So why did Alberto Gonzales make so many statements about his dismissal of eight US Attorneys that he later had to retract or amend? What motivated him to be so opaque about the true reasons for the firings? Our colleague Massimo Calabresi breaks new ground on this story in a Time.com piece he just posted [...]

Via the subscription-only Hotline: The AP continues its questions to the WH ’08ers with, “What time is ‘sleeping in?’” Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Mitt Romney say 7 a.m.; Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter say 7:30 a.m.; Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Tom Tancredo say 8 a.m.; Joe Biden says 8:30-9 [...]

Reader Jim had this interesting response to my Iraq Two Step post below: The question, I think, is whether Petraeus was being “intellectually honest” with himself when he agreed to lend his name and reputation to a Bush strategy. My understanding is that Bush promised Petraeus that he would follow something close the ISG Baker-Hamilton [...]

Romney spokesdude Kevin Madden called yesterday to attempt to clarify the Governer’s remarkable assertion about lather-rinse-repeat marriages in France. He said that what Romney had intended to refer to was the French version of civil unions, called “PaCs” from “pacte civil de solidarite.” A rush transcript: ME: And they last seven years? MADDEN: No, it’s [...]

The Washington Post is positing September as the decision point on Iraq. Maybe…but the more interesting news here is the proposed House funding legislation which I think is quite clever: House Democratic leaders are coming together around legislation that would fund the war through September but would withhold more than half of those funds until [...]