What's Wrong With the Finance Bill?  An Interview With Sen. Jay Rockefeller.  —  Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) chairs the Finance Committee's Health Care Subcommittee.  His support will be crucial — maybe even decisive - in getting health-care reform out of the Finance Committee.

Obama: Legalize illegals to get them health care  —  Republicans see a backdoor move toward ‘amnesty’  —  President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

Irving Kristol, 1920-2009  —  Irving Kristol, writer, editor, and social philosopher, has died in Washington at the age of 89.  His wisdom, wit, good humor, and generosity of spirit made him a friend and mentor to several generations of thinkers and public servants.  —The Editors

Miss California Wows Conservatives  —  ABC News' Teddy Davis and Brittany Crockett Report:  —  The Value Voters Summit heard from potential Republican presidential candidates and GOP congressional leaders on Friday morning.  —  But it was Carrie Prejean—former Miss California—who stole the show.

Former CIA Directors Urge Torture Prosecution Reversal  —  The Justice Department investigation into CIA torture allegations may have already jeopardized American intelligence capabilities, seven former CIA directors told President Obama.  In a letter, the spy chiefs urge …

No, It's Not About Race  —  You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I go running several times a week.  My favorite route, because it's so flat, is from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol and back.  I was there last Saturday and found myself plodding through tens of thousands of anti-government “tea party” protesters.

Michelle Obama Says Women Are “Crushed” by Health-Care System  —  Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) — First lady Michelle Obama sought support for the administration's health-care plans from family advocacy groups and health-care professionals, saying the treatment of women under the current system is “unacceptable.”

ABC NEWS: Zazi Admits Al-Qaeda Ties, May Plead Guilty  —  3-Day FBI Interrogation Reveals Denver Man Had Received Explosives Training  —  DENVER — The Aurora man under FBI investigation for alleged ties to a New York bomb plot has admitted he has ties to al-Qaida and is in negotiations …

Duo in ACORN Videos Say Effort Was Independent  —  Duo in Sting Video Say Their Effort Was Independent  —  The proposition was outrageous, outlandish, and right up James E. O'Keefe III's alley.  Hannah Giles was on the phone from the District, and she was asking him to dress like her pimp …

Amid Large Protests, Iran Leader Calls Holocaust a Lie  —  BEIRUT, Lebanon — Tens of thousands of green-clad protesters chanted and carried banners through the heart of Tehran and other Iranian cities on Friday, defying tear gas and truncheons as they turned large swaths …

Washington Sketch: Michelle Obama Gets Her Farmers Market  —  Let's say you're preparing dinner and you realize with dismay that you don't have any certified organic Tuscan kale.  What to do?  —  Here's how Michelle Obama handled this very predicament Thursday afternoon:

In Full Page Ad, Fox Asks Where Were Other Media on 9/12.  The Answer: They Were There  —  Today, Fox News took out a full page ad in the Washington Post as well as the News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal and New York Post asking, “How did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN Miss This Story?”

The real ACORN scandal: Its enablers  —  It's hard to know who should be more embarrassed by the revelations about the radical group ACORN, the mainstream media or the politicians who have funneled taxpayer dollars to the group for years.  —  It took two amateur twentysomething filmmakers to do what ABC …

Sixty-Five Views of HC Reform, One Big Trend  —  The trend in opinion on health care reform has been a bit tricky of late.  After a long and substantial rise of opposition, and an equally long but less sizable decline in support, we came to August, the month for the strange in politics.

Obama's smart decision to scuttle Bush's European missile-defense plan.  —  President Barack Obama's scuttling of George W. Bush's plan to deploy a missile-defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland—or, more particularly, the way he scuttled it—amounts to a remarkably shrewd bit of politics and statesmanship.

Conservatives use liberal playbook  —  Conservatives are coming for the Democrats on their blind side — the left.  —  The evidence is everywhere.  —  At tea parties and town halls, conservative demonstrators oppose health care reform with signs bearing the abortion-rights slogan …

Bankers Face Sweeping Curbs on Pay  —  Fed Plans to Limit How Lenders Can Structure Compensation for Executives, Traders, Loan Officers; 5,000 Firms Affected  —  Policies that set the pay for tens of thousands of bank employees nationwide would require approval from the Federal Reserve …

A REGIONAL PARTY.... I was looking over the new results from the weekly Research 2000 poll conducted for Daily Kos.  Most of the results are about what we've come to expect — President Obama's ratings are more favorable than unfavorable (55% to 38%); neither congressional caucus is popular …