memeorandum: Poll: Cuccinelli has early lead over McAuliffe in Virginia governor's race (Washington Post)

7:05 PM ET, May 5, 2013

Top Items:

Obama's Vow on Chemical Weapons Puts Him in Tough Spot — WASHINGTON — Confronted with evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria, President Obama now finds himself in a geopolitical box, his credibility at stake with frustratingly few good options.

Discussion: Weekly Standard, The PJ Tatler, Hot Air, FP Passport, Twitchy, Israel Matzav, Weasel Zippers, Outside the Beltway, Taylor Marsh, Wake up America, The Gateway Pundit, msnbc.com, The Lonely Conservative, Patterico's Pontifications, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Via Meadia, National Review and TheTower.org

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

Obama Aide On Syria's Assad: 'If He Drops Sarin On His Own People, What's That Got Do Do With Us?' — President Barack Obama got ahead of himself and his advisers when he said that Syria using chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” the New York Times reports.

Discussion: Scared Monkeys, The Gateway Pundit, Little Green Footballs, Ed Driscoll and Israel Matzav

CNN:

Syria: Attack on military facility was a ‘declaration of war’ by Israel — Damascus, Syria (CNN) — A Syrian official called an attack Sunday on the nation's military research facility a “declaration of war” by Israel. — In an interview with CNN, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad …

Discussion: Washington Post, Guardian, Weasel Zippers, Business Insider, The Week and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Reuters:

Israel strikes Syria again, rocking Damascus — (Reuters) - Israel carried out its second air strike in days on Syria early on Sunday, a Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, The Hill, americanthinker.com, The Long War Journal and FP Passport

The Commentator:
Assad “to declare war” on Israel following fresh airstrikes

Discussion: The Other McCain, Israel Matzav, Hot Air and The Moderate Voice

Associated Press:
Israeli warplanes continue to pound Damascus

Discussion: Wake up America and BBC

Daniel Byman / New York Times:
Mr. Obama, Don't Draw That Line

Discussion: JustOneMinute

Kathleen Geier / Washington Monthly:

How wrong is Kathleen Parker about Plan B birth control? Let me count the ways! — Kathleen Parker's column in today's Washington Post, which is about over-the-counter sales of Plan B birth control, is a small masterpiece of sophistry. It's a virtual greatest hits collection …

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, The Impolitic, Wake up America, Balloon Juice and Washington Post

Benny Johnson / BuzzFeed:

National Rifle Association Bans Bleeding “Obama” Target, Others Remain — Beyond the pale at the NRA convention. “They thought it looked too much like President Obama,” says a worker. — The Zombie Industries booth at the NRA Convention in Houston. — HOUSTON, Texas …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Wake up America

Matthew DeLuca / U.S. News:
NRA's LaPierre: ‘We will never surrender our guns’

Discussion: Crooks and Liars and Wake up America

Meenal Vamburkar / Mediaite:

James Carville Heaps Praise On Ted Cruz: ‘Most Talented And Fearless’ GOP Politician Of Last 30 Years — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is polarizing, to say the least. While the likes of Joe Scarborough have found Cruz to be a lying jerk, the senator received praise on Sunday from an unlikely suspect: James Carville.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars

Lindsey Boerma / CBS News:

Official: We knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack “from the get-go” — (CBS News) “Everybody in the mission” in Benghazi, Libya, thought the attack on a U.S. consulate there last Sept. 11 was an act of terror “from the get-go,” according to excerpts of an interview investigators conducted …

Discussion: Doug Ross, The Lead with Jake Tapper, Right Turn, Power Line, Michelle Malkin, Weekly Standard, National Review, Weasel Zippers, protein wisdom, The Strata-Sphere, Wake up America, The PJ Tatler and Betsy's Page

Washington Post:

Poll: Cuccinelli has early lead over McAuliffe in Virginia governor's race — Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has an early lead over businessman Terry McAuliffe in their race for governor, a new Washington Post poll shows, even as most voters in the commonwealth have yet to engage in the nationally watched contest.

Discussion: Hot Air, Scared Monkeys, Outside the Beltway and Taegan Goddard's …

Alexander Abad-Santos / The Atlantic Wire:

China Is Censoring Jokes About Its Propaganda Machine's Penis-Shaped HQ — The People's Daily is the main state-owned newspaper of China's communist party, and everyone was pretty psyched about the paper's new Beijing headquarters. The building is massive, imposing, and, uh, currently shaped like a colossal penis.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

Kevin Cirilli / Politico:

Howard Kurtz apologizes on CNN for errors — Howard Kurtz took to his CNN show “Reliable Sources” on Sunday to issue a lengthy full-fledged apology for his erroneous report last week about NBA star Jason Collins and for a string of past careless mistakes that he admitted he was sometimes slow to correct …

Discussion: Mediaite and BuzzMachine, more at Mediagazer »

Justin Sink / The Hill:

King: ‘Very difficult to believe’ Boston bombing suspects acted alone — Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the former chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said Sunday that he did not believe the suspects in last month's Boston Marathon bombings acted alone.

Ashley Killough / CNN:
King: Customs was not equipped to monitor student visas

Discussion: Mediaite and Scared Monkeys

Benjamin Bell / ABCNEWS:

Jim DeMint: Immigration Reform Will Cost U.S. Trillions — Former South Carolina Republican senator and current Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint argued that implementing immigration reform as proposed by the so-called “Gang of Eight” would “cost Americans trillions of dollars,” …

Discussion: Politico, The PJ Tatler, PERRspectives and americanthinker.com