Top Items:
Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
I Want to Play Poker with Harry Reid — digg it — I want to play poker with Harry Reid. Really I do. — Rather than call for a special election in Illinois, Reid sends a letter to Blagojevich signed by everyone in the Democratic caucus asking him to step down.
RELATED:
John Bresnahan / The Politico:
Reid vows to lead till at least 2015 — Harry Reid vowed Tuesday that he'll lead the Senate until 2015 and beyond, taunting Republicans who'd like to unseat him and dashing the hopes of Democrats who'd like to succeed him. — The Nevada Democrat, who is up for reelection in 2010 …
Discussion:
Glenn Thrush's Blogs, Fox News, The Hill, Taylor Marsh, TIME.com, TPMMuckraker and Sister Toldjah
Walter Dellinger / New York Times:
City of Cold Shoulders — THE scene of Roland W. Burris being escorted from the Senate by the Capitol police on Tuesday could be only the first act of an unpleasant and distracting drama. But in the days since Mr. Burris's appointment to Illinois's junior Senate seat was announced …
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
Reid aide denies Senate seating Burris — A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is denying an AP report that Roland Burris will be seated in the Senate. The report is “wrong,” said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. — “There are have been no decisons,” Manley said.
The Politico:
Burris heads into pivotal meeting
Burris heads into pivotal meeting
Discussion:
Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, CBS News, New York Times, Reuters, D-Day, The Politico, TPM Election Central, TIME.com, AmSpecBlog and FiveThirtyEight.com
Washington Post:
Obama Is Under Fire Over Panetta Selection — Current, Ex-CIA Officials Criticize ‘Opaque’ Process — President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that he has selected a “top-notch intelligence team” that would provide the “unvarnished” information his administration needs, rather than “what they think the president wants to hear.”
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, MSNBC, Commentary, Wall Street Journal, At-Largely, The Caucus, Spin Cycle and Obsidian Wings
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Jeff Stein / SpyTalk:
CIA Man: Spies' Reaction to Panetta ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’ — A retired senior CIA operations officer who quit last summer after 20 years tracking terrorists says the rank-and-file reaction to President-elect Obama's choice of Leon E.Panetta to run the spy agency has been “overwhelmingly negative.”
Discussion:
MoJoBlog, The Washington Independent, Firedoglake, The Reaction, The Daily Dish and TPM Election Central
Washington Post:
Blair House Mystery Solved: It's John Howard — The veil is lifted. We now know who is booked at Blair House, kicking President-elect Barack Obama and his family to the waiting list and across Lafayette Park to the Hay-Adams Hotel. — The only overnight visitor at the presidential guest manse …
Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:
The Mideast's Ground Zero — The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it's all too familiar. It's the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: “Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room?
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Jules Crittenden, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, The Agonist, Mondoweiss and Soccer Dad
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New York Times:
Obama Warns of Trillion-Dollar Deficits — WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday braced Americans for the unparalleled prospect of “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come,” a stark assessment of the budgetary outlook that he said would force his administration to impose tighter fiscal discipline on the government.
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Jerusalem Post:
Cabinet gives IDF green light to proceed with battle plans — Just hours after Jerusalem signaled it might give Franco-Egyptian diplomacy a chance on Wednesday, the Security Cabinet gave the IDF the green light to continue Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. — After ceasing fire for three hours …
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Maureen Dowd / New York Times:
Sweet on Caroline — Ask not, you know, what your country can, like, do for you. Ask what you, um, can, you know, do for your country. — After a lifetime of shying away from the public spotlight, Caroline Kennedy asked herself what she could do for her country.
Avi Shlaim / Guardian:
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe — The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians.
RELATED:
Martin Kramer / Sandbox:
ABC: Anything But Cole — Juan Cole is running two campaigns on his blog. One is against Israel—business as usual for Cole. The other is promoting his blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards competition (Middle East category), where there are ten finalists (I am one).
Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
The DOJ pursues the “real criminal” in the NSA spying scandal — There are few viewpoints, if there are any, which trigger more fervent agreement across the political and media establishment than the view that George Bush, Dick Cheney and other top officials should not be criminally investigated …
Discussion:
theheretik.us
Paul J. Gough / Reuters:
HBO lands rights to inaugural ceremony — NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - HBO will kick off coverage of Inauguration Week with an exclusive Sunday, January 18, telecast of the star-studded opening ceremony, two days before the saturation coverage of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration begins in earnest.
Discussion:
RedState
Benjamin Netanyahu / Wall Street Journal:
Militant Islam Threatens Us All — Hamas rockets have the same terror goal as Hitler's blitz. — Imagine a siren that gives you 30 seconds to find shelter before a Kassam rocket falls from the sky and explodes, spraying its lethal shrapnel in all directions.
The Atlantic Online:
The End of White America? — ANOTHER MOMENT FROM The Great Gatsby: as Fitzgerald's narrator and Gatsby drive across the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, a car passes them, and Nick Carraway notices that it is a limousine “driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl.”
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias