Myths of Iraq  —  During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure.  On the part of our media.  The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.  —  No one with first-hand experience of Iraq …

For Bush's Ex-Aide, Quick Fall After Long Climb  —  WASHINGTON, March 13 — Claude A. Allen often said his religious upbringing took him from a two-room apartment in a poor neighborhood of Washington to a post at the White House.  —  "Probably the vast majority of the kids who grew …

Bush's Approval Ratings Slip In the Latest Harris Poll  —  President Bush's job-approval ratings continue to slip, according to a recent Harris Interactive poll, while job-approval ratings for most of his key cabinet members also remain low.  —  Mr. Bush's current job-approval ratings stand at 36% in March …

Iraqis Find 85 Bodies in 24-Hour Period  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police in the past 24 hours have found the bodies of at least 85 people killed by execution-style shootings — a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal slayings, officials said Tuesday.  —  The dead included at least 27 bodies stacked …

Expert Suggests Milosevic Died in a Drug Ploy  —  THE HAGUE, March 13 — A top toxicologist in the Netherlands said Monday that he believed that Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, had been manipulating medication to fake a medical condition, a ploy that contributed to his ill heath …

Isaac Hayes Quits 'South Park'  —  NEW YORK - Isaac Hayes has quit "South Park," where he voices Chef, saying he can no longer stomach its take on religion.  —  Hayes, who has played the ladies' man/school cook in the animated Comedy Central satire since 1997, said in a statement Monday that he feels a line has been crossed.

N.Y. Times' Iraq Detainee Story Challenged  —  NEW YORK - The New York Times is investigating questions raised about the identity of a man who said in a Page 1 profile that he is the Abu Ghraib prisoner whose hooded image became an icon of abuse by American captors.

Study Links Ambien Use to Unconscious Food Forays  —  The sleeping pill Ambien seems to unlock a primitive desire to eat in some patients, according to emerging medical case studies that describe how the drug's users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators …

US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told  —  Senior British diplomatic and military staff gave Tony Blair explicit warnings three years ago that the US was disastrously mishandling the occupation of Iraq, according to leaked memos.  —  John Sawers, Mr Blair's envoy in Baghdad …

Informant Says He Saw Al Qaeda's No. 2  —  Naseem Khan testifies at a terrorism trial that he spotted Ayman Zawahiri in Lodi in 1998 and '99.  —  SACRAMENTO — In a surprising twist, the FBI informant in the terrorism case against a Lodi man and his father said in federal court Monday …

Why I will stop blogging  —  I can do it, folks, I have already, in some sense, stopped one of my rivers, and soon, probably before the end of 2006, I will put this site in mothballs, in archive mode, and go on to other things, Murphy-willing of course.  —  It's been a long time coming.

Judge Calls Halt to Penalty Phase of Terror Trial  —  ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 13 — An angry federal judge delayed the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui on Monday and said she was considering ending the prosecution's bid to have him executed after the disclosure that a government lawyer had improperly coached some witnesses.

Magazine: Bradlee Knows Woodward's Source on Plame  —  Vanity Fair is reporting that former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee says it is reasonable to assume former State Department official Richard L. Armitage is likely the source who revealed CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward.

wherein we prove that the "wartime president" defense is inconsequential - no - make that outright "lame"  —  we've heard it before, and we're hearing it now: … there are three prongs of logic that defeat the entire "he's a wartime president, so don't be mean to him" defense.