Racial tensions roil Democratic race  —  A series of comments from Senator Hillary Clinton, her husband, and her supporters are spurring a racial backlash and adding a divisive edge to the presidential primary as the candidates head south to heavily African-American South Carolina.

Poll: McCain gets 21-point bump after victory  —  CNN Deputy Political Director  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — John McCain's victory in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary appears to be paying off.  —  The senator from Arizona is the front-runner in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination …

The Daily Five: Giuliani Loses His National Finance Chair  —  1. It's not a good sign that Giuliani's senior staff have decided to work without paychecks, and there is no way to spin it otherwise.  The amount of money that's involved is miniscule: about $50,000 per month.

Shut Up, Larry  —  When I read Lawrence O'Donnell's post calling John Edwards a “loser” and threatening a lifetime of infamy if he doesn't get out of the race, I immediately went to O'Donnell's bio to see his party affiliation.  I was sure it would say “R” — but it didn't.  It didn't say anything.

D.L.C. Leaders Cut Edwards Out  —  As would be expected, the two gentlemen from the Democratic Leadership Council on a conference call today told reporters they're very confident in their party's chances of reclaiming the White House, they're happy that substantive issues are being discussed ...

Does Chris Matthews have a problem with women?  —  Using overtly sexist language, he has referred to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) as a “she devil” and compared her to a “strip-teaser."  He has called her “witchy” and likened her voice to “fingernails on a blackboard.”

THE AD MS. MAGAZINE REFUSED TO RUN:  —  The message, I take it, is pretty clear — “Feminists should like the way women are treated in Israeli life,” coupled with the pretty strong implication of “... and look how favorably it compares on this score to Israel's enemies.”

Mysterious crowd suddenly stopped Bhutto's car, officer says  —  ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Two new reports on the assassination last month of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto suggest that the killing may have been an ambitious plot rather than an isolated act of violence and that the government …

“We're all fascists now”  —  Along those lines, you write, “What is fascist is the notion that in an organic national community, the individual has no right not to be healthy; and the state therefore has the obligation to force us to be healthy for our own good.”

Ricks: Baghdad Only Seems ‘Peaceful’ Because 2006 Was ‘Pure Hell’  —  Discussing the one-year anniversary of President Bush's call for the “surge” on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, Washington Post Pentagon reporter Thomas Ricks said that, “judged on the terms …

HOW TO PREVENT A NAVAL WAR WITH IRAN.  —  Just how serious was the half-hour standoff Sunday morning between three American warships and five Iranian speed boats in the Strait of Hormuz?  Did we come close to war?  Was there any provocation?  Was the Pentagon's version of events, as the Iranians claim, a fake?

“We're all fascists now”  —  Jonah Goldberg is not a popular man among liberals.  The son of Lucianne Goldberg, the literary agent who played a pivotal role in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he already had that as a strike against him when he began his career as a conservative political commentator in the late 1990s.