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Former president Bill Clinton praised wife Hillary's prospects to be elected the next US leader, but said her possible White House run is a taboo topic at home. "I'm superstitious about it," Clinton told NBC television in an interview, saying that, for the moment, his wife's sole focus is her bid for reelection to the US Senate in November. "One of our family rules is don't look past the next election," he said. Clinton, interviewed in New York, insisted that his wife still has not reached a final decision about running for the White House, but said if she does,...

Yesterday, we wrote about how the war in Iraq does not dominate America's media the way it might. As can happen with The Note, we didn't explain ourselves well enough. What we meant simply was that the story does not get covered in certain media quarters commensurate with its importance. But we should have made two other points clear. First, there ARE news organizations in America (such as, we say proudly, our own ABC News) that do cover Iraq day in and day out. Second, in addition to our ongoing gratitude to the troops, everyone in this country owes a...

CHENEY DISTORTS KERRY DIANE SAWYER INTERVIEW: Cheney on Kerry in Duluth, MN: "When asked if he, knowing everything he knows now, would he have voted the way he did then. He said yes. This morning Diane Sawyer interviewed him on 'Good Morning America' and asked the same question, 'knowing everything you know now would you have voted that way,' and he said no. He's changed his mind on many occasions." WHAT KERRY WAS ACTUALLY ASKED ON GMA TODAY: "Was the war in Iraq worth it?" WHAT KERRY REALLY SAID: "It was a mistake to do what he did," Kerry said...

I'm so tired of these misleading headlines. I'm given to understand the Navy only confirmed Kerry's medals were properly approved in so far as having all the required signatures) and nowhere have I read the Navy confirming he "earned" them. ABC, please lets be honest and not manipulative!

NEWS SUMMARY At this precise time every four years, the most media-savvy members of the Gang of 500 begin to think about their roles in the premiere post-election forum that revisits the actions and players of the presidential race. The quadrennial gabfest — hosted by Harvard's Institute of Politics in the winter after each presidential election — features a group of journalists who covered the campaign leading top political players from all camps through a chronological discussion of who-did-what-when-and-why behind the scenes during the course of the nomination and general election periods. The goal is near-contemporaneous candor, although over the...

IF — IF these end up being forgeries, one of the interesting subplots will be the timing and method by which they were exposed. We always favor looking at the content and substance over WHO is offering up the information, but in the war that will ensue about WHO gave CBS the potentially phony documents, it is interesting to Note that the right (Drudge, Fox, right-leaning blogs, others) led the way in pointing out the questions we have all been asking — and they were onto the questions, with remarkable detail, relatively soon after the documents were made public. +++++...

NEWS SUMMARY The first version published of yesterday's Note included what was intended as a SATIRICAL report of a fictional ABC News/Washington Post poll. No such poll was conducted. The questions and results listed were not from a real poll. But on this day when John Kerry has a chance for wins in Tennessee and/or Virginia that just might get the Southern monkey off of his back -- and take an opponent out of the race -- and after two full news cycles in which Kerry's transient upper hand over President Bush doesn't seem to have been removed by the...

(More on Snowboarding F'n Kerry)ABC News Kerry campaign reporter "Diamond" Ed O'Keefe, who, (not) incidentally, looks hot in his ski gear, files this exclusive report from atop Bald Mountain in Idaho: As Senator John Kerry carved his Burton snowboard down a green rated Upper College run, another skier interrupted his stride, colliding with the presumptive Democratic nominee at 9,010 feet. The slope-cade of two Ski Patrollers, several Secret Service agents, two journalists, one camera and one Kerry aide suddenly came to a halt. The Massachusetts Senator lay on the ground, removed his Smith sunglasses, and surveyed the damage. Assured that...

NEWS SUMMARY Here at home, no jobs are being created within the ABC News Political Unit. This is good news, on the one hand — increasing productivity and the shifting of 500 of our 1,000 Googling monkeys overseas have been great for us. The bad news, of course, is one can only say so many times "no, we aren't doing any more hiring this cycle" to the nieces and nephews of the cousins of neighbors of people we once knew without feeling worn down. Most of the productivity increases have come from forcing, er, asking the Googling monkeys to take...

<p>Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections. They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."</p>

From: politicalUnit@abcnews.go.com Date: Mon Mar 31, 2003 10:36:48 AM America/New_York To: "Political Unit Mailing List" Subject: Monday 3/31 ABC News Political Unit mini-Note Reply-To: politicalUnit@abcnews.go.com Good morning, and welcome to the (regular) working week. The Note remains on war-time footing, as does the political world, so here is your mini-Note, once again distributed by e-mail and not webly. Please remember to tell all your friends, loved ones, and colleagues that they must sign up for this e-mail alert if they want to make sure they don't miss a single Note during the war. Just tell them to click here and...

You Mess With The Bear, You Get The Horns But polls suggest the GOP's Clinton blame-game will have some resonance By Mark Halperin, Elizabeth Wilner & Marc Ambinder W A S H I N G T O N, July 10 —No disrespect meant to Carter Eskew, Al Gore, or any of the other combatants who took on Rove/Hughes/Allbaugh/Bush/et al in 2000, but one of the great frustrations for those of us who live to cover presidential politics is that we will never get a George W. Bush—vs—Bill Clinton face-off. Note Archives, updated weekly. E-mail us: Tips, Compliments, Complaints. At least,...