The Defense Rests, and Not a Minute Too Soon  —  For a brief moment yesterday, Scooter Libby was not a former White House aide on trial for perjury.  He was an orphan in need of a loving home.  —  "He's been under my protection for the last month; now I'm entrusting him to you," defense lawyer Ted Wells told the puzzled jurors.

Rape Accusation Reinforces Fears in a Divided Iraq  —  The most wicked acts are spoken of openly and without reserve in Iraq.  Torture, stabbings and bodies ripped to pieces in bombings are all part of the daily conversation.  —  Rape is different.  —  Rape is not mentioned by the victims, and rarely by the authorities.

EXCLUSIVE: Cheney Says British Troop Withdrawal Is Positive Sign  —  Vice President Tells Soldiers in Tokyo the U.S. Will Not Withdraw Until the Job Is Done  —  British Prime Minister Tony Blair's announcement that British troops will begin withdrawing from Iraq would appear to be bad news for the Bush administration.

Berger Case Still Roils Archives, Justice Dept.  —  In a chandeliered room at the Justice Department, the longtime head of the counterespionage section, the chief of the public integrity unit, a deputy assistant attorney general, some trial lawyers and a few FBI agents all looked down at their pant legs and socks.

A tale of two reactions  —  The Washington Post's two-part series on the living and rehabilitation conditions for veteran outpatients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center shocked everyone who read it.  There's a national assumption that those seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan …

Iraq War Attitudes  —  Public Opinion Strategies* has released a survey [PDF file here] of likely voters' attitudes toward the Iraq War that finds that most voters think the country is going in the wrong direction (67%) and President Bush is doing a poor job (60%), and that Iraq will never be a stable democracy (60%).

The Woman in the Middle  —  Moderate Democrat Is New Target of Liberal Bloggers  —  The Democratic majority was only three weeks old, but by Jan. 26, the grass-roots and Net-roots activists of the party's left wing had already settled on their new enemy: Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) …

Tony Snow and White House Reporters Slam The 'Hateful,' 'Polarized' Blogosphere  —  In a press roundtable at the National Press Club tonight, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow led a discussion with White House correspondents about the impact of the internet on their respective jobs.  Their conclusion?

Mitt Romney's Extreme Makeover  —  Precisely two years ago, Mitt Romney, then the governor of Massachusetts but already eyeing a 2008 presidential bid, sat in the coffee shop of a Washington hotel, doing his best not to explain his views on abortion.  —  Romney was speaking to a few of us from The Post …

Lower Voter Turnout Is Seen in States That Require ID  —  States that imposed identification requirements on voters reduced turnout at the polls in the 2004 presidential election by about 3 percent, and by two to three times as much for minorities, new research suggests.

Guantanamo Detainees Lose Appeal  —  Habeas Corpus Case May Go to High Court  —  A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that hundreds of detainees in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal courts, a victory for the Bush administration …

Fitting the Bill  —  Why isn't Bill Richardson's presidential candidacy taken seriously?  —  On Thursday, February 8, Bill Richardson delivered a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on "The New Realism and the Rebirth of American Leadership," laying out the foreign policy vision …

Is there life after Bush?  —  We've been hating him forever, but he's leaving.  Now we have to decide what to do with the rest of our lives.  —  Hating George W. Bush sometimes feels like a full-time job.  I get up in the morning, open the paper, and it's Bush World.

Eric Alterman thinks there should be a "blogging council" to condemn bloggers who go wrong.  —  Alterman is talking with Mark Schmitt on the new Bloggingheads.  They've just discussed the problem the Edwards campaign had with the bloggers it hired.  (Eric says, and I agree …