Obama on GOP: ‘If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun’  —  Barack Obama is warning supporters that the general election fight between him and John McCain may get ugly, but the Illinois senator is vowing not to back down.  —  “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun …

McCain doesn't pick up on Michelle Obama joke  —  So a man finally got a question into McCain and he had a very different sort of question.  —  The questioner noted that he had been educated at Princeton and Harvard and made more than $300,000 a year.  —  “How can I be proud of my country?” he asked.

Obama Goes One on One, Battling ‘Just a Speechmaker’ Label  —  Standing before Senator Barack Obama at a campaign event Thursday in Wisconsin, a young man asked him earnestly, “What does life mean to you?”  —  “Oh, goodness,” Mr. Obama began.  “Well, you know, I, uh, you don't know where to start on a question like that.”

Stay classy, Chris Matthews  —  Chris Matthews had his opportunity to offer remembrances of his colleague, Tim Russert, on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, and used it to give an anti-war screed.  [...] Read the rest »

“The Happening”: The Most Morally Abhorrent Film Ever Made (Spoiler Alert)  —  Chris does an admirable (and hilarious) job of tearing apart M. Night Shyamalan's latest crime against cinema, The Happening.  It is incredibly awful, so laughingly bad that at one point during the screening …

In '74 Thesis, the Seeds of McCain's War Views  —  About a year after his release from a North Vietnamese prison camp, Cmdr.  John S. McCain III sat down to address one of the most vexing questions confronting his fellow prisoners: Why did some choose to collaborate with the North Vietnamese?

Getting Paid  —  Saudi Arabia has a plan to boost their oil production in the near future.  According to the NYT's Jad Mouawad that “was seen as a sign that the Saudis are becoming increasingly nervous about both the political and economic effect of high oil prices.”

The Relevance of ANWR?  —  Ramesh responds: … Point taken.  But McCain's embrace of cap-and-trade didn't happen in a vacuum: It was an attempt, albeit a misguided one, to break with the heads-in-the-sand approach to energy and climate change that far too many conservatives have been taking for far too long.

Tariff to Nowhere  —  According to Political Science 101, candidates run to extremes in primary season and crowd the center in November.  A good test will be whether the apparent Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, tries to reclaim a moderate position on trade.

Key Iraqi Leaders Deliver Setbacks to U.S.  —  Premier Rejects Terms of Proposed Pacts; Cleric Reactivates Militia  —  The Bush administration's Iraq policy suffered two major setbacks Friday when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki publicly rejected key U.S. terms for an ongoing military presence …

ASSIGNMENT DESK: BILL RICHARDSON FOR VP?  —  Make Bill Richardson vice president, or he will kill this child.  Yeeearrgghhh!  —  Ryan asks, “Could you do an evaluation of Richardson for VP?  He seems like an obviously good choice, but there hasn't really been any discussion of him as a nominee.