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.

Bill Clinton: Obama Should Sound More Hopeful  —  Says President Should Voice Economic Optimism, Paint GOP as the Party of ‘No’  —  Former President Bill Clinton gives President Barack Obama an “A” grade for his first month in office, but tells ABC News that Obama needs to put on a more positive face …

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

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.

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 …

A Conservative Of Doubt  —  They can rant too: … Like Megan, I don't know either.  I've supported the stimulus package because the downdraft right now seems so steep and dangerous that a little cushioning from the feds does not seem to me to be a cardinal sin, and because Obama …

American Issues Project Slams Stimulus Bill As Large  —  When the economy enters a recession, you lower interest rates.  When monetary policy's gone as low as it can, you try fiscal expansion.  That means you need a deficit that's large relative to the size of your economy.

THAT CARTOON  —  Wednesday's Page Six cartoon - caricaturing Monday's police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut - has created considerable controversy.  —  It shows two police officers standing over the chimp's body: “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” one officer says.

Who'll Stop the Pain?  —  Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the most recent meeting of its open market committee — the group that sets interest rates.  Most press reports focused either on the Fed's downgrade of the near-term outlook or on its adoption of a long-run 2 percent inflation target.

WILL THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TRACK YOUR DRIVING?  —  Some surprising news out of the Department of Transportation today as Ray LaHood suggests that the Obama administration is considering taxing people based on how many miles they drive.  A vehicle miles traveled tax, as the proposal is often called …

Geronimo's Heirs Sue Secret Yale Society Over His Skull  —  HOUSTON — The descendants of Geronimo have sued Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University with ties to the Bush family, charging that its members robbed his grave in 1918 and have kept his skull in a glass case ever since.

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 …

Brian Views Destruction in Gaza - Calls for Immediate Relief and Change in Policy  —  Washington, D.C. - Two members of Congress, Brian Baird (D-WA-03), and Keith Ellison, (D-MN-05), visited Gaza on Thursday to view firsthand the destruction from recent Israeli air and ground attacks and to meet …

Obama Bans Gimmicks, and Deficit Will Rise  —  WASHINGTON — For his first annual budget next week, President Obama has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller.  The price of more honest bookkeeping: A budget …

Would You Join Santelli's “Chicago Tea Party?”  —  CNBC's Rick Santelli leads the trader mortgage revolt.  Would you want to join his “Chicago Tea Party?” … The plan is a discrace!  I pay my mortgage and bills on time.  I live on a fixed income.  I find it tough each month to make ends meet, but do.

On Asia Trip, Clinton Shows How She'll Try to Repair the U.S. Image Around the World  —  On Her First Trip as Secretary of State, Clinton Shows How She'll Attempt to Repair the U.S. Image Worldwide  —  Hillary Rodham Clinton has a new campaign and message: The United States wants to listen.

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.

FIRST THOUGHTS: ONE MONTH DOWN  —  From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro  —  *** One month down: Today marks exactly one month since Obama was inaugurated.  The country, and the world frankly, is engaged on pretty much anything this president does.

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.

States prepare to combat stimulus strings  —  Assert sovereignty with 10th Amendment  —  Worried the federal government is increasing its dominance over their affairs, several states are pursuing legislative action to assert their sovereignty under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution …

ACORN Trains Citizens To Protest Home Foreclosures  —  BALTIMORE (WJZ) ― A community organization breaks into a foreclosed home in what they are calling an act of civil disobedience.  —  The group wants to train homeowners facing eviction on peaceful ways they can remain in their homes.

Men see bikini-clad women as objects  —  CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — It may seem obvious that men perceive women in sexy bathing suits as objects, but now there's science to back it up.  —  New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention …

Former CIA Officer Describes Retribution for Whistle Blowing  —  Ilana Sara Greenstein, a highly praised CIA operations officer for six years until quitting in disgust in 2008, says she was punished for complaining about gross mismanagement in the agency's Baghdad station, which CIA censors are still trying to suppress.

Rep. Gohmert Says Republicans Will Cancel Spendulus Bill If GOP Takes Back Congress in 2010 (Video)  —  “I would like to say tonight that if the American people will let the Republicans back in charge, the 60% of this bill that won't be spent until after the next election, we'll cut it off and let it go to the Americans.”

CEO of nation's biggest bank subpoenaed  —  (CNN) — Bank of America CEO and Chairman Kenneth Lewis has been issued a subpoena by the New York State Attorney General's Office, which is investigating whether the bank violated state law by withholding information from investors, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

Jeffrey Goldberg's gasping, dying smear tactics  —  (updated below)  —  The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg — in a paragraph he entitles “Where the Left and Right Always Seem to Agree” — writes (emphasis added): … His link to “Israel-bashing” in the penultimate sentence — as in …

U.S. Tries a Trillion-Dollar Key for Locked Lending  —  Credit cards, home equity lines, student loans, car financing: none come cheaply or easily in these credit-tight times.  The banks, the refrain goes, just will not lend money.  —  But it is not simply the banks that are the problem.