Blue America: A Chat with Senator Dodd, Part II  —  Yesterday Senator Chris Dodd refused to back down when Beltway Establishment symbolism and nonbinding advocate Joe Biden tried to pressure him to withdraw his legislation to force Bush to ask Congress for permission to escalate his war in Iraq.

Congress's Iraq Quagmire  —  ON TUESDAY nearly every member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warmly endorsed Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, and a number wished him success or "Godspeed" in his mission.  Yesterday some of the same senators voted …

2008: Hillary vs McCain?  —  Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner to win the Democratic party's nomination for President in 2008, but the Republican race will be a close contest between Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani — with McCain edging Giuliani by a three- to four-point margin.

Hillary in Blogistan: On Blogads, The Netroots and Peter Daou  —  Hillary Clinton did not wait long after her weekend presidential campaign announcement to step foot in the blogosphere: By Monday her technically fledgling but long-assumed campaign had a major step toward engaging web users …

INTERVIEW-U.N. climate report will shock the world -chairman  —  Source: Reuters  —  A forthcoming U.N. report on climate change will provide the most credible evidence yet of a human link to global warming and hopefully shock the world into taking more action, the panel's chairman said on Thursday.

Senate Republicans block minimum wage hike  —  Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked the Democrats from fulfilling a campaign promise to increase the federal minimum wage, demanding that the pay hike include tax relief for small business.  —  On a vote of 54-43, Democrats fell six short …

Turnaround in Baghdad  —  There has been a flurry of press reports recently about insurgents battling American and Iraqi security forces on Haifa Street in Baghdad, and around the rural town of Buhruz in Diyala Province.  These same insurgents also claimed to have shot down a Black Hawk helicopter near Buhruz.

Big States' Plan for Earlier Primaries Scrambles Race  —  As many as four big states — California, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey — are likely to move up their 2008 presidential primaries to early next February, further upending an already unsettled nominating process and forcing candidates …

HALFWAY MEASURES....I don't want to jump all over Barack Obama before he has a chance to present his ideas in a serious way, but can I just say that I found his healthcare speech today distinctly underwhelming?  He starts out with his trademark high-flown rhetoric ("Plans that tinker …

Helping Lara Logan  —  Sometimes it's hard to swim in the mainstream.  —  There has been much heated debate over the past few years over media coverage of the Iraq War.  The Bush administration has repeatedly attacked the 'liberal bias' of the mainstream news industry …

Obama's Appeal to Blacks Remains an Open Question  —  CHICAGO — Looking around at the overwhelmingly white audience that was applauding Sen. Barack Obama's luncheon speech on Iraq at a downtown hotel recently, the Rev. B. Herbert Martin expressed both satisfaction and concern.

Next time around, Lebanon will be in a civil war  —  For the third time in almost a year Lebanon has averted a civil war, but we're nearing the end of the rope.  If the Danish Embassy demonstrations and Hizbullah's mobilization in early December were, ultimately, manageable when it came …

Run, Al, Run  —  The ideal candidate for the Democrats may be the man who won the popular vote in 2000 — and who opposed the war in Iraq from the very start  —  A stiff Vice President campaigns on his administration's legacy of unprecedented prosperity.  Looks terrible on TV.

Outrage Over Texas College MLK Day Party  —  Event featured Aunt Jemima, gang apparel, fried chicken, malt liquor  —  Students at a Texas college threw a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that featured attendees wearing gang apparel and Afro wigs, carrying malt liquor, handguns, and fried chicken …

Vice President Cheney on CNN  —  WOLF BLITZER, CNN: And joining us now, the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney.  Mr. Vice President, thanks very much for doing this.  —  VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: It's good to see you again, Wolf.  —  BLITZER: We heard the President mention …

Who Was Milton Friedman?  —  1.  —  The history of economic thought in the twentieth century is a bit like the history of Christianity in the sixteenth century.  Until John Maynard Keynes published The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money in 1936, economics …

2008: Who's Ahead Online (Rs)  —  It's taken me a little longer than I had hoped to pull together the data on how the Republican presidential candidates are doing in terms of bottom-up support for their campaigns online, for which I apologize.  Here's the headline: They're almost invisible on the web.

Senate Shows Its Age; Health Problems Pose Challenge For Governing  —  The average age of members of the U.S. Senate is older than it has ever been, according to Senate Historian Richard Baker.  For many senators, advanced age is starting to show, raising questions about their ability to govern.

New Trend on The Rise: the Patriotic Terrorist  —  Whenever I visit this lovely blog, I usually run into someone - a "leftist," if you will - who finds pleasure in things that make our country or the President look bad.  I suppose I could say these angry types are no better than cheerleaders for terrorism.

Bush Plans New Focus On Afghan Recovery  —  Extra $7 Billion Would Go to Security, Roads  —  After the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion, the Bush administration is preparing a series of new military, economic and political initiatives aimed partly at preempting …