EXCLUSIVE: White House asked Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about Senate run  —  Senior White House advisers asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about whether he was serious about running for Senate, and to feel out whether he'd be open to other alternatives, according to sources familiar with the situation.

He Was Supposed to Be Competent  —  The spill is a disaster for the president and his political philosophy.  —  I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill.  This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office.

OPINION POLL: U.S. SENATE RACE: Survey shows Lowden gives GOP best chance of winning in fall  —  Lowden would attract more independent voters than Reid  —  Republican Sue Lowden has the best chance of defeating U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, according to a new poll for the Review-Journal that also suggests …

Naming Names  —  Without a guilty plea for beating a woman, but with a Devil May Care attitude, RedState.com's fearless editor, Erick Erickson, endeavoring to write about himself in the third person, though omniscient or limited is still up for grabs, will now proceed to dish out the dough …

A disaster with many fathers  —  Here's my question: Why were we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place?  —  Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there.  As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep …

Rand Paul Suggests Children Of Illegal Immigrants Should Not Be U.S. Citizens (VIDEO)  —  Here's another one for the list of out-there Rand Paul statements...  Paul recently suggested to a Russian TV station that the U.S. should abandon its policy of granting citizenship to the children …

The Atlantic Has A Mess On Its Hands  —  The Atlantic Magazine thought it would be able to speak poetic historical justice, by splashing the headline that the original reviled one, Kenneth Starr of Monica and Bill and Blue Dress and Impeachment fame, had been arrested for running a Ponzi Scheme.

Oil Flow Is Stemmed, but Could Resume, Official Says  —  HOUSTON — By injecting solid objects as well as heavy drilling fluid into the stricken well leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico overnight, engineers appeared to have stemmed the flow of oil, Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard …

House Votes to Allow 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal  —  WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don't ask, don't tell.”

Marine's cheeky Sarah Palin tattoo the butt of jokes  —  Gunnery Sgt. Benjamin Lepping, an explosive ordnance disposal technician currently deployed to Afghanistan, says former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is “the hottest cougar in the Republican Party.”  (Left photo by the AP.

The Chinese Economic Model  —  Something that emerges quite quickly and a bit unexpectedly from being taken around on an economics-focused tour of China is that the Chinese economic miracle is really a great deal less of a “free market” miracle than the conventional understanding in the United States would suggest.

Friday Thought: Has The Tea Party Done Anything For The GOP?  —  With the exception of Scott Brown's miraculous Senate race victory in Massachusetts — and even there, one can question the premise — has the Tea Party movement really done anything to help the Republican Party this cycle?

GOP moves to repeal healthcare law  —  House Republican leaders introduced a bill Thursday to repeal and replace the sweeping healthcare law adopted in late March.  —  According to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the measure would repeal the current law and replace it with the alternative …