Confidence in Bush Leadership Continues to Drop, Poll Finds  —  President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday at the weakest point of his presidency, with dissatisfaction over his Iraq war policies continuing to rise and confidence in his leadership continuing to decline …

U.S. Toll in Iraq Is 27 for Deadly Weekend  —  The United States military said that two marines died Sunday in western Iraq and that an additional seven service members died Saturday.  The deaths brought the weekend toll to 27 and made Saturday the third-deadliest day for United States forces since the war here began.

Campaign Allegation A Source of Vexation  —  Days after Barack Obama jumped into the presidential sweepstakes, he was hit with a thinly sourced story from his past—39 years in his past, to be exact.  —  The allegation, by a conservative magazine, raised questions about whether the Illinois senator …

Bombs kill at least 65 people in Baghdad  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 65 people were killed and 113 wounded after two nearly simultaneous bombs struck a predominantly Shiite commercial area in central Baghdad Monday, police said.  —  The first blast occurred shortly after noon when a bomb left …

McCain casts doubt on Gen. Casey as U.S. Army head  —  U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) speaks during a taping of a remote interview for "Meet the Press" from Coral Gables, Florida, January 21, 2007.  McCain spoke on U.S. President George W. Bush's new strategy on the war in Iraq.

Video: SNL hammers Hillary on Iraq  —  Lieberman and a precious few others aside, their "hawks" are opportunistic liars who only supported the war initially because it was politically expedient to do so.  We've always known that.  —  Their base knows it, too.  —  Blowback

Unhappy Days  —  Has Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped the shark?  —  When politicians break their pledges not to raise taxes, they come up with the darnedest evasions.  Take Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wants to levy new charges on California doctors, hospitals and employers to help pay for his $12 billion health-care plan.

Facing the Islamist Menace  —  Mark Steyn's new book is a welcome wake-up call.  —  In the prologue to his new book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, Mark Steyn sarcastically alludes to two people whom, in different ways, I know well.  The first is novelist Martin Amis …

Milton Friedman @ Rest  —  Email from a Nobel Laureate.  —  In July last year, the late Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in economics in 1976, granted an interview to The Wall Street Journal.  Today we publish material from a question-and-answer exchange he had by email—shortly after their meeting …

We Can Win the White House  —  To build on our midterm gains, Dems should follow my '50 Percent Solution.'  —  I am blessed.  I love my job.  I wake up every Monday morning excited about the week ahead.  The one downside is how consuming it is.  I don't have much time for leisure activities.

Documentary on beastiality premieres at Sundance Film Festival  —  PARK CITY, Utah — "Zoo" is a documentary about what director Robinson Devor accurately characterizes as "the last taboo, on the boundary of something comprehensible."  But remarkably, an elegant, eerily lyrical film has resulted.

Website offers whistleblowers chance to go global  —  THE internet could become even more difficult for governments to regulate with a new website, Wikileaks, promising to provide a safe haven for whistleblowers to upload confidential documents.  —  Australians are among the volunteers behind the site.

Big Mommy's House  —  HILLARY JOINS THE LAKOFF BAKE-OFF.  —  Not Another Mommy: Anne Kornblut on Hillary— … It's not clear that Mommyism is the best antidote to Hillary's image as a scold who knows what's good for us and is willing to use government to make us do it.

Fragile Hopes for Bipartisan Rescue of Social Security  —  President Bush is renewing his call for a bipartisan effort on Social Security, but few other issues so clearly highlight the limits of bipartisanship these days, the mistrust and ideological division just barely below the surface.