In his long-awaited memoir, Tomny Blair says he doesn't regret the Iraq war -- although he wept for its victims -- and also opens up about his alcohol use, his interactions with the queen and his testy relationship with his successor.

Michael Douglas is vowing to beat cancer.

Barack Obama, who once seemed the most fortunate of candidates, now looks like the least lucky of presidents. His speech announcing the conclusion of American combat operations in Iraq starkly illustrated the adversity he endures every day as the heir of George W. Bush, its desultory tone and flat delivery almost inevitable in speaking of a war whose human, economic and diplomatic costs have so far outstripped its benefits. The president obviously felt that he had no choice but to deliver this address, to mark this occasion, and even to praise the patriotic intentions of his predecessor, author of this grave mistake.

Whatever suspense there was is now gone. After a day of absentee ballot-counting failed to significantly dent Joe Miller's lead, incumbent Lisa Murkowski formally conceded the Alaska GOP Senate primary on Wednesday night.

A big news day. I found President Obama's Iraq speech dispiriting. He deserves credit for withdrawing combat troops when he said he would, but our entanglement there is by no means over, and the growing role of private contractors in every realm of our involvement -- including some form of what most people would consider combat -- makes it hard to feel like things have fundamentally changed.

Good news! "Operation Iraqi Freedom is over." Iraq is free! Although instead of "free," President Obama just kept talking about all the "responsibility" we have given to the Iraqi people.

On his way out of the Minnesota governor's mansion, Tim Pawlenty is determined to please potential 2012 Republican presidential primary voters while screwing over the residents of the state he is still actually in charge of.

Authorities have arrested a teenager they say fired a shotgun into the ground outside a mosque in western New York state.

This originally appeared at Jonathan Bernstein's blog

Yesterday, former Air America editor in chief Beau Friedlander had a silly little blog at the Huffington Post in which he promised a $100,000 bounty for a Glenn Beck sex tape. The post was actually a barely coherent, largely inaccurate history of neoconservatism, plus complaining about Glenn Beck, that ended with a paragraph offering "a $100,000 payday to the person who will come forward with a sex tape or phone records or anything else that succeeds in removing Glenn Beck from the public eye forever." (Friedlander does not actually have this money, which made the whole thing even sillier.)*

(updated below - Update II - Update III [Wed.] - Update IV [Wed.] - Update V [Wed.] - Update VI [Wed.])

Tonight at 8 p.m. President Obama will deliver a speech from the Oval Office on the end of "combat operations" in Iraq.

The economy is weakening, home sales are plunging and stocks are on a long slide. Now comes something even scarier for investors -- the beginning of what is traditionally the worst month in the market.

Weeks after a 29-year-old former WWE wrestler died, 48-year-old former professional wrestler Gertrude "Luna" Vachon was found dead at her home Friday morning. Sheriff's deputies report finding oxycodone at the scene and "several prescription bottles" in the bedroom. Which is probably not great news for former WWE CEO and Senate candidate Linda McMahon.

A Pennsylvania coroner says a woman suffered 45 knife wounds in an attack that also killed her father, grandfather and a neighbor who ran to their home after hearing screams.

It shouldn't be surprising that Orrin Hatch would defend the right of the Park51 organizers to build a mosque (or "mosque") on private property. The guy is one of the most prominent Mormons in the nation, and after their history of religious persecution, they ought to be finely attuned to scare mongering about religious minorities. But he's also a conservative Republican, and his fellow Latter Day Saints Harry Reid and Mitt Romney both punted on the issue. So this is nice to hear, from Sen. Hatch.

Yesterday we told you about the launch this Sunday of the $8 million "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero," created by a pastor who assails Muslims as pedophiles and gay people as perverts and who has a history of trying to profit from political controversies. The pastor, internet evangelist Bill Keller, is starting services this Sunday at a site just two blocks away from the former World Trade Center site.

Two years ago this week, John McCain woke up in a particular mood and changed American politics and culture. You remember how it happened: As Barack Obama prepared to deliver his acceptance speech at Denver's Mile High Stadium On Aug. 28, 2008, word leaked that McCain, whose own convention would begin a few days later, had finally decided on a running mate. But who?

The following excerpt is from the virtual book Republic to Principate: The Decline and Fall of Representative Democracy in America, published in the year 2052 A.D.