The much touted WaPo Iowa poll gives us a clue:

Which of these is more important to you in a candidate for president: (strength and experience) or (a new direction and new ideas)?

Strength New direction

33 55

These words mean next to nothing in real life but they have become the narrative for the coverage of Iowa and I think most Iowa caucus voters will think of it that way.

These buzz words are emblematic of two candidates now - Hillary Clinton means strength and experience. Barack Obama means new direct and new ideas. Forget the fact that the phrases mean nothing. They are standins for a Hillary Clinton referendum.

For reasons unfathomable, John Edwards seems to believe that attacks on Hillary Clinton's trustworthiness and candor will make him the alternative to Hillary. He has left Barack Obama unscathed. In the face of these results, it is hard to imagine what Edwards is thinking:

Who is the most honest and trustworthy 11/18/07 7/31/07
Barack Obama 31 30
John Edwards 20 24
Hillary Clinton 15 14

Edwards is losing ground here? Not really. HE is losing SUPPORT. The attacks he is engaging in give him no benefits whatsoever.

And the end game seems set to me - Two choices - "strength and experience" (Clinton) vs. Change (Obama). Where is the Edwards choice? He ceded it to Obama. In my view, he is finished.

Via LGM, Mark Halperin seems intent on making sure that the 3 people who do not already consider him an idiot do. Consider this:

For instance, being all things to all people worked wonderfully well for Bill Clinton the candidate, but when his presidency ran into trouble, this trait was disastrous, particularly in the bumpy early years of his presidency and in the events leading up to his impeachment. The fun-loving campaigner with big appetites and an undisciplined manner squandered a good deal of the majesty and power of the presidency, and undermined his effectiveness as a leader. What much of the country found endearing in a candidate was troubling in a president. When George W. Bush ran in 2000, many voters liked his straightforward, uncomplicated mean-what-I-say-and-say-what-I-mean certainty. He came across as a man of principle who did not lust for the White House; he was surrounded by disciplined loyalists who created a cheerful cult of personality about their candidate. As with Mr. Clinton, though, the very campaign strengths that got Mr. Bush elected led to his worst moments in office. Assuredness became stubbornness. His lack of lifelong ambition for the presidency translated into a failure to apply himself to the parts of the job that held less interest for him, often to disastrous effects. The once-appealing life outside of government and public affairs became a far-less appealing lack of experience. And Mr. Bush’s close-knit team has served as a barrier to fresh advice.

That the Media is incompetent seems to be Halperin's well hidden point. He makes it by comparing the worst President in history to Bill Clinton? He makes it by comparing the Media and the GOP's obsession with the President's sex life and the Iraq Debacle?

Please, no more Mr. Halperin. You have effectively made your case. You are an idiot. We get it. We know that you do not understand "what it takes" to do legitimate and relevant journalism.

Update [2007-11-25 9:40:1 by Big Tent Democrat]: Paul Krugman adds an important point:

The New York Times has a feature article on the struggles of exonerated to rebuild their lives after years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Here's the story of Jeffrey Deskovic.

There are 400 exonerees and the number keeps growing. When you're making your holiday donations this year, I hope you consider Life After Exoneraton and The Innocence Project.

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Out-of-Touch Rudy Giuliani today called for fewer regulations and increased tax cuts for corporations as a means of responding to outsourcing jobs.

Businesses have a right to make a profit, he said. The solution, he said, is lifting some regulations on businesses and lowering the corporate tax rate.

Just what we need, more corporate welfare.

The media is loving talking up Barack Obama's chances in Iowa. But nationally, Hillary is easily maintaining her big lead over him among Democratic supporters -- those most likely to vote in a primary or caucus. In fact, she's up 7 points from September. From the latest Harris poll:

More than half of Democratic Party supporters in the United States think Hillary Rodham Clinton should become their presidential nominee next year, according to a poll by Harris Interactive. 52 per cent of respondents would back the New York senator in a 2008 presidential primary, up seven points since October. Illinois senator Barack Obama is second with 29 per cent, followed by former North Carolina senator John Edwards with 11 per cent.

She has a three point lead over Rudy Giuliani.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is out, suffering a humiliating re-election defeat after four terms in office.

I only wish his refusal to support Schapelle Corby as she rots in an Indonesian prison for 20 years following her conviction for importing 4 kilos of pot in a boogie board played a part.

During the trial, Corby wrote to Prime Minister of Australia John Howard, saying in part:

“ As a father and as a leader, I plead for your help. I did not do this. I beg for justice. I don't know how much longer I can do this. Please bring me home. ”

Howard was quoted as saying in response:

“ I feel for her. I understand why there's a lot of public sympathy for her; I would simply say that I hope justice is done and it's a fair and true verdict...I would ask the rhetorical question: My fellow Australians, if a foreigner were to come to Australia and a foreign government were to start telling us how we should handle (it), we would react very angrily to that."

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The hot affair between LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and television news reporter Mirthala Salinas is kaput. I'm sure they thought it was true love at the time, but what a price they paid.

Villaraigosa's political standing was affected, and his wife has filed for divorce. Salinas was suspended, then left her job at Telemundo.

Can Villaraigosa recover politically? Or will he always be the Mayor who left his wife for a tv reporter who covered city affairs?

Via Crooks and Liars: USA Today reports:

At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY.

....Soldiers and Marines whose wounds were discovered after they left Iraq are not added to the official casualty list, says Army Col. Robert Labutta, a neurologist and brain injury consultant for the Pentagon. More than 150,000 troops may have suffered head injuries in combat, says Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., founder of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.

As Logan at C&L notes:

Hiding the true human cost of their wars has proven difficult for the Bush administration. They don’t want the world to know about the real numbers of injured — or the staggering number of homeless vets or those who have killed themselves during or after their service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Republican candidate and former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney is under attack because a former prosecutor he appointed to the bench set bail for an inmate who had just finished serving a manslaughter sentence. Prosecutors, in an effort to keep the inmate in jail after finishing his sentence, charged him with crimes arising from two incidents occurring more than a year earlier. One incident involved him spitting on a guard and in the other, he hit a guard with a cast that was on his arm.

The inmate, Daniel Tavares, Jr., moved to Washington State after his release where he resided with his wife whom he met through a prison pen pal program. The wife brought a gun into the home, even though as a felon, Tavares isn't allowed to possess a gun. Tavares is now charged with and has confessed to shooting and killing a newleywed couple in WA over a $50 debt.

A "Willie Horton" campaign moment (1988 ad here)is brewing against Romney. In response, he has called for the Judge to resign and pushes the death penalty button.

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Matt Yglesias deliver some great snark with a point, taking on the voice of an Iranian Richard Perle:

[I]t's not clear that a policy of appeasement would be wise. True, we've seen rational leadership even from vicious dictators like Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, but the contemporary United States is led by religious fanatics, which introduces a new element into the equation. What's more, the USA is the only country on earth to have ever actually deployed nuclear weapons. Indeed, current political elites are so war-crazed and bloodthirsty that they not only engineered the 2003 attack on Iraq -- a country that tried to appease the Americans by eliminating its nuclear program and allowing IAEA inspectors to certify that it had done so -- but they continue to deny regretting it to this day. And that includes not only radicals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but so-called "moderates" like Hillary Clinton as well.

Well played by Matt.

For better or worse, Hillary Clinton's political image is largely dominated by her tenure as First Lady. It seems fairly clear that Hillary was a key, if not the key, advisor to President Clinton on many many issues. And while Tim Russert's questions on documents from the period is not really an attempt to shed light on this, it is rather more of the same gotcha nonsense, it does inadvertently get to a lot of questions about Hillary.

In today's WaPo, Michael Kinsley writes:

[First ladies] must have a better understanding of how the presidency works than all but half a dozen people in the world. One of those half a dozen is Hillary Clinton, who saw it all -- well, she apparently missed one key moment -- and shared in all the big decisions. Every first lady is promoted as her husband's key adviser, closest confidant, blah, blah, blah, but in the case of the Clintons, it seems to be true.

That seems true to me. But here's the thing - my recollection of the Clinton years had Hillary supposedly playing the liberal in the lion's den of Centrists role in the Clinton Administration. I'll never forget the reaction of Peter and Marian Wright Edelman to welfare reform. Peter resigned his post and Marian Wright Edelman made sure everyone understood how she felt personally betrayed by HILLARY, not Bill. Hillary was to be the liberal conscience of the Clinton Administration. How time changes images. Now Hillary's supposed liberal past is long forgotten. For those who favor DLCism, this is a sign of Hillary's good sense. For those who disfavor it, it proves hillary is a corporatist sellout DLCer. This is a central question about Hillary Clinton. Who could best answer this question? I believe Bill Clinton would be that person. I think it would help us all, and probably mostly Hillary Clinton, if he and Hillary were to discuss her role and views on the Clinton Administration and the issues faced at the time. Release of documents to add to this telling would be even better. I think it is time to tell the story - not of the personal lives of the clintons - but the public policy lives of the the Clintons. Tell us what Hillary did, said, advised and thought. To me it is the most interesting and relevant question of the entire campaign.

One of the chapters in Rudy's book is titled "Surround Yourself With Great People." As the Washington Post points out today, many of his appointments as Mayor of New York turned out to be dismal choices, based on blind loyalty to his friends rather than competence.

We all know about Bernie and Rudy, but there are plenty of other examples, which taken together, show "a pattern of rewarding loyalty over competence in personnel decisions:

There's Howard Safir, whom Rudy appointed Police Commissioner after the very competent Bill Bratton:

[Safir] came under intense criticism after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, for failing to provide adequate oversight of the police unit involved in the shootings and for his detached response. He also came under scrutiny for, among other things, taking a corporate jet to the Academy Awards shortly after the shootings, for assigning eight detectives to his daughter's wedding, and for sending officers to investigate a woman who rear-ended his wife's car.

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