What Limbaugh Said  —  The folks on the Left are beside themselves today—thinking that by dint of a truncated quote, they will succeed in shutting down Rush Limbaugh and taking him off the air.  Before lining up next to the folks from Crooks and Liars, FireDogLake, Media Matters, ThinkProgress …

Hired Gun Fetish  —  Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it's a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we've learned over the past few centuries …

US Congressman owned home with another man, took DC tax deduction while voting in NC  —  Congressman Patrick T. McHenry (R-NC), right, purchased a residence in Washington, DC's Capital Hill neighborhood with another man, PageOneQ has learned.  While he owned the home, McHenry …

Six inconvenient truths about the U.S. and slavery  —  Those who want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history's most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity invariably focus on America's bloody past as a slave-holding nation.

GOP electoral initiative dealt major blows  —  Two key consultants for an effort to change California's winner-take-all system quit over money and disclosure woes.  —  SACRAMENTO — A proposed California initiative campaign that could have helped Republicans hold on to the White House in 2008 …

Hear, Hear  —  Americans should not fear talking—and listening—to those whose views we loathe.  —  You don't want to judge Christ by Christians, someone once said.  He is perfect, they are not.  —  In a similar way you don't want to judge capitalism by capitalists …

With Legacy in Mind, Bush Reassesses His Agenda  —  As he addresses a conference on climate change this morning, President Bush will face not only a crowd of skeptics but the press of time.  For nearly seven years, he invested little personal energy in the challenge of global warming.

Leading GOP Candidates Skip Debate on Black Issues  —  4 Contenders Attend Fundraisers Instead  —  Fred D. Thompson was at a fundraiser in Franklin, Tenn. Mitt Romney was gathering checks in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. Rudolph W. Giuliani was in California raking in some last-minute cash just north of Napa.

U.S. Agrees to Grant Legal Access to High Value Gitmo Detainees  —  WASHINGTON — Fourteen "high value" terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval prison have been offered the right to ask for attorneys, The Washington Post reported.  —  The move could allow the suspects to join …

S-CHIP Battle Moves To Vetoland, Population: 3  —  The Senate passed the expansion of the S-CHIP program yesterday with a veto-proof majority, 67-29, which sets up a standoff between Congress and the White House over the renewal of the politically sensitive program.

AN OBAMA-EYE VIEW OF NEW YORK  —  This photo comes via the big Barack Obama rally in New York last night.  His staff had a scissors lift (a.k.a. a cherry-picker) and was taking photographers — and, by the end of the evening, print reporters as well — up in it to get crowd shots.

Wanted: Democratic Straight Talk on Iraq  —  Yes, you heard it right: At the Dartmouth College debate Wednesday evening, not one of the three leading Democratic candidates could pledge that all U.S. combat troops would be out of Iraq by the end of his or her first term as president.