Why the Press Is Ignoring the Edwards “Love Child” Story  —  A DOUBLE STANDARD IS AT WORK.  —  Everybody had a good laugh last August when Roll Call broke the story about Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, getting arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for playing footsies in a toilet stall.

Source: Novak's Victim Worse Than First Thought  —  The pedestrian who was struck by prominent Washington columnist and commentator Robert Novak is in worse shape than first thought, a hospital source tells ABC 7 News.  —  The victim, a 66-year-old man, appeared somewhat incoherent, said the source who had seen the victim.

McCain broadens definition of surge  —  From CNN's Alexander Marquardt, CNN's Tasha Diakides  —  BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania (CNN) - John McCain defended comments he made in an interview on Tuesday when he incorrectly argued that the surge in Iraq gave way to the so-called “Anbar Awakening” …

Voter Unease With Obama Lingers Despite His Lead  —  Poll Finds Background, Experience Are Advantages for McCain  —  WASHINGTON — Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them — Sen. Barack Obama.

Ohio -2  —  Pennsylvania -1 South Carolina +1  —  Texas +4  —  Utah +1  —  TOTAL +8 TOTAL -8  —  Which is to say that, under the new electoral vote distribution, Bush's 286-to-252 electoral vote margin in 2004 becomes 294-to-244.  Bush would have lost in 2004 if Ohio had not gone his way …

Barack Obama heckled as he visits Western Wall  —  Read Barack Obama's comments in the Yad Vashem visitors' book  —  Barack Obama completed his trip to the Middle East with a pre-dawn visit to the holiest place in Judaism where he received a mixed reaction from Orthodox Jews.

TREASURY'S THIEVES  —  BAILOUT PICKS YOUR POCKET  —  TREASURY Secretary Henry Paulson's bailout plan for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be titled “The Bondholder Relief Act of 2008”: The taxpayers will be providing the relief to holders of Fannie/Freddie debt, many of whom are foreigners.

Now, RNC ads attack Obama in Paris—Michigan, Missouri and Maine  —  John McCain bin ein Berliner too.  —  As the Associated Press has reported, to commemorate Barack Obama's visit to Berlin, Germany today the Republican National Committee is running a new ad in all three U.S. cities named Berlin …

Obama Bets $5 Million on Olympic Viewers  —  Senator Barack Obama's campaign will spend $5 million on advertisements during NBC's coverage of the Summer Olympic Games next month, an NBC spokeswoman confirmed on Wednesday.  —  The candidate's commercials will appear on both the NBC network …

GOP losing the new-media war  —  Republicans have no lack of would-be George F. Wills.  —  But what they really need are some more Robert D. Novaks.  —  The distinction between the two prominent conservative journalists isn't always obvious, but it's nevertheless important to understand …

Putting Money Where Mouths Are: Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1  —  The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq op-ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen.  But true proof of widespread media bias requires …

Schwarzenegger plans to cut state worker pay to cope with late budget  —  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger intends to cut pay for more than 200,000 state workers to save money during the budget standoff, according to a draft copy of the order obtained by The Bee.  —  Brian Baer / bbaer@sacbee.com

McCain Campaign Running Obama-Castro Ad  —  The McCain campaign has a new web ad out placing Barack Obama, for the second time, side-by-side with a foreign dictator.  This time, it's Fidel Castro.  —  A Democrat in south Florida alerted the Huffington Post to the image, which shows Obama and Castro …

Obama and German leader discuss war and economics  —  BERLIN - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as climate and energy issues at Germany's chancellery Thursday, part of a tour aimed at lifting …

Democrats Against Drilling  —  Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other liberal leaders on Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror.  If they permit a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose when Blue Dogs and oil-patch Democrats defect to the GOP position of increasing domestic energy production.

McCain denies he misstated timing of Iraq surge  —  BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) — Republican John McCain pushed back on Wednesday against Democratic criticism that he misstated when the troop buildup ordered by President Bush began, saying elements were put in place before Bush announced the strategy in early 2007.

Another Peek Inside the Brain of the Electorate  —  So a bunch of academics decides to revisit one of the defining books of modern American politics, a 1960 tome on the electorate.  They spend years comparing interviews with voting-age Americans from 2000 and 2004 to what Americans said during elections in the 1950s.