Big Fred, the not-yet-candidate, has finally learned what fun it is to be a front-runner. And after the rough month Rudy Giuliani has endured, he is probably pleased to share the spotlight and some of the heat.

Thompson has faced some noise from detractors who question his pro-life credentials, waving around some questionnaire he once filled out. In response Fred has stood comfortably behind his record with National Right to Life, with whom he voted his entire Senate career. Now comes news that Thompson helped out the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, according to minutes of a board meeting from 1991 showing the group hired Thompson that year. Read more...

The administration is down to its last two poker chips and has decided to go all in over this fight over executive privilege. It’s a good bet for the president.

With approval ratings stuck in the very low 30s, the president doesn’t have much to lose in betting it all against the congressional Democrats on this hand.

The facts surrounding this fight are on the side of the White House. The president has the power to fire any U.S. attorney that he wants to fire, for any reason he wants.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) are going on a fishing expedition, and everybody knows it. Read more...

Congress is scheduled back today for the next month, and it is clear that the last year and a half of the Bush administration will not be a “combat-free zone.” Unlike the last two years of Eisenhower or Reagan (after Iran Contra), the end of the Bush administration will more resemble the end of the Clinton administration and the first Bush presidency. In both cases, the party that controlled Congress clashed repeatedly with the party in control of the White House as a prelude to the next national election.

This is by design from both sides. There are clear policy differences between the parties on matters such as executive privilege, Iraq policy, federal spending and judicial appointments. There seems to be little interest in trying to find common legislative ground; each side wants to preserve the “issues” to run on in the next election. Thus far, “base” politics is alive and well. Read more...

Well, apparently, Sunni and Shiite leaders in Iraq can sometimes agree.

We know, for instance, that they hold the same contempt for the American troops who are there to save them.

Now The Washington Post tells us that thanks to the fine job of country-saving thus far, leaders of both factions are demanding that their government make it easier for individuals to arm themselves — to lower impediments against gun ownership.

Their argument is that citizens need to protect themselves against an ever-present danger.  Read more...

Last week a poll in New Hampshire showed Al Gore winning the primary in that state, and this coming fall I predict Al Gore will win the Nobel Prize for peace.

Every so often, in America, voters have an opportunity to fire the shot that will be heard around the world, to lift the spirits of America and lift the stature and reputation of America around the world.

Every American should read Al Gore's book The Assault On Reason, a manifesto for freedom and democracy in the modern world, a sweeping indictment of the sins and shames of the George Bush era and a call to arms for everything that America can be.  Read more...

Bill Clinton has become a symbol for both Hillary and Obama — and a vehicle each uses to throw an implicit negative at the other.

To Hillary, Bill demonstrates her experience and permits her to claim his record as president as her own. Without those White House years, her resume scarcely justifies her candidacy. But with it, she can figure Obama as an ingenue, incapable of "hitting the ground running" as president. Read more...

With all due respect to my friends on the right and to the conservative writers I admire, stop arguing the legal details of Scooter Libby’s conviction. Enough already.  Who cares? What’s done is done. Libby was convicted, his sentence was commuted, Democrats have gone from bitter to bitterer. So let’s take this opportunity to put the story of Scooter into greater context. A context of the present and the future, not just the past.

Clemency for Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff can only be bad news for Hillary Clinton. Witness how her husband just couldn’t help from weighing in on a topic that reminds Republicans just why we found the Clinton dual presidency so abhorrent. I confess, I’d almost forgotten how distasteful Bill and Hill were until President Bush’s commutation got me thinking about the slimy cast of characters that distinguished the Clinton presidency.  Read more...

Using American Muslims as an example, Armstrong Williams explains an incident like the Glasgow airport incident in Europe can be prevented by better incorporating cultures into society.

There's a new Quick Poll! question on this page that you should vote in. Republicans are worried by the uphill challenge they face in the November '08, when they must defend 22 Senate seats compared to the Democrats' 12. This is bruited as an explanation for recent GOP defections on the Iraq war. Scroll down the page, cast your vote and give us an idea of how you assess the Republicans' predicament.