Partisans Gone Wild  —  A funny thing is happening in American politics: The fiercest battle is no longer between the left and the right but between partisanship and bipartisanship.  The Bush administration, which has been notorious for playing to its hard-right base, has started reaching across the aisle …

Aide: Iraq PM relations with Petraeus poor  —  BAGHDAD — A key aide says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's relations with U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus are so poor the Iraqi leader may ask Washington the withdraw the well-regarded U.S. military leader from duty here.

More on Lowe's pulling ads from O'Reilly  —  What moved Lowe's to pull its ads from the Bill O'Reilly hate-fest?  —  Could it be that targeting Home Depot for its support of the FOX Nutwork's coordinated campaign against science raised some eyebrows?  —  Even as Home Depot is hoping …

What Beltway media stars mean by "centrism" and "extremism"  —  As always, when wielded by Beltway media stars, the terms "centrist" and "moderate" and "mainstream" mean "whatever views I personally happen to hold on a topic, regardless of how many Americans actually share it."

Many Happy Returns  —  Recall if you will.  It was a bright, warm day in September, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  In the busy East of the country, trains, planes, and automobiles disgorge lines of still-sleepy workers.  Across the Great Plains and into the Rockies, men and women wake slowly to their coffee.

Our War on Terror  —  The day after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush declared the strikes by Al Qaeda "more than acts of terror.  They were acts of war."  Bush's "war on terror" was "not a figure of speech," he said.  Rather, it was a defining framework.

The Saturday Cartoons  —  And here's Mark Fiore with an animation on the Bush administration dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: "Pickling The Poor" with your host, Buzzie the Fly.  —  Click on the screenshot above or go here to see it.  —  All cartoons are posted with the artists' express permission to BobGeiger.com.

Labels Matter: Progressive Better than Liberal, Reagan-Like Better than Conservative  —  During last Monday's Democratic Presidential debate, Senator Hillary Clinton indicated that she preferred to be called "progressive" rather than "liberal."  The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds …

The Centrists Didn't Hold  —  NOT very long ago, the Democratic Leadership Council was a maker of presidents — or, at least, the maker of a president.  In 1991, Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, then the council's chairman, elucidated the "New Democrat" ethos and previewed the themes …

Hate-crime arrests in Quran desecrations at Pace University  —  NEW YORK (AP) _ A 23-year-old man was arrested Friday on hate-crime charges after he threw a Quran in a toilet at Pace University on two separate occasions, police said.  —  Stanislav Shmulevich of Brooklyn was arrested on charges …

The Cleavage Issue  —  I know that this week is devoted to singing Hillary's praises as a candidate, but surely it is in the area of fundraising where her skill and discipline really shine.  Over on Drudge there was a picture of the Senator in the pink jacket and fairly low cut black shell …

Democrats as victims?  —  There's an interesting meme of Democratic victimology developing here...  In addition to former Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, saying that media attention on his hair stems from powerful interests who "want to shut me up", it should be noted that Sen. Hillary Clinton …

Fred on Restoring Federalism: Bring Back Reagan on the 10th Amendment  —  Former Tennessee senator and presumptive GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson continues his hearts and minds campaign on the Right side of the Blogosphere with a lengthy post on federalism at I'm With Fred.

Hillary the Progressive  —  Ross Douthat notes Hillary Clinton's preference for the label "progressive" over "liberal" and wonders if this goes beyond mere questions of branding to serious changes on the left that should worry us.  —  Progressivism, after all, has a very mixed history in American politics …

Trial against U.S. Muslim charity begins  —  The government says a Texas-based Islamic charity was actually funneling funds to terrorists.  But some Muslim Americans claim the case is about marginalizing their voices.  —  Noor Elashi wants to "shatter stereotypes" about Muslims and Arabs.