Top Items:

Cordesman on what's really going on in Basra — Excellent work as usual from a guy who's never shied from telling either side what it doesn't want to hear. I cringe every time I write about Basra since it's impossible anymore to tell who's allied with whom and why: Maliki, Sadr, the JAM …
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Sadr Offers Deal for Truce as Fighting Persists in Iraq — BAGHDAD — The Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr on Sunday took a step toward ending six days of intense combat between his militia allies and Iraqi and American forces in Basra and Baghdad, saying in a statement that his followers …


Iraqi army forces defect to Moqtada al-Sadr — With gunfire and explosions echoing round him, Lt Hamid Abbas of the Iraqi Army was letting no car pass unchallenged at his makeshift roadblock on the outskirts of a Basra slum. — His closest scrutiny, however, was reserved …

Remind me again — who's losing in Basra?
Discussion:
Redstate, Los Angeles Times, Middle Earth Journal, Roads to Iraq, rubber hose, Liberty Street, PoliGazette and NewsBusters.org

Breaking - Sadr Plays “Good Guy” Card [Updated]
Discussion:
Voice of America, Reuters, Neptunus Lex, Daily Kos, kuna.net.kw, The Left Coaster and Balloon Juice


Gallup Daily: Obama Now at 52% to Clinton's 42% — McCain still has slight advantage over both Democratic opponents — PRINCETON, NJ — Barack Obama has extended his lead over Hillary Clinton among Democrats nationally to 52% to 42%, the third consecutive Gallup Poll Daily tracking report …
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How to Win in a Knife Fight — The Democratic race could well come down to the first contested convention in years. Lessons on how to prevail. — After the last Democratic primary is held in early June, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will have enough votes from delegates elected …
Discussion:
Dean's World

BRAZILE EXPLAINS CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE — Donna Brazile was on This Week this morning and explained how the credentials committee works. If she's right, and I'm sure Brazile knows this stuff like the back of her hand, it's even worse for Clinton than I thought.

Obama To Blame If The Dem Contest Goes To The Convention — Obama supporter Josh Marshall: … (Emphasis supplied.) What did Clinton actually say? … (Emphasis mine.) Josh's reaction to this? … (Emphasis supplied.) Excuse me? Not even Barack Obama says MI and FL is resolved.

CLINTON: ALL THE WAY TO DENVER
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias, Scripting News, Brendan Nyhan, The Mahablog, The Carpetbagger Report and CNN

Say It Ain't So, Joe — It's not news that Sen. Joe Lieberman, the onetime Democratic VP candidate, is backing John McCain for President. Nor is it news that Lieberman takes a different view of the Iraq War than most Democrats. But what he said this morning on ABC's “This Week” is certainly news.
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Cash-strapped Clinton fails to pay bills — Hillary Rodham Clinton's cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles.
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Don't Stop Campaigning — THE GROWING chorus among some Democrats …
Discussion:
Hillary Is 44, Open Left, Booman Tribune, The Carpetbagger Report, The Crypt's Blogs, NO QUARTER and The Newshoggers

Bush booed loudly while throwing out first pitch in Nationals home opener. — President Bush delivered the first pitch tonight at the new Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. to a resounding chorus of boos. After being announced, Bush was showered by boos as he strode to the mound.


No, John McCain Can't Just Quit — Susan Milligan, writing in the Boston Globe, takes an all-too-rare foray into John McCain's campaign finance hypocrisy. But this bit, straight out of the McCain's disinformation machine, simply isn't true: … McCain took the money all right …
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Dith Pran, ‘Killing Fields’ Photographer, Dies at 65 — Dith Pran, a photojournalist for The New York Times whose gruesome ordeal in the killing fields of Cambodia was re-created in a 1984 movie that gave him an eminence he tenaciously used to press for his people's rights, died in New Brunswick, N.J., on Sunday.
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Rove: The horns are retractable — Karl Rove got interrupted during an appearance at George Washington University on Friday by demonstrators calling for his prosecution as a war criminal. Rove, who had nothing to do with war planning or execution — he ran the political side of the White House …