memeorandum: The Bill — Tom Shanker reports for The New York Times … (Matthew Yglesias)

8:50 PM ET, February 4, 2008

Top Items:

Jason George / The Swamp:

Hillary Clinton cries in Connecticut — NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Sen. Hillary Clinton teared up this morning at an event at the Yale Child Study Center, where she worked while in law school in the early 1970s. — Penn Rhodeen, who was introducing Clinton, began to choke up …

New York Magazine:

Breaking: Hillary Reemploys ‘The Cry’ — Yep, it's official. Hillary Clinton is running to be Crybaby-in-Chief. According to the Tribune Co.'s politics blog, the Swamp, Clinton teared up after a heartfelt introduction by a former colleague at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, where she worked in college.

Discussion: Shakespeare's Sister, Comments from Left Field, Wonkette and TIME: Swampland

Paul Steinhauser / CNN:

Poll: Obama erases Clinton's lead — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton is losing ground to Sen. Barack Obama in a national CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released on the eve of critical Super Tuesday presidential primaries and caucuses. — The two are virtually tied …

Discussion: Washington Wire, Zogby, Real Clear Politics, Washington Post, THE LIBERAL JOURNAL, Liberal Values, Outside The Beltway, The Campaign Spot, Trailwatch, Reuters, Spin Cycle, michellemalkin.com, Wake up America, The Carpetbagger Report, The Strata-Sphere, The Moderate Voice, Firedoglake and Shakespeare's Sister

Mike Allen / The Politico:

Dole scolds Limbaugh — Bob Dole, the former Senate Republican leader, wrote an insistent letter to Rush Limbaugh on Monday and suggested that for the good of the party, the conservative talk-show host should stop his strafing of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Discussion: protein wisdom, The Swamp, Boston Globe and Riehl World View

CNN:

In letter to Limbaugh, Bob Dole defends McCain — BOSTON (CNN) — Former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole on Monday wrote conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh defending John McCain as a “mainstream conservative” who had supported the party on critical votes during Dole's time as the Senate Republican leader.

Discussion: Jonathan Martin's Blogs, The Reaction and Shakespeare's Sister

Tony Allen-Mills / Times of London:
Flawed Cindy McCain has a grudge list

Discussion: protein wisdom and Truthdig

Big Tent Democrat / TalkLeft:

Michelle Obama: I Would Have To Think About Supporting Clinton If She Is The Nominee — Imagine if Bill Clinton had said that? Michelle Obama needs to straighten this out immediately. Really bad stuff from the Obama campaign.

Discussion: The Opinionator, Rox Populi, The Field, US Presidential race 2008 real …, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Don Surber and Salon

Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:
PULLING THE LEVER....So who am I going to vote for tomorrow?

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, bustardblog, TalkLeft, newsrack blog, Brian Beutler, BartBlog, culturekitchen, The RBC, HillaryClinton.com, The Agonist, The Crone Speaks and Tennessee Guerilla Women

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

Republicans have become the credibility-free party — (updated below) — Substantial attention has been paid to the historic unpopularity of the Bush presidency, but relatively little attention has been paid to the accompanying collapse of the Republican Party's credibility.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Comments from Left Field, PoliGazette, LiberalLand and Firedoglake

Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
The Hub — I remember sitting in the media room at the Libby trial …

Discussion: Eschaton

Atrios / Eschaton:
Februrary Fund Drive

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Hullabaloo, Brilliant at Breakfast and Suburban Guerrilla

Wall Street Journal:

McCain and the Supreme Court — The conservative movement has made enormous gains over the past three decades in restoring constitutional government. The Roberts Supreme Court shows every sign of building on these gains. — Yet the gulf between Democratic and Republican approaches …

Discussion: Hot Air, Patterico's Pontifications, AMERICAN DIGEST, New York Times, Rachel Lucas, Boston Globe, Balkinization, The Volokh Conspiracy, The Swamp, Macsmind and The American Mind

Josh Patashnik / The New Republic:
Vote McCain—Because Life Expectancy Is Going Up

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Gallup:

Gallup Daily: Tracking Election 2008 — Based on daily polling from Feb. 1-Feb. 3, 2008 — PRINCETON, NJ — On the eve of the Super Tuesday election, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama remain closely matched in national Democratic voters' nomination preferences.

Discussion: Spin Cycle, Pollster.com, Comments from Left Field, Needlenose, American Power and Talking Points Memo

Marc Ambinder:

Plouffe Memo: We're The Giants, Baby — (not in so many words...despite or because of polls showing that Obama is now leading or tied with Hillary Clinton nationally.). … I'm sorry. Hold up, time out. What?? Unless every Obama adviser I've spoken to over the past year has out and out lied to me …

Discussion: protein wisdom, Taylor Marsh, Wonkette, Salon, The New Republic and Comments from Left Field

Pat Doyle / Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Clinton speaks to crowd of 4,000 in Minneapolis — Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke to a full house during her campaign stop at Augsburg College in Minneapolis Sunday afternoon. She signed autographs after her speech. — She called on 4,000 at Augsburg to help nation's economy work for all.

Discussion: Blue Crab Boulevard

Ben Smith / The Politico: Empty seats

Little Green Footballs:

Muslims Enraged, Seething at Wikipedia — Apparently there are a whole lot of Muslims enraged and offended at Wikipedia, because there are ... gasp ... drawings and images of Mohammed in his Wikipedia entry. — Blasphemy! — So they're demanding that Wikipedia stop violating …

Discussion: Wake up America

Daniel J. Chacon / Rocky Mountain News:

DNC boost for sex biz — Denver can expect prostitution spike during convention — Political tricks may not be the only ones turned during the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August. — The sex and adult entertainment industries are expecting a boom in business …

Discussion: DownWithTyranny!

Seymour M. Hersh / New Yorker:

A STRIKE IN THE DARK — What did Israel bomb in Syria? — Israel and the U.S. have avoided comment on press reports about a nuclear facility. — Sometime after midnight on September 6, 2007, at least four low-flying Israeli Air Force fighters crossed into Syrian airspace and carried …

Discussion: Mercury Rising and A Tiny Revolution

CNN:

FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping — CLARKSBURG, West Virginia (CNN) — The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

Discussion: Concurring Opinions, American Street and BlueHerald 2.0

Matt Stearns / McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Clinton's ‘35 years of change’ omits most of her career — WASHINGTON — To hear Hillary Clinton talk, she's spent her entire career putting her Yale Law School degree to work for the common good. — She routinely tells voters that she's “been working to bring positive change to people's lives for 35 years.”

Discussion: Redstate, Donklephant, Political Machine, Truthdig, UrbanGrounds and The Raw Story