John Gibson Did Not Compare Eric Holder To Monkey With Bright Blue Scrotum (UPDATED)  —  UPDATE: The Huffington Post has learned that the below video has been doctored.  We regret the error and apologize to Mr. Gibson.  John Gibson never compared Eric Holder to a monkey with a bright blue scrotum.

Dodd Says Short-Term Bank Takeovers May Be Necessary  —  Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said banks may have to be nationalized for “a short time” to help lenders including Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. survive the worst economic slump in 75 years.

Quinn calls on Burris to quit  —  Gov. Pat Quinn at his press conference this morning.  (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)  —  Gov. Patrick Quinn today called on U.S. Sen. Roland Burris to resign amid the furor of questions over his contacts with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

WH lashes out at CNBC's Santelli  —  The White House is lashing out publicly and personally at a CNBC reporter whose attack on President Obama's anti-foreclosure plan caught fire on the Internet Thursday.  —  White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs jumped at the chance to go after the CNBC journalist …

AP Interview: Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn …

Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence  —  Listening to neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle at the Nixon Center yesterday, there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole.  —  In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack.

Money for Idiots  —  Our moral and economic system is based on individual responsibility.  It's based on the idea that people have to live with the consequences of their decisions.  This makes them more careful deciders.  This means that society tends toward justice — people get what they deserve as much as possible

Obama's Supine Diplomacy  —  The Biden prophecy has come to pass.  Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama.”  Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis.

Obama Bans Gimmicks, and Deficit Will Rise  —  By stopping accounting gimmicks that make deficit projections look smaller, the budget will appear $2.7 trillion deeper in debt over the next decade, according to administration officials.

The Obama Cabinet is a CEO black hole  —  In President Barack Obama's Cabinet, there is a Nobel Prize winner, a former mayor, and a veteran CIA agent.  Surrounding him in the White House West Wing are a former four-star general, one of the nation's most eminent economists …

Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed  —  The financial crisis lays bare the weakness of the Anglo-Saxon model.  —  It is now clear that this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst economic crisis in the last 60 years.  While we are already in a severe …

Glenn Greenwald is Hysterical  —  Not funny-hysterical, just hysterical.  I think he feels badly about writing for The American Conservative, maybe because he knows that writing for a magazine founded by Pat Buchanan and animated by Buchanan's hostility to Jews and to Israel is a self-marginalizing act …

“This is our house now:” ACORN mob begins breaking into homes  —  On Wednesday, I said prepare for lawlessness as ACORN's civil disobedience mob steps up pressure for President Obama's mortgage entitlement expansion.  —  Well, are you ready, Baltimore?  (Hat tip - Jeff Quinton) …

Washington Post Stands By Climate Change Denialism  —  For those who are late to the party, recently George Will wrote a column claiming, most broadly, that in the 1970s there was a scientific consensus that the world was suffering from “global cooling” that was as firm as the current consensus about global warming.

Sen. Specter Jeered For Voting For Stimulus Plan  —  PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter was greeted with jeers at a press conference in Cranberry Township.  —  Conservatives are fuming after Specter cast the deciding vote that led to the passage of President Barack Obama's stimulus plan.

Israel: Iran, Syria secretly continuing nuclear projects  —  “Iran and Syria are secretly working on nuclear technology in a manner which risks peace in the region and the world and while bluntly ignoring their international obligations,” a statement by the Foreign Ministry said Friday evening.

WHAT WOULD MICHAEL STEELE DO?  —  Ever watched a parent explain math to a child?  “Imagine Johnny has three power rangers, but you only have one power ranger...” That's sort of the tactic “The American Issues Project” is taking in its attempt to attack the stimulus.

An Obama Adviser's Not-So-Bright Idea for Winning in Afghanistan  —  President Obama named Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and Brooking Institution scholar, to head up a review team for overhauling U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Via the Christian Science Monitor …

Upside-Down Economics  —  In January, Suze Orman, the blonde financial adviser who's all over TV telling you to cut up your credit cards, went on “Oprah” to discuss how to cope with the recession.  Orman recommended not eating in restaurants for a month.  The appalled National Restaurant …

Poll: Obama rating slips, but still high  —  CNN Deputy Political Director  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — A national poll indicates that two out of three Americans approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president of the United States.  —  The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey …