1. Obama's missed opportunity on the debt (The Washington Post)

Obama is hardly the first incumbent to want to give voters a present as he gears up for reelection, writes Fred Hiatt.

2. Wall St. plays Occupy White House (Politico)

Wall Street is disdained in the court of public opinion -- detested by the tea party on the right and the Occupy movement on the left, argues Joel Kotkin.

3. The welfare state's reckoning (The Washington Post)

"We Americans fool ourselves if we ignore the parallels between Europe's problems and our own," writes Robert J. Samuelson.

4. Pelosi Hints That She Has Dirt on Gingrich (Slate)

Slate opines over the dirt that may yet be aired on current Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich.

5. Buckle down: Mitt vs. Newt? (Chicago Tribune)

With Iowa one month away Charles Krauthammer assesses the score-cards so far.

6. Who is afraid of a Do-Nothing Congress? (Washington Examiner)

Scott Wheeler asks if Obama is wrong to assume the worst.

7. Rick Perry has three strikes against him (Vanity Fair)

Fellow Texan Bryan Burrough discovers the surprising reasons behind the campaign's train wreck.

8. The biggest lie about Democrats (Politico)

Why Democratic prospects are not as bad as some might believe.

9. Herman Cain, the media and electoral coverage (Miami Herald)

I fear the lesson of the Cain campaign is to elevate infidelity as an electoral issue, argues Edward Wasserman.

10. Pain in the Public Sector (New York Times)

An NYT editorial on the mass job losses in the public sector.