Obama visits Edwards  —  Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) paid a secret visit to his former rival, John Edwards, in quest of his endorsement on Sunday.  —  The meeting in Chapel Hill, N.C., where Edwards lives, is the latest effort by Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to win …

Clinton hits Obama on funds  —  Clinton campaign officials said Sunday that heading into the climactic primaries on March 4, they will try to make a major issue of Sen. Barack Obama's refusal to commit to spending limits in a general election.  —  “That's not change you can believe in,” …

Kosovo Declares Its Independence From Serbia  —  PRISTINA, Kosovo — The former Serbian province of Kosovo declared independence on Sunday, sending tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians swarming through the streets to celebrate what they hoped was the end of a long and bloody struggle for national self-determination.

Transcript: DNI Mike McConnell on ‘FNS’  —  WASHINGTON — The following is a partial transcript of the Feb. 17, 2008, edition of “FOX News Sunday With Chris Wallace”:  —  “FOX NEWS SUNDAY” HOST CHRIS WALLACE: A law which gives President Bush powers to monitor communications among terrorism suspects expired at midnight.

Questions For John McCain  —  WASHINGTON — Foreign policy has slipped to the periphery of presidential politics, displaced by a nonexistent recession as the voters' preoccupation.  Come autumn, however, Iraq and Iran might be central subjects, Iraq as a bigger problem for the Democratic nominee …

The Fun and Excitement of Civilization Wars (fought from afar)  —  In response to my post on Friday pointing out that nobody outside of the handful of Muslim-obsessed faux-warriors is moved any longer by the Government's endless exploitation of Terrorism to secure more and more unchecked power, National Review's Mark Steyn said:

Clinton keeps up health care attack  —  This mailer, provided by the Obama campaign, is the latest salvo from Hillary on health care.  It also includes a quote from Paul Krugman accusing Obama of “unscrupulous demagoguery” on the issue.  Obama has a conference call shortly …

“That Root,” “youths,” and why Reuters is a disgrace  —  In “Portrait of an Age,” G. M. Young's classic overview of early Victorian England, there are a few melancholy pages devoted to the devastating Irish potato famine of the mid 1840s.  Young notes in an aside that Sir Robert Peel …

This Week: Iraq is McCain's Winning Issue  —  Ever wonder why John “Let's stay 100 years in Iraq!”  McCain is doing so well with anti-war primary voters?  Maybe it has to do with bobbleheaded discussions like this one on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, where the round table panel thinks that Iraq is a winning issue for McCain.

The Dumbing Of America  —  Call Me a Snob, but Really, We're a Nation of Dunces  —  “The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today's very different United States.

Lessons Learned  —  Spencer Ackerman travels the world, assembling apropos anecdotes.  For example, when he was in Mosul he saw a Provincial Reconstruction Team helping to oversee a terrorism trial and teach the Iraqis a thing or two about the rule of law: … Let freedom ring.