Obama launches reelection campaign with e-mail, web video  —  The president pledges to focus on his job, but will pick up the tempo of campaigning this month with several fundraisers.  The campaign is hoping to raise a record $1 billion.  —  President Obama speaking in March (Jewel Samad / AFP/Getty Images))

Clinton: Shutdown would hurt GOP but might not be ‘traumatic’ for economy  —  A government shutdown might not have a “traumatic” effect on the economy, former President Bill Clinton said Monday.  —  Clinton, who faced a shutdown during his 1995 budget negotiations with congressional Republicans …

GOP Aim: Cut $4 Trillion  —  Budget Plan Would Transform Medicare, Reset Budget Debate; Democrats Balk  —  Republicans will present this week a 2012 budget proposal that would cut more than $4 trillion from federal spending projected over the next decade and transform the Medicare health program …

Now Libya steps on President Obama's message  —  President Barack Obama's decision to intervene in Libya has presented him with a whole new set of political problems with members of both parties.  But its most worrisome effect for the White House is the way it's undermining his efforts …

A Tea Party Star Stirs Iowans, and She Isn't Palin  —  WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Sarah Palin, the reigning heroine of many social conservatives, has given few signals that she will make a presidential bid.  Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 on the strength of his appeal …

It Doesn't Get Any Clearer Than That: “Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war”  —  Here's what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said today about Florida pastor Terry Jones' burning of a Koran, which has been used an excuse by Afghanis to murder 22 people, including seven United Nations workers:

Obama's ‘Bloodbath’: Can We Believe the Hype?  —  Remember when a crusading president, acting on dubious intelligence, insufficient information and exaggerated fears, took the nation into a Middle Eastern war of choice?  That was George W. Bush in 2003, invading Iraq.  But it's also Barack Obama in 2011, attacking Libya.

Bachmann PAC snags top '08 Huckabee aide  —  Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.) political action committee has hired away a former top aide to Mike Huckabee's 2008 campaign in Iowa.  —  Wes Enos, the political director for the former Arkansas governor's winning Iowa caucus campaign …

Jon Huntsman, the rock ‘n’ roll years  —  Jonny Huntsman didn't quite make it through his senior year of high school, and the cause was pretty plain to his classmates.  One recalled the long-haired, diffident Salt Lake City high schooler sitting next to him in history class “hitting his desk as if it were a piano.”

GOP shouldn't panic if whites become a minority  —  Senior Political Analyst Follow Him @MichaelBarone  —  Are whites on the verge of becoming a minority of the American population?  That's what some analysts of the 2010 census results say.  Many go on, sometimes with relish …

Diminished Individualism Watch  —  A few weeks back I commented on a George Will column in which he said that … So I think that it is my civic duty to report that yesterday, as I got off Amtrak 161 from Trenton to Washington — having spent 2 1/2 hours being made more amenable to collectivism …

Is this the first ever portrait of Jesus?  The incredible story of 70 ancient books hidden in a cave for nearly 2,000 years  —  The image is eerily familiar: a bearded young man with flowing curly hair.  After lying for nearly 2,000 years hidden in a cave in the Holy Land, the fine detail is difficult to determine.

The Truth, Still Inconvenient  —  So the joke begins like this: An economist, a lawyer and a professor of marketing walk into a room.  What's the punch line?  They were three of the five “expert witnesses” Republicans called for last week's Congressional hearing on climate science.

Salazar: No BP, Interior drilling deal  —  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar emphatically said on Monday that there is no deal or special talks with BP regarding the company's efforts to resume drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico.  —  “There is absolutely no truth to the rumor …