memeorandum: Many Say Leadership Race Damages Democrats' Image (Carl Hulse/New York Times)

11:25 AM ET, November 16, 2006

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Democratic leadership hopefuls marked by ethical questions — The two candidates for House majority leader know how to leverage their connections. — WASHINGTON — Though incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promises to push through ethical reforms in Congress, both of the Democrats vying …

Discussion: Associated Press, Scared Monkeys, The Huffington Post, PoliBlog (TM) and TPMmuckraker

Washington Post:

Pelosi Splits Democrats With Push For Murtha — Speaker-to-Be Accused Of Strong-Arm Tactics — A showdown over the House majority leader's post today has Democrats bitterly divided only a week after their party took control of Congress and has prompted numerous complaints …

Discussion: The Jawa Report, The Caucus and TIME

Carl Hulse / New York Times:

Many Say Leadership Race Damages Democrats' Image — House members acknowledged on Wednesday that the increasingly bitter contest for majority leader was sullying the image of unity and new direction that Democrats hoped to convey. — "It's four days that we haven't talked about our message …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, NewsBusters.org, Reason Magazine, Brendan Nyhan, Patterico's Pontifications, Democracy in America and The American Thinker

jules crittenden:

Murtha vs. Hoyer: Sit Back and Enjoy ... Today offers the kind of spectacle that is a small consolation prize for a party out of power: the victors pummeling each other over the spoils. The election having been lost, today's majority leadership race is a win-win.

Discussion: Riehl World View, MSNBC, QandO, Sister Toldjah, The Anchoress, New York Observer, Classical Values, Instapundit.com, Hyscience and The Political Pit Bull

David Sirota / The Nation:

Wanted: A Real Leader — There is one more election that will happen in this, the year that history may one day call the Great Democratic Realignment. It is the election for House majority leader between contenders US Reps. Steny Hoyer and Jack Murtha, set for Thursday.

Discussion: democracyarsenal.org and Brendan Nyhan

New York Times:
Trent Lott Wins Back Senate Leadership Slot

Discussion: Balloon Juice and The Reaction

Mark Leibovich / New York Times:
In Senate Shift, Big Comeback for Trent Lott

Discussion: BuzzMachine

Robert D. Novak / Washington Post:
Pelosi's First Mistake — As the new House majority caucus prepared …

Discussion: Hot Air and Blue Crab Boulevard

Simon Tisdall / Guardian:

US plans last big push in Iraq — Strategy document calls for extra 20,000 troops, aid for Iraqi army and regional summit — President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning …

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New York Times:

General Warns of Risks in Iraq if G.I.'s Are Cut — The top American military commander for the Middle East said Wednesday that to begin a significant troop withdrawal from Iraq over the next six months would lead to an increase in sectarian killings and hamper efforts to persuade …

Discussion: JustOneMinute, TalkLeft, Unclaimed Territory, Reuters, TAPPED, Think Progress and Democratic Veteran

Austin Bay / strategypage.com:
James Baker and the Desert Storm Legacy

Discussion: Outside The Beltway and The Corner

Ellen Knickmeyer / Washington Post:

Sectarian Strife in Iraq Imperils Entire Region, Analysts Warn — BAGHDAD — While American commanders have suggested that civil war is possible in Iraq, many leaders, experts and ordinary people in Baghdad and around the Middle East say it is already underway, and that the real worry ahead …

Discussion: The American Street, Blue Crab Boulevard, A Tiny Revolution and Political Animal

PR Newswire:

Airport Arrest Turns Up Nuclear Info — A man was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after officials say they found him carrying more than $78,000 in cash and a laptop computer containing information about nuclear materials and cyanide. — Sisayehiticha Dinssa, an unemployed U.S. citizen …

Discussion: Atlas Shrugs

Adam Nagourney / New York Times:

Flush of Victory Past, Democrats Revert to Finger-Pointing — One would think that after their biggest electoral triumph in about a decade, Democrats would finally break their usual postelection syndrome — a November loss followed by recriminations, finger-pointing and infighting. — Well, think again.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, NO QUARTER, Midtopia, Sister Toldjah, The Neal Boortz Show and Shakespeare's Sister

Associated Press:

Scientists: Pollution could combat global warming — NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Air pollution may be just the thing to fight global warming, some scientists say. — Prominent scientists, among them a Nobel laureate, said a layer of pollution deliberately spewed into the atmosphere could act as a …

Spiegel Online:

My Half-Year of Hell With Christian Fundamentalists — When Polish student Michael Gromek, 19, went to America on a student exchange, he found himself trapped in a host family of Christian fundamentalists. What followed was a six-month hell of dawn church visits and sex education talks …

Discussion: Pharyngula, Pam's House Blend, All Spin Zone, The News Blog and Shakespeare's Sister

Scott Helman / Boston Globe:

Romney hires ex-Bush ad man — Producer noted for tough tactics — Governor Mitt Romney, who continues to sign up big-name political consultants for a probable presidential run, has hired bare-knuckles GOP ad man Alex Castellanos, a veteran of presidential campaigns known for his tough ads against Democratic candidates.

Discussion: AMERICAblog

Carl Bialik / Wall Street Journal:

Grading the Pollsters — Political polling has come a long way since "Dewey Defeats Truman." — Pollsters earned high marks in last week's elections: Surveys correctly predicted that the Democrats would win control of the House of Representatives, that the Senate would be closely contested …

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …

David P. Barash / Chronicle of Higher Education:

The Social Responsibility in Teaching Sociobiology — Socrates was made to drink hemlock for having "corrupted the youth of Athens." Is sociobiology or — as it is more commonly called these days — "evolutionary psychology" similarly corrupting? Although the study of evolution is …

Discussion: Inactivist