Dog Poop DNA, Sean Avery Rule 2008 Ideas

(NEWSER) - Traditional media outlets and on-the-spot amateurs alike captured the year's biggest US political moments. Here is Politico's look at some of the biggest scoops:

• Palin meets Couric: Interviewed by Katie Couric on CBS, Sarah Palin fumbled with softball questions such as which publications she reads. Democrats and Tina Fey pounced.
• Edwards indulges: Major media outlets ignored a report of John Edwards' extramarital affair, but the National Enquirer caught him in the act.

Clintons denounce author Edward Klein as a 'known liar'

(NEWSER) - Bill Clinton considers Barack Obama such an "incompetent" president that he begged Hillary last summer to quit the State Department and run against him in 2012—or at least, that's the story a new, unauthorized Obama biography is telling. "Barack Obama is an amateur," Clinton is quoted as telling his wife in an excerpt from Edward Klein's new book, which appropriately is titled The Amateur. Hillary protests that she wants to make her mark on the State Department. "The country needs you!" Clinton counters. "The country needs us!" More»

Obama gives detailed interview about the terrorist leader's demise

(NEWSER) - It's the first anniversary of the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and MSNBC today released a series of interviews Brian Williams conducted with President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other top-ranking officials detailing their preparation for and reaction to the raid. "Ultimately, it was a 50/50 proposition as to whether this was actually bin Laden," Obama reveals. Speaking of the night he made the decision, he said, "There's no doubt that you don't sleep as much that evening." More»

Maureen Dowd thinks Republicans have a bout of 'mass misogyny'

(NEWSER) - On Saturday, Hillary Clinton took a resounding shot at Republicans. "Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me," she said. "It doesn't matter what country they're in or what religion they claim. They want to control women." Clinton isn't supposed to get involved in domestic politics, "but this was a moment pregnant with possibility," writes Maureen Dowd of the New York Times . "The attempt by Republican men to wrestle American women back into chastity belts … has roused and riled Hillary." More»

Xi Jinping, China's next president, to meet with Obama

(NEWSER) - The man slated to be China's next president began his US tour today, meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office before having lunch with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Biden will serve as Xi Jinping's host in Washington, the New York Times reports. Other stops on the agenda: a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce, and a high-level trip to the Pentagon, where he'll get an honor guard salute and meet with Leon Panetta and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. More»