Olmert, declaring victory, appeals to Abbas for peace talks  —  Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, declaring an election victory, appealed to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas early Wednesday to enter into negotiations over the permanent borders of Israel, but added that Israel …

Shiites Say U.S. Is Pressuring Iraqi Leader to Step Aside  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 28 — Senior Shiite politicians said today that the American ambassador has told Shiite officials to inform the Iraqi prime minister that President Bush does not want him to remain the country's leader in the next government.

Analysis: Hard day for government in Hamdan case  —  With Justice Antonin Scalia taking part — and, in fact, providing the only clearcut signs of unstinting support for the federal government's arguments — the Supreme Court on Tuesday probed deeply into the validity of the war crimes tribunals set …

Off the Record, Bush Makes Media Inroads  —  Private Sessions Rare for Administration  —  As he defends his Iraq policy with a public campaign of speeches and a recent news conference, President Bush also has been waging a private campaign that has included off-the-record sessions with White House reporters, sources said yesterday.

Andrew Card Resigns as White House Chief of Staff  —  White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. plans to announce his resignation this morning after nearly 5-1/2 years as President Bush's top aide and will be replaced by Joshua B. Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, a senior administration official said.

RNC Memo Warns GOPers Not To Distance Themselves From Bush  —  Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen, in a memo written for RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, warns that if members of Congress try to drive a wedge between themselves and Pres.  Bush, it'd be akin to adding weight to an anchor.

A Maverick No More?  —  In April 2004 I put in a call to John McCain's office to see if he would respond to a group of House Republicans who had attacked his fellow Vietnam veteran John Kerry.  —  In a preview of coming assaults, the Republicans accused Kerry of, among other things …

Ins and Outs of Immigration  —  Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill out of committee, sending it to the floor.  Of course, under the arcane and byzantine rules of the U.S. Senate, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) …

Caspar Weinberger Dies at Age 88  —  WASHINGTON — Caspar W. Weinberger, a conservative Republican and consummate Cold Warrior who served in the Cabinets of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and got ensnared in the Iran-Contra scandal, died Tuesday at 88.  —  Weinberger had been hospitalized …

Overstating Jewish Power  —  Mearsheimer and Walt give too much credit to the Israeli lobby.  —  It's slightly hard to understand the fuss generated by the article on the Israeli lobby produced by the joint labors of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt that was published in the London Review of Books.

ISSUES &  —  INSIGHTS  —  Religion Of Peace?  —  War On Terror: In the wake of the cartoon jihad and mosque-on-mosque violence in Iraq, most Americans now think Islam has more violent believers than any other faith.  Yet many still view it as a "peaceful religion."

How Stupid are the US Media?!?!  —  Open letter to CNN and other mainstream US media outlets:  —  1. The vast majority of Hispanics/Latinos in the U.S. (75 percent of us) were born and raised here, including many of us who have roots here that predate the arrival of the pilgrims.

The Secret of George Mason  —  What its Final Four basketball team and its unusual economics department have in common.  —  Unlike his neighbors, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, founding father George Mason has rarely gotten his props from historians and the public.

Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind  —  Abu Musab Zarqawi blamed for more than 700 killings in Iraq … With Tuesday's attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

Q1 '06: MSNBC's Olbermann Beats CNN's Zahn & HLN's Grace In The Demo  —  In the first quarter of 2006, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann beat CNN's Paula Zahn Now in the 25-54 demographic.  "This marks MSNBC's first quarterly primetime victory over CNN in the demo in almost five years …

State Dept. Offers Record Pay in 2 Hot Spots  —  To help recruit U.S. government civilians for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, the State Department has boosted the pay allowances for both hardship and danger to the highest levels ever granted, department officials said.

Appeals Court rules against McDermott in taped call dispute  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal appeals court ruled today that Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., violated federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to reporters nearly a decade ago.