Obama Pushes Back on GOP Tire Pressure Attack: “It's Like These Guys Take Pride in Being Ignorant”  —  At a town hall meeting in Berea , Ohio, today, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, pushed back against the GOP attack on his advice to a voter last week that having a tuned up car and fully inflated tires would help save energy.

New poll shows Obama losing support among young, women  —  Barack Obama has lost ground among some of his strongest bases of support, including young people, women, Democrats and independents, according to a new ATV/Zogby poll.  —  The Illinois Democrat has also lost some support among African-Americans …

TAKE MY WIFE, PLEASE!  —  We're trying to find out a bit more about the Bikini Beauty Pageant at the Buffalo Chip, where John McCain showed up and offered up wife Cindy as a contestant.  ESPN says the event is topless and “occasionally bottomless”.  Actually their description is worth quoting in full ...

Bruce Ivins Wasn't the Anthrax Culprit  —  Over the past week the media was gripped by the news that the FBI was about to charge Bruce Ivins, a leading anthrax expert, as the man responsible for the anthrax letter attacks in September/October 2001.  —  But despite the seemingly powerful narrative …

Bayh: Obama hasn't asked me to join ticket  —  Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., told The Indianapolis Star today that Sen. Barack Obama has not asked him to be his running mate and that he's not expecting Obama to announce his vice presidential pick when Obama is in Indiana Wednesday.

Did White House fake link between Saddam and Al Qaeda?  —  First, former CIA Director George Tenet told the president it was a “slam dunk” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  Then came efforts by the Bush White House to discredit critics, like ambassador Joe Wilson, who questioned the wisdom of going to war in Iraq.

GOP: Oil markets ‘responding’ to our protest  —  House Republicans issued the boldest claim yet in their three-day energy protest, insinuating on Tuesday morning that their demonstration may in fact have already begun to lower gas prices.  —  “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking …

Pelosi: At-risk Dems back drilling  —  California Democrat Nancy Pelosi may be trying to save the planet — but the rank and file in her party increasingly are just trying to save their political hides when it comes to gas prices as Republicans apply more and more rhetorical muscle.

Campaign 08: Accused of Acting White to Win  —  Last week, I reported for the Huffington Post that country singer Toby Keith had performed a pro-lynching anthem on the Colbert Report, and would be playing the same song soon on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and a slew of nationally televised talk shows.

Ex-Presidential Candidate Advocates Stalking Prosecutor  —  Mike Gravel, a former two-term senator from Alaska and fringe Democratic and Libertarian presidential candidate, urged people to stalk a federal prosecutor and his family in order to get criminal contempt charges dropped against Sami Al-Arian …

U.S. ARMY HOPES TO KEEP NATIVE ARABIC SPEAKERS  —  Incentives likely to include large payments to soldiers now working as translators. … The Army may begin paying a retention bonus of as much as $150,000 to Arabic speaking soldiers in reflection of how critical it has become for the US military …

CAN TAKE THE BLOG FROM THE BOY...  The blogless life was going okay for Matt Yglesias until he ran across the Pollack, O'Hanlon, and Biddle op-ed from Foreign Affairs and got on Gchat: … That guy should get a blog.  Possibly at the Center for American Progress.

Man heckles Obama about Pledge of Allegiance … BEREA, Ohio (AP) - A man who wore press credentials and took photographs from a platform interrupted Barack Obama's town-hall meeting Tuesday by shouting complaints that the Democratic presidential candidate had not called for the audience to say the Pledge of Allegiance.