memeorandum: At the Poles, Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate (Doug Struck/Washington Post)

9:50 AM ET, October 22, 2007

Top Items:

Clinton Finds Way to Play Along With Drudge — As Senator Barack Obama prepared to give a major speech on Iraq one morning a few weeks ago, a flashing red-siren alert went up on the Drudge Report Web site. It read, "Queen of the Quarter: Hillary Crushes Obama in Surprise Fund-Raising Surge …

Discussion: Chicago Sun Times, Don Surber, MSNBC, Booman Tribune, La Shawn Barber's Corner, TIME: Swampland, DownWithTyranny!, Assorted Babble, Bark Bark Woof Woof and Brilliant at Breakfast

Washington Post:

Dishwashers for Clinton — DONORS WHOSE addresses turn out to be tenements. Dishwashers and waiters who write $1,000 checks. Immigrants who ante up because they have been instructed to by powerful neighborhood associations, or, as one said, "They informed us to go, so I went."

Discussion: Heading Right, Blue Crab Boulevard, Newsweek.com and Betsy's Page

Washington Post:
Candidates Spar With Each Other, And With Clinton

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, The Politico, MiamiHerald.com, The Caucus, Fausta's blog, New York Sun, MSNBC, Spin Cycle, New York Times and CNN Political Ticker

New York Times:
The Republican Debate on Fox News Channel

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report

New York Times:
At Debate, G.O.P. Race Becomes More Personal

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, The Hill, USA Today, The Carpetbagger Report, MSNBC, New York Post, NY Daily News, DesMoinesRegister.com Blogs, TIME, Brian Beutler and CNN Political Ticker

Marc Santora / The Caucus:
For Thompson, It Was Florida in Four Minutes

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Eunomia and HeraldTribune.com

Deacon / Power Line:
A SLEEPING GIANT WAKES UP

Discussion: The Mahablog, National Review, Death and The Van Der Galiën Gazette

Katharine Q. Seelye / The Caucus:
Live-Blogging the Republican Debate

Discussion: Washington Wire, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Instapundit.com, The Heretik and Zogby

Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:

Iraq and Turkey See Tensions Rise After Ambush — A brazen ambush by Kurdish militants that left at least 12 Turkish soldiers dead touched off a major escalation in Turkey-Iraq tensions on Sunday, bringing fears that Turkey would retaliate immediately by sending troops across the border into Iraq.

Discussion: Think Progress, The Swamp, FP Passport, The Glittering Eye, Needlenose, The Reaction, The American Street, Prairie Weather and Alternate Brain

Amit R. Paley / Washington Post:
Kurds From Iraq Kill 17 Soldiers in Turkey

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, BlondeSense and Unqualified Offerings

Valerie Plame Wilson / The Huffington Post:

Finally Telling My Story — I'm Valerie Plame Wilson and I'm excited to be here and blog about my book Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, which goes on sale Monday, Oct 22. When my publisher sent me the finished copy earlier this week, it was thrilling.

Discussion: TalkLeft, JammieWearingFool and Hullabaloo

Larry Johnson / NO QUARTER:

Valerie Plame Wilson and the Ultimate Betrayal — Valerie's problem is her decency and humanity. She has reasons most Americans don't know to be really angry with George Bush and George Tenet but she has contained her rage. In a new tasty nugget in her book, Fair Game, she gives some details on the 2004 Al Qaeda threat to kill her.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Brilliant at Breakfast and State of the Day

Logan Murphy / Crooks and Liars:
Valerie Plame On 60 Minutes: "The President Is Not A Man Of His Word"

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, TBogg, Tennessee Guerilla Women, At-Largely, Take Our Country Back, The Democratic Daily and The BRAD BLOG

Jake Tapper / ABCNEWS:

Key Clinton Backer Rips Giuliani's Personal Life — Rep. Charles Rangel Apparently Refers to Giuliani as a 'Cheating Goddamn Husband' — Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., the dean of the New York congressional delegation, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, longtime political booster …

Discussion: Des Moines Register, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Fausta's blog, Weasel Zippers and A Chequer-Board of Nights …

Vikas Bajaj / New York Times:

Mortgage Security Bondholders Facing a Cutoff of Interest Payments — For all the pain in the mortgage market, investors who hold bonds backed by risky home loans have continued to receive their monthly interest payments — until now. — Collateralized debt obligations …

Doug Struck / Washington Post:

At the Poles, Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate — For scientists, global warming is a disaster movie, its opening scenes set at the poles of Earth. The epic already has started. And it's not fiction. — The scenes are playing, at the start, in slow motion: The relentless grip …

Discussion: Liberty Street, Gay Patriot and Hot Air

Irenep / Michael Yon:

Resistance is Futile — October 22, 2007 — Resistance is futile: You will be (mis)informed. — A gulf. — A gap. — A chasm. — A parallel universe. — All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq.

Discussion: Say Anything, Hot Air and Confederate Yankee

US Department of State:

Says U.S. will keep its commitment to build a secure Iraq — "Iraq has become the central front in the war on terror," Vice President Cheney said October 10. — Speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Cheney said it was "crucial that we enforced the U.N. Security Council resolutions" …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online

White House:
Vice President's Remarks to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, The Belgravia Dispatch, Foreign Policy Watch and Blogs for Bush

Raymond Hernandez / New York Times:

A Protector as a Child, Honored as a Hero — In June 2005, Lt. Michael P. Murphy and three fellow members of the Navy Seals were on a mission in the mountains of Afghanistan when they were pinned down by a swarm of enemy fighters. Trapped in a steep ravine, they were unable to get a radio signal to call for help.

Discussion: michellemalkin.com and American Thinker

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:

What NASA Won't Tell You — NASA commissioned a study of aviation safety through thousands of interviews with the people with a bird's-eye view of the industry — the pilots. After conducting telephone interviews with 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots from 2001 to 2005 …

Discussion: Associated Press

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

Say What You Like, Just Don't Say It Here — The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border. — Two cases pending in federal court in Manhattan will soon test how far the government can go in keeping Americans safe …

Discussion: The Sideshow, The American Street and Bark Bark Woof Woof

David Segal / Washington Post:

Low Road to Splitsville — Right-Wing Publisher's Breakup Is Super-Rich In Tawdry Details — Looking for a perfect little weekend vacation this fall? Here's a travel tip you don't hear very often: Head to Pittsburgh. Right away. — Seriously, get in the car and read this story later …

Discussion: NewsBusters.org and Paul Krugman

Joe Nocera / New York Times:

Ready or Not, Here Comes the Fox Business Network — It was Thursday around 4:30, and I couldn't take it anymore. — All week long, I'd been sporadically watching Rupert Murdoch's new Fox Business Network, which made its debut on Monday. I was trying to figure out what, exactly …

Discussion: James Wolcott's Blog, No More Mister Nice Blog and Romenesko

Jan Moller / New Orleans Times-Picayune:

JINDAL WINS — He's the nation's first governor of Indian descent — BATON ROUGE — In a campaign that had the air of both the inevitable and the historical, Bobby Jindal was elected governor Saturday, claiming the electoral prize that eluded him four years ago.

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …, Democratic Strategist, Bluey Blog and Redstate