Tonight... We Are All Rush Limbaugh  —  Earlier this evening, as most of you now know, one of our own, Rush Hudson Limbaugh, while taking withering fire, crashed and burned.  —  Tonight, Rush is no longer ‘just’ a radio personality.  —  Tonight, Rush is no longer ‘just’ a NFL owner denied

Hillary Clinton Now More Popular Than Barack Obama  —  Secretary of state viewed favorably by 62% of Americans, president by 56%  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Hillary Clinton lost the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, but in one respect she now ranks ahead of Obama.

CNN Admits That On-Air Commentator Has Ties To Insurance Industry, Promises Full Disclosure  —  Looks like the insurance industry has another PR mess on its hands.  —  CNN has acknowledged in a statement to me that a high-profile Republican commentator who frequently discusses health care …

Hatch: MoveOn.Org Is Scurrilous — And I'm Going To Kick Them In The Teeth  —  On MSNBC this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell asked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) about a MoveOn-organized protest outside his Salt Lake City office, where protesters criticized Hatch for allegedly being beholden …

DEVELOPING: REPORT SAYS NO BOY INSIDE OUT-OF-CONTROL BALLOON  —  AP: A 6-year-old boy climbed into a hot-air balloon aircraft and floated away Thursday, forcing officials to scramble to figure out how to rescue the boy.  —  Larimer County sheriff's spokeswoman Eloise Campanella says the device …

When Your Neighbor Loses His Job It's A Recession.  When You Screw A Whore Behind Your Wife's Back, Get Caught, And Lose Your Job, It's A Catastrophic Economic Meltdown  —  Disgraced criminal Eliot Spitzer has for reasons unknown been occupying a columnist spot at Slate.com for some period of time.

Gillibrand, Schumer, drop out of J Street conference  —  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has asked to be removed from the host committee for a conference of the left-leaning Jewish group J Street and was “unaware” she had been included on the group's list of supporters, spokesman Matt Canter said.

Sen. Vitter: Reid wants illegals counted in Census  —  Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who is sponsoring an amendment to an appropriations bill that would require illegal immigrants list their status on next year's Census, said late Wednesday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) …

‘Dead’ al Qaeda terrorist surfaces for media  —  Doubts raised on drone tactics  —  A key al Qaeda military planner thought dead by the United States and Pakistan gave an interview this week to a Pakistani reporter, illustrating the uncertainties of a military strategy based on air strikes by unmanned drones.

French troops were killed after Italy hushed up ‘bribes’ to Taleban  —  When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified.  —  Their revulsion increased with the news …

Third-party pooper: GOP's N.J. dilemma  —  The surging campaign of third-party candidate Chris Daggett has turned the New Jersey governor's race into a dead-heat and left Republicans divided over the seriousness of the threat he poses to GOP nominee Chris Christie.

LEAKED NETWORK MEMO REVEALS: Obama Controls Your Television Set  —  On September 10th of this year the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) posted a press release informing the world that “from October 19-25, more than 60 network TV shows [will] spotlight the power and personal benefits of service …

A.P. Asks if Obama is “obnoxiously articulate”  —  Political reporters have now toggled from worrying that Obama gets “too much” media coverage to asking whether he is “too” good at communicating through the media.  Maybe even obnoxiously good.  Maybe even — here comes that loaded word from the primaries — too articulate.

Cap-and-Trade Climate Bill Would Slow U.S. Economy, CBO Head Says  —  A House-passed bill that targets climate change through a cap-and-trade system of pollution credits would slow the nation's economic growth slightly over the next few decades and would create “significant” …

The Death March  —  [ analysis ] Iran's post-election turmoil and the ensuing human rights crisis entered a new phase this week, after authorities announced death sentences for four defendants following the mass trials held for more than a hundred people accused of fomenting unrest and challenging the election results.

New book pins ‘debategate’ on Dem  —  In the annals of Washington scandals, “debategate” in 1983 may have set some sort of record for flare followed by fizzle.  It looked to some reporters, for a brief moment, like it could topple a CIA director, a White House chief of staff and maybe even a president.

Leading Blue Dog wants to open up Medicare to uninsured  —  Blue Dog Rep. Mike Ross, who made headlines by rejecting a compromise he'd negotiated on a public health insurance option, has suggested to Democratic leaders that the government-run Medicare program be opened to those without insurance.

Maverick fallout: GOP won't retaliate  —  Mitch McConnell and his deputies in the Senate Republican leadership are responding very cautiously to Olympia Snowe's decision to become the first GOP vote for a Democratic health care reform bill.  —  That's about all they can do.