EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Official Ignored White House Guidance  —  Testimony Contradicted Gonzales in U.S. Attorney Matter, Sparked Controversy  —  The firestorm over the fired U.S. attorneys was sparked last month when a top Justice Department official ignored guidance from the White House …

Plea of Guilty From Detainee in Guantánamo  —  In the first conviction of a Guantánamo detainee before a military commission, an Australian who was trained by Al Qaeda pleaded guilty here Monday to providing material support to a terrorist organization.

Republicans Soften Stance on Pullout Language  —  GOP Senators Willing To Let Bush Confront Iraq Timetable Issue  —  Unwilling to do the White House's heavy lifting on Iraq, Senate Republicans are prepared to step aside to allow language requiring troop withdrawals to reach President Bush …

McCain-Feingold: Five Years of Failure  —  Five years ago today, President Bush signed into law the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.  Today, American politics is so clean you could eat off it — except for the mud-slinging, back-scratching, favor-trading, influence-peddling, bald-faced lying, indictments, and convictions.

Our World: Condi's embrace of jihadist 'peace'  —  In an open act of war, Iran Friday kidnapped 15 British soldiers in the Persian Gulf.  Iran's act of aggression occurred just as the British voted in favor of a UN Security Council resolution imposing increased sanctions against Teheran for its illicit nuclear weapons program.

Fred Thompson: More Than Flirting With Presidential Bid  —  Looks like Fred Thompson really isn't teasing about possibly running for president.  —  The actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee was spotted having lunch today at the see-and-be-seen Mayflower hotel restaurant …

Insurgents report a split with Al Qaeda in Iraq  —  The U.S. hopes to take advantage of the Sunni rebel schism, which has resulted in combat in some areas.  —  BAGHDAD — Insurgent leaders and Sunni Arab politicians say divisions between insurgent groups and Al Qaeda in Iraq have widened …

Senator's Aide Held on Gun Charge  —  A close aide to Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, was arrested on Monday and jailed after trying to take a loaded handgun into a Senate office building, officials said.  —  The aide, identified by Mr. Webb's office as Phillip Thompson, 45 …

Fooling the College Board  —  In the 1930's, American businesses were locked in a fierce economic competition with Russian merchants for fear that their communist philosophies would dominate American markets.  As a result, American competition drove the country into an economic depression …

Mindful of Past, Clinton Cultivates the Military  —  Of all the early problems Bill Clinton faced as president, few stand out to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as more frustrating and avoidable than his rocky relationship with the military, her advisers say.

A view from the Straight Talk Express  —  John McCain's campaign invited two bloggers, me and Townhall's Matt Lewis, to join his campaign this weekend in New Hampshire.  We attended two town hall meetings, in Plymouth and Littleton.  On the bus, John McCain sat between the two of us for two hours …

Death threats against bloggers are NOT "protected speech" (why I cancelled my ETech presentations)  —  As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference.  But I'm not.  I'm at home, with the doors locked, terrified.

Drudge and The Politico — poisonously joined at the hip  —  The new online political magazine, The Politico, is a pernicious new presence in our media landscape.  As I noted the other day, it really is nothing more than the Drudge Report dressed up with the trappings of mainstream media credibility.

Romney offers student fundraisers money  —  BOSTON - A millionaire thanks to his work as a venture capitalist, Mitt Romney is acutely aware of the motivating power of money.  His presidential campaign hopes it will have a similar effect on college students, which is why it's offering them a cut of their fundraising.

In the front line of Putin's secret war  —  Crouching behind bushes left bare by the winter, the camouflaged fighters waited in tense expectation on the bleak Caucasian mountain side.  —  Casually flicking his cigarette into the mud, the Chechen loyalist commander raised his radio towards his mouth and barked an order.