A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

BUSH, GIULIANI WEIGH IN ON CLINTON, OBAMA (Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times)
It was a day of attacks and parries over the credentials of the Democratic candidates for president, exchanges that saw Hillary Rodham Clinton belittle Barack Obama, John Edwards tweak Clinton and -- in the oddest twist -- President Bush praise the New York senator's experience. At least on Tuesday, the Democratic race for president looked more like a shoving match than a civil airing of policy differences.

Time's Mark Halperin on "what it all means."
 
FOR EDWARDS, A RELATIONSHIP THAT NEVER QUITE FIT (Kate Zernike, New York Times)
Mr. Edwards felt frustrated by Mr. Kerry’s public agonizing over the war in Iraq and a campaign that seemed to change consultants and message constantly. To Mr. Edwards, Mr. Kerry seemed unable to get out of his own way. He ignored Mr. Edwards’s warning not to go windsurfing, one aide recalled, which led to the infamous “whichever way the wind blows” advertisement mocking Mr. Kerry’s statements on the war. And in the end, Mr. Edwards concluded that Mr. Kerry lacked fight for not filing a legal challenge to the election results. Today, Mr. Edwards insists he is “the same person I’ve always been.” But his experience as a vice-presidential candidate who went down in defeat has clearly influenced his current run for the Democratic presidential nomination... Kerry loyalists, meanwhile, seethe as they watch his new aggressiveness. Stephanie Cutter, who was Mr. Kerry’s communications director, said, “A lot of what I’m seeing now, I wish I’d seen in 2004.”

HUCKABEE GAINING GROUND IN IOWA (Dan Balz and Jon Cohen, Washington Post)
Huckabee has tripled his support in Iowa since late July, eclipsing former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Huckabee now runs nearly evenly with Romney, the longtime Iowa front-runner. Huckabee's rise from dark horse to contender in Iowa is one more unexpected twist in a race that has remained fluid throughout the year and adds another unpredictable element to the competition for the GOP nomination. His support in Iowa appears stronger and more enthusiastic than that of his rivals. Still, there are other signs in the poll suggesting that Romney remains the candidate to beat in the state and that gains for Huckabee may be harder to achieve in the next 43 days than they were over the past four months.

ROMNEY CAMP IS BUOYED BY SKIN-CELL NEWS (Michael Levenson, Boston Globe)
Mitt Romney was accused of a sop to social conservatives when, in his last months as Massachusetts governor, he imposed a controversial limit on stem cell research that said scientists could not use stem cell lines from embryos created for the sole purpose of scientific exploration. s his presidential campaign contended yesterday, he may have been vindicated by yesterday's announcement that scientists have created stem cells without having to make or destroy embryos. It pointed out that Romney has long called for a less ethically charged alternative, and it highlighted an opinion piece published online yesterday that praises Romney for his position... Romney has long said he is keenly aware that such research could lead to cures for diseases such as multiple sclerosis, with which his wife, Ann, was diagnosed in 1998. But his views on the ethics of such research have not always been so clear...

More on the politics of stem cells.

BIDEN: TIMING IS EVERYTHING (Joe Oliphant, Chicago Tribune)
Joe Biden's story starts and ends, and starts again here: The Polk County Fairgrounds, home of the Iowa State Fair. Twenty years ago it all went wrong in a few poorly chosen words. Now it is the place to exorcise the ghosts. Twenty years ago, Biden was his generation's New Voice, the Democrat whose rhetoric and youthful exuberance recalled the Kennedy mystique. For a time, he seemed the ideal antidote to the autumnal stagger of the Reagan administration's latter days... Now he's the seasoned hand. He is a high priest of the Senate, a master of its mores and a beneficiary of its homage to seniority. He chairs the prestigious Foreign Relations Committee, and before that the Judiciary Committee; and has long been a regular on the Sunday talk shows. The question is whether he... was first too young, and then too old, for the ultimate prize.

STILL STUMBLING ON NATIONAL SECURITY (Joe Klein, Time)
If the Democrats want to win in 2008, they can't be mealymouthed on issues of national security. That doesn't mean they need to be witlessly hawkish. It doesn't mean they have to join the neoconservative frenzy for war with Iran. It means they have to make the arguments against folly with clarity, toughness and a heavy dose of Realpolitik. It means they will have to convince the public that they will be more effective and realistic overseas than the Republicans have been. No more "Freedom Agendas." No more quagmires. A renewed emphasis on cleaning out al-Qaeda, even if it means special operations against the terrorist camps in Pakistan (as Obama has suggested). It also means that in each and every debate, the Dems should acknowledge the progress being made in Iraq and ask the question, So why can't we start bringing home the troops now?