What's Next, Mr. President — Cardigans?  —  Barely six months into his presidency, Barack Obama seems to be driving south into that political speed trap known as Carter Country: a sad-sack landscape in which every major initiative meets not just with failure but with scorn from political allies and foes alike.

US soldier shown in Taliban video  —  The video appears as broadcast from the internet source  —  The Taliban have released a 28-minute video showing a US soldier captured in Afghanistan last month.  —  In the video, the soldier, in grey clothes and with shaved head, says being a prisoner is “unnerving”.

Congressman: Centrist Dems talking healthcare coalition with GOP  —  Some centrist House Democrats have reached out to Republicans to explore breaking with their party leadership on healthcare and crafting a reform bill with the rival GOP, one congressman claimed Saturday.

A Challenge to Climate Change Skeptics  —  John Hinderaker at the popular conservative blog PowerLine reports that it's been cold, cold, cold in his home town of Minneapolis, Minnesota, going to far as to compare it with “The Year Without a Summer”, 1816, when global temperatures were abnormally low …

A page out of the Chavez (leftist, in other words) Playbook  —  A [Spanish] Catalan newspaper is reporting that Honduran authorities have seized computers found in the Presidential Palace belonging to deposed president Mel Zelaya.  Taking a page right out of the leftist dictator's handbook …

One Newspaper, Many Checkbooks  —  LINDSEY HOSHAW, a freelance journalist in Palo Alto, Calif., hopes to sell a multimedia slide show and maybe an article to The Times about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a mass of floating plastic trash caught in swirling currents in a stretch of ocean twice the size of Texas.

They Got Some ‘Splainin’ to Do  —  AS political theater, the Sonia Sotomayor hearings tanked faster than the 2008 Fred Thompson presidential campaign.  They boasted no drama to rival the Clarence-Anita slapdown, the Bork hissy fits or the tearful exodus of Samuel Alito's wife.

‘The Cause of My Life’  —  Inside the fight for universal health care. … From the magazine issue dated Jul 27, 2009  —  In 1964, I was flying with several companions to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention when our small plane crashed and burned short of the runway.

An apology, and a pledge  —  I have struggled with how best to convey my regret in letting so many down, and in that regard I realize this column does not do justice to the process of saying “I am sorry.”  A hand-written note or phone call would ultimately be more appropriate …

Americans won't accept ‘long slog’ in Afghanistan war, Gates says  —  The Defense secretary says forces must show progress in a year or risk losing public support — especially as casualties mount with at least 50 U.S. and NATO deaths in July, the deadliest month yet.

Obama not stressing Aug. deadline  —  In his most recent remarks, President Obama has stopped mentioning what had been his mantra — that the House and Senate finish their health-care bills by the August recess — and switched to a less specific call to fast action.

Ex-Lehman traders get huge bonuses  —  Barclays will pay millions to staff at its new US arm  —  Barclays is to pay tens of millions of pounds to its investment bankers, who have made huge profits from trading in government debt, derivatives and foreign exchange.