memeorandum: Blackwater Mounts a Defense With Top Washington Talent (New York Times)

11:20 AM ET, November 1, 2007

Top Items:

Sam Youngman / The Hill:

Campaign call reveals Clinton debate concern — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) top advisers, doing damage control after the candidate's debate performance Tuesday, told supporters on a conference call Wednesday that the campaign needed more money to fight back.

Discussion: TownHall Blog, Hot Air, MSNBC, Spin Cycle, Los Angeles Times, Macsmind, TIME, The Politico, Redstate, Blue Crab Boulevard, The Atlantic Online, Blogs for Bush, culturekitchen, Outside The Beltway and Wake up America

Washington Post:

Clinton Regroups As Rivals Pounce — After a rare night of fumbles by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination rushed to maximize the damage yesterday, even as her advisers argued that the "piling on" engaged in by an all-male field of opponents …

Discussion: The Newshoggers, Associated Press, TalkLeft, MSNBC, Political Machine, The Caucus, New York Times, Wonkette, ImmigrationProf Blog, Redstate, Los Angeles Times and The Page

Pew Research Center:

A Year Ahead, Republicans Face Tough Political Terrain — Clinton Propelled by Support from Young Women in '08 Test — Introduction and Summary — A year before the 2008 presidential election, most major national opinion trends decidedly favor the Democrats.

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, Quinnipiac University News …, Pollster.com and National Review

Jonathan Martin / The Politico: Iowa, a true red (meat) state

Michael Cooper / New York Times:
Biden-Giuliani Smackdown Enlivens Campaign Trail

Discussion: Ezra Klein

Boris Johnson / Telegraph:
I want Hillary Clinton to be president

Discussion: Samizdata.net and TIME: Swampland

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters: Hillary Stumbles, Needs More Cash: Advisors

Pew Research Center:
The Gender Gap — Gender has long played a role in presidential …

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, The Politico, MyDD and No More Mister Nice Blog

Marc Santora / New York Times:
In Debate, Immigration Is Fodder for Clinton Rivals

Discussion: The Corner, Los Angeles Times and Spin Cycle

Kevin Aylward / The 2007 Weblog Awards:

Finalists Announced — Here is a partial list of the finalists for The 2007 Weblog Awards. Finalists badges (hosted by Imageshack) will be available Thursday. Voting is scheduled to begin Thursday evening (late), but at this point we can't pinpoint the exact time polls will open.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Captain's Quarters, Balloon Juice, Suitably Flip, Wizbang, National Review, At-Largely, Pam's House Blend and The Van Der Galiën Gazette

Scott Shane / New York Times:

Nominee's Stand May Avoid Tangle of Torture Cases — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits …

Discussion: The Swamp, Firedoglake, Washington Post, Chris Dodd National Blog, State of the Day, Media Matters for America, Law Blog, The Heretik, Death, The American Street, The Huffington Post, Feministe, The Politico, Daily Kos, Think Progress, Prairie Weather and Balkinization

Michelle Malkin:
The Mukasey nomination in jeopardy: Why appeasing Democrats gets you nowhere

Discussion: TownHall Blog

Balkinization:
Judge Mukasey and the Groucho Marx Principle

Discussion: Firedoglake

Patterico / Hot Air:

L.A. Times Editor Denies Having Heard About the Sex Scandal Story — And I Believe Him — This morning Allah linked that rumor that the L.A. Times is sitting on a sex scandal involving a leading presidential candidate. I tried nosing around a little, and asked Matt Welch about it.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Captain's Quarters and Pajamas Media

LUKE FORD:

A Dark Unseen Scandal Star? — Mickey Kaus writes: … I'm placing my money on the lesbian-Hillary angle. — If you examine the candidates connected by the gossip columnists to current sex scandals, Hillary leads the way with her Huma connection. — Here's a picture of Hillary's personal assistant Huma Abedin.

Discussion: Ace of Spades HQ, A Blog For All, Middle Earth Journal, Tim Worstall Tabloid Edition, Atlas Shrugs, Say Anything, Big Head DC, JammieWearingFool and Bookworm Room

Sarah Lai Stirland / Wired News:

'Criminal' Botnet Stumps for Ron Paul, Researchers Allege — If Texas congressman Ron Paul is elected president in 2008, he may be the first leader of the free world put into power with the help of a global network of hacked PCs spewing spam, according to computer-security researchers who've analyzed …

Discussion: Ars Technica, Right Wing Nut House, Liberal Values, American Thinker, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Outside The Beltway, Blue Crab Boulevard, IMAO, JammieWearingFool and LewRockwell.com Blog

Joel Stein / Time:
The Ron Paul Revolution

Discussion: The American Mind

Robin Wright / Washington Post:

From the Desk of Donald Rumsfeld . . . In Sometimes-Brusque 'Snowflakes,' He Shared Worldview, Shaped Policy — In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid "physical labor" and wrote of the need to …

Discussion: CBS News, The Raw Story, Norwegianity, Connecting.the.Dots, Wonkette and The Heretik

Daniel Gross / Slate:

THE RETURN OF PRICE CONTROLS. — Price controls are so last century. The notion of central planners telling private entities how much they should charge for goods and services seems about as dated as that "Government and Politics of the Soviet Union" course I took in 1987.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online

Tyler Cowen / Marginal Revolution:
Are Soviet-style price controls returning?

Discussion: A Second Hand Conjecture

Irenep / Michael Yon:

Iraqi Islamic Party says, "Al Qaeda is Defeated." — O1 November 2007 — Iraqi Islamic Party: "Al Qaeda is Defeated" — "Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated," according to Sheik Omar Jabouri, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party and a member of the widespread and influential Jabouri Tribe.

Discussion: Hot Air, alphabet city and Gateway Pundit

The Politico:

The angry voter: Bad news for Dems — Congressional Democrats certainly know the power of a throw-the-bums-out message. It vaulted them to power a year ago this week. Little wonder anxiety is boiling over inside the new majority as lawmakers ponder a succession of polls and reach …

Discussion: Blue Crab Boulevard and Left in the West

USA Today:

A year before voting, a nation of discontent — Call us the Unhappy States of America. — One year before Election Day 2008, most Americans are dismayed by the country's direction, pessimistic about the Iraq war and anxious about the economy. Two of three disapprove of the job President Bush is doing.

Discussion: Eschaton and Think Progress

Matthew Sheffield / NewsBusters.org:

U.N. Scientist Rejects Nobel Prize Share, Denounces Climate Alarmism — Has the global warming alarmism movement hit its apex? Maybe so. — In recent weeks, we've seen a resurgence of hard scientists who have come out strongly against the warm-mongers, the latest of which is Intergovernmental Panel …

Discussion: Classical Values, Atlas Shrugs and Say Anything

Ralph Z. Hallow / Washington Times:

GOP hopes Bloomberg runs — Some Republican activists hope New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will make a third-party run for the presidency — predicting it would siphon votes from the Democrats' nominee and greatly help the party's contender next year. — "Ideologically …

Discussion: Associated Press, MSNBC and Donklephant