Isikoff: Congress Wants Ashcroft's Testimony  —  The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have asked the former attorney general to testify about his role in a dramatic showdown over a controversial eavesdropping program.  Will he play ball?  —  The Senate and House Intelligence Committees …

Double standard in Mideast  —  Many critics of Israel ignore atrocities by the Palestinians  —  The 40th anniversary of Israel's lightning victory achieved in six days of war finds the Jewish state struggling through the seventh year of a terrorist war unleashed by Yasser Arafat in 2000.

Kidney-donor TV show a hoax, producers admit … AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) — A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney was revealed as an elaborate hoax on Friday.

Report: U.S. hits militants' Somali base  —  MOGADISHU, Somalia - At least one U.S. warship bombarded a remote, mountainous village in Somalia where Islamic militants had set up a base, officials in the northern region of Puntland said Saturday.  —  The attack from a U.S. destroyer took place late Friday …

Defense Officials Tried to Reverse China Policy, Says Powell Aide  —  The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington's foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential …

"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser  —  A rich man in a poor man's shirt  —  Imagine how the media would react if a multimillionaire, East Coast, big-city, thrice-married presidential candidate who was a progressive Democrat said his most recent music purchase was opera, his favorite fitness activity …

Al Qaida suspects sue Boeing, with ACLU's help  —  WASHINGTON — Boeing has been sued by suspected Al Qaida operatives transported by the CIA to Arab countries for interrogation and torture.  —  The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan …

The Saturday Cartoons  —  Ok, so you're Republicans, your brand is in the toilet, you fight wars like Alberto Gonzalez Attorney Generals, you spend more money that it costs Fred Thompson to get his dome shined (take that Huckabee!) etc. and so forth...so who do you pick to resuscitate the brand?

CHENEY AND IRAN....Remember that report from Steve Clemons last week about how Dick Cheney is hoping to get Israel to attack Iran in order to provoke a shooting war that will suck in the United States?  Today in the New York Times, Helene Cooper confirms it: … Good 'ol David Wurmser.  A neocon's neocon.

Soldiering On  —  ABC News Learns of Plans to Keep Troops in Iraq Beyond 2009  —  Sgt. John Guerra, 21, from Dallas, Tex., walks with his platoon from the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team during a patrol in the Shaab neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 16, 2007.

Abuse and incompetence in fight against global warming  —  Up to 20% of carbon savings in doubt as monitoring firms criticised by UN body  —  A Guardian investigation has found evidence of serious irregularities at the heart of the process the world is relying on to control global warming.

Protests in Venezuela Reinvigorate Opposition  —  Rallies by Free Press Advocates Deride Chávez Over TV License  —  Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's decision to pull the plug on an anti-government television station has prompted days of protests and generated international condemnation …

Venezuela's counter-revolution won't be televised... but it will be on YouTube  —  When YouTube CEO Chad Hurley told a Congressional committee that his company "advances democracy," perhaps this was the sort of thing he had in mind.  —  An opposition Venezuelan television station whose broadcast license …

Gates won't say who's winning terror war  —  SINGAPORE - Declining to say whether the U.S. and its partners are winning the war on terror, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Saturday for more focus on combating poverty and other underlying causes of extremism.

U.N. Team Still Looking for Iraq's Arsenal  —  Though Work Is Seen as Irrelevant, Security Council Can't Agree to End It  —  UNITED NATIONS — More than four years after the fall of Baghdad, the United Nations is spending millions of dollars in Iraqi oil money to continue the hunt …

Bush's Longest-Serving Aide Plans to Depart  —  Dan Bartlett, one of President Bush's longest-serving aides and closest confidants, said Friday that he would leave the administration in the summer.  Mr. Bartlett's is the latest and most significant departure in what has been a shrinking of Mr. Bush's inner circle.