The Limits of Rahmism  —  AS A DOZEN or so top White House officials gathered in Rahm Emanuel's corner West Wing office one morning in early January, the president's political director, Patrick Gaspard, reported on the latest poll numbers in Massachusetts.  With less than two weeks until …

Sarah Palin heads north.  Er, south.  Er, to Calgary.  - UPDATED  —  It was little surprise that Sarah Palin's first visit to our home and native land (of public health care and gay marriage) would be in Calgary.  It also shouldn't be surprising that she was able to curry favour …

CONCERN TROLLING GONE AWRY (AGAIN).... You know who's really looking out for congressional Democrats' electoral fortunes?  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  While you and I might think, “Wait, isn't that the guy trying to destroy Democrats as part of his drive for power?” …

Conservative California state senator comes out  —  California State Sen. Roy Ashburn, a conservative Republican with a solidly anti-gay voting record, came out as gay today on a Bakersfield radio station talk show.  Ashburn's sexual orientation had been the talk of Sacramento since …

Updated: Dan Rather Said that Obama 'couldn't sell watermelons'?  UPDATED, Video with Audio UPDATED Again: Transcript, Dan Rather/Watermelon Statement  —  Rush Limbaugh just mentioned that he has audio of Dan Rather saying that Obama 'couldn't sell watermelons' or some such thing.

Cheneyites Lose Stimson, Rivkin, Casey in al-Qaeda Shark-Jump  —  David Rivkin and Lee Casey are an op-ed-writing team of former GOP legal officials who defend practically every terrorism-related policy pushed by the Bush administration.  Here they are saying that warrantless surveillance “has always been on firm legal ground.”

Crist Poll Preview  —  We are going to have absolutely brutal numbers out on Charlie Crist tomorrow.  —  Here's a little preview: among Republican primary voters 19% would like to see him as Governor a year from now, 14% want him in the Senate, and 56% want him out of elected office.

ACORN Registration Workers Charged With Felony Voter Fraud  —  Five Wisconsin residents, including two who worked for community organizing group ACORN, were charged Monday with election fraud relating to the 2008 presidential election.

Obama-Bush Same Mistakes: President Repeats Stumbles  —  Who would have thought that one of Barack Obama's biggest missteps as President would be repeating some of the bad habits of George W. Bush?  No single factor was more instrumental in Obama's 2008 victory than his pledge to completely reverse …

The story behind Oscar's “Kanye moment”  —  We talk to the two filmmakers whose personal fight became one of the ceremony's weirdest moments … People are already saying you “pulled a Kanye.”  What happened?  —  BURKETT: What happened was the director and I had a bad difference …

Health care reform CPR  —  Can Speaker Pelosi bring health care reform back from the dead?  Did it ever really die? … In addition to my last health care post, Nate Silver summarizes well the forces pushing in both directions.  John Podhoretz also has a good strategic overview.

Poll shows Obama, Dems losing ground  —  A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than it was two years ago and think President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll finds.

Senate Approval Ratings  —  The conventional wisdom has typically been that a politician's in trouble if their approval rating's below 50%.  We may need to rethink that assumption in this political climate though because the average approval rating of the 38 Senators we've polled …

Obama warns staff: Ignore palace intrigue  —  The spate of news stories delving into West Wing palace intrigue has become so relentless that President Barack Obama warned his team against fueling the blaze.  —  “Don't get absorbed in the Washington finger-pointing and intrigue,” …

Business Lobbyists Push to Revive Estate Tax They Tried to Kill  —  Lobbyists for small businesses, construction companies, manufacturers and other trade groups are racing the clock to convince Congress to reinstate the federal estate tax they've fought for years to abolish.

Health Care Reform And Our Myopic Polity  —  One day, I hope, we will look back at the health care debate as a low point in our national political psyche.  The Obama administration and its allies in Congress are on the cusp of bringing some measure of reason to the health care system …

Where are Obama's foreign confidants?  —  I recently asked several senior administration officials, separately, to name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship during his first year in office.  A lot of hemming and hawing ensued.

Health-care reform is progressive  —  Reading Chris Bowers's excellent list of the progressive priorities fulfilled or partially fulfilled by the health-care bill's sidecar amendments is a reminder of how peculiar the framing of this debate has been.  There's no doubt that progressives …

Déjà vu all over again … A Republican on Capitol Hill points out that we're going through a health care press coverage time warp.  In each of the following four headline pairs, one is from this morning.  The other is from last year.  See if you can guess which is which.