Romney leads McCain in Michigan poll  —  Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who badly needs to win Tuesday's Michgian primary, has an eight-point lead over Sen. John McCain of Arizona in a McClatchy-MSNBC poll of Michigan voters to be released Sunday.  —  Romney had a narrower lead …

A CASE STUDY IN RESISTANCE  —  In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville famously concludes with a warning of the kind of despotism to which democratic are especially susceptible.  Tocqueville warns that the passion for equality will give rise to a certain kind of degradation in which citizens …

Sex and the Teenage Girl  —  THE movie “Juno” is a fairy tale about a pregnant teenager who decides to have her baby, place it for adoption and then get on with her life.  For the most part, the tone of the movie is comedic and jolly, but there is a moment when Juno tells her father about her condition …

The Media Does It Again  —  Today, the NY Times has the first part of a special series - War Torn:Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles.  It appears that the troops are coming home and becoming murderers. … And we're presented with a litany of tragedy.

McCaskill to endorse Obama  —  WASHINGTON — Sen. Claire McCaskill will endorse Barack Obama's presidential bid Sunday, a boost that comes as the Democratic presidential showdown intensifies in Missouri and the raft of other states set to vote on Feb. 5th.  —  McCaskill had intended …

Durbin warns Bill Clinton  —  Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the second-ranking party leader in the Senate, says President Bill Clinton's comments about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are getting “too personal” and called on the former president to refrain from attacking Obama's integrity.

Cloudy Fortunes for Conservatism  —  Well, this wasn't the plan.  —  As pretty much everyone has noticed, the Republican race hasn't exactly followed any of the scripts laid out for it.  Mitt Romney has been hacked apart like the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

Liberal Fascism And Its Critics  —  Here is some free advice for liberals who don't care much for Jonah Goldberg or his (bestselling) new volume: Either confine yourself to dismissive snark, of the sort perfected by my colleague Matt, or buckle down and actually read the damn thing.

Scotland Yard believes Al-Qaeda assassinated Benazir Bhutto  —  BRITISH officials have revealed that evidence amassed by Scotland Yard detectives points towards Al-Qaeda militants being responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.  —  Five experts in video evidence and forensic science …

Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study  —  A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.  —  Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal.

Huckabee: Evangelical Christians Now Have a Chance to Lead GOP  —  Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee touted his candidacy Saturday as a chance for evangelical Christians to lead the Republican Party rather than just support its candidates.  —  “I don't presume that you automatically support …

So We Thought.  But Then Again . . .  HARRY S TRUMAN once said he wanted to talk to a one-armed economist, “so that the guy could never make a statement and then say: ‘on the other hand.’ ” Yet economic knowledge continues to progress in unexpected ways.  Here are a few of the things we learned in the last 12 months:

Iraq Passes Bill on Baathists  —  Plan Would Ease Limits on Former Hussein Followers  —  The Iraqi parliament passed a bill Saturday intended to make it easier for former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to return to government jobs and collect their pensions, a significant achievement …

White House Secrecy Starts to Give  —  As Congress Intensifies Efforts for Openness, Administration Accedes  —  After years of hammering on the walls of secrecy surrounding the Bush White House, activists and Congress have begun, slowly, to open some cracks.

Red State Update Apologizes to Fred Thompson  —  I love these guys: