Reading Hillary Rodham's hidden thesis  —  Clinton White House asked Wellesley College to close off access  —  Hillary Rodham, in a 1965 freshman photo when she was president of Wellesley College's Young Republicans, with the cover page of her senior thesis from 1969 on radical organizer Saul D. Alinsky.

A new twist to an intriguing family history … WASHINGTON // Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.  —  But an intriguing sliver of his family history has received almost no attention until now …

Plame film in works at Warner Bros.  —  Studio sets movie about CIA leak scandal  —  Warner Bros. is developing a feature on the lives of Valerie Plame and Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the married couple drawn into a D.C. firestorm.  —  Plame's status as a CIA agent was revealed …

Gilmore to reveal 'false' conservatives  —  Former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III will become the first Republican presidential contender to say publicly that the three top-ranked party candidates are phony conservatives.  —  Unlike the Democratic competition for the presidential nomination next year …

Sources: GOP lawmakers tried to influence federal investigation  —  WASHINGTON - Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico pressured the U.S. attorney in their state to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation that involved at least one former Democratic state senator …

Profiles In Political Courage?  —  It's not often I disagree with my friend John Podhoretz at The Corner, but today's post on John McCain and CPAC struck me as rather odd.  In response to a post by Kathryn Jean Lopez that scolded McCain for skipping both NRI and CPAC, John said that McCain was right to stay away:

Walter Reed Whitewash: Kiley Replacement 'Demoralizing' To Hospital Staff  —  Yesterday's management shake-up at Walter Reed looks increasingly suspect.  The Washington Post reports today that the hospital chief who was relieved of duty, Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, is …

Poll: The Politics Of Health Care  —  Most Americans Favor Universal Health Care, Give Democrats Edge On Improving System  —  (CBS) Americans think the U.S. health care system is in need of major repairs, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll.  —  Nine out of 10 say the system needs …

Self-Referential Feedback Loop  —  Let me respond to Ezra Klein's response to Justin Fox's delightful bit about us mainstream sorts trying to be bloggers.  —  Now, I like Ezra.  He's a smart guy.  We have the same last name and all...But he's wrong about this: … To which I can only say, what security?

Rice Names Critic Of Iraq Policy to Counselor's Post  —  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has tapped Eliot A. Cohen, a prominent writer on national security strategy and an outspoken critic of the administration's postwar occupation of Iraq, as her counselor, State Department officials said yesterday.

Music Of the Spheres  —  You might not have noticed, but we broke another U.S. space record last month when astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria logged his 67th hour of spacewalking.  If you consider that the equivalent of the Guinness record for pogo-stick bouncing (23.11 miles in 12 hours and 27 minutes) …

Second Shift  —  The BBC reports: … "Gee," remarks Jessica Valenti, "wonder why that is."  Well, I like to wonder.  Later, the piece gives us the specific numbers: "an employed woman does 15 hours a week of housework when she lives with her employed partner, up from 10 hours when single."

Checkmate  —  The Democratic Party's honeymoon is over.  —  For Big Labor, this week's "card check" victory marked the ultimate payoff for past Democratic election support.  For House Democrats, it marked the end of the honeymoon.  —  Democrats won in November in part by playing …

Al Gore's Inconvenient Loot  —  Former Vice President Al Gore has built a Green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can't afford to play on Gore's terms.