Webb's Dirty Tricksters: Salon  —  Sadly, the Webb campaign is continuing their attempt to make this Virginia Senate race about lies and rumor-mongering, rather than about issues.  In Salon today, an anti-tobacco and environmental activist claims Senator Allen "used "N-word" in college".

Getting A Line On Lamont  —  Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont is having trouble moving from the small stage of a primary campaign with its appeal to partisans to the main stage of the general election, which requires the attention of the state's 2.1 million voters.

Revisiting GOP attacks on President Clinton  —  The Internet makes it much more difficult than ever before to fabricate history because virtually everything is recorded and so easily discovered.  Those developments, however, did not deter Jonah Goldberg from writing this demonstrably false historical claim …

Retired officers to criticize Rumsfeld  —  WASHINGTON - Retired military officers on Monday are expected to bluntly accuse Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public.

The Rise of Jihadistan  —  Five years after the Afghan invasion, the Taliban are fighting back hard, carving out a sanctuary where they—and Al Qaeda's leaders—can operate freely.  —  You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban.

McCain Names Practices Detainee Bill Would Bar  —  Senator Says 3 Interrogation Methods Are Among the 'Extreme Measures' the Plan Would Outlaw  —  A Republican senator who played a leading role in drafting new rules for U.S. interrogations of terrorism suspects said yesterday that he believes …

'Iraq Is Not in Chaos'  —  Last Wednesday, Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth interviewed Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in New York.  Excerpts:  —  Q. What happened in your meeting with President Bush?  —  A. We told him our progress in trade, the economy, training the army …

Millions of Seniors Facing Medicare 'Doughnut Hole'  —  Millions of older Americans are confronting a temporary break in their Medicare drug coverage this month that will require them to pay the full cost of their prescriptions or face the painful prospect of going without.

Fortress Switzerland  —  The people of Switzerland seem to have taken an object lesson from the Swedes and the British, and have decided to step back from the brink of the immigration cliff.  According to AFP, Swiss voters have strongly approved a tightening of asylum laws:

U.N. Force Is Treading Lightly on Lebanese Soil  —  Italian soldiers in Lebanon say that for now, they cannot even set up a checkpoint.  Instead, they alert the Lebanese Army of any suspicious cars.  —  One month after a United Nations Security Council resolution ended a 34-day war between Israel …

Mel campaigns for new movie, against war in Iraq  —Text+LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mel Gibson has returned to the spotlight to promote his upcoming movie "Apocalypto," and to criticize the war in Iraq, according to the Hollywood Reporter.  —  Almost two months after he railed against Jews …

In Tiny Courts of New York, Abuses of Law and Power  —  Some of the courtrooms are not even courtrooms: tiny offices or basement rooms without a judge's bench or jury box.  Sometimes the public is not admitted, witnesses are not sworn to tell the truth, and there is no word-for-word record of the proceedings.

Chris Wallace, Caught Off Balance?  —  Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said that he was stunned when Bill Clinton accused him of a "conservative hit job" after he challenged the former president on his record in fighting terrorism.  —  "I thought it was a fair, balanced and not especially …

Falwell says Hillary would spark base  —  WASHINGTON - The Rev. Jerry Falwell says a White House run by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would energize his base of religious conservatives even more than if the devil were the Democratic nominee.  —  "I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate," Falwell told a private prayer breakfast.

POLITICS: How Wrong Was Josh Marshall?  —  Plenty Wrong.  —  Now that it has been revealed that the main source for Bob Novak's column "outing" Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's right-hand man at the State Department and (like Novak) no fan of the Iraq War …

A Modified MSNBC?  —  There has been speculation for months about MSNBC's future as a 24-hour cable news channel—or, maybe more to the point, its lack thereof.  But one indication may have come last July, when the 10-year-old network launched a newsmagazine, MSNBC Investigates.

American Jews Into Israeli-Americans  —  I was unsure whether I should write about this, since it's kind of delicate, but the conclusion of Mark Kleiman's Rosh Hashanah post has inspired me: … A bit flip, to be sure, but something I fundamentally agree with.

Montana Senate: Burns Still Trailing  —  Burns (R) 43% Tester (D) 50%  —  Embattled Republican Senator Conrad Burns now trails Democrat Jon Tester 43% to 50% (see crosstabs).  Tester enjoyed the same seven-point advantage in early July, right after clinching the Democratic nomination.