memeorandum: RECORD-BREAKING: SENATE CONSERVATIVES (Anne Thompson/Campaign for America's …)

7:50 PM ET, December 19, 2007

Top Items:

Poll: Iowa's GOP Race is Battle Between Huckabee, Romney — The race for Iowa's Republican caucuses has narrowed to a two-person battle between former governors Mike Huckabee (Ark.) and Mitt Romney (Mass.), with Huckabee now perched atop the field, propelled by a big jump in support among religious women.

Discussion: The Corner, New York Times, Jonathan Martin's Blogs, New York Observer and Pollster.com

John Harwood / Wall Street Journal:

Giuliani Loses Lead In Republican Race — Ex-Mayor Is Tied With Romney In National Poll of Republicans — WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani has lost his national lead in the Republican presidential race, creating the party's most competitive nomination fight in decades just two weeks before voting starts.

Mark Murray / MSNBC: Giuliani plummets in latest NBC/WSJ poll

IMAO.US: The Official IMAO Republican Primary Endorsement

David Freddoso / The Corner:
That Rasmussen Poll... ...in Iowa suggests that John McCain …

Discussion: Rasmussen Reports, Weekly Standard, TPM Election Central, Captain's Quarters and Riehl World View

Michael Calderone / The Politico:

NY Times changes CIA headline for WH — The New York Times has changed the subheadline in Wednesday's front-page story on the CIA's destruction of secret interrogation tapes, following a formal request by the White House. — The correction has already been made online …

Discussion: Wonkette, Democrats.com, JURIST, HorsesAss.Org, The Gun Toting Liberal™ and The Carpetbagger Report

Klaus Marre / The Hill:

White House asks NYT to remove sub-headline from CIA tape story — The White House on Wednesday took the rare step of publicly asking The New York Times to change the sub-headline of a story on the destruction of CIA tapes showing the interrogations of suspected terrorists.

Discussion: TPMmuckraker, Washington Post, Agence France Presse, Talking Points Memo, On Deadline, Associated Press, Firedoglake, New York Observer, Salon and Emptywheel

Dan Froomkin / Washington Post:

The Tell-Tale Stall — The best indicator of how seriously this White House is involved in a political scandal may be how emphatically it refuses to comment. — By that standard, the CIA's destruction of its torture tapes is shaping up to be a doozy of a White House story.

Discussion: CNN, Think Progress, Cliff Schecter, Salon, Firedoglake and TPMmuckraker

White House:
Statement by the Press Secretary

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, The Raw Story, Balkinization, Political Machine, At-Largely and Talking Points Memo

National Enquirer:

UPDATE: NATIONAL ENQUIRER WORLD EXCLUSIVE: JOHN EDWARDS LOVE CHILD SCANDAL! — Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught up in a love child scandal, a blockbuster ENQUIRER investigation has discovered. — The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that Rielle Hunter, a woman linked to Edwards …

Discussion: Riehl World View, DBKP, The Corner, Wonkette, THE REACTION, MoJoBlog, Tim Worstall Tabloid Edition, Right Wing News, Clayton Cramer's BLOG, Outside The Beltway and Vox Popoli

Jonathan Martin / The Politico:

Tancredo to get out? — Tom Tancredo has scheduled a press conference in Des Moines tomorrow afternoon to make a “major announcement regarding the campaign,” according to a media advisory his campaign sent out today. — Asked whether Tancredo intended to drop out of the race …

Discussion: Pajamas Media, M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Comments from Left Field, The Stump, Hot Air, race42008.com and The Campaign Spot

Tom Tancredo / You Decide 08!:
TOM TANCREDO TO DROP OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Discussion: Marc Ambinder, Tammy Bruce and Salon

Don Frederick / Los Angeles Times:
Tancredo ‘major announcement’ slated

Discussion: New York Observer and New York Daily News Blogs

Adi Ignatius / Time:

Person of the Year: Vladimir Putin — A Tsar Is Born — No one is born with a stare like Vladimir Putin's. The Russian President's pale blue eyes are so cool, so devoid of emotion that the stare must have begun as an affect, the gesture of someone who understood that power might be achieved …

Discussion: Associated Press, Weekly Standard, Fausta's blog, The Nation, PERRspectives Blog, AMERICAN DIGEST, Gates of Vienna, Doug Ross, The Sundries Shack, Captain's Quarters, Wonkette, The Moderate Voice, Macsmind, Truthdig, Sweetness & Light, On Deadline, The Glittering Eye and The Sideshow

Time:
Vladimir Putin — His final year as Russia's President has been his most successful yet.

Discussion: Commentary, Hot Air, Confederate Yankee and The Debatable Land

Michael Goldfarb / Weekly Standard:
McCain: Man of the Year Should Have Been Petraeus

Discussion: Boston Herald, The Campaign Spot, BLACKFIVE and Roger L. Simon

MeMeMeMeMe / Little Green Footballs:

Fire in Cheney's Office Causes Leftists to Rant Uncontrollably — There was a fire in Dick Cheney's office this morning, and as usual the leftist blogosphere is brimming over with lunatic ranting. — At Think Progress, the Morlocks who inhabit their comments are sure this is a ploy to cover up the destroying of documents.

Discussion: Daily Kos, A Blog For All and Gateway Pundit

CNN:
Fire hits building next door to White House

Discussion: Think Progress, The Lede, Breitbart.tv, Outside The Beltway and The Gate

Associated Press:
Fire controlled at White House compound

Discussion: Corrente and Hot Air

Marc Ambinder:

A Real Edwards Surge — Is John Edwards's surge a media-created phenomenon, a collective reaction formation to the media's desire to see a three-person race, or guilt for building up Barack Obama? Does the media really have that power? — Or are we seeing something more organic?

Discussion: Weekly Standard and Salon

Paul Krugman:
Interesting Obama history

Discussion: Newsweek, Liberal Values, Comments from Left Field and THE LIBERAL JOURNAL

Matthew Yglesias:
Rorschach — Kevin Drum yesterday noted that “The Democratic primary …

Discussion: Open Left, Unfogged and Washington Monthly

Roger Simon / The Politico:

Fred Thompson: Lazy as charged — WAVERLY, Iowa — When is retail politics not retail politics? When candidates refuse to get off their big buses and go do it. — Fred Thompson rolled into this small town on the Cedar River in north-central Iowa on a giant brown bus Tuesday.

Discussion: CBS News, Hot Air, Political Machine, Stop The ACLU, The Stump and Riehl World View

Anne Thompson / Campaign for America's Future:

RECORD-BREAKING: SENATE CONSERVATIVES — New Report Shows How Conservative Minority Rules by Filibuster, Preventing Up or Down Vote on a Record Number of Bills — WASHINGTON—The Republican Senate minority today filibustered an omnibus budget bill, setting a modern-day record for blocking …

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, Think Progress, Hullabaloo and Seeing the Forest

John Podhoretz / Commentary:

“Mitt Romney...Helped Save My Daughter” — At first blush, this seems like a genuinely great campaign ad — the story of how Mitt Romney basically closed down his business, Bain Capital, in 1996 when the daughter of one of his partners went missing in New York City and Romney sent dozens …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters and The Daily Dish

Brent Budowsky / The Hill:

Torture Tapes are the Watergate of Our Times — As I write these words on the morning of Wednesday, Dec. 19, high- and low-level officials of the Bush administration involved in torture, and the destruction of the torture tapes, are consulting their criminal lawyers as The New York Times reports …

Discussion: Comments from Left Field, Left in the West and TPMCafe blogs

Karen DeYoung / Washington Post:

All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord, Study Shows — Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of “occupying forces” as the key to national reconciliation …

Discussion: New York Times, Matthew Yglesias, IPS Inter Press Service, The Carpetbagger Report, The Huffington Post, American Footprints, Wonkette, Washington Monthly, The Moderate Voice, JustOneMinute, Salon and rubber hose

David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:

Reid's Relationship With Bush Enters Deep Freeze — WASHINGTON — Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has called President Bush a loser and a liar and has referred to him derisively as King George. Mr. Reid has also apologized — but only, he likes to point out, for the “loser” line.