President Bush Meets with General Petraeus, Discusses War in Iraq  —  THE PRESIDENT: It's my high honor to welcome General David Petraeus back to the Oval Office, and I appreciate Deputy Secretary England and General Pace joining us.  General Petraeus has taken on a very important assignment …

'Gated Communities' For the War-Ravaged  —  U.S. Tries High Walls and High Tech To Bring Safety to Parts of Baghdad  —  BAGHDAD — The U.S. military is walling off at least 10 of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods and using biometric technology to track some of their residents …

The GOP: Waiting for Him to Walk  —  The President's Old Friend: The A.G.'s poor performance at the hearings cost him support on the Hill  —  The pressure on Alberto Gonzales to resign intensified last week following his daylong grilling before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Saving the Earth: The Biodiesel Bus Blog  —  Singer Sheryl Crow and environmentalist Laurie David have been traveling across America on a two-week Stop Global Warming College Tour, which winds up today at George Washington University.  Crow and David (co-producer of the documentary …

JESUS WANTS US TO EXPLOIT THIS TRAGEDY  —  Well, it's a free country, so the Reverend Donald Wilmon's American Family Association has the inalienable right to post "The Day They Kicked God Out of the Schools," a video making those old familiar arguments — that school shootings are the fault …

Ever-Larger Media Matt  —  Okay.  The time has come to let you all in on some changes forthcoming soon in my life and on this blog.  Most notably, I'm leaving my job at The American Prospect to take a position at The Atlantic Monthly where my primary responsibility is going to be . . . producing this blog.

This is a bad one.  The Washington Post's David Broder was interviewed today by XM radio's Bob Edwards, and Broder hammered Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for declaring the "war is lost" as follows: … Audio here.  —  Look, you can argue that Reid's choice of words was a poor one …

Debates Losing a Bit of Luster in a Big Field  —  The last time Jonathan Prince checked, there were nearly 40 requests for John Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidate for whom he works, to appear at a candidate debate or forum.  —  They came from state Democratic parties and county Democratic committees.

FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food  —  Outbreaks Were Not Preventable, Officials Say  —  The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people …

Democrats Craft New Tax Rules, New Image  —  Plan Tries to Shield Middle Class From Paying High Rates  —  House Democrats, aiming to seize taxes from Republicans as a political issue, have come up with a plan to shift the burden of the hated alternative minimum tax onto the shoulders of the nation's richest households.

Spitzer Plans to Introduce Gay Marriage Bill  —  Gov. Eliot Spitzer will introduce a bill in the coming weeks to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, his spokeswoman said Friday, a move that would propel New York to the forefront of one of the most contentious issues in politics.

Bedlam Revisited  —  Why the Virginia Tech shooter was not committed.  —  I was in graduate school, studying clinical psychology when they began shutting down the asylums.  The place was California, the time was the early 1970s, and "they" were an unprecedented confederation of progressives, libertarians and fiscal conservatives.

Candidates hope ideas strike chords  —  Voters getting an early dose of substance  —  WASHINGTON — Barack Obama is unleashing the fine print.  —  In the political hothouses of town meetings and union gatherings, the Democratic presidential candidate has shared his soothing style and intriguing background.

Joe Klein, call your editor.  —  Or better yet, Joe Klein's editor, call your columnist.  —  Here's why: … Don't see it yet?  Well, here's what kos actually said: … Once again, we have to play a game of "What's Missing From This Journamalism?"  —  Look carefully.

Let's be realistic about reality  —  Within hours of the Virginia Tech massacre, the New York Times had identified the problem: ''What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.''

Former Russian Leader Boris Yeltsin, 76, Dies  —  Boris Yeltsin was once asked to name his greatest goal as president.  He answered that more than anything, he wanted tranquility for Russia.  —  Ultimately, Yeltsin failed to achieve it in his own term.  But the burly Siberian who was Russia's …