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 …

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.