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.

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 …

Pelosi Says She Wasn't Consulted On Iraq  —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that President George W. Bush did not consult her before announcing his new strategy for the war in Iraq — a sign that, despite the cozy rhetoric, the relationship between Washington's two powerhouses has already had its share of friction.

Senate GOP Leadership Tries To Eliminate Federal Minimum Wage  —  Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO), evidently convinced that he was beating a dead horse by continuing his quest to ban flag-burning and discriminate against gay people, announced this month that he would not seek reelection in 2008 …

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.

Rumsfeld's transition raises questions  —  Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has left the Pentagon, but not the Defense Department.  —  On Jan. 4, Mr. Rumsfeld opened a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him, a Pentagon official said.

Libby Liveblog: Cathie Martin One  —  Now up, Cathie Martin.  —  Cathie will testify to several things.  First, she was involved in some of the early discussions of a response to Wilson.  She learned of Plame's identity from Harlow and passed that on to Libby.

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

The Money Just Wasn't There for Kerry  —  As John Kerry just found out, $13 million is sometimes not enough.  —  That amount, which the senator from Massachusetts still had on hand after running for the presidency four years ago as the Democratic nominee, is only a fraction …

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 …

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.