White House told of militant claim two hours after Libya attack: emails  —  (Reuters) - Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

Mourdock: God at Work When Rape Leads to Pregnancy  —  Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Tuesday when a woman is impregnated during a rape, “it's something God intended.”  —  Mourdock was asked during the final minutes of a debate whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.

Register editor: Obama off-the-record comments deserve to be shared with voters  —  The Des Moines Register's publisher and I spoke with President Barack Obama this morning — but we can't tell you what he said.  —  Just four days before the Register's presidential endorsement is released …

About Those Horses and Bayonets ...  Yes, the American military still uses bayonets, and quite a few.  There are horses too.  —  When Mitt Romney complained during Monday night's presidential debate that the Navy “is smaller now than at any time since 1917,” President Obama shot back with …

Donald Trump to reveal ‘divorce papers of Michelle and Barack Obama’, claims respected financial pundit  —  Donald Trump is to claim that he has unearthed divorce papers of Michelle Obama and the President, according to a respected financial pundit with links to the tycoon.

Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists  —  This project, based on interviews with dozens of current and former national security officials, intelligence analysts and others, examines evolving U.S. counterterrorism policies and the practice of targeted killing.

The Towering Legacy of George W. Bush  —  Conventional wisdom errs when it says that George W. Bush was incompetent.  He was a president of overwhelming influence, the most effective chief executive since FDR.  We live in the world that W. created, for good or — mostly — for ill.

Court Battle Over His Involvement in Bitter Divorce  —  Mitt Romney was heavily involved in the extremely messy divorce of one of his key supporters ... and the Boston Globe is going to court first thing Wednesday morning in an attempt to unseal the court file as well as lift a gag order ... TMZ has learned.

President Obama's 11th-hour strategy shift  —  Everything was going great for Barack Obama until about 9:04 on the night of Oct. 3, when Mitt Romney startled everybody by refusing to live up to his caricature as The Worst Candidate Ever.  —  Romney's late-game comeback …

The Liberal Media, in Love With Our Narrative  —  We are the liberal media—hear us roar.  We like Aaron Sorkin and gay marriage and invitations to the New Yorker's bash on the roof of the W Hotel on the eve of the White House Correspondents Dinner.  We have Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer's cell phone on speed dial.

Could this be a wave election?  —  The conventional wisdom is that the presidential race is perched on a knife's edge, and that the parties will be even in the Senate.  —  But what if that's not the case?  —  Barack Obama has been exposed as just another politician, and a failed one at that.

Plenty of Debates, Not Much About States  —  Democrats regard federalism as quaint, Republicans at least pay lip service to it.  —  In the presidential debates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney ranged across dozens of topics, but an important one didn't come up: federalism.  And no wonder.

Ohio County Mailer Sends Wrong Voting Location And Date To 2300 People  —  The Ohio Democratic Party is calling for corrections to an Ottawa County Board of Elections mailer riddled with errors.  2,300 voters in the northern Ohio county received the notice informing them the election …

Signs and Omens: Obama's Fading Hope and the Graveyard Whistling Choir  —  Nate Silver continues to lead the Democrat Graveyard Whistling Choir, raising Obama to a 70.3% likelihood of victory based on . . . what?  —  I dunno.  I'm not an expert with a New York Times column or anything …

Eastwood Is Back in a Campaign Ad for Romney  —  Clint Eastwood is back on the Republican stage.  But this time there's a script, a 30-second time limit and none of the potential tripwires of live television.  —  Mr. Eastwood, whose long and sometimes incoherent monologue …

WBUR Poll: Warren Leads Brown By 5  —  BOSTON — A WBUR poll of 516 likely Massachusetts voters (PDFs — topline, crosstabs) finds Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren leading Republican U.S. Sen Scott Brown, 48 percent to 43 percent.  —  The poll, conducted Oct. 21-22 by the MassINC Polling Group, has a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Obama Overloads a Tale of Equal Pay  —  The ‘Fair Pay’ law he signed after the Lilly Ledbetter case is not what he claims.  —  President Obama makes much of his concern for women's rights, particularly regarding equal pay, but he seems not to be aware that for nearly half a century …