Gonzales Said To Stonewall a GOP Query  —  Probe of Leaks Are at Center of Inquiries From the Right  —  The top Republican on the House's main investigative committee, Rep. Thomas Davis of Virginia, is charging the Justice Department with stonewalling his inquiries about the FBI's assertion …

Do we really need a Gen. Pelosi?  —  Congress can cut funding for Iraq, but it shouldn't micromanage the war.  —  AFTER WEEKS OF internal strife, House Democrats have brought forth their proposal for forcing President Bush to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2008.

Berger & Libby: A Tale of Two Crimes  —  "History will be kind to me," Winston Churchill once said, "for I intend to write it."  —  Indeed, he did.  His multiple-volume histories of the two world wars are still widely read, though discounted by professional historians as incomplete and in some ways misleading.

Early Primary Rush Upends '08 Campaign Plans  —  The trickle of states moving their 2008 presidential primaries to Feb. 5 has turned into an avalanche, forcing all the presidential campaigns to reconsider every aspect of their nominating strategy — where to compete, how to spend money …

Conservatives balk over Giuliani's judges  —  His picks as New York mayor raise doubts over whether he'd put 'strict constructionists' on the high court.  —  WASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani, in an effort to temper his support for abortion rights and his other socially liberal stances …

Fallback strategy for Iraq: Train locals, draw down forces  —  If the current 'surge' fails, planners suggest relying on advisors as the U.S. did in El Salvador in the 1980s.  —  WASHINGTON — American military planners have begun plotting a fallback strategy for Iraq that includes …

Obama, Clinton Sparring Early  —  CLINTON, Iowa — Standing in front of a large banner that blared "Clinton," surrounded by students in Clinton Community College sweat shirts, Sen. Barack Obama offhandedly mentioned the obvious.  —  "Hillary, you know, she's interesting," Obama said …

Hagel hasn't tipped his '08 hand  —  A tight-lipped Sen. Chuck Hagel arrived in Omaha from Washington on Sunday afternoon and prepared to make what could be the biggest political announcement of his life.  —  Some Nebraska Republicans speculated that Hagel appeared ready to jump …

France's Chirac bows out, and the race is on  —  Long a fixture in French politics, he confirms he won't seek a third term as president.  A close contest to succeed him is anticipated.  —  PARIS — Setting the stage for a suspenseful presidential race, French President Jacques Chirac announced Sunday …

CAIR OK'd to meet in Capitol  —  A House Democrat has arranged for a conference room in the Capitol building to be used tomorrow by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group criticized for its persistent refusal to disavow terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Who's to Blame for Russia?  —  Who lost Russia?  As the world's biggest country backslides ever more quickly into authoritarianism, the answer you hear increasingly is: the United States.  —  Curiously, you hear it both from Russians, who simultaneously deny that anything bad has happened …

March Madness  —  Public-sector lobbyists lavish gifts on congressmen and their staffers.  The scandal is it's perfectly legal.  —  Capitol Hill is in the grips of "March Madness"—and I don't mean the NCAA basketball playoffs.  "This is also the month that hundreds of lobbyists annually …

Native American trackers to hunt bin Laden  —  WASHINGTON: An elite group of Native American trackers is joining the hunt for terrorists crossing Afghanistan's borders.  —  The unit, the Shadow Wolves, was recruited from several tribes, including the Navajo, Sioux, Lakota and Apache.

Weak Lead-In Programming Takes a Toll on the News Ratings  —  Last year, around the time that CBS agreed to pay an estimated $15 million a year to lure Katie Couric away from NBC, it spent several million dollars more in licensing fees to coax another nationally known television personality …

Brian Williams, Anchoring and Hunkering in Iraq  —  Soon after arriving in Iraq, Brian Williams was listening to an Army colonel describe how much safer Ramadi had gotten when another soldier shouted that it was too dangerous to stand there and hustled them inside the military outpost.