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By Patrick Cockburn
$16.08
By Theodore Roszak
$12.89
$18
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abcnews.com
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After Hillary Clinton announced she will buy two minutes of air time on every evening newscast in Iowa, Barack Obama wants to go even further with either a two- or five-minute live campaign commercial, to be aired simultaneously on all the networks. The stunt, which “West Wing” viewers will recognize from the show’s last season, has station managers scratching their heads.
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AP photo / Mohammed Javed
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As Benazir Bhutto’s body was laid to rest Friday, the mystery about her murder remained unresolved, and outbursts of violence rippled throughout Pakistan in reaction to her death. Members of her political party said security lapses made her an easy target, while an official of Pervez Musharraf’s government claimed she sustained a fatal wound when she struck her head as she ducked inside her armored vehicle. Of course, al-Qaida is on the short list of suspects in Bhutto’s assassination.
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American presidential contenders from both sides of the aisle sounded off on Thursday about the suicide attack that claimed the life of erstwhile Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as she was campaigning for a comeback following years of self-imposed exile from her homeland.
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By Andy Borowitz — According to satirist Borowitz, Clinton has exposed some dirty linen and Obama is plenty P-O’d about the accusation.
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By Eugene Robinson — Hillary Clinton tells audiences that having lived in the White House for eight eventful years, she’s eager to take charge as president on “day one.” Apparently, though, so is Bill.
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abcnews.com
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The Hillary Clinton campaign has secured two domain names for Web sites that will be devoted to attacking Barack Obama. A Clinton representative says negative sites are nothing new, but the Obama campaign says Clinton’s latest Internet efforts are “politically motivated attacks in the eleventh hour of a closely contested campaign.”
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AP photo / Kevin Sanders
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By Bill Boyarsky — In his first dispatch from the scene of the upcoming caucuses, Boyarsky gets a look at Barack Obama in action as the Democratic presidential hopeful delivers a speech in Des Moines touching on foreign policy and the issue of experience in office.
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By Joe Conason — Sen. Clinton has had some campaign setbacks, but the notion that she’s in a tailspin is baloney.
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By Ellen Goodman — News flash: Hillary Clinton has crow’s-feet. Now let’s all thank Rush Limbaugh for giving us another clear view of the double standard on the campaign highway.
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AP photo / Charlie Niebergall
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By Gore Vidal — Whither Dennis Kucinich? If the powers that be at CNN and a certain Iowa news outlet (attention: Des Moines Register) thought that elbowing Kucinich out of the most recent Democratic presidential debate would slip by unnoticed, Gore Vidal is more than ready to disabuse them of that notion.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Democratic contest in Iowa—and possibly the battle for the party’s presidential nomination—hangs on whether Hillary Clinton can use the next two weeks to encourage second thoughts about Barack Obama, and get voters to take a second look at her.
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By Marie Cocco — Of all the upsets that can sour a holiday season—pinched wallets, contaminated toys, sugar overload and overbearing in-laws—is there anything that can dull the spirit like a presidential primary season unfolding in its midst?
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By Benjamin Barber — Can an overheated market remedy an underachieving democracy? Can the public interest be served by an economic engine in which corporate rivals use government to quash their competitors? These and other questions are the subject of a provocative new book by Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Clinton. Benjamin Barber, author of “Jihad vs. McWorld” and “Consumed,” takes a close look at Reich’s argument.
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AP photo / Charlie Niebergall
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It’s not at all shocking when candidates and their assorted aides take pot shots at each other as they slog through the long and dirty campaign trail, but it’s at least a bit surprising when they ‘fess up to it. That’s just what happened— twice! —in about 24 hours.
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Ari Berman takes a look at the Democrats’ premiere non-issue as the campaign in Iowa draws closer to a conclusion: electability. He concludes that, their propaganda aside, all of the top candidates have positives and negatives that cancel each other out, but that probably doesn’t even matter. As Bill Clinton himself said: “This electability thing is a canard.”
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By Eugene Robinson — Is it foolish to think that a nation stained by centuries of slavery and racism is prepared to elect a black president? Rarely phrased so bluntly, that’s the central question posed by Barack Obama’s candidacy—especially for many African-American voters, whose doubts are informed by having seen many an oasis turn out to be a mirage.
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AP photo / Gerry Broome
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If Oprah Winfrey can do for politicians what she’s done for books and for any number of consumer items on her “Favorite Things” lists, Barack Obama might have a serious shot at the White House next November. Oprah held court on Sunday at a South Carolina stadium filled with nearly 30,000 Obama supporters, a giant pep rally that “had the feel of a rock concert,” according to Associated Press reporter Seanna Adcox.
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By Eugene Robinson — One assumes that the front-runner and her inner circle are rethinking their new strategy of singling out the Illinois senator and attacking him on issues of experience, ambition and character. And if they are not, they should be.
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By Ellen Goodman — Barack Obama is a do-gooder who has promised to do away with polarization and political bickering, but what if the Democrats need a winner more than a healer?
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A new USA Today/Gallup poll fits a trend other surveys have been pointing toward, namely that the front-runners in both parties are slowly losing their headlock on the election. Hillary Clinton, though still in the lead nationally, has lost 11 points in a month while Barack Obama and John Edwards have both picked up a few. Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee, once firmly stuck in statistically insignificant territory, continues his climb, like that other famous Arkansan who surprised his way to his party’s nomination.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The former senator knows his fate hinges on a strong showing in the coming caucuses and that he will be out of the race if he runs third.
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In this Politico video news report, a particularly preppy host (all Capitol Hill style, no doubt) delivers the latest about Giuliani’s alleged use of New York taxpayer funds to hook up with his now-wife Judith in the Hamptons—and as it turns out, Rudy apparently hooked Judy up with her own “police driver and city car” before she was officially known as his extramarital side dish.
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wcbstv.com
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Barack Obama shared an emptied restaurant and about 45 minutes of conversation with New York mayor and potential presidential bombshell Michael Bloomberg on Friday. A Bloomberg aide implied the meeting was more about sharing ideas than about political aspirations, but at the very least it was a challenge to Hillary Clinton, who would love to have New York and its power brokers all to herself.
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abcnews.com
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A man who said he had a bomb strapped to his chest took and eventually released several hostages at a Hillary Clinton campaign office Friday. The man demanded to speak with Hillary, who was in the Washington, D.C., area at the time. Either for safety reasons or simply to not be outdone, a Barack Obama campaign office also evacuated.
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AP photo / Elise Amendola
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By Bill Boyarsky — Reporters often live in the moment, focusing on the present and forgetting, at least temporarily, about the past and future—a trait that works well for many journalistic beats. Boyarsky warns that “when such habits are brought to the political beat, we’re all in trouble.”
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By Joe Conason — The ascension of George W., according to many Bush loyalists, was a return of mature and wise foreign policy. Tell that to the ailing Middle East, whose future is now being pondered in a U.S. meeting that seems destined to fail.
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Zogby International has issued a statement in defense of its poll showing Hillary Clinton, unlike Barack Obama and John Edwards, losing to any of the top five Republican candidates. Clinton’s chief political strategist dismissed the survey as “meaningless,” and Zogby shot back, noting that “no other campaign has made as many requests for Zogby polling data over the years than [Mark] Penn has made on behalf of Clinton.”
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obama.senate.gov
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With the Iowa caucus fast approaching, the candidates are getting less shy about flinging a little mud. Take this jab from Barack Obama, for example: “There is no doubt that Bill Clinton had faith in [Hillary] and consulted with her on issues, in the same way that I would consult with Michelle. ... On the other hand, I don’t think Michelle would claim that she is the best qualified person to be a United States senator by virtue of me talking to her on occasion about the work I’ve done.”
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By David Sirota — “Ross Perot was fiercely against NAFTA. Knowing what we know now, was Ross Perot right?” It was a straightforward query about a Clinton administration trade policy that polls show the public now hates, and it was appropriately directed to a candidate who has previously praised NAFTA.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Scheer — What can you get for a trillion bucks? Or make that $1.6 trillion, if you take the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as tallied by the majority staff of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. Or is it the $3.5-trillion figure cited by Paul, whose concern about the true cost of this war for ordinary Americans shames the leading Democrats?
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The contours of the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination are set, and it is not a battle about “issues.” Advisers to the major contenders largely see things this way, and Democratic voters are in a quandary about what to do.
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By Eugene Robinson — Finally, we’ve got a real presidential campaign on our hands. Wake up, those of you in the back row, because it looks as if the long-running seminar is finally over.
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By Marie Cocco — Now that Hillary Clinton has hushed, for the moment, the chatter about how she can be both a woman and a presidential front-runner whose opponents pile on, can we pay attention to the way the most powerful “gender card” is really going to be played in the 2008 campaign?
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trb.com
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Barack Obama has taken the lead in Iowa, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. However, his lead is within the poll’s margin of error, so he remains in a statistical tie with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Much of Obama’s strength may come from “new direction” voters, and the sense that voters have, according to the survey, that he is “the most honest and trustworthy.”
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cnn.com
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Conservative columnist Robert Novak initiated a scuffle between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over the weekend by reporting that “agents” of Hillary Clinton claimed to possess “scandalous” information about Barack Obama. Obama promptly accused the Clinton campaign of trying to “Swift-boat” him and demanded that the front-runner come clean.
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peakaction.files.wordpress.com
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By Bill Boyarsky — If the Illinois senator beats Hillary Clinton and the others for the nomination, a good portion of credit will go to the volunteers now making phone calls in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, California and other places.
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By Andy Borowitz — Campaign-trail satire: Paper? Plastic? Both? Neither? The senator finds it’s hard to do a bit of shopping when a world of voters is looking on.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak, File
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It’s relatively easy to drum up a list of high-flying entertainers who have publicly backed a Democratic politician in recent years (if not weeks)—Oprah, George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand and others readily come to mind—but their conservative counterparts are much harder to ID without resorting to a Google search.
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By Eugene Robinson — “That’s an excellent question” normally doesn’t make the list of utterances that can get a candidate in trouble on the campaign trail. But this presidential campaign isn’t what anyone would call normal.
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In this latest campaign video for Hillary Clinton, her once-tubbier hubby is shown sweating it out on a treadmill as a cheeseburger appears on the TV he’s watching, rotating in lascivious beefy splendor on the screen. This isn’t, however, the cheesiest moment from this ad, which ultimately aims to point out how “Caucusing [i.e., for Hillary] is easy!”
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The horse-race coverage of the campaign mostly missed this absolute gem of a speech from Barack Obama, who has scratched and clawed his way to a virtual tie with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in Iowa.
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cbsnews.com
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Hillary Clinton’s lead in Iowa is statistically nonexistent, leaving in a virtual tie the top three Democrats running in the nation’s first electoral test, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee has sprinted past Rudy Giuliani to be within striking distance of Mitt Romney.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Democrats in Congress are discovering what it’s like to live in the worst of all possible worlds. They are condemned for selling out to President Bush, and for failing to make compromises aimed at getting things done.
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By Marie Cocco — Sometime before the average price of gas topped the $3-a-gallon mark, an inevitable moment arrived. The economy beat Iraq as the issue of most concern to Americans.
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jfklibrary.org
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While Hillary’s out on the campaign trail, Bill Clinton may be offering his diplomatic expertise to help bring a resolution to the Writers Guild of America strike, which has halted several productions in Hollywood and New York.
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By Joe Conason — As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spar over Social Security, their argument has shed little light on America’s most successful domestic program but has instead revealed unattractive aspects of both candidates.
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By Ellen Goodman — Can anybody tell me what a gender card is anyway and where you buy one? After last week, I’m beginning to think that none of us is playing with a full deck.
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By Marie Cocco — In the beginning—back when most Americans believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, when Rumsfeld was known for his quick verbal jabs and not the quagmire in Iraq, and when Bush still could hope to be revered as a great wartime president—the women of Code Pink would stand quietly in front of the White House and hope someone would take their fliers.
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Truthdigger of the Week: Sen. Angus King
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