Clinton's Foreign Policy Balancing Act  —  In Her Stances, Senator Has One Eye on Primary, One on General Election  —  While preparing to give a major critique of the war in Iraq last month, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton read a draft of the speech and added a few lines of her own.

TIMESSELECT CONTENT FREED  —  The New York Times is poised to stop charging readers for online access to its Op-Ed columnists and other content, The Post has learned.  —  After much internal debate, Times executives - including publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. - made the decision to end …

BLOGS MISSING THE REAL STORY AS USUAL  —  Getting caught up in a blog swarm on a particular topic can be hazardous.  The very fact that so many are writing about the same thing can generate its own momentum, its own "narrative."  Each succeeding blogger who writes about the subject feels compelled …

Our Chance to Capture the Center  —  With President Bush and the Republican Party on the rocks, many Democrats think the 2008 election will be, to borrow a favorite GOP phrase, a cakewalk.  Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats …

It's a Female Dog, or Worse.  Or Endearing.  And Illegal?  —  The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch.

Propaganda Redux  —  Take it from this old KGB hand: The left is abetting America's enemies with its intemperate attacks on President Bush.  —  During last week's two-day summit, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown thanked President Bush for leading the global war on terror.

As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates  —  Violence Rises in Shiite City Once Called a Success Story  —  As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources …

An Iraqi Interpreter's Story  —  "Please, sir, can you help me?  I must work with Americans, because my psychology is demolished by Saddam Hussein.  Not just me.  All Iraqis.  Psychological demolition."  - Iraqi woman to New Yorker reporter George Packer.  —  "The Hammer," Titan Company Badge # S-10296

Tougher Rules Change Game for Lobbyists  —  H. Stewart Van Scoyoc, founder of one of the biggest lobbying firms in Washington, spent an anxious morning with his lawyer last week assessing the far-reaching ethics and lobbying rules Congress had passed the day before.

How Credit Got So Easy And Why It's Tightening  —  An extraordinary credit boom that created many first-time homeowners and financed a wave of corporate takeovers seems to be waning.  Home buyers with poor credit are having trouble borrowing.  Institutional investors from Milwaukee to Düsseldorf to Sydney are reporting losses.

Fred Phelps Is Coming  —  The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.

'Plot Would Have Killed Thousands'  —  EXCLUSIVE: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Offers Chilling Details About 2006 Airplane Plot and Current Terror Threats  —  Terrorists who had planned to detonate gel-based explosives on U.S.-bound flights from London last August …

All the News That Seemed Unfit to Print  —  Somewhere in Kalamazoo, Elvis weeps: The Weekly World News is folding.  —  The Weekly World News was not one of those sleazy tabloids that cover tawdry celebrity scandals.  It was a sleazy tabloid that covered events that seemed to occur in a parallel universe …

City Is Rebuffed on the Release of '04 Records  —  A federal judge yesterday rejected New York City's efforts to prevent the release of nearly 2,000 pages of raw intelligence reports and other documents detailing the Police Department's covert surveillance of protest groups and individual activists …