“Media Matters”; by Jamison Foser  —  The media render the RNC obsolete  —  When Bob Dole wrapped up the Republican nomination in 1996, he bumped up against the limits on campaign spending by which candidates who take public financing agree to abide.  Dole's situation was the subject …

Fort Bragg Barracks: Shades of Walter Reed?  —  A Fort Bragg soldier's father uploaded a YouTube video of photos he took of his son's barracks earlier this month.  The video shows the deplorable living conditions to which his son and the other soldiers of his unit in the 82nd Airborne Division returned …

Who'll Cover the Checks?  —  THE DEMOCRATIC presidential candidates have some big plans — with big price tags attached.  By our calculations, using figures supplied by the campaigns, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has proposed new spending and tax breaks that would amount to almost $265 billion …

Democrats to choose ‘by end of June’  —  The Democratic party's “superdelegates” have every right to overturn the popular vote and choose the candidate they believe would be best equipped to defeat John McCain in a general election, according to Howard Dean, chairman of the US Democratic National Committee.

SYRIA FOLLOWUP....Here's more on the Syrian/North Korean nuclear reactor thing.  One of the big questions floating around is: Why now?  The intelligence community has kept quiet about it for a full seven months since Al Kibar was bombed, so why did they finally decide to brief Congress (and the press) this week?

Acquittals in groom's shooting spark outrage  —  NEW YORK (CNN) — Nicole Paultre Bell bolted from the courtroom Friday as a judge acquitted three New York City detectives of all charges in the shooting death of her fiance.  —  “I've got to get out of here,” Paultre Bell said.

Top black lawmaker calls Bill Clinton's actions ‘bizarre’  —  (CNN) — The most powerful African-American in Congress again has scolded former President Bill Clinton for his comments during the Democratic presidential race.  —  House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-South Carolina …

...and a PG-13 prison movie...  This morning there was a blogger conference call with Bill Carr, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy - the guy in charge of military recruiting.  —  The topic was the flurry of news stories early this week about the rise in the numbers …

Esteem for US rises in Asia, thanks to Iraq war  —  THE US war in Iraq has strengthened its strategic position, especially in terms of key alliances, and the only way this could be reversed would be if it lost the will to continue the struggle and abandoned Iraq in defeat and disarray.

Election 2008: Pennsylvania Presidential Election  —  Pennsylvania: McCain 44% Obama 43%  —  What a difference two weeks of intense campaigning can make.  The final two weeks of campaigning in the Pennsylvania Primary may not have changed the outcome of the Democratic race, but it helped John McCain in the Keystone State.

Matthews: Whites are ‘willing’ to support Obama in the same way they ‘root for black athletes.’  —  Last night on Hardball, host Chris Matthews sought to give Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) some “advice” on how to get white Americans to vote for him for president: … Watch it:

The Icing Storm  —  Six years ago, Dale Peck reduced Rick Moody to a bloody stump in his notoriously vicious review of Moody's memoir of familial depression, “The Black Veil.”  (C'mon, you remember the first line.)  Next Tuesday, Moody will finally avenge himself — by hurling a pie at Peck …