Krauthammer's Take  —  From last night's All-Stars: On North Korea releasing U.S. journalists to President Clinton: Well, it's the return of hostages in exchange for stuff.  And we will learn about that stuff.  It's clear that this was wired in advance.  There probably was an apology [offered by President Clinton in Pyongyang].

CNN Poll: Americans split on Obama's health care proposals  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - Americans appear split over President Barack Obama's health care reform proposals, according to a new national poll.  —  Fifty percent of those questioned in CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday morning …

GOP turns tables on Democrats  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — National Republicans turned the tables on their political counterparts Wednesday by redirecting angry telephone calls coming into their switchboard to the Democratic National Committee.  —  The DNC released a Web video early …

Obama: ‘Left-wing groups’ should back off.  —  OBAMA WAVES OFF LIBERALS: On the same day that MoveOn.org announced a new wave of ads to pressure centrist ...  ... Democrats on health care reform, President Obama told Senate Democrats he wished “left-wing groups” would back off.

Washington Post Kills ‘Mouthpiece’ Video Series  —  The Washington Post has brought down the curtain on “Mouthpiece Theater.”  —  Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli killed the satirical video series Wednesday after harsh criticism of a joke about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton …

House Orders Up Three Elite Jets  —  Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies.  —  But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel …

William Jefferson verdict: Guilty on 11 of 16 counts  —  ALEXANDRIA, VA. - Former Democratic Congressman William Jefferson was found guilty of 11 of 16 corruption charges today by a federal jury.  —  The jury of eight women and four men returned a guilty verdict following five days of deliberation.

Liasson: ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program ‘is like a mini-Katrina.’  —  Last night, Fox News aired a clip of a woman at a Philadelphia town hall meeting over the weekend berating Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) about health care reform.  “What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. ...

Obama's Domestic Policies Are Having Immediate Effects on Race for Va. Governor  —  Some Voters Who Backed President Disillusioned Over Economic Pledges  —  The coffee was still brewing when Chris Ann Cleland got her first reminder of the day that voting for Barack Obama might have been a mistake.

Salon's handy-dandy guide to refuting the Birthers  —  Barack Obama with his mother, Ann Dunham, in an undated photo from the 1960s.  —  There are, sadly, a lot of Birthers out there.  A recent poll showed that 11 percent of Americans — including 28 percent of Republicans …

Mass. bashers take note: Health reform is working  —  PUNDITS and politicians who oppose universal healthcare for the nation have a new straw man to kick around - the Massachusetts reform plan that covers more than 97 percent of the state's residents.  In the myth that these critics have manufactured …

Shepard Fairey-designed Obama portrait on cover of upcoming Rolling Stone  —  Artist Shepard Fairey, whose iconic HOPE campaign poster of Barack Obama was a global sensation, is back with a new image that both questions and deifies the President.  —  Appearing on the cover of the Aug. 20 Rolling Stone …

Jamie Kirchick: Pervasive Republican Birtherism is the Fault of Liberal Blogs  —  Jamie Kirchick is very upset about this terribly unfair birther rap that's dogging Republicans, and in today's Daily News, argues that it's mostly FDL's fault. … Jamie forgot to mention the ones …

CNN Refusing To Run Health Care Ad Critical Of Insurance Industry  —  What on earth is going on at CNN?  —  The network — already taking criticism for declining to run an ad criticizing Lou Dobbs — is now refusing to run an ad nationally criticizing the insurance industry, the group that tried to place the ad tells me.

Joker Obama Flyers Show Up At George Washington University & Sioux Falls, South Dakota (Updated)  —  Supposedly, prior to yesterday, the Joker Obama posters had only shown up in LA and Atlanta.  Well, now a few hundred have shown up at George Washington University.  Here are a few pics I was emailed yesterday.

Sen. George Voinovich and the GOP as a Party of the South  —  Southern writer Walker Percy liked to poke fun at Ohioans in his novels, just to even things out a bit.  —  “Usually Mississippians and Georgians are getting it from everybody, and Alabamians,” he once explained to an interviewer.