Updated following the last post:

The march of talking points masquerading as discussion or fact continues. On ABC's This Week, with George Stephanopoulos interviewing former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, George tries to pin his quarry by coming at him with talking-point type questions from a rightwing perspective: "illegal immigrants"; taxes; leniency, purportedly, for drug dealers. Huckabee, btw, handles all the questions well. He's much better at answering questions than any other Republican candidate except Ron Paul - who seldom needs fancy footwork, since he is straightforward and consistent. Huckabee is also much better at answering questions than most of the ...   more »

Not that this comes as any surprise, but the quickest and readiest kind of live-blogging material at hand is provided via our biggest media outlets. Two examples, off the top, this morning:

1) Karl Rove is one of today's guests on Fox News Sunday, vis-a-vis Chris van Hollen representing the other side I suppose. BTW, I do not think that the pairing of a behind-the-scenes hack, however experienced he is in some sense, and a duly elected congressman is an equal pairing. Typically, Fox provides more of a venue to the GOP as repped by Rove here, and less to ...   more »

19^th in blog series chronicling the administration push to war. As the Christmas season approaches, the White House takes advantage of the holidays to consolidate its Iraq war plans behind the scenes, or mostly behind the scenes.

Dec. 1- Dec. 15, 2001:

 

Late 2001 – SISMI, the Italian intelligence service, is reportedly investigating the possible acquisition of uranium by Iraq, but sourcing of the story still remains dubious.

 

Dec. 1, 2001 – Rumsfeld issues a Top Secret order to Gen. Franks, telling him to come up with a detailed war plan for invasion of Iraq...   more »