Voices From Iraq 2007: Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss  —  National Survey of Iraq  —  A new national survey paints a devastating portrait of life in Iraq: widespread violence, torn lives, displaced families, emotional damage, collapsing services, an ever starker sectarian chasm …

Tony Snow 'Defensive' On Iraq Anniversary, Tells CNN's Ed Henry To 'Zip It'  —  President Bush will address the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion in a speech today at the White House.  —  During this morning's press gaggle, Tony Snow told reporters that Bush will use the speech to attack …

Republicans and U.S. attorneys — then and now  —  The fundamental difference between (a) a new administration replacing all U.S. attorneys (as multiple Presidents have done — including Clinton, Reagan and even Bush 41) and (b) cherry-picking ones for firing in the middle of an administration, has been amply documented.

News media and politics: an uneasy union  —  Some prominent journalists have mates who work for a presidential candidate.  They approach this potential conflict in different ways.  —  Some of America's most prominent political journalists are, quite literally, wedded to the 2008 presidential race …

John McCain Rips the Club For Growth  —  John McCain has taken some hits for not attending certain conservative events.  With CPAC, he says it was a simple schedueling conflict.  But he will not be speaking at the upcoming conservative Club For Growth meeting either.  Why not?

In hospital  —  As earlier mentioned in the comments section, my mother is in the hospital.  The doctor says that right now they're just making her comfortable.  She's sedated, with painkillers among other things.  Lungs collapsed so right now we just want to make sure she has dignity and is not in pain.

Soldier: Taunts lead to shooting of student  —  Spc. Craig Perkins' uniform made him a target in Baghdad — and, he believes, again in an apartment complex near Clarkston.  —  Perkins, who returned last summer after almost a year's duty in Iraq, shot a man outside his apartment March 9 …

Military Is Ill-Prepared For Other Conflicts  —  Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight …

Study finds one-third in D.C. illiterate  —  WASHINGTON - About one-third of the people living in the national's capital are functionally illiterate, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia.  —  Adults are considered functionally illiterate …

Obama the 'Magic Negro'  —  The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.  —  AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president.

When Is Viewpoint Discrimination a Constitutional Virtue?  —  Lyle's comprehensive post below on today's argument in Morse v. Frederick, as well as Linda Greenhouse's article in the New York Times yesterday, understandably emphasizes the unusual fact that an array of religious groups …

In '08 Race, Web Tactics Are Even More Integral  —  Handicapping Field  —  Is a Bigger Chore  —  As Goals Diverge  —  WASHINGTON — John Edwards topped the field of Democratic presidential contenders in the liberal blog DailyKos's latest straw poll.  But Barack Obama has the most "friends" on MySpace.

CNN RELIABLE SOURCES  —  U.S. Attorney Firings Scandal; Coverage of Iraq  —  THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT.  THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.  —  GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Al was right.  Mistakes were made.  —  HOWART KURTZ, HOST (voice-over): Purging prosecutors.

Today's Must Read  —  It's becoming one of the central rules of the U.S. attorney purge scandal: whatever "performance related" complaint the administration claims as the justification for a U.S. attorney's firing, it's actually an area of performance for which that U.S. attorney was lauded.