months earlier.
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.
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?” …
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