Top Items:
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
RNC loses communications director, Castellanos signs on — Update 6:03 p.m.: Alex Castellanos, a Republican media consultant, will take over as a senior communications adviser to RNC Chairman Michael Steele, according to a source familiar with the move. The announcement of Castellanos' role comes hours …
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Adam Nagourney / The Caucus:
G.O.P. Considers ‘Purity’ Resolution for Candidates — The battle among Republicans over what the party should stand for - and how much it should accommodate dissenting views on key issues - looks like it's going to move from the states to the Republican National Committee when it holds its winter meeting this January in Honolulu.
The Huffington Post:
Dean: Dems ‘In Deep Trouble’ On Health Care, The Only Options Are A Bad Bill Or 2010 Losses — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — One of the leading progressive champions of health care reform is pessimistic about the state of the debate in the Senate, saying he sees virtually no path …
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Ezra Klein:
Hostage situation in the United States Senate … That's Steve Benen, describing the dynamic in the Senate. As I've said before, I think a lot of folks imagine this as a negotiation, in which both sides want to get to yes, and so everyone is involved in a complex game to signal their comfort …
Discussion:
Taylor Marsh
Wall Street Journal:
Lieberman Digs In on Public Option — Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: “I'm going to be stubborn on this.” — Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a …
Derrick Roach / Big Government:
BREAKING: San Diego ACORN Document Dump Scandal — On October 1st, 2009 California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that an investigation had been opened into ACORN's activities in California, resulting from undercover videos showing employees seemingly offering to assist …
Discussion:
protein wisdom, YID With LID, Doug Ross, Riehl World View, The Jawa Report, RedState, Flopping Aces, Wizbang and Weasel Zippers
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Andrew Breitbart / Big Government:ACORN Scandal, Part 2: The Evidentiary Phase
Discussion:
The Jawa Report
Christopher Monckton / Pajamas Media:
Viscount Monckton on Climategate: ‘They Are Criminals’ (PJM Exclusive) — The man who challenged Al Gore to a debate is furious about the content of the leaked CRU emails — and says why you should be, too. — This is what they did — these climate “scientists” on whose unsupported word …
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John Cook / Gawker:
Katie Couric's Forbidden Dance of Gin — When CBS News anchor Katie Couric isn't asking Sarah Palin gotcha questions, she's doin' Da Butt, or the Lambada, or whatever white ladies do when the Black Eyed Peas are on the sound system. More unbelievable images after the jump.
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
Why I Remain Bullish On Obama — He's taking the usual slew of tactical hits as his opponents try every single line of attack and pound every day, squeezing every ounce of agitprop from the news cycle. His numbers are gliding downward (although not by much), his foreign policy gains …
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Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice:Quote of the Day: Are the Old and New Media Missing it on Barack Obama?
Discussion:
msnbc.com
Michael Saul / NY Daily News:
Ex-CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is considering running for president in 2012 — Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs has never been elected to any government office, but he said Monday he's considering a run for the White House in 2012. — During an interview on WTOP radio in Washington …
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Gabor Steingart / Spiegel Online:
Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage — When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.
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Ben Armbruster / Think Progress:
Fox's Fuzzy Math: 193 Percent Of The Public Support Palin, Huckabee, And Romney — Reporting on the latest Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll last night on Fox News' local Chicago affiliate, anchor Byron Harlan employed some funny math in asserting that Sarah Palin is leading the pack for the GOP nomination in 2012:
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Matt Dornic / FishBowlDC:
Fox News Management Fed Up by Mistakes — After a few footage mishaps at Fox News like their recent slip-up: “Fox News Uses Old Palin Footage,” the higher ups at the network have had enough. — In an email obtained by FishbowlDC, FNC management alerted the Newsroom that they were going to a …
Byron York / Washington Examiner:
New documents: White House scrambled to justify AmeriCorps firing after the fact — Just hours after Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa released a report Friday on their investigation into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, the Obama White House gave …
Discussion:
The Greenroom, AmSpecBlog, The Other McCain, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Neptunus Lex, Sister Toldjah, YID With LID and GayPatriot
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Jeremy Scahill / The Nation:
Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan — At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations …
Discussion:
Raw Story, ATTACKERMAN, AMERICAblog News, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The Washington Independent
Kristen McQueary / The SouthtownStar:
Low Tea Party moment symbolic of muddy week — As a journalist covering Chicago politics, verifying information is like climbing a mountain of sand. With each step you take, the deeper you sink. — Last week while researching claims from a local Tea Party activist …
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Think Progress, The Political Carnival, MyDD, Raw Story and Crooks and Liars
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Obey Calls for War Tax — Back in October, David Obey floated the radical idea that war spending in Afghanistan should be put in a “normal” budgetary context and put in the same fiscal constraints as health reform. Today he's taken that idea one step further and said an escalation …
James K. Galbraith / The Huffington Post:
Old Mistakes Die Hard — As part of the Roosevelt Institute's 10-part series on the Jobs Crisis, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog from Nov. 12-25, I was asked to reflect on what can be done to get Americans working again. Here's my take. — I'm tempted to say that the United States …
Adam Nagourney / New York Times:
An Unsurprising Slide for Obama — WASHINGTON — President Obama returned from his trip to Asia facing some unsettling news: two new public-opinion polls showing that his approval rating has dipped below 50 percent for the first time. To many of his critics, who chafed …
The State:
Panel charges Sanford with 37 ethics violations — The S.C. Ethics Commission has charged S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford with 37 counts of breaking state ethics laws. The commission filed its charges last week but only released them Monday. — Those charges allege that, in 18 instances …
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Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Lighter Skin, More Like Me — A dart in the evolving science of perception and race: a new study suggests that self-described partisanship influences how a candidate with biracial skin tone is evaluated. The biracial candidate in question, of course, is Barack Obama.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog
Charles Franklin / Pollster.com:
Articles and Analysis — A quick look at Obama trends with independents. There have been several articles in the last week about independents deserting the Dems. A good bit of that was spurred by the huge Rep margins among independents in VA (66-33) and NJ (60-30-9) governors races.
Marist Poll:
11/23: Gillibrand Approval Rating Stagnates — Ten months after Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor David Paterson, the junior senator from New York has failed to become a household name among registered voters in New York State.
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