STATEMENT BY DAVID M.SCHIZER RE: SIPA INVITATION TO MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD  —  A controversy has developed about the invitation extended to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran by the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.  Although Columbia Law School was not involved in arranging …

Examiner Exclusive: President predicts GOP will keep control of White House after 'tough race' in 2008  —  Washington, D.C. (Map, News) - President Bush, for the first time, is predicting that Hillary Rodham Clinton will defeat Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries.

Clark Hoyt, the public editor of The New York Times, has now weighed in with a long piece on the whole controversy involving the MoveOn ad in his own paper attacking Mighty Scholar-Warrior Petraeus.  It's a deeply disappointing article.  He takes a very high-horse tone in the piece …

Podhoretz secretly urged Bush to bomb Iran  —  President Bush and Karl Rove sat listening to Norman Podhoretz for roughly 45 minutes at the White House as the patriarch of neoconservatism argued that the United States should bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.  —  The meeting was not on the president's public schedule.

U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With 'Bait'  —  A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of "bait," such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.

They're Out There For All of Us  —  The UAW has struck General Motors, and as you read this, pickets are going up through Michigan and across the country.  It's a strike that — as the UAW explains — is primarily about health care.  As you know if you've been following the story …

Rather Ridiculous  —  I have obtained new documentary evidence regarding Dan Rather's relationship with his former bosses at CBS News.  —  Obviously, I cannot identify my source.  But he told me during a collect call from Sofia, Bulgaria, that he has access to Rather's "personal files" and that his typewriter was built after 1966.

French PM Fillon tells farmers 'France is broke'  —  France is bankrupt and can no longer afford to pay its workers generous salaries and subsidies, its prime minister has declared.  —  Francois Fillon made the undiplomatic outburst during a trip to the French island of Corsica, where farmers were demanding more government money.

If Columbia is not ashamed of the decision...  ... then why did they blacken out the podium and the backdrop?  —  See these heavily-branded events from the same Columbia U. World Leader Forum:  —  Dr. Ivo Sanader, Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia,  —  Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia

Daily Kos: 45% Want Ahmadinejad As US President  —  A Daily Kos diarist has put up a poll asking the question, Daily Kos: Who would you rather have lead, Bush or Ahmadinejad?  —  Bush is actually ahead.  But not by much.  —  (Hat tip: Killgore Trout.)

Exclusive: Israel did not hit Syria nuke site  —  Israel did not strike a nuclear weapons facility in Syria on Sept. 6, instead striking a cache of North Korean missiles, current and former intelligence officials say.  —  American intelligence sources familiar with key events leading …

9/11 coalition set to 'Swift-boat' Rudy Giuliani today  —  A coalition of 9/11 families and rescue workers plans to continue efforts to derail former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's bid for President at a midtown fund-raiser today.  —  The group will to use the same strategy that helped undermine …