Hunker Down With History  —  The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake.  It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims …

updated below—  —  President Bush took time out from the G-8 Summit to grope German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  I'm not kidding.  It boggles the mind.  —  Via Mash (by the way, great get!), we get photos via a friend of his in Germany.  Mash debuted his guest post on on North Korea this past Sunday …

G.O.P. Senator Resisting Bush Over Detainees  —  WASHINGTON, July 17 — Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina often plays the contrarian, the conservative Republican willing to poke a stick in the eye of the White House.  —  Now Mr. Graham is playing an even higher-profile variant of that role …

U.S. citizens remain in dark about evacuation  —  Official: Operation costs more than available resources; 64 have left so far  —  A French toddler is carried over a fence by relatives as they wait Monday with hundreds of other French citizens near their embassy in Beirut to be evacuated from Lebanon.

Times to Reduce Page Size and Close a Plant in 2008  —  The New York Times is planning to reduce the size of the newspaper, making it narrower by one and a half inches, and to close its printing operation in Edison, N.J., company officials said yesterday.  —  The changes, to go into effect …

Iran to Hizbullah: Curb attacks on Israel  —  Arabic language newspaper reports Iran was warned by European country that Israel is ready to attack targets in Syria in campaign to liquidate Hizbullah; Tehran sends foreign minister to Damascus to demand Hizbullah curtail attacks against Israel

Transformation's Toll  —  "Grotesque" was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's characterization of the charge that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was responsible for the current Middle East conflagration.  She is correct, up to a point.  This point: Hezbollah and Hamas were alive and toxic long before March 2003.

Where Is The "Netroots Left" On Israel?  —  Missing in action.  —  First a bit of background.  The so-called Netroots Left, led by Markos Moulitsas of the popular Daily Kos, wants to be a player in American politics.  As a test case, the Kossacks are throwing their weight behind political …

Bush Set to Use First Veto on Stem Cell Bill  —  Despite Divided GOP, President Says He Will Not Ease Restrictions on Federally Funded Research  —  Since his inauguration in 2000, President Bush has gone out of his way to avoid an overt confrontation with Congress.

NOT EQUAL:  —  At Tapped, Matt Yglesias writes that Hezbollah's rocket strikes, as compared with Israel's bombing of Lebanon, are "equally indefensible."  Equally?  Hezbollah began the crisis with an act of war that included a cross-border incursion and a kidnapping.

CALLING ALL RIGHTIES: DIGG THIS  —  Thanks to my wonderful web guy, Mark Jaquith, you'll notice a new feature at the end of every post that I started including over the weekend.  It says "Digg This."  If you click on it, it'll take you to Digg, the hot user-powered content site that now has a Politics section.

For CBS's Fall Lineup, Check Inside Your Refrigerator  —  IN September, CBS plans to start using a new place to advertise its fall television lineup: your breakfast.  —  The network plans to announce today that it will place laser imprints of its trademark eye insignia …