memeorandum: Clinton on Rush, Mistakes, Advice for Obama (Jack Date/ABCNEWS)

1:50 PM ET, April 18, 2010

Top Items:

Gates Says U.S. Lacks Strategy to Curb Iran's Nuclear Drive — WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran's steady progress …

Tony Romm / The Hill:

Gibbs: White House proposed end to anonymous administration sourcing — Press Secretary Robert Gibbs approached White House reporters earlier this year in an attempt to end the long-standing practice of sourcing claims to anonymous administration officials, he told CNN on Sunday.

Discussion: The Politico

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
NYT: Secret Gates memo warns that U.S. has no strategy for dealing …

Discussion: Power Line, Taylor Marsh and The Lonely Conservative

Jack Date / ABCNEWS:

Clinton on Rush, Mistakes, Advice for Obama — Former President Bill Clinton Discusses the Issues on ‘This Week’ — Bill Clinton made mistakes as president on financial regulation, he admitted in an exclusive “This Week” interview, but Clinton stood his ground regarding the dangers …

Byron York / Washington Examiner:
How Clinton exploited Oklahoma City for political gain

Discussion: Power Line, Instapundit and HazZzMat

RushLimbaugh.com:
Bill Clinton Links Talk Radio, Tea Parties to Non-Existent Terrorism

Discussion: theblogprof and Don Surber

Political Punch:
Clinton: Rush Limbaugh Comment “Doesn't Make Any Sense”

Discussion: Left Coast Rebel and JammieWearingFool

Tony Romm / The Hill:

McConnell: Liquidation fund isn't only problem with financial reform — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Sunday said it was more than just the so-called “bailout fund” that's keeping him from supporting Democrats' financial regulatory reform bill.

Discussion: CNN, Washington Monthly and Newshoggers.com

CNN:

McConnell weighs in on independent bid by Crist — Washington (CNN) - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that Florida's Republican governor would lose the support of the GOP if he decided to mount an independent bid for Florida's open Senate seat in this year's election.

Matt Corley / Think Progress:

McCain Denies That He Is ‘Running Away From The Maverick Title’: ‘I Prefer Great American Myself’ — Facing a tough primary challenge from former Congressman J.D. Hayworth, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been moving hard to the right. In an interview with Newsweek earlier this month …

Discussion: The Political Carnival

Bruce Drake / Politics Daily:

McCain: I Was a ‘Maverick,’ Now I'm a ‘Partisan’ — Arizona Sen. John McCain, trying to fend off a primary challenger trying to outflank him on the right, also found himself trying Sunday to put straight whether he was a “maverick” or not. — McCain's “maverick” reputation and his past willingness …

Michael Barone / Associated Press:

Tea parties fight Obama's culture of dependence — “Do you realize,” CNN's Susan Roesgen asked a man at the April 15, 2009, tea party in Chicago, “that you're eligible for a $400 credit?” When the man refused to drop his “drop socialism” sign, she went on, “Did you know that the state …

Discussion: Scared Monkeys and AmSpecBlog

Karoli / Crooks and Liars:

Koch Industries denies funding tea parties, but official filings say otherwise — For some odd reason, the Koch folks want to be one degree of separation from the tea parties. I don't understand it, since the good tea party people are simply grassroots, everyman movements, based on Mom …

Harry Siegel / Politico Live's Blog:

Geithner praises ‘positive side’ of tea parties — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised the “positive side” of the tea party movement Sunday, suggesting the movement's concern with deficits could align the group with the administration in the future.

Discussion: TalkLeft, Washington Monthly, Scared Monkeys, American Power and Left Coast Rebel

Mere Rhetoric:

Source Of Vicious Right-Wing “Whisper Campaign” Against Elena Kagan Uncovered — Like Domenech and Yglesias, 48 hours ago I would have sworn Kagan was out. Now I realize that I was the gullible victim of a right-wing “whisper campaign,” launched in its latest incarnation by wingnuts …

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, Riehl World View and The Other McCain

Mark Steyn / The Corner on National Review Online:

Who Needs Apartheid? — By: Mark Steyn — This is a question that should be asked more often: — Moshe Ya'alon, a former Israel Defense Forces general who now serves as Benjamin Netanyahu's strategic affairs minister, posed the following query in an interview published in the Jerusalem Post …

Discussion: Israel Matzav