Clinton tops 2008 rivals, gets $530M in earmarks  —  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has won tens of millions of dollars more in federal earmarks this year than her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though two of them have significantly more Senate seniority.

Kerik's Corruption Case Dogs Giuliani  —  The scene outside the old Victorian-style courthouse in Dubuque on Thursday morning showed that the indictment of Bernard B. Kerik is at the very least a big distraction for Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign.

What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?  —  Every time Congressional Democrats failed this year to stop the Bush administration (i.e., every time they "tried"), the excuse they gave was that they "need 60 votes in the Senate" in order to get anything done.

Bhutto Detained at Home  —  Police Also Detained Over 5,000 Opposition Party Members Throughout Pakistan  —  Security officials barricaded former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto inside her home behind barbed wire, concrete blocks and armored cars on Friday morning, and turned out in force …

A Failure to Lead  —  The Democratic Congress is more interested in acting out than in taking positive action.  —  This week is the one-year anniversary of Democrats winning Congress.  But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid probably aren't in a celebrating mood.

Things Are Tough All Over  —  But Mrs. Clinton is no Iron Lady.  —  The story as I was told it is that in the early years of her prime ministership, Margaret Thatcher held a meeting with her aides and staff, all of whom were dominated by her, even awed.  When it was over she invited …

Stop the Madness  —  I had wondered if there was a bit of an overreaction by me and others to Obama's Social Security language which was why I tried to explain our hypersensitivity to the issue.  Turns out there was no overreaction.  Obama is peddling  —  the "social security crisis" narrative.

History and Calumny  —  Today, I'm going to write about a slur.  It's a distortion that's been around for a while, but has spread like a weed over the past few months.  It was concocted for partisan reasons: to flatter the prejudices of one side, to demonize the other and to simplify …

Huckabee's Salvation  —  Dr. James Dobson, who has largely been made irrelevant to the 2008 Republican presidential race, has apparently found his man, and according to an adviser, is ready to change the landscape of the Republican nomination race.  —  "He is the leader of the evangelical …

Waterboarding Is Torture, Says Ex-Navy Instructor  —  A former Navy survival instructor subjected to waterboarding as part of his military training told Congress yesterday that the controversial tactic should plainly be considered torture and that such a method was never intended for use …

Gardner willing to wait out Michigan on primary  —  CONCORD - Secretary of State William Gardner was unconcerned yesterday about an unexpected delay in Michigan and said he will wait out lawmakers and political party officials in that state before setting the date of New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

59 schoolchildren killed in Afghan blast  —  KABUL, Afghanistan - Dozens of schoolchildren and five teachers were among those killed in a suicide attack in northern Afghanistan earlier this week — the country's deadliest since the fall of the Taliban — the government said Friday.