Proponents of intelligent design challenge Darwin's theory of natural selection by arguing that some organisms are too complex to be explained by evolution alone, pointing to the possibility of supernatural influences. Intelligent design is shunned as heresy in mainstream universities and science societies as untestable in laboratories.

Asked how park employees junior to Mr. Hoffman could summarily reject his proposals, Mr. Barna said that Mr. Hoffman "has been very comfortable with us saying, 'Well, not so fast.' " He added, "Our view of that was he was playing devil's advocate: Gee, Park Service, tell us why you shouldn't do this."

The true defeatists today are not those who call for recognizing the facts on the ground in Iraq. The true defeatists are those who believe America is so weak that it must sacrifice its principles to the pursuit of illusory power.

The true pessimists today are not those who know that America can handle the truth about the Administration’s boastful claim of “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The true pessimists are those who cannot accept that America’s power and prestige depend on our credibility at home and around the world. The true pessimists are those who do not understand that fidelity to our principles is as critical to national security as our military power itself.

And the most dangerous defeatists, the most dispiriting pessimists, are those who invoke September 11th to argue that our traditional values are a luxury we can no longer afford.

Let’s call it the Bush-Cheney Doctrine.

A bloc of Republican senators, led by John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham, is determined to disable the intelligence-collecting capabilities of the United States while it is at war with a deadly foe against whom intelligence is the best weapon.

The trio wants to derail the Bush administration’s effort to preserve coercive interrogation methods. These methods — almost all of them falling well short of torture — have been proven to yield intelligence that saves American lives. In their absence, 9/11 would already have been reprised; if they are eliminated now, the likelihood of its recurrence will increase significantly.

At the heart of the controversy is the Supreme Court’s disastrous June decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Ostensibly, the case involved only military commissions, not interrogation. Nonetheless, by misconstruing the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 3 (CA3) to apply to commission trials for unlawful enemy combatants, and by being coy about whether its reasoning was limited to CA3’s terms governing trials or embraced all of its terms, the Court opened a Pandora’s box....
We are not, and the administration is not, advocating torture. But there are, manifestly, methods of coercion that, though rougher than the Miranda standards of the criminal- and military-justice systems, fall short of torture. Such methods have already saved thousands of American lives, thanks to the intelligence gleaned from the CIA’s interrogations of top al Qaeda captives like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Those methods will be effectively outlawed if Congress does not act. President Bush could not have put the matter more directly than he did last week: If legislation resembling his proposal is not enacted, Congress will have killed the CIA interrogation program.

Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Rep. Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Foley, R-Fla., to remain head of a congressional caucus on children's issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

---

The page worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La. Among those who also became aware of the communication in the fall of 2005 between Foley and the 16-year-old were Rep. John Boehner, the majority leader, and Rep. Thomas Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Reynolds said in a statement Saturday that he had also personally raised the issue with Speaker Dennis Hastert earlier this year. Hastert had previously said he was not aware until last week of inappropriate behavior by Foley.

"Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in question and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn't want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the conversation Mr. Alexander had with me," Reynolds said.

Republican insiders said Reynolds spoke out because he was angry that Hastert appeared willing to let him take the blame for the party leadership's silence about concerns raised last year regarding Foley's interactions with the teenager.

A House GOP leadership aide, who spoke to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said Reynolds realizes he has taken a shot at his top leader, but it was understandable.

"This is what happens when one member tries to throw another member under a bus," the aide told the Post.

In a chronology of the incident released later Saturday, the speaker's office said Hastert did not recall any such discussion and had no previous knowledge of the matter. "While the speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds' recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution," a statement from Hastert's office said.

The statement said senior staff members in the speaker's office first learned of the e-mail messages from Alexander's office in the fall of 2005 and took steps to investigate.

Aides to the speaker and other congressional Republican leaders said the messages brought to their attention -- described as "over friendly" -- were much less explicit than others that came to light after ABC News disclosed the first e-mail correspondence. In those messages, Foley asked about the well-being of the boy, a Monroe, La., resident, after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph.

---

Alexander's office also contacted staff members in Hastert's office for guidance on what to do. According to the speaker's account, his aides put Alexander's staff in contact with the clerk of the House, who oversees the page program. The clerk, who at the time was Jeff Trandahl, referred the matter to Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the House Page Board, in late 2005, a spokesman for Shimkus said.

Trandahl and Shimkus confronted Foley, who assured them nothing inappropriate had occurred.

"Congressman Shimkus and the clerk made it clear that to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and at the request of the parents, Congressman Foley was to immediately cease any communication with the young man," the speaker's statement said.

On Saturday, Shimkus' spokesman, Steve Tomaszewski, said, "Obviously Foley lied about the other e-mails."

(some investigation -mith)

Carl Forti, a spokesman for Reynolds, said the congressman became aware of contact between Foley and the young page this past spring, when Alexander brought it to his attention. Forti said that Alexander had told Reynolds of an e-mail exchange between Foley and the page, but that he did not show Reynolds the e-mail messages and their contents.

The Democratic candidates for governor and Senate hold commanding, double-digit leads over their Republican opponents in the poll, and respondents said they intended to vote for the Democratic candidate for the House in their district by 50 percent to 32 percent. In November 2004, 76 percent of white evangelical Christians in Ohio voted for Bush. When asked in this poll whether they approved or disapproved of the job Bush is doing as president, 49 percent approved while 45 percent disapproved.

The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register both reported Thursday that the investigation appeared to be focused on the campaign of Tan D. Nguyen, a Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (news, bio, voting record).

The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

Senate Republicans with enormous campaign war chests are refusing to transfer significant amounts of money to help fellow Republicans who are cash-strapped and face defeat in the final weeks of the campaign.

The stinginess alarms some of the Republican Party's top campaign strategists, especially because it is in such stark contrast to the millions of dollars that Democrats have transferred to their candidates in need.

Control of the Senate will come down to a half-dozen close races next month, and both sides agree that money will likely determine the outcome of each. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has nearly twice as much money on hand as the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) for that final sprint to Election Day.

According to the latest figures available, the DSCC has $23 million and the NRSC has $12 million. Much of that difference stems from the disparity in late giving from sitting senators.

"Time is running out," one senior Republican aide said. "People will not want to look back and wonder what more could have been done. That would be a real shame."

“We’re going to take a two-year hiatus,” Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told reporters at a morning news briefing. Of Ms. Pelosi, he said: “My goal and job will be to make sure she never sets the record that Denny Hastert set.”

Mr. Reynolds was referring to the current speaker, Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who has held the job longer than any other Republican in the nation’s history.

Democrats have an overwhelmingly favorable view of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but she would be soundly beaten if she ran for president against Republican Sen. John McCain now, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found....Given a choice between McCain and Clinton, half of those surveyed said they would vote for the Arizona Republican, compared with 36% for the former first lady.

Among registered voters, 49% said they would like to see a Democrat win the White House in 2008, whereas 41% preferred a Republican.

It is beginning to look like ''McCain, Inc.'' -- that is, party regulars, corporate officials and Washington lawyers and lobbyists moving toward McCain, the man they feared and loathed eight years ago. The GOP, abhorring competition and detesting surprises, likes to establish its presidential nominee well in advance. I first appreciated this in 1996, when Robert J. Dole's candidacy was dying after he barely won in Iowa and lost New Hampshire, Arizona and Delaware. He then won eight of eight primaries on a single Tuesday. When I asked a Dole adviser how this happened, he said it was ''Dole, Inc.'' repelling outsiders seeking the nomination, Steve Forbes and Pat Buchanan.

Viewing Republican presidential campaigns through this lens finds the corporate party selecting one candidate -- and invariably nominating him. It has nothing to do with ideology. After the establishment fiercely opposed Ronald Reagan as an extremist in 1976, he became ''Reagan, Inc.'' in 1980. The most vivid instance was the coalition's early embrace for 2000 of ''George W. Bush, Inc.,'' though he had little to commend him apart from his name.