Bush Loyalist Rose Quickly at Justice  —  When a college intern in the Justice Department whined that all he was doing was filing and answering phones, Monica M. Goodling took him aside.  If he wanted to do "substantive work," she told him, he was going to have to prove himself first.

Testimony by Giuliani Indicates He Was Briefed on Kerik in '00  —  Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik's relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik's appointment …

Report Says Interior Official Overrode Work of Scientists  —  A top-ranking official overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service at the Interior Department rode roughshod over agency scientists, and decisions made on her watch may not survive court challenges, investigators within the Interior Department have found.

Policy Aide's Departure Continues Transformation of Bush's Staff  —  Over the past several years, Peter H. Wehner has sent a blizzard of e-mails around the White House and the rest of Washington, offering strategy and policy ideas to President Bush and making the case for those policies to outsiders.

Which Is 'The Real War'?  —  "Our bill calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq so that we can focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan."  —  The Senate and the House have both passed bills for ending the Iraq war, or at least liquidating the American involvement in it.

Thanks for nothing  —  Left in the humiliating position of having nothing in the locker with which to take on the Iranians after their abduction of our service personnel, our esteemed government has been running, cap in hand, to the United Nations Security Council for a resolution condemning Iran's action.

Heads of Arab States Prod Israel to Embrace Peace Offer  —  The leaders of 21 Arab governments on Thursday called on Israel to embrace a peace initiative that would have it withdraw from the land it occupied in the 1967 war in exchange for full diplomatic relations with them, saying the window would not remain open for long.

More Than 100 Killed in Baghdad, Nearby Town  —  Blast in Capital Hits Area Central To Security Plan  —  Bombs tore through crowds of after-work shoppers in Baghdad and a town north of the capital on Thursday in an onslaught of violence that killed more than 100 people, according to Iraqi government and hospital officials.

Don't confuse terrorism with Islam, says EU  —  The European Union has drawn up guidelines advising government spokesmen to refrain from linking Islam and terrorism in their statements.  —  Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified handbook which offers "non-offensive" …

Observations about John Harris' replies  —  The Politico's Editor-in-Chief, John Harris, has responded via e-mail to the posts I wrote earlier this week, as well as to questions I sent to Poliico reporter Mike Allen about the Politico/Drudge relationship (posted in the first link).

Grass Roots Planted In Cyberspace  —  John Edwards's Campaign Leads the Field In Political Use of Social Networking Sites  —  If there's a social networking site that John Edwards is not a part of, we'd like to know what it is, pronto.  —  No one's sure exactly what role these sites …

Iraq: It may be a rough road to a Senate-House compromise  —  WASHINGTON — Fresh from passing the first timelines to bring home U.S. troops from Iraq, congressional Democrats now face the daunting task of reconciling critical differences between a Senate withdrawal plan passed Thursday and one approved by the House last week.

Turkey, Iraq and the PKK  —  ANKARA, TURKEY.  —  When Iraq's vice president came to Turkey's capital on Tuesday to plead with the Turks not to invade northern Iraq to kill Kurdish terrorists, he spoke to the press in code.  —  The PKK is a Kurdish terrorist group that has killed some 30,000 Turks …

15 Britons In a Sea Of Intrigue  —  BERLIN — We are in a season of skulduggery in the Middle East, with a strange series of events that all involve the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.  The murky saga is a reminder that the real power in Iran may lie with this secretive organization …

Presidential Candidates Focus on Fund-Raising  —  Forget campaigning.  Last week, Rudolph W. Giuliani held a presidential fund-raiser every day of the week.  Senator John McCain raised money at three events on Wednesday and another Thursday, racking up 27 this month alone.