US citizen Ami Isseroff at MideastWeb: From a distance, here are impressionistic views of an American citizen on how American presidential candidates stack up on foreign policy. These views are impressionistic because they represent not the unknowable substance of the candidates’ real foreign policy knowledge and positions, but only what they may show us in their Web sites and public foreign policy statements, filleted through my own faulty perception of those views. If these impressions are...

I’m not going to bother looking up the research but will speak from personal experience. Anger is often perceived differently in men and women. The same anger seen as an asset in a male candidate may be seen as a liability in a female candidate. I know this because I have often been perceived as an angry woman (and therefore dangerous and unstable) rather than a rightfully angry person. Don’t penalize Hillary Clinton for her gender.

Watching the debates on ABC. Now the Democrats are discussing domestic issues and the need for change and there has been slashing between Obama, Clinton and Edwards. Richardson gets a chance to speak and says something like “I’ve been in hostage negotiation situations that were more civil than this.”

I was watching PBS NewsHour while eating a hefty salad with lots of garlic when I heard that the McCain and Huckabee campaigns have teamed-up in New Hampshire to knock Mitt Romney out of the race. Politics becomes Reality TV.

AMERICAblog is following this fairly closely. It looks like Clinton, Obama and Edwards are deadlocked on the Democratic side (combined, they have 97 percent of the delegates) and Huckabee has a significant lead over Romney on the Republican side. UPDATE: A gap appears to have opened between Obama at 34 percent and Clinton & Edwards (between 31 & 32 percent). A.P. Says Huckabee Has Won Iowa; Romney Has Conceded

ALL EYES ON THE HAWKEYE STATE But should we be watching so early and closely? ROOTED IN “HOPE” Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee

Listen to The Capitol Steps New Year’s Eve 2007 Edition ONLINE or on these NPR stations.

Huckabee’s got protesters already! Is it performance art? Civil disobedience? Street theater? Self-centeredness? Neither Fred nor Cindy is welcome in MY home. CNN Political Ticker: Anti-war protestors and Ron Paul supporters both kept Mike Huckabee from entering his Iowa campaign headquarters through the front door Monday. Three people who managed to break inside — holding a sign that said “What Would Jesus Bomb?” — were arrested and led away, yelling and singing. Around two...

Patriots 38 – Giants 35 AP via NY Times

The New York Times: Letterman Makes Deal With Striking Writers The deal will allow David Letterman to resume his show next Wednesday with his team of writers on board.

I just got to my computer to find that former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a suicide attack (along with 15 others) while speaking at an election rally. BBC: Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack. News of her death was confirmed by a military spokesman and members of her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Ms Bhutto had just addressed an election rally in Rawalpindi when gunfire and an explosion occurred. At least 15 other people...

AP: Presidential contender Mike Huckabee bagged a pheasant Wednesday, offering Iowa voters the image of an experienced outdoorsman on the hunt, shotgun blasting and dogs braying. AND: Of four birds flushed by the party, three were felled. Huckabee claimed the third with his .12-gauge shotgun. He proudly displayed the birds and said jokingly, “See that’s what happens if you get in my way.” He also jested about Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident in which a fellow...

FAVORITE FIBS OF THE YEAR In the spirit of the holiday season, I am inviting nominations for the “Top Ten Fibs of 2007″. There are two categories in the competition: “Presidential Candidates” and “Best of the Rest.” Post your nominations in the comments section or use the “Contact the Fact Checker” form. Also feel free to cast a non-binding vote for your favorite fib. The deadline is Friday, Dec. 28. A panel of crack Fact Checkers will select the Top...

The New York Times: A Rabbi of His Time, With a Charisma That Transcends It In 1965, after walking in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil-rights march with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was at the Montgomery, Ala., airport, trying to find something to eat. A surly woman behind the snack-bar counter glared at Heschel — his yarmulke and white beard making him look like an ancient Hebrew prophet — and mockingly proclaimed: “Well, I’ll be damned. My mother always...

Religion scholar Stephen Prothero in the Washington Post on the plethora of available holidays: The holiday season is once again upon us. But are holidays ever really out of season? Wiccans like to say that every day is a holiday. By that they mean that there is no real distinction between Christmas and the days before it and after it. Each day the sun rises and sets; each day is a surprise in waiting. When I say that every day is a holiday, I mean that every day, literally, is a holiday. Every Christmas...

Chris Cillizza of ‘The Fix’ says that dream has deflated.

A Second Democratic Year in ’08? Look at recent history. The Senate has changed party control six times: in 1980 (D to R), 1986 (R to D), 1994 (D to R), 2001 (R to D), 2002 (D to R), and 2006 (R to D). This is no longer a rare event. And the Democrats now control the Senate by the slimmest of margins, 51 to 49. Surely, then, Republicans have a real chance to recapture Congress’ upper chamber in 2008. Surely not. While strange things happen in politics, and the election is almost a year...

It’s on – watch it HERE or on C-SPAN3. The debate is moderated by the Des Moines Register’s editor, Carolyn Washburn, and sponsored by the DMR and Iowa Public Television. PREVIEW The Fix: Debate Preview CNN Political Ticker LIVE-BLOGGING Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters at Heading Right Michelle Malkin AMERICAblog NY Times – ‘The Caucus’ It was kind of a jolt when CNN played “news alert” music and flashed news about the players implicated in the steroids...

The debate was moderated by the Des Moines Register’s editor, Carolyn Washburn, and sponsored by the DMR and Iowa Public Television. PBS: Watch video of this afternoon’s Republican presidential debate, starting at 8 pm ET. Full Debate Transcript I found some live-blogging out there: AMERICAblog Libby Spencer / The Newshoggers: Michelle Malkin Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic NY Times’ The Caucus Blog Alan Keyes is demonstrating why he has not been a welcome participant on the debate stage...

MSNBC First Read: There is one additional Republican presidential candidate who will be on the stage here at the GOP Des Moines Register/Iowa Public Television debate this afternoon: Alan Keyes. This will be the first major debate this cycle featuring the former presidential candidate and ambassador, who most recently faced off against Barack Obama in the 2004 Illinois Senate race (even though he actually hails from Maryland). Keyes did participate in the Tavis Smiley-moderated GOP debate in September,...

I don’t care because I don’t “believe in” either one. This kind of thing is WAY out-of-bounds for a political race. If I can put up with a Christian president, these evangelicals can get over themselves. TIME Magazine: Huckabee Asks if Mormons Believe Jesus, Devil Are Brothers Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, asks in an upcoming article, ”Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” The...

NY Times: Twin Bombs Kill at Least 60 in Algiers Twin car bombs near United Nations offices and an Algerian government building killed dozens of people today in the deadliest attack in the capital, Algiers, in more than a decade. Two European diplomats in Algiers said that reports from rescue and medical workers led them to believe news agency tolls of 60 or more. But the Algerian interior minister, Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, told reporters at a news conference this evening that there were only 22...

Michael Vick has been sentenced to 23 months in prison.

Now that Mike Huckabee is doing well in the polls and picking up support, he’s been put under the microscope and begun to garner negative attention. We have posted on the Dumond mess but that’s not all that’s out there. Howard Kurtz Media Notes: Until he finished second in last summer’s Iowa straw poll, Huckabee’s also-ran status served as a sort of shield. News organizations generally limit their investigations to candidates who are high in the polls, on the theory...