CBS Poll: Obama Surges Ahead Nationally  —  CBS News/NY Times Survey Finds Obama Opens Up 16-Point Lead; Also Leads In Head-To-Head Match Up With McCain  —  (CBS) A new CBS News/New York Times poll finds Barack Obama with a 16-point lead over rival Hillary Clinton among Democratic primary voters nationwide.

Clinton Campaign Starts 5-Point Attack on Obama  —  After struggling for months to dent Senator Barack Obama's candidacy, the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now unleashing what one Clinton aide called a “kitchen sink” fusillade against Mr. Obama, pursuing five lines …

Ding Dong!  The Witch Is Dead!  —  From the DoD, via TPMMuckraker: … Pardon me while I dance about my study, cackling with glee.  That's some of the best news I've had since, well, since the announcement of the ceasefire in Northern Uganda.  (Hard to top that.)

Team Clinton: Down, and Out of Touch  —  They are in the last throes, if you will.  As Vice President Cheney knows, such predictions can be perilous.  Still, there was no mistaking a certain flailing, a lashing-out, as two Clinton advisers sat down for a bacon-and-eggs session yesterday at the St. Regis Hotel.

Mansion ‘mistake’ piles the pressure on Barack Obama  —  James Bone in New York and Dominic Kennedy in London  —  A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.

In-Laws' Political Dispute Ends In Stabbing  —  UPPER PROVIDENCE, Pa. (CBS 3) ― The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office is investigating a politically motivated stabbing that left one in-law hospitalized and another in prison.  —  Authorities said brother-in-laws Jose Ortiz …

Obama responds to CNN's smear: Join In against ‘right wing hack attacks’  —  Obama responds to the new smear campaign against him quite deftly.  CNN and the AP should be ashamed of themselves.  I didn't know lapel pins were so important to national security.

Wolfson delivers heated criticism of press  —  Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, delivered some really heated criticism of the press on a conference call just now.  —  Halperin has audio, and here's a transcript. … (Updated with fuller transcript.)

Bill Slips While Stumping for Hillary?  ‘If You Elect Me...’  —  Was he speaking “as” his wife or was it a slip? (see related link) “If you elect me, I'll repeal those subsidies and put them into a strategic energy fund that will create American jobs for America's future with clean energy.”

McCain Withheld Controversial Abramoff Email  —  On the stump, Sen. John McCain often cites his work tackling the excesses of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff as evidence of his sturdy ethical compass.  —  A little-known document, however, shows that McCain may have taken steps to protect …

Jackboots and Whole Foods  —  Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning  —  In graduate school I had a professor, a famous Marxist, who devoted a significant portion of a lecture to the subject of artifacts.

Washington Times “Scare Quotes” Are History  —  John Solomon took over the Washington Times on Jan. 28.  —  But he arrived today, via a message from the paper's copy operation.  —  The news, in short: No more scare quotes.  —  Longtime Washington Times readers know well what this is all about …