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 …

Intelligence Community to Congress: "The dog ate my national intelligence estimate"  —  Back in July, I reported that, in spite of pressure from CIA analysts, intelligence czar John Negroponte was blocking a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq.  The CIA describes an NIE as …

Clinton's camp fires first salvo  —  WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's pollster fired an opening salvo at Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards yesterday, claiming their campaigns are "stalled or falling" — and suggesting Obama isn't tough enough to withstand GOP attacks in 2008.

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 May Oppose Pick For Army Staff Chief  —  Senator Says Casey Led A 'Failed Policy' in Iraq  —  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said yesterday that he is inclined to oppose President Bush's appointment of Gen. George W. Casey Jr. as the new Army chief of staff, on the grounds …

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.

Out of touch and clueless  —  We know that George Bush (both of them) and the Republican power players don't give a rats ass about anybody that isn't a millionaire.  They think the economy is booming because it is for the only people they see or talk to, yes, the millionaires.

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

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

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.