For GOP: all pain, no gain  —  Four months after John McCain's sweeping defeat, senior Republicans are coming to grips with the fact that the party is still - in stock market terms - looking for the bottom.  —  Republicans this week are processing two sobering new polls that found …

Obama Taps Clinton Ideas but Not Clinton Herself  —  WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton has not participated in any of the White House's planning sessions on health care, the issue that defined her public persona during the 1990s.  Intent on establishing herself as a powerful secretary of state …

Democrats' Diversionary Tactics  —  In the first two months of 2009, the Democratic Congress and the White House have spent more money than the combined cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the response to Hurricane Katrina.  After they doled out taxpayer dollars at such a blistering pace …

Was ‘Lady Macbeth’ behind Barack Obama's snub of Gordon Brown?  —  On US radio's Garrison show today, I was asked for my reaction as a true born Englishman to President Obama's double insult - first the sending back of the Winston Churchill bust, then his snub to Gordon Brown.  “Tough one.

Matters of Principal  —  TO stanch the hemorrhage of foreclosures, we don't need another bailout.  What we need is a fix — and the wisdom to see what is in our own self-interest.  —  An avalanche of foreclosures is coming — as many as eight million in the next several years.

An IG for Chas Freeman  —  Chas Freeman, designated head of the National Intelligence Council, has all the right enemies.  And his enemies are going after him because they don't like the fact that he's criticized Israel in strong terms in the past.  But that said, just because his enemies …

2 cops lightly hurt, terrorist shot dead in Jerusalem attack  —  A Palestinian driver rammed a bulldozer into a bus and a police car on a Jerusalem highway Thursday, lightly wounding two officers before he was shot dead - the latest in a string of attacks by Palestinian terrorists using heavy machinery against Israeli civilian targets.

Sex Appeal May Have Hurt Sarah Palin  —  In a Sept. 4, 2008 column, just after Sarah Palin accepted the Republican nomination for vice-president, Will Wilkinson wrote admiringly of her “sexual power,” adding: “I think she is a tremendously sexy woman.  How this will affect the race, I have no idea, but it's just got to.”

Jon Stewart's rant: Santelli re(un)wound  —  Apparently Rick Santelli - famous for “Santelli's rant” on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a broadcast diatribe against the Obama administration's bailout of bad mortgages - should have shown up on The Daily Show.

New jobless claims unexpectedly drop to 639,000  —  WASHINGTON - The number of new jobless claims and the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits both dropped more than expected last week, though they remain at elevated levels and are unlikely to fall substantially in the coming months.

Obama surprises daughters with new swing set  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — First daughters Malia and Sasha Obama got a big surprise after school Wednesday: a brand-new swing set.  —  They squealed with delight upon seeing it, a spokeswoman for the first lady said.

For Young President, Flecks of Gray  —  WASHINGTON — Well, that didn't take long.  Just 44 days into the job, and President Obama is going gray.  —  It happens to all of them, of course — Bill Clinton still had about half a head of brown hair when he took office but was a silver fox two years later …

Professor Takes Heat for Calling Cops on Student Who Discussed Guns in Class  —  A professor in Connecticut reported one of her students to the police after he gave a class presentation on why students and teachers should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus.