memeorandum: The Case for Polarization — Everyone's gotten to the fact … (Matthew Yglesias)

3:50 PM ET, December 29, 2007

Top Items:

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.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Guardian, The Newshoggers, The Gun Toting Liberal™, Voice of America, Associated Press, Time, New York Times, At-Largely, The Impolitic, Macsmind, On Deadline and Blogs of War

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY....In October, David Brooks, in an otherwise fawning column about Mike Huckabee, conceded that “his foreign policy thinking is thin." That was obviously a dramatic understatement. — Earlier this month, he didn't know what the National Intelligence Estimate was.

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias

Telegraph:

Pakistan offers to exhume Benazir Bhutto — The Pakistan government today offered to exhume the body of Benazir Bhutto, as the row over the murdered opposition leader's cause of death intensified. — The Interior Ministry claims the former leader died after hitting her head …

Discussion: Jules Crittenden, Captain's Quarters, Agence France Presse, New York Times, A Blog For All, PoliGazette, Time and New York Post

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: Matthew Yglesias, ThePoliticalCat, MSNBC, Wizbang, CALIFORNIA YANKEE, Betsy's Page, Brendan Nyhan and The Politico

Washington Post:
The Pakistan Test — Some presidential candidates show …

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blogs, TalkLeft and CNN

Brent Budowsky / The Hill:
What Gore, Clinton and Democrats Can Learn from Benazir Bhutto

Discussion: TPMCafe blogs

CNN:
Three causes of death for Bhutto in 36 hours

Discussion: Hindustan Times, The Moderate Voice, Talking Points Memo, BAGnewsNotes, The Heretik, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, skippy the bush kangaroo, Hot Air and Matthew Yglesias

Washington Post:
U.S. Fears Greater Turmoil In Region

Discussion: AMERICAblog, Political Machine, Prairie Weather, PBD, MSNBC, New York Times and Asia Times

Faiz / Think Progress:

Kristol: The New York Times ‘Should Be Prosecuted,’ 'It Isn't A First-Rate Newspaper' — For years, Bill Kristol has been at the forefront of a vitriolic right-wing crusade against the New York Times. Sadly, the Times has chosen to reward him for it. — After the New York Times …

Discussion: The Newshoggers, THE LIBERAL JOURNAL, Wake up America and Booman Tribune

Matthew Yglesias:

All's Well — When I heard that Bill Kristol was leaving Time I got seriously worried about the state of the world. After all, everyone knows that conservative pundits don't get held accountable for saying tons and tons of wrong stuff — that's not how it works.

Discussion: Blog of the Moderate Left, The Edge of the American West, The Huffington Post, Washington Monthly, Bark Bark Woof Woof, American Power and The Anonymous Liberal

Carpetbagger / The Carpetbagger Report:
Kristol gets an unearned promotion

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, Liberty Street, Connecting.the.Dots, UrbanGrounds, alicublog, Lawyers, Guns and Money and Angry Bear

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 …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, Taegan Goddard's … and Power Line

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: The New Republic, Boston Globe, The Caucus, MSNBC, Captain's Quarters and PoliGazette

New York Times: Candidates Digging for a Deeper Pool of Iowa Voters

Los Angeles Times:
Romney at center of GOP ad battle

Discussion: Hotline On Call, Hot Air and Riehl World View

Marc Hansen / Des Moines Register:
McCain could be comeback codger

Discussion: Outside The Beltway and The Caucus

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” …

Discussion: Tom Watson, Chris Dodd National Blog, Liberty Street, Althouse, American Street and TBogg

Ann Althouse / Althouse:

“You may have seen that some Hillary Clinton ‘sock puppets’ were recently outed on a New Hampshire blog, to the campaign's great embarrassment." — Thanks, Matt Bai, NYT Magazine writer who is now also blogging on the NYT website. I'm extremely interested in that story, which I missed.

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications and The Caucus

Jesse Wendel / Group News Blog:
NY Times Magazine: Steven Gilliard Jr.

Discussion: driftglass

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:

Because Oil Companies And Pizza Hut Couldn't Afford It — I've figured out how to get conservatives and liberals together on the issue of pork. All we need to do is show how earmarks put money in the pockets of a progressive bete noir, and if possible, throw in a dash of Congressional cluelessness.

Discussion: The Newshoggers

Aaron Keith Harris / xeniagazette.1upmonitor.com: Hobson helps make gas station a reality

Rudy Giuliani / You Decide 08!:

RUDY GIULIANI VETERANS' CO-CHAIRMAN RESIGNS OVER MUSLIM REMARKS — A co-chairman for Rudy Giuliani's veterans' coalition in New Hampshire resigned Saturday after telling a British newspaper that Muslims need to be chased “back to their caves." — The response was swift …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, TPM Election Central, Unfogged, The Carpetbagger Report and Blue Hampshire

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:

Discussion: The Corner, Hot Air, The Sundries Shack, Dr. Sanity, Dohiyi Mir, JammieWearingFool, BitsBlog, Impeach Bush For Peace, Runnin' Scared, The Jawa Report and Buck Naked Politics

Jim Himes / Firedoglake:

Blue America Welcomes Jim Himes — (Jim Himes is running against Chris Shays in CT-04. Please welcome him in the comments, and you can make a valuable end-of-quarter contribution to his campaign here — the goal is 500 contributors by Monday night, so even $5 would be great! — jh)

Discussion: Crooks and Liars