The New Republic

Of all the various names being floated as potential GOP presidential candidates in 2012. I don't think there's been any trial balloon quite as daffy as this one. Roger Ailes? Seriously? Yes, the man can run a very successful cable news channel (whose most successful show, it's worth remembering, is watched by about 1 percent of Americans). READ MORE >>

. . . come from Dashiell Bennett who, discussing the Isiah Thomas-Magic Johnson feud, writes: [I]t's pretty clear from this sordid tale—and Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame speech, among other incidents—that pretty much every superstar you idolized as a kid is a selfish, insecure, backstabbing prick. Of course, that's also why they were all such awesome basketball players. READ MORE >>

Dick Cheney says the Bush administration left the Obama administration with a plan (and a good one) for Afghanistan: The President’s chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy. READ MORE >>

TPM and others are having a lot of fun over the fact that George W. Bush is heading out on the motivational speaking circuit. And, I agree that, even when you consider that other politicos such as Colin Powell, Elizabeth Dole, and Rudy Giuliani, have been doing gigs with Zig Ziglar and his ilk for years, there is something kind of undignified about a former president appearing on that stage. READ MORE >>

NYT: The task was left to Mr. Kerry and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who have experienced their own frustration at the polls, and used those scars in dealing with Mr. Karzai. READ MORE >>

Doug Wilder tells TPM that if Bob McDonnell becomes governor, "Virginia won't sink into the seas." Probably not, but McDonnell does seem to be a bit confused about global warming. READ MORE >>

If you haven't been reading David Rohde's serialized account of his seven months being held hostage by the Taliban, you should be. It's not only a riveting read, it tells you a lot of stuff about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Taliban that you probably didn't know before. READ MORE >>

From the conclusion of the Guardian's extremely thorough anatomy of what went wrong with the August 20 election in Afghanistan: [A] run-off is likely to suffer from many of the same problems as the first vote. READ MORE >>

It's obviously significant that Karzai has not only agreed to a run-off, but has acquiesced to holding that run-off on November 7, rather than pushing it back until after the Afghan winter, as some thought he might try to do. And it does give the Obama administration some more room to operate. But how much? READ MORE >>

Ben Smith flags an N&O squib about some kind words Richard Burr and Erskine Bowles had for one another at a recent event in Durham, North Carolina. Burr, of course, defeated Bowles in the race to succeed John Edwards back in 2004: READ MORE >>