THE HOUR IS LATE  —  From Baghdad comes news of a popular uprising against al Qaeda: … We have noted a number of similar stories over the past several years.  No doubt a large majority of Iraqis have little sympathy for al Qaeda and other extremist groups, and want the violence to end.

McCain Agrees We Need a Cap To Maintain "White, Christian, Male Power Structure"  —  John McCain's campaign posted this YouTube clip of the Senator on the O'Reilly Factor:  —  Near the end of the video, there was this exchange:  —  Bill O'Reilly: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want?

What I Think About Evolution  —  IN our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves.  So I suppose I should not have been surprised earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential debate …

A spreading terror  —  Iraq now set up as a school for insurgents ready to be exported, says GEORGIE ANNE GEYER  —  Anyone who knows anything about cancer knows that the danger point comes when the cancer suddenly and unexpectedly appears in another supposedly "clean" part of the body.

RNC fires phone solicitors  —  The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.  —  Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off …

Extreme TB Patient Taken To Denver  —  CBS News: Andrew Harley Speaker, 31, Undergoing Tests At Hospital Specializing In Respiratory Disorders  —  (CBS/AP) A tuberculosis patient under the first federal quarantine since 1963 was taken Thursday to National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver …

NASA's Top Official Questions Global Warming  —  NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Questions Need to Combat Warming  —  NASA administrator Michael Griffin is drawing the ire of his agency's preeminent climate scientists after apparently downplaying the need to combat global warming.

The Case for Conservatism  —  Conservatism's recovery of its intellectual equilibrium requires a confident explanation of why America has two parties and why the conservative one is preferable.  Today's political argument involves perennial themes that give it more seriousness than many participants understand.

Claiborne has died, counsel tells Court  —  UPDATE, 2 p.m. Michael Dwyer, assistant federal public defender in St. Louis, formally notified the Supreme Court on Thursday that Mario Claiborne had died.  Dwyer's "suggestion of death" said that he had learned on Wednesday "that Petitioner Mario Claiborne died …

Living in Terror  —  Let me ask you a hypothetical question.  What do you think America would do if Canadian soldiers were firing dozens of missiles every day into Buffalo, N.Y.?  What do you think our response would be if Mexican troops for two years had launched daily rocket attacks on San Diego — and bragged about it?

Fred Thompson, "tough guy" and "folksy cultural conservative"  —  Newsweek's Howard Fineman — last seen expressing admiration for the "reassuring" "male" qualities exuded by the GOP presidential field — was on Hardball last night heaping praise on Fred Thompson.

Reggie's Got Mail—But We'll Have Mail, Too, on June 5  —  First the bad news: we're not getting the letters sent in support of sentencing until the hearing.  I had hoped to send a letter urging for their earlier release.  The media and the blogosphere, after all, are going to be in a much better position …

Why Do We Stay In Iraq?  —  Josh Marshall heads down the path to madness in order  —  to try to answer that question.  —  The answer is unknowable because there isn't one.  There are a variety of powerful actors who have different motives.  It's as true, if not more true …

Arizona: The national GOP in microcosm  —  The illegal immigration fight is tearing the Arizona Republican Party apart, to the point that its members and staff wonder if it can even compete.  —  And this is Arizona we're talking about.  A red state with two GOP senators.  The state that gave us Barry Goldwater.

OF ASHES AND SASHES  —  Vacancy Signs Point to a Very "Special" Summer  —  Just as Ben Franklin assured us of two certainties in life, let the Crystal Ball assure you of two certainties in congressional special elections this year: deaths and taxpayer-funded University posts will be the cause …

Renewing American Leadership  —  Summary: After Iraq, we may be tempted to turn inward.  That would be a mistake.  The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew.  We must bring the war to a responsible end and then renew our leadership — military, diplomatic, moral …

John Edwards: 'I read Iraq report'  —  John Edwards told a Google "town hall" yesterday that he had read the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the summary of the evidence that led to war in Iraq.  —  "There was this National Intelligence Estimate, that was confidential, that only …

Ex-Clinton FBI chief pushing Prez Rudy  —  Louis Freeh, Democrat Bill Clinton's FBI director, is going over to the other side in a big way today - endorsing Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, the Daily News has learned.  —  The high-profile endorsement is a boon to the former mayor …