Political Pandering  —  Suspending the federal gas tax is a crass ploy for votes.  Why Hillary Clinton and John McCain should know better.  —  NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE  —  Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year—an idea that actually could aid the terrorists.

FOX News Poll: Obama's Favorable Rating Drops  —  Nearly half of Democrats (48 percent) think Hillary Clinton has a better chance of beating John McCain in November — 10 percentage points higher than the 38 percent who think Barack Obama can win, according to a FOX News poll released Wednesday.

Hot!  —  Behold, the ideal Republican wife: Prim, sexless, nearly useless, lets the men do the real thinkin'.  Hot!  —  I fondly recall, just before the tragic Bush/Kerry presidential election, an impassioned discussion I had with a family friend, a conservative Catholic mother of four …

When Democrats Go Post-al  —  The vicious Clinton-versus-Obama rupture at Daily Kos, the most activist site in the liberal blogosphere, reflects a party-wide split.  What really rankles, as Democrats tear at one another, is the free pass they've given McCain—and the White House.

Clinton blasts Bush for not stopping a project Bill OK'd  —  INDIANAPOLIS — It's a story Hillary Clinton loves to tell, about how the Chinese government bought a good American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical defense technology work to China.

Perino Rewrites Banner: ‘Mission Accomplished For These Sailors Who Are On This Ship On Their Mission’  —  Exactly five years ago tomorrow, President Bush landed aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, stood under a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished,” and declared, “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

FACING SOUTH EXCLUSIVE: D.C. nonprofit aimed at women voters behind deceptive N.C. robo-calls  —  Who's behind the mysterious “robo-calls” that have spread misleading voter information and sown confusion and frustration among North Carolina residents over the last week?

Deployment of second carrier to Gulf a ‘reminder’: Gates  —  MEXICO CITY (AFP) — US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Tuesday the deployment of a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf should be seen as a “reminder” of US military power in the region.  —  But Gates flatly denied …

Tim Russert Blackballing Arianna At NBC?  —  UPDATE: Sources close to Arianna Huffington are claiming just that.  Arianna Huffington is currently on book tour for her new political tome Right Is Wrong: How The Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded The Constitution, And Made Us All Less Safe …

Getting to Know John McCain  —  It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day.  No, not that Doris Day.  The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.

John McCain's “100 Years” putting the controversy to rest  —  Today, the Annenberg Center's Factcheck.org weighed in on John McCain's “100 Years” in  —  Iraq comments, claiming that the use of the argument has been distorted.  This is just the latest in a series of actions calling into question …