memeorandum: Messing with Texas — Bill Clinton, on the Texas caucuses: (Ben Smith/The Politico)

1:50 PM ET, February 26, 2008

Top Items:

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.

Discussion: Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic, Washington Wire, Reason Magazine, Blue Crab Boulevard, Booman Tribune, Redstate, Buck Naked Politics, Donklephant and Prairie Weather

New York Times:

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 …

Stephen F. Hayes / Wall Street Journal:

Obama and the Power of Words — These are words that move and uplift, that give hope to the hopeless. These words inspired millions of voters nationwide to join the grand experiment called democracy, casting votes for their candidate, their country, their destiny:

Discussion: protein wisdom, Weekly Standard, Commentary, Real Clear Politics, Real Clear Politics, Say Anything and New York Observer

New York Post:

THE MYSTERY SMEAR — Just how desperate is the faltering Hillary-for-President team? Desper ate enough for overt race-baiting? — Consider the flap over a photo that popped up on the Drudge Report yesterday, depicting Sen. Barack Obama in traditional Somali garb during a 2006 trip to Kenya - his father's homeland.

Discussion: Spin Cycle, Sweetness & Light and Attytood

The Politico:

Finger-pointing, frustration in Clinton camp — With a week to go before climactic tests in Texas and Ohio, Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign team has slipped into full recriminations mode. — Looking backward, interviews with a cross-section of campaign aides and sympathetic outsiders suggest …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Captain's Quarters, New York Times, Spin Cycle, Newsweek Blogs, MSNBC and Real Clear Politics

Las Vegas Review-Journal:
FLOWERS PUTTING CLINTON PHONE CONVERSATIONS UP FOR BID

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Political Machine and Wonkette

David Brody / CBN.com:
Hillary Clinton Fights On

Discussion: TownHall Blog and michellemalkin.com

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Good news: Tonight's debate shaping up to be the dullest yet …

Discussion: TownHall Blog, NewsBusters.org and The Political Inquirer

OPENERS:
Debate primer: How to watch Tuesday's presidential debate

Discussion: dispatchpolitics.com, Associated Press, The Caucus and The Page

Michael J. Totten:

Guns in the Desert — ANBAR PROVINCE, IRAQ - The Humvee slammed to a halt on the desert road between Fallujah and the town of Al Farris. I peered around the driver's head from the back seat and tried to figure out what was happening. — “Why are we stopping?” I said. — “IED,” Sergeant Guerrero said.

Discussion: michellemalkin.com, Dean's World and UrbanGrounds

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty — John King sat in for Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Sunday talk show and interviewed Bush DNI Admiral Michael McConnell about all the grave dangers the American people will continue to face from the Terrorists unless we give telecoms retroactive amnesty from lawsuits.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars and The Gavel

Wall Street Journal:
Hard of Hearing — Are Americans as safe today as they were …

Discussion: The American Mind

Senator Mitch McConnell / IBDeditorials.com:
House Inaction Left America Open To Attack

Discussion: The Corner

Times of London:

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.

Discussion: TalkLeft, Chicago Tribune, Right Wing Nut House, NO QUARTER, protein wisdom, The Corner, The Moderate Voice, Flopping Aces, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Don Surber, The Jawa Report, Say Anything, UrbanGrounds and Atlas Shrugs

David Lat / Abovethelaw.com:

Breaking: Monica Goodling Is Engaged! — This just in: the super-fabulous Monica Goodling, one of ATL's all-time favorite people, is engaged! — Monica Marie Goodling, of Alexandria, is engaged to be married to Michael Krempasky, of Falls Church. The wedding is planned for later this year.

Discussion: Think Progress, Firedoglake, Wonkette, Dependable Renegade and TBogg

David Brooks / New York Times:

The Real McCain — You wouldn't know it to look at them, but political consultants are as faddish as anyone else. And the current vogueish advice among the backroom set is: Go after your opponent's strengths. So in the first volley of what feels like the general election campaign …

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Firedoglake, Real Clear Politics, Commentary, The Carpetbagger Report, The Campaign Spot, neo-neocon and The RBC

Jerusalem Post:

Obama: Pro-Israel needn't be pro-Likud — “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud ap-proach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel,” leading Democratic presidential …

Discussion: toohotfortnr, New York Sun and Unfogged

Matthew Yglesias:
Getting Bolder — Via Spencer Ackerman, this is considerably …

Discussion: The New Republic

Ardeshir Arian / Pajamas Media:

IRANIAN SHOPPERS RIOT AGAINST MODESTY POLICE — It happens every day on the streets of Tehran: a police squad grabbed a young woman for dressing immodestly. But this time, the young woman fought back: and a crowd defended her and attacked the police. Thanks to cell phone video, the Internet …

Discussion: Power Line, Fausta's blog, Gateway Pundit and Ynetnews

Electa Draper / Denver Post:

Huckabee endorses ‘egg as person’ amendment — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Monday endorsed a proposed Colorado Human Life Amendment that would define personhood as a fertilized egg. — The former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister also supports a human-life amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Crooks and Liars, Pam's House Blend and ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:

OBAMA IS A NATIVE SOMALI?

Discussion: Hot Air, Too Sense and AMERICAblog

Noam Scheiber / The New Republic:

The Audacity of Data — Barack Obama's surprisingly non-ideological policy shop. — As a young economics professor in the late 1970s, Richard Thaler began noticing small but nagging ways in which ordinary people defied the predictions of economic theory.

Discussion: Megan McArdle, Daniel W. Drezner and FP Passport

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:

The Truth, Please, About Iraq — Last week, while I was sleeping, Charles Krauthammer cited Anthony Cordesman's latest report on Iraq as evidence that the war in Iraq was finally going well. McCain has also made this point. But actually reading Cordesman, you sure don't get that impression.

Discussion: Middle Earth Journal