CNN

CNN: Did you miss the forum? Catch the replay on CNN
Hear what Barack Obama and John McCain have to say about abortion, same sex marriages, leadership and faith.

CNN: Warren: McCain did not violate 'cone of silence'
Sometimes you just have to take it on faith. Pastor Rick Warren said John McCain didn’t hear any of the questions in advance at Saturday night’s Civil Forum, even if the candidate was a little late arriving to the pre-arranged quiet room or “cone of silence.”

CNN: Keck’s Analysis: Same tough questions, different approaches
From their views on abortion to their greatest moral failings, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain used much different styles to tackle the same tough questions at Saturday night's forum on faith.

Financial Times: Guessing grows over US running mates
Barack Obama and John McCain enter their final week before the start of the US presidential nominating conventions amid intense speculation about who they plan to choose as their respective running mates – with Mr Obama almost certain to make his choice in the next few days.

CNN Radio: Candidates talk mega-issues at mega-chruch
Both major presidential candidates took their Christian-based beliefs to a mega-church, where followers seemed to have their own wide variety of views. Bob Costantini has today's CNN Radio Political Ticker.

Washington Times: McCain pulls into a tie in new polling
One week before Democrats gather to nominate Sen. Barack Obama to be president, polls show the Illinois lawmaker locked in a dead heat with Republican Sen. John McCain, who now leads among white voters overall and has gained among Republicans, evangelicals and white working-class people.

Washington Post: Sarkozy Op-Ed: Europe Gets Started On Quelling a Crisis
The time will come when the sequence of events and responsibilities can be established in an indisputable and impartial manner: several weeks of provocations and skirmishes along the lines separating South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia; the thoughtless Georgian military intervention in South Ossetia the night of Aug. 7-8; the brutal and disproportionate response of Russian troops, driving the small Georgian army from South Ossetia and dislodging it from Abkhazia - the other separatist province, where it had regained a foothold in 2006 - before occupying part of the rest of Georgian territory.

USA Today: McCain OK with aide's lobbying past
John McCain told USA TODAY on Sunday that he has no problem with his top foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann's past lobbying work.

WSJ: Candidates Give Preview Of Presidential Debates in Church Talk
John McCain and Barack Obama appeared back-to-back at an evangelical church here this weekend, showing very different styles in response to identical personal and policy questions.

Politico: McCain protests NBC coverage
McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis asked Sunday for a meeting with Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, to protest what the campaign called signs that the network is "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the Presidential race."

LA Times: McCain and Obama try to navigate the politics of abortion
Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church draws out the candidates, who had steered clear of the contentious issue.

Politico: McCain cites questionable story on 'evil'
A reader points out that John McCain's example of pure evil yesterday rests on a story asserted by Iraqi officials, but since cast into doubt.

Politico: McCain reopens the national security gap
Less than two years after Democrats finally bridged the decades-long gap between the parties on national security issues, Republicans have opened it right back up — a shift likely tied to the party's new standard-bearer John McCain and the perception of improvements in Iraq.

Politico: Obama slams Thomas; McCain slip may haunt
Given the sharp words exchanged between their campaigns in recent weeks, John McCain and Barack Obama put on a good show of civility Saturday at their first joint appearance of the all but officially begun general election race.

WSJ: Obama Shows Increased Spending
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama beat John McCain in fund raising for July, but the Illinois Democrat appears to have needed every penny, because the expense of his large field operation ate up several million dollars more than he took in for the month.

WSJ: Potential Vice Presidential Candidates Tread Lightly
With the Republican and Democratic Party nominating conventions just around the corner, vice presidential shortlisters hit the airwaves Sunday in an audition for the No. 2 spots.

NY Times: As Running Mate, Biden Offers Foreign Policy Heft but an Insider Image
While other potential vice-presidential nominees were appearing on the Sunday talk shows, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. spent the weekend in Tbilisi, Georgia, meeting with the country’s embattled president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

WSJ: Republicans Are Skeptical Of Pelosi's Offshore-Drilling Proposal
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's proposal Saturday to make expanded offshore drilling part of a new Democratic energy bill got a skeptical reaction from Republicans, who said they suspect it will contain other provisions unacceptable to the minority. The result may be that Congress remains deadlocked on the potent election issue.

WSJ: Liberal Democrats Turn on One of Party's 'Blue Dogs'
In 2006, liberal and centrist Democrats put aside longstanding differences to support candidates across the political spectrum in pursuit of the party's first congressional majority in 12 years.

NY Times: U.S. Watched as a Squabble Turned Into a Showdown
Five months ago, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, long a darling of this city’s diplomatic dinner party circuit, came to town to push for America to muscle his tiny country of four million into NATO.

Washington Post: Et Tu, Wall Street Journal?
Every once in a while, the White House sends out a blast e-mail titled "Setting the Record Straight," usually taking issue with a press report or criticism that the Bush administration finds wanting. The targets are often news organizations that conservatives consider part of the hated liberal media, such as recent missives against the New York Times and NBC News.

NY Times: For Convention, Obama’s Image Is All-American
One of the first images prime-time viewers will see of the Democratic National Convention next week is that of Michelle Obama, who will begin the four-day introduction of her husband, and her family, on her terms.

CNN: Kaine fires back at Rove
It was a tough retort from Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia. Kaine responded Sunday to comments made by Republican strategist Karl Rove earlier this month criticizing Kaine's potential vice presidential credentials.

NY Times: Enticing Text Messagers in a Get-Out-the-Vote Push
R U curious to know Obama’s VP? The names of vice-presidential candidates are typically announced at news conferences or political conventions. But sometime before the opening gavel of the Democratic National Convention next Monday, Senator Barack Obama plans to break the mold by doing it with a text message.

AP: Rural economic woes may provide opening for Obama
The folks in this picturesque mountain community with red barns and Amish buggies have been voting overwhelmingly Republican in national elections for decades.

Washington Post: Bob Barr, the Master of a Curious Universe
"I still plan someday to do a book on Bob Barr's laws of the universe," says Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for president.

CNN: Fay beginning to impact campaign trail
Strengthening Tropical Storm Fay, moving towards the United States, is beginning to have an impact on the campaign trail.

AP: McCain gets briefing on Tropical Storm Fay
John McCain on Sunday was briefed on Tropical Storm Fay, which scuttled a political fundraiser and is threatening to reach Florida as soon as Monday.

Washington Post: Voter Registration Key to Obama's Efforts to Put Virginia in Play
Virginia has added nearly a quarter-million registered voters since the 2004 elections, and about half of that growth came from increasingly Democratic Northern Virginia.

AP: Group wants to attack Obama on abortion
A group purporting to tell the "real truth" about Barack Obama's views on abortion wants a judge to rule it is not subject to federal election restrictions on fundraising and advertising.

Washington Post: Across the Northeast, GOP's Hold Lessens
When Dan Maffei tells how he decided to run for office, the former congressional press secretary recounts a casual conversation he had in 2005 with a reporter, who pointed out that New York's 25th District was the only seat in the country where Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) won in the presidential race but Democrats did not field a House candidate.

AP: Obama deflects Swift Boat question
Democrat Barack Obama met Sunday with Texas oil baron and longtime conservative activist T. Boone Pickens to discuss strategies for developing alternative energy.

NY Times: Democrats Use a Personal Touch to Coax Voters in Congressional Races
Leila Eckert works the telephone like a seasoned professional. She quickly seals the deal with a voter on behalf of Representative Baron Hill, a Democrat being promoted by Mrs. Eckert via a phone bank set up in a vacant Masonic building in this working-class community snug against the Ohio River.

NY Times: Television Starts to Court the Young Voter
Television networks are assigning reporters to a new beat this election year: people who don’t watch the evening news.

CNNMoney.com: Oil: What the drilling advocates say
Supporters say there could be much more oil offshore than the government predicts as they fight for access to new supplies to lower the price of oil.

USA Today: Soldiers: Mold infests Okla. barracks for wounded
Mold infests the barracks that were set up here a year ago for wounded soldiers after poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center triggered a systemwide overhaul, soldiers say.

Washington Post: Potential for Conflict Grows With Government's Use of Contractors
Because the acquisition workforce has not kept pace with the massive expansion of outsourcing in recent years, such conflicts rarely come to light. When they do, the government often is not able to address the problems, specialists said.

Washington Post: New Unit of DIA Will Take the Offensive On Counterintelligence
The Defense Intelligence Agency's newly created Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center is going to have an office authorized for the first time to carry out "strategic offensive counterintelligence operations," according to Mike Pick, who will direct the program.

NY Times: Like Politics? Broadcast Your View for Only $6
Saysme.tv didn’t invent the loudmouth, but, as the company’s logo indicates, it sure hopes to sell him a megaphone.

NY Times: The Enquirer: Even Scandal Can Be News
It was more than a week since the National Enquirer’s coup about John Edwards’s affair had broken into plain view, but David Perel, the tabloid’s editor in chief, seemed to be expecting my call.