NPR Poll Shows Tough Road Ahead For Democrats  —  A new public opinion survey for NPR shows just how difficult it will be for Democrats to avoid big losses in the House this November.  —  Democrat Stan Greenberg and Republican Glen Bolger conducted the first public battleground poll of this election cycle.

Petraeus briefly collapses at Senate hearing on Afghanistan  —  Gen. David Petraeus, the head of Central Command, briefly collapsed at a Senate Armed Services hearing on progress in Afghanistan.  —  Petraeus was about to answer a question when he went silent and passed out in front of the microphone.

Rep. Bob Etheridge gets vicious in viral video — but who filmed it and why?  —  So, what really happened when Rep. Bob Etheridge ran into a couple of self-described “students” on the streets of D.C. last week?  The video confrontation between the obscure seven-term North Carolina Dem …

66% of Voters Are Angry At The Media  —  Sixty-six percent (66%) of U.S. voters describe themselves as at least somewhat angry at the media, including 33% who are Very Angry.  —  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 31% say they are not angry at the media …

I admit it: I was wrong to have supported Barack Obama  —  In three and a half years of blogging, this has been my single most unpopular post.  There's little point, I know, in reminding readers that my support for Barack Obama was qualified; that I simultaneously endorsed GOP Congressional candidates …

Efforts to Repel Gulf Oil Spill Are Described as Chaotic  —  GRAND ISLE, La. — Deano Bonano, the emergency preparedness director for Jefferson Parish, marched from a motor home being used as a command center to an office across the street filled with BP officials.  —  It was late May.

Angle works to soothe nervous GOP  —  Sharron Angle is coming to Washington for two days of meetings designed to reassure worried Republican leaders that she will not let Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid define her as an eccentric right-wing extremist before her campaign against Reid even gets off the ground.

Obama May Go ‘Middle Big’ in BP Address  —  I'm pulling this out of last night's Night Beat with a bit of augmentation.  —  Aside from regulation, a strong confrontational tone against BP, and an acknowledgment of reality, the White House is remaining mum on whether the President will use …

Meg Whitman Was Accused of Shoving eBay Employee  —  SAN FRANCISCO — During her 10 years as chief executive of eBay, Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor of California, was known as a demanding leader who did not hesitate to express displeasure with employees who failed to live up to her standards.

Washington Sketch: Clinton finally ahead of Obama in popularity  —  It's about two years too late, but Hillary Clinton has finally pulled ahead of Barack Obama.  —  By any measure — favorability ratings or job approval — Americans by a sizable margin have warmer views of the secretary of state than they do of the president.

Giving In on Trading, Bankers Turn to Other Losses  —  WASHINGTON — Bankers have all but given up on defeating one of the most contentious provisions in the financial regulation bill — one that would effectively bar federally insured banks from trading for their own accounts …

Pentagon explains Kirk politicking on active duty  —  The Pentagon today offered details to support its assertion that Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk twice violated military policy by participating in political activities while on active duty — once in 2008 and once in 2009.

Recipe for disaster: When the media's big story spills over from day to day  —  Do you think you have seen that gull before?  You don't suppose the TV news folks are recycling oily birds from the Exxon Valdez disaster, do you?  Or that they have video files bulging with stock pathetic pelicans, glum inky crabs and sad-sack oysters?

Glenn Beck's paranoid thriller, “The Overton Window”  —  Threshold.  321 pp.  $26  —  The success of Glenn Beck's novel, “The Overton Window,” will be measured not by its literary value (none), or its contribution to the thriller genre (small), or the money it rakes in (considerable) …

Obama Will Take to Oval Office With a Familiar Theme  —  WASHINGTON — The venue says it all.  By choosing to speak to the nation on Tuesday night for the first time from the Oval Office, where his predecessors have spoken of wars and disasters, President Obama is conveying the gravity of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Paypal Called, Paypal Caved  —  Paypal backed down.  Excelsior!  —  As many of you know, on Friday of last week, my paypal account was “restricted.”  After a recent review of my account they said, “it has been determined” that I was “currently in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy.

American arrested searching for Osama bin Laden  —  Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — A 52-year-old American citizen who said he was searching for Osama bin Laden was detained in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan this week, Pakistani police said Tuesday.  —  The Californian named Gary …

Santorum plans fourth Iowa trip  —  Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will travel to Iowa next week to speak at a lunch event at the Iowa Republican Party's convention.  —  It will be the Republican's fourth trip to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus state …

War and Remembrance  —  A father retraces the steps of his son, a gallant Marine who lost his life in the liberation of Iraq.  —  Of all the men I met in Baghdad, Colonel Ali Jafar most looks the part of a senior Iraqi officer.  A large salt-and-pepper mustache lends him authority—as if he needed it at 6′6″.

Proposed Arizona law denies citizenship to kids of illegal immigrants  —  (CNN) — A proposed Arizona law would deny birth certificates to children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents.  —  The bill comes on the heels of Arizona passing the nation's toughest immigration law.

Enamored with wind, Obama ignored drilling risks  —  The Minerals Management Service, which is charged with regulating offshore oil drilling, was a deeply troubled agency when Barack Obama inherited it from George W. Bush.  Top MMS officials had been caught drinking, doing drugs and even having sex with oil-industry contacts.

Who's the Enemy in the War on Terror?  —  The U.S. is at war with violent Islamist extremism, and the Obama administration does moderate Muslims no favor by refusing to recognize this.  —  In the new National Security Strategy released by the White House last month, the Obama administration rightly reaffirms …

Armed pair held at Central Command base  —  MacDill Air Force Base, Florida (CNN) — A heavily armed man and woman were in custody Monday after trying to enter the Air Force base that houses the headquarters for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan without authorization, an Air Force spokeswoman said.

The Unemployed Held Hostage  —  Since June 1, when federal unemployment benefits began to expire, an estimated 325,000 jobless workers have been cut off.  That number will swell to 1.25 million by the end of the month unless Congress extends the benefits.  The Senate, so far, has failed to act.

Myths about the teacher layoff crisis  —  By now, you've probably heard about the urgent teacher layoff crisis that threatens public education across America.  Due to shrinking state and local budgets, up to 300,000 teachers could be laid off, with devastating educational consequences for our children, such as burgeoning class sizes.