Brit Hume to Step Down as Fox News Anchor  —  Brit Hume, a top anchor and executive with Fox News since the channel was launched 12 years ago, plans to step down at year's end.  But he won't disappear entirely.  —  Sources familiar with the situation say that Hume, 65 …

The Comedy Stylings of Shecky McCain  —  I made the mistake of watching Verdict yesterday where they had a John McCain sycophant go on and on about how McCain stuck by his principles when he bucked his party on immigration.  He and the host failed to note that he was lining up with the president …

Obama's Remarks on Iraq and Afghanistan  —  Following is the text of Barack Obama's speech on Iraq and Afghanistan, as prepared for delivery and provided by his campaign.  —  Sixty-one years ago, George Marshall announced the plan that would come to bear his name.  Much of Europe lay in ruins.

Most Offensive Quote of the Day  —  If we had a “Most Offensive Quote of the Day” every day, Joe Biden would probably come to own the prize.  But even by the senator's lofty standards of chronic obtuseness, he outdid himself this afternoon: … I know Democrats get a certain tingling …

Christopher Hitchens on the Barack Obama cartoon controversy  —  Satire, according to Jonathan Swift, is “a mirror wherein every man will commonly discern every face but his own”.  The New Yorker's cartoon of Barack Obama and his lady wife, according to its editor David Remnick …

Court Backs Bush on Military Detentions  —  President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.

NYT poll: Majority now believes Obama says what he thinks people want to hear  —  From tonight's monster 33-page omnibus poll, the “new politics” halo is officially off.  Note the trend:  —  McCain does almost as badly at 46/49 but then McCain's not supposed to be a “Lightworker.”

Breaking: Eight Supers Switching to Hillary  —  Big news folks - it looks like our efforts in contacting those Superdelegates are starting to pay off, so keep on writing to them (ok, maybe Donna B's a waste of time).  There are unconfirmed reports, based on phone banking efforts to reach out to Super Ds …

Obama Leads Bush by Twenty, But Clinton Does Better Against McCain  —  Barack Obama says a vote for John McCain is a vote for George W. Bush's third term, but a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that the Democratic hopeful would have a much easier time of it if he were actually running …

Obama: I'd consult on Iraq, but war needs to end  —  (CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama said that if he's elected president in November, he will seek input from military commanders on the Iraq war and the fighting in Afghanistan.  —  “But ultimately, the buck stops with me,” he told CNN's “Larry King Live” in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday.

Political Billboard Showing 9/11 Tragedy Creates Controversy  —  ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A controversial billboard in Orange County has a picture of the burning World Trade Center and the message, “Please Don't Vote for a Democrat.”  The man who paid for the ad says he's trying to help Republicans …

U.S. Envoy to Join Meeting With Iranian  —  WASHINGTON — President Bush has authorized the most significant American diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, sending the State Department's third-ranking official to Geneva for a meeting this weekend on Iran's nuclear program …

'You don't care about me,' Khadr sobs in interview tapes  —  Tapes reveal interrogation by Canadian officials  —  A teenage Omar Khadr sobs uncontrollably as Canadian spy agents question him at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a brief video excerpt released via the internet early Tuesday morning.

OFPS  —  Listen Pete, I developed internal business productivity software for Microsoft for seven years and was a committed Microsoft fan since the early 80s.  —  Working at the company strained my enthusiasm and then Vista combined with Office 2007 destroyed it.

HALPERIN'S WORLD  —  Here I think is an example of news judgment within the DC bell jar.  —  As I noted below, the ‘news’ today, as in things that have happened today and are newsworthy, is the fact that John McCain has dropped his position on Afghanistan and embraced the one Obama has been pushing for the last year.

Obama Leads by 8 Points In Poll  —  Sen. Barack Obama holds his biggest advantage of the presidential campaign as the candidate best prepared to fix the nation's ailing economy, but lingering concerns about his readiness to handle international crises are keeping the race competitive, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

McCain Clarifies On Gay Adoption  —  The campaign sends a statement to this blog for the record:

Blast from the past  —  Over 100 Chicago professors proudly sign a letter declaring their ignorance of economics: … This from a University that has cultivated a reputation as one of the most intellectually rigorous campuses in the country.  I'm tempted to weep.