Neo Culpa  —  As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence.  In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman …

The Patrician and the Grunts  —  What we can learn from John Kerry's latest flub.  —  Regrettable though it might be for the United States military to become an untouchable "third rail" in American politics, there can be little sympathy for someone who keeps on brushing against that rail just to see what will happen.

G.O.P. Turns to the Economy as Campaign Issue  —  Republicans seized on a drop in the unemployment rate to assert on Friday that tax cuts were invigorating the economy, highlighting just four days before the election an issue that party strategists are counting on to offset bad news about the war.

U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons  —  Court Is Asked to Bar Detainees From Talking About Interrogations  —  The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk.

Poll: Burns, Tester in dead heat  —  HELENA - After months of campaigning and millions of dollars of advertising, it all comes down to this: Republican Sen. Conrad Burns and Democratic challenger Jon Tester are running dead even, a new Gazette State Poll shows.

Minister Admits He Bought Drug but Denies Tryst  —  After denying that he had ever met a gay escort who claimed to have had a three-year sexual relationship with him, the Rev. Ted Haggard admitted yesterday that he had summoned the escort to give him a massage in a Denver hotel room and bought methamphetamine from him.

As Vote Nears, Parties Prepare for Legal Fights  —  A team of lawyers for the Democratic Party has been arguing with postal officials in Columbus, Ohio, trying to persuade them to process thousands of absentee ballots that have arrived with insufficient postage.

Weldon decides to scale back TV advertising  —  Two days after launching a new advertisement, U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon has canceled some of his TV time, fueling speculation Friday he was throwing in the towel and saving money for a legal defense fund.  The campaign denied the rumors …

Children's Crusade  —  I suppose a lot of people have already written about this at length, but it's so stunning I have to highlight it here.  —  When it was revealed yesterday that the internet document dump to the "Army of Davids" contained plans for building nuclear weapons in arabic …

"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser  —  Media treat us to breathtakingly stupid feeding-frenzy over transparent GOP efforts to trick people into thinking John Kerry insulted the military and John Kerry is the Democratic Party  —  Last week, we asked the so-called "Gang of 500" …

Paris airport strike planned over Muslim workers row  —  Unions at Paris's main airport said Friday they plan to call for a strike over the withdrawal of security badges from scores of airport workers, mostly Muslims, denouncing it as discrimination.  —  Officials said Thursday that 72 workers …

Why Israel will go to war again - soon  —  There will soon be another war in the Middle East, this time a renewal of the conflict between the Israel Defence Force (IDF) and Hizbollah.  The conflict is inevitable and unavoidable.  It will come about because Israel cannot tolerate the rebuilding …