Obama: Surge Doesn't Meet Long-Term Goals  —  In An Exclusive Interview With Katie Couric, Illinois Senator Defends Position On Troop Buildup … Katie Couric: Sen. Obama, first of all, you have not been to Iraq since 2006.  What did you learn on your recent visit that surprised you?  Or what was new?

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS CAUGHT WITH MISTRESS AND LOVE CHILD!  —  Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.  —  The married ex-senator from North Carolina …

McCain Meltdown  —  John McCain said this today in Rochester, New Hampshire: … This is the ninth presidential campaign I've covered.  I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate.  It smacks of desperation.  It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency.

“Wall Street Got Drunk”: ‘Banned’ Bush Video Surfaces  —  An ABC-TV outlet in Houston, and now the Houston Chronicle, have posted a video taken at a political fundraiser for Pete Olson, featuring George W. Bush last week — capturing some embarrassing/revealing moments after, he noted, he had asked cameras to be turned off.

Stop the presses!  It's official: Young Johnny McCranky has his head wedged so far up his butt, we can barely see his lying lips flapping  —  A friend reports that Young Johnny, speaking live on MSNBC, just said, “The oil executives say that we could see the benefit of offshore drilling in just a couple years.”

Obama Campaign Prints German-language Flyers for Berlin Rally  —  This is pretty extraordinary.  A candidate for the American Presidency is using flyers printed in German to turn people out for his campaign rally in Berlin on Thursday.  This flyer can be found on a bilingual page on BarackObama.com advertising the event:

Mr. Obama in Iraq  —  THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable.  So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account …

The Fannie Mae Gang  —  Angelo Mozilo was in one of his Napoleonic moods.  It was October 2003, and the CEO of Countrywide Financial was berating me for The Wall Street Journal's editorials raising doubts about the accounting of Fannie Mae.  I had just been introduced to him by Franklin Raines …

Vanity Fair Covers The New Yorker  —  We here at Vanity Fair maintain a kind of affectionate rivalry with our downstairs neighbors at The New Yorker.  We play softball every year, compete for some of the same stories, and share an elevator bank.  (You can tell the ones who are headed …

Too young for the No. 1 job?  —  Barack Obama is too young to be president.  Yes I know he is 46 and the Constitution sets the presidential age qualification at 35 or higher, but Obama has said that we ought not to interpret the Constitution woodenly and formalistically.

Obama: Israel's a friend of Israel  —  During Sen. Barack Obama's remarks to the press today in Amman, Jordan, he meant to assert that the United States would continue to strongly support Israel.  But this is how that sentence came out as he answered foreign policy questions on a broad range of subjects:

Congress members' flight loses cabin pressure  —  (CNN) — A plane carrying 123 people, including seven members of Congress, was forced to make an emergency landing Tuesday due to mechanical issues, the Federal Aviation Administration said.  —  The pilot of Continental Airlines Flight 458 …