The Conservatives' ‘Cleansing’ Moment  —  Some, Deploring GOP Missteps, See Adversity as a Chance to Get Back to Basics  —  Same old hotel on the park, same ballrooms, same long lines down the corridor to hear the big-name speakers, but otherwise the landscape looks radically different …

Emanuel: Rush is the GOP's brain  —  White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel charged Sunday that conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh is “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”  —  Emanuel, speaking in deliberately soothing tones, told anchor Bob Schieffer on CBS's …

Red Eye Reams Olbermann, Garafalo for Racist Comments!  —  Great thanks to MikeC for the tip, and to Andy Levy for his dryly devastating final comments.  It all happened on Friday night's Red Eye and we have the video for your viewing pleasure:

The Revolution Devours Its Children  —  In my post on the right's civil war, I saw Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh as in the same camp—a group of hyper-orthodox “ultras” so blind to reality that they not only saw Bobby Jindal as correct in his extreme opposition to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act …

Obama may use 50-vote tactic on energy, healthcare  —  President Obama's budget director said the White House would consider using a Senate procedural tactic so that only 50 votes would be rquired to pass major healthcare and energy reforms.  —  Peter Orszag, the director of the Office …

Gates: Obama is ‘more analytical’ than Bush.  —  Today, on NBC's Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to compare the “styles” and “temperaments” of Presidents Bush and Obama.  Gates said Obama is “somewhat more analytical” than Bush …

Brown woos Obama on global deal  —  GORDON BROWN hopes to forge a partnership with President Barack Obama in Washington this week, to call for a “global new deal” to lift the world out of recession.  —  As he prepares for his first White House visit since the president's inauguration …

The Budget and Charitable Donations  —  Is our budget proposal uncharitable?  —  Over the past 24 hours since we debuted the President's FY 2010 Budget, some non-profits have argued that the Administration's plan to limit the amount that high-income families (those with income …

Under Weight of Its Mistakes, Newspaper Industry Staggers  —  Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recalls getting “a feeling in the pit of my stomach” when he learned that the Rocky Mountain News was shutting down.  —  “Even when they were uncovering corruption in the city …

Obama shoots hoops ... at Department of the Interior  —  (CNN) — President Obama and long-time friend Marty Nesbitt shot hoops Saturday at a basketball court inside the U.S. Department of the Interior.  —  Press aide Ben Finkenbinder, who left the game drenched in sweat, teamed up with Obama on the court.

Dean Baker and Friends: Schooling Capitol Hill on Social Security  —  Dean Baker and some other fine folks made a trip to Capitol Hill last week to do a little fact-based pushback on Social Security and other programs.  [UPDATE: Selise has the C-Span links.]

‘Fair and Balanced’ Fox News allows only Republicans to debate Obama's budget.  —  This morning on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace welcomed Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to discuss President Obama's budget plan — with not a single congressional Democrat or White House representative present to defend it.

Spock at the Bridge  —  Wow.  What a phone call that must have been.  —  “Hey, 43, it's 44.  How's retirement?  You're biking around the new neighborhood?  Buying a nightlight for the bathroom?  Can't be too careful.  I hear you're working your way through a book Dick Cheney gave you on your Kindle.

The Black Presidents Before Obama  —  Barack Obama was not the first African-American elected to the presidency.  By my count, he was the seventh.  It was just that he was the first nonfiction one.  But Americans had already lived through the administrations of President Tom Palmer in Fox's TV series 24 …

Iran has enough nuclear fuel to make bomb: U.S.  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States believes Iran has stockpiled enough nuclear fuel to make a bomb, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said on Sunday.  —  “We think they do, quite frankly,” Mullen said on CNN's “State of the Union” …

“Card Check” Not as Bad as Thought!  It's Worse.  —  Where's my Wii?  At a 7:30 AM (!) “card check” breakfast debate (podcast available here) I learned the following:  —  1) In the “card check” bill, if a newly unionized employer can't reach an agreement with the new union, an arbitrator will step in and impose a two-year contract.

Backstabber: Is Rick Santelli High On Koch?  —  Last week, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli rocketed from being a little-known second-string correspondent to a populist hero of the disenfranchised, a 21st-century Samuel Adams, the leader and symbol of the downtrodden American masses suffering under …