President's Portrayal of 'The Enemy' Often Flawed  —  In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush presented an arguably misleading and often flawed description of "the enemy" that the United States faces overseas, lumping together disparate groups with opposing ideologies …

New ethics charges for Duke prosecutor  —  RALEIGH, N.C. - The state bar has added ethics charges to a complaint filed against the prosecutor who brought sexual assault charges against three Duke lacrosse players, accusing him of withholding DNA evidence and misleading the court.

The Knee-Jerk Opposition  —  If George W. Bush proposes something, it must be bad.  Such is the knee-jerk state of partisan suspiciousness that when the president actually endorses a tax increase — a tax increase that would primarily hit the well-off, no less — Democrats still howl.

A Powerful Response  —  Jim Webb tore up his party's playbook—and helped point the Democrats in a new direction.  —  Something unprecedented happened tonight, beyond the doorkeeper announcing, "Madame Speaker."  For the first time ever, the response to the State of the Union Message overshadowed the president's big speech.

Kerry won't run for president in '08  —  WASHINGTON —Senator John F. Kerry plans to announce today that he will not run in the 2008 presidential race, and will instead remain in Congress and seek reelection to his Senate seat next year, according to senior Democratic officials.

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE NEW YORK MONEY PEOPLE:  —  I've admired Wes Clark for a long time.  But his comments to Ariana Huffington about wealthy Jews pushing the country toward war with Iran strike me as nutty and disturbing.  Either I seriously misjudged the man, or his comments were misquoted or taken wildly out of context.

Rivals CNN and Fox News Spar Over Obama Report  —  A disputed report on the Web site of a conservative magazine about Senator Barack Obama's childhood schooling kicked off a pointed exchange this week between the rival cable news networks CNN and Fox News, when CNN seemed to make an overt effort …

SOTU: MCCAIN — LACK OF SELF-CONTROL?  AN EXPRESSION OF CONTEMPT?  EMBARRASSING IN ANY CASE.  —  By Tucker Carlson  —  "We advance our own interests by helping reformers and advocates for democracy"?  That was Bush's position on the Middle East immediately after 9-11 and, remarkably, it remains his position.

Iraq Parliament Finds a Quorum Hard to Come By  —  Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Parliament, read a roll call of the 275 elected members with a goal of shaming the no-shows.  —  Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister?  Absent, living in Amman and London.  Adnan Pachachi, the octogenarian statesman?

MN congresswoman can't keep her hand off President  —  Newly-elected Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann got quite a bit of face time with President Bush after his State of the Union Speech Tuesday night.  —  While the President was signing autographs for members of Congress after the speech …

Watching the SOTU Speech on ABC  —  Did they really need to drag World News anchor Charles Gibson all the way down from New York just to do a stand-up intro with the Capitol dome over his shoulder?  George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz were in separate locations, so it wasn't as though he was joining them in the studio.

Getting a Read On the Speech Makes for Quite A Snapshot  —  George W. Bush flirted with eloquence only at the end of his so-so, nuts-and-bolts State of the Union speech last night: "The state of our union is strong," he said, "our cause in the world is right, and tonight that cause goes on."

The Web Celeb 25  —  THE FACE OF FAME IS CHANGING.  The ranks of the world's celebrities used to be dominated by millionaire actors, athletes and musicians, but the Internet has leveled the playing field.  A kid with a video camera has access to as large an audience as the biggest Hollywood star.