• Heard on the Hill: Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) staffer demands Tel Aviv University drop a supporter of his opponent from the board, threatens “revenge”… The sign from Jack Abramoff’s restaurant Signatures finally came down. [Roll Call]

• Reliable Source: Karl Rove profile in next Vanity Fair, written by his neighbor. What you’ll learn: Karl makes coffee in a French-press… Saturday is Laura Bush’s 60th birthday. [WP]
• Yeas and Nays: AFL-CIO show poor sign-displaying skills… Star Jones campaigns for Ben Cardin… Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss) lost his gorilla suit in Katrina. [Examiner]

• Administration to propose major shift in nuclear energy strategy; program would import spent fuel for “recycling.” [WP]
• Expansion of Health Savings Accounts will be tenet of State of the Union address, Bush says. [WSJ, NYT]
• Democrats seek even more documents related to Katrina. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.): “What do they have to hide? Why don’t they just come forward and say, ‘This is what we knew, when we knew, and this is how we reacted?’” [NYT]
• Partisan divide over eavesdropping widens as Bush visits the NSA and Sen. Hillary Clinton calls his justification “strange” and “far-fetched.” Ken Mehlman: “Not only are the Democrats not learning from costly policy mistakes, they are not learning what happened from the political mistakes of 2002 and 2004.” [WP, NYT, WT]
• Administration rejected 2002 proposal by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) to lower the standards for getting wiretaps of non-citizens approved. [WP]
• Bush “seems unlikely to reshape the political landscape with his speech”; no major initiatives expected. [NYT]
• Samuel Alito makes “victory lap” on Capitol Hill; Bush renominates Brett Kavanaugh to U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. [WP]

MORE »