Iraqi officials hopes for US troop pullout by 2010  —  BAGHDAD - Iraq's government spokesman is hopeful that U.S. combat forces could be out of the country by 2010.  —  Ali al-Dabbagh made the comments following a meeting in Baghdad on Monday between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki …

Obama roars with $25M one-day haul  —  After locking up his party's presidential nomination, Barack Obama's fundraising operation came roaring back to life in June, generating more than a million dollars on five days, including a whopping $25 million that came in on the last day of the month.

Belief Growing That Reporters are Trying to Help Obama Win  —  The belief that reporters are trying to help Barack Obama win the fall campaign has grown by five percentage points over the past month.  The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found that 49% of voters believe most reporters …

After 2000, McCain Learned to Work Levers of Power  —  Senator John McCain was all but a sworn enemy of Senator Trent Lott, the former Republican leader.  —  Mr. Lott had quashed Mr. McCain's most cherished legislative goals.  And, worse, Mr. McCain believed that in the 2000 Republican primaries …

Kickin' it with Samir Kuntar  —  Samir Kuntar is sitting under a photo of himself standing next to Hassan Nasrallah and telling friends that he almost didn't come home.  —  As Israel was getting ready to free Kuntar last Wednesday, the Lebanese militant told guards that he didn't want to walk to freedom in a prison uniform.

Their Fair Share  —  Washington is teeing up “the rich” for a big tax hike next year, as a way to make them “pay their fair share.”  Well, the latest IRS data have arrived on who paid what share of income taxes in 2006, and it's going to be hard for the rich to pay any more than they already do.

No Substitute for Victory  —  I'll go out on a limb and say that Barack Obama will be well received when he speaks in Berlin on July 24.  —  O.K., it's not exactly a limb.  A recent poll shows that the German public prefers Obama to John McCain by 67 percent to 6 percent.  —  But there is angst in Germany.

In satirical payback, Obama camp denies New Yorker writer plane seat  —  There's probably no connection whatsoever.  —  But the New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza, whose long, long article on Barack Obama's early political days in Chicago's ward politics (available here) was the reason …

WHY LOCAL PROPERTY TAXES SHOULDN'T FUND SCHOOLS.  —  Because some people, who don't have kids in public schools and who aren't particularly civic-minded, will inevitably resent paying them and do everything they can to avoid doing so.  Case in point: Sun belt retirees living in “adult” …

The Bin Ladens of the Balkans, Part I  —  Around a thousand mujahideen, veteran Arabic fighters from the anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan, showed up in Bosnia in the mid-1990s to fight a jihad against Serbian Orthodox Christians.  They thought they would be welcomed, and they were right.

McCain Warns Of ‘Hard Struggle’ On The ‘Iraq-Pakistan Border’  —  Today on Good Morning America, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) refused to call the situation in Afghanistan “precarious and urgent,” but admitted that “We have a lot of work to do.”  He warned of a “very hard struggle …

Liberal Bloggers Brace for Victory  —  Obama's Prospects Pose New Concerns for Netroots  —  AUSTIN, July 20 — “Yep, the way it's looking, we might actually win this thing . . .”  —  That's Markos Moulitsas talking, a.k.a. “Kos” to everyone here at Netroots Nation, the four-day liberal blogapalooza …

TRAIN-ING DAY FOR JIHADISTS  —  MUSLIM SUBWAY ADS HAVE TERROR TIE-IN  —  Allah board!  —  An Islamic group plans to blitz 1,000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom federal officials have linked to a plot to blow up city landmarks.

One simple way to predict a victor  —  One cannot help but be struck by the current disconnection in US presidential politics between, on one hand, the excitement and enthusiasm that attend Barack Obama's candidacy and, on the other, the tightness of the race according to recent polls.