'A Different Understanding With the President' … Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week.  Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer.

Old girlfriends cast their vote for Thompson  —  IN the battle for the women's vote, Fred Thompson has a secret weapon against Hillary Clinton - the legions of former girlfriends who still adore him and who want him to be president.  —  The Hollywood actor and former Tennessee senator racked …

'We Will Try to Form an Islamic Society'  —  Mahmoud Zahar — a founder of Hamas, and one of its most militant hardliners — has called for an Islamic state in the Gaza Strip.  After the Hamas takeover of the territory last week, he's also threatened Fatah with more violence in the West Bank.

We've replaced Rushdie in hiding  —  A year or so after the Ayatollah Khomeini took out an Islamist mob contract on Salman Rushdie in 1989, the novelist appeared, after elaborate security arrangements, on a television arts show in London.  His host was Melvyn Bragg, a longtime British telly grandee …

Suit shines spotlight on immigration judgeships  —  Guadalupe Gonzalez is the chief counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso, a lawyer with more than 20 years of experience in immigration law and a stellar record.  In 2002, she made the next logical career move, applying to become an immigration judge.

Ethics Survey Finds Lawyers Lower The Bar  —  TAMPA - Can your lawyer collect 12 hours' pay after working an eight-hour day?  —  A recent survey shows that about a third of U.S. lawyers have done it.  Nearly half of all lawyers don't see an ethical problem with it.

Matt Taibbi Answers Your Questions  —  We asked for emails, and you responded: Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi responds to two dozen reader questions below.  Note: Questions have been edited for length and/or clarity. … As a child I wanted to be a zoologist.

General's Iraq Progress Report Has Competition  —  Last month, Congress set a deadline for the American commander in Iraq, declaring that by Sept. 15 he would have to assess progress there before billions more dollars are approved to finance the military effort to stabilize the country.

The human rights outrage in Iran...and a challenge to Rosie O'Donnell and her ilk  —  Today I am joining blogs Gateway Pundit, Ali Eteraz, and Iran Focus in reprinting the latest batch of Iranian repression photos being distributed by the regime's state-run FARS News agency and ISNA.

The myth of "The Myth of the Paperless Office"  —  The "paperless office" is one of those catchphrases that gets bandied about for a while, only to disappoint and eventually be used in a purely derisive way.  As Wikipedia says, it has become 'a metaphor for the touting of new technology …

Microsoft pays star writers to recite slogan  —  The stodgy old media industry has a rule that newspaper reporters, and TV news hosts, shouldn't trade on their public trust to endorse products.  It's become redundant: the reading public typically wants journalists to drop the pretense of objectivity …

More on the Anti-Abortion Concern Troll  —  Yesterday's Wanker of the Day, Melinda Henneberger, has already been well and suitably chastised by other bloggers for being hopelessly wrong about Democrats and abortion.  I won't repeat what they said.  Instead, I'll focus on a passage that raised a red flag for me: