Hagel won't announce political plans until later this year  —  After months of buildup, Sen. Chuck Hagel stopped short of a presidential campaign Monday, saying he wants to keep his options open until later this year.  —  Instead, the Nebraska Republican will begin actively raising money …

NEOLIBERALISM, R.I.P.:  —  So is neo-liberalism really dead, as David Brooks suggested in his column on Sunday?  Insofar as he's referring to the very specific sensibility that grew out of the Washington Monthly and, later, the pages of this magazine, I think he's right.

Do we really need a Gen. Pelosi?  —  Congress can cut funding for Iraq, but it shouldn't micromanage the war.  —  AFTER WEEKS OF internal strife, House Democrats have brought forth their proposal for forcing President Bush to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2008.

Congressman Holds No God-Belief  —  Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) is first Congress member in history to acknowledge his nontheism  —  Contact: Lori Lipman Brown, (202) 299-1091  —  There is only one member of Congress who is on record as not holding a god-belief.

Weak Lead-In Programming Takes a Toll on the News Ratings  —  Last year, around the time that CBS agreed to pay an estimated $15 million a year to lure Katie Couric away from NBC, it spent several million dollars more in licensing fees to coax another nationally known television personality …

Meltdown at Justice  —  Incompetence is compromising presidential power.  —  Just when President Bush seemed to have beaten back the Congressional defeatists on Iraq, along comes his own Justice Department to undermine some hard-won antiterror policy gains.

On Screens Soon, Abused Earth Gets Its Revenge  —  Tired of abuse by mankind, the earth is angry.  Worse, the planet is out to even the score.  —  Audiences can expect a story along those lines when M. Night Shyamalan's film "The Happening" reaches screens in the next year.

A Balance for Labor  —  THE HOUSE has passed organized labor's top legislative priority, a measure that would make it far easier for unions to organize: They could get a majority of workers to sign cards rather than having to win a contested election.  The proposal's prospects of getting past …

Berger & Libby: A Tale of Two Crimes  —  "History will be kind to me," Winston Churchill once said, "for I intend to write it."  —  Indeed, he did.  His multiple-volume histories of the two world wars are still widely read, though discounted by professional historians as incomplete and in some ways misleading.

Fallback strategy for Iraq: Train locals, draw down forces  —  If the current 'surge' fails, planners suggest relying on advisors as the U.S. did in El Salvador in the 1980s.  —  WASHINGTON — American military planners have begun plotting a fallback strategy for Iraq that includes …

Businesses Prepare to Mount a Concerted Attack on Regulation  —  Call it the end of the post-Enron era.  —  A major anti-regulatory offensive culminates this week with a one-two punch thrown by Washington and Wall Street's most moneyed institutions, as the Treasury Department convenes …

Early Primary Rush Upends '08 Campaign Plans  —  The trickle of states moving their 2008 presidential primaries to Feb. 5 has turned into an avalanche, forcing all the presidential campaigns to reconsider every aspect of their nominating strategy — where to compete, how to spend money …

Would U.S. News Make Up Fake Data?  —  It's not unusual for college presidents to complain about U.S. News rankings (at least out of the earshot of U.S. News editors).  But on Sunday, the president of Sarah Lawrence College publicly charged that the magazine is preparing to publish made up, false data about her institution.

Tapscott's Copy Desk  —  ‹‹ More From this Blog … When I heard last week from Hill sources that the White House congressional liason staff was pressuring OMB Director Rob Portman to not release all of the earmarks requested by Members of Congress to executive agencies under …

Lake Jackson's Rep. Paul to make White House bid  —  HOUSTON — U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a fierce critic of the Iraq war, formally will declare his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Monday when he appears as a guest on a C-SPAN call-in program.

Obama, Clinton Sparring Early  —  CLINTON, Iowa — Standing in front of a large banner that blared "Clinton," surrounded by students in Clinton Community College sweat shirts, Sen. Barack Obama offhandedly mentioned the obvious.  —  "Hillary, you know, she's interesting," Obama said …

The Paradox of Libertarianism  —  Yes: Bigger government.  —  But no, that isn't as bad as it might sound to many Cato readers.  —  I see a few major policy achievements in a libertarian direction.  In the United States inflation has come down from unacceptable levels in the 1970s to an eminently livable situation.