Candidates Lacking A Real-World Clue  —  GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — The 18 presidential candidates — eight Democrats and 10 Republicans — who came to Saint Anselm College here for a pair of debates this week displayed a remarkable ability to ignore the real-world consequences of many of the policies they were advocating.

Amnesty Opponents Making Progress in Senate  —  Spirits among conservative critics of the immigration bill have brightened today following several Senate votes that indicate at least 40 senators could block the bill during a cloture vote tomorrow.  —  Well-placed sources tell me that activists …

(Updated) Paris Hilton Bawls Her Way Out of An L.A. Celebrity Slammer  —  Paris Hilton has finally done it to me.  She has so outraged my sensibilities that here I am blogging on this sack of celebrity excrement instead of analyzing every jot and tittle of the presidential race.

Senate Begins Real Push on Habeas Corpus  —  Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed an important bill to restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court, by a vote of eleven to eight.  —  Habeas corpus was revoked …

Joe Klein's Big Lie  —  20 of 20 people recommend this blog entry.  —  Joe Klein has made one of his periodic attacks on the liberal blogosphere.  As usual in order to make himself look good, and make his critics look ridiculous, he lies about what actually happened.  —  Here's Klein's version:

Romney's Up 17 In An Internal Campaign Poll  —  In an internal poll, ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney holds a whopping 17 point lead over the rest of the Republican field, further evidence to Romney's senior staff that his organizational prowess and early support in Iowa scared challengers John McCain and Rudy Giuliani away.

Obama To Beat Clinton In Second Quarter Fundraising  —  The Huffington Post has learned from sources close to both candidates that the Obama campaign will surpass the Clinton campaign in second quarter fundraising.  "It's a matter of pure mathematics," an Obama fundraiser told HuffPost.

Null set blogging redux  —  Curious to determine if Romney's meaning had been accidently flipped—if maybe he meant to say, "this is a non-sequitur: Null-set!"  —I did me some googling and I found this from May 8, nearly one month ago. … This is interesting for two reasons: It's evidence that …

To Be an American  —  For many, illegal workers are a rebuke to dutiful citizenship.  —  People tend to regard the idea of "democratic" politics with high reverence, when in practice it consists most of the time of the right of any citizen to describe one's opponent as an idiot, or worse.

I'm a McCain Man, Through and Through—Unless the Democrats Nominate Obama.  Then, Forget the McCain Thing  —  Barack Obama cultivates an image as a politician whose appeal reaches across party lines.  But even he might be surprised to learn that one of his biggest admirers works for GOP Sen. John McCain …

Sen. Stevens Told to Keep Records for Graft Probe  —  Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, disclosed in an interview that the FBI asked him to preserve records as part of a widening investigation into Alaskan political corruption that has touched his son and ensnared …

Dirty snow may warm Arctic as much as greenhouse gases  —  The global warming debate has focused on carbon dioxide emissions, but scientists at UC Irvine have determined that a lesser-known mechanism - dirty snow - can explain one-third or more of the Arctic warming primarily attributed to greenhouse gases.

Fred Thompson coming to Israel  —  Fred Thompson, US presidential hopeful and former star of the hit television series "Law & Order," is scheduled to make his first visit to Israel in the coming days.  —  Thompson, who is said to have a fair chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination …

Neither Prison Nor Pardon  —  Justice in the Libby Case Lies With Bush's Third Option  —  Scooter Libby should not be pardoned.  But his punishment — 30 months in prison, two years' probation and a $250,000 fine — is excessive.  President Bush should commute the sentence by eliminating the jail term while preserving the fine.

Defeat's Killing Fields  —  SOME opponents of the Iraq war are toying with the idea of American defeat.  A number of them are simply predicting it, while others advocate measures that would make it more likely.  Lending intellectual respectability to all this is an argument that takes …

AP Poll: Bush Approval Hits Low Point  —  Bush Approval Hits All-Time Low in AP-Ipsos Poll, With Discontent Over Iraq, Terror War  —  Public approval of the job President Bush is doing now matches its all-time low, with widespread discontent over how he is handling the war in Iraq …

Europe and U.S. Reach Climate Deal  —  The United States agreed today to "seriously consider" a European proposal to combat global warming by halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, breaking a trans-Atlantic deadlock at a meeting here of the world's richest industrial nations.

JIMMY CARTER: UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL:  —  If you happen to have free time this Friday and you also happen to be in Boston, you can have a complete day from dawn to almost dusk discussing how awful Israel is in the world and how much worse it is for the United States.  This is all courtesy of the Harvard Club of Boston.