Sarah Palin may be stealing headlines with the release of her memoir this week, but it was two contrasting stories about the original polarizer, Hillary Clinton, which caught my attention this morning. In a lengthy profile for this month's Vogue, Jonathan Van Meter, includes a short anecdote about Clinton's "favorite new colleague, David Miliband, the tall and dashing 44-year-old British foreign secretary." Here's Meter:

When I mentioned to her over lunch that I had spoken with him, she lit up. "Oh, my God!" I joked that I got a crush over the phone in about five seconds partly because of his accent, and she said, "Well, if you saw him it would be a big crush. I mean, he is so vibrant, vital, attractive, smart. He's really a good guy. And he's so young!"

After shadowing Clinton in Africa and at the U.N., Meter's piece is littered with such stories, humanizing moments that lift Clinton out of the sharp, bitchy caricature that has followed her for so long. At various points he calls her "cheerful", "focused" and "indefatigable" and says one of her biggest assets is that "She plays well with others, especially older Republican men." It's a portrait of the Clinton that women around the world, inspired by her impressive achievements, long to see - a complex, sincere and ultimately caring and likable figure. It's also a stark contrast to Michael Crowley's take on Clinton in this week's New Republic.

Earlier this week Holly wrote a really interesting piece about the electoral parallels between now and 1993—and the fact that the GOP is hoping for a dramatic Democratic defeat in next year's midterms, similar to what happened in 1994. Holly points out several flaws in the analogy: Republicans have more baggage going into next year's elections than they did in' 94, congressional Republicans have exceptionally low approval ratings, the GOP lacks strong national leadership, and there's damaging infighting between conservatives and moderates. But I'd like to add another difference to the list: health-care reform.

Gallup released new polling data this morning showing that Hillary Clinton has higher favorability ratings (62%) than President Obama (56%). Like Obama, her numbers have declined since January, but in her case it is only by 3 percentage points. Since Gallup started tracking the former first lady in the early 1990s, the only other time Clinton's favorability ratings have been higher was in the middle of the Lewinsky scandal in December 1998, when she benefited from an outpouring of support over her husband's lewd misadventures.

Her only marginal decline in polls this year can be perhaps be explained by her relative absence from the spotlight. While Obama has been on our TV screens approximately every 7.5 seconds since taking office—mostly talking about dramatic interventions that make Independents nervous, such as bailing out auto companies—Clinton's appearances before the cameras have been more sporadic. She hasn't yet been faced with unpopular choices or had to defend publicly her decisions in such matters.

Looks like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has finally bitten the bullet and has submitted papers to register a PAC—usually the first step in any presidential bid—thus ending the most predictable speculation in the 2012 race so far. Pawlenty will call his PAC Freedom First, continuing the GOP trend of corny freedom-themed PAC names. (Mitt Romney's is called Free and Strong America.) Over at Politico, J-Mart reports that Pawlenty has been quietly collecting high-profile campaign staff and supporters, including Vin Weber to co-chair his campaign. Weber, a former Minnesota congressman and a prominent GOP player, threw his weight behind Romney in 2008. Pawlenty has wrapped up a few other big names from the 2008 cycle, including RNC communications director Alex Conant and McCain campaign manager Terry Nelson, who will be big assets to his bid.

It's been more than six months since I last sat in the chamber of the House of Representatives to watch President Obama address a joint session of Congress. In some ways it felt very similar. Obama still got a rock-star reception when he entered the room. Hillary Clinton was again greeted warmly, like an old friend, by her former Senate colleagues. John McCain and Lindsey Graham sat together, chattering to each other at every opportunity, reluctantly joining the standing ovations at a few choice points. Anthony Weiner couldn't stop checking his BlackBerry. Nancy Pelosi popped up so promptly and often that she appeared animatronic. In between, she surveyed the room with her cool, critical eye.

Not everything felt the same, though. For starters, Al Franken was on the floor. And this time, John McCain got props for a health-care proposal and gave the president a big grin and a thumbs-up. In a marked departure from his February speech, Obama got heckled and, at one point, laughed at. But perhaps the difference is best explained by senior Obama adviser David Axelrod. For much of the speech, Axelrod leaned intently forward, chewing gum as though it were a tough piece of flank steak he'd decided to punish. He personified the tension in the room. Obama is no stranger to high expectations, or to high-stakes speeches. This time was different, though, because never before have his plans caused so much division. The president came prepared for a fight. His tone was forceful, even terse at times. And he left aside his typical rousing rhetoric until the very end.

Robert Mackey, writing for the New York Times's Lede Blog, has a really interesting take on Hillary Clinton's testy answer to a question posed by a young man at a Congolese town-hall meeting this week. By now, no doubt, Gaggle readers have seen many times the clip of Clinton smarting over being asked to "channel" her husband's opinion. And you've also probably heard the cable-news rationale that the question was misinterpreted, and the questioner was actually asking for insight into Obama's opinion. Mackey's not buying that excuse:

It always seemed unlikely to The Lede that a translator working for Mrs. Clinton would make such a large error with a question asked in French—or that an African university student would say “Mr. Clinton” when he meant “Mr. Obama”—and my colleague Jeffrey Gettleman reports in Thursday’s New York Times that “further inspection of the audio recording of the event indicated that the translation was fine; the student had indeed said ‘Mr. Clinton.’ ” A second reporter traveling with Mrs. Clinton, a friend of your Lede blogger’s who is a magazine journalist, said the same thing in an e-mail exchange on Wednesday night, that a French-speaking colleague who was in the room confirmed that the student “did ask the question that way: ‘the mind of Mr. from the lips of Mrs.’ ”

The news just broke that President Bill Clinton, after meeting with the ailing North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il, has secured a pardon for two Current TV journalists. Euna Lee and Laura Ling had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor after allegedly entering North Korea illegally. Although the White House and State Department have withheld comment on the situation for now, NEWSWEEK's Eleanor Clift spoke to an insider about how Clinton's trip came about.

When your GuestGaggler woke up this morning and saw that Bill Clinton was in NorthKorea, my first thought was poor Al Gore─overshadowed yet again by oneor the other Clinton. After all, the two women held in North Korea workfor Current, a cable-news channel cofounded by Gore. When theywere first captured, the buzz was that Gore would be dispatched tonegotiate their release. He offered to do that but the powers that be(a source says, namely, Hillary) thought it best to hold off, and Gore dutifully agreed. A source familiar with the back story said that theidea to send Bill Clinton came as a surprise to the Clinton camp andthat it emerged in conversations between the North Koreans and theState Department -- and it was the North Koreans who initiated theidea. Perhaps it's not so unexpected: Clinton was the president whoseadministration negotiated the first deal with the regime to cap theirnuclear efforts in exchange for food shipments and help with energy,and he has a relationship with them. It's not warm and fuzzy, but it's morethan anybody else has. Clinton talked with Gore extensively over thelast 24 hours, this source says, and Gore strongly encouraged thepresident to make the trip.

Over seven months after Barack Obama took the oath of office, the long-awaited campaign book from Washington Post political writer Dan Balz and Pulitzer Prize winner Haynes Johnson hits bookstores tomorrow. We were lucky enough to get an advance copy of The Battle for America 2008, and sent Gaggle-pal Stuart Johnson out to read it and report back on the juicy bits. The Washington Post has been excerpting the book over the last few days, but if you don’t have time to wade through all that, here’s Johnson’s take on it, and a few spoilers.