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Kerry vs. Clinton

"With Republicans scrounging around for an able successor to President Bush in the 2008 election, Washington's focus is fast turning to an escalating battle on the Democratic side between front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and 2004 nominee Sen. John Kerry," Paul Bedard writes in the Washington Whispers column of U.S. News & World Report.

"Whispers learns that Kerry is not just testing the waters: He's running. 'His family wants him to run again,' says one pal. Proof he's in: Kerry has added names to his e-mail list of 3 million, kept johnkerry.comalive and kicking, raised boatloads of cash for friendly Democrats, and moved to seize control of hot-button issues like kids' health care, the environment, and support for military families.

"The Kerry clan is also pushing the Clinton electability issue. 'Donors and organized labor love Bill Clinton,' says one Kerry friend. 'But they're telling everyone they're terrified that she'd get stomped.'

"Friends of Hillary, meanwhile, are touting her front-runner status and joining in the chorus of Democrats who think Kerry should crawl under a rock and go away. 'He had his chance,' mutters a Clinton ally. 'It's over.'"

The left's strategy

"The legal left is dangerously close to winning the political war it has been fighting against the Bush administration over the future direction of the federal courts," Steven G. Calabresi writes in the Weekly Standard.

"The evidence of this is that whenever rumors are floated of possible Bush Supreme Court nominees, there are some very prominent conservative names that aren't mentioned, though they should be," said Mr. Calabresi, the George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law at Northwestern University.

"The eminently qualified conservatives Democrats have quashed include Miguel Estrada, who is Hispanic, Janice Rogers Brown, who is African American, Bill Pryor, a brilliant young Catholic, and two white women, Priscilla Owen and Carolyn Kuhl. By keeping these five nominees off the federal courts of appeals, Democrats seem to have blocked Bush from considering them for the Supreme Court.