Rove Calls McClellan A “Left-Wing Blogger” [LINK]

Bush Re-Elect eCampaign Director:”McClellan Savaged For Saying What Everyone Knows To Be True” [LINK]

CNN’s Jessica Yellin Says “Network Execs Killed Critical White House Stories” [LINK]

Murdoch: “I Think Obama Will Win… [LINK]

Rendell Doesn’t Think Clinton Can Win [LINK]

Sen. Coburn Not Happy With Obama [LINK]

NPR: Mich. Democrats Offer Plan To Restore Delegates [LINK]

Media Plays Up DNC “Chaos” This Saturday [LINK]

Delegate Dilemma…Seat Half? [LINK]

Pelosi’s Crystal Ball [LINK]

TIME: Team McCain Ready for Prime Time? [LINK]

Obama’s use of Governor Patrick’s rhetoric does not constitute plagiarism therefore rendering her attacks false and pretty truly silly. Americans are looking for solutions, not canned attacks.

Yet, it’s still worth noting that Sen. Clinton has done the exact same thing over the course of her campaign – a glaring example taking place just last night:

Hillary Clinton: “You know, the hits I’ve taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country.”

Bill Clinton 1992: “The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits the people of this state and this country have been taking for a long time.”

I think people are really tired of this story. It truly is just silly.

UPDATE on the silliness: CNN has picked up the story

The Washington Post reports this morning that the O’Brien/O’Brien team (Miles, being the other one) are no more. They will be replaced by CNN’s John Roberts and the very attractive and talented Kiran Chetry, formerly of Fox News fame.

Miles always kind of got on my nerves. Towards the end of his run, he spent more time tracking commercial airlines on his laptop than he did reporting the news. But Soledad, sweet sweet Soledad, I never got tired of her. She will be deeply missed.

CNN sources indicate that both Soledad and Miles O’Brien have been offered correspondent positions at the network and are expected to stay at CNN.

God speed, sweet princess.

The Washington Post is reporting that Melhman is stepping aside and that this move was planned regardless of how things went in the mid-term elections. In case you haven’t been following, the Republicans were thumped.

From the WaPo:

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, who guided President Bush’s reelection campaign to victory in 2004 and saw his party suffer the loss of the House and Senate on Tuesday, will not seek a second term as party leader, informed sources said last night.

Mehlman is leaving his position voluntarily and has not come under any pressure from the White House or state party leaders to vacate his position as a result of Tuesday’s elections. According to a Republican strategist familiar with developments at the RNC, Mehlman told the White House in August that he would leave after the elections.

Mehlman met with reporters yesterday to review the midterm elections at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor and was asked whether he planned to stay on as party chairman. He declined to answer directly but said, “I will announce soon what my plan is in the future.”

It is being reported by the Washington Times that Lt. Governor of Maryland, Michael Steele, has been offered the job. Steele was recently thumped by Senator-elect Ben Cardin (D-MD) and to the best of my knowledge, Steele has yet to officially concede that race.

This has nothing to do with Bill Maher officially “outting” Mr. Melhman on CNN, right?

From Political Wire:

CNN reports corruption was the number most important issue to voters who responded to exit surveys. Early Senate numbers (uncomfirmed and with caveats):

Democrats are leading in Rhode Island (+7), Virginia (+7), Pennsylvania (+15), Ohio (+14), New Jersey (+8), Montana (+9), Missouri (+2).

Republicans are leading in Tennessee (+4) and Arizona (+4).

Wait, what? Huh? Oh!

That’s just CNN being stupid.

“Do you want to win the war in Iraq?”

That’s right, there will be no more debate on the war. Either you believe we should “stay the course” and continue to lose brave American lives and countless number of innocent Iraqi civilian life OR you want to lose the war.

Listen to two Republicans say the exact same line on the war!

Bill O’Reilly on Letterman:

Lynne Cheney on CNN (at 19 seconds):

Washington Post headline: Bush Team Casts Foes as Defeatist

Transcript courtesy of Wonkette:

We’re working on a rough transcription, but until we finish it, just enjoy this video of Kyra Phillips chatting, seemingly in the bathroom, with an unidentified co-worker (Daryn Kagan?) while Bush blabs about levees or something.

Update: In case you’re unclear on what you’re hearing, some of the better bits are written out after the jump. As always, we welcome corrections and better interpretations.

Highlights: The clip starts with what sounds like “ASSHOLES.” Then Kyra talks about, presumably, a boy of some sort: “No ego… you don’t understand., just a really passionate, compassionate human being. And they exist! They do exist. They’re hard to find—”

COWORKER: “Yep.”
KYRA: “But they… are out there.”

Thankfully, “Mom” seems to approve (“good vibe”)

Then, Kyra again: “Of course brothers hafta be, you know, protective. [ZIP] Except for mine. I gotta be protective of him. Ugh, yeah. He’s married, three kids, but his wife is just a control freak.”

Then the best part:

WOMAN: Kyra—
KYRA: Yeah baby—
WOMAN: Your mic is on.
ANCHOR: All right, we’ve been listening in to…

According to a recent survey by CNN’s pollsters, Wisconsin is the “most” average state in the Union in terms of race, income, and other factors.

This may be true according to some sprinkling of data courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau. But with its proud Germanic heritage, delicious cheeses and microbrews, and its breathtaking state capital, America’s Dairyland is anything but typical or boring.

Too bad America’s politics aren’t more like Wisconsin’s; Al Gore won a narrow victory in 2000, as did John Kerry in 2004.

Can you spot the sentence? How does one become leader of the most deliberative (hah!) parliamentary body in the world when one can’t form a complete sentence? Transcript from Raw Story:

O’Brien defended CNN, “We are covering but I think there is — a lot of what you say there — Americans are not hearing that particular message. As the majority leader, isn’t that part of your job?”

Frist replied, “Well, you know, it’s part of my job and your job and your whole coming into this was, again, saying [from] Harry Reid that we are spending all of our time on marriage — which is important. That we’re spending all of the time on flag without mentioning what we’ve done of the floor for six weeks. Iraq, the war on terror, making you safer… where’s your coverage of that? What you do is concentrate on things that are spun to you from the other side of the aisle and that’s why that message doesn’t get out.”

Cafferty: We all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He’s vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.

Shortly after 9/11, AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don’t you go find Osama bin Laden, and seal the country’s borders, and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports?

The President rushed out this morning in the wake of this front page story in USA Today and declared the government is doing nothing wrong, and all this is just fine. Is it? Is it legal? Then why did the Justice Department suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens because the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn’t have the necessary security clearance to do the investigation. Read that sentence again. A secret government agency has told our Justice Department that it’s not allowed to investigate it. And the Justice Department just says ok and drops the whole thing. We’re in some serious trouble, boys and girls”