Kennedy, looking ahead, urges that Senate seat be filled quickly  —  Seeks law change for interim post  —  Senator Edward M. Kennedy, in a poignant acknowledgment of his mortality at a critical time in the national health care debate, has privately asked the governor and legislative leaders …

Tom Ridge on National Security After 9/11  —  Tom Ridge, the first head of the 9/11-inspired Department of Homeland Security, wasn't keen on writing a tell-all.  But in The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, out September 1, Ridge says he wants to shake “public complacency” over security.

Who's Crazy Now?  —  A series of posts at Reason illustrates that the liberal rage at right-wing loonies is starting to sound, well, a little loonie:  —  From Jesse Walker: “The social construction of the brownshirt menace, chapter DXXIII: … Here's the video:

Left flexes muscles on healthcare reform  —  The fury from the left about President Barack Obama's shift on a public option has raised the prospect of House liberals joining together to defeat a healthcare bill that doesn't meet their standards.  —  Heading into the August recess …

C.I.A. Sought Blackwater's Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists  —  WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists  —  In one of those awful collisions between public policy and real life, I was in the midst of an awkward conversation about end-of-life issues with my father when Sarah Palin raised the remarkable idea that the Obama Administration's attempt to include …

Hatch and Kennedy  —  In principle, there's something ridiculous about the fact that Ted Kennedy's possible medical incapacitation could play a role in the outcome of the health care debate.  Even if Kennedy is too sick to travel to Washington without endangering his health …

A Good-News Photo Op Embarrasses 2 French Ministers  —  PARIS — It was apparently just a little summertime spinning with the aid of a grocery chain, but Luc Chatel, the education minister and government spokesman, found himself in some hot water over a supposedly staged visit to a quiet supermarket on Monday.

Has Mortgage Modification failed?  —  Obama's mortgage modification plan, HAMP (Home Afforable Modification Program), isn't working very well.  Designed to help prevent foreclosures by incentivizing and giving legal protection to previously indifferent middle-men servicers it isn't producing anywhere near …

The Limits of Incrementalism  —  A disheartened Ezra Klein looks at a WSJ/NBC poll showing that people have lots of false beliefs about the president's health care agenda and offers the following chart:  —  My first thought is “reform opponents are lying like crazy and it's working.”

Elizabeth Edwards: I expect a paternity test on Hunter's child  —  (CNN) — Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, told CNN she believes a DNA test will be conducted to confirm the paternity of the child of Rielle Hunter, with whom her husband conducted an affair.

An Odd Silence on Gay Marriage  —  Why won't leading opponents of same-sex marriage go on the record with their predictions?  —  Opponents of same-sex marriage reject it on religious and moral grounds but also on practical ones.  If we let homosexuals marry, they believe …

White House To Phase Out Cash for Clunkers  —  Announcement May Come This Week on When Incentives for Trading in Old Vehicles Will End  —  (CBS/AP) The Obama administration is developing plans to wind down the popular Cash for Clunkers program and could announce by Friday when the incentives will no longer be available.