Empathy Triumphs Over Excellence  —  President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor shows that empathy has won out over excellence in the White House.  Sotomayor has sterling credentials: Princeton, Yale Law School, former prosecutor, and federal trial and appellate judge.

Bush vs. Gore rivals challenge Prop. 8 in federal court  —  Two prominent attorneys who argued on opposite sides of Bush vs. Gore, the legal battle over the 2000 presidential election, announced Tuesday that they will challenge Proposition 8 in federal court and seek to restore gay marriage until the case is decided.

North Korea Threatens Armed Strike, End to Armistice  —  North Korea threatened military action in response to South Korea joining a program to seize weapons shipments, and said it's no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.  —  South Korea's actions are tantamount to a …

Burris on tape offering a check for Blagojevich  —  A transcript of a secretly recorded phone call between the brother of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and U.S. Sen. Roland Burris was released in federal court today, a call in which Burris, then seeking the Senate seat, was recorded offering the Blagojevich campaign a campaign check.

Exploding debt threatens America  —  Standard and Poor's decision to downgrade its outlook for British sovereign debt from “stable” to “negative” should be a wake-up call for the US Congress and administration.  Let us hope they wake up.  —  Under President Barack Obama's budget plan, the federal debt is exploding.

AT&T May Have Swayed ‘Idol’ Results  —  LOS ANGELES — AT&T, one of the biggest corporate sponsors of “American Idol,” might have influenced the outcome of this year's competition by providing phones for free text-messaging services and lessons in casting blocks of votes at parties organized …

Why I'm Not Running for Mayor  —  I WAS the kind of New York kid who played stickball in the street, made pocket change working at the local bagel store and handed out leaflets on Election Day.  I loved New York.  I couldn't imagine why people would live anywhere else.

A “'Heritage of the Left' of the Right”  —  The political system enters a period of infinite regress: … This seems pretty misguided to me.  In particular, DHE needs to think harder about the fact that there are already well-resourced conservative think tanks with plenty of capabilities.

Canada official eats seal heart  —  Canada's governor general, Michaelle Jean, has helped to butcher and eat a seal in an apparent act of solidarity with hunters.  —  Ms Jean used a traditional Inuit knife to help gut the animal then ate a slice of raw heart.

Banks Aiming to Play Both Sides of Coin  —  Industry Lobbies FDIC to Let Some Buy Toxic Assets With Taypayer Aid From Own Loan Books  —  Some banks are prodding the government to let them use public money to help buy troubled assets from the banks themselves.

Montana town wants Gitmo detainees  —  HARDIN, Montana (CNN) — The tiny town of Hardin, Montana, is offering an answer to a very thorny question: Where should the nation put terror detainees if the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is shut down by the end of the year as President Obama has pledged?