A STATEMENT FROM SCOTT THOMAS BEAUCHAMP:  —  As we've noted in this space, some have questioned details that appeared in the Diarist "Shock Troops," published under the pseudonym Scott Thomas.  According to Major Kirk Luedeke, a public affairs officer at Forward Operating Base Falcon …

Today's Must Read  —  Was it or wasn't it a briefing on the Terrorist Surveillance Program?  The answer may determine Alberto Gonzales's fate.  —  As the world knows, Gonzales testified on Tuesday that James Comey, the former deputy attorney general, may have had legal objections to …

McCain's Media Team Resigns, Futher Shaking Up Campaign  —  WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain's well-known media team has resigned, an indication that his campaign shake-up is continuing to backfire and imperiling the Arizona Republican's presidential candidacy.

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour  —  On July 16, I attended Christians United for Israel's annual Washington-Israel Summit.  Founded by San Antonio-based megachurch pastor John Hagee, CUFI has added the grassroots muscle of the Christian right to the already potent Israel lobby.

War Crimes and the White House  —  The Dishonor in a Tortured New 'Interpretation' of the Geneva Conventions  —  One of us was appointed commandant of the Marine Corps by President Ronald Reagan; the other served as a lawyer in the Reagan White House and has vigorously defended the constitutionality …

Stacking the Court  —  WHEN a majority of Supreme Court justices adopt a manifestly ideological agenda, it plunges the court into the vortex of American politics.  If the Roberts court has entered voluntarily what Justice Felix Frankfurter once called the "political thicket," it may require a political solution to set it straight.

No Easy Verdict on Thompson The Lawyer  —  Cases Indicate Willingness to Defy GOP Orthodoxy  —  Before he was elected as a tough-on-crime U.S. senator from Tennessee or played a New York prosecutor on TV's "Law and Order," Fred Dalton Thompson worked as a lawyer who argued …

Robert A. Heinlein's Legacy  —  As they say on the moon, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch!"  —  Science fiction at one time was despised as vulgar and "populist" by university English departments.  Today, it is just another cultural artifact to be deconstructed, along with cartoons and People magazine articles.

The Senate on Iraq: No 'Phony Debate'  —  On reading the July 21 editorial "The Phony Debate," it became clear why The Post's editorial writers have been such eager cheerleaders for the Bush administration's flawed Iraq policies — the two share the same disregard for the facts en route to drawing dubious conclusions.