Big News: bin Laden dead; Bigger News: Ansar al Sunnah Head Captured!  —  Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta today!  First, bin Laden is reportedly dead.  Or dying.  Or whatever.  In any event, I don't believe it.  But it's the kind of rumor I dig.  Thanks to everyone that e-mailed it to me.

Fox News Sunday, Interview With President Bill Clinton, 9/22/06 (Rough Transcript)  —  WALLACE: In a recent issue of the New Yorker you say you're sixty years old and you're worried about how many lives you can save...Is that what drives you in your effort to help?  —  CLINTON: Yes.

Detainee Deal Comes With Contradictions  —  The compromise reached on Thursday between Congressional Republicans and the White House on the interrogations and trials of terrorism suspects is, legal experts said yesterday, a series of interlocking paradoxes.  —  It would impose new legal standards that it forbids the courts to enforce.

Former Washington Post senior political reporter, Thomas Edsall, with an extremely candid look at mainstream media  —  The Hugh Hewitt Show  —  HH: Welcome to the program now Thomas Edsall, whose new book, Building Red America, has turned a lot of heads.  He's got an article in the New Republic this week.

Abbas says unity effort 'back to zero'  —  CAIRO, Egypt - Efforts to form a Palestinian government acceptable to the West have gone "back to zero," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday, a day after Hamas said a coalition government that recognizes Israel is unacceptable.

A Small But Lovely Victory  —  Cory Maye will not sleep on death row tonight.  Nor, for that matter, any night for the foreseeable future.  —  At the conclusion of the hearing today, Judge Michael Eubanks ruled on two of the defense team's battery of arguments.

Afghan Girls, Back in the Shadows  —  Home Classes Proliferate as Anti-Government Insurgents Step Up Attacks on Schools  —  SHEIKHABAD, Afghanistan — In a small, sunlit parlor last week, 20 little girls seated on rush mats sketched a flower drawn on the blackboard.

Unleashing The Beast  —  I have written often about how the Republicans are becoming what they railed against for decades: totalitarians.  Unsurprisingly I suppose, it turns out that what they really hated about Soviet communism was the economics.  The 50 years of ranting about personal liberty …

FORGETTING AMERICAN HISTORY:  —  In his post several days ago, Casey Blake alludes to a disturbing trend in European intellectual circles—the tendency to "read back from the present moment to a sweeping condemnation of American history as a whole."  European attitudes toward America …

ONCE AGAIN, BUSH ADMINISTRATION PUTS CRONIES AHEAD OF TAXPAYERS AND SCHOOLCHILDREN  —  Ranking Member - EDUCATION & THE WORKFORCE COMMITTEE  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Bush administration pushed local school districts across the country to use a reading curriculum that had been developed …

'Democrats Offer a New Direction'  —  We need a Democratic Congress to fight the war on terror — and to end the war on America's families.  Republican policies of the last five years have damaged our economy and failed Americans.  Democrats believe strengthening the middle class is essential …