The Bush Paradox  —  Let's go back and consider how the world looked in the winter of 2006-2007.  Iraq was in free fall, with horrific massacres and ethnic cleansing that sent a steady stream of bad news across the world media.  The American public delivered a stunning electoral judgment …

Hoyer hails FISA bill as “a significant victory for the Democratic Party”  —  Just as Nancy Pelosi ran to Time to justify her support for the FISA bill, Steny Hoyer yesterday spouted his justifications to The Politico and said this: … In other words, Democrats achieved a “significant victory” …

Report Sees Illegal Hiring Practices at Justice Department  —  WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials …

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says —"I'm a victim of sexism myself all the time."  —  WASHINGTON—"I'm a victim of sexism myself all the time," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) discussing Tuesday morning whether sexism played a significant role in the defeat of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton …

McCain's Core Advantage  —  In politics, we're having a Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr kind of year.  It was Karr, a French writer, who coined the phrase plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, which means, as Barack Obama has shown, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

OBAMA/MCCAIN: ‘PSYCHOLOGICAL’ BENEFIT?  —  Yesterday, McCain admitted that his offshore drilling proposal would probably have mostly “psychological” benefits, NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy reports.  At a town hall in Fresno that primarily focused on energy issues, McCain was asked a question …

What's Wrong With the Kansas City Star?  —  A disgraceful contribution from their house cartoonist:

Dying Is Hard.  Comedy Is Harder.  —  THE honest truth is, for a comedian, even death is just a premise to make jokes about.  I know this because I was on the phone with George Carlin nine days ago and we were making some death jokes.  We were talking about Tim Russert and Bo Diddley and George said: “I feel safe for a while.

Ad showing men kissing pulled  —  Heinz has withdrawn its Deli Mayo TV ad that featured two men sharing a kiss and apologised to viewers after the advertising regulator received about 200 complaints that it was offensive and inappropriate.  —  The Heinz Deli Mayo ad has been pulled after less …

Obama tacks away from his left-wing base  —  Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is shifting to the center after months of battling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for the hearts of the Democratic Party's liberal base.  —  His recent strategy of political triangulation has already sparked a fight …

Are You Experienced?  —  Why a U.S. senator might not trump a state legislator  —  Obama during his days in the Illinois Senate  —  We are in the opening days of a presidential campaign that pits youth against age, the virtues of experience against the freshness and riskiness of the new arrival.

Even Now, Dems Seem Wholly Uninterested in the Outcome of Iraq  —  I have written a piece at Contentions on the latest progress in Iraq.  I wanted to tie those developments to a new argument being put forward by key Democrats, including former Senate Majority Leader and Obama advisor Tom Daschle.

Senators' mortgages under microscope  —  Amid a brewing scandal over special mortgage deals given to two U.S. senators, Politico last week asked the offices of all 100 senators to describe the circumstances under which they obtained their own home loans.  Seventy-seven senators have complied so far.