Top Items:
Washington Post:
John Edwards to Quit Presidential Race — John Edwards will end his presidential bid today, a source close to the Edwards campaign confirmed. — The former North Carolina senator is scheduled to speak in New Orleans this afternoon — an appearance billed as an anti-poverty speech …
Discussion:
New York Times, Captain's Quarters, American Street, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Gun Toting Liberal™, Washington Monthly, Liberal Values, The 7-10, Rox Populi, Comments from Left Field, Taylor Marsh, Scobleizer, Say Anything, Middle Earth Journal, The Reaction, Blue Crab Boulevard, skippy the bush kangaroo, Suburban Guerrilla, Greatscat! and Tom Watson
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CNN:
Edwards quitting presidential race — (CNN) — Former Sen. John Edwards is dropping out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, CNN has learned. — Edwards has told top advisers about his decision. It is expected he will announce it at a speech in New Orleans, Louisiana, at 1 p.m. Wednesday.
Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:
Why John Edwards Won — John Edwards ends his presidential candidacy today. This is not surprising news: He finished third in every single contest except for Iowa, where he narrowly beat Hillary Clinton. Going forward, he doesn't have the money or the organization to compete with either her or Barack Obama.
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Edwards' Departure & A New Democratic Race — Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) ended his bid for the presidency today in New Orleans, bringing to a close a five-year quest for the nation's highest office. — Edwards was joined by his wife, Elizabeth, as well as his three children on stage.
Discussion:
TPM Election Central, The New Republic, Power Line, The Carpetbagger Report, The Campaign Spot and Sister Toldjah
Dick Morris / The Hill:
McCain may win, Romney can't — Some may agree with Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) positions on his myriad of causes and enthusiasms. Others may embrace Mitt Romney's record as governor and his experience in business. But one fact remains pre-eminent — McCain has a much better chance …
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Ross Douthat:
Fortune's Favorite — For the first six months of this presidential campaign, everything went wrong for John McCain, putting him in a position where to win the nomination, he needed just about everything else to go his way. And with the exception of the Michigan primary, that's exactly what's happened.
Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:
US AND THEM....You already knew this, but the Bush administration is nuts. Here's exhibit #3,886: … It's dumb enough that we have a policy of refusing to speak to Iran in the first place, as if merely talking to them would give us geopolitical cooties. But to repeatedly get bent …
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Gallup:
Gallup Daily: Tracking Election 2008 — Based on daily polling from Jan. 27-29, 2008 — PRINCETON, NJ — Barack Obama has now cut the gap with Hillary Clinton to 6 percentage points among Democrats nationally in the Gallup Poll Daily tracking three-day average, and interviewing conducted …
Philip Shenon / New York Times:
Mukasey Offers View on Waterboarding — WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said Tuesday that the harsh C.I.A. interrogation technique known as waterboarding was not clearly illegal, and suggested that it could be used against terrorism suspects once again if requested by the White House.
Discussion:
Think Progress, The Newshoggers, JustOneMinute, CNN, Comments from Left Field, The Crone Speaks, The Heretik, The Politico and At-Largely
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National Review:
The Right Guy? — It's looking more and more like John McCain could be the Republican nominee. What can he do to rally conservatives? Can he? — ALVIN S. FELZENBERG — Well, the identity of the Republican nominee for president appears even more settled than it did a week ago.
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Donald Lambro / Washington Times:
Talk radio impugns McCain's liberal record
Talk radio impugns McCain's liberal record
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Time, The Sundries Shack, The Strata-Sphere, Talking Points Memo and RADAMISTO
Michael Gerson / Washington Post:
Compassionate to the End — When President Bush took his final walk to the rostrum of the House chamber, his speech and manner conveyed little nostalgia. He views both meditation on the past and speculation about his legacy with equal suspicion, preferring to live in the urgency of the now.
David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:
REP. TOM DAVIS (R-VA) RETIRING — Careful. If you blink, you might miss another GOP congressman announcing plans to retire. — Yesterday it was Reps. Ron Lewis (R-KY) and Kenny Hulshof (R-MO). (Hulshof is not retiring per se, but running for governor.)
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Greg Sargent / TPM Election Central:
Top Edwards Adviser Joe Trippi: Hillary And Obama Are “Banging Down The Doors” For Our Endorsement — Top Edwards adviser Joe Trippi just confirmed to me by phone that the Hillary and Obama campaigns are already working overtime to woo Edwards to their sides — even before his official dropout speech.
The Politico:
Rudy defeat marks end of 9/11 politics — Rudy Giuliani's distant third-place finish in Florida may put an end to his bid for president, and it seems also to mark the beginning of the end of a period in Republican politics that began on Sept. 11, 2001. — Giuliani's national celebrity …
Wall Street Journal:
Terminated — Arnold Schwarzenegger's “universal” health-care plan died in the California legislature on Monday, in what can only be called a mercy killing. So let's conduct a political autopsy, because there are important lessons here for the national health-care debate.
Wall Street Journal:
The Daniel Pearl Standard — This week marks the sixth anniversary of the murder of my son Daniel Pearl, a reporter for this newspaper. It is a fitting occasion to step back and reflect on what this tragedy has taught us. — I am often asked why Danny's death has touched so many people and why he …
Max Holland / Washington DeCoded:
Commission Confidential — EXTRA — In a revelation bound to cast a pall over the 9/11 Commission, Philip Shenon will report in a forthcoming book that the panel's executive director, Philip Zelikow, engaged in “surreptitious” communications with presidential adviser Karl Rove …