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On Sunday's This Week, ABC's George Stephanopoulos condemned John McCain for charging that “Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” Stephanopoulos, who interviewed McCain on Saturday at his Arizona ranch, declared: “I can't believe you believe that.” McCain insisted “I'm not questioning his patriotism. I'm questioning his actions. I'm questioning his lack, total lack of understanding,” leading Stephanopoulos to counter: “But that is questioning his patriotism. When you say someone would rather lose a war, a candidate, that's questioning his honor, his decency, his character.” As McCain continued to defend his assessment, Stephanopoulos...

Sweet P Farm is nestled at the top of a winding driveway, hidden from view by 77 acres of gentle woods and meadows, a retreat in the Berkshires where Governor Deval Patrick can swat a few tennis balls on his private court, work on a chapter of his memoir, or stroll through the wildflowers in his backyard. But during this year's high summer season, Patrick is opening his rural getaway to the Massachusetts political world, transforming it into something like the state's own version of Camp David. The governor hosted a big ticket fund-raiser at the home last week that...

The Rage Offstage at Marvel By BILL ALPERT Lawsuits against Marvel, Lee and Bill and Hillary are pressing Paul's claims that a dot-com he started with Stan Lee in 1998 was undone by the actions of the former president, short-sellers and Stan Lee himself. In a Manhattan federal district court, some of Paul's associates argue that the bankrupt dot-com, Stan Lee Media, still owns rights to Marvel characters like Spider-Man and The X-Men. On behalf of the former dot-com, they want half the profits that Marvel (ticker: MVL) is piling up, now that it's producing its own films like the...

In its final days, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential cam paign has come to echo George Wallace’s 1968 run. Like Clinton, Wallace as a candidate stalked the Northeast exploiting white anger. Like her, he bypassed the nation’s more educated and liberal parts to focus squarely on those who felt left behind, rallying animosity against elites.

John McCain is America's favorite kind of candidate. With his record of extraordinary patriotism and his distinctive Senate tenure, McCain is a nominee whom voters from both parties — and independents, too — could easily support. But he has been dealt a terrible hand: a tanking economy, an unpopular war, a Republican incumbent whose approval ratings are at their all-time low and a gloomy national mood, with 82 percent of Americans saying in a Washington Post-ABC News poll last week that the country is on the wrong track. Political scientists add all that up and predict that the Democrats are...

A Hardball epic . . . Message to Chris Matthews: when ripping a guest for his lack of historical knowledge, try to avoid making a history mistake of your own in the same segment. It happened on this afternoon's Hardball. After lambasting a guest for not knowing his Neville Chamberlain history, Matthews surmised that the attack on the USS Cole in October, 2000 happened under . . . President Bush. View video here.

A federal jury has found Los Angeles private detective Anthony Pellicano guilty of racketeering and conspiracy. The verdict, which could mean a penalty of eight to 10 years in federal prison, effectively brings to a close the career of the most infamous private eye in Los Angeles -- a man who insinuated himself into the loftiest legal and entertainment circles in town and even consulted on law enforcement cases, until he became the subject of one. Pellicano sat grinning and looking around room before the verdicts were read. But when he realized the jury had found him guilty, he crossed...

oseph C. Wilson IV SANTA FE, N.M. - In recent weeks Americans have been subjected to a litany of outrageous statements from Sen. Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. While Obama was finally compelled to distance himself from his radical preacher, the relationship raises legitimate questions about Obama's judgment and naivete. Obama, after all, wants to be president of the United States, and in that quest has proposed unconditional summit meetings with some of our country's most determined enemies, including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Obama's campaign has been built upon his supposed transcendent qualities and intuitive judgment....

Dee Dee Myers has just come out with her amusing tale, Why Women Should Rule the World. You may recall Mrs. Myers was the first female White House press secretary, appointed during the first two tumultuous years of the Clinton administration. Simply put, Myers is a female supremacist. "Women tend to be better communicators, better listeners, better at forming consensus," she argues. That entitles women to run the world because they do everything better than those power-hungry men, Myers believes. As the unsmiling Myers goes about promoting her book, one wonders what led her to pen a tome filled with...

Former White House staffer Craig Livingstone on WMAL's Chris Plante Show Washington, DC, live now.

The early days of 1996 were tense times inside the Clinton White House. On Jan. 4, the First Couple's top personal aide reported that she had stumbled upon Hillary Clinton's long-lost Rose Law Firm billing records—documents that had been requested by Whitewater prosecutors two years earlier. Ken Starr quickly subpoenaed the First Lady to testify before a federal grand jury on Jan. 26 of that year. But anybody looking through Hillary Clinton's newly released White House records for clues as to how she handled this personal crisis will find … absolutely nothing. ... The heavy deletions are perhaps not surprising,...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Mike Huckabee broadened his populist-inspired appeal for support in Michigan on Saturday, saying he viewed his presidential campaign as a "cause" that represents a threat to the Republican establishment in Washington. With polls showing support in Michigan's Republican primary Tuesday to be extremely fluid among Mitt Romney, John McCain and Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor also lashed out at candidates who campaign on a theme of opposing abortion but do little about it when they get into office. "We're people who will no longer just allow people to get elected, promising that they're listening to us...

Stupid Intelligence on Iran If Tehran did slow its weapons program, Bush policies probably had something to do with it. JAMES SCHLESINGER The release earlier this month of "key judgments" from the National Intelligence Estimate--including the bald assertion "that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program"--has caused both astonishment here at home and consternation overseas, where it has resulted in confusion about America's policy goals and steadiness. Let us stipulate that the intelligence community has acquired evidence sufficiently persuasive to lead it to reverse its prior judgment that Iran was hard at work developing nuclear weapons. For that...

Just in case you thought there was a limit to the vulgarity of Paul Begala . . . Bill Clinton's former adviser was a guest on the Situation Room this aftern0on on CNN. Talk turned to the strategy Republicans should adopt in upcoming special elections. WOLF BLITZER: How much of a lightning rod -- you're an expert on this subject -- will Hillary Clinton be for Republicans out there, cause they're already, in some of these special elections that are coming up, they're already pointed to her to try to help Republican candidates? View video here.

Today, Laura Ingraham had George Stephanopolos on for a phone interview. I called Kristinn to advise him to listen and he reminded me that George Stephanopolos was the ultimate "plant", having appeared to be just another caller that got through to The Larry King Shoe during Bush '41's apppearance literally days before the election. In fact, Stephanopolos wasn't just another caller waiting in line like everyone else, Stephanopolos was on an inside phone line for guests, having been arranged by a King producer, despite the claims by King during the show that George got through because "anyone can call". So...

It took 15 years to become official, but Carole Simpson has now confirmed what we always suspected: she's a Clinton backer. Readers will recall that during the 1992 campaign, the then ABC News anchor moderated a presidential debate in which she made life uncomfortable for George 41, notably with her snide "who would like to begin, the education president?" poke. According to this Boston Globe article, back in 2003 Simpson was "eased out" of her anchor chair in favor of Elizabeth Vargas. Simpson has now taken a teaching position at Emerson College in Boston, and last night turned up at...

The far left’s campaign to rehabilitate the CBS Killian memos and attack the bloggers who discredited them is in full bloom today, as Sidney Blumenthal makes a ludicrous, stupid accusation in an article for Salon.com: Dan Rather stands by his story. "..Within minutes of the conclusion of the broadcast, conservative bloggers launched a counterattack. The chief of these critics was a Republican Party activist in Georgia. Almost certainly, these bloggers, who had been part of meetings or conference calls organized by Karl Rove’s political operation, coordinated their actions with Rove’s office..." Rove? Karl Rove? If only this Blumenthal tool knew...

For Democrats, things rarely get much better than this. In 2008, they’ll be running to succeed an unpopular incumbent, against an opposition that has rarely been more disorganized or dispirited. Polls show a Democratic advantage on major issues nearly across the board. Amid all these favorable signs, it’s only natural that some of the party’s top strategists would be pondering the same question: Wonder how we’ll screw it up this time? “We are a little bit of a shellshocked political party. We somehow or another always figure out a way to blow it,” Democratic strategist James Carville said. “Democrats have...

Former Clinton labor secretary and perennial industrial policy hustler, Robert Reich, is a leading negative indicator. Whatever he predicts, the exact opposite occurs. In the 1980s, Reich declared that the U.S. economic growth rates were in a permanent slump and that we needed to adopt the economic model represented by the once famed Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry. ---snip--- Now comes the insufferable Reich with an idiotic article in the current Foreign Policy (sub required) arguing that capitalism is undermining democracy around the globe.

USA Today: Did Sandy Berger 'Steal' Secret Docs? We're Debating That Still Posted by Ken Shepherd on June 8, 2007 - 10:24. You know, it seems pretty cut-and-dried to me. Stuffing secret documents down your pants and removing them from a secure room in a federal facility, that constitutes stealing.USA Today's "On Deadline" blog isn't sure, though. (bold/italics are USA Today's): Sandy Berger, the national security adviser under former President Clinton, was disbarred yesterday in the District of Columbia.The Washington Post says Berger agreed last month to give up his law license in order to avoid a prolonged investigation that...