Our View: Craig has only himself to blame for political mess  —  During a brief — and largely defiant — public appearance Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Larry Craig apologized for bringing "a cloud over Idaho."  —  We're sorry, senator.  —  This cloud does not belong to the people who have elected you for the past 27 years.

Carlson claimed that after incident in a public bathroom, he assaulted the man who "bothered" him  —  On the August 28 edition of MSBNC Live, hosted by MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams, Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC's Tucker, asserted, "Having sex in a public men's room is outrageous.

Clinton to give away fundraiser's cash  —  WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will give to charity the $23,000 in donations she has received from a fundraiser who is wanted in California for failing to appear for sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge.

Soros-linked group hit with huge fine  —  The Federal Election Commission has fined one of the last cycle's biggest liberal political action committees $775,000 for using unregulated soft money to boost John Kerry and other Democratic candidates during the 2004 elections.

Edwards: Americans should sacrifice their SUVs  —  LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told a labor group he would ask Americans to make a big sacrifice: their sport utility vehicles.  —  The former North Carolina senator told a forum …

Slouching Towards Utopia?  The Economic World of the Twentieth Century: Chapter 7.1: The World in 1900: The View from 1900  —  7.1: The World in 1900: The View from 1900  —  The View from 1900  —  What did the world look like in the last generation of the nineteenth century?

Obama Steals A Page From FDR  —  "Fine the lenders!" writes Barack Obama here.  —  Hoping to prop up his poopy presidential primary campaign, Obama says we should round up "the unlicensed, unregulated, fly-by-night mortgage brokers who are hoodwinking low-income borrowers into taking on loans …

Good news, but not for Democrats  —  IT'S A WAR, and it's the Middle East, so glad tidings can go sour and there are never any guarantees.  But for all the caveats, the news from Iraq has been heartening.  —  For months, observers have been crediting General David Petraeus's "surge" with remarkable progress on the ground.

The Big Picture(s)  —  In the midst of the still-lingering controversy over the truthiness of The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist," more than a few people suggested that war supporters, unable to discredit the real bad news coming from Iraq, targeted the Scott Thomas Beauchamp stories as a weak link.

MoveOn targets pro-surge Democrat  —  Rep. Brian Baird's (D-Wash.) recent conversion on the Iraq war is beginning to affect more than the national dialogue.  On Wednesday, liberal group MoveOn.org announced an ad campaign against the congressman in his own district.

INTERVIEW: Tauscher Returns From Iraq, Warns Of 'Green Zone Fog'  —  Shortly after returning from Iraq, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) conducted an interview with ThinkProgress.  She said she conveyed three things to Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker: 1) "the American people …