Gates Says U.S. Lacks Strategy to Curb Iran's Nuclear Drive  —  WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran's steady progress …

Source Of Vicious Right-Wing “Whisper Campaign” Against Elena Kagan Uncovered  —  Like Domenech and Yglesias, 48 hours ago I would have sworn Kagan was out.  Now I realize that I was the gullible victim of a right-wing “whisper campaign,” launched in its latest incarnation by wingnuts …

Who Needs Apartheid?  — By: Mark Steyn  —  This is a question that should be asked more often:  —  Moshe Ya'alon, a former Israel Defense Forces general who now serves as Benjamin Netanyahu's strategic affairs minister, posed the following query in an interview published in the Jerusalem Post …

McConnell: Liquidation fund isn't only problem with financial reform  —  Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Sunday said it was more than just the so-called “bailout fund” that's keeping him from supporting Democrats' financial regulatory reform bill.

Welcome to Confederate History Month  —  It's kind of like that legendary stunt on the prime-time soap “Dallas,” where we learned that nothing bad had really happened because the previous season's episodes were all a dream.  We now know that the wave of anger that crashed on the Capitol …

Clinton: Rush Limbaugh Comment “Doesn't Make Any Sense”  —  In my EXCLUSIVE “This Week” interview, former President Bill Clinton told me Rush Limbaugh's assertion that Clinton had “set the stage for violence in this country” and that “any acts of future violence” would be on Clinton's shoulders, “doesn't make any sense”.

Geithner praises ‘positive side’ of tea parties  —  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised the “positive side” of the tea party movement Sunday, suggesting the movement's concern with deficits could align the group with the administration in the future.

Tea parties fight Obama's culture of dependence  —  “Do you realize,” CNN's Susan Roesgen asked a man at the April 15, 2009, tea party in Chicago, “that you're eligible for a $400 credit?”  When the man refused to drop his “drop socialism” sign, she went on, “Did you know that the state …

Limbaugh: Volcanic eruption in Iceland is God's reaction to health care's passage.  —  Yesterday, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh talked about the volcanic eruption that's affecting air travel over much of Europe, saying it was “God speaking” in response to the passage of health care: … Listen here:

Gore takes cash for water campaign from chemical firm  —  Environmentalists condemn former vice-president for letting controversial company fund Life Earth  —  Al Gore, the self-styled squeakiest-clean and deepest-green politician in American history, has some explaining to do this weekend.

Pelosi: Two ‘pillars’ down, one more to go in passing Obama ‘blueprint’  —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said the Democrats are one bill away from completing President Barack Obama's “blueprint for American prosperity.”  —  “We have passed two of the three pillars in the historic healthcare …