Sending a Message  —  Congress to courts: Get out of the war on terror.  —  During the bitter controversy over the military commission bill, which President Bush signed into law on Tuesday, most of the press and the professional punditry missed the big story.

Militias Splintering Into Radicalized Cells  —  New Groups Appear More Ruthless In Use of Bombings and Death Squads  —  BAGHDAD — The young Shiite men, some wearing black masks, glided from house to house in search of Sunni Muslim men.  They arrived at the two-story dwelling of Mohammed Hussein clutching a bomb, neighbors said.

Priest tells of Foley relationship  —  Then-altar boy may have found some things inappropriate  —  A Catholic priest told the Herald-Tribune on Wednesday about an intimate two-year relationship he had with former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley when the congressman was a teenage altar boy living in Lake Worth.

Iraq Was a Worthy Mistake  —  We know now that invading Iraq was the wrong decision, but that doesn't vindicate the antiwar crowd.  —  THERE'S A STRICT taboo in the column-writing business against recycling ideas.  So let me start with something fresh.  —  The Iraq war was a mistake.

Video shows snipers' chilling work in Iraq  —  (CNN) — Chilling scenes from a videotape made by insurgents show the work of snipers in Iraq, targeting and killing American troops, taking them down with a single bullet from a high-powered rifle.  —  The graphic video of 10 sniper attacks …

Liberals Gone Wild!  —  Why do Republicans drive leftists so crazy these days?  Liberal democrats are beginning to sound like rowdy students on spring break, shrieking and exhibiting themselves on camera.  —  Consider some of the recent rabid outbursts by once sober, old-guard politicians.

New Laws and Machines May Spell Voting Woes  —  New electronic voting machines have arrived in Yolo County, Calif., but there is one hitch: the audio program for the visually impaired in some of them works only in Vietnamese.  —  "Talk about panic," said Freddy Oakley, the county's top election official.

October 19, 2006  —  About this cartoon, Bob says ...  Many hundreds of years ago when Senator Joe had blond hair and I had hair, period, during one election campaign I drew him as a weather vane blowing in the political winds.  —  In fact, that weather vane morphed into the weather vane beanie …

"My Name is Rachel Corrie": handing out flyers outside the theater  —  Below is the report about handing out flyers on opening night of "My Name is Rachel Corrie" in NYC.  (More about the controversy surrounding the play.)  The action seems to have been very successful.

Rummy's Other Role  —  Don Rumsfeld is the shrewdest person in Washington.  He understands better than anyone that somebody has to be in line to take the blame when things go wrong.  So far he has been willing to do so.  But not much longer.  —  The drumbeat to get him out of the Pentagon has reached deafening proportions.

Bob Ney, Guilty but Still at Capitol  —  Representative Bob Ney of Ohio, center, wore his Congressional pin on his way to court last Friday.  When he left the court, the pin was gone.  —  Representative Bob Ney is headed to prison early next year after pleading guilty to charges of accepting tens …

Dems Pressure Kerry, Bayh to Give To DSCC  —  Top Democrats are trying to convince two potential presidential candidates with flush campaign bank accounts to part with as much as $1 million each to finance the DSCC s late October effort to pull six Senate seats from Republican control.

Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day  —  IN her thigh-highs and ruby miniskirt, Little Red Riding Hood does not appear to be en route to her grandmother's house.  And Goldilocks, in a snug bodice and platform heels, gives the impression she has been sleeping in everyone's bed.

We Answer to the Name of Liberals  —  From the November print issue: A response to Tony Judt, and a manifesto for liberals in the waning Bush era.  —  As right-wing politicians and pundits call us stooges for Osama bin Laden, Tony Judt charges, in a widely discussed and heatedly debated essay …