Free Republic

Kerry, whose botched joke about U.S. troops in Iraq dealt a blow to his presidential ambitions, will travel to Iraq to meet with soldiers, political leaders and military officials. "I've talked to plenty of guys who've come back from Iraq, who are there now, who understand exactly what happened," Kerry said of his joke in a telephone interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. "They laugh at it." The Iraq stop will be part of a nine-day Mideast trip that includes stops in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

Steve Clemons' blog, The Washington Note, has been part of my daily reading routine for a little over a year. Clemons is a well-connected, fair-minded journalist and policy wonk who uses his blog for the kind of original reporting that's all too rare in the blogosphere. In a recent post, Clemons calls attention to the growing phenomenon of blogger conference calls. Clemons' post is worth reading in full, because it outlines some of the thorny ethical problems surrounding the now routine practice of Democratic Senators and Representatives holding conference calls with prominent liberal bloggers. Ideally, these blogger conference calls should...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- John Kerry has begun interviewing potential running mates, including Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri who spent about 90 minutes in the Democratic presidential candidate's Capitol office Wednesday.