- The Denver Post fabricates gun statistics, is called out, and corrects:

Editor’s note: This story was corrected. Because of a reporting error, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics on fatal shooting accidents involving children in 2007 were overstated. The number of children under 18 was 112. Also, the story misstated the number of children believed to be living in homes with guns. A survey published in Pediatrics magazine indicated, with a 95 percent confidence level, that between 1.57-1.82 million children live in a home with loaded and unlocked guns.

Kudos to Free Colorado for the sharp eye and the Denver Post for printing a correction in bold.

- Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch will provide analysis throughout the Iowa caucus:

On the night of the caucus, CNN will utilize its anchors, including Blitzer, Crowley, John King, Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett, from 7 p.m.-midnight from the Election Center and in Iowa. Political analyst Gloria Borger, senior political analyst David Gergen, poltiical contributors James Carville, Ari Fleishcer, Dana Loesch and Roland Martin will also participate.

- Reddit targets Paul Ryan.

- Michelle Obama wears two-thousand dollar sundresses on her taxpayer-supported Hawaiian vacation. Do you think the media will report this the same way they reported Gingrich’s Tiffany credit line or Romney’s bet?

- What? The beyond-Communist North Korean media/government Photoshopped photos of Kim Jong Il’s funeral to make it appear as though every single soul in the country was sobbing and giving their undivided attention to the procession?

- The 2011 cable network ranker.

- Bill Maher’s Tebow Tweet sparks calls for HBO protest:

Bill Maher has run afoul of religious conservatives yet again, after a Christmas Eve tweet the comedian sent about overtly religious Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. Following a 40-14 Broncos’ loss to the Buffalo Bills on Saturday, Maher tweeted, “Wow, Jesus just… #TimTebow  bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler ‘Hey, Buffalo’s killing them’. (Adult language has been removed from the Tweet.)

Predictably, the dig from the atheist comedian didn’t go over well with Christians. Fox Business’ “Follow the Money” host Eric Bolling got things rolling with his Twitter response: “Bill Maher is disgusting vile trash. I can’t even repeat what he just tweeted about Tebow..on Christmas Eve. #straighttohellBill.”

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Aside from the performative displays of anguish–possibly sincere, in a bizarre way–note the total lack of interaction among mourners at monuments to recently deceased North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il.

Orwell’s great insight into totalitarianism was that it destroys all capacity for human intimacy, and replaces normal emotions with manipulable mania–and here’s further, chilling evidence.

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JIM LEHRER:  Good evening.  At his regular briefing this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney expressed confidence President Obama was closely monitoring yesterday’s invasion of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China.

[Carney video clip]

Highly-placed administration sources tell me Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been in frequent contact with President Obama’s personal aide since the crisis began. I’ll issue a statement soon in the President’s name urging both sides to seek a solution to their differences once hostilities cease.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Also on the NewsHour tonight:

Wisconsin protesters march on state capitol carrying exhumed body of labor icon Cesar Chavez

CIA is reportedly selling suitcase nukes in Afghan bazaars to lure Osama bin Laden out of hiding.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen OKs burqas for Muslim women submariners.

Treasury Secretary Geithner cites rising gas prices as proof of booming economy.

RAY SUAREZ:  Up first, we interview Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, just returned from Asia, and National Intelligence Director James Clapper.  First question to you, Madame Secretary: the People’s Republic is clearly the aggressor in the Taiwan Strait.  What counsel did you give the President?

HILLARY CLINTON:  I’ll see him at tonight’s White House gala honoring America’s first black mountain man.  I will advise him to honor our commitment to Taiwan by ordering a naval blockade of the Port of Los Angeles.  That’ll hit the Chinese where it hurts, in the pocketbook.  Of course, he won’t agree. (more…)

Having spent much of the past 24 hours going through the State Department documents released by Wikileaks I can honestly say the most amazing revelation is the lack of revelations in the documents. Not that it isn’t shocking to see some of these reports in black and white, but most of the Wikileaks “bombshells” are simply confirmation of news reports discussed here, the other “Big” sites, on my blog The Lid, or other sites,  many times before. Here are some examples of the “old news”:

• Arab states see Iran as a danger:  The revelation that Israel is not the only nation in the Middle East suggesting that the “head of the snake” be cut off is nothing close to new. Even the fact that other nations in the Middle East want nuclear technology because Iran has been closing in on the nuclear weapons are have been discussed before. I would also note that the James Baker meme (subscribed to by Obama and Hillary Clinton) that solving the Iran problem is linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was totally destroyed by the Wikileaks release. There was not one mention of “linkage” by an Arab state in the released cables.

• North Korea is supplying missiles to Iran: Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to a cable dated Feb. 24 of this year. Again this is old news. We also know that North Korea built a nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert.

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Democratic Party front group Media Matters for America has published yet another attack on Republican Sarah Palin. This one a dishonest portrayal of media coverage of her recent slip of the tongue regarding the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

In a Thanksgiving Day message posted Nov. 25th on her Facebook page, Palin opened her post with a tongue in cheek send-up of President Barack Obama in which no fewer than ten of his verbal gaffes and misstatements were included and sourced.

My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that …

The point Palin was making was that though everyone occasionally goofs up — including the President, you might not remember hearing about his, “because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy,” Palin wrote.

Such is not the case when it comes to Palin who in the course of a radio interview with Glenn Beck, mistakenly referred to South Korea as North Korea, but then quickly corrected herself. Media Matters blogger Oliver Willis, writing at his personal blog, posted the audio clip of Palin’s slip. Willis is one of several liberal bloggers who met recently with President Obama at the White House.

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(AFP) – US conservative standard bearer Sarah Palin has accused critics of unfairly singling her out, after a slip of the tongue rekindled questions about her credibility.

After mistakenly urging radio listeners to “stand with our North Korean allies,” the Alaskan, who looks increasingly likely to run for the White House in 2012, protested that President Barack Obama had made similar slips and not been singled out.

“They couldn’t resist the temptation to turn a simple one word slip-of-the-tongue of mine into a major political headline,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page late Thursday.

The former governor pointed to instances in which Obama had mistakenly said there were 57 US states, instead of 50, and claimed the country was founded 20 centuries ago — without, she said, stirring up the same kind of criticism.

“If you can’t remember hearing about them, that’s because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy.”

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The Washington Post’s David Weigel has resigned in the wake of a series of leaked emails, in which the blogger disparaged various figures in the conservative movement he was “covering” in his official capacity as the Post’s point man on the right. His resignation came less than a day after he posted this apology on the Post’s website:

I’m a member of an off-the-record list-serv called “Journolist,” founded by my colleague Ezra Klein. Last Monday, I was deluged with angry e-mail after posting a story about Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.) that was linked by the Drudge Report with a headline intimating that I defended his roughing-up of a young man with a camera; after this, the Washington Examiner posted a gossip item about my dancing at a friend’s wedding. Unwisely, I lashed out to Journolist, which I’ve come to view as a place to talk bluntly to friends.

Below the fold are quotes from me e-mailing the list that day — quotes that I’m told a gossip Web site will post today. I apologize for much of what I wrote, and apologize to readers.

There follows some choice Weigelisms:

• “This would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire.”
• “Follow-up to one hell of a day: Apparently, the Washington Examiner thought it would be fun to write up an item about my dancing at the wedding of Megan McArdle and Peter Suderman. Said item included the name and job of my girlfriend, who was not even there — nor in DC at all.”
• “I’d politely encourage everyone to think twice about rewarding the Examiner with any traffic or links for a while. I know the temptation is high to follow up hot hot Byron York scoops, but please resist it.” (more…)