Poll shows McCain in 5-point lead over Obama  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

Barack Obama's ‘lost’ brother found in Kenya  —  Senator Barack Obama's long lost brother has been tracked down for the first time living in a shanty town in Kenya, reports claimed.  —  The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut …

What Did We Expect?  —  If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event, the gold medal for brutish stupidity would go to the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin.  The silver medal for bone-headed recklessness would go to Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the bronze medal …

JOHN EDWARDS BLOCKBUSTER NEW EXPOSE!  —  The NATIONAL ENQUIRER's exclusive ongoing investigation uncovers shocking new revelations about The John Edwards Scandal!  —  The day prior to Edwards bombshell admission to an affair on ABC's Nightline, Rielle Hunter and her 6 month old daughter …

Local Clinton backers, McCain adviser meet  —  A brother of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and local Democrats who backed her unsuccessful presidential campaign socialized privately Monday with a top surrogate of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Sen. Joe Lieberman to speak at GOP convention  —  WASHINGTON - Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate in 2000 and now an independent who is one of John McCain's strongest supporters, will speak at the Republican National Convention, an official said.

Two Against The One  —  In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol, a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal.  —  They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.

“Caroline: Pull a Cheney!”  An Open Letter to Caroline Kennedy (head of the Obama VP search team) from Michael Moore  —  We've never met, so I hope you don't find this letter too presumptuous or inappropriate.  As its contents involve the public's business, I am sending this to you via the public on the Internet.

McCain scores a bump from Saddleback  —  He clashed with their leaders in his 2000 campaign.  He struggled to gain their votes during the 2008 primaries.  And he still doesn't spend much time talking about the issues they consider most important.  —  But after Saturday night's televised forum …

Brooks: McCain is an Unprincipled Sellout  —  I'm not sure I've ever really understood the progressive blogosphere convention that everything David Brooks writes must be read in the most ungenerous way possible.  Certainly, though, if you apply that method to Brooks' column from yesterday …

Obama's Wide Web  —  From YouTube to Text Messaging, Candidate's Team Connects to Voters  —  Amid the cramped, crowded cubicles inside Sen. Barack Obama's campaign headquarters here, sandals are as ubiquitous as iPods.  Two young guys in shorts and T-shirts throw a football around.

Conservative Group Finds Networks Positive on Obama  —  It's no secret that Barack Obama has gotten awfully good coverage from the media in this campaign, and plenty of it.  —  Now the conservative Media Research Center says the imbalance is far greater than anyone imagined.

BASHING SOROS.  —  Jesse makes fun of it here, but the Right's success in making “Soros-funded” an epithet has been startling, and the effects depressing.  Soros himself is now cautious about who he funds, refusing to act as lead donor in controversial initiatives where his presence could endanger the project's credibility.

Heilemann: McCain's Pro-Choice V.P. Bluff  —  The alarm bells started ringing last week in the rightmost corners of Republican Nation, when John McCain suggested to The Weekly Standard that the door was still open to the possibility of his naming Tom Ridge as his running mate.