W.H. Correspondents Dinner: Bush Kills, Colbert Bombs  —  Turns out comedy is best left to the amateurs.  —  Tough night for Colby, who must have regarded this gig as a chance to play the Super Bowl on his home field.  Watch the clip and see for yourself whom the crowd ended up rooting for.

Bush challenges hundreds of laws  —  President cites powers of his office  —  WASHINGTON — President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts …

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith Dies at 97  —  John Kenneth Galbraith, the author, scholar, diplomat and presidential adviser, who was a preeminent symbol and source of liberal political thought, died last night in Cambridge, Mass. He was 97.  —  His son Alan said his father died …

Al-Qaeda leader plans an Iraq army  —  THE leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is attempting to set up his own mini-army and move away from individual suicide attacks to a more organised resistance movement, according to US intelligence sources.

Where's the dissent about source of quote?  —  John Kerry announced this week's John Kerry Iraq Policy of the Week the other day: "Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to deal with these intransigent issues and at last put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military."

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Loses Her Home  —  Via Peaktalk, the story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali just gets worse.  Hirsi Ali is the Somali-born Dutch parliamentarian whose outspokenness on the rights of women under Islam has made her a marked woman.  Islamists have issued a fatwa calling for her death.

Merits of Partitioning Iraq or Allowing Civil War Weighed  —  As the U.S. military struggles against persistent sectarian violence in Iraq, military officers and security experts find themselves in a vigorous debate over an idea that just months ago was largely dismissed as a fringe thought …

G.O.P. Moderates Rebuff Lobbyists, Then Woo Them  —  WASHINGTON, April 29 — After appearing to falter Thursday, the House of Representatives is once again poised to pass a new package of lobbying restrictions, thanks largely to the efforts of an alliance of Republican moderates.

CORRECTING WHERE IT COUNTS  —  The New York Times is exquisitely sensitive to the possibility that its reporters could have conflicts of interest, or undisclosed angles on the stories they report.  When such possible conficts are sniffed out, the Times takes a rigorous, Caesar's wife approach.

League of Dictators?  —  Why China and Russia Will Continue to Support Autocracies  —  Ever since liberalism emerged in the 18th century, its inevitable conflict with autocracy has helped shape international politics.  What James Madison called "the great struggle of the epoch between liberty …