Morning Must Reads

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–A new Washington Post/ABC News poll out this morning suggests Sarah Palin’s public image has taken a serious hit. A 55 percent majority say they have an unfavorable view of the former governor and a devastating 71 percent say she is unqualified to be president, up ten points from November. David Broder seems to fall somewhere in that other 29 percent.

–The Economic Report of the President is out today and it predicts the economy will add an average of 95,000 jobs per month in 2010. Taking into account the scale of job losses in the recession, this is unlikely to put much of a dent in the unemployment rate.

–The White House is unhappy with how BusinessWeek characterized Obama’s “begrudge” quote yesterday regarding Wall Street bonuses, and they are sending around a transcript of the interview to clarify his remarks. Because I mentioned it yesterday, I figure it’s worth putting in context: “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth.  That’s part of the free market system.”

–As Kate has previously mentioned, Virginia is moving toward banning laws that require state residents to buy health insurance. Efforts to preempt the individual mandate measure in the Democrats’ health care bill seem to be gathering steam in the commonwealth, and the New York Times reports “about two thirds of the states have some form of this legislation in the works.” Many of these measures could be constitutional amendments, setting up a serious showdown between states and the federal government if/when the overhaul gets through Congress.

–Pressure to impose new sanctions on Iran is ratcheting up. The Treasury Department is targeting firms associated with the Revolutionary Guard, and Senators McCain and Lieberman are introducing their own “human rights sanctions” legislation today.

–Former Indiana Senator Dan Coats has had a pretty rough go of things since word of his challenge to Evan Bayh came out last week. But he’s taking it with some humor: “If I had as many [lobbying] clients as the Democrats are trying to tell people, I would be richer than Bill Gates.”

–And speaking of humor, Gawker doesn’t think Robert Gibbs is very funny.

What did I miss?

Update: Commenter deconstructiva points out I forgot to mention it is Sarah Palin’s birthday. It is also probably worth mentioning that she is still more popular than either party in Congress.